Leading Hamas official makes first comments since Israeli attack in Qatar

Hamas authoritative Ghazi Hamad was astatine the determination Israel attacked successful Qatar past week, describing it arsenic ‘intense’.

A elder Hamas authoritative has spoken for the archetypal clip since past week’s Israeli onslaught connected the group’s enactment successful the Qatari superior Doha, describing the infinitesimal of the onslaught and however the officials managed to hardly escape.

“We were successful a meeting, the negotiating delegation and immoderate advisers. Less than an hr aft we began reviewing the American connection that we received from the Qatari mediators, we heard large explosions,” Ghazi Hamad told Al Jazeera Arabic connected Wednesday.

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“We instantly near the scene, due to the fact that we knew from the commencement that the explosions were Israeli shelling. We’ve lived successful Gaza and experienced Israeli shelling before,” Hamad added.

Israel killed 5 Hamas members and a Qatari information authoritative portion trying to assassinate elder Hamas leaders. Those targeted were progressive successful negotiating a ceasefire and captives connection enactment guardant by United States President Donald Trump.

“The shelling was truthful intense, the concern was terrifying, and the rockets continued unabated. There were astir 12 rockets successful little than a minute, but by God’s decree … we survived this aggression.”

Hamas said its elder leaders survived the bombardment, which Trump said helium was “very unhappy” about. On Monday, helium reiterated his assertion that Israel would refrain from launching further attacks connected Qatar.

In effect to the Israeli onslaught – its archetypal connected Qatar – leaders of Arab and Islamic nations convened successful Doha for an emergency summit, denouncing what they called Israel’s “cowardly” strike.

However, the gathering concluded without pledges of tangible measures.

Hamad told Al Jazeera that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s program to alteration the Middle East needed an Arab response.

He besides added that Hamas had a “bitter” acquisition during the ceasefire negotiations, and that the US did not person credibility arsenic an honorable broker.

“He [Trump] doesn’t scare us,” said Hamad, commenting connected threats from Trump concerning the attraction of Israeli captives held successful Gaza. Hamad added that the captives were treated “according to our values” and were lone being enactment successful information arsenic a effect of Israel’s actions.

Israeli forces person killed much than 65,000 radical since October 2023, including immoderate 19,000 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

On Tuesday, a United Nations enquiry announced that Israel’s warfare connected Gaza is a genocide, a uncovering respective large quality rights groups person besides reached, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

In 2023, South Africa brought a lawsuit earlier the International Court of Justice, arguing that Israel’s actions successful the Gaza Strip amounted to genocide. The proceedings are ongoing.