Gaza Islamic Leader Criticizes Hamas for Consequences of War — But Not for Atrocities During October 7 Attack

Last week, the BBC published an article about an Islamic leader’s response to the Gaza war, which opened with the misleading headline: “Gaza’s top Islamic scholar issues fatwa criticizing 7 October attack.” It then continued to highlight his criticism of Hamas and the religious leaders prominence in Gaza, but never mentioning that he only criticized the devastating impact that the war had on Palestinians. His fatwa did not have one word of criticism of the rape, burning alive, and massacre of Israeli civilians.

This approach follows the Palestinian Authority’s policy that Palestinian Media Watch has reported on repeatedly, to defend and justify the Oct. 7 atrocities while criticizing Hamas for the destruction in Gaza.

The implication of the BBC headline, on the other hand, and opening paragraphs of the BBC article is clearly that he was criticizing what happened on Oct 7:

“The most prominent Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a rare, powerful fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the devastating war in the Palestinian territory… Dr Dayah’s fatwa, which was published in a detailed six-page document, criticises Hamas for what he calls ‘violating Islamic principles governing jihad’… Dr Dayah adds: ‘If the pillars, causes, or conditions of jihad are not met, it must be avoided in order to avoid destroying people’s lives. This is something that is easy to guess for our country’s politicians, so the attack must have been avoided.’ For Hamas, the fatwa represents an embarrassing and potentially damaging critique, particularly as the group often justifies its attacks on Israel through religious arguments to garner support from Arab and Muslim communities.”

The BBC quoted al-Dayeh that Jihad requires “to avoid destroying people’s lives,” and since the BBC wrote that he was “criticizing 7 October attack,” the implication is that he was critical of Israel’s civilian deaths.

The fatwa by Islamic scholar Salman al-Dayeh has six parts, each critical of a statement made by a senior Hamas figure regarding the war in Gaza. The fatwa states that Hamas did not fulfill the conditions of jihad because it did not take into consideration the disastrous impact on civilian Palestinians.

The conditions for waging jihad, he writes, include waging the war far away from Muslim civilians and ensuring that they have enough food and water for the duration of the war:

The jihad must be “far from [the Muslim] population centers and safe shelter away from inhabited houses, populated towers, crowded schools, busy hospitals… and to store provisions that will last them longer than what opinion holders and advisors expect regarding the war.”

[Salman Daya, Facebook page]

He also insists that based on the “war people,” i.e., Israel’s past responses to Palestinian’s lesser attacks from Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas should have anticipated this counterattack and should not have attacked:

“This [the counterattack] is something that politicians and leaders in our country can easily assess if they examine the aggression of the war people [=Israelis] on the West Bank and Gaza in previous confrontations, which were much lighter than what happened on October 7th, and [Palestinians] were met with many martyrs and wounded, the explosion of houses and towers, the uprooting of people for days and months to schools and hospitals…. If the response of the war-people [Israelis, in the past] was causing severe damage for much more minor reasons than what happened on October 7th, this causes any rational person to understand that the extent of damage from their response in the case of a larger event than before would be many times greater.”

The Oct. 7 attack was a total failure because none of the jihad goals were achieved:

“None of the goals behind provoking the enemy, angering it and stirring up war with it, which the resistance [Hamas] declared at the time, were achieved.”

Moreover, Hamas’ goals were not realistic in the first place:

“When it is likely that the goals of jihad will not be achieved… it should be avoided.”

Finally, the fatwa author criticizes Hamas for its self-satisfied attitude that implies victory but totally ignores the reality of its defeat and the destruction it caused:

“I see that [Hamas’] motivation is high, that faces are glowing, that cheeks are flushed, and that the tone of speech indicates satisfaction and contentment. This appears like the joy of a victor, over a victory that achieved security and peace for your people in their life domains, that freed the prisoners, that separated them from their enemy, and that put an end to injustice at Al-Aqsa Mosque. While the opposite is true: your entire people have become sick in soul or body, disabled, mentally impaired, sad at heart… This is in addition to frightening numbers of martyrs and amputees, widows and orphans. This is such a tragedy that even if the war ends tonight, its suffering will continue for decades.“

Later in its article, the BBC does point out his criticism of Hamas for the suffering of Palestinians:

“Al-Dayeh argues that the significant civilian casualties in Gaza, together with the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and humanitarian disaster that have followed the 7 October attack, means that it was in direct contradiction to the teachings of Islam.

Hamas, he says, has failed in its obligations of “keeping fighters away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians and their shelters, and providing security and safety as much as possible in the various aspects of life… security, economic, health, and education, and saving enough supplies for them.”

Nowhere, however, does the BBC mention that the fatwa author does not have any criticism of the October 7 atrocities against Israelis, which was the overt message of its headline and opening sentence: “Gaza’s top Islamic scholar issues fatwa criticizing 7 October attack. The most prominent Islamic scholar in Gaza has issued a rare, powerful fatwa condemning Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel…”

Much has been written and publicized accusing the BBC of significant misrepresentation and anti-Israel bias. Headlining an article to give the readers the impression that the Oct. 7 atrocities were criticized by a leading Gazan religious figure can now be added to that list.

Nonetheless, the fatwa is very significant as it shows that even today after all the atrocities are well known, when a top Gazan religious figure criticizes Hamas, he is not critical of the murder and rape of Israelis.

The following is the screenshot of the BBC article:

Itamar Marcus is Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.

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