Hamas: Continuation of ‘israel’s’ crimes in Gaza, disgrace for its supporters

Osama Hamdan, the movement’s representative in Lebanon, at a press conference in Beirut on Monday.

He said “Israel’s Nazi regime continues to intensify its genocidal war and ethnic cleansing against the people of Gaza” more than four months into its military aggression.

The Hamas official stressed that continuation of the Israeli regime’s “massacres and crimes” against Palestinians in Gaza “will remain as a disgrace for all those who support them, those who are bystanders, those who are silent about criminalizing and condemning them, and those who are reluctant to stop them.”

Hamdan reiterated that the US administration and its President Joe Biden are partners and supporters of “Nazi occupation” in its crimes, which makes them fully responsible for the regime’s atrocities, massacres, and genocidal war.

The Israeli regime has brought Gaza under an unrelenting and indiscriminate onslaught since October 7, 2023 when the territory’s resistance movements staged Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupied territories.

Tel Aviv has compounded the military onslaught with a total siege that has effectively blocked the flow of food, medicine, fuel, water, and electricity into Gaza, thus increasing the prospect of all-out famine across the Palestinian territory.

Thus far, the Israeli onslaught has claimed the lives of more than 26,600 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, leaving more than 65,300 others injured, and displacing over 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3-million population.

Israel’s genocidal war enjoys unreserved military and political support of the regime’s Western backers, most importantly the United States. The US has armed the regime with thousands of tons of military hardware since the onset of the Gaza onslaught, and has also vetoed all United Nations Security Council resolutions that called for cessation of the Israeli aggression.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Hamdan said, “The Nazi occupation continues to escalate its barbaric aggression against the Gaza Strip’s hospitals, putting them out of service through siege and bombing.”

The Hamas’ official said Israel’s crimes in Gaza are in violation of all international values, laws, and norms.

The regime’s crimes, he noted, “will remain engraved in the memory of our steadfast people, who will not forgive them and will not stop defending their legitimate rights.”

Hamdan said the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening by the day as a result of Israel’s relentless bombing and destruction of all aspects of life, displacement of more than 90 percent of the population, and the high number of victims, most of whom are women and children.

Hamdan stressed that during the past 48 hours, the Israeli regime has committed as many as 38 massacres that claimed the lives of 350 people in the southern city of Khan Yunis alone to force the people of Gaza to leave their homes.

The Hamas representative in Lebanon said Israel’s continued massacres took place only 48 hours after the International Court of Justice, the United Nations top court, issued an interim ruling, ordering the regime to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza. This, he said, proves the regime’s insistence on continuing its crime.

Hamdan also addressed a recent decision by the United States and its pro-Israel allies to suspend funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The United States and a number of its Western allies, in addition to Japan, have declared their decision to pause funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, citing allegations by the Israeli regime that some of its employees were involved in the Palestinians’ anti-regime operation on October 7.

Hamdan noted that “systematic targeting of UNRWA comes from the Zionist occupation and those countries that support its aggressive plans and agendas.”

He also slammed as reprehensible UNRWA’s decision to dismiss a number of its employees “based on the allegations made by the Zionist enemy and without investigation or verification of those allegations,” adding that the UN agency’s measure lacked the minimum elements of professionalism.

Hamdan said the decision was a sign of the agency’s “deviation from its basic mission, which is to protect and provide relief to Palestinian refugees, and not to adopt the narrative of the fascist occupation.”