Hamas has reportedly said that its October 7 attacks on Israel were a “necessary step.”
The group divulged in a 16-page report on the attacks that “some faults happened … due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza.”
However, the militant group was quoted as saying that the attacks were “a necessary step and a normal response to confront all Israeli conspiracies against the Palestinian people”.
The document was Hamas’ first public report released in English and Arabic justifying the attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed.
Hamas seized about 250 hostages during the attack. Israel says about 132 remain in Gaza, of whom at least 27 are believed to have been killed.
In a statement, Hamas urged “the immediate halt of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population”.
“We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs,” the statement said, adding that “no party in the world” had the right to decide on their behalf.
Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Sunday that a total of 25,105 Palestinians have been killed and 62,681 have been injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Ministry Spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said that 178 people had been confirmed killed in the previous 24 hours.
The Israeli offensive has left 85 percent of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
Speaking at a global summit in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, denounced Israel’s three-month assault.
“Israel’s military operations have spread mass destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as Secretary-General,” Guterres said at the opening of the G77+China, a coalition of 135 developing countries.
“This is heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable. The Middle East is a tinderbox. We must do all we can to prevent conflict from igniting across the region.”
Israeli Military Claims Many Palestinians Joined Hamas After War
Israeli military officials have been cited by an Israeli channel as saying that the number of Hamas fighters in Gaza was greater than they expected.
The army also reportedly claimed that many Palestinians in Gaza joined the group that rules the enclave after the war.
“The number of rockets and the length of the tunnels in Gaza surprised us, which means that the duration of the war will be much longer than we had planned,” the report said.
It also said that senior officials in the Israeli army “admit that there is no military possibility to release all abductees”.
Additionally, the Israeli army confirmed that it demolished the family homes of two Palestinians involved in an attack on a checkpoint last November.
Palestinian media released a video of an Israeli bulldozer demolishing the home of one of the Palestinians in the middle of the night.
Photos in the morning showed a completely destroyed home in Hebron in occupied West Bank.
The two Palestinians were stopped by Israeli soldiers at an Israeli tunnel checkpoint and opened fire, killing one Israeli soldier.
Palestinian media on Sunday released images from the family members of one of the Palestinians standing in the rubble of their home, showing a victory sign in defiance.
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