Palestinian factions join Hamas in denouncing HRW's 'bias towards Israel'

Various Palestinian factions from different quarters unanimously condemned on Thursday a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, in which the organisation accused Palestinian armed groups of committing war crimes on 7 October 2023. 

The factions accused HRW of presenting a "misleading and biased narrative" in favour of Israel while its genocidal war on Gaza enters the tenth month.

On Wednesday, the HRW published a report in which it accused Palestinian armed factions in Gaza of allegedly committing "war crimes" during a Hamas-led surprise attack on Israeli military bases and civilian settlements within and around the Gaza envelope on 7 October. 

But the report notably did not focus on the suffering and destruction suffered by the Palestinian people in Gaza by Israel's continuous attacks or prior to October 7. 

HRW claimed that it spent nine months examining footage from Palestinian fighters' body cameras, mobile phones, vehicle-mounted cameras, and monitoring cameras. The rights group also claimed it examined satellite imagery and analysed dozens of audio recordings, most of which were shared on Telegram channels belonging to various armed Palestinian groups.

Five armed Palestinian groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the armed wing of Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, were involved in the attack against Israeli sites, the HRW alleged. 

'Deliberately ignoring Palestinian suffering'

"The HRW's report ignores details shared by the Israeli media and research institutions that denied the alleged incidents of beheading and rape, and [the report] also deliberately ignored the entity's use of the Hannibal protocol, which caused the largest number of casualties among [Israelis]," the PIJ said in a press statement shared with The New Arab. 

The PIJ further said that the HRW's report reveals "its complete bias towards the Israeli occupation by deliberately ignoring the suffering of the Palestinian people before 7 October and the war of extermination and crimes against them after it, especially in the case of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel".

The PIJ stressed that it has full commitment to "adhering to the values ​​of the Islamic religion, as evidenced by our treatment of the prisoners in our hands," and holds HRW "responsible for the lies and slander contained in its report".

"HRW encourages the Israeli occupation to commit more massacres and slaughters and continue the war of extermination against the Palestinian people," the PIJ concluded. 

"The [HRW] report adopts the misleading Israeli narrative that has been proven to be false and there is no evidence for its validity, noting that it is also offensive to the Palestinian people and their struggle," the Popular Front for the Liberation, for its part, said in a press statement to TNA. 

It demanded that HRW withdraw this report and apologise for it, saying, "While organisations are unable to stop the crimes of genocide in the Gaza Strip, which are broadcasted on the world's screens, the HRW is slandering the Palestinian resistance and exonerating the occupation and its army."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said it considers the HRW report to be "contrary to the truth and lacking in objectivity and professionalism" and denied that it had received a letter or a message regarding the role of its military wing in the 7 October military operation.

The Democratic Front also stressed that HRW must withdraw the report and apologise to the Palestinian people.

TNA also attempted to contact Fatah's armed wing, Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades, for comment, but they were unavailable at the time of publishing. 

'A serious lapse'

"It seems that the HRW was forced to adopt the Israeli narrative towards what was happening on 7 October under the US and Israeli pressure as it ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza for more than 18 years because of the Israeli occupation, Israeli blockade and its consequences n Gaza," Mustafa al-Barghouti, the Secretary-General of the National Initiative, said to TNA. 

"The report is a serious lapse, lacking in objectivity and professionalism, and repeating Israeli lies without justification," he added.  

He emphasised that the objectivity and professionalism of any human rights organisation is "not by playing a semi-neutral role between the killer and the victim and between the Israeli genocider and his victim [the Palestinian people], but by taking a firm and steadfast position against the aggressive war criminals and their crimes".

Israel's war on Gaza has directly killed almost 39,000 people, mainly women and children, while a recent Lancet report states that about 186,000 people of have died directly and indirectly. 

For decades, HRW has issued reports on the status of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as on specific atrocities.

It has faced criticism in the past for what many have argued is a soft approach to Israel, such as a "selective" treatment of its violations against Palestinians or neglecting to assess whether Israel's military has breached laws of war and concluding with ambiguous statements.