CNN presenter Christiane Amanpour questioned Hamas Political Bureau member Basem Naim about whether the movement’s former leader, the late Yahya Sinwar, had anticipated the scale of Israel’s response to the 7 October 2023 attack.
Naim replied: “I was not part of the decision to launch the 7 October attack, but whether Sinwar anticipated the scale of the Israeli response is another matter. Perhaps he expected a response like this (…) I do not know.”
He added: “But on the other hand, who can claim that the Israeli response was an automatic and direct reaction to the 7 October operation?”
“I agree that there could have been, should have been, or was expected to be a military response, as we saw in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and other years,” he said.
Naim continued: “But what happened afterwards, which was described by major international legal bodies such as the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, has nothing to do with merely being a military response.”
He argued that “the decision to commit genocide was taken by the Israeli government consciously and with full awareness”.
Naim also said that “the International Court of Justice did not ignore the events of 7 October, and despite that, it described what happened in Gaza as carrying all the indicators of genocide”.
Addressing Amanpour, the Hamas official added: “Therefore, this is an entirely separate issue from what happened on 7 October, regardless of your judgement of it.”
Hamas Says It Remains Committed to the Ceasefire
Naim also said Hamas remains committed to the ceasefire agreement and hopes mediators will be able to help establish calm and stability in Gaza.
He said that the Palestinians, represented by the Palestine Liberation Organisation in its capacity as their sole legitimate representative, had given the Israelis a major opportunity to move towards a peaceful political solution.
“Who undermined this opportunity and destroyed it? It was the Israelis,” he said.
Naim argued that this was demonstrated by Israel’s declared rejection of the two-state solution, as well as the assassination and killing of the man who signed the agreement with the Palestinians in 1993.
At the same time, he stressed that Hamas remains prepared to accept any political solution if such an opportunity becomes available.
