In an interview with Al Jazeera News on Wednesday, Hamas Abroad leader Khaled Mashaal claimed that “fifty-one percent of American youth are supportive not only of the Palestinian cause, but of Hamas.”
It was not clear where he obtained this statistic from, and he provided no evidence to support the claim.
Mashaal made his comments in the course of praising the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. He conceded that the ensuing Gaza War was rough on the Palestinians, but the damage was worthwhile because the war ostensibly exposed the “ugly face” of Israel.
“Can you imagine that the Palestinian case entered into the minds of young Americans and Europeans? This is a new division of resistance. In the street, the youth, university campuses, political parties, and countries throughout Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia — there has been a great gain for the Palestinian cause,” he crowed.
“What happened during the two years for the image of the Zionist entity before the world — this Israel which used to glorify how they are a democratic state and a pioneer for Western civilization in the Middle East reared its ugly head,” he claimed.
“You see it in the international area. Netanyahu has been issued an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Israel has become a target. It is a killer who committed the crime of a real Holocaust — the massacres,” he said.
Mashaal explained that Hamas has no intention of honoring its commitment to surrender weapons under the ceasefire deal that halted Israeli military action in October. Instead, he said the terror group would consider “freezing” its arms — storing them in hidden caches somewhere.
“As we approach the second phase, the challenge is upon us; there are some parties who want to impose their will on us as they wish. Like what the Israeli prime minister says — to take our weapons in any way, even by force. This is rejected by our people,” he said.
“We want to have a vision in which we have guarantees that these weapons are hidden, kept, not used, and not paraded. And we offered a long truce of seven or 10 years,” he added.
Mashaal said giving up its weapons would be like “removing the soul” of the group and would compromise Hamas’ ability to strike back if Israel violates the terms of the ceasefire — something Hamas claims Israel has already done hundreds of times.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) noted that Mashaal used the Islamic term hudna to refer to the ceasefire — a phrase that implies merely temporary peace, and which Muslim terror groups often employ to describe half-hearted truces they strike when losing a conflict, to give them time to rearm and attack again.
Mashaal went on to undermine another provision of the ceasefire agreement, the establishment of an international peacekeeping force for Gaza, saying that Hamas would treat them as “an occupation force, in line with Palestinian culture and conscience.”
The Hamas leader concluded the interview by vowing that Israel “will come to an end,” no matter how long it takes.
“We will defeat it, Allah willing, because these are the facts of history,” he said. “Allah supports the great Palestinian people, because this holy land has been a graveyard for invaders throughout history.”
Unsurprisingly, the Israeli government does not seem to think “disarmament” means letting Hamas hide its weapons until it wants to use them again. An Israeli government official responded to Mashaal’s interview by saying there is “no future” in which an armed Hamas is allowed to continue exercising control over Gaza.
“The terror group will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized,” the Israeli official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday that an International Stabilization Force (ISF), working under authorization from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), could begin working on the demilitarization of Gaza as soon as next month.
The U.N. envisioned this international force working alongside Palestinian police to complete “the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups,” but it did not specify how this process would work, or what would happen if Hamas resisted.
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