The New York Times has sought interviews with Hamas leaders. It was told: “Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such. Hamas, the Qassam [its military wing] and the resistance woke the world up from its deep sleep and showed that this issue must remain on the table.”
“This battle was not because we... seek to improve the situation in Gaza”, added Khalil al-Hayya. “This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”
“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us”, said another Hamas leader, Taher El-Nounou.
Hamas politburo chair Ismail Haniyeh struck a different note on 2 November: “We are ready for political negotiations for a two-state solution”. This looks like the sentence in Hamas’s revised charter of 2017 which describes “two states” as a formula of “national consensus”, while all the rest of the document reiterates “no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity” and would rule out ever accepting “two states”.
Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad said on 1 November: “Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military, and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation, and must be finished”.
And Mousa Abu Marzouk ( 27 October) explained why Hamas built many military tunnels but no bomb shelters: “Everybody knows that 75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them. According to the Geneva Convention, it is the responsibility of the occupation to provide them with all the services”.
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