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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Hamas explains: There was no choice but October 7</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Al Mayadeen English</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">January 21, 2024<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><p>The
Hamas Palestinian Resistance movement explains the reasons behind
Operation al-Aqsa Flood from a historical, political, and humanitarian
perspective as it seeks to debunk Israeli lies about the operation.</p><img src="cid:ii_lrnv3mk71" alt="8926af66-5aec-49d2-b0bb-4a494145b3ba.jpg" width="391" height="261"><br><div><ul id="gmail-content-slick-0"><div aria-hidden="false"><li>
A screen grab from the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas's published document "Our Narrative... Operation Al-Aqsa Flood"
</li></div></ul>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The Resistance movement explained that there were a plethora of reasons that pushed it to carry out the operation, including:</p>
<p>- The Israeli Juadization plans for the al-Aqsa Mosque and attempts to divide it.</p>
<p>- 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.</p>
<p>- The thousands of Palestinians unjustly detained by the Israeli
occupation and deprived of their most basic rights amid paramount
assaults and humiliation.</p>
<p>- The unjust air, sea, and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for the past 17 years.</p>
<p>- The expansion of Israeli settlements across the West Bank in an unprecedented manner.</p>
<p>- The daily escalations and violence perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians.</p>
<p>- The seven million displaced Palestinians living in horrific conditions in refugee camps and wish to return to their lands.</p>
<p>- The international community's failure to establish and the
complicity of major powers in preventing the establishment of a
Palestinian state.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>It did not start on Oct. 7</h2>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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".</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>"The US administration provided financial and military support to the
Israeli occupation massacres against the Palestinian civilians and the
brutal aggression on the Gaza Strip, and still, the US officials
continue to ignore what the Israeli occupation forces commit in Gaza of
mass killing," the memo said.</p>
<p>Even commenting on the 1993 Oslo Accords signed by the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Israeli occupation under the
auspices of the US, Hamas underlined that the accords stipulated the
establishment of a Palestinian independent state in the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip, the efforts for which were "systemically destroyed" by
"Israel" through "a wide campaign of settlement construction and
Judaization of the Palestinian lands in the occupied West Bank and
Jerusalem."</p>
<p>In response to all the injustice, Hamas asked: "What was expected from the Palestinian people after all of that?"</p>
<h2>October 7 aimed at Israeli military</h2>
<p>The Resistance movement went on to explain that its October 7
operation aimed to target Israeli military sites and pressure Israeli
authorities for a prisoner exchange deal to release Palestinians from
Israeli jails. The focus was on destroying the Israeli occupation forces
Gaza Division and military sites near settlements around Gaza.</p>
<p>The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, emphasized their
commitment to avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women,
and the elderly. They stated that any accidental targeting of civilians
occurred during confrontations with the Israeli forces.</p>
<p>Hamas, since its establishment in 1987, undertook a commitment to
avoiding harm to civilians. They mentioned initiatives to spare
civilians from fighting, but these were allegedly ignored by the Israeli
occupation.</p>
<p>The statement acknowledged potential faults during Operation Al-Aqsa
Flood due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security system. The
Hamas Movement underlined that it treated positive treatment of
civilians in Gaza, seeking their release during a humanitarian truce in
exchange for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails.</p>
<p>The Palestinian Resistance backed up its efforts to only target the
military apparatus with numerous pieces of evidence, highlighting that
"Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by
Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam
Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were
killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion."</p>
<p>The claim of "40 beheaded babies" by Palestinian fighters has been
firmly debunked, with even Israeli sources rejecting it. Unfortunately,
many Western media outlets have adopted and promoted this false
allegation, the memo read.</p>
<p>The allegation that Palestinian fighters committed rape against
Israeli women, including the Hamas Movement, has been fully denied. A
December 1, 2023, report by <em>Mondoweiss </em>highlighted the lack of
evidence for the alleged "mass rape" on October 7, suggesting that
"Israel" used this claim to escalate the situation in Gaza.</p>
<p>According to reports from Israeli newspaper<em>s Yedioth Ahronoth</em> on October 10 and <em>Haaretz </em>on
November 18, an Israeli military helicopter killed numerous Israeli
settlers, including those at the Nova music festival near Gaza where 364
settlers died. Hamas fighters, unaware of the festival, were targeted
by the helicopter. To prevent further infiltrations from Gaza, the
Israeli occupation forces struck over 300 targets in surrounding areas.</p>
<p>Israeli testimonies confirmed that army raids and operations killed
both Israeli captives and their captors. The IOF's Hannibal Directive
emphasizes preferring a dead captive or soldier over being taken alive
to avoid prisoner swaps with the Palestinian resistance.</p>
<p>Occupation authorities revised the number of their killed soldiers
and civilians from 1,400 to 1,200 after discovering that 200 burnt
corpses belonging to Palestinian fighters were mixed with Israeli
corpses. The Israeli army, possessing military planes, was responsible
for the destruction on October 7.</p>
<p>The Israeli occupation's heavy aerial raids in Gaza resulted in the
death of nearly 60 Israeli captives, indicating a disregard for their
lives, Hamas stressed.</p>
<p>It also added that the death toll of "civilians" was exaggerated by
the fact that many of the Israeli settlers killed during the operation
were armed and fighting alongside the Israeli occupation forces, yet
they were registered as "civilians" upon being killed in action.</p>
<p>"Those who defend the Israeli aggression do not look at the events in
an objective manner but rather go to justify the Israeli mass killing
of Palestinians by saying there would be casualties among civilians when
attacking the Hamas fighters," the memorandum read.</p>
<h2>Call for justice</h2>
<p>Hamas, casting doubts about the commitment of certain countries,
namely the US, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom, to justice, the
movement <span>urged the ICC Prosecutor and team to visit occupied
Palestine promptly to examine crimes and violations firsthand, rather
than relying on remote observations or succumbing to Israeli
restrictions.</span></p>
<p>In December 2022, the UN General Assembly sought the International
Court of Justice's opinion on the legal consequences of "Israel's"
illegal occupation, supported by nearly 100 countries, the resistance
movement highlighted. Countries backing the occupation rejected this
move, hindering efforts to prosecute Israeli war criminals through
universal jurisdiction in European courts.</p>
<p>The events of October 7 should be understood in the broader context
of struggles against colonialism and occupation, it added. Similar
struggles demonstrate that oppression by occupiers elicits corresponding
responses from those under occupation.</p>
<p>People worldwide recognize the lies perpetuated by governments
supporting the Israeli narrative, aiming to justify biased stances and
conceal Israeli crimes. These nations overlook the root causes of the
conflict—occupation and the denial of Palestinians' right to live in
dignity on their lands. They also show indifference to the unjust
blockade on millions in Gaza and the plight of Palestinian detainees in
Israeli jails, where basic rights are denied.</p>
<p>Hamas, at the conclusion of the memorandum, called for an immediate
halt to Israeli aggression in Gaza, accountability for human suffering
caused by the Israeli occupation, support for Palestinian resistance,
and solidarity from nations worldwide against double standards.</p>
<p>The Resistance continued by demanding an end to major powers
providing cover for "Israel", rejecting any decisions made by foreign
powers regarding Gaza's future, and opposing Israeli attempts at
expulsion. Hamas urged continued global pressure to end the occupation,
resistance to normalization with the Israeli regime, and a comprehensive
boycott of the occupation and its supporters.</p>
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