On Sunday, one of our bloggers, JoeSettler, first reported on a human smuggling ring that helps smuggle Gazans out of Gaza and into Europe, via the Sinai and Egypt.

In the past week, three boats carrying hundreds of Gazans, as well as some Syrian refugees sunk on the way to Italy.

One Gazan survivor reported that their boat was deliberately sunk by rival Egyptian human traffickers.

Today, Israel’s Reshet Bet reports that Fatah (the Palestinian Authority) is claiming that Hamas runs the Gazan side of this human trafficking ring, charging between $2000 to $3500 for each person they allow out.

Gazans are in shock over the loss of their family members.

Today, the Palestinian Authority radio listed off the names of 90 Gazans who disappeared this past week trying to escape from Gaza to Europe.

Hundreds of more people are still missing.

In response, Hamas said the smuggling ring to Europe has always existed, and they arrested some people involved in it.

Internal Arab polls indicate that at least 70% of Gazans want to leave Gaza for good. The Europeans must take the moral step to help these people leave safely to European shores.

The Palestinian Authority unity government is falling apart over the issue of who should pay the back salaries of Hamas civil service workers.

Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization stopped paying its workers months ago, instead diverting funds to weapons development, tunnel building and other war mongering activities. Nor are they paying them now.

As late as three weeks ago Hamas terrorists were still summarily executing numerous Gaza civilians they believed may have been collaborating with Israel, usually after quickie kangaroo court trials — if any at all.

When the unity government deal was signed last spring, Hamas assumed the new administration would take over all the debts. But Ramallah-based Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman and rival Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is refusing to pay the bills until Hamas is willing to allow the unity government to actually govern the workers – and Gaza.

Moreover, in order to take on the current expenses of a unity government, — which he heads — Abbas says the administration must function as one entity. In addition, the 50-day counter terror Operation Protective Edge launched by Israel in Gaza this summer has exacerbated problems faced by the new government.

Cleaning staff in Gaza began a strike three days ago after going without salaries for the past five months, the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency reported. On Wednesday, Nabil Abu Aqlein spoke on behalf of Al Shifa hospital employees, saying cleaning staff in all Gaza hospitals would remain on strike until they are paid. Some 170 workers are currently on partial strike.

“If cleaning staff quit working there will be a disaster, and disease will spread throughout all hospitals,” Abu Aqlein pointed out, urging Abbas to intervene to resolve the crisis.

But Abbas won’t even enter the region, let alone intervene in a local financial crunch, until the issue of ‘who’s governing what’ is resolved.

“We will not retain partnerships with Hamas unless it accepts one arm, one legitimacy and one decision in the Palestinian territories,” Abbas told reporters. As a matter of fact, not even Abbas can safely enter Gaza at this point without bodyguards. Even then, his security is still at risk.

Abbas insists the unity government retain independent control over security and weapons. Hamas has not agreed. Gaza-based Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zukhri, called the demand “unjustified and unreasonable.”

The Hamas spokesperson told journalists that a meeting to discuss these issues has been set between Hamas and Fatah in the next few days, but “Fatah refuses to sit with Hamas in Gaza; it prefers the meeting be held in Egypt.”

The friendly soccer game between Israeli and Palestinian Authority youth and organized last week by the Peres Center for Peace was “a normalization in sports with the Zionist enemy [and] a crime against humanity,” said Jibril Rajoub,, a senior Fatah official and head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association.

Rajoub, besides being secretary of the central committee of Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas’ party, he also is chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) translated and published Rajoub’s remarks that he posted on his Facebook page this week.

“The Palestinian sports leadership and community – the Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs, the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association – have opposed such activities,” he wrote. ”Normalization in sports with the Zionist occupation is a crime,” and he demanded that “all individuals and institutions distance themselves from such activities, especially because their recurrence would arouse disgust and aversion towards all members of the [Palestinian] sports community.”

Rajoub’s comments were published today (Monday) by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida and were opposite in tone from an AFP report that was published by the Palestinian Authority daily and which reported, “After a summer of brutal war, destruction and fatalities, Palestinian and Israeli children met on Monday [last week] to participate in football matches a few kilometers from the devastated Gaza Strip….

“The Israeli children came from communities located near the besieged Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian children came from Yatta,” which for some reason AFP reported in Gaza but actually is immediately south of Hebron.

“Many of the children had already played in previous tournaments organized by the Peres Center for Peace, which is run by former Israeli President Shimon Peres,” the article stated. It added, “Qusai, 11, said, ‘I love it when we play together like this. I hope that one day there will be peace between Arabs and Jews and that there will be no more wars and death.’”

PMW also translated and published a comment in another PA news agency by Palestinian Olympic Committee member Abd Al-Salam Haniyeh, who denounced the soccer game as “a crime and an unpatriotic and immoral act” and demanded that Rajoub “immediately interrogate the organizers of the match, settle the account with them and prosecute them on charges of serious treason against the blood of the Martyrs and in violation of the decisions made by the Palestinian sports community’s leadership.”

Even more revealing of the two-faced character of Abbas’ party is that the leadership of the “peace partner’s” Fatah movement branch in Yatta held “an urgent meeting to discuss the ramifications of the normalization matches” and “strongly condemned” the event, according to the Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency.

Fatah branch secretary Dr. Kamal Makhamreh said that the participation in the match “was an individual act, conceived by sick souls that agreed to be humiliated for a handful of money,” and he “urged the residents to supervise their children and distance them from these kinds of activities, which damage our cause.”

The attorney general on Wednesday reiterated Israel’s ban on flying the flag of terrorist organizations. It is against the law to fly a flag from the Hezbollah, Hamas or Islamic State terrorist organizations. For that matter, it’s also against the law to fly the flag of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as well.

It’s a practice often seen at rallies and demonstrations held at the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City on Fridays and elsewhere when things are heating up and Arab leaders are deliberately agitating to stir up a peaceful crowd into a rioting mob against Israel.

Some slack has been allowed in recent years, however, particularly in cases of flying the flag of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO. The ruling was transmitted in a letter Wednesday by aides in the office of Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to staff members in the Justice Ministry.

In Weinstein’s opinion, “The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was declared a terror organization many years ago and that designation has never been changed. Technically, flying the PLO flag is a crime, as that ws legislated when the PLO was declared a terror group.

“Given the new relationship between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which represents the PLO, the Attorney General has for many years overlooked the criminal aspects of flying the PLO flag, and no one is persecuted for this anymore,” the letter states.

“With that, there is no overall protection for flying the flag of terror groups, which is still a crime.”

The law against flying the flag of terrorist organizations, the letter states, must still be enforced against other terror groups, including the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), Hezbollah and Hamas.

“When such flags and symbols are displayed police must judge whether there is a possibility of public disorder or disturbance, or danger to the public. If there is, police should take steps to remove the flags,” the letter continues.

“In appropriate cases, charges may be made against perpetrators.

“We have recently distributed these instructions to police and security officials and expect them to act in accordance with these principles.”

Hamas would win election in Judea and Samaria and well as Gaza and Ismail Haniyeh would defeat Mahmoud Abbas if elections were held today, according to a new poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Before the war in Gaza, Abbas had a 12 point margin over Haniyeh, 53 percent against 41 percent.

The new survey was carried out on the last day of the war and during the first four days of last week’s cease-fire. If elections were held today, Haniyeh would trounce Abbas by a 2-1 margin, with 61 percent support of the voters as opposed to only 32 percent for Abbas.

The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said that Abbas probably will recoup some of his losses because Hamas’ popularity previously fell after battles after mini-wars with Israel, but a 2-1 gap will be hard to overcome.

More worrisome, the poll revealed that 86 percent of the respondents think that Hamas should resume rocket attacks on Israel if the partial blockade is not completely lifted, and only 15 percent think that Hamas should be dis-armed after all sanctions are lifted.

In addition, 72 percent of Arabs in Judea, Gaza and Samaria support the Hamas strategy of using arms to attack Israelis in Judea and Samaria.

An overwhelming majority of 79 percent believe that Hamas won the war.

Hamas has not enjoyed such high support in Judea and Samaria since 2006, shortly after it ousted Abbas’ Fatah faction from Gaza in a bloody terrorist militia war.

To a certain extent, Abbas’ propaganda machine is directly responsible for Hamas’ overwhelming support. Years of demonizing Israel and Jews in the school system and in Palestinian Authority media has produced the desired effect of widespread hate and distrust of Israel and Jews.

False, malicious and twisted reporting have convinced Arabs in Judea and Samaria that the “occupation” is the cause of all or their problems, and a recent on-the-street survey by a Canadian living in Israel discovered that most Arabs that Israel carried out a “holocaust” in Gaza. Most of those interviewed also are ignorant of the Holocaust or think that the numbers of those butchered by the Nazi was grossly exaggerated, as seen in the video below.

Last month, the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) announced that a Hamas network, directed from Turkey, was planning a coup to overthrow Abbas. Haaretz reported Tuesday that a partial transcript of the investigation revealed that the plan actually was to wait for the Palestinian Authority to collapse and then take over power.

However, Hamas propaganda has consistently tried to undermine the Abbas regime, and every terrorist attack in Judea and Samaria weakens Abbas’ image that he is able to provide security.

Abbas has made a Frankenstein out of the “Peace Process,” demanding everything and accepting no compromise. The longer he cannot come up with the goods, the more his popularity falls. His only hope to force Israel to agree to impossible demands, such as allowing mass immigration of millions of so-called “refugees” and giving up land to connect Gaza with Judea and Samaria, is to go to the United Nations and the International Court. That process, which would provide doubtful result but in any case could take years, and the Arab street has lost its patience.

If U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry still thinks he can fall out of the clouds with his precious peace process, which has proved to be a war process, he will have a hard time pretending that Hamas is not in the picture.

The Palestinian Authority “Pallywood” movie industry has come up with a spectacular comparison of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center with the Israeli Air Force’s bombing of a 12-story building housing a Hamas command center.

The Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) translated with English subtitle and published the 20-second video on Monday with the words “Same Terror” emblazoned on the screen as the building in New York and Gaza, followed by billowing smoke

The production is a brilliant piece of propaganda and is convincing to the Palestinian Authority population that knows only what the PA media feeds it.

The video comparison would make anyone who does not know anything about 9/11 that the two bombings really are the “same terror.”

Thirteen years of media messages, that the 9/11 never happened or that the Jews engineered it, have educated a new generation of Arabs to hate Israel and Jews, unlike the fragile co-existence that nurtured Israeli-Arab relations in Judea, Gaza and Samaria from the Six-Day War until the late 1980s, when, Yasser Arafat popularized terror.

The video, of course, does not mention that the IDF warned civilians in the building in the Gaza to evacuate and that no was killed. Approximately two dozen people were wounded. The film also did not tell viewers that nearly 3,000 people were killed in the Al Qaeda aerial attacks.

This is the atmosphere in which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wants to re-start peace talks, which presumably involve a Palestinian Authority that is composed of Hamas and the rival Fatah faction, headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

An international media outlet has caught Britain’s Consul-General to Jerusalem, Alastair McPhail in a photograph wearing a scarf heavily embroidered with the typical kefiyya symbols and festooned with the ‘Free Palestine’ logo during a receent visit to Gaza.

McPhail was accompanied by a Fatah official wearing a similar scarf, likewise decorated.

The photo, credited to ‘Islamic Relief Palestine,’ was brought to light by columnist Jack Moore, writing for the International Business Times (IBT), who said the pic appeared on the IRP website, “showing a Palestinian flag and the land of Palestine before the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan which created the State of Israel.” Moore added that the image was “particularly controversial today as it appears to advocate the removal of Israel from the region and the creation of a full Palestinian state in its place.”

The photo was snapped during an official visit earlier this year by British diplomats to Gaza when Al Azhar University opened a new laboratory funded in part by the UK government, as seen on the Islamic Relief website.

“Dr Alastair McPhail, British Consul General to Jerusalem has visited Islamic Relief in Gaza and participated in the inauguration of the Health Professions Lab at Al-Azhar University which was co-funded by Islamic Relief and the British Consulate,” a statement reads on the site. Islamic Relief is an international organization that provides monetary support to Islamic communities around the world. “The inauguration of the lab was attended by the British Consul, Islamic Relief Country Director Muneeb Abu Ghazaleh and a number of representatives from the consulate, the university and Islamic Relief. The project involved furnishing and rehabilitating the health professions lab at Al-Azhar College for intermediate studies including the basic needs of furniture and installations.”

For the record, Mr. Moore, the image on the scarf, which is also seen on a poster sometimes proudly brandished in photos by Ramallah-based PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, does not “appear” to advocate anything. It clearly advocates, in bold color and fabric, the absolute annihilation of the Jewish State and always has.

The desire has been stated repeatedly in all Palestinian Arab media. For your convenience those constant bits of incitement and hate — fed regularly even to Palestinian Arab children as young as three years old — are translated into understandable English by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) watchdog and Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) organizations.

They are broadcast on television and disseminated in print media by the Fatah-led “moderate” Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority government that re-united a few months ago with the bloodthirsty Hamas terrorist organization.

Of course, they are also broadcast on television and posted on the Internet in much blunter, more stark, easy-to-understand language by the Gaza-based Hamas government..

But Hamas has always been the more honest and straightforward of the two factions, stating clearly from the outset in its founding charter that its raison d’etre is the destruction and elimination of the State of Israel.

Didn’t you know that?