A man runs on a road as fire burns after rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

A sewage worker in Britain was fired for causing “significant offense” after calling Hamas “disgusting terrorists” and condemning the Palestinian Islamist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.

Severn Trent Water (STW), one of the largest water and sewerage companies in England and Wales, fired Damon Joshua after he wrote a post condemning the Hamas-led invasion of the Jewish state on the company’s staff portal to mark the anniversary of the attack, The Telegraph first reported.

“One year ago, our valued partners and friends, Israel, were horrifically attacked by a group of violent and disgusting terrorists,” Joshua wrote in his post, which also featured an image of the Israeli flag.

“I can say with confidence today that the vast majority of STW’s employees stand in solidarity with our Jewish, Israeli, and Zionist colleagues against the evil of Islamist terror,” he added.

Due to internal complaints that the post contained “derogatory words” and was “very one-sided,” managers at the company removed it shortly afterward.

“The post reflects poorly on Severn Trent’s reputation as a diverse and inclusive company,” one such complainant said, according to The Telegraph.

Immediately afterward, Joshua was suspended pending a disciplinary hearing. He was later dismissed from his job without notice.

“It happened in a matter of hours,” Joshua told The Telegraph. “I made the post at 7:50 [am] and I got a call from my manager at 10 or 11 telling me that it had been taken down.”

“At 1 pm I got called to a meeting room on the site that I was working on,” he continued. “They didn’t really give an opinion on what I’d written. They just said that it was seen as offensive.”

During his disciplinary hearing, he was informed that the post had caused “significant offense” to three staff members who had filed complaints.

“It seems quite shocking to me,” Joshua said. “How could it be one-sided or derogatory to oppose a terrorist. Surely this is only one-sided.”

Following his disciplinary hearing, managers determined that the alleged offense was “in relation to a protected characteristic, specifically religious belief.” The company then terminated his employment for gross misconduct.

However, Joshua argued that his post only mentioned Jews and referred to “Islamist terror,” not Islam, without addressing any other religious group.

“There’s a distinction that I was trying to make between Islamist terror and Islam,” Joshua told The Telegraph. “I didn’t want to link it with all of Islam. Because there is a big difference. Not all followers of Islam are Islamists, and the attack was perpetrated by Hamas who are an Islamist terror organization.”

He filed an appeal against his dismissal, but it was unsuccessful.

During his hearing, Joshua was also told that “the language used in the post caused offense to employees with different perspectives, particularly those with Muslim or Palestinian backgrounds.”

One of the managers reportedly asked him, “How do you think a Palestinian employee would feel reading this?”

Months later, Joshua found a job elsewhere, but he described this experience as “really stressful” and said it had made him “think twice” when expressing his views.

“The hardest part was all the waiting and the not knowing,” he said. “I got no further details for months after I was suspended.”

“There is a whole war on free speech in this country at the moment,” he continued. “Lots of people know it but are too scared to stand up against it.”

Dr. Ben Jones, director of case management at the Free Speech Union, which represented Joshua in his case, condemned the company’s action as “one of the most egregious cases of cancel culture.”

“We’ve dealt with 3,500 cases, but the facts of Damon’s are particularly shocking,” Jones said. “Sacking somebody for condemning Hamas is one of the most egregious cases of cancel culture we’ve seen.”

In a statement, a Severn Trent Water spokesman explained that there had been previous incidents of misusing what they called “an apolitical work forum” to express personal views, despite warnings not to do so.

“This is a complex employee relations case, and it’s important to be clear that this is not the whole story nor an isolated incident,” the statement read.

Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people, kidnapped 251 hostages, and perpetrated widespread sexual violence during their Oct. 7 onslaught, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The United Kingdom, along with several other countries, has designated Hamas as a terrorist organization.