Fighters from the Fatah-aligned Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades filmed themselves celebrating their October 7 invasion, boasting about killing Israelis and showing an abducted civilian, while independent investigations have documented longstanding personnel connections between the armed group and Palestinian Authority security forces.

By Hezy Laing

The October 7 massacre was not carried out by Hamas alone. Among the other armed organizations that joined the invasion of southern Israel was the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a militia historically associated with Fatah, the political movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Unlike many accounts of the attack based on witness testimony or recovered footage, the Brigades published its own videos, openly claiming credit for its fighters’ actions.

The terrorists filmed their own atrocities

At approximately 8:30 a.m. on October 7, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades announced that its fighters were joining Hamas’s attack, which the terrorists called “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.”

At 12:35 p.m., the organization released a video titled “Scenes of capturing enemy soldiers,” carrying its logo and the words “military publicity — live images from the battle.”

The footage, subsequently circulated through Fatah-affiliated Telegram channels, including the Fatah Movement’s Bethlehem branch, showed armed men wearing yellow Fatah headbands and armbands firing Kalashnikov rifles toward an Israeli community.

One fighter boasted about the group’s activities at Nahal Oz, declaring: “We have plundered from them… Today [Oct. 7, 2023] we broke into the military post Nahal Oz, and we hit what we hit, we took as plunder what we took, and we killed soldiers and stepped on their heads.”

The footage showed terrorists displaying captured Israeli equipment, posing with military vehicles and stomping on the head of a murdered Israeli.

Another fighter celebrated the group’s role, declaring: “Allahu Akbar and praise Allah… From the heart of these temporary settlements (i.e., Israeli cities and towns), Allah willing, we had a prominent and clear role.”

The terrorists’ faces and voices were digitally distorted, concealing their identities while the organization publicized their actions.

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry later identified an especially disturbing example of the group’s propaganda. Its investigators found that a video released by the Brigades showed 59-year-old Israeli civilian Yair Yaakov being transported in a vehicle, apparently suffering from severe burns to his head and body.

Yaakov had initially been abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz by Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters, whose own video documented the capture. The UN concluded that the footage indicated he was subsequently transferred to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades before 10:23 a.m.

The Commission reported that Yaakov was killed on October 7. The Brigades’ video therefore provided direct evidence of its involvement in holding an Israeli civilian abducted during the massacre.

The documented connection to PA security forces

Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have disputed the existence of a formal organizational relationship with the Brigades. Fatah leaders have denied officially establishing or recognizing it as the movement’s military wing.

However, investigations have documented actual personnel connections between the armed faction and the PA’s security establishment.

A 2002 Human Rights Watch investigation identified two Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades members who carried out attacks against Israeli civilians while reportedly employed by the PA’s naval police.

Said Ramadan carried out a shooting attack in Jerusalem in January 2002, while Ibrahim Hassouna attacked civilians at the Sea Market restaurant in Tel Aviv in March of that year. Human Rights Watch concluded that these cases demonstrated recruitment from the ranks of low-level PA security employees.

The connections were not confined to the Second Intifada. A 2025 investigation by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) found that some Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades militants operating in northern Samaria had previously worked in PA security forces, while others had family connections to security personnel.

Historical documents examined by Human Rights Watch also described financial assistance from Fatah officials to members of the Brigades, including armed activists involved in attacks against Israelis.

Several Palestinian factions joined the invasion

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades was not the only organization beyond Hamas involved in October 7.

Human Rights Watch independently confirmed the participation of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s National Resistance Brigades, also known as the Omar al-Qasim Forces.

The UN Commission of Inquiry also documented the involvement of multiple armed factions and found that the participating organizations had taken part in joint military exercises before the attack, under the coordination of the Palestinian Joint Operations Room.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades’ own footage provides an unusually direct record of its participation. Its fighters did not merely claim involvement afterward; they filmed themselves inside Israel, displayed their actions and publicly celebrated their role in the invasion.