Hamas terror leader Ismail Haniyeh graciously thanked the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, on Thursday for its “firm support” against the ongoing military operation by Israel to eradicate the group in its stronghold of Gaza.
Haniyeh appeared to credit Tehran’s theocratic rulers for playing a role in an agreement with the Israeli government to pause the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations in Gaza and free some convicted terrorists in exchange for Hamas freeing some Israeli hostages.
Hamas is believed to have taken about 250 hostages during an unprecedented string of atrocities committed on October 7, in an event the genocidal jihadist group refers to as the “al-Aqsa Flood.”
That day, a wave of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and went on door-to-door killing rampages, killing entire families in their own homes, raping and torturing random civilians, and filming themselves desecrating the bodies of their victims.
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At a music festival taking place that day, Hamas terrorists opened fire on concertgoers, gang-raped women on site, and similarly brutalized the corpses of those they killed. Forensic evidence suggests the use of rape as a weapon of war and the gruesome killing of children as young as infants, found decapitated and burned.
A spokesman for Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, told the BBC on October 7 that the group had “direct backing” from Iran in orchestrating the attack. Iran’s regime threw a massive street party, replete with fireworks, in Tehran on October 7 to celebrate the mass killing of innocents, in which attendees chanted “death to America” and “death to Israel.”
The IDF launched an operation into Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, shortly thereafter to rescue the hostages taken and neutralize Hamas’s ability to orchestrate another similar attack.
That operation is expected to pause for four days beginning on Friday. Hamas terrorists claim they will release a group of hostages hours after the pause begins; it remains unclear exactly who among the missing will be released, nor does the public know the exact location where the hostages are expected to be freed.
File/Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniya (3rd-R) waves upon his arrival at a rally marking the 31st anniversary of Hamas’ founding, in Gaza City December 16, 2018. (SAID KHATIB/AFP/Getty Images)
Israel agreed to the deal after being pressured by the administration of President Joe Biden, according to White House officials.
“The President recognized very early, the only way, the only realistic way to get a humanitarian pause in place — and we support humanitarian pauses irrespective of a hostage deal — is through an agreement to bring the hostages home,” White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk said on Wednesday, claiming Biden supported “humanitarian pauses irrespective of a hostage deal.”
The Biden administration uses the term “humanitarian pauses” instead of “ceasefire” to refer to a halt in the fighting.
#BREAKING Biden says Gaza hostages release ‘only a start’ pic.twitter.com/SsfJ6dx4Cp
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 24, 2023
Haniyeh did not describe the pause as “humanitarian” but, rather, a “political and military” victory in his public remarks alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Thursday. Iran’s PressTV referred to the “humanitarian pause” as a “ceasefire.”
“This is a political victory that was achieved based on the victory of the resistance in the field and the enemy failed in achieving its goals except for the killing of women and children and citizens and destroying their houses,” Haniyeh reportedly said.
“Despite the initial opposition to the ceasefire, the United States, understanding the realities of the battlefield, was finally forced to surrender to the will of the Palestinian people and the will of the world nations,” he claimed, “and the positive vote of 120 countries to the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly for a ceasefire with Hamas, which shows the US dominance over the international order has diminished.”
Hamas’ political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a rally held in solidarity with Palestinians outside Doha’s Imam Muhammad Abdel-Wahhab Mosque, amid the escalating flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian violence. (Mahmoud Hefnawy/picture alliance via Getty)
Haniyeh specifically thanked Iran for its “firm support” and Amir-Abdollahian for “active diplomatic support” in international venues for Hamas’s cause in general. Hamas is a genocidal organization whose original charter called for the destruction of Judaism and Christianity and “complete destruction of Israel.”
In his remarks alongside Haniyeh – with whom he met in Doha, Qatar – Amir-Abdollahian celebrated the atrocities of October 7, claiming they “shook the world” and “the dimensions of victory and achievement of the Palestinian nation were much bigger and tipped the strategic balance in different dimensions in favor of Palestine and the detriment of the usurping Zionist regime.”
Amir-Abdollahian interpreted the hostage deal as a sign “the US and the Israeli regime failed to achieve the least in the military field and were forced to negotiate indirectly with Hamas for a ceasefire and the release of their prisoners.”
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Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Stephanie Hallett via Storyful
The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, similarly proclaimed that the agreement was a “humiliating defeat” for Israel in remarks on Thursday.
“If we want to make an analysis after over 40 days … we must say that the enemy suffered a humiliating defeat and that the Palestinian people and resistance scored a great victory,” the Iranian state outlet Fars News quoted Raisi as saying. “The resistance managed to incapacitate the fake regime and frustrate it with no air, naval and ground forces.”
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