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

The Palestinian Authority (PA) alternates between justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre and atrocities, and blaming Israel for them.

The latest to blame Israel is Fatah leader Jibril Rajoub who, speaking in English in South Africa, said:

The Israeli government is the only one responsible for what’s going on, for the suffering, whether for the Palestinians or some Israeli civilians who were killed on Oct. 7.

[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Aug. 2, 2025]

His solution is for Israel to release all 15,000 Palestinian terrorist prisoners in exchange for the Israeli hostages kidnapped on Oct. 7.

Rajoub adds the horrific lie that the Palestinian prisoner “hostages,” who include many mass murderers, were “arrested by the Israelis without doing anything.”

He then adds one more horrific lie:

We don’t support killing kids, women, or kidnapping. For sure that this is not part of our policy or our doctrine.

As Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has documented, the PA “policy and doctrine” is in fact to murder women and children, to kidnap, and to glorify the killers.

The PA rewards all terrorists in prison, even mass murderers like Abdallah Barghouti — who is serving 67 life sentences for being involved in the murder of 68 men, women and children. The PA has named five schools after mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi, who led the murder of 12 children and 25 adults after kidnapping them by hijacking a bus.

The PA glorifies all suicide bombers who murdered women and children as “Martyrs,” meaning that they died for Allah. The PA fundamentally supports murdering women and children, and this is their policy.

Regarding kidnapping, Rajoub himself praised the Oct. 7 murders and rapes of women and children and the kidnapping of hundreds of hostages as “epic” and “heroic”:

Rajoub: “What happened on October 7 was an earthquake, an unprecedented incident, and a war of defense full of epics and acts of heroism that the Palestinian people has been waging for 75 years.” [emphasis added]

[Al-Anba, Kuwaiti news website, Nov. 26, 2023]

As PMW repeatedly stresses, the Palestinian Authority is a terrorist entity in every way – except international designation.

The following is a longer excerpt of the statement cited above:

Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub: “What happened on Oct. 7, [2023] was a reaction to the systematic Israeli crimes. Now, sure that we don’t support killing kids, women, kidnapping. For sure that this is not part of our policy or our doctrine. But he who is responsible for that is he who tried to sustain the occupation [i.e., Israel], he who continues his crimes and atrocities against the Palestinian people, and the Israeli government is the only responsible for what’s going on, for the suffering, whether for the Palestinians or some Israeli civilians who were killed on Oct. 7 …

I think that we have 15,000 hostages [sic., terrorist prisoners] arrested by the Israelis without doing anything …

The issue of the prisoners, whether it’s those who are in Hamas or in Israel, should be closed by releasing everybody for everybody.”

[Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub, Facebook page, Aug. 2, 2025]

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