Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed the leader of the Palestinian Authority after its foreign ministry claimed Israeli forces killed their own people on October 7.
Netanyahu said in a speech: ‘Today the Palestinian Authority spokesman in Ramallah said something utterly preposterous. It denied that it was Hamas that carried out the horrible massacre at the Nova Festival near Gaza.
‘It actually accused Israel of carrying out that massacre. But this is a complete reversal of truth.
‘Abu Mazen [aka Mahmoud Abbas, president of Palestinian Authority] in the past has denied the existence of the Holocaust, today it’s denying the existence of the Hamas massacre. And that’s unacceptable.’
This comes after the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates’ official account on X, formerly known as Twitter, published a document claiming Israeli forces had killed their own people on October 7.
In the deadly attacks Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 240 hostages.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry posted the letter on X. The post has since been deleted
In the deadly attacks Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 240 hostages (pictured: site of nova festival after attack)
The letter read: ‘According to Arabic media, a preliminary investigation by the Israel Police indicates that Israeli helicopters bombed the Israeli civilians present at the festival and that the IDF is responsible for the widespread destruction in the region.’
The report also alleged that the IDF used the ‘Hannibal Protocol’, which they claim allowed the Israeli forces to kill who ever was in their path.
It is known as guidance to prevent Israeli soldiers from getting abducted by using massive firepower.
The controversial policy isn’t formally in place now after Israel revoked it in 2016, but Al Jazeera analysts said voices in Gaza allege it is being used now.
The foreign ministry’s letter closed with demands that foreign media organisations ‘specifically scrutinise Israeli reports’.
The post by the Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry has since been deleted.
The letter (pictured) read: ‘According to Arabic media, a preliminary investigation by the Israel Police indicates that Israeli helicopters bombed the Israeli civilians present at the festival and that the IDF is responsible for the widespread destruction in the region’
Netanyahu said in his speech: ‘My goal is that the day after we destroy Hamas, any future civil administration in Gaza does not deny the massacre, does not educate its children to become terrorists, does not pay for terrorists and does not tell its children that their ultimate goal in life is to see the destruction and dissolution of the state of Israel’
Hamas fighters who attacked an all-night music festival in southern Israel shot and killed revelers at point-blank range, then looted their belongings, car dashcam video verified by CNN reveals
Footage shows IDF destroying tunnels in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, today
In his response to the claims, Netanyahu also said: ‘My goal is that the day after we destroy Hamas, any future civil administration in Gaza does not deny the massacre, does not educate its children to become terrorists, does not pay for terrorists and does not tell its children that their ultimate goal in life is to see the destruction and dissolution of the state of Israel.
‘That’s not acceptable and that is not the way to achieve peace.’
Meanwhile the IDF has been gearing up for their operation into South Gaza as hundreds of Palestinians accused Tel-Aviv troops of forcing wounded civilians to leave Al-Shifa hospital while conducting a search for Hamas assets.
Israel prepared to expand its offensive against Hamas to southern Gaza today after warning civilians to relocate after already dropping warning leaflets earlier this week.
The country vowed to destroy Hamas after the terror group’s October 7 attacks in which its fighters killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
As the IDF looked to move southward, Palestinian officials accused the Israeli army of forcibly evacuating most staff, patients and displaced people from Gaza’s largest hospital Al-Shifa and abandoning them to perilous journeys southwards on foot.
Hamas-run authorities in Gaza have raised their death toll to 12,300, including 5,000 children, this weekend following further Israeli attacks.
Israel’s military has been searching Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital for a Hamas command centre that it alleges is located under the facility – a claim Hamas and hospital staff deny.
The evacuation, which Israel says was voluntary, left behind only Israeli troops and a small number of health workers to care for those too sick to move.
Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel opened a safe corridor for civilians who were in the hospital to go south, at the request of the hospital director.