Imagine the horror of discovering that you have been rubbing shoulders with terrorists. No, I’m not talking about those gullible souls who join the Gaza marches in London, but about the British airline crew who had an unfortunate brush with Hamas at a five-star Marriott hotel in Cairo. Full marks to the Daily Mail, whose veteran photographer Mark Large snapped several of the 154 jihadis freed by Israel as they lived it up at the inexplicably named Renaissance Cairo Mirage City.
What’s a terrorist to do? You recruit suicide bombers, oversee a bus bombing or murder a police officer, get banged up, luck out with early release as part of an exchange for innocent Israeli hostages who had been kept in Hamas catacombs for two years, you’re just enjoying the first luxury buffet you’ve had in years – then the British press turns up!
Frankly, it made me miss my time as a reporter on the road. The Marriott, we are told, boasts of being the ‘preferred air crew hub hotel in Cairo’, hosting six airlines regularly due to its proximity to the airport. Or perhaps that should now be ‘boasted’, as one imagines that its time catering to air crew has rather passed.
Cabin staff at the hotel, where rooms start at £200 per night, told the Mail that they were contemplating piling furniture in front of their bedroom doors just in case 7 October came knocking. And who can blame them?
Among the terrorists enjoying the Marriott’s facilities were Mahmoud Issa, who founded Special Unit 101 of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, a Hamas kidnap unit, and had been in prison since 1993; Islamic State hijacker Izz a-Din al-Hamamrah; bus bomb mastermind Samir Abu Nima; kidnapper Ismail Hamdan; and Yousuf Dawud, who murdered a border police officer.
These monsters have now apparently been sent packing, leaving Marriott to (presumably) call in the crisis management bods as their customers desert them in droves. Chief foreign correspondent Andrew Jehring, Middle East correspondent Natalie Lisbona, snapper Mark Large: sterling job.
Aside from the sheer journalistic accomplishment, however, there is much to be said about this darkest of stories. Think about it from the point of view of the victims, or the families that survive them.
In the depths of their depravity, these Hamas banditos are cut from the same cloth as Jihadi John and the other head-choppers and Yazidi-incinerators of the Islamic State.
Imagine if you had lost a daughter at the hands of Salman Abedi in the Manchester Arena bombing – I covered that atrocity on the ground and remember the grieving families well – or a husband or father in the London Bridge attack.
Imagine that you had won the closure of seeing the men responsible for your personal tragedy brought to justice and placed behind bars. Then imagine the emotional wrench following 7 October, when your government finds itself forced to free those murderers in order to secure the release of your kidnapped countrymen who did nothing to deserve their fate.
This is bad enough. Now contemplate that these killers were put up at one of Egypt’s finest hotels and left to ogle off-duty flight attendants and you’ll experience some echo of the degradation and despair that the poor relatives have had to endure.
‘We are hearing from many families a deep sense of pain and humiliation, as the very murderers who destroyed their lives enjoy five-star conditions,’ said Moshe Saville of the charity OneFamily, which supports victims of terror.
‘We expect the State of Israel and the international community to ensure that those who spilled the blood of innocent people are not rewarded, but held fully accountable for their actions.’
But the story does not even end there. Thanks to the Mail, the 154 grisly jihadis may have been hounded out of the Marriott, but where have they ended up?
Here might be a chance for our government to redeem itself
Why, at another luxury hotel, of course. This time it is Egyptian-owned and in a remote location, at least an hour from downtown Cairo, and not as popular with foreign tourists. But it is still pretty nice, especially if you happen to have been – quite deservedly – in prison for many years. The sprawling five-star resort at which the terrorists are now housed boasts an extensive outdoor swimming pool and a spa featuring Jacuzzis, saunas and steam rooms.
For the discerning jihadi, it also offers a fitness centre complete with tennis courts and two football pitches. There are three restaurants to choose from, as well as a range of bars and cafes. Rooms start at £200, rising to £1,400 for the most luxurious suite.
On the upside, security has been dramatically ramped up. The terrorist murderers are no longer allowed to leave the venue for day trips to the city centre and any visitors they receive are tightly controlled. But this has got to be poor compensation for those who lost their loved ones at the hands of these men.
Now, our own government has hardly distinguished itself in the realm of foreign policy of late, handing the strategically vital Chagos Islands to an ally of China and recognising a Palestinian State without demanding that Hamas free the hostages first, in the same way as those of a progressive persuasion might recognise a man claiming to be a woman.
But here might be a chance to redeem itself. How about putting pressure on the Egyptian authorities to house those Hamas killers in, say, a youth hostel or an open prison? Or better still, to turf them out on their ears (while keeping them under surveillance)?
Britain already hands the Egyptians a shedload in aid, including such indulgences as a ‘portfolio’ worth over $240 million in grants, investment and technical assistance to support ‘[a] green transition’. In whose pockets does that money end up?
Surely threatening to withhold such largesse might be a good way to ensure that the Hamas members are kept in something closer to the manner they deserve. In the meantime, I’m minded to ping an email to the newsdesk at the Mail’s main competitor, the Sun, and suggest that they dig out the address of the new hotel and get a photographer on the road sharpish.
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