More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the month since Hamas’ terrorist attacks inside southern Israel, the group’s health ministry in Gaza says.

But Hamas officials say the mounting death toll, believed to include thousands of children, has not caused the group to regret its actions in southern Israel, which Israeli officials said killed 1,400 people.

In fact, Hamas leaders say that their goal was to trigger this very response and that they’re still hoping for a bigger war. It’s all part of a strategy, they say, to derail talks over Israel normalizing relations with regional powers — namely, Saudi Arabia — and draw the world’s attention to the Palestinian cause.

Hamas, these officials say, is more interested in the destruction of Israel than what it sees as the temporary hardships faced by Palestinians under Israeli bombardment.

“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the group’s governing politburo, told The New York Times in an interview.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    there are literally comments in this thread and every thread like it defending their actions. anyone who refers to both sides being bad is bombarded with accusations of being pro Israel.

    yes, there are LOTs of people here defending and justifying hamas actions specifically, and there’s always someone saying “noone is justifying hamas” too

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      I scrolled for a bit and didn’t see anyone supporting the terror attacks on this post. Could you link to some examples?

      The closest I found was someone saying what boiled down “what do you expect will happen when people get desperate”

      There is a *big *difference between understanding why people get desperate and radicalised to commit terror attacks, and actually condoning it.