Senior Hamas official refuses to take responsibility for Gaza deaths, abruptly ends CNN interview

When CNN host Jim Sciutto tries to ask senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan if the terror group admits any responsibility for the deaths of Palestinians in the ongoing war in Gaza, the representative repeatedly accuses the journalist of bias and abruptly ends the interview without answering any questions.

“Does Hamas today regret the October 7 terror attacks?” Sciutto asks Hamdan at the start of the interview.

“Well, it seems to me you are giving the Israelis the right to kill Palestinians. When you ask if we feel regret for what Israel has done. You have to understand that Israel has been killing the Palestinians for the last 76 years,” Hamdan says, blaming Israel for the failure of the Oslo Accords, and accusing the country of seeking to expel all Palestinians from the land.

Hamas fiercely opposed the peace process in the 1990s, launching a wave of deadly terror attacks during the period of negotiations with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Sciutto emphasizes he has covered terror attacks carried out by Hamas for 20 years, and asks again if Hamas takes responsibility for the deaths of civilians in Gaza, due to its use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes and using noncombatants as human shields.

Hamdan then accuses Sciutto of bias, claiming he has only seen the conflict through “Israeli eyes.”

“You didn’t see the Israelis killing thousands of Palestinians in those 20 years,” he says.

I pressed senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan on whether Hamas accepts any responsibility for the loss of civilian life in Gaza, which residents have told CNN they believe it does. He wouldn’t answer and instead took me on a history lesson of events he didn’t know I witnessed… pic.twitter.com/L3UUzHrVPb

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) August 17, 2024

Sciutto rebuts Hamdan’s claim that he wasn’t in Israel for wars in 2008 and 2014.

“Actually, I was here in 2014, and in 2008,” Sciutto says. “What you’re saying is factually not true. I was here for both of those conflicts. My question is does Hamas accept any responsibility for the deaths of its own people in Gaza?”

“You can’t ask and answer by yourself. Either you let me answer, or you can finish that talking point yourself,” Hamdan says.

Sciutto once again asks if Hamas accepts responsibility for the deaths in Gaza. Hamdan accuses the journalist of taking Israel’s side and talking about Palestinians being killed “as if they were nothing, and you are just saying that the Palestinians were killing the Israelis.”

Hamdan then falsely claims that despite Hamas not existing in the West Bank, Palestinians were being killed there too.

The terror group does operate in the West Bank and regularly takes responsibility for attacks against Israelis there. Hamas flags also frequently appear in rallies in the territory.

Sciutto asserts that CNN has covered the deaths of Palestinians “quite closely.” He tries to quote “a Palestinian from Gaza,” but Hamdan continues to berate him.

“You just want to listen to yourself and the Israelis,” Hamdan accuses Sciutto.

Hamdan again claims the journalist supported the killing of Palestinians, and abruptly ends the interview, without answering any questions.