Ehab Lotayef

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, an estimated 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape, torture, kidnappings and desecration of bodies. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.”

Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ social media for families to see.

As of November 10, 2023, over 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority being civilians, had reportedly been murdered during the attacks three weeks earlier. Details are below. Hamas kidnapped an estimated 230 Israelis, including 30 children. Over 3,000 were wounded, many severely. As of the same date, over 8,000 missiles had been fired from Gaza at Israeli communities, with Hamas claiming 5,000 the day it launched the attack.

Hamas began by launching thousands of rockets at Israel and using motorized paragliders “to infiltrate Israeli territory and secure terrain.” Terrorist ground forces destroyed parts of the border fence with Gaza, murdering and kidnapping soldiers.

The terrorists then turned their attention to 22 communities around Gaza, where they went house to house to savagely murder, mutilate and kidnap anyone they found. They executed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. They also beheaded children and babies, and massacred entire families, burning some alive who hid in their homes. Hamas terrorists kicked around the heads of beheaded victims like soccer balls. Israelis between the ages of three and 85 were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. Hamas has not allowed the Red Cross access to the hostages.

Over 260 unarmed young men and women were surrounded and slaughtered at one music festival alone. Bodies were publicly desecrated, with some dragged through the streets of Gaza, then beheaded. Women were raped next to the bodies of dead friends.

Forensic analysis of dead bodies showed evidence of torture and rape. Hamas terrorists said they were given explicit orders to carry out the atrocities, including chopping off victims’ legs and raping corpses. Hamas intentionally targeted youth centers and elementary schools to execute and kidnap children. They also took stimulant drugs to give added energy to murder and maim. Nazis also took drugs during World War II to fuel their anti-Semitic massacres.  

The atrocities were acknowledged as the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, including by U.S. President Biden, who also compared Hamas to ISIS. Hamas attacked on the annual holiday of Simchat Torah, which that year was on Shabbat, the weekly Jewish Sabbath.

The Hamas atrocities against Israeli civilians are crimes against humanity according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The mass murder generated great sympathy for Israel from many countries but led to countless celebrations among Palestinians and anti-Israel organizations in America that back the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

In addition, Hamas called the the October 7, 2023 terror attacks “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The allegation that Jews “threaten” to destroy the mosque has been a pretext for Arab attacks on Jews long before Israel was founded in 1948. Such propaganda has led to multiple periods of violence against Israeli civilians.

In the same October 8, 2023, Facebook post, Lotayef wrote in a comment that there was a demonstration taking place that day at Dorchester Square in Montreal.

Later that same day, Lotayef posted on Facebook photos from the protest and wrote: “Montreal now. #Gaza.”

On October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas invaded Israel and massacred over 1,200 Jews, PYM and other anti-Israel groups held a protest in Montreal celebrating the attack.
 
PYM’s Facebook post promoting the protest said: “Last night, the resistance in Gaza led a heroic attack against the occupation” and the post called to “celebrate the resistance’s success, to uplift their calls.” The post also said: “Their march toward liberation is as monumental as their rockets - the resistance will…liberate our land from the fangs of the enemy. The resistance has set a new precedent for the Palestinian struggle.”

The post also celebrated Hamas’s capture of Israeli hostages, which included men, women, children, babies as young as nine months old and elderly over 84 years old.

On October 30, 2023, Lotayef posted a live video on Facebook from a protest, which he described as: “In front of the door of [Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly’s] office” [sic]. In the video, protesters chanted: “There is only one solution, intifada revolution!” and “Long live the intifada!”

The term “intifada,” which translates from Arabic as “uprising” or “insurrection,” carries the connotation of violence. Palestinian intifadas waged against Israel have been marked since 1987 by hundreds of hijackings, shootings, stabbings, bombings and suicide missions.

On November 19, 2023, Lotayef was a featured speaker in an event titled: “Paroles de résistance pour une Palestine libre [Words of resistance for a free Palestine].” 

The Facebook event description said it would feature “artists and activists whose communities are united in their struggle for liberation, to lend their voice to the words that fuel resistance,” and encouraged donations which would go to the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) in Montreal.

Lotayef recited [00:00:38], with the audience chanting back: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Lotayef then claimed [00:00:44]: “They’re…shifting the dialogue always about Hamas and about terrorism because someone decided to pass a law that Hamas is a terrorist organization…if Hamas didn’t exist, another Palestinian faction…would have carried arms and would have fought the illegal occupation…it is the right of the occupied people to carry arms and to fight for their liberation.”

On November 23, 2023, Lotayef spoke at another anti-Israel event in Montreal. The evening featured speeches and poetry, with profits going to PYM.

Lotayef said [00:01:15]: “It did not start on October 7th…October 7th was a result…of injustice that had befallen on the Palestinian people…if there was no injustice there would have been no violence.”

Lotayef continued [00:01:52]: “If there was no Hamas, love them or hate them, there would have been another Palestinian faction that would have carried arms…this is just human nature; you oppress people that much and they will fight back, and under international law it is their right to carry arms…” 

Lotayef also led the audience in chanting [00:04:52]: “No justice, no peace!”

Denying Hamas War Crimes

On October 11, 2023, Lotayef wrote in a Facebook post: “Should we believe everything Israel says? Hate or love Hamas, I personally don't believe they beheaded babies. Be responsible. Watch this:” 

Lotayef’s post linked to a tweet that featured a video titled: “3 Lies Currently Being Told about Palestine,” which denied the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023, specifically the beheading of babies, the rapes and the massacre at the music festival.

Denial of the Hamas war crimes of October 7, 2023, among anti-Israel activists has been likened to Holocaust denial among neo-Nazis.

Anti-Semitism

At the November 23, 2023, anti-Israel event in Montreal discussed above, Lotayef described [00:03:52] anti-Israel activism as “a long-term struggle…not like any other struggle.” He claimed the “colonization” of Palestine was “supported by international powers that have strong lobbies in many countries, and we have seen…the shameful positions that have been taken by many Western governments that really defy logic.”

The “Israel Lobby” is a conspiracy theory alleging Israeli and Jewish control over the U.S. government. Proponents of the theory decry the negative effects on American interests, particularly in foreign policy.

On November 19, 2023, Lotayef directed a staged reading of the play, “Seven Jewish Children,” which had been criticized since 2009 as anti-Semitic.

Participating in Flotillas to Gaza

Lotayef participated in several flotillas that attempted to break the naval blockade of Gaza. His website said he participated in the 2011 Freedom Flotilla II, the 2015 Freedom Flotilla III and the 2016 Women's Boat to Gaza. 

The United Nations approved [pp. 39–41] the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2011 as a security measure to stop Hamas from acquiring sophisticated rockets. Multiple flotillas have attempted to breach the blockade, with at least one flotilla initiating a violent confrontation with Israeli forces. 

In August 2010, Lotayef was reportedly questioned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for his involvement in organizing a flotilla to Gaza, as a member of the CBG. 

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/lotayef

Twitter:https://twitter.com/lotayef58 

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/ehablotayef/ 

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ehab-lotayef-876161b/

Personal Website:https://lotayef.webnode.page/

University Website:https://www.mcgill.ca/ece/ehab-lotayef