Video Game of Palestinians Killing Israelis Sparks Backlash

A new video game that appears to depict the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants has raised eyebrows on social media.

On Wednesday, the LibsofTikTok account on X, formerly Twitter, shared a video of the game with a caption that said, "GRAPHIC: Video game available on @Steam allows players to simulate being a Hamas te*ro*ist who k*lls Jews in the Old City of Jerusalem while shouting 'Allahu Akbar.' Dozens of comments support calling for the g*noc*de of Jews. This is available for your kids to play:"

The game, titled, Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is currently playable on Steam, a video game distribution center owned by the company Valve. In the game's description, a disclaimer states "THIS GAME DOES NOT PROMOTE "TERRORISM", ANTISEMITISM, HATE AGAINST JEWS OR ANY OTHER GROUP, THIS IS A MESSAGE OF PROTEST AGAINST THE ISRAELI MILITARY OCCUPATION OF THE PALESTINIAN LANDS. FURSAN AL-AQSA IS A VIDEO GAME ABOUT WAR LIKE MANY OTHER GAMES HERE ON STEAM (SIX DAYS IN FALLUJAH, CALL OF DUTY AND OTHERS)."

The was released in April 2022, but it has gained attention recently amid the ongoing war in Israel. On October 7, Hamas militants led a surprise attack on Israel and Israeli Prime Minister has said that his nation is "at war." The U.S. has continued to supply Israel with military and humanitarian aid and others have encouraged Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire. The October 7 attack left at least 1,200 Israel citizens dead, the Associated Press reported.

Over 18,000 Palestinians have died amid the ongoing war as of Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, the game's developer, Nidal Nijm recently shared messages on social media criticizing Israel and Jewish individuals. "This is the fate of all of those who invaded our homeland #Palestine! Beware oh #Zionists, the Lions of #JeninCamp are coming to you," Nijm said in one recent post, Haaretz reported.

However, Nijm told Newsweek on Wednesday that his game does not feature anything related to the Jewish religion and said, "What is happening in Gaza now has made many people "wake up" and see who are the real terrorists. It is not about religion or politics anymore, it is about humanity. No one accepts the slaughtering of small children, women, elderly and civilians, as Israel is doing by willingly dropping bombs over hospitals, schools, residential buildings and so on."

"So terrorism is a very subjective matter. I do not see Palestinian Resistance as Terrorism, rather, I see Israeli Soldiers as the biggest terrorists of this whole world," Nijm said.

Responding to the tweet from LibsofTikTok, Nijm said they are "fake news," adding that "my game allows to kill Jews while shooting out Allah Akbar. This game allows the player to play as a Palestinian Resistance Fighter from a fictional group, which I called 'Fursan al-Aqsa' against Israeli Soldiers."

Data from Steam shows that in the last 30 days, the game has had an average of 1.7 players. In October, the game had an average of 2.3 players which represented an 87 percent increase. October also saw the game peak in total players with 10.

While the developer said in the disclaimer that the game does not promote "terrorism," many reviews of the game spoke about the ongoing war in Israel.

"Another reviewer said it before, but I'll repeat it because it is important: at last we get to play to good guys. From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!" One review said.

Another review said it was a "very very based game," and added "Free Palestine."

One review also criticized the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) saying, "To be Frank the game isn't exactly great, the movement on first person feel very floaty and the AI is very dumb to be challenging, though an argument can be made whether to keep idiotic AI as it is to faithfully depict the IDF or make them smarter so it's more fun."

"BUT you play as the good guys and destroy the Zionists, therefore the objective arguments are NULL AND VOID. after all, there aren't a lot of games where you can play as the actual good guys in this conflict," the review added.

Regarding the reviews of the game, Nijm told Newsweek that he is "not responsible for what they say."

"The fact that I do not delete their comments does not mean that I do agree with everything they say there. But I don't like to censor anyone," Nijm told Newsweek. "Search about me and you will not find any of these kind of comments like asking for the genocide of Jewish People, simply because I don't agree with this."

A number of social media users also spoke about the game and criticized Steam for allowing it on the platform.

"Please remove Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque:" X user @Lion2Ya wrote.

Another X user said, "I don't use Steam anymore. I have a couple games but I won't be bothering with them now."

On the other hand, several other social media users brought up other violent video games and how they compare to Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

"This is GTA IV from 2008: Plenty of kids grew up playing edgy games like this, and they didn't turn into terrorists. I doubt an obscure niche game on Steam is drawing the masses of kids away from Fortnite nowadays," X user @TheLaurenChen wrote.

X user @__qx0w wrote, "Why are we going to back to the 2000's and having meltdowns over graphic video games."

X user @hippojuicefilm wrote, "Isn't it fun seeing the right use the same pearl clutching and cancel culture tactics the left uses? It's a video game. Violent video games have been around forever. You know that you can kill minorities in GTA right?"

Newsweek reached out to Valve via its website for a comment from Steam.