Abbas, 88, did not mince words, referring to Hamas fighters as “sons of dogs” and blaming the group for prolonging the ongoing war in Gaza by giving Israel justification for its continued offensive.

“Sons of dogs, release the hostages and block their justifications,” Abbas declared, adding, “Israel’s military campaign has turned into the Israeli genocide that the Gaza Strip is being subjected to.”

While Israel denies accusations of genocide, asserting its military actions target Hamas in self-defense, Abbas’s remarks underscore a dramatic escalation in tensions between Palestinian factions and a notable shift in his public stance toward Hamas.

A Stark Shift in Tone

Though Abbas has often criticized Hamas, Wednesday’s scathing address marked his most direct public attack. The timing coincides with renewed ceasefire efforts led by regional powers including Egypt, which has proposed disarming Hamas as a step toward peace.

Abbas refrained from explicitly condemning Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel but reiterated his longstanding opposition to violence against civilians and his advocacy for a two-state solution.

“Hamas must end its control over the Gaza Strip, hand over all its affairs to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the legitimate Palestinian National Authority, and refrain from carrying arms,” he said. “It must transform into a political party operating within the framework of international legitimacy.”

Hamas Fires Back

Hamas responded swiftly, rejecting Abbas’s accusations and challenging his legitimacy as Palestinian leader. The group claimed Abbas was shifting blame for Israel’s “crimes” onto the Palestinian people, calling his statements “suspicious and dangerous.”

The bitter rivalry between Fatah—Abbas’s party—and Hamas has long fractured Palestinian politics. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 following a violent power struggle, and repeated reconciliation attempts have failed, despite agreements in Cairo and Beijing involving numerous Palestinian factions.

Internal Rift and International Implications

Abbas accused Hamas of inflicting “severe damage” on the Palestinian cause for independence. “It has provided the occupation with dangerous free services, whether intentionally or unintentionally,” he said. “Hostage-taking gave the criminal occupation one of its most prominent excuses to carry out its conspiracies and crimes in Gaza.”

He renewed his appeal for an international peace conference and the enforcement of existing UN Security Council resolutions, aiming to break the impasse and reignite efforts toward a lasting solution.

As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens and political divisions deepen, Abbas’s sharp rhetoric signals a critical moment in Palestinian politics—and raises new questions about the path forward for both Palestinian governance and the broader conflict.

Jerusalem (AFP) — Six Palestinians were killed and nearly 20 others injured early Tuesday in sweeping raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Hamas is not fighting for a human rights cause; they are committing war crimes to boost their political standing.

I was born in the Jordanian-occupied Old City in Jerusalem and lived in a UN refugee camp from 1966 until 1999. During the First Intifada, I worked for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and in 1996 I founded the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring group. With my background in Palestinian campaigning and as a resident of East Jerusalem today, you might assume that I am against Israel’s current military actions. But this could not be further from the truth. The blame for this month’s bloodshed lies solely at the feet of Hamas.

Those who wish to divert attention from Hamas’s war crimes would like to blame the latest conflict on a complicated legal dispute in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. But this was a private matter between Jews who have a property deed from the 1800s and the residents of four homes who have refused to pay rent. This cannot be framed as ‘ethnic cleansing’. It is little more than a landlord-tenant squabble. It should have been a matter for the local courts, but instead this small-time event wound up in an appeal at the supreme court, and hit the press. Hamas quickly saw an opportunity.

Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Fatah party, is at his weakest point in many years. He had just cancelled parliamentary elections because he knew he would lose. Hamas saw Sheikh Jarrah as an opportunity to show Palestinians in Jerusalem and elsewhere that they could ‘do something’ while Fatah could not. They spread lies and propaganda on social media, deliberately inciting violence among Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Hamas then ‘responded’ to the riots by firing rockets indiscriminately towards Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, guaranteeing an Israeli military response. Hamas is not fighting for a human rights cause; they are committing war crimes to boost their political standing.

Hamas does not care where these missiles land: as many as one in seven, in fact, have been reported by the Israel Defence Forces to have crashed down within Gaza during this latest round of fighting, resulting in 20 casualties. They see a lopsided body count as a positive development, as it allows them to claim that Israel is the aggressive party in the conflict they started. This Islamist terror group is dangerous for our people: we cannot continue to be a conduit for their work.

Hamas is not fighting for a human rights cause; they are committing war crimes to boost their political standing.

A recent video showed the Hamas leadership celebrating missile launches from a party in Qatar. These people are out of harm’s way. They leave their foot soldiers, often young and desperate men with no employment prospects, to launch the attacks from residential buildings. We recently saw an Israeli strike on a tower that housed Al Jazeera, AP, and other news outlets. According to Israeli sources, Hamas maintained military intelligence offices in the building and had previously launched attacks from that exact location, using the foreign media as human shields. The Israeli intelligence was enough for the Americans to accept the strike head of the event. ‘We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,’ a senior diplomatic source told the Jerusalem Post. ‘I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.’

You never would have heard about this in the western media though, because the reporting out of Gaza is not honest. Hamas tightly controls all press access and foreign media have the choice of reporting the news the way Hamas tells them to, or not being allowed into Gaza at all. Almost all of them choose the former.

Palestinians are forced to choose between the corrupt, ineffectual Fatah and the fanatical, genocidal Hamas. Of course, this is largely an academic debate. There is no real ‘choice’ – there has not been an election in 15 years. But there is another, more pressing issue than the depressing state of our current leadership: the refusal to recognise the reality that Israel and the Jews are here to stay.

Seventy-three years have passed since Israel was established. Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates all understand that Israel is not a temporary stain on the map, but a permanent feature of the Middle East. Unfortunately many Arabs, including most Palestinians, still deny this obvious truth.

Obsessing over the Israeli-Palestinian issue has been a disaster for the Arab world: it has held back our development for generations and cost the Palestinian people dearly. Israel is still here – and isn’t going anywhere. The Arab world is large and there is plenty of room for all of us. We have been blessed with natural resources that could provide bountiful opportunities. Instead of focusing our wealth and talent on creating a better life for us, our leaders have spent decades fighting Israel. It is long past time for all Arabs to stop wasting resources trying to conquer a tiny country that we will never defeat. Only then will we have peace and prosperity.

Article first published in Spectator.uk.

Bassem Eid is a Palestinian human rights expert, political analyst, commentator, and journalist, based in Jerusalem. He tweets under @eid_bassem.

The state project that has been promoted by the Palestinians is not an Islamic. Rather, they advocate a secular state, and they adopt communist and leftist ideologies of atheistic origins…

The negative perception of non-Muslims about the laws of Sharia is a result of the wrong understanding that some misguided Muslims espouse, especially those who tend to extremism and terrorism, due to a deep ignorance of the rules of Sharia. These misguided have caused their extremist tendencies to offend Islam and Muslims and to show Sharia law in an inhuman manner by altering and falsifying sacred texts and not realizing its linguistic indication and contexts.

Sharia has established that preserving lives and property of people as a primary principle of top priority through clear sacred texts from the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

Therefore, through the Palestinian Cause and other persistent hotbeds of tension throughout Muslim regions around the world, it seems clear that completely misinterpretation, misinformation and obvious wrong ideas are clearly and primarily in violation of this basic principle of Islamic law.

One of the great and miraculous issue about Islam is that despite the well-established belief system, divine moral values, general and specific rules, detailed controls, it does not contradict modernity, science, or coexistence with non-Muslims and good entertainment. In fact, there are many texts in the Qur’an and the Sunnah that encourage continuous logical thinking, keep learning, contemplation, improvement of living conditions, and the pursuit of peace and stability.

Salafism as a title has been misused and some ignorant Muslims have been using it as a sect. Well, it’s not a sect. It’s the original objective methodology in which the original Islam relies on. It relies on the Qur’an, the Sunnah and the pure understanding of the Prophet Mohammed peace be upon him, his companions and the earlier righteous Muslims and their following righteous Muslims. Salafism represents objectivity which is the cornerstone, which Islam was designed by Allah Almighty to fulfill, in order to transcend injustice, sectarianism, racism and extremist patterns, and to help people to avoid excessive patterns of deception, alter religious sacred texts using them in other than their specific indications and contexts.

Most what so-called (Islamic countries) are lagging behind in the fields of stability, security, infrastructure, development, economy, thought and culture. Nevertheless, “some” of governments and peoples of these countries are devoted to giving the Saudis lectures on what should or should not be done. While Saudi Arabia ranks 18th in the G20, and is ahead of many of G20 in many developmental aspects, such as competitiveness and ease of business, ranks 25th in the world in patents, and It has low crime rates. According to some study centers, Saudi Arabia is considered the fifth most powerful country in the world.

Misguided Muslims have been constantly hostile to Saudi Arabia, which is the only state in the world that embraces Sharia as the only source of legislation and embraces monotheism and prohibits manifestations of polytheism, while most of the so-called (Islamic) countries embrace secularism. Well, the case here is that the Saudi authentic objective methodology always has been exposing the various twisted patterns.

Because of ignorance and fanaticism, misguided Muslims do not care about monotheism and Sharia as a supreme objective criteria, they ignore the legitimate Islamic priorities, and they do not focus on extricating their countries and societies from polytheism, secularism, sexual immorality, alcohol and backwardness. That would keep them busy the rest of their lives if they would be seriously interested in the true Islam.

Rather, they engage in subsidiary issues or issues that are outside their legal and Islamic authority, or issues that are not considered central in the first place.

Palestine, Kashmir, Uighurs, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia

Miserable failure to adhere to Islamic objectivity (Salafism: the original Islam) is what sparked these countries and turned them into complex issues and fiery conflict areas.

Well .. their country’s system does not embrace the most important and first of Islamic principle, monotheism and Sharia, and your country ranks at the back globally in various lists and you do not show respect for (Saudi Arabia G20), the only country that embraces both monotheism and sharia systematically and popularly. So how could they claim that they truly care about Islamic causes? Rather, how could they claim that subjects they’re interested in, are pivotal Islamic causes?

Unfortunately, the misguided Muslims think in a distorted way as if they seek to condemn Islam through their practices and intellectual patterns, as they show more concern for the Palestinian cause than for the security and safety of Saudi Arabia, the cradle of Islam, the Qibla, the cradle of revelation, the resting place of the Great Prophet Mohammad (PPBUH), the only country that embraces monotheism and Sharia.

Rather, misguided Muslims keep attacking Saudi Arabia and other Muslims, they constantly antagonize and incite against it, they rejoice in every threat it faces, under false titles and fake arguments – they claim to be Islamic – while their titles and arguments actually contradict the simplest Islamic rules.

How could these misguided people claim to be Muslims? How could they boast about their fake interest in Islamic causes? While they do not celebrate the first and most important Islamic principle (monotheism and Sharia).

This is the biggest symptom of the disease, Islamic Illusion that afflicted many Muslims around the world.

No one claims that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is perfect, for this did not and will never happen except with the Messenger Mohammad (PPBUH), but it’s the best model as a state in this age in implementing the priorities of Islam, such as monotheism and Sharia, doing its best to serve Muslims, the guests of the Lord at Hajj and to serve the Qur’an and the Sunnah. It has NO relations with Israel at all.

Many Muslims look for the illusion of the caliphate by glorifying the defunct Ottoman state that had many polytheism manifestations and it persecuted Muslims and non Muslims, as it built and glorified the graves and shrines and did not care about monotheism, Sharia, the two holy mosques and knowledge – The Ottomans issued a fatwa prohibiting printing books, as it cared to extend its authority, and all its sultans did not perform the obligatory of Hajj.

Even greater, there’re the new Ottomans who glorify Turkey, a country that – constitutionally – espouses secularism, prostitution and sexual immorality, and is full of graves and shrines that have been worshiped, and has the best relations with Israel.

And misguided Muslims today are ready to support the terrorist polytheist regime (Iran) and its terrorist gangs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, only because they hate monotheism and Sharia, and they carry out and promote hatred against Muslims, especially against Saudi Arabia, the only country that embraces monotheism and Sharia.

Are they really Muslims?

Some Muslims today are ready to blame (Saudi Arabia) for their failure to shoulder their local Islamic and national responsibilities, while their countries are mired in ignorance, polytheism, secularism, extremism, terrorism, hatred, lying, fraud, deception, aggression, backwardness and moral decay.

On a large scale in the so-called (Islamic world), by misguided Muslims, false accusations are continuously being propagated against Saudi Arabia of Zionism and being an agent and that it is a Western intelligence fabrication.

Well, think about as a real Muslims or normal human being with fine logic: is it possible that non-Muslims would establish monotheism and the Sharia? Would non-Muslims build a state that embraces monotheism and Sharia and support it?

Also, many misguided Muslims or fake Muslims like to describe the Saudis as Wahhabis, the evil stigma was invented by the Ottoman occupation hostile to the Arabs because the Arabs have been fighting back and expelled the Ottomans, and because of the monotheism is the profound ground of Saudi Arabian state since its inception in 1744, and they like to describe the Saudis with various inappropriate descriptions that express the extent of racism and distance from Islam.

Let me tell you frankly: misguided Muslims are thus the best soldiers of Satan ever, because they do not respect monotheism and Sharia, they do not respect (the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) the only state that embraces them, they do not stop attacking it, and they have not built a state that can be rival to deserve such respect even from purely materialistic aspect.

Do they accept to live this stupidity and naivety?

Islam for peoples and individuals is a comprehensive system of lifestyle that relies first on monotheism (the first absolute value), then on the pillars of Islam, then on Iman (solid faith) and behavioral controls, under a broad value system regulated by general objective rules called (the legitimate purposes).

The legitimate purposes are:

• Protecting Islam (which is based on monotheism first).
• Protecting life of people.
• Protecting mind.
• Protecting offspring.
• Protecting money and property.

Well .. how many countries that:

• Establish monotheism constitutionally and popularly and prevents polytheism?
• Puts protection of lives as a priority over material interests?
• Protects the mind from alcohol, drugs and destructive ideas?
• Protects money and property with right regulations, good infrastructure and sustainable development?
• Criminalizes adultery and sexual immorality?

These are the first priorities in Islam.

Then the following priorities, which are the distribution and hierarchy of roles and responsibilities in Islam, that can sustain the individual, the family, the society and the state to be safe. For the man is the responsibilities of his family to be well taking care of, then for the woman is the responsibilities of her inside family issues to be well taking care of, the minister in the ministry, the manager is in a sector, the businessman or woman in his/her establishment or company and so on. The king, the president or the supreme leader is responsible The firsr for the state and the people to be well taking care of.

And every people – as individuals or as a whole – are responsible for their state, independence and borders, according to the prevailing laws locally. The Pakistani is not responsible for what happens in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi is not responsible for what happens in Egypt, the Emirati is not responsible for what happens in Lebanon, and the Moroccan is not responsible for what happens in Indonesia.

The leaders and the citizens are entitled to what happens in their country. If the leader ( a person or an institution) decided a specific policy, then you have no right to violate, so you must listen and obey, regardless of correctness of your opinion – you’re entitled to criticize in a proper ways – and this according to Islamic law is explicitly stated in the Qur’an and the Sunnah, then the scholars of the early‏ righteous Muslim ancestors (Salaf).

The head of the state (the king or the president), by Shariah is the one who‘s authorized to decide whether or not it is possible or justified to help people in another country, and he’s the one who decides how and what type of appropriate assistance, and the legislative, supervisory and executive authorities are authorized to implement this.

I present this detailed matters intentionally, so as not to confuse anyone, because many Muslims are immersed in ignorance of Islam and ignorance of Islamic principles and simplest rules, and even in managing usual personal interests, then he/she talks about the caliphate, liberating Palestine and Kashmir, fighting America, China and Zionism..etc.

Even worse, some misguided Muslims who live in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Washington, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Beijing and Moscow, capitals of Christianity, secularism and atheism. Yet, they feel entitled to brag about criticising (Saudi Arabia), the cradle of Islam and the state that embraces monotheism and Sharia, and they fight it under the pretext of Islam!

The solution to the issues of any country is by following Sharia in order of priorities, through the so-called Objectives or Purposes of Shariah or legal Islamic policy, which relies on the clear sacred texts in the Qur’an and the Sunnah.

If you live in a Muslim country, then you should do your best to reform your country through good word politely and proper planning, and be a walking model in reform and awareness-raising.

And if you live in a Non-Muslim State, – if you can – then the first thing you should do is to return to your country and your Muslim community and to start from there.

And if your country, to which you belong now, or you became belong to permanently, is a non-Muslim State, then you must respect its laws, and invite people to Islam in the ways that national laws allow, and it is not permissible for you to provoke your non-Muslim people or to insult their culture, sanctities and symbols.

Palestinian Cause

Back to the Palestinian Cause, the Islamic rules are clear and transparent, so if the Palestinians couldn’t win by military means in a way that saves innocents, then Allah Almighty does not burden them beyond their power. Rather from the purposes of Sharia, in the situation of certainty or high probability of the inability to achieve victory that can save innocents, then it is Islamic obligation to hold peace in order to save lives and properties.

This can be applied to Palestine, Kashmir, the Uighurs, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan, and every place in which Muslims are exposed to the affliction of war or occupation, as the primary responsibility rests with the people of the country themselves, as far as they can, in conditions of the overwhelming expectation of victory.

Indeed, the law of Allah Almighty prohibits political conflict and political change except according to Shariah rules and regulations, so that seeking change for the better must not lead to worse consequences or disastrous as a result, such as revolutions, demonstrations, mob protesting and endless wars.

I would like to say this clearly and loudly:

The Palestinian Cause is not a primary issue in Islam, rather it belongs to what’s so-called (Legitimate Islamic Policy), to calculate and evaluate the expected gains and the consequences that could result from any decision that the state can go with.

And a mercy from Allah, one of the most important purposes of Sharia is to protect the lives of people (Muslims and non Muslims) , and Allah Almighty has established the absolute reality of His mercy when He said: (Allāh does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity), (The Holy Qur’an, 2 Al-Baqara- Ayah 286), and the Messenger of Mercy Mohammad (PPBUH) said: (If I ordered you to do something, then do of it as much as you can), Sahih al-Bukhari 7288.

If the leadership of your country believes that it is unable to help other Muslims militarily, politically or economically, then you must respect that, and continue to assist and support and improve local legal methods in a manner that does not contradict the principles of Islamic law.

As a Muslim individual in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Britain, France, America, China, Russia, Morocco, or South Africa, you are not responsible, according to Islamic laws, for Palestine, Kashmir, Syria, or any place other than your country.

But why?

I’ll repeat that.

A. There is a hierarchy in the distribution of roles and responsibilities in Islamic laws.

B. Every Muslim exerts his efforts to the best of his ability according to Islamic legitimate responsibilities, while not inconsistent with the supreme Sharia rules and regulations.

It’s one of your responsibilities as a Muslim to be a model of Islam walking on earth, to please Allah Almighty first, to show people the greatness of Allah’s religion, so you invite them to Islam with your high manners and knowledge, and to establish Allah’s proofs against them.

If you adopt an extremist or a terrorist ideology, or any immoral pattern – according to Islam-, politically, socially, economically or militarily, or you behave aggressively, then you necessarily become an anti-Islam, and even peaceful non-Muslims become better than you for Islam.

The moral and legal rules of Shariah are objectively determined by divine authority, not your delusions, no matter how you claim and flaunt to be a Muslim.

As for corrupt illusions, romantic dreams, wishful thinking, and false aspirations promoted by corrupt ideologies, such as Shiism in (Iran), Sufism and Naqshbandi in (Turkey), and some other regimes and groups, this matter is the most dangerous of all profoundly, as it corrupt for people their lives here and hereafter, and distort the pure image of Islam in consideration and awareness of Muslims themselves, not alone consideration and awareness of non-Muslims.

Corrupt regimes hostile to Islam, such as Iran and Turkey, and their followers and fans from the corrupt groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Takfir groups, and Shiite militias in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, you see for yourself the results of their corruption, where polytheism, massacres, extermination, destruction and crime have become a regularly wherever they are able to influence.

Al-Aqsa Mosque, despite its importance and position for Muslims, is not more important than the souls of the Palestinians and all Muslims, rather the Holy Ka’ba itself as it is despite the greatness of its place and its position in Islam, is not more important and greater than the souls of the Saudis and all Muslims.

The state project that has been promoted by the Palestinians is not an Islamic. Rather, they advocate a secular state, and they adopt communist and leftist ideologies of atheistic origins, or extremist ideologies claiming Islamic legitimacy, while it is actually otherwise.

It’s our Islamic duty as Saudis and non-Saudis to expose the emotional, moral, religious, political, economic and military blackmail to which we as Saudis and Muslims around the world have been exposed to, in the name of the Palestinian Cause or other causes. Independence is not more important than the lives of people, which are not supposed to be sacrificed, according to Islamic Shariah laws.

The Palestinian Cause has been the spearhead of all projects hostile to Islam and Muslims, especially against the Saudis, whereby Saudi Arabia (the monotheism and Sharia state)’s image has been distorted and has been fought against across the so-called (Islamic world) in the name of the Palestinian illusionary cause.

The Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group, the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization ISIS, terrorist and criminal Iranian regime, the aggressive and terrorist Turkish regime, the most corrupt of all, and other corrupt regimes and groups..

All of them have been using the Palestinian Cause to kill Muslims, to harm them, and to destroy their countries, societies, security, and national capabilities. It’s enough for you that the sinister (Iranian-Turkish-Qatari evil axis with the Western atheist left) sponsored the so-called (Arab Spring) project, which turned the countries into unrivaled devastation and turned the people into gangs, thieves, or just terrified innocent people who cannot live properly or settle for anything.

All of these parties that use Islamic Causes, especially the Palestinian to blackmail Muslims, especially to blackmail Saudi Arabia, have not provided anything to the Palestinians or other Muslims for past 70 years. No independence, no state, no dignity, no rights, no development, no prosperity, not even humanitarian aid.

Whereas Saudi Arabia (the state of monotheism and Sharia) has been at the forefront of donors for decades, especially for the benefit of the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority’s budget relies mainly on Saudi support, and in return Turkey and Iran have not provided any real aid to any people on Earth, rather both consumed their economies and capabilities in exporting polytheism, immorality, hatred, conflicts and wars.

Turkei Al-Owerde is Editor-in-Chief and Political Analyst of the Herald Report. His knowledge of the religious undertones of most Muslim Terrorist Organizations makes his many “conflict analysis” a valuable source of information for many security experts from around the world. He regularly tweets under @Turki_AlOwerde.