Hamas says it is ready to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal “immediately” but claims it has not had any “serious proposals” from Israel in months, an official for the group has told Sky News.
Dr Basem Naim also suggested Hamas has no regrets about the 7 October attacks which killed 1,200 Israelis last year, despite the ensuing war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
He accused Israel of “big massacres” in Gaza and said Hamas has not received any “serious proposals” for a ceasefire since the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Appearing on The World With Yalda Hakim, he said the last “well-defined, brokered deal” was on 2 July.
“It was discussed in all details and I think we were near to a ceasefire… which can end this war, offer a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal and prisoner exchange.
“Unfortunately [Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu preferred to go the other way,” Dr Naim said.
Asked about the upcoming change in administration in the US, Dr Naim said Hamas is calling on “any president” – including Donald Trump – to take the necessary steps to stop the war immediately.
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Dr Naim was also asked if last year’s brutal attack on Israel by Hamas triggered the escalation in violence the world has seen in Gaza.
He replied: “It is exactly as if you are accusing the victims for the crimes of the aggressor.”
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What happened on 7 October 2023?
But Hakim pressed him, asking: “But Dr Naim, you’re also speaking as though you are talking as an innocent Palestinian civilian. Your movement launched an attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and several hundred people who weren’t in the military – innocent civilians, women and children – taken into Gaza. So you launched an attack which triggered then the events of the last year?”
In response, Dr Naim claimed that a week before 7 October 2023, hundreds of Palestinians were killed near the Gaza border and that people were starving.
“It is an act of defence,” he said of the 7 October attacks.
He added: “I am a member of Hamas, but at the same time I am an innocent Palestinian civilian because I have the right to live a free and dignified life and I have the right to defend myself – to defend my family.”
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Asked whether he regrets the attack on Israel, he replied: “Do you believe that a prisoner who is knocking the door or who is trying to get out of the prison, he has to regret his will to be?
“This is part of our dignity. Part of our dignity… to defend ourselves. To defend our children.”
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Pictures of Israeli victims hung on a wall at the site of Nova Festival, a year on from Hamas’s 7 October attacks. Pic: Ilia yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
At least 1,200 people were killed and about 250 people taken captive during the Hamas attacks on Israel last year, according to Israeli authorities. Almost 100 hostages remained in captivity in Gaza a year on from the attacks.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said on Thursday that 43,736 people have been killed in Gaza in the fighting that has raged for more than a year now since 7 October. More than 103,000 Palestinians have been injured, the ministry said.
Watch The World With Yalda Hakim tonight at 9pm on Sky News for a special episode on the war in Gaza.