'Just Blind Hate': The Persecution of Christians, September 2023

by Raymond Ibrahim • October 29, 2023 at 5:00 am

[O]ne young seminarian, Brother Na'aman, 25, who was on the verge of completing his priesthood training, was burned alive. Police were contacted even before the attack, but came only after the terrorists had fled. — Morning Star News, September 8, 2023, Nigeria.
"They then proceeded to separate Christians from Muslims, apparently based on their names and ethnicity. They opened fire on the Christians, riddling them with bullets." — acninternational.org, September 21, 2023, Mozambique.
"Today, I have nothing. I saw my house and my place of worship burn in front of my eyes. I was helpless. I saw my [Muslim] neighbours betray us. We have never done them any harm; we always respected them. Then why?" — Open Doors UK, September 6, 2023, Pakistan.

On September 15, terrorists with ties to the Islamic State (ISIS) invaded a village in Mozambique where they slaughtered at least 11 Christians "in cold blood." The attack occurred in a village in the province of Cabo Delgado, which has been under assault by ISIS for years. Pictured: Burned and damaged huts in the village of Aldeia da Paz outside Macomia, Cabo Delgado on August 24, 2019. On August 1, 2019, the village was attacked by an Islamist group. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)

The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of September 2023.

The Muslim Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: As the genocide there of Christians continues, a Sept. 1 report found that "Of the 5,500 Christians who were killed last year because of their faith, 90 percent"—or about 4,950—"were Nigerian."

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Hamas and the Ruse That May Be Its Last

by Amir Taheri • October 29, 2023 at 3:00 am

Hamas worked out a scheme to make Israelis focus on the West Bank and Lebanon as the two most immediate sources of threat while portraying Gaza as relatively calm.
Iran may have helped sell that narrative in a number of ways.

Israeli leaders were deceived into thinking that Gaza was calm and that future threats would come from the West Bank and Lebanon. Pictured: A screenshot from Hamas bodycam footage showing two Palestinian terrorists from Gaza about to attack a home in southern Israel, on October 7, 2023. (Image source: Hamas)

It is, perhaps, too early to have a full picture of what led to the recent Hamas attack on Israeli villages close to Gaza.

One thing, however, is certain: the attack came when and where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet least expected.

But why? One answer adopted by Netanyahu's team is "a failure of intelligence services".

However, that answer, even if it contains a grain of truth, could not divert attention from a bigger failure: the Israeli leaders' inability to correctly analyze the intelligence at their disposal and, and having bought into what looks like a ruse by Hamas, to imagine a worst-case scenario.

It now seems probable that Hamas carefully prepared a scheme to lull the Israelis into slumber as far as a threat from Gaza was concerned.

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