Beyond the Lies - October 7 and Hamas War SAMPLE : simplebooklet.com

Beyond the Lies: Hamas and Israel at War2© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgThe information, text, graphics, and other items in this book are copyrighted by The IsraelForever Foundation. Unauthorized use of these materials may be a violation of law. Except asstated in the next paragraph below, you may not reproduce, distribute, download, transmit,any of the materials without the prior written permission of Israel Forever.You may print, reproduce, or download the materials related to this book solely for personal,non-commercial use on a single computer, provided that: (1) you include the copyright or otherproprietary notices that appear on the original materials and (2) you do not modify the materials.If you breach any of these terms or conditions, this permission will terminate automaticallywithout notice or other action, and you must delete or destroy all materials obtained.This book has been prepared and compiled under the guidance ofDr. Elana Yael Heideman, Executive Director of The Israel Forever FoundationFor more information and resources, she can be contacted at elanayael@israelforever.orgWritten and compiled by Dr. Heideman and Debbie MankowitzLayout and design by Natalie Yakov HayCover images:Posters showing kidnapped Israeli civilians and declarations of "Free Palestine" are hung up, and in some cases later torn down, in Washington, D.C. Photo credit: Ted Eytan on FlickrHamas uses children's paraphenalia, as well as speakers with recordings of voices and crying, to manipulate, lure and ambush IDF soldiers in Gaza. Photo credit: IDF Spokesperson's UnitBEYOND THE LIES:HAMAS AND ISRAEL AT WAR© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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Beyond the Lies: Hamas and Israel at War4© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgINTRODUCTIONHAMASISRAEL WAR  SWORDS OF IRON On October 7, 2023 the world changed.Hamas launched a coordinated attack using explosive drones, and thousands of missiles and rockets targeting Israeli positions and cities. About a thousand Hamas militants simultaneously infiltrated eight positions, primarily overland, through numerous border fence points, using motorcycles, Toyota vehicles with machine guns, and on foot.Saturday morning, October 7, was chosen “based on reports of complete calm on the borders,” the sources said. The order to prepare for the mass invasion was given at midnight, hours before the attack. Field commanders and elite forces began moving into their positions.Explosives placed strategically were set o at the Israel-Gaza barrier, allowing the terrorists to breach the border. Terrorists also used gliders and parachutes to position fighters around the northwestern Negev. They invaded under the cover of thousands of rockets fired into Israeli territory.Meanwhile, elite Hamas squads and their local accomplices - including children, women, elders and members of the press - attacked Gaza border communities, killing guards and moving from house to house, slaughtering, murdering, and burning homes. They also took hostages, abducting them back across the border into Gaza.No IDF soldiers were nearby. Families and children called relatives and even the media for rescue, but no one came. Perhaps the most horrific act was when Hamas forces targeted a forest party nearby, outside Rei'im. Nova, a festival held there that weekend, drew a large crowd of young Israelis and internationals, predominantly between 20-40 years old, celebrating nature, music, and peace. The terrorists surrounded the celebrants with jeeps and slaughtered over 350 of them in the most brutal manner, raping, beheading and dismembering many. All this lasted for hours with no IDF forces in the vicinity. Hamas was meticulously prepared for this assault. Their objective was to kill as many Israeli civilians and soldiers as possible and to kidnap everyone, including women, children, and the elderly. The first commando forces to arrive encountered a skilled enemy with a numerical advantage, having had the opportunity to prepare and train, resulting in many casualties.Mad Max who? Hamas terrorists and allies cross a breach in the Gaza border in the early hours of October 7 (screenshot from Hamas footage on Youtube)A map of red alerts from October 7, 2023. On that day alone, 4,299 sirens sounded, with 696 cities across the country targeted. Map and data: The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Tel Aviv UniversityA child's bedroom in Kfar Aza after the October 7 attack (public domain photo)© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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11© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgYou might hear: Gaza is an open-air prison, a concentration camp.Reality: Hamas has been the independent government of Gaza since 2007 when it violently seized control from the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is free to build schools and improve the lives of Gazans, yet it chooses to divert most of its funds to buy concrete, fortify tunnels, and build rockets. Any Palestinian suering is caused by the terrorists that impose their will on civilians living there.Back-up Facts: The unemployment rate in Gaza is nearly 50%, and more than 80% of its population lives in poverty, according to the United Nations. Hamas, however, has funded an armed force of thousands equipped with rockets and drones and built a vast web of tunnels under Gaza. Estimates of its annual military budget range from $100 million to $350 million, on a reported overall budget of over $500 million. Instead of infrastructure for its people, including improving their living situation, helping the citizens out of crippling poverty, providing resources and renovations, etc. much of the money is redirected to violent intentions and terrorist activity. This is purely the fault of Hamas. In fact, since the start of Operation Swords of Iron, let alone prior to the war, Israel has sent over 200,000 tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel has worked hard to ensure that this aid gets into the hands of those who need it most, and NOT the terrorist leadership, but it has been diicult to guarantee and often thwarted once it crosses the Gaza border.© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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Beyond the Lies: Hamas and Israel at War18© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgYou might hear: The Gaza Health Ministry reports or Palestinian oicials often inflate casualty figures to further demonize the IDF during attacks on legitimate terror targets, albeit for civilian use like hospitals, schools, and mosques.Reality: This one is true - the Gaza Health Ministry is not an independent, unbiased source of information. The Health Ministry is fully controlled by the Hamas terrorist organization. There is no way to verify the claims they make. One famous example is the "attack" on Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. This was blamed on Israeli airstrikes, though recorded evidence later came to light that the deaths were actually the result of an Islamic Jihad rocket. After the false reports on the hospital "bombing," the Hamas-run Health Ministry immediately published the claim that 500 Palestinians were killed. How could the number of deaths have been determined in minutes? Yet, this number and story of the "airstrike" were circulated and published across international media without question.Back-up Facts: In the evening (Israel local time) of Tuesday, October 17, the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza claimed that an Israeli airstrike hit Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, killing hundreds of civilians. An initial response from the IDF stated that the incident was under review; later, the IDF shared videos, images, and intelligence materials demonstrating that an Islamic Jihad rocket had failed to launch properly (i.e., target Israeli civilians) and instead hit the hospital parking lot. President Biden acknowledged this conclusion. Unfortunately, in many places, the false story of the "Israeli airstrike" continued to be spread.There is also plenty of evidence that Hamas continually uses mosques, schools, and hospitals (and specifically, the land underneath them) for their activities, from tunnel entrances to armories. This is done because the IDF specifically avoids attacking "holy" or "civilian" sites."NGOs constantly seek opportunities to demonize Israel and promote Palestinian victimization myths. Attaching a horrific mass casualty incident to Israel – regardless of proof – would be a major advance in their obsessive political war against the Jewish state." (NGO Monitor)Above: screenshot from a translated recording of Hamas operatives Below: comparison before and after, and what an airstrike in the area would have looked likesource: IDF Spokesperson's Unit © PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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19© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgYou might hear: The Palestinian news media and journalists are reliable sources.Reality: Palestinian society does not have a free press, unlike Israel and America. Hamas terrorists intimidate journalists reporting from Gaza, influencing what the world can see. Many Palestinians also work as reporters or sources for international journalists. These Palestinians often have biases, including social media accounts celebrating terrorism against Israelis.Back-up Facts: The media is not free in Gaza. Gaza's rating by Freedom House, which includes freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and other measures, gave them an overall score of 11/100, which is NOT FREE. The report cited Hamas intimidation measures (including violence) and strict censorship to control the reporting of media sources.Cover of the Hamas 16-page manifesto/media packet for how to discuss and present the October 7 massacre© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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Beyond the Lies: Hamas and Israel at War20© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgYou might hear: Israel is responsible for providing aid to Palestinians living under Hamas.Reality: Not only is Hamas, as the leadership/governing power, responsible for providing aid to its citizens, but why is Israel solely responsible? What explains the absence of aid from Islamic countries that regularly boast of their support for the Palestinian cause? Egypt, which borders Gaza, refuses to allow a large number of Palestinians to seek shelter in the vast Sinai Peninsula. Jordan, which is a state with a majority Palestinian population, is also silent. Iran provides billions of dollars to fund Hamas but not the residents of Gaza. Leaders in these countries regularly slander Israelis and their people rally on the streets, but at the same time, they refuse to oer significant aid to the Palestinians in Gaza.Back-up Facts: Hamas has an annual budget of over $500 million, and they spend anywhere from 20% to over 50% (between $100 to $350 million) on their militant activities. Humanitarian aid is regularly sent into Gaza, but Hamas diverts these resources for their own use. It is the actions of Hamas to thwart assistance eorts that are causing the crisis in Gaza. Hamas even actively prevented the evacuation of civilians from the area at the start of the war. Even so, Israel does coordinate the delivery of aid to Gaza on a daily basis to try to ensure as much as possible gets delivered to the local population."Israel is trying to keep civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as low as possible, but Hamas is not allowing the refugees to leave and Egypt is unwilling to open its borders," stated a proposal presented before the US Congress.This new initiative calls for conditioning American aid to Arab countries on their willingness to receive refugees from Gaza. While the plan places an emphasis on Egypt, as the immediate neighbor and largest receiver of US aid ($1.3 billion), it also includes other regional countries in the overall proposal. "Iraq and Yemen receive approximately $1 billion in US foreign aid, and Turkey receives more than $150 million. Each of these countries receive enough foreign aid and have a large enough population to be able to accept refugees adding up to less than 1% of their population," as the report continued. source: COG AT© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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Beyond the Lies: Hamas and Israel at War22© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgYou might hear: Israel intentionally targets schools, hospitals, and mosques in Gaza.Reality: Iran-backed Hamas intentionally builds tunnels under U.N. schools, locates their headquarters under a hospital, and stores weapons in mosques—turning Gaza citizens into human shields. Israel goes to great lengths not undertaken by most other nations to warn Palestinian civilians; this includes sending messages to Palestinian cell phones and dropping alert fliers. Since its creation, Hamas has used children, specifically, as human shields. Back-up Facts: Israel Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CBS News that Israel's forces have seen "a systemic abuse by Hamas of sites and locations that are supposed to enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention and humanitarian law," including not only U.N. facilities, but other schools, clinics, mosques, churches, and hospitals. Other reports have shown that Hamas uses these locations deliberately, as well as booby-trapping children's possessions, to play on the IDF's sensitivities and sensibilities.Children's possessions filled with explosivesphoto credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit A young participant in a Hamas "summer camp" photo credit: The Israel Project on Flickr© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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27© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgFOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION 1. QuestionWhat are the most commonly repeated news items or narratives masquerading as facts that you are forced to defend as a Jewish person who supports Israel? 2. QuestionJust like the Holocaust is denied in certain quarters, despite the immense proof, how are you now having to defend that the October 7th massacre occurred?Facts: Conversation StarterOn October 7, hundreds of ordinary Palestinians and Hamas terrorists infiltrated southern Israel armed with Kalashnikovs, RPGs, hand grenades, other arms, and fuel for burning the Jews alive. There is a massive amount of evidence obtained from the GoPro cameras of Hamas terrorists themselves, Israeli security cameras, and the autopsies of hundreds of brutalized victims who were repeatedly raped by Hamas terrorists and Palestinians alike who dismembered, burned alive; men, women, children, and babies were decapitated and violated in the most brutal and evil of ways—women whose pelvises were crushed due to the repeated rapes and the brutality involved in these rapes. Women's and men's sexual areas were violated with foreign objects, and those areas were cut o and played with while torturing their victims further. Many were decapitated, and then their spoils of war and some mutilated bodies, their trophies of war, were thrown on the back of pickup trucks and driven through the streets of Gaza with the people cheering, thanking Allah, and spitting and hitting the battered and mutilated victims and bodies further with sticks. There were no innocent Palestinians in this massacre and its aftermath either. • How can we cope with the horrific details of the murders that took place and the many tortures that were inflicted on the Jews? • Is it important to outline the specifics of the horrors the Jews endured? • How does knowing the details of the gang rapes aid our understanding of the events and their meaning? Slicing o breasts and heads and feet and playing games with them should be considered as the most bestial of behaviors. And yet the anti-Israel camps have embraced and rebranded these acts as “resistance.” • Has this ever happened in history to another ethnic group - that the brutalization is excused by popular society? Is this unique to Jews? • Is the behavior itself unique, or has it been used throughout Arab or Muslim culture? Is this unique to this massacre? © PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

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Beyond the Lies: Hamas and Israel at War34© Israel Forever Foundation israelforever.orgisraelforever.orgNONE OF THE POLITICS. ALL OF THE PRIDE.Israel Forever is a non-partisan, non-denominational engagement organization that develops and distributes informal learning and activism resources to celebrate, strengthen and mobilize the nation of Israel. We craft original content and initiatives that focus on the value of peoplehood, ancestral heritage, the importance of Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish democratic state, and the sustaining of collective and individual Jewish identity. Visit Israel Forever Explore Programs & Resources© PROPERTY OF ISRAEL FOREVER

Beyond the Lies - October 7 and Hamas War SAMPLE

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