Hamas explains: There was no choice but October 7
Operation al-Aqsa Flood was a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people and their cause; a defensive act within the framework of ridding Palestine of the Israeli occupation, reclaiming Palestinian rights, and on the path to liberation and independence like all people around the world, the Palestinian Hamas Resistance movement said.
Hamas published Sunday a memorandum entitled: “Our Narrative… Operation al-Aqsa Flood,” in which the Resistance movement explained the reasons behind the October 7 operation and the motives behind it, as well as its general context concerning the Palestinian cause and a debunking of the Israeli narrative and the accusations raised against the Palestinian Resistance.
The Resistance movement explained that there were a plethora of reasons that pushed it to carry out the operation, including:
– The Israeli Juadization plans for the al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts to divide it.
– The actions of the extremist and right-wing Israeli government, which is taking practical steps toward usurping the entirety of the West Bank and occupied al-Quds amid plans to expel Palestinians from their homes.
– The thousands of Palestinians unjustly detained by the Israeli occupation and deprived of their most basic rights amid paramount assaults and humiliation.
– The unjust air, sea, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for the past 17 years.
– The expansion of Israeli settlements across the West Bank in an unprecedented manner.
– The daily escalations and violence perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians.
– The seven million displaced Palestinians living in horrific conditions in refugee camps and wish to return to their lands.
– The international community’s failure to establish and the complicity of major powers in preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Hamas argued that the Palestinian people could not be expected to keep waiting and counting on the United Nations, which it described as “helpless,” saying their only option was to “take the initiative in defending the Palestinian people, lands, rights, and sanctities.” Hamas underlined that its actions fall into self-defense, which is a right enshrined in international laws and conventions.
It did not start on Oct. 7
As is being echoed by the supporters of the Palestinian Resistance and cause alike, Hamas underlined that the plight of liberation did not start on October 7; “but started 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation.”
The memorandum clarified that the Palestinian people in 1918 owned 98.5% of Palestinian land while representing 98% of the population before the Zionists that were brought in coordination between the British colonial authorities and the Zionist movement managed to take control of no more than 6% of Palestinian land when they made up 31% of the population prior to 1948, i.e., before the declared creation of an “Israel”.
“At that time, the Palestinian people were denied the right to self-determination and the Zionist gangs engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Palestinian people aimed at expelling them from their lands and areas,” the lengthy text added.
The Zionist gangs displaced 57% of the people of Palestine and destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages and towns while committing dozens of massacres against the Palestinian people leading up to the establishment of “Israel” in 1948. “In continuation of the aggression, the Israeli forces in 1967 occupied the rest of Palestine including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem in addition to Arab territories around Palestine.”
Throughout the long history of the occupation of Palestine, the Palestinian people suffered all forms of oppression, injustice, and expropriation of their fundamental rights, Hamas underlined, giving Gaza as an example when in 2007 it came under a suffocating blockade still in place to this very day, turning it into the world’s largest open-air prison.
The Resistance movement also reminded that: “The Palestinian people in Gaza also suffered from five destructive wars/aggressions all of which ‘Israel’ was the offending party.”
The Israeli occupation over decades, in the period between January 2000 and September 2023, killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156,768 others, the overwhelming majority of them being civilians, Hamas added. Meanwhile, the “US administration and its allies did not pay attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people over the past years but provided cover to the Israeli aggression.”
