Hamas killed seven and wounded 85 in a rally for Yasser Arafat yesterday. Today, they’re making mass arrests. Yeah, that freedom that they promised the Palestinians? Not seeing it yet.
Hamas security forces moved swiftly against their Fatah rivals in the aftermath of a mass Fatah rally that ended with seven people dead, rounding up 400 people in an overnight crackdown, Fatah officials said Tuesday.
The detainees included dozens of the rally’s organizers, Fatah spokesman Hazem Abu Shanab said. Hamas officials were not immediately available for comment.
Monday’s rally, a memorial service for the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, drew 250,000 people, making it Fatah’s biggest show of force in Gaza since Hamas took control of the coastal territory in June. It ended in the worst violence Gaza has seen since the Hamas takeover, with seven civilians killed and 85 wounded as Hamas men opened fire on protesters.
And the terrorists did what terrorists often do at the funeral: Shot each other some more.
Four of the victims were buried Tuesday without incident. On Monday, a funeral for one 19-year-old killed at the rally turned violent when mourners clashed with Hamas men, leaving three people wounded.
And once again, Israeli Double Standard Time is in effect. This next part of the story lies buried eight paragraphs down in the AP wire story, where it will never make the three-to-five paragraph World News section of most local newspapers.
In one confrontation, hundreds of young Fatah activists, some wrapped in their movement’s yellow flag, faced off against Hamas police in black or blue-camouflage uniforms across an intersection.
The Fatah supporters pelted Hamas troops with stones, surging forward even as they were met by heavy bursts of gunfire. One Hamas policeman dropped to one knee for better aim. At one point, a young stone thrower collapsed and was carried off by others.
And of course, the AP and Reuters never use the words “Hamas Kills” in their headlines. Typical headlines used different terminology, like “Rally for Arafat turns deadly in Gaza“. CNN, on the other hand, calls a murderer a murderer: Seven killed in Hamas-Fatah fighting at Arafat rally. (Good for CNN.)
In the Reuters story, it was gunfire that killed the Palestinians, not Hamas: Gunfire kills seven at Fatah rally in Gaza. And in an amazing example of managing to not give us the facts, our old pal Nidal al-Mughrabi writes an entire lede—and it is approved by the Reuters editors—without once saying that Hamas gunmen did the shooting.
GAZA (Reuters) – Gunfire killed at least seven people and wounded 80 on Monday at a Fatah memorial rally for Yasser Arafat attended by more than 200,000 supporters of the defeated faction in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
A sea of yellow Fatah flags had filled a Gaza square for the biggest gathering held by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular faction in the territory since Hamas Islamists routed its fighters there in June.
The rare Fatah rally broke up in chaos after gunfire rang out and grew into what Hamas described as battles with the rival group’s fighters, forcing even members of the crowd who had initially stood their ground to bolt for cover.
Dr Muawiyah Hassanein, head of Gaza’s emergency medical services, said seven people, all civilians, were killed. He said 80 people, including several Hamas security men, were wounded.
Fatah officials accused Hamas forces of opening fire from the nearby Islamic University. Hamas said its men had come under attack from Fatah gunmen and returned fire.
Note how even to the last, Reuters refuses to blame Hamas for firing on civilians. They give the Hamas excuses as fact.
The BBC manages to blame the crowd for causing their own deaths.
The violence occurred when Fatah supporters began taunting Hamas police and throwing stones, witnesses said.
The Hamas security forces reportedly responded by firing towards the crowd.
Those sound like Hamas witnesses to me. CNN managed to tell the truth.
It is unclear how the incident began; each side blamed the other for firing first.
Why couldn’t the BBC and Reuters? Let’s think… hm… what is it that BBC and Reuters don’t like? Wait, it’ll come to me, starts with an I, ends with an srael… oh, right. Because Israel didn’t do the killing, therefore, nobody did. People just “died” at a rally in Gaza. Passively. As a result of gunshot wounds.
What time is it, folks? That’s right. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time, and the soft bigotry of lowered expectations—even for terrorists.