In a long statement published Sunday evening, March 31, on its Telegram channel, Hamas “apologizes” for the difficulties and suffering caused by the war against the Israeli army which has lasted for almost six months, and provoked by unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.
But he also reiterates his desire to continue this war, which, according to him, must achieve “victory and freedom” for the Palestinians. He sent “a message of thanks to the people” of the Gaza Strip whose “exhaustion” he recognizes.
The movement emphasized the measures it said it had tried to put in place to alleviate the difficulties, including attempts to “control prices” within the limits of its capabilities “given the ongoing aggression”.
Hamas also claimed to communicate with “all components” of Gazan society, mentioning other armed movements, “popular committees” and “families” in order to “resolve the problems caused by the occupation”.
Help that comes in little by little
Humanitarian needs are immense in this territory already undermined before the war by an Israeli blockade imposed since 2006, poverty and unemployment. Aid is trickling in, and most of the population has been displaced to the southernmost part, around Rafah, near the closed Egyptian border. This city, which had fewer than 300,000 inhabitants before the war, is now home to more than a million, according to UN estimates.
In recent months, various Hamas figures, such as Khaled Mechaal, former head of the movement’s political office, had considered that “sacrifices” were necessary for the “liberation” of the Palestinians.
According to the latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, the offensive launched by the Israeli army left 32,782 dead in the Gaza Strip. Israel has vowed to annihilate the Palestinian movement – which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union – whose sudden offensive on October 7, 2023, led to the deaths of at least least 1,160 people on the soil of the Jewish state, mainly civilians, according to a count by Agence France-Presse. According to Israel, around 250 people were also kidnapped during the assault, and 130 of them remain hostages in Gaza, of whom thirty-four died.
