Debunking Israel's New Campaign Linking Hamas To ISIS To Justifying Annexation

Written by Robert Inlakesh

As Israel again ramped up its bombing campaign across the Gaza Strip, while threatening a seizure of the northern portion of the besieged territory as part of its "military buffer zone", a series of dubious claims began emerging in the corporate and social media, attempting to tie Hamas to Daesh (ISIS).

In September the Israeli government began implementing what it calls the "next phase" of its war in Gaza, which will entail the seizure of northern Gaza after the remaining refugees living there are forced to flee. The plan is to annex the north of Gaza, while also maintaining a troop presence in what is known as the Netzarim Corridor -- in the middle of besieged territory -- and Philadelphia Corridor; between Egypt and Gaza.

So far, Israel's so-called buffer-zone in Gaza has amounted to the seizure of 16% of the entire territory, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. If Israel succeeds in seizing northern Gaza, in addition to maintaining a prolonged military presence in central Gaza and along the Rafah border, this would in effect make half of the territory inaccessible to its native inhabitants. All of this is being done in the name of "defeating Hamas".

A Yazidi Slave Held by "Hamas-ISIS" Member 

Perhaps the most well covered claim, which has been weaponized against Hamas and by extension the people of Gaza, involved the alleged Israeli "rescue" of a young woman of Yazidi descent; who is said to have been captured and enslaved by the Daesh (ISIS) terrorist movement in Iraq and transferred to Gaza. This conspicuous story was widely reported across the Western corporate media, despite being full of holes, to say the least.

The story's origins in the media began with Rudaw Media, which is a major news outlet in Iraqi Kurdistan. The evidence for this comes from the Iraqi Prime Minister's advisor on Yazidi affairs, named Khalaf Shingali, who said "we first got information through Rudaw about the kidnapped Yazidi girl in the Gaza Strip when she appeared on Rudaw and talked about her being Yazidi and being in Gaza".

However, on September 3, a story was published in the Jerusalem Post that changed the nature of the issue entirely and began injecting unsubstantiated Israeli propaganda. To begin with, the first paragraph of the article has nothing to do with the young Yazidi woman and explains that Hamas is still holding Israeli captives, hinting at it taking foreign nationals like the story they are about to elaborate on. Here is the first paragraph in its entirety:

"Over 100 hostages remain in the hands of Hamas’s extremist militias, yet it turns out that Hamas militants were also keen on kidnapping other nationals when the opportunity arose."

The article, which admits the origin of the story came from Rudaw, states that a 20-year-old Yazidi girl from Sinjar, Iraq, was taken captive by Daesh in August of 2014. They name her as M. and claim that she was transferred to Raqqa city in Syria and forced to marry a man from Gaza "who was apparently affiliated with Hamas". The story then, without offering any proof for what they are alleging, state that her Gazan husband was killed and that she was then lured into Gaza, after fleeing to Turkey and then Egypt. The story claims she arrived in Gaza "around 2020" and has two children from her deceased husband.

The "Jewish Schindler" And Israel's Image

The Jerusalem Post also claims that a Jewish-Canadian businessman, named Steve Maman, was involved in a tireless negotiation process to free the woman from captivity in Gaza. Maman is then quoted as saying the effort to free the Yazidi woman is "also an opportunity for Israel to demonstrate its commitment to justice, compassion, and the protection of innocent lives. Furthermore, this action would be of great political benefit to the State of Israel in terms of public relations, especially in today’s climate of anti-Israel sentiment.”

But who is Steve Maman? In 2015 he founded an organization called 'The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq' (CYCI), which claimed on its website (that has since been taken down) to have helped free around 140 Yazidi women and children from their captors, aiding tens of thousands of others who were victims of ISIS. Maman was featured across Western media, where he was hailed as the "Jewish Schindler".

Yet, when Steve Maman set up a GoFundMe page for his organization, that quickly raised $580,000 between July and August of 2015, VICE News released an investigative article in which they published an exclusive letter signed by 20 leaders of the Yazidi community in the US and Iraq, calling on Maman to cease receiving donations until he proves the work his group claimed to be doing. The letter was entitled "Yazidis Call Upon Mr. Steve Maman to Validate his Claims of Rescue with Evidence" and stated at the time that “several weeks ago, when his website claimed to have raised $80,000, the number of rescued ‘women and children’ listed on the website was 102. The high number of rescues for such a low monetary figure seemed a dubious claim”. It also added: “CYCI/Liberation Iraq project has brought a high level of visibility to a delicate and sensitive rescue effort that should have been kept low-profile. We are concerned that this may be reckless,” going on to request "evidence regarding their alleged rescue activities, including the contact information of the families/individuals he claims to have rescued, to the appropriate authorities: members of the Yazidi Supreme Religious Council and the key Yazidi representatives in the Kurdish or Iraqi Parliaments.”

While Maman responded by denying accusations that suggested he was trying to make money off of his organization's work, but did not provide evidence at the time and chose to accuse Iraqi Kurdistan of being rife with corruption instead, according to VICE News. Yet the case did not end there. The GoFundMe he set up suddenly disappeared following a complaint to the fundraising platform, by the FINJ Foundation women's rights group, which had said it perceived Maman's operations as funding Daesh and fueling the sex trade.

The VICE News piece also quotes Khidher Domle, a Yazidi human rights activist who maintained a database of Yazidis who were kidnapped by Daesh. He said that “we have a list for everyone. Who’s been liberated, what time, date, from where, the last area where they were, who the first person was to make contact with them, how they got out, how much was paid. We have all those documents,” stating that he scoured thousands of names on the list to find some indication of Steve Maman's involvement, but was unable to.

Although it has not been definitely demonstrated that Maman's CYCI was lying or had been responsible for any of the accusations leveled against it, the VICE News article certainly provides reason to believe that the organization was suspect.

Returning to the Jerusalem Post piece, it then goes on to quote the woman, who they name "M." and say that she spoke to them in "broken Arabic". They then quote her as testifying to being tortured by Hamas. It is important to note that not a single reputable mainstream media outlet in the West decided to quote this interview as legitimate. Another major problem with the alleged interview is the claim that she speaks only "broken Arabic", which makes no sense given the claim that she was kidnapped at age 11 and had lived with Arab family members in Syria and then Gaza for around a decade. While many Yazidi people do not have a great grasp of Arabic, a large portion of them do, and even if the girl didn't, it seems highly implausible that she wouldn't have learned how to speak Arabic in over a decade of living with Arabs who do not speak the Kurdish dialect that most Yazidis speak as a first language.

The Yazidi Woman Is Returned To Her Family

Furthermore, when the story finally broke that the woman had been freed, it was reported by Reuters that the woman was a 21-year-old named Fawzia Sido and that a US-led operation, in coordination with Iraq, was what led to her being returned to her family. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry released a statement on the issue, in which they say there was collaboration with the US and Jordanian authorities.

However, separately, the Israel government claims that they had carried out a complex rescue operation to save the young woman. Israeli media also reported the same, but did not reproduce the claims from the Jerusalem Post article back in September. The Israeli military claims that the “terrorist who had been holding her” was recently killed in what The Times of Israel said was presumably an airstrike, stating that she was then able to escape to a hiding place.

The Jerusalem Post published an article on the issue, in which they then claim that the woman was "forced to marry a Palestinian ISIS fighter, and then lured into Gaza, where she was subject to torture from her husband’s family, stranded and far from her family for years." What is interesting is that in the previous article, from September, the Jerusalem Post quoted the woman as saying she was tortured by Hamas and not the family of her husband. Then, they quote Steve Maman again, who says "she was 11 years old when they took her, and no child chooses at that age to become a hostage at the hands of ISIS-Hamas."

Take note of the usage of the term "ISIS-Hamas", which is a popular Israeli propaganda smear against the Hamas movement which attempts to tie them to ISIS. It was also repeated by Israeli Foreign Ministry official, David Saranga, who published a video on X, allegedly of the girl upon being reunited with her family in Iraq. He wrote that "Fawzia, a Yazidi girl kidnapped by ISIS from Iraq and brought to Gaza at just 11 years old, has finally been rescued by the Israeli security forces. For years, she was held captive by a Palestinian Hamas-ISIS member."

As established through every account of the story, Saranga's statement is completely incorrect as Fawzia Sido is said to have been captured in 2014 at age 11, but did not arrive to Gaza until much later. She was not transferred to Gaza at 11 years of age. Also, like Steve Maman, he uses "Hamas-ISIS".

Debunking The Propaganda

To begin with, Hamas and ISIS are not the same or even similar. Even the Associated Press, Politico and the Washington Post have written articles pushing back against Israel's propaganda campaign that sought to compare the two groups. In fact, ISIS even declared war on Hamas, fired rockets at Gaza from the Sinai, and carried out suicide attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. This led to a huge Hamas crackdown on not only ISIS, but also a range of Salafist groups who began emerging in Gaza. Hamas crushed these Daesh militants and completely cleansed them from Gaza.

That being said, the Jerusalem Post account of events is filled with so many holes, riddled with pro-Israeli bias, and Steve Maman is far from a neutral source, as he openly claims to use the release as a way to bolster Israel's image. While Israel claims they conducted a rescue mission, there is no evidence that Fawzia Sido was being held captive by Palestinian fighters, and the Israeli army claim does not state explicitly that there was any armed force that penetrated an area in Gaza to save her.  Instead, they admit that she was transferred to Jordan after being evacuated through Gaza's Kerem Shalom civilian crossing.

Making things worse, the New York Post then ran the following headline: "Yazidi girl Fawzia Amin Sido, taken as ISIS slave at age 11 — and then held by Hamas for 10 years — is rescued by Israeli troops in Gaza". What their article does is escalate the claims made further, with even less evidence, now claiming falsely that Fawzia Sido was held by Hamas for 10 years in Gaza. This allegation appears to be based upon the tweet of Israeli Foreign Ministry official, David Saranga, who falsely made the claim that the girl was held by "Hamas-ISIS" for ten years, a claim which does not match any of the previous reporting on the issue. All the New York Post did, is remove the word Hamas from "Hamas-ISIS" and is a kind of transmission chaining, except fully intentional.

The Last American Vagabond reached out to a Hamas political leader, who chose to remain anonymous, who stated that his movement had nothing to do with any kidnapping, did not interfere in the Gazan family's matters, and that Israel did not launch a rescue operation. He referred TLAV to an official Hamas statement, part of which was published by Reuters. Here is the statement in full:

"Spokespersons of the Israeli occupation army promoted a false narrative and fabricated story about the Yazidi woman who was present in the Gaza Strip. They recounted fake events with no basis in truth, attempting to whitewash their image tarnished by bloodshed and killings, and to mislead public opinion. Regarding this matter, the Government Media Office gathered extensive information about the Yazidi woman, obtained her personal ID card, her photo, and her temporary identification number.

We would like to clarify the following:

-The Yazidi woman married a Palestinian man from Khan Younis (southern Gaza Strip) while he was fighting with the opposition forces in Syria. She lived with him and his mother there. However, after the man was killed, the woman voluntarily traveled with his mother to Turkey through official channels. She then moved freely to Egypt, also in a completely legal manner. Afterward, she entered Gaza and settled with the mother of her deceased husband.

-Several years later, the Yazidi woman married her deceased husband's brother and lived with him for years before he was also martyred by Israeli occupation forces during the current genocide they are waging in Gaza.

-After her husband’s martyrdom, the woman approached the Palestinian government and requested to be placed in a safe location. The government responded to her request and provided her with a private room in one of the government facilities in southern Gaza. They also provided her with all the necessities of living, including food, drink, bedding, and clothing, under the supervision of a specialized government team as part of their protection efforts, similar to the protection provided to many foreigners who faced harsh conditions during the ongoing genocide.

-The esteemed woman is over 25 years old, contrary to the claims and lies of the occupation. She requested to contact her family as she began feeling unsafe in Gaza due to the intense bombing and brutal targeting by the Israeli occupation. She requested evacuation, especially after her husband’s martyrdom.

-Indeed, after she contacted her family, they in turn contacted the Jordanian government, which coordinated with the occupation to facilitate her exit through the Kerem Shalom crossing. The Yazidi woman then left the government facility for the crossing herself, with the knowledge of her late husband’s family and the Palestinian government. The occupation did not "rescue" her as they falsely claimed in their misleading statement.

-The narrative the occupation tried to promote is baseless. The woman traveled to Gaza through several official airports and international crossings. How could she pass through all these security checkpoints without being noticed, only for the occupation to claim she was kidnapped?

-We stress that the same occupation, which lies to the public, is the one that killed her husband and turned her life into a real tragedy, leaving her a widow. He was murdered in a heinous, inhumane crime as part of the occupation's ongoing series of atrocities affecting every home in Gaza, including the homes of dozens of foreign nationals who were living among the Palestinian people, only to be killed brutally by the occupation.

-We call on various media outlets and public opinion not to engage with the false narrative of the occupation, which constantly seeks to alter the course of many stories to serve its interests and improve its bloodstained, tarnished image.

-We condemn the crime of the occupation in killing the Yazidi woman’s husband, and we urge the entire world to denounce this horrific crime, as well as the ongoing killings of both foreigners and non-foreigners in Gaza.

-We hold the Israeli occupation and the U.S. administration fully responsible for the atrocities being committed by the occupation forces in Gaza, including the devastation of the lives of both locals and foreigners.

-We call on the international community and all global organizations to curb the Israeli occupation and pressure it to halt its genocide and stop the crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza."

Now, evidently, the Hamas statement does not immediately work to debunk every other claim made, yet it does provide some level of clarity as it is clear, if the statement is taken at face value, that the movement does not stand by kidnapping and trafficking. Analyzing the situation, from what information is now publicly available, I would conclude the following:

The Yazidi woman was unjustly separated from her family and it appears as if the culprits were ISIS, according to all available information. From what we know about the "Syrian opposition", a myriad of groups worked together to fight against the Syrian government and their ranks were filled with foreigners -- this included everyone from Brits, Americans, and Canadians, to Turks, Palestinians, Egyptians, and Chinese citizens. In this case, it appears that one of those fighters was a Palestinian man from Gaza, who was later killed in combat and had in someway either purchased or been paired with the young Yazidi woman while fighting in Syria. Hamas has a policy of not interfering in people's personal affairs, without any indication of a crime having been committed, it is therefore doubtful that they would have been aware that the Yazidi woman was the victim of terrorist groups.

While it is not possible to know the full story without hearing from Fawzia Sido directly, there is no evidence that either of her husbands were Hamas members and there is also no evidence of any kind of a dramatic rescue mission on the part of the Israeli military. While there are certainly criminals from every country and territory, this story does not appear to be some kind of coordinated "Hamas-ISIS" kidnapping conspiracy, like the fabricated story now being reported across the corporate media. It may well be that the Yazidi girl was the victim of a Palestinian who travelled to Syria and fought as a militant.

One thing is for sure, the idea that Hamas kidnapped a Yazidi slave and that Israel then heroically worked to save her after 10 years of captivity in Gaza, is meritless. There are no other cases that demonstrate any pattern of such behavior, and Hamas actively worked to crush ISIS in Gaza. The dishonest nature of this story is obvious on its face, but the overwhelming amount of fabricated narratives, falsified evidence, and outright lies the world has seen from the Israeli government, in conjunction with the evidence presented herein, is demonstrating a pattern that objective TLAV readers are becoming all too familiar with.