Hamas releases new document explaining motives for October 7

The report does not mention the condition in which the hostages have been kept, nor that many of those kidnapped were children and elderly people.

Acknowledging that “some faults happened” during the attack, the report attributed any liability to the “rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system” as well as the “chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza.”

The document said allegations of violence committed against civilians were “nothing but complete lies and fabrications”, despite widely publicised video evidence filmed by Hamas terrorists themselves showing the brutal attacks on residents of the kibbutzim in southern Israel.

Footage obtained from GoPro cameras worn by terrorists during the massacre depicts the deliberate murder of Israeli civilians on the streets, in their homes and at the Nova festival. Videos show Hamas militants throwing grenades into safe rooms, setting houses on fire and abducting petrified civilians – including women, children and elderly people - at gunpoint.

International organisations including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court have launched investigations into possible crimes against humanity committed by Hamas militants on October 7. In December, The New York Times published the details of a two-month-long investigation into sexual violence committed against Israeli women during the attacks, combing through extensive evidence to reveal Hamas’ systematic infliction of rape, mutilation and sexual assault.

The recent report by Hamas briefly denied allegations of rape.

An introduction to the document stated that its purpose is to “clarify to our people and the free peoples of the world the reality of what happened on October 7, the motives behind, its general context related to the Palestinian cause, as well as a refutation to the Israeli allegations and to put the facts into perspective.”

The fourth section of the document entitled “A reminder to the world, who is Hamas?” summarises the group’s principles, claiming that Hamas’ conflict is with the “Zionist project” rather than the Jewish people:

“Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.”

The report goes on to explain its “rejection to what the Jews were exposed to by Nazi Germany”, claiming that, throughout history, the Arab and Islamic nations were “a safe haven to the Jewish people and to other peoples of other beliefs and ethnicities.”

“We reject the exploitation of the Jewish suffering in Europe to justify the oppression against our people in Palestine,” the report added.

The document concludes with a call to the global “superpower” nations to “stop providing the Zionist entity with cover from accountability, and to stop dealing with it as a country above the law.”