With its massacre, Hamas managed to unite Israel against it, Egyptian Christian tells JPost

The brutal Hamas attack on October 7 managed to do what Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not, according to Egyptian Christian human rights activist Majed El Shafie.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post last week, El Shafie said even though he doesn't think the growing rift in Israeli society was directly to blame for the successful attack by Hamas terrorists on that "Black Shabbat" morning, the perception of Israel's weakness was a contributing factor.

El Shafie is the president and founder of One Free World International (OFWI), an international human rights organization advocating for religious freedom.

He arrived in Israel, for the second time since the war began, to present the findings of an OFWI report regarding the Hamas invasion and attack entitled: “Anatomy of an Attack: The Truth Behind October 7th” to Israel's foreign ministry.

Growing up as a Muslim in Cairo, El Shafie said he was tortured by the authorities after converting to Christianity before he fled to Canada via Israel.

He stressed that the OFWI report has value coming from his unique angle, saying: "It is not written by an Israeli or Palestinian, or by a Muslim or a Jew, but by a Christian with an Egyptian background."

The murderous assault showed the world “ugly face of extremism” and displayed “the rise of antisemitism in Western countries,” El Shafie noted in his interview with The Jerusalem Post..

“And, I would like to thank them for uniting the Jewish people and activating them.”

The attack by Hamas, he continued, “was able to remind [the Jews] of their Jewish soul. So, that’s my message to the families that lost their children: You are not alone. The story here is not what happened on October 7. The story here is what has happened after October 7.”

The report features several points of interest, for example, the close connection between Hamas and ISIS.

“When we started the investigation, we found more than 11 groups that joined together in the October 7 attack… [however] the thing that surprised us was the direct link between Hamas and ISIS.”

Groups that swore allegiance to ISIS operated in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, which borders the Gaza Strip, for years and those groups increased their activity after then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood Party was removed from office in 2013, according to El Shafie.

When current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi assumed office in 2015, he launched a nationwide crackdown against the ISIS-affiliated groups, a move that sent many of its Palestinian members fleeing back into Gaza.

El Shafie stressed that those same Palestinians took part in the attack in Israel on Oct. 7, as indicated by the authentic ISIS flags found throughout the southern border communities in Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas attack.

The OFWI report also touches on the involvement of Gazan civilians in the massacre as accomplices, including the kidnapping of hostages into Gaza and the widespread looting, in addition to the culpability of the Islamist Iranian regime.