AFP Purges Hamas Praise For Deadly Beersheba Terror Attack

Agence France Presse’s article yesterday about the deadly terror attack in Beersheba egregiously covers up Hamas’ praise for what it called the “heroic act” in Beersheva, “Four dead in Israel stabbing, car-ramming, assailant shot.” 
Selectively reporting Hamas’ response to the attack, AFP’s Daniella Cheslow wrote:
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, released a statement that did not claim the attack but blamed it on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
Speaking to a Hamas-controlled radio station, group spokesman Hazem Qassem said the “operation is a response to the policy of ethnic displacement practiced by Israel against our Palestinian people inside the occupied territories.”

The four victims of a terror attack in Beersheba on March 22, 2022: Laura Yitzhak, top left; Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, top right; Doris Yahbas, bottom left; Menahem Yehezkel, bottom right. (Social media/courtesy via Times of Israel)

Hamas repeatedly voiced official, government-sanctioned high praise glorifying the attack, crucial information not reported in AFP’s story, but widely reported elsewhere.
As Times of Israel reported yesterday (“Hamas ‘trumpets’ heroic Beersheba attack . . .”):

“We salute the executor of the heroic operation in occupied Beersheba,” Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanou tells official Hamas radio.

“The occupation’s crimes shall be met with heroic operations: stabbings, ramming and shooting,” al-Qanou says.

Haaretz reported (page one, print today):

Hamas and Islamic Jihad spokesmen praised the attack. Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanou called it a “heroic act,” vowing the group’s “battle against the occupation continues and we will not stop.”

Associated Press likewise reported yesterday:

In the Gaza Strip, some Palestinians were seen distributing sweets to express happiness following the attack. The Hamas militant group’s spokesman, Hazem Qassem, praised the attack as “a response to the policy of ethnic expulsion” against the Arab citizens of Israel.
Hamas’ official website last night published the following “press announcement in blessing of the heroic stabbing operation in Beersheba” last night (translation by CAMERA Arabic):
The heroic Beersheba operation is a natural and legitimate response on the gradually escalating crimes of the occupation and its settlers.
We in the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas bless the heroic operation perpetrated by Palestinian guerilla warrior, freed detainee Muhammad Ghaleb Abu al-Qi’an, in the occupied city of Beersheba on Tuesday evening, claiming several dead and wounded among the Zionist occupiers. [The movement] views it as a natural and legitimate response on the crimes of the occupation and its militias of settlers against our steadfast people.
We celebrate the martyr and hero of the enduring Hura town in the occupied Negev […]

We affirm that this heroic operation is a link in the chain of our steadfast, heroic people’s resistance, confronting the Zionist arrogance which ventures on Palestinian blood. We call our struggle-engaged people in the rebellious occupied Negev, in the West Bank with occupied Jerusalem in its heart, and the enduring people of our 1948-occupied lands, to further escalate the confrontation against the occupation and its flocks of settlers, in defense of the land and the sanctities and in fidelity to the martyrs’ blood – until liberation and return.

In addition, the official site of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades published the following statement this morning:
The Islamic Resistance Movement ‘Hamas’ affirmed that the heroic Beersheba operation cuts the occupation’s hand as it continued its acts of expulsion and Judaization in the occupied Negev. […]

 

The movement’s spokesman on behalf of the city of Jerusalem Muhammad Hamadeh said in a press announcement that the operation’s perpetrator, hero Muhammad Abu al-Qi’an has set a great example of heroism and sacrifice. […]
Hammadeh indicated that operations carried out by the people of the occupied interior [i.e. Israel’s internationally-recognized territory – YNG] inflict the most pain and post the gravest danger to the enemy […]
In turn, Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Lateef al-Qanoo’, has saluted the perpetrator […]
Qanoo’ said that ‘this operation is in line with the anniversary of founding Sheikh Ahmad Yaseen’s martyrdom, affirming the correctness and persistence of the path of the method that the Sheikh has founded.
Five usurpers were killed and two were wounded – one severely – on Tuesday evening.

AFP’s failure to report the Hamas government’s official praise for the attack and residents’ celebratory distribution of sweets is particularly striking in light of the fact that the article did report that “dozens” of Israelis gathered at the scene “waving Israeli flags and chanting ‘Death to Arabs.'” By what professional calculation is the latter newsworthy but the former isn’t?

With research and translations by CAMERA Arabic.

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