The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Less than two days after Hamas launched its terror war against Israelis, killing 1,400 people — among them infants, children, teens, women, men, and elderly — Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Movement applauded the massacre and promised more terror via its terror wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

In a video posted by the Brigades, a spokesman, Abu Muhammad, thanks Allah for the massacre and for “humiliating and defeating the Zionists,” and brags that Fatah’s Brigades are “fighting” with the Gazan terror organizations and that they also carried out their own terror attacks “behind enemy lines,” meaning within Israel.

Abu Muhammad delivered his speech with an image in the background showing a masked Fatah terrorist taking an Israeli soldier captive, and masked Fatah terrorists holding machine guns and rocket launchers on top of an Israeli tank with an Israeli military facility in the background:

Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades Spokesman Abu Muhammad: “Praise Allah who strengthened and supported, humiliated and defeated, and turned the Zionists into a lesson for those who are watching…

We’re fighting with the rest of the resistance factions in ‘the Al-Aqsa Flood’ battle, by the power of Allah and with His help … It has already become clear that the end of the thieving occupier’s imaginary entity [i.e., Israel] is near…

The Al-Aqsa [Martyrs’] Brigades, together with the rest of the Palestinian resistance factions, carried out several operations behind enemy lines as part of ‘the Al-Aqsa Flood’ battle, which constituted a crossroads in the history of our struggle with the occupier, and praise Allah, we killed and took captive occupation soldiers [sic. the majority were civilians]

…Together with the rest of the Palestinian resistance factions, and as part of the joint operations room, we succeeded in moving from defense to attack.

This emphasizes that there are new rules in the struggle, and the cowardly enemy will not be able — despite all the technology it has — to defeat our fighters… This battle is a new defeat for [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu and his trembling army…

We inflicted on them heavy losses and great humiliation that the enemy won’t be able to ignore. We emphasize to all our people that we will continue, together with the rest of the resistance factions, in this battle until the occupation’s aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, our occupied lands, and everywhere in Palestine are stopped. This is a revolution until victory; the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades — Palestine.” [emphasis added]

[Fatah Movement – Bethlehem Branch, Telegram channel, Oct. 9, 2023]

Note that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades Spokesman mentioned 4 times that they are fighting “together with the rest of the resistance factions.”

This shows yet again — as Palestinian Media Watch has documented — that Fatah, which is led ultimately by Mahmoud Abbas — is keen to establish itself as leading terror against Israel to maintain support among the Palestinian public, which even before the current war was leaning towards Hamas.

However, with Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s “overwhelming success” slaughtering Israelis, Fatah now must stress that it is at least part of the Palestinian war effort.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades also posted this image and text glorifying Hamas’ attack, talking about the “liberation of the Gaza Strip” as a prelude to liberating the rest of “Palestine” through “the gates of Jerusalem”:

Posted text: “First liberation of the Gaza Strip – and tomorrow at the gates of Jerusalem. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades/military publicity”

Text on image: “First liberation of the Gaza Strip — and tomorrow at the gates of Jerusalem

#The_Al-Aqsa_Flood_battle (Hamas’ name for its terror war against Israel -Ed.)

Military publicity”

[Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Fatah’s military wing), Telegram channel, Oct. 14, 2023]

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article was originally published.