Oct. 7 no excuse to ‘dehumanize’ Gazans, Blinken warns Israel

Claiming that most Gazans are innocent civilians, Blinken glossed over testimony from hostages that locals aided and abetted Hamas terrorists holding them captive.

By World Israel News Staff

Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel that the massacres on October 7th are not “a license to dehumanize” Gazans during a press conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening.

Blinken’s remarks were aimed at the ongoing IDF campaign to oust the Hamas terror group from power in the Gaza Strip.

“Israelis were dehumanized in the most horrific way on October 7th. The hostages have been dehumanized every day since. But that cannot be a license to dehumanize others,” Blinken said.

“The overwhelming majority of people in Gaza had nothing to do with the attacks of October 7th, and the families in Gaza whose survival depends on deliveries of aid from Israel are just like our families,” the Secretary of State continued.

“They’re mothers and fathers, sons and daughters – want to earn a decent living, send their kids to school, have a normal life. That’s who they are; that’s what they want. And we cannot, we must not lose sight of that.”

Notably, Blinken did not acknowledge numerous accounts from freed hostages that Gazan civilians aided and abetted their Hamas captors.

Scores of hostages said they were beaten, spat on, and harassed by civilians after being dragged into the Strip. Others reported being held in family homes, by Gazans working as medical professionals in hospitals and as teachers in UNRWA schools.

“It’s important to me to reveal the real situation about the people who live in Gaza, who they really are, and what I went through there,” Mia Schem, who was shot on October 7th and kidnapped to Gaza, told Channel 13 news after being freed from captivity.

“I experienced hell. Everyone there are terrorists… there are no innocent civilians, not one,” she said. “[Innocent civilians] don’t exist.”

Krivoi, a dual Russian-Israeli citizen, was freed in late November 2023 as a gesture of goodwill by Hamas towards Russian President Vladimir Putin.

His aunt told Hebrew-language media that Krivoi had managed to briefly escape his captors in the Strip, but that local Gazans had returned him back to the terror group.