Basem Naim, right, and Jackson Hinkle discuss the state of the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Screenshot

During an interview with anti-Israel social media personality Jackson Hinkle, a Hamas leader claimed that over 2 million people are still alive in the Gaza Strip, undercutting the notion that a so-called “genocide” has taken place in the war-torn enclave. 

Citing recent comments made by US President Donald Trump that roughly 1.7 million people remain in Gaza, Hinkle asked interview guest Basem Naim, a Hamas official and former Gaza Minister of Health, whether he believed that far more people had died in the enclave than originally thought. Naim immediately dismissed the claim, clarifying that over 2 million Palestinians in Gaza are still alive. 

“Donald Trump has come out a few times and he says the population in Gaza is 1.7 to 1.8 million. Of course, before [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel] the population was much more than that, 400,000 to 500,000. Do you think his statistics are accurate, and if so, where did all those people go? Because we see the Ministry of Health in Gaza, they say the [Palestinian] death toll registered officially is over 40,000 [during the Israel-Hamas war],” Hinkle asked. 

“I have no idea about his intentions to mention this number. But officially, there are 2.3 million-plus Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” Naim said. 

The senior Hamas official added that around 200,000 Palestinians have fled the Gaza Strip to other areas for safety reasons both before and after the current war. He claimed that many Palestinians left for academic or professional reasons. 

The terrorist official said that he believes around 50,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel’s defensive military operations following the Oct. 7 attack and that around 10,000 are missing.

Furthermore, Naim denied that the ongoing war is between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group, asserting that the entirety of the Palestinian people is fighting against Israel. 

“First of all, this confrontation is not between Hamas and Israel, because this has been said all the time in Western media. It is between Palestinians and Israel. Maybe this time, it is led by Hamas,” he said. 

Naim stated that Hamas’s “armed resistance” is a tool the group uses to achieve its “political goals” of destroying Israel and creating a Palestinian state in its place. 

He added that the Oct. 7 attacks — in which roughly 1200 people were killed in southern Israel and 250 were abducted as hostages — were a justified response to Israeli aggression. He denied that the brutal and unprovoked slaughter of Israeli civilians was “initiated from our side.”

Hinkle has an extensive history of spreading unsubstantiated and false claims about Israel. Like many anti-Israel critics, he has repeatedly asserted that the Jewish state has committed a “genocide” in Gaza as revenge for Oct. 7. However, Hinkle has gone further than other anti-Israel commentators, oftentimes lauding the Hamas terrorist group as a “resistance” organization and celebrating Iran’s April 2024 missile attacks against the Jewish state.

Hinkle has referred to the anti-Israel outrage following Oct. 7 as a personal “godsend,” which allowed his X/Twitter follower count balloon from roughly 400,000 to over 2.3 million in the span of a few months. 

“DROP A LIKE if you stand with IRAN in the face of ISRAELI TERRORISM!” Hinkle posted on X/Twitter in April 2024. 

Beyond his support for Hamas, Hinkle has praised the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has defended the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).