Khaled Bahajri of Islamic Center In California: Hamas Treats Hostages With Kindness

An Islamic scholar, Dr. Khaled Bahajri, of the Islamic Center of Inland Empire – Rancho Masjid in California in a recent Friday sermon sang the praises of Hamas’ glorious deeds on October 7. More on his praise of Hamas, both for how the terror group went about preparing mentally for its daring raid into Israel, and for the kindness with which it has been treating the hostages, can be found here.

California Islamic scholar Dr. Khaled Bahajri of the Islamic Center of Inland Empire – Rancho Masjid said in a Friday sermon streamed live on the mosque’s YouTube channel that the people of Gaza prepared for October 7 by building their faith, in addition to logistical and technical preparations. He added: “We feed from the faith of the people of Gaza.” Bahajri added that Muslims should learn how to call their friends, neighbors, and colleagues to Islam from the way Hamas treated its prisoners in Gaza.

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Dr. Khaled Bahajri: “One of the things we learned from the people of Gaza, during these years they prepared themselves [for October 7]. They prepared themselves primarily… They took all means to prepare themselves logistically and technically – put that aside – but they have prepared themselves with faith….

“What we are witnessing from the acts of the people of Gaza is that withstanding all of this is a victory in itself….

Bahajri appears to think that because Hamas has not yet totally collapsed, this constitutes a victory. But it is, after little more than three months of war, losing spectacularly in every way. The IDF has now killed more than 8,000 Hamas operatives, or about one-third of the total Hamas had in Gaza on October 7. The IDF has also destroyed hundreds of rocket launchers, seized enormous quantities of weapons that Hamas had hidden in civilian buildings and in the tunnel network, located more than 800 terror tunnels and already destroyed at least 500 of them, and killed more than half of Hamas’ battalion commanders. Now hundreds of demoralized and frightened Hamas members have turned themselves in to the IDF. Can Dr. Khaled Bahajri really believe that Hamas has been victorious by “still standing” when it is, in fact, on its knees before the ferocious IDF onslaught?

“Even a puppy was cared for among the prisoners.. A puppy was cared for, glory to Allah. Look at the manners of Muslims. You talk about da’wah, that is da’wah on the ground, my dear brothers and sisters. That is how you call for Islam. When prisoners of war leave when they are hugging those that imprisoned them, that is da’wah, that is sending the real message of Islam. Gaza taught us how to do da’wah, we can reinvent how we do our da’wah, and be kind to our neighbors, friends, colleagues, and everything.

The “real message of Islam” is expressed, according to Khaled Bahajri, in the kindness with which Hamas treats the hostages. Just think: a little puppy, belonging to one of the hostages, was cared for by Hamas. And didn’t we see how the freed hostages hugged and kissed their captors? But as the freed prisoners later testified, they were threatened by those captors to demonstrate gratitude and affection, or else things might go hard with those who were still being held as hostages. That explains those hugs to captors as they were being freed.

We now know details, from the hostages that have been released, of how those prisoners were treated. A 12-year-old boy, Eitan Yahalomi, was beaten when he arrived in Gaza, and then was put into solitary confinement for sixteen days. Along with other child hostages, Eitan was forced to watch videos of Hamas running amok in the kibbutzim, raping and murdering. He and the other children watching the videos were told that if they cried, their guards threatened to shoot them. Food was scarce; freed hostages reported receiving nothing but a single slice of bread each day. Prisoners who complained about their treatment were beaten. Those with serious medical conditions that required medicines were deprived of them, resulting in several deaths among the hostages. So far at least nine bodies of hostages, who died while in captivity, some of them clearly murdered, have been recovered by the IDF. Many of the Israeli hostages, according to interviews with family members, returned “malnourished, infested with lice, ill, injured, and deeply traumatized,” the Times of Israel reported. Children were told that their whole family had been killed, and that they did not have a home to go back to, part of an effort to keep the children in a state of terror. Finally, the Red Cross has been denied access to the Israeli hostages, in violation of international humanitarian law.

But Khaled Bahaji thinks that the “kind treatment” of hostages by Hamas will help convince others to turn to Islam. In his sermon, he explained that Muslims should learn how to call their friends, neighbors, and colleagues to Islam from the way Hamas treated its prisoners in Gaza. Let’s leave aside the atrocities themselves — the beheading of babies, the burning alive of children, the slicing of breasts from women, the cutting out of eyes and cutting off of genitalia from men, the murder of children in front of their parents and of parents in front of their children. No doubt Khaled Bahaji would deny any of that ever happened. Let’s stick to the treatment of the hostages. A few of them did as their captors insisted they do for the cameras, hugging them goodbye, whispering “Shalom” in staged performances.

But that was a charade, stage-managed by Hamas.

Knowing what really happened to the hostages in Gaza, as opposed to what Khaled Bahajri claims — the starvation, beatings, withholding of medicines and medical treatment, and the psychological terror imposed by forcing children to watch the scenes of atrocities recorded by Hamas killers themselves on October 7 — who in his right mind would want to convert to Islam?