Copy of Hitler’s Book ‘Mein Kampf’ Found in Children’s Room Used by Hamas: IDF

Historic copies of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" at the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich, Germany, on Jan. 8, 2016. Johannes Simon/Getty Images

Israeli troops have found an Arabic copy of Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” in a children’s room in a house that Hamas used as a terrorism hub in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated on Nov. 12.

The IDF stated on X, formerly Twitter, that the book contains “annotations and highlights” and that it was found among the personal belongings of a Hamas terrorist during a raid in northern Gaza.

“Never again is now,” the Israeli military said on Nov. 12. “Hamas embraces the ideology of Hitler, the one responsible for the annihilation of the Jewish people.”

The book outlines Hitler’s ideology that formed the basis for Nazism and sets out his hatred of Jews, which led to the Holocaust—the systematic mass murder of 6 million Jews in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

During an interview with BBC News on Nov. 12, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the IDF’s discovery of the book indicated the terrorist group’s support for Hitler’s ideology of “hating” and “slaughtering” Jews.

“This is the book that led to the Holocaust and the book that led to World War II,” Mr. Herzog told the media outlet.

“[The terrorist group] wrote notes, marked, and learned again and again Adolf Hitler’s ideology of hating the Jews, killing the Jews, burning the Jews, and slaughtering the Jews. This is the real war we’re at.”

An aerial picture shows the abandoned site of the weekend music festival attacked on Oct. 7 by Hamas terrorists near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel, on Oct. 10, 2023. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

Israel has aimed its airstrikes at Hamas targets in Gaza and imposed a complete siege, cutting off the food, water, and fuel that it controlled in Gaza after Hamas launched an unprecedented terror attack on Oct. 7.

Israel initially reported a death toll of 1,400 from Hamas’s attack but later revised the estimate to 1,200, saying some unidentified corpses included in the initial tally were likely Hamas terrorists killed in the attack.

Painful Memories

For many Israelis and Jews around the world, the horrors committed by Hamas during their onslaught on southern Israeli communities triggered painful memories of the Holocaust.

In the Holocaust, Nazis led a campaign of genocide, rounding up and murdering many of Europe’s Jews, while sending others on trains to death or labor camps.

While the Hamas attack didn’t nearly approach the Holocaust’s scale, it marked the deadliest single day for Jews since the Holocaust, and its well-planned slaughter reopened a wound that remains fresh for many in Israel.

Israel’s retaliation against Hamas in Gaza has also drawn comparisons to the Nakba, which refers to Palestinian displacement, statelessness, and fracturing that occurred in 1948 during the Arab–Israeli War that Israelis refer to as their War of Independence.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said the death toll in Gaza has topped 11,000 this week, a number that The Epoch Times is unable to verify.

Palestinian civilians and rescue teams sift through the debris of a collapsed building in Al-Maghazi, located in the central Gaza Strip, in search of survivors and victims following the Israeli bombardment on Nov. 5, 2023. Mohammed Zaanoun/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the responsibility for any harm to civilians in Gaza lies with Hamas, not Israel.

“It must be remembered that Israel entered the war due to that terrorist organization’s brutal murder of hundreds of Israelis and holding hostage more than 200 Israelis,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office stated on X.

“While Israel does everything in its power to avoid harming civilians and urges them to leave the battle areas, Hamas - ISIS is doing all it can to prevent them from moving to safe areas and uses them as human shields.”

Mr. Netanyahu said a ceasefire isn’t possible without the release of hostages. Hamas took more than 200 hostages during the Oct. 7 attack, which included children, women, and the elderly.

But Israel has agreed to daily four-hour pauses in operations in Gaza to let civilians move south, according to the White House.

Stephen Katte, Reuters, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.