Students who were interviewed at a pro-Palestine protest admitted they ‘need to be more clued up’ about the Israel-Hamas conflict and even confessed to not being aware that the terror group launched a bloody massacre on October 7.
Some activists who attended a London rally on November 4 denied that Hamas were terrorists despite them being a proscribed terror group in the UK, meaning it is a criminal offence to declare support for it.
Others described the Hamas attacks as a ‘beacon of hope’ and claimed the ‘continued existence of Israel is a war crime’.
On October 7, Hamas terrorists blitzed into Israel, slaughtering 1,400 victims and taking 240 hostages in a rampage that shocked the world. Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas and Palestinian officials have said 10,569 people have been killed.
Among those interviewed by Jewish charity Campaign Against Antisemitism were two young women – one of whom denied Hamas’s barbaric invasion took place while the other admitted to not knowing what had happened.
In a video shared to X/Twitter, an interviewer stops the girls and asks: ‘When Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, what was your initial reaction to that?’
The girl on the left, holding up a home-made sign condemning the British Government, replies: ‘I don’t believe they did, did they?’
Despite holding up a home-made sign condemning the British government, the women admitted they weren’t sure the Hamas attacks happened
The woman on the left said she ‘not seen anything that shows’ Hamas invaded Israel on October 7. The woman on the right said she needs to be ‘more clued up’ on the conflict
This woman said that Hamas are not terrorists but America and Israel are
The activists were marching at the November 4 London protest. Pictured: People protest in support of Gaza on November 4 in Trafalgar Square
Looking at her friend for reassurance, she asks: ‘Hamas?’ But her friend on the right replies: ‘I think so?’
She continues: ‘Honestly I think I need to be a bit more clued up on everything that’s going on. So I feel like I’m not really qualified to answer that too well.’
Despite bloody evidence of men, women and children being murdered and captured by Hamas, the woman on the left adds: ‘I mean, I’m not sure if I’ve seen anything that shows that that’s actually happened or that’s correct.’
The camera filming then pans around to her home-made sign, with cut-out images and drawings, reading: ‘Rishi, Keir, U must be invertebrates cause ur spineless! Call 4 a ceasefire’.
The two women were joined by others who confidently backed Hamas despite the atrocities.
One woman said: ‘It’s controversial but I think Hamas are freedom fighters.’
When asked if the UK has made the wrong decision by making Hamas a proscribed terror organisation, another woman said: ‘Of course. It’s not Hamas that are terrorists. It’s America that are terrorists. Israel are terrorists, not Hamas.’
A third said: ‘Honestly, it showed signs, it was resistance against the occupation against the Palestinians. Honestly it was a beacon of hope for me. To me, it was them fighting back and showing resistance.
This woman said of the October 7 Hamas attacks: ‘It’s controversial but I think Hamas are freedom fighters.’
This activist said that Hamas launching its barbaric attack was ‘a beacon of hope for me’
Another pro-Palestine activist said that the ‘continued existence of Israel’ was a ‘war crime’
Another raging activist said: ‘The continued existence of Israel is a war crime.’
And in more support for Hamas, a protester claimed: ‘They are freedom fighters. They are not terrorists as the media portrays them to be. They are fighting for the right to their land. It’s their land. They have the right to self-defence and they are not terrorists. They are absolutely not.’
A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: ‘This footage showcases the toxic combination of ignorance and support for terrorism that motivates too many of the protesters on these marches.
‘Is it any surprise that opinions such as these, accompanied by genocidal chanting, anti-Semitic signage and calls for violence, are terrifying the Jewish community?
‘Worse still, the demonstrations are coming just after the worst anti-Semitic atrocity since the Holocaust, when Jews are feeling particularly vulnerable.
‘This is why we have called on the police to use their existing powers under Section 13 of the Public Order Act to ban these marches. London cannot continue to be a no-go zone for Jewish people week after week.’
Outraged social media users also showed their dismay at the comments made by the protesters.
One wrote: ‘Shocking. The girls who don’t know if Hamas attacked Israel are embarrassing.’
A second posted: ‘I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry or be in shock. I wish I was in total disbelief that people in the UK could say these things….but I no longer am. It’s shameful!!’
A third commented: ‘Can’t believe, what I am hearing.’
And a fourth added: ‘Pure ignorance.’
The October 7 attacks saw Hamas fire a barrage of rockets from Gaza and send fighters across the border.
More than 270 bodies, mostly young people, were strewn across the site of a music festival in a Negev desert kibbutz after Hamas attackers used paragliders to cross the border and fire indiscriminately into the crowd.
At a nearby kibbutz in southern Israel, Hamas terrorists massacred at least 40 babies and young children, before reportedly beheading some of them and gunning down their families.
Israeli festivalgoers run for their lives through the desert after being warned of an incoming rocket attack just as Hamas invaded the country on October 7
Noa Argamani who was kidnapped by Hamas fighters after being manhandled on a motorbike and driven across the desert
Dashcam footage showed Gaza militants who attacked an all-night music festival in southern Israel shot and killed revellers at point-blank range, then looted their belongings
The death toll dwarfs the scale of any past attack by Islamists apart from 9/11.
It comes as Scotland Yard this week gave the green light to a pro-Palestine rally on Armistice Day as its top cop claimed it had ‘no absolute power’ to ban the protest.
In a thinly veiled swipe at the Home Secretary, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley said the laws of Parliament and intelligence gathered by its sources did not justify a ban.
The country’s most senior police officer said the protest, which is expected to draw in 70,000 people, could only be banned if there was a ‘real threat’ of serious disorder.
This was despite fears of violent clashes between the marchers and Right-wing activists. The rally’s organisers had already rebuffed the Met’s pleas to postpone.
They have also defied Rishi Sunak, who said the event was ‘disrespectful’, and Suella Braverman, who called it a ‘hate march’.
Previous rallies have seen officers injured with fireworks, protesters flaunting extremist imagery and multiple arrests for anti-Semitic chanting.
Sir Mark said he could not ban Saturday’s demonstration simply because people felt it should not take place.
‘The laws created by Parliament are clear. There is no absolute power to ban protest, therefore there will be a protest this weekend,’ he insisted.
Scotland Yard gave the green light to a pro-Palestine rally on Armistice Day. Pictured: Activists rally in Trafalgar Square last weekend
LONDON: Protesters struggle with police officers in the centre of the capital on Saturday
LONDON: A woman cradles an effigy of a dead baby covered in red paint on Saturday in Trafalgar Square
LONDON: Poppy vendors are surrounded by pro-Gaza protesters during a sit-in at Charing Cross Station on Saturday
‘The law provides no mechanism to ban a static gathering of people. It contains legislation which allows us to impose conditions to reduce disruption and the risk of violence, and in the most extreme cases when no other tactics can work, for marches or moving protests to be banned.’
He said use of the power to block moving protests is ‘incredibly rare’ and must be reserved for cases where there is intelligence to suggest a ‘real threat’ of serious disorder.
But he said organisers of Saturday’s march had shown ‘complete willingness to stay away from the Cenotaph and Whitehall and have no intention of disrupting the nation’s remembrance events’.
‘Should this change, we’ve been clear we will use powers and conditions available to us to protect locations and events of national importance at all costs,’ Sir Mark said.