A host on an official Palestinian Authority TV channel said Israel intends to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and rebuild the Temple.

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Gaza-based terror group Hamas, is reportedly developing its own low budget TV show in response to the wildly popular Fauda series.

By World Israel News Staff

Millions of fans around the world are eagerly awaiting the fourth season of Israeli drama Fauda, which focuses on an undercover IDF counterterrorism unit. Now, Hamas, the fictional series’ real-life terror organization, is planning to shoot a low-budget copy-cat version of their own.

Gaza-based terror group Hamas, whose operatives are often the villains in Fauda, is reportedly developing its own low budget TV series in response to the wildly popular show.

Qabdat al-Ahrar (Fist of the Free) will focus on the “Palestinian point of view” and “the spirit of our resistance,” the show’s director, Mohammed Soraya, told AFP.

The show’s protagonists are Hamas operatives, and unlike Fauda, which features actors from Israel’s Arab community, the cast is entirely Gazan.

In another major departure from Fauda’s format, all characters in the series will speak Arabic – including Jews. Characters in Fauda speak both Arabic and Hebrew.

Due to a ruling from local Islamic clerics, even Jewish female characters on the show will wear hijabs at all times.

The series, which is being produced on a shoestring budget, is expected to be completed in time for Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.

During recent years, watching movies and TV shows in the evening after breaking the Ramadan fast has become a tradition, and Ramadan is widely considered “prime time” for Arab entertainment programs and films to debut.

Gazan actor Jawad Harouda, who plays the head of the Israeli Shin Bet security organization in the show, said that some people in Gaza have a difficult time separating fiction from reality.

“Women look at me [in public] and pray that I die,” he said.

But Harouda is unfazed by the death threats, instead believing them to be a testament to his acting ability.

“I’m happy when people insult me. It means I’ve succeeded … The actor is a chameleon, he must be able to act out all colors.”

Kamila Fadel, a Gazan actress who played a Jewish woman in a previous TV show, echoed Harouda’s sentiments to AFP.

“After the series was broadcast, a woman tried to strangle me,” she said.

“She told me: ‘I hate you, you are hurting us so much’. On another day a 13-year-old boy threw a stone at my head thinking I was Jewish… This means I played my part well.”

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Arab Idol winner sings to Palestinians about fighting Israel with guns: ‘Songs are like weapons’

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Mohammad Assaf, the singing star from Gaza who won the Arab Idol show, is using his platform as a United Nations “goodwill ambassador”  to sing about the destruction of Israel, Hebrew weekly Makor Rishon reported Friday.

After winning the title in the 2013 season of the show that was broadcast across the Middle East, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) asked Assaf to become a UN goodwill ambassador. However, recordings of his performances revealed that he sings hymns to terrorists and calls on his fans to take up arms against Israel.

UNRWA has been widely criticized for its corruption and for perpetuating the Palestinian refugee issue. At the time he was asked to represent UNRWA, Assaf replied he was proud to be “an ambassador for young people, I feel a great responsibility towards them.”

However, the Center for Near East Policy Research, an Israeli watchdog group that recorded and translated his concerts to Palestinians, revealed the lyrics to Assaf’s songs are militaristic and get the crowds at concerts chanting about attacking Israel.

“Lift the keffiyeh, wave it, let the rifle applaud it and decorate it,” were the words in one song that urged Palestinians to “liberate” Israeli cities, singing: “Go to Safed, go to Tiberias, Acre and Haifa, and say hello to its sea, do not forget Nazareth, the Arab fortress and Al-Aqsa is its flag, Inshallah we will gather in it.”

At a performance in the Palestinian city of Rawabi in 2019, Assaf invited up on stage Latifa Abu Hamid, the mother of five Palestinian men who are serving jail terms for terrorist attacks that killed 20 Israelis.

“Let our dear mother be honored. Congratulations to her, her sons, the prisoners and all the prisoners,” Assaf said to the applause of the audience.

In an interview by the Jordanian TV channel Roya, Assaf said his songs were more ammunition in the “resistance” against Israel.

“Songs are like weapons. National songs have a role in preserving the revolution in the Palestinian people. They are an integral part of the struggle. Art is resistance,” Assaf said.

Despite his Gazan roots and public statements that “I keep my oath and my religion, you will find me on my land,” Assaf, now 31, moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where earlier this year he married the 22-year-old daughter of a wealthy family.

Middle East expert Dr. Roni Shaked of the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem says that Assaf has become the main singer in Palestinian culture whose songs promote terrorism to Palestinian youth.

“The song of the martyr, in which he describes how the martyr is taken for burial, and the great song of return to Safed, Haifa and Beit She’an, have become the anthem of the Palestinian refugees in the spirit of return and terrorism,” Shaked said.

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An official PA TV reporter advises male listeners the Quranic verse instructing men to “strike” their wives is not supposed to injure.

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