The latest Hamas complaint speaks of over 35,000 civilians killed in Gaza as a result of the Israeli military offensive.
There is no doubt that many innocent people have been killed in the Strip, even if the accusations of “genocide” leveled against Israel are controversial to say the least, because the Tel Aviv army does not pursue the deliberate and systematic extermination of the non-combatant population.
But there are also well-founded doubts about the figures provided by Hamas – in fact the only ones in circulation. The UN, despite being decidedly in favor of the Palestinians, continually corrects and revises downwards the numbers provided by Hamas regarding the death toll among women and children.
The story in question concerns a family of Palestinian notables. The patriarch, 73-year-old Ahmad Al-Jamal, was a well-known doctor with a private clinic, as well as an imam active in a mosque in the Strip. His son, 37-year-old Abdullah Al-Jamal, was a journalist for the online news site Palestine Chronicle, married to a doctor. During the recent Israeli raid that freed three hostages, another role of father and son was discovered: jailers. For months – according to what was reconstructed by Journal – they had held three hostages captive in their home, on Bisan Road in Nuseirat.
When the Israeli attack to free the hostages partially destroyed the Al-Jamals’ house and killed the two captors (not his wife and children, who survived), they automatically spoke of “civilian victims”. The same happened in a nearby house where Abu Nar’s family had held an Israeli hostage captive for months, the fourth freed in that operation. The Abu Nar died in the raid and were immediately counted among the civilian victims.
There exists, between the unarmed Palestinian population and the fighters, a “grey zone”, in which many Hamas activists are found, often linked to the mosques of the Strip (whose imams are all in office with the approval of the terrorist militia).
Reports conducted after the release of the four hostages indicate that not all inhabitants of the area were aware of the true role of the Al-Jamal father and son, or the Abu Nar.
Some neighbors, requesting anonymity, condemn Hamas’ tactics deliberately mixes fighters and civilians, transforming the latter into “human shields” for use in propaganda warfare. In a recent article, the journalist Abdullah Al-Jamal exalted solidarity between Palestinians, describing the cases of families in Gaza who opened their homes to displaced neighbors who were left homeless. “My house will always be open,” he wrote. Not all of his neighbors suspected that among the guests were the three hostages in captivity.
