Iran Attacked Israel, and the Palestinian Authority Blamed the Jewish State (original) (raw)

Israeli security and rescue personnel work next to a part of a projectile following a missile attack from Iran toward Israel in northern Israel, June 8, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem

The Palestinian Authority (PA) never misses an opportunity to libel Israel.

PA TV’s Israel correspondent ignored a central element of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which said that “Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs would cease in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from carrying out attacks against Israel.”

Instead, PA TV portrayed Israel’s strike on Hezbollah’s Dahieh stronghold as arbitrary aggression, ignoring that Israel acted only after Hezbollah continued firing rockets at cities inside Israel proper.

Israel correspondent Salam Mashraki: “Israel chose to respond to the Iranian attack on it, which came as a response to the Israeli attack on the southern [Dahieh] neighborhood in Beirut. This is contrary to all the agreements to which Israel committed, including the ceasefire declared two days ago in Lebanon. Israel violated these understandings and attacked the southern neighborhood.”

[Official PA TV, Jun. 8, 2026]

Three months ago, Palestinian Media Watch also exposed how the PA blamed Israel for missiles Iran fired at the Gulf States. It aired Israeli Arab journalist Suheil Diab’s libel that “several [Iranian] missile attacks … were coordinated with the Israeli Mossad with the knowledge of the US to create tension and conflict between the Iranians and the Gulf states.”

One country that the PA has been careful not to blame is Iran itself, despite Iran clearly being the aggressor.

This follows the pattern from three months ago, when four Palestinian women were killed in the Hebron area by an Iranian missile, yet the official PA news agency, WAFA, still refused to condemn Iran. Instead, WAFA reported only that the women were killed by “falling missile fragments,” without telling Palestinians that the missile was Iranian.

The PA has also concealed international criticism of Iran. When UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed called PA Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh and opened the conversation by condemning the Iranian missile strike that killed the women as a “terrorist” attack, WAFA reported the condolences expressed during the call but omitted the UAE’s condemnation of Iran.

The PA’s silence and redirection on Iran here is especially telling because it is not incapable of criticizing Iran. In recent years, PA officials have done so repeatedly when it served PA interests. They have accused Iran of using Hamas as a tool, dictating to Hamas, pushing the Palestinians into disaster, and trying to replace the PLO and PA as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” The PA has even accused Hamas of serving its Iranian “masters” and of “bringing hell on the Palestinian people.”

This criticism, however, was never moral. It was political.

The PA criticized Iran because Iran’s support for Hamas threatened Abbas’ rule and the PA’s control. It did not object to Iran’s promotion of terror against Israel. It only objected to Iran empowering the PA’s rivals.

That is why the PA’s tone changes when Iran attacks Israel. The PA first and foremost seeks to libel Israel and then reports on Iran in a way that is careful, neutral, and “informative.”

For the Palestinian Authority, Iran’s crime is not firing missiles. Iran’s crime is firing them at the wrong targets.

Ephraim D. Tepler is a researcher at Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), where a version of this article first appeared.