EU foreign policy chief doubles down on claim Israel helped create Hamas
Josep Borrell clarifies he does not mean Israel directly funded terror group, but ‘enabled’ its growth as Fatah’s rival in order to divide Palestinians
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell on Monday repeated his claim that Israel helped create the Palestinian terror group Hamas that it is battling to crush in a deadly offensive.
Borrell spoke in response to questions about his assertion in January that Israel had “created” and “financed” the terror group — a claim made amid the country’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
“I do not say that [Israel] financed it by sending a cheque, but it has enabled the development of Hamas as a rival to leading Palestinian party Fatah, he said in a forum at a business school in Madrid.
“It is an unquestionable reality that Israel has bet on dividing the Palestinians, creating a force to oppose Fatah,” he said.
Hamas has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, after a brief civil war with forces loyal to the Fatah movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is based in the West Bank.
In recent years, the enclave has received millions of dollars in aid from Qatar.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is widely reported to have said on several occasions over the years that he sought to boost Hamas in order to fuel the schism within Palestinian society and alleviate international pressure for a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has denied any such efforts.
Borrell reiterated his stance that a two-state solution must be imposed to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a demand Netanyahu has rejected for the near future, arguing it would be a reward for terror after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
War erupted after the terror group carried out a devastating onslaught on southern communities from Gaza on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, while committing brutal atrocities.
The military launched a counteroffensive in a bid to end Hamas’s rule over Gaza and release the hostages. The Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas, says the death toll in the Strip has neared 30,000, though figures from the terror group cannot be independently verified, and are believed to include both civilians and Hamas members killed in Gaza, including as a consequence of the terror groups’ own rocket misfires. The IDF says it has killed over 12,000 operatives in Gaza, in addition to some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
