Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 9, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

While much of the world is busy criticizing Israel for trying to destroy Hamas’ terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip in order to prevent a repetition of the Oct. 7 massacre, almost no attention is given to Hamas’ repeated statements of its goal to destroy Israel entirely, or Hamas’ intentional use of civilians as human shields.

No outcry has been heard over Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan’s promise of a “future liberation battle” that will be worse than the massacre on Oct. 7:

Interviewer: “Were you to go back to Oct. 6 [2023], would you carry out Oct. 7 [i.e., Hamas’ massacre on Israel]?”

Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan: “Why do some people assume we would relinquish our role and our resistance?”

Interviewer: “In other words, there is no regret?”

Osama Hamdan: “Regret over how we crushed the Gaza Division, an entire division in the [Israeli] occupation army?”

Interviewer: “You told me that if the Israelis will come back to carry out new arrests after emptying the prisons [i.e., Israeli-Hamas exchange deal], you would carry out an additional operation ([i.e., terror attack]. Can you promise a new Oct. 7?”

Osama Hamdan: “I can promise a future liberation battle, and not just Oct. 7.”

Interviewer: “In the foreseeable future?”

Osama Hamdan: “I don’t think it will be long. What happened on Oct. 7 and what happened after it clarified that the future of this [Zionist] entity in the region is not guaranteed.”

[“Bel Moubashar,” YouTube video, Nov. 29, 2023]

The world has also been silent about Hamas’ cynical use of civilians as human shields.

Palestinian Media Watch has released statements by Hamas officials Political Bureau member Ghazi Hamad and Khaled Mashaal praising the many dead civilians as being necessary sacrifices for “liberation.”

From a third top Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh — who like Hamad and Mashaal also lives safely outside of the Gaza Strip — it becomes clear that Hamas leaders exploit “the blood of the children, women, and elderly” because they need it to provoke anger and a willingness to fight Israel and ultimately die as “Martyrs” among Palestinians.

In Haniyeh’s words, this “blood” is used to “ignite within us the spirit of revolution”:

Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh: “The blood [spilled] in the Gaza Strip, alongside the resistance and the [Izz A-Din] Al-Qassam [Brigades] will defeat this occupier ([i.e., Israel], will defeat this enemy … As I said, and I repeat every time, the blood of the children, women, and elderly — I do not say that it shouts out to you, but rather we need this blood so that it will ignite within us the spirit of revolution, so that it will arouse within us persistence, so that it will arouse within us defiance and [a forward] advance.”

[Website of Al-Jazeera TV, Oct. 26, 2023]

If the world wanted to be helpful it would be valuable to see it react to Hamas’ lethal manipulation of its civilian population to seek Martyrdom rather than simply criticizing Israel’s self-defense.