A senior leader for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has vowed to repeat large-scale attacks against Israel similar to the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again” until the country is completely annihilated, noting that Hamas believes massacring Israelis is “justified.”
“The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation,” Ghazi Hamad said weeks after Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians murdered while celebrating a Jewish holiday.
“Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do … everything we do is justified,” he added.
Mr. Hamad, a member of the Iran-backed terror group’s decision-making bureau, made the remarks in late October during an interview on Beirut-based TV station LBCI Lebanon News. The interview was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute and published on Nov. 2.
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove it because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. We are not ashamed to say this with full force,” Mr. Hamad said.
“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight,” the leader added.
Hamas has dubbed the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” The cross-border assault was the deadliest incursion into Israel since 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on the Jewish state in an effort to recapture territory lost earlier.
Asked by a news anchor for the TV station if Hamas wants to totally annihilate Israel, Mr. Hamad boldly replied, “Yes, of course.”
“Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs,” he said, calling the existence of Israel “illogical.”
Mr. Hamad also claimed Hamas did not intend to harm civilians during the attack, blaming the massacre at an open-air event near the Gaza–Israel border on “complications on the ground.”
The Re’im music festival massacre will go down as the worst civilian massacre in Israeli history. At least 270 people who had come together for the event were murdered that day, and a still undetermined number were taken hostage and dragged back to Gaza.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly was quick to condemn the interview, saying in a Nov. 1 post on X: “How can there be peace when Hamas are committed to the eradication of Israel?”
“This is an official from Hamas committing to repeat the atrocities from 07/10 again and again,” he wrote along with an 80-second clip of the interview.
Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the Organization of American States.
The terrorist organization was created by Ahmed Yassin and six other Muslims in 1987, during the First Intifada in Israel. It is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist organization that has expressed hostility toward Israel and the West. Hamas stands for “Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya,” or “Islamic Resistance Movement.”
