Three years after Hamas's October 7 invasion of Israel, Arab media coverage of the anniversary has focused heavily on the devastation in Gaza, often making little or no mention of the Israeli civilians killed in the attack that sparked the war and sometimes going as far as to celebrate it.
The Jerusalem Post has not identified a statement from an Arab leader expressing sympathy for Israeli victims of the October 7 attack as of Tuesday. However, Hamas shared a condemnation of the statement issued by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the invasion.
Hamas has continued to deny targeting civilians, carrying out sexual assaults and mistreating hostages in captivity, claiming that investigations had disproved the allegations. However, a UN mission that visited Israel concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the October 7 massacre and that there was clear and convincing information that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence in captivity.
Former hostages have also repeatedly described the torture, starvation, and sexual violence they experienced while they were held against their will in Gaza.
Hamas demanded Guterres retract his statement, which acknowledged Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists “brutally” killed more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, deliberately targeted civilians and sexually assaulted and tortured hostages in captivity.
Articles from the Arab world support 'Al-Aqsa Flood' massacre
Though Guterres expressed sympathy for the victims of October 7, his statement also addressed the “untold suffering on Palestinians in Gaza” and insisted that both Hamas and Israel need to enter the next stage of the ceasefire agreement.
The Egyptian state-owned Maspero marked the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack using the terrorist group’s name for the assault, publishing an article titled “New details emerge about the Al-Aqsa Flood... and the region’s involvement in a chaos plot” that featured exclusively Palestinian and Egyptian professors.
The article failed to share the number of Israelis killed during the “crushing blow,” instead reporting only that Hamas was able to “occupy the settlements located in the envelope” and kill “hundreds of soldiers and officers of the Zionist entity.”
Unmentioned in the report was that more than 800 of those killed on October 7 were civilians. The youngest known victim was Naama Abu Rashed, a Bedouin-Israeli newborn who died just 14 hours after she was delivered by emergency Cesarean section after her pregnant mother was shot in the stomach while being driven to hospital.
“Events did not end with the clashes of October 7th. As expected, they escalated into a war of extermination waged by the Zionist entity against the Gaza Strip, during which approximately 74,000 Palestinians were killed, and about 100,000 others were wounded,” the report continued.
“Around 90 percent of Gaza's buildings were destroyed, and its infrastructure was almost completely obliterated. The war did not stop at Gaza; it extended to wars against Lebanon and then against Iran, leading to subsequent changes in the map of the Middle East.”
The state media did not mention Hezbollah’s attacks on October 8, 2023, which led to the war on the northern front, instead focusing on the view of Dr. Emad Mohsen, who alleged Israel “unleashed the killing machine accompanied by intense hatred, loathing, and a raging desire for revenge,” which resulted in “genocide, famine, crimes against humanity, and the most heinous forms of violent behavior on a human level.”
'Thirst for Palestinian and Arab blood... genocide, murder, displacement'
“Above all, the true face of Zionist extremism, its expansionist desire, its thirst for Palestinian and Arab blood, its call for displacement, genocide, murder, settlement, and the undermining of the Palestinian dream of freedom and national independence, was revealed,” the paper published.
Al Ghad, the first independent daily Arabic newspaper in Jordan, also failed to mention the specific number of victims in its article on the massacre, instead focusing on Israel closing the crossing from Gaza and the West Bank for two days.
“On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas surprised Israel with an unprecedented attack on 11 military bases and 22 settlements along the Gaza Strip, resulting in the death, injury, and capture of hundreds of Israelis,” it reported on Sunday, adding that the explanation that Hamas argued it committed the attack "to end the unjust siege on Gaza and to thwart Israel's plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause and impose its sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
It also focused on the civilian deaths in Gaza, relying on figures by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths.
The independent Lebanese news website Janoubia published a practical analysis of the threats facing Israel and its military successes since October 7 in an article titled “8 dangers threatening Israel on ‘October 7th!’”
Although the article referred to the attack as “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and did not mention its victims, it focused on Israel’s security situation and acknowledged several of the IDF’s achievements. It also mentioned the displacement of Israelis from communities near the northern and southern borders following the attacks, an aspect of the war that has received relatively little attention in much international media coverage.
Asharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned media group headquartered in London, published an article stressing that assassinated Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had warned Israel in 2022 that Hamas would respond if Israel continued “attacks” on Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem.
The article attributed the launch of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7, 2023, to Israeli actions and focused on whether Hamas had achieved its objectives. It noted that Sinwar had promised to empty Israel’s prisons of security prisoners, thousands of whom were released as part of hostage-prisoner exchanges during the war.
The article also acknowledged Israel’s “unprecedented” success in assassinating Hamas’s leadership, while accusing the IDF of conducting “an indiscriminate bombing campaign across the Gaza Strip” and, citing a UN committee, claiming that “Israel has sought to wipe out Gaza through a genocide operation.”
At the same time, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Gaza-based Palestinian political analyst Mustafa Ibrahim criticizing Sinwar, saying that “popular criticism of Sinwar and anger over his ill-considered decision continue,” alongside the suffering of Gaza residents who lost their homes and property. Ibrahim added that Palestinians outside Gaza might support Sinwar’s actions because they had not experienced the same destruction, killing, and displacement.
Another recurring theme in Arab coverage was whether Netanyahu had received advance warnings of the attack from Arab states, shifting attention from Hamas’s actions to alleged Israeli intelligence and political failures. Haaretz first reported that Netanyahu denied receiving advance warning from the United Arab Emirates, while The Wall Street Journal later reported that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel had warned Netanyahu of Hamas’s plans. Netanyahu has denied receiving such a warning.