Israel drops ‘anti-Hamas’ Ramadan lollies on W. Bank

Lollipops dropped by Israeli forced on two of the West Bank’s largest cities for the holy Islamic month of Ramadan have displayed peculiar anti-Hamas messages, according to Palestinian news agency Ma’an.

The sweets, dropped in the streets and alleyways of Nablus and Ramallah on Sunday morning – the first day of Ramadan – were decorated with the message: "Ramadan Kareem … Some sweets, after Hamas has made life in the West Bank bitter."

Ma’an described the move as “a renewed attempt to incite Palestinian popular opinion against the Islamist political group.”

Residents told the news agency that the lollipop handouts could be described as "psychological warfare" by Israeli forces to incite the Palestinian people against Hamas.

The report noted that the sweets weren’t the first “anti-Hamas gifts” sent by Israeli forces in recent days.

“During a military raid in Nablus on Thursday, Israeli forces dropped match boxes in the streets with a phrase in colloquial Arabic reading ‘Beware! Hamas is inflaming the West Bank,’” the report stated.

In recent weeks, the Israel military has deployed heavily across the West Bank as part of an operation to find three missing Israeli teens that has led to the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians, injured more than 130, and resulted in the detention of nearly 600 after more than 1,350 military raids.

Israel accuses Hamas of kidnapping the teens.