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Mahmoud Mahdi Afana is dead. May he not rest in peace.

Afana was not just another Hamas foot soldier. He was the poster child for what Israel is up against.

This was the man who murdered a Jewish woman and then thought it would be fun to ring his parents using her phone.

Nothing says “loving son” quite like boasting to mum and dad that you’ve killed ten Jews with your bare hands.

He even sent them WhatsApp photos of the corpses, like holiday snaps.

And what did the proud parents say? Did they gasp in horror? Did they beg their boy to stop? Of course not. They shouted Allahu Akbar! like he’d just been offered a scholarship to Harvard …

They didn’t say, “Mahmoud, you’ve gone too far.” No, they shouted Allahu Akbar! You’d think he just graduated from medical school.

This is what passes for parental pride in Gaza.

Normal kids send home selfies in their graduation gowns. Afana sent his parents WhatsApp photos of the corpses he left behind.

“Mum, look at the blood on my hands. Aren’t you proud?”

And she was.

In the almost two years since that horrific attack on Israel, many have forgotten the evil deeds of that day.

The initial outrage has given way to weariness of war and a desire for peace… by any means.

Moral clarity has been usurped by pragmatism and convenience.

As I quote the text of Mahmoud Afana’s phone call to his mum and dad, ask yourself … would you ever have imagined that our government would respond to this by deciding to recognise Palestine?

Dad, I’m speaking to you from Mefalsim.

Look at my Whatsapp and see how many casualiteis I killed with my bare hands.

Look how I killed them with my bare hands. Your son killed Jews!

It’s in Mefalsim dad.

I’m calling you from the mobile phone of a Jewish woman. I killed her and her husband.

I killed 10 with my bare hands!

Dad, look at the WhatsApp and seem how many I killed.

Their blood is on my hands. Let me speak to Mum.

Mum, I killed more than 10 Jews with my bare hands.

Mum, your son is hero. Kill, kill, kill.

No Negotiating

Well, it took 700 days, but at the weekend, Afana’s bloodlust came to an abrupt end.

The IDF eliminated him.

One less monster breathing the same air as the rest of us.

And here lies the reason Israel cannot, must not, even think about a ceasefire.

Because Afana is not an outlier. He was not a rogue extremist. He was the fruit of a culture that teaches children that stabbing a Jew is worth more than studying for a degree.

You don’t negotiate with that.

You don’t sign a ceasefire with that.

You eradicate that.

The world, of course, will wring its hands and beg Israel to stop.

“Both sides need to show restraint,” they’ll say, as though slaughtering families and then bragging about it to your parents is just another perspective in the great cultural mosaic.

Spare me.

Israel owes it to the victims of October 7 to finish what it started.

But more, they owe it to the hostages still waiting to come home.

And frankly, they owe it to the world.

Because every Mahmoud Afana eliminated is one less lunatic exporting his hatred and violence beyond Gaza.

Ceasefire? A negotiated settlement with Hamas? Recognising Palestine as a way of calming their grievances, as Labor MP Ed Husic advocates?

Sorry. Evil doesn’t get to tap out.

Monsters need to be buried.

And until every last Mahmoud Afana is gone, Israel has no choice but to keep going.

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Republished with thanks to The James Macpherson Report. Originally titled ‘Hell Welcomes One More Devil’.
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