Senior Hamas official insists Oct. 7 helped the Palestinian cause, as it exposed Israel’s ‘brutality’

Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad insists that the October 7, 2023, assault on Israel was a “benefit” to the Palestinian cause, despite the deadly war still raging in the Gaza Strip, two years after the massacre in southern Israel.

In an interview with CNN aired Thursday, Hamad says that the cross-border assault, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, created a “golden moment” for the future of the Palestinians, as the subsequent war has exposed Israel’s “brutality” to the world.

“You know what is the benefit of October 7 now?” Hamad asks. “If you look to the [UN] General Assembly yesterday, when about 194 people opened their eyes and looked to the atrocity, to the brutality of Israel, and all of them, they condemned Israel.”

“We waited for this moment for 77 years,” he says. “I think this is a golden moment for the world to change history.”

According to Hamas’s own figures, which cannot be independently verified, more than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7.

Asked by CNN whether Hamas is in any way responsible for these deaths, given that it unleashed war with Israel by launching its October 7 assault, Hamad denies that this is the case, and suggests there had been no alternative way to advance the Palestinian cause.

“I know the price [is]so high, but I’m asking again, what is the option?” he inquires.

He also rejects the insistence by Western states that Hamas must have no place in a future independent Palestinian state, saying that the world could not “exclude” the terror group,  as it is “playing a positive role” to advance the cause.