Hamas gave ‘no command to kill’, says official; fails to explain Oct 7 carnage, ditches interview
The Hamas spokesperson looked perturbed when he was asked to justify the October 7 killings. He then took off the lapel mic and stormed out of the interview.
There were no command to kill any civilians during the invasion across the Israel borders, that is what Hamas spokesperson, who is also the deputy foreign minister in Gaza, Ghazi Hamad, told a BBC correspondent during a sit-down interview. The Hamas official's statement contradicts the ground reality of October 7 attack, in which Hamas fighters paraglided into Israel, ransacked a music festival, slaughtered 260 attendees and maimed several others.
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Following that attack, video clips and images have emerged of deadly assault on Israeli citizens who were killed in their beds, leaving bodies drenched in pools of blood to rot.
Defending his statement, Hamad told the correspondent that ‘because the area was very wide’ there ‘were clashes and confrontation’.
The correspondent asserted by saying it was not a confrontation when the fighters invaded houses and killed people when they were sleeping. Hamad said, “I can tell you we didn't have any intention or decision to kill the civilians.” Not being satisfied with the response, the journalist further asked the Hamas official to justify the killings, to which Hamad fretted and took off the mic from his lapel and chucked it onto the floor while saying “I want to stop this interview”.
The October 7 attack and subsequent assaults by Hamas taken upto 1,400 lives and more 200 are believed to have taken hostage. In retaliation, Israel has been carrying out several airstrikes and brief raids to ‘prepare the battlefield’ ahead of widespread ground incursions into Gaza.
According to Palestinian health officials, over 7,000 people in Gaza have been killed since the fighting erupted.