Arrigoni, who filed dispatches from the Strip for a leftist Italian newspaper and a blog called “Guerilla Radio,” was a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group that is in the business of ferrying Western sympathizers to Palestinian territories to denounce Israel. His killing came as a “complete shock” to ISM leader Huweida Arraf, who added that she “didn’t think there was even a one percent chance they would kill him.” His kidnappers clearly thought differently, saying in a video clip that “The Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption.”

Hamas, which controls the Strip, was quick to denounce Arrigoni’s murder, insisting it “does not reflect the values, morals and customs” of the people of Gaza, according to spokesman Ehab al-Ghussein. That’s rich coming from a group that has produced scores of suicide bombers and fired thousands of unguided rockets at civilian Israeli targets. Last week, Hamas’s paramilitary wing took responsibility for firing a guided antitank missile at a yellow Israeli school bus. One teenage boy was critically injured; it was only good fortune that the bus was near the end of its route and had dropped off most of its young passengers.

Arrigoni was not in Gaza to protest such outrages, an act that would have required something more than the rigid political correctness that passes for courage in radical circles. But his murder remains an outrage all the same, as well as a lesson, perhaps, in the dangers of mistaking terrorist thugs for freedom fighters.