Hamas statement on latest Israeli aggression against Gaza

The appalling attack carried out by the Israeli occupation over the past days, in which it targeted senior Islamic Jihad commanders and innocent civilians in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 40 Palestinians, including women and children, and injuring hundreds more, is a serious escalation that reveals its sadistic nature and its policy based on committing massacres against the Palestinian people in a desperate attempt to undermine the Palestinian resistance, steadfastness, and fight for their rights, homeland, and holy sites, Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, said in a statement.  

Hamas states the following: 

First: We mourn the death of Palestinian martyrs who have fallen during the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, above all Islamic Jihad commanders. As we offer our sincere condolences to their families and loved ones, we stress that the Palestinian blood will fuel the struggle to restore the legitimate Palestinian rights to liberation and return.

Second: The political and diplomatic efforts exerted by Hamas, headed by its chief Ismail Haniyeh, with all relevant parties are part of its historic responsibility towards protecting the Palestinian people and ending the barbaric Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip.  

Third: Hamas will continue its fight to preserve and protect Palestinian rights, constants, and holy sites, achieve the Palestinian aspirations, and embrace Palestinian unity and comprehensive resistance as an option to defend the Palestinian territories and detainees and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Fourth: The continuous wave of normalisation between some Arab states and the Israeli occupation will provide the colonial occupation with a cover to commit further crimes against the Palestinian people and their homeland. As we reiterate our rejection of all forms of normalisation, we call on the Arab regimes that normalised ties with the Israeli occupation to reverse their wrongful decision and endorse Arab and Muslim values against the occupation.

Fifth: We vehemently condemn the double standards policy adopted by the US administration and some EU states towards the Palestinian cause and rights and their bias towards the Israeli occupation and its aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip. We urge them to backtrack on their approach out of respect for humanitarian values and international laws and conventions.  

Sixth: All Palestinian factions and parties in the Gaza Strip, West Bank, Al-Quds, and the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948, as well as in diaspora and refugee camps abroad, are required to reinforce national and popular unity based on a comprehensive and unified program to confront the Israeli occupation and restore the Palestinian national rights. 

Seventh: The atrocities and massacres perpetrated by the Israeli occupation during its aggression on the Gaza Strip, in addition to its continuous violations and crimes across the occupied Palestinian territories, will not be forgotten by the passage of time. We call on all human rights groups and humanitarian organisations to strongly act to hold Israeli occupation leaders to account as war criminals before the International Criminal Court (ICC).