The gaming company Valve Corporation has removed a video game that mission where a player can emulate the October 7 attack.
The game, originally titled "Fursan Al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque," was released on the Steam digital gaming marketplace platform in 2022. It was removed for users from the UK at the behest of Britain’s Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit.
The video game allowed users to play as Palestinian terrorists and go on sprees killing Israeli soldiers through suicide bombings, beheadings, and more.
Valve did not respond to The Jerusalem Post’s requests for comment.
According to the game’s store page on Steam, on November 11, the creator, Nidal Nijm, released an update that allows the player to “relive the iconic day on which the brave Palestinian Resistance humiliated Israeli Military Forces,” referring to the October 7 massacre.The newly added mission, titled “Operation Toufan Al-Aqsa,” is a homage to Hamas’s name for the deadliest terror attack in Israeli history. The trailer features terrorists paragliding into Israeli posts, female soldiers being captured, countdowns of “Zionists left,” gory headshots, and widespread usage of red inverted triangles as a target marker.
Nijm is a Palestinian-Brazilian who is reportedly the son of a Fatah terrorist who escaped Lebanon during the 1980s and encouraged his son to learn computer game programming to spread the Palestinian cause.
While the game’s Steam page does not explicitly mention Hamas, the characteristics, the framing, and the name of the remake, as well as multiple usage of the name al-Qassam – Hamas’s military wing – in the trailer, align the game’s aims with terrorism.
Valve removes controversial game
According to emails posted by Nijm to the game’s Steam page, US-based video game developer and distributor Valve Corporation, which operates the Steam gaming marketplace, contacted Nijm last October to inform him of the game’s removal from sale in the UK.
In the emails, a Valve representative explained that they received a request from UK authorities and subsequently applied country-specific restrictions, citing their obligation to comply with regional content regulations.
Speaking to the tech and cyber investigative blog 404 Media, Nijm expressed disappointment with the removal of his game, fearing that other countries would follow suit. He drew comparisons to other popular shooter games, such as Call of Duty, arguing that the game is not substantially different from other shooting video games and claiming that the removal is politically motivated.Nijm also expressed his appreciation of Valve for what he deemed “truly respecting freedom of creativity,” placing the blame on UK authorities rather than the online platforms.This isn’t the first time Fursan Al-Aqsa has faced regional restrictions. The game is already blocked in Germany and Australia due to age rating complications, which Nijm claimed are financially prohibitive for him to resolve. Likewise, Nijm wrote back in November that YouTube had deleted the video game’s account.Reviews of the game on Steam appear to be positive in large part, though they tend to focus more on the political aspects and less on the gameplay itself.Emanuel Mailberg, a veteran video game reviewer who writes for the 404 Media blog, had a different opinion. “I’ve played Fursan Al-Aqsa, and, just as a game, it sucks. It feels like Nijm bought some assets from a 3D model marketplace, sprinkled in some Israeli flags, and constructed a few plain, uninteresting levels for players to shoot their way through.“It’s a functional shooter at the most basic level, but removed from its subject matter, it does nothing new or interesting and feels like the lowest form of shovelware (poor-quality games produced for a quick profit), which Steam is filled with… my professional opinion as someone who reviewed video games for many years is that Fursan Al-Aqsa sucks, and [is] also in bad taste if you choose to judge it in that way,” Mailberg said.