Hamas-Al-Aqsa flood operation
introduction
In the light of Israel's ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the people of the mainland have shown the greatest courage and heroism in the face of Israel's murder machine and aggression as they continue to struggle for independence, dignity and freedom from the longest occupation in history.
We want to clarify to our people and the free people of the world the reality of what happened on 7 October, the motives behind it, the general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as the refutation of Israel's allegations, and to put the facts in perspective.
Section 1 Why the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation was Launched (October 7)
1. The Palestinian people's fight against occupation and colonialism began not on 7 October, but 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation.
In 1918, the Palestinian people owned 98.5 per cent of the Palestinian land, accounting for 92 per cent of the population on the Palestinian land. And under the coordination of the British colonial authorities and the Zionist movement, Jews were brought to Palestine in a mass immigration movement, and they managed to seize control of no more than 6% of the land and 31% of the population of Palestine before the Zionist entity was proclaimed on the historic land of Palestine in 1948.
At that time, the Palestinian people were denied the right to self-determination and Zionist groups were ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people with the aim of expelling them from their land and areas. As a result, Zionist gangs seized control of 77 percent of Palestinian land by force, expelled 57 percent of the Palestinian people, destroyed more than 500 Palestinian villages and towns, and carried out dozens of massacres of Palestinians, culminating in the establishment of the Zionist entity in 1948. In addition, in order to continue its aggression, the Israeli army occupied other parts of Palestine, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, as well as the Arab territories surrounding Palestine, in 1967.
2. During these long decades, the Palestinian people have been subjected to various forms of oppression, injustice, denial of their fundamental rights and apartheid. For example, since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a suffocating 17-year blockade, making it the largest open-air prison in the world. The Palestinian people in Gaza have also suffered five destructive wars/aggressions, all of which have been offended by "Israel". In 2018, the people of Gaza also staged a demonstration of return, peacefully protesting against the Israeli blockade, their dire humanitarian situation, and demanding their right to return. However, the Israeli occupying forces responded to these protests with brutal force, killing 360 Palestinians and wounding 19,000 in a matter of months, including more than 5,000 children.
3. According to official figures, between January 2000 and September 2023, the Israeli occupation killed 11,299 Palestinians and injured 156768, the vast majority of whom were civilians.
Unfortunately, instead of paying attention to the suffering of the Palestinian people over the past few years, the U.S. government and its allies have provided cover for Israeli aggression. They simply expressed their condolences to the Israeli soldier killed on 7 October, did not even seek the truth about what happened, and falsely supported Israel's claims and condemned the alleged targeting of Israeli civilians. The United States Government has provided financial and military support for Israel's occupying massacres of Palestinian civilians and its brutal aggression against the Gaza Strip, but United States officials continue to ignore the mass killings committed by the Israeli occupying forces in Gaza.
4. Many United Nations and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have documented Israeli violations and atrocities, and even Israeli human rights organizations have documented them. However, these reports and testimonies have been ignored and the Israeli occupation has not been held accountable. For example, on October 29, 2021, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, tore up a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council while addressing the UN General Assembly and threw it in the trash before leaving the podium, insulting the UN system. However, he was appointed Vice-President of the UN General Assembly the following year – in 2022.
5. The U.S. government and its Western allies have always viewed Israel as a state above the law, providing cover to maintain its long-standing occupation and oppression of Palestinians, allowing "Israel" to mine more Palestinian land and Judaize its holy sites. Despite the fact that over the past 75 years the United Nations has issued more than 900 resolutions in favor of the Palestinian people, and "Israel" refuses to comply with any of these resolutions, the United States has consistently exercised its veto power in the UN Security Council to prevent any condemnation of "Israel's" policies and violations. That is why we see the United States and Western countries complicit in Israel's crimes and sufferings in the occupation of Palestine.
6. On the "Peace Settlement Process". Despite the signing of the Oslo Accords with the PLO in 1993, which provided for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, "Israel" systematically destroyed all possibilities for the establishment of a Palestinian State through the construction of settlements and the Judaization of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Thirty years later, supporters of the peace process realize that they have reached an impasse and that the process has had disastrous consequences for the Palestinians. The Israelis have repeatedly confirmed that they are absolutely opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Just a month before the Al-Aqsa flood operation, Netanyahu showed a map of the so-called "new Middle East" depicting "Israel" stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, including the West Bank and Gaza. From the rostrum of the UN General Assembly, the whole world was silent about his speech, which was full of arrogance and ignorance of Palestinian rights.
7. After 75 years of relentless occupation and suffering, after the failure of all initiatives for the liberation and return of our people, and after the disastrous outcome of the so-called peace process, what does the world expect from the Palestinian people to respond to this: Israel's plan for the Judaization of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, its attempts to divide time and space, and the intensification of Israeli settler incursions into the Holy Mosque. The practices of the Israeli extremist and right-wing government, at a time when Israeli officials are planning to expel Palestinians from their homes and areas, the Israeli government is actually taking steps to incorporate the entire West Bank and Jerusalem into so-called "Israeli sovereignty". Thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons have been denied their basic rights, attacked and humiliated under the direct supervision of Israeli fascist Minister Ben Gvir. The unjust air, sea and land blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for 17 years. Israeli settlements are expanding across the West Bank at unprecedented levels, with settlers committing daily violence against Palestinians and their property.
Seven million Palestinians live in extreme conditions in refugee camps and other areas, and those who were expelled 75 years ago want to return to their land.
The failure of the international community and the complicity of the super-Power prevented the establishment of a Palestinian State. In the wake of all this, what is expected of the Palestinian people? to continue to wait, to continue to rely on the helpless United Nations, or to take the initiative to defend the Palestinian people, their land, their rights and their dignity, knowing that the right to self-defence is a right enshrined in international law, norms and conventions. In view of this, the Al-Aqsa flood operation of 7 October was a necessary step and a normal response to all Israeli machinations against the Palestinian people and their cause. This is an act of defence on the road to liberation and independence, as is the case with people around the world, in order to break free from Israeli occupation, to recover the rights of the Palestinians and to do so.
Section 2 Response to Israeli allegations
1. In the light of Israel's fabricated allegations of the 7 October Al-Aqsa flood operation and its implications, we, the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, clarified the following: On 7 October, the Al-Aqsa flood operation targeted Israeli military bases in an attempt to arrest enemy soldiers and put pressure on the Israeli authorities to release thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons through prisoner exchange agreements. Therefore, the operation focused on the destruction of the Gaza division of the Israeli army, that is, Israeli military bases stationed near Israeli settlements around Gaza.
2. Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and the elderly, is the religious and moral commitment of all Qassam Brigade fighters.
We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance forces are fully disciplined in their actions and committed to Islamic values, and that Palestinian fighters target only the soldiers of the occupying forces and those who carry weapons against the people of the mainland. At the same time, despite the fact that the resistance does not have precision weapons, Palestinian fighters are keen to avoid harming civilians. Moreover, if there is any targeting of civilians, this occurs by accident in the course of the confrontation with the occupying forces. Since its inception in 1987, the Hamas movement has worked to avoid harming civilians. In 1994, after the massacre of Palestinian worshippers at the Ibrahim Mosque in the occupied city of Hebron by Zionist criminal Baruch Goldstein, the Hamas movement announced an initiative to protect civilians from the impact of fighting on all sides, but the Israeli occupying side rejected the initiative without even commenting on it, but was deaf to the Israeli occupation, which continues to deliberately target Palestinian civilians and kill them.
3. Perhaps due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, as well as chaos in the border area with Gaza, there were some failures in the implementation of Operation Al-Aqsa Floods. As many have attested, the Hamas movement dealt with all civilians held in Gaza in a positive and friendly manner and sought their release from the first days of the aggression, which is what happened during the week-long humanitarian truce in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons.
4. The allegations propagated by the Israeli occupation that the Qassam Brigades targeted Israeli civilians on 7 October are complete lies and fabrications.
The source of these allegations is the official Israeli account, and there is no independent source to prove any of them.
It is well known that the official Israeli narrative has been trying to demonize the Palestinian resistance while also legitimizing its brutal aggression against Gaza. Here are some details that contradict the Israeli allegations: Video footage taken that day (October 7) and later published testimonies of the Israelis themselves show that the fighters of the Qassam Brigade did not target civilians and that many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police as a result of the chaos. It has also been firmly refuted by Palestinian militants as a lie about the "40 decapitated babies", which even Israeli sources have denied. Unfortunately, this accusation was adopted and publicized by many Western media outlets. Claims of rape of Israeli women by Palestinian militants have been completely denied, including by the Hamas movement. A December 1, 2023, report on the Mondoweiss news website said there was no evidence that Hamas members had committed "mass rape" on October 7, an accusation that Israel used to "fuel the genocide in Gaza."
According to two reports in the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth on 10 October and Haaretz on 18 November, many Israeli civilians were killed by an Israeli military helicopter, especially those attending the Nova music festival near Gaza, where 364 Israeli civilians were killed. The two reports say that Hamas militants arrived in the festival area without prior knowledge of the festival, where Israeli helicopters opened fire on Hamas militants and festival participants. Yedioth Ahronoth also said that the Israeli army attacked more than 300 targets in the area around the Gaza Strip in order to prevent further infiltration from Gaza and to prevent any Israelis from being arrested by Palestinian militants. Other Israeli testimonies confirm that the raids of the Israeli army and the actions of the soldiers killed many Israeli captives and kidnappers. The Israeli occupying forces bombed houses in Israeli settlements inhabited by Palestinian militants and Israelis, in clear violation of the Israeli army's notorious "Hannibal Directive", which clearly states that "it is better to die as a civilian hostage or soldier than to live" in order to avoid exchanging prisoners with Palestinian resistance. In addition, the occupying authorities revised the number of soldiers and civilians killed from 1,400 to 1,200 after discovering that 200 charred bodies belonged to the slain Palestinian fighters and were mixed with Israeli bodies. This means that those who kill the militants are the same as the Israelis, because they know that only the Israeli army has the military aircraft that killed, burned and destroyed Israeli areas on 7 October. The heavy Israeli air strikes on Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 60 Israeli prisoners, also prove that the Israeli occupation does not care about the lives of Gaza prisoners.
5. In fact, some Israeli settlers in the settlements around Gaza were armed and clashed with Palestinian militants on 7 October. These settlers are registered as civilians, when in fact they are armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army.
6. When referring to Israeli civilians, it is important to know that conscription applies to all Israelis over the age of 18 — men serving for 32 months and women serving for 24 months — and all can carry and use weapons. This is based on Israel's security doctrine of "arming the people," which turns the Israeli entity into a "militaristic one."
7. The brutal killing of civilians is a systematic practice of the Israeli entity and one of the means of humiliating the Palestinian people. The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza is clear evidence of this practice.
8. Al Jazeera News said in a documentary that during the month of Israel's aggression against Gaza, the average daily death toll of Palestinian children in Gaza was 136, while the average number of Ukrainian children died during the Russia-Ukraine war was one child per day.
9. Those who justify Israeli aggression do not view these events objectively, but justify Israel's mass killings of Palestinians by saying that there are civilian casualties in attacks on Hamas fighters. However, when it comes to the Al-Aqsa flood event of October 7, they do not use such assumptions.
10. We believe that any impartial and independent investigation will prove the veracity of our narrative and will prove the scale of lies and misleading information on the part of Israel. It also includes Israel's accusations against the Gaza hospital that Palestinian resistance forces use it as a command center, an unsubstantiated allegation that has been refuted by reports from many Western news outlets.
Section 3 Achieving transparent international investigations
1.Palestine is a member of the International Criminal Court and acceded to the Rome Statute in 2015. When Palestine demanded an investigation into the war crimes committed by Israel on its territory, it faced Israeli intransigence and rejection and threatened to punish Palestinians who petitioned the International Criminal Court. It is also unfortunate that there are some Powers that claim to hold the values of justice and are completely on the side of occupation and oppose Palestinian actions in the international justice system. These authorities want to treat "Israel" as a state above the law and ensure that it evades responsibility and accountability.
2. We urge those countries, in particular the Government of the United States, Germany, Canada and the United Kingdom, if they want to do justice as they claim, to declare their support for the investigation into all crimes committed in occupied Palestine and to give their full support to the International Court of Justice for the effective discharge of its mandate.
3. Despite the doubts expressed by these countries about the delivery of justice, we urge the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently travel to occupied Palestine to investigate the crimes and violations committed there, and not just to observe the situation remotely or to be restricted by Israel.
4. In December 2022, when the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution seeking the opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of "Israel's" illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, the (minority) of countries supporting "Israel" announced their rejection of the initiative ratified by nearly 100 countries. When our people and their legal and rights groups try to prosecute Israeli war criminals in European national courts through the system of universal jurisdiction, the European regime has blocked actions in favor of continued impunity for Israeli war criminals.
5. The events of 7 October must be placed in a broader context, evoking all the examples of our contemporary struggles against colonialism and occupation. These experiences of struggle have shown that the occupied people will react in the same way in the same level of oppression committed by the occupiers.
6. The Palestinian people and people around the world are aware that these governments support Israel's narrative practices, seek to justify their blind biases, and cover up Israeli crimes. Those countries are aware of the root causes of the conflict, namely, the occupation and denial of the right of the Palestinian people to live in dignity on their land. They are not interested in continuing the unjust blockade of millions of Palestinians in Gaza, nor in the thousands of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. Most of these detainees are denied their basic rights.
7. We commend free people of all religions, ethnicities and backgrounds in the world who have gathered in capitals and cities around the world to oppose Israeli crimes and massacres and to express our support for the rights of the Palestinian people and their just cause.
vs 4 What is Hamas?
1. The Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" is the Palestinian Islamic National Liberation and Resistance Movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine against the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, goals and means. Hamas refuses to persecute anyone or undermine their rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds.
2. Hamas affirms that it is in conflict with the Zionist project, not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas is not fighting Jews because they are Jews, but against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. However, it is the Zionists who constantly associate Judaism and Jews with their own colonial projects and illegal entities.
3. The Palestinian people have consistently rejected oppression, injustice and massacres of civilians, no matter who commits them. Based on our religious and moral values, we made clear our opposition to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Here, we remind everyone that the Jewish question is essentially a European one, and that the Arab and Islamic environment has historically been a haven for the Jewish people, as well as for people of other faiths and ethnicities. The Arab and Islamic environment is a model of coexistence, cultural interaction and religious freedom. The current conflict was caused by Zionist aggression and its alliance with the Western colonial Powers;
4. The Hamas movement, in accordance with international law and norms, is a national liberation movement with a clear goal and mission. It derives legitimacy from the Palestinian right to self-defence, liberation and self-determination to resist occupation. Hamas has been keen to limit its fighting and resistance to the Israeli occupation in the occupied Palestinian territories, however, the Israeli occupation has not complied with this and has carried out massacres and killings of Palestinians outside of Palestine.
5. We emphasize that resistance to occupation by all means, including armed resistance, is a legitimate right under all norms, sacred religions, international law, including the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I thereto, as well as relevant United Nations resolutions, such as General Assembly resolution 3236, adopted by the General Assembly at its twenty-ninth session on 22 November, which in 1974 affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and the right to return to the Palestinian people from whom they were expelled. displaced and uprooted from their homes and property".
6. We, the steadfast Palestinian people and their resistance, are waging a heroic battle to defend their land and national rights against the longest period of brutal colonial occupation. The Palestinian people are facing an unprecedented Israeli aggression that has committed heinous massacres against Palestinian civilians, most of them children and women. In the course of its aggression against Gaza, the Israeli occupation has deprived our people of Gaza of food, water, medicine and fuel, and only of all means of subsistence. At the same time, Israeli warplanes have brutally attacked all infrastructure and public buildings in Gaza, including schools, universities, mosques, churches and hospitals, in a clear sign of ethnic cleansing aimed at expelling the Palestinian people from Gaza. However, supporters of the Israeli occupation have done nothing but continue to commit genocide against the people of the mainland.
7. The Israeli occupation uses the pretext of "self-defence" to justify its oppression of the Palestinian people, which is a process of lies, deception and distortion of the facts. The Israeli entity has no right to justify its crimes and occupation, but the Palestinian people have the right to compel the occupiers to end the occupation. In 2004, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion in the case concerning the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, stating that "Israel" — the brutal occupying forces — could not rely on the right to self-defence to build the wall on Palestinian territory. Moreover, Gaza remains an occupied land under international law, and the justification for aggression against Gaza is therefore baseless, lacking legal capacity and lacking the substance of the idea of self-defence.
vs 5 What is needed?
"Occupation is occupation and, however it describes or names itself, it remains a tool to break the will of the people and continue to oppress them. "On the other hand, the historical experience of peoples on how to get rid of occupation and colonialism confirms that resistance is the strategic method and the only way to liberate and end occupation. How can there be liberation from occupation without struggle, resistance or sacrifice? All countries of the world must support the resistance of the Palestinian people and refrain from collusion with them, out of humanitarian, moral and legal imperatives. They should face the crimes of occupation and aggression, as well as support for the Palestinian people in their struggle to liberate their land and exercise their right to self-determination like all the peoples of the globe. On this basis, we call for:
1. To put an immediate end to the Israeli aggression against Gaza, to cease the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire population of Gaza, to open the crossings and to allow humanitarian assistance, including reconstruction tools, to enter Gaza.
2. Hold accountable for the human suffering caused by the Israeli occupation to the Palestinian people and accuse it of crimes against civilians, infrastructure, hospitals, educational facilities, mosques and churches.
3. To support the Palestinian resistance by all possible means in the face of Israeli occupation, which is a legitimate right under international law and norms.
4. We call on free people around the world, especially those who have been colonized and are aware of the suffering of the Palestinian people, to take a serious and effective stand against the policy of double standards adopted by the Powers that support the Israeli occupation. We call on those countries to launch a global campaign of solidarity with the Palestinian people and to emphasize the values of justice and equality and the right of people to live in freedom and dignity.
5. The superpowers, especially the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, among others, must stop providing cover for the Zionist entity to evade its responsibilities and stop dealing with it as a state above the law. This injustice by those countries has led to 75 years of Israeli occupation committing the most serious crimes ever committed against the Palestinian people, land and holy places. Today, more than ever, we urge all countries around the globe to fulfil their responsibilities under international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions calling for an end to occupation.
6. We are categorically opposed to any international or Israeli project aimed at determining Gaza's future and only prolonging the occupation. We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to determine their own future and to organize their own internal affairs and, therefore, no party in the world has the right to exercise any form of guardianship over the Palestinian people or to make decisions on their behalf.
7. We urge opposition to Israel's attempts to inflict another wave of evictions or a new catastrophe on the Palestinians, particularly in the land occupied in 1948 and in the West Bank. We stress that Palestinians will not be deported to the Sinai Peninsula, Jordan or anywhere else, and that if they are resettled, they will be deported to their homes and areas from which they were expelled in 1948, as recognized in many United Nations resolutions.
8. We call for maintaining popular pressure around the world until the occupation is ended, and we call for a total rejection of the Israeli occupation and its supporters against attempts at normalization with Israeli entities.