Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal on Wednesday called for a return to suicide terror attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
During a video address to a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Mashaal said, "Resistance operations in the West Bank are escalating despite the harsh conditions," according to CNN Arabic.
"We want to return to martyrdom operations. This is a situation that can only be addressed by open conflict. They are fighting us with open conflict, and we are confronting them with open conflict," he continued.
“The enemy has opened the conflict on all fronts, seeking us all, whether we fight or not. The enemy says, ‘I am crazy,’ and it is up to the nation to assume its responsibilities. I reiterate my call for everyone to participate on multiple fronts in the actual resistance against the Zionist entity."
The "military wings" of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups took responsibility for a failed suicide bombing attack in southern Tel Aviv earlier this month.
In a statement, Hamas vowed to continue to carry out suicide attacks “as long as Israel continues its massacre and policy of assassinations in Gaza.”
The bomber, who was killed in the blast, was a Palestinian from the area of Nablus in the West Bank.
The Israel Defense Forces launched a large-scale counterterrorism operation in the Jenin and Tulkarem areas of northern Samaria overnight Tuesday, involving hundreds of troops as well as air support.
Mashaal also criticised U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, accusing the Americans of supplying Israel with "weapons of destruction."
"America abandoned the July 2 paper [U.S. President Joe Biden's Gaza ceasefire proposal] then blamed Hamas, knowing that the one who disrupted the agreement was [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu, who has a personal agenda, in addition to the Zionist agenda that America and some Western countries unfortunately support," he said.
Mashaal, who was said to have been considered to replace slain politburo head Ismail Haniyeh was passed over in favour of Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar,
Hamas still holds an estimated 108 hostages in Gaza, including 104 of the 251 hostages taken on October 7—34 of whom are deceased, according to the military.
In March, Mashaal said that Hamas would not release any hostages until Israel ends the war, withdraws its troops, allows all Gazans to return to their homes and lifts the blockade on the coastal enclave.
“Inshallah [‘God willing’], we will defeat them in the field and in the negotiating battle,” said Mashaal, adding that the group is also fighting “intense battles” in the media and in the political sphere.
The terrorist leader reiterated that “in the negotiations, we insist on stopping the aggression, withdrawing from Gaza, returning the displaced to their places, especially in northern Gaza, providing all necessary relief, shelter and reconstruction, and ending the siege.
“We will not release their prisoners [the hostages] until we achieve these goals,” Mashaal vowed.
Late last year, speaking to France’s Le Figaro daily from his residence in Qatar, Mashaal predicted that “sooner or later, the United States will argue that Hamas is a reality and enjoys legitimacy among the people. We must learn from history. The Americans accepted the Taliban. [PLO founder] Yasser Arafat even won the Nobel Peace Prize,” he noted.
Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre “shocked world public opinion, and polls in the United States show increased support for the Palestinian cause” in its wake, he concluded, adding that Hamas’s terrorist army in Gaza would not be destroyed as it had “passed the credibility test against Israel.”
In January, Mashaal restated his rejection of Israel’s right to exist, saying that the Oct. 7 mass murder “turned the idea of liberating Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea into a realistic idea that has already begun.”
