Rivkah Brown apologises and deletes tweet celebrating Hamas attack

Left wing journalist Rivkah Brown apologises and deletes tweet celebrating Hamas attack on Israel saying she wants to ‘move forward differently’

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A left-wing journalist today apologised and deleted a tweet celebrating Hamas attacks on Israel, saying she wants to ‘move forward differently’. 

Rivkah Brown, commissioning editor at Novara Media, took to Twitter on Saturday to call news of the terrorist incursions ‘a day of celebration’. 

She wrote: ‘Today should be a day of celebration for supporters of democracy and human rights worldwide, as Gazans break out of their open-air prison and Hamas fighters cross into their colonisers’ territory. The struggle for freedom is rarely bloodless and we shouldn’t apologise for it.’

That day, 260 revellers were massacred at a music festival and as many as 150 people kidnapped, including children, mothers and old women. 

Hamas terrorists committed atrocious acts as they raided local settlements, including killing more than 100 people in the Be’eri kibbutz, many slaughtered in their beds, and reportedly beheading babies.

Rivkah Brown, commissioning editor at Novara Media, wrote on X to call the first day of the bloody rampage ‘a day of celebration’ – but has now apologised

A man flees as fires burn in Ashkelon, Israel, following rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip initiated by Islamic militant group Hamas

Shocking footage shared on social media appears to show Palestinian fighters parading a German citizen, who is unconscious and stripped naked, through Gaza on the back of a pick-up truck

Footage also emerged of Israelis – some dead, others alive – being paraded around streets in the Gaza Strip.

Today, Ms Brown apologised for the message and said it had been sent ‘in a moment of heightened emotion’. 

She wrote: ‘I’ve deleted this tweet. I responded too quickly and in a moment of heightened emotion. Witnessing Palestinians defy decades of oppression hardened me to the suffering of Israeli civilians, including my friends and family, and I regret that. I’m sorry.

‘Seeing fences torn down and military bases targeted, my instinct was to show unreserved solidarity with a Palestinian resistance I knew would be demonised. Speaking to Israeli friends hiding in bunkers has reminded me it’s possible to care deeply about two things at once.

‘Being a passionate advocate of Palestinian self-determination should not preclude empathy – in fact, I think it demands it. My tweet did not express that. I want to move forward differently.’

A series of other tweets in support of Palestinians remain published on her social media.

One argues that ‘Palestinian retaliation is wholly inevitable and entirely justifiable’ until Israel ‘withdraws from the West Bank and ends the siege on Gaza’.

The number of people killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israel has risen above 1,200, the vast majority of whom are civilians, officials said.

Hamas terrorists gunned down entire families in their homes in a small kibbutz in Israel, Israeli soldiers have claimed

Palestinian emergency personnel transport a child reportedly injured in clashes with Israeli settlers in Qusra village, into Rafidia hospital in the West Bank

Survivors dig through the remains of market stalls and apartment blocks after Israeli airstrikes in Khan Yunis on Tuesday

Missile strikes have killed hundreds of people in both Israel and Gaza since the outbreak of conflict

A baby’s seat and child’s dress is seen covered in blood in the aftermath of a Hamas attack 

That includes 260 revellers gunned down at a music festival, and whole families – including children and babies – who were massacred in a kibbutz. 

Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed 900 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Airstrikes demolished entire neighbourhoods on Wednesday, and hospitals in the Gaza Strip are struggling to treat the injured with dwindling medical supplies.

Israel’s siege and bombardment has not deterred Hamas, however, who today continued to return fire with artillery, hitting a child development hospital in the Israeli city of Ashkelon.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s two million residents lost electricity as the enclave’s sole power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, energy officials said, deepening the crisis inside the 140-square-mile territory that is currently besieged by Israeli forces.

‘The only power plant in the Gaza Strip stopped functioning at 2pm,’ the authority’s head said in a statement, having earlier warned that it was running short of fuel.

Humanitarian groups have pleaded for the creation of corridors for the delivery of aid ahead of the likely Israeli assault. 

An Israel Defence Forces source provided a photograph of a child’s blood-soaked bed in Kibbutz Kerem Shalom following a Hamas-led attack on the home. Israeli PM Netanyahu said the images proved Hamas is ‘worse than ISIS’ 

Survivors stand amid the debris and destruction near the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City 

Smoke billows from burned-out buildings after Israeli air strikes hit Gaza City today 

Israel is now said to be on the cusp of a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, with Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman Jonathan Conricus saying the nation is sending ‘infantry, armoured soldiers, artillery corps’, plus 300,000 reservists ‘close to the Gaza Strip to execute the mission that we have been given by the Israeli government’.

Conricus added: ‘That is to make sure that Hamas at the end of this war won’t have any military capabilities by which they can threaten or kill Israeli civilians.’ 

As fears mounted inside the enclave of an imminent assault, an Israeli defence official vowed that Gaza will become a ‘tent city’ with every building razed.

The Israeli government had previously told civilians in Gaza to leave, but the one open border crossing with Egypt has since been closed. 

The war has claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides, and is only expected to escalate further from this point. Humanitarian groups have pleaded for the creation of corridors for the delivery of aid ahead of the likely Israeli assault. 

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