The New York Times promotes a terrorist family, implies Israel lies about October 7, and more ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Sunday, September 07, 2025

The New York Times promotes a terrorist family, implies Israel lies about October 7, and more

Today, the New York Times is featuring the Abu Samra family from Deir al Balah in Gaza as tragic victims of Israeli aggression, tearfully afraid that they are living through another "nakba" and being forced to leave their homes.

It doesn't mention that this family has been associated with terrorism for decades.

The article, written by rabidly anti-Israel reporter Raja Abdulrahim, starts off with her typical bias where any facts that might make a reader sympathize with Israel is treated as suspect.

Here is its framing of the events of October 7:

Hamas waged its surprise attack on Israel, storming across the border on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people — most of them civilians, according to the Israeli government — and seizing about 250 others as hostages. Israel then launched its war in Gaza, killing tens of thousands and leaving generations of Palestinians to experience displacement and hunger, and the fear that they would never see their homes again.

The majority of victims of October 7 were civilians - but only if you believe the Israeli government. The New York Times isn't quite sure, you see.

But it is certain who launched the war: Israel. Before that was merely a "surprise attack," completely independent of anything else. There is no "according to Hamas' health ministry" for the "killing tens of thousands" to parallel the caveat for Israeli victims.

The centerpiece of the article, however, is the Abu Samra family of Deir al Balah. Abdulrahim describes how they were fearful when the war began, and many fled to Egypt, paying huge amounts of money to escape. Yet their patriarch, 87-year old Abdallah Abu Samra, was not able to leave, because of some capricious Israeli decision: according to the family, Israel placed a "security block" on him. So he is left in Gaza, homeless with only a few family members, just like he was in 1948.

Awful, isn't it?

Here's a photo of the Abu Samra family home in Deir al Balah from before the war.

This is a five -story mansion.

Such houses are often seen in the West Bank, but in Gaza, where land is at a premium, almost no one lives in such a house.

Unless they have connections.

What Raja Abdulrahim doesn't mention is that the Abu Samra clan of Deir al Balah has been associated with Hamas and other terror groups for years, which would explain how they could live in such an opulent home.

Meet Qassam Brigades commander Mahmoud Ahmed Abu Samra from Deir al Balah:

Palestine Remembered describes his family as a "good, generous and blessed family that loved resistance." Mahmoud himself participated in a suicide car bomb attack on the humanitarian aid site at Kerem Shalom in April 2008, which injured 13 IDF soldiers.

In 2015, on the eighth anniversary of the attack, Hamas organized a march from a mosque to the Abu Samra home to pay tribute to their "martyr." Here are masked members of the Qassam Brigades together with the Abu Samra children in what is almost certainly the same palatial house that the New York Times showed:

Also from Deir al Balah is Awda Mahmoud Abu Samra, a leader of the Nasser Salah Din Brigades:

He was responsible for a number of rocket attacks on Sderot as well as other attacks, listed here. He was "martyred" in 2005, and his obituary notes that his father was also a terrorist who spent time in Israeli prisons.

But Abu Samra's family association with Hamas didn't end years ago. Asharq al Awsat notes an incident this year where a Hamas policeman shot and killed a child of the Abu Samra family, and they publicly executed the policeman. The article mentions that Israel "killed at least 20 members of the Abu Samra clan during the current war, including activists affiliated with Hamas."

This terrorist family is who the New York Times is framing as tragic victims of another Nakba.

There is no way that Raja Abdulrahim is not aware of the history of the Abu Samra clan. But she sure doesn't want the readers of the New York Times to know any of this.