People hold Fatah flags during a protest in support of the people of Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas continued, in Hebron, in the West Bank, Oct. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

While the Palestinian Authority (PA) has spent months leveraging the civilian suffering in Gaza to criticize its political rival, Hamas, last week the official PA daily took things a step further. The paper called on Hamas leaders to emerge from their tunnels in Gaza armed with two bullets: one to be used on the Hamas political leadership living in luxury in Qatar, and the other on themselves — arguing that suicide would be preferable to the disgrace they should feel for the countless Palestinian deaths they have caused.

Leave [the tunnels] with your handgun, with two bullets in its magazines …  and then admit your crime. Then aim it [the gun] at the heads of your admired [Hamas] politicians, in [foreign] capitals … Ask yourselves what benefit this gun has, and the answer will come to you from the last bullet, since your suicide is better than disgrace.

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 5, 2025]

Hamas should unconditionally release all Israeli hostages, the PA daily continues, because Israel is killing three times the number of hostages every day.

Enough, Hamas leaders. Release them [Israeli hostages] now. Unconditionally remove the handcuffs of death from more than two million [Gazan] hostages who are still alive, and from twenty [Israeli hostages] who you are still haggling over.

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 5, 2025]

This reflects the ongoing messaging from the Palestinian Authority, which continues to defend the horrific atrocities committed against Jews on October 7 as “legitimate resistance,” while simultaneously criticizing Hamas for enabling Israel’s reentry into Gaza and its subsequent counteroffensive.

In doing so, the PA seeks to bolster its popular support by defending the October 7 massacre — an event widely celebrated among Palestinians — while also shifting responsibility for the claimed 55,000 deaths in Gaza (a number that has never been verified) onto Hamas.

Despite this, recent polls indicate that Hamas remains significantly more popular than Fatah, especially since the October 7 attack elevated Hamas terrorists to the status of Palestinian icons. According to surveys conducted in May 2025, 59% of West Bank Palestinians still believe that the October 7 assault on Israel was the “correct decision” [PSR]. In the hate-saturated Palestinian consciousness, their one day of glory, in which they raped, tortured, burned families alive, and murdered nearly 1200 Jews, was worth the cost all the lives that have been lost in Gaa.

The following is a longer excerpt of a column by Muwaffaq Matar, Fatah Revolutionary Council member and regular columnist for the official PA daily:

Enough, Hamas leaders. Release them [Israeli hostages] now. Unconditionally remove the handcuffs of death from more than two million [Gazan] hostages who are still alive, and from twenty [Israeli hostages] who you are still haggling over to achieve the card of ‘guarantees,’ [that the war will end] which only exists in your imagination…

Release 40 bodies [of hostages]. Their [Israeli] army continues every day to crush the bones of three times that number from among our children, our women, and our elderly. As for your ‘trained’ gun… placed in your hands to create a flood of human blood for [Iran’s] regional political and military objectives, …do not hand over this handgun, but rather keep it to execute upon yourselves the punishment mentioned in the Quran…

Leave [the tunnels] with your handgun, with two bullets in its magazine. Then look at the innocent living people – the uprooted, the wounded, the amputees… and then admit your crime. Then aim it [the gun] at the heads of your admired [Hamas] politicians, in [foreign] capitals, who have filled bottles with the blood of our people – which is priceless – like a fine wine, and presented them as a gift to their lords [Iran] in the land of Persia and other Arabic speakers. Then ask yourselves what benefit this gun has, and the answer will come to you from the last bullet, since your suicide is better than disgrace.

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 5, 2025]

The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.