Hamas terrorist chief’s naked lies: Senior figure says Israeli ‘women, children and civilians were exempt’ in October 7 attack, despite footage showing families being killed

A senior Hamas leader has refused to acknowledge that his terror group killed civilians in Israel in the October 7 attack, which was carried out a month ago today.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy chairman of Hamas’s Political Bureau, said that “women, children and civilians were exempt” from the marauding attacks and that they only targeted conscripts, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Videos filmed by Hamas fighters themselves, as well as other clips, show them shooting unarmed civilians, while the bodies of men, women and children have been recovered in several communities in southern Israel that were attacked.

Israel says more than 1,400 people in the country, mostly civilians, were killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas raid that started the war.

The Palestinian terror group also took more than 240 people hostage, including children and the elderly, back across the border into Gaza.

Israel, which launched a massive bombardment of Gaza and an intensification of its ground offensive in response to the attack, has vowed to remove Hamas from power.

Emergency personnel stand next to body bags kept outside a building following the October 7 Hamas attack in Kibbutz Alumim, Israel, in this social media image released on November 6. Israel says more than 1,400 people have been killed in the country, most of them civilians, in the Oct. 7 Hamas raid that started the war

Marzouk’s comments came in an interview with the BBC on Saturday.

The broadcaster said it pressed him about the war in Gaza, focusing mainly on the hundreds of hostages held in the besieged coastal strip.

The 72-year-old, who was once a prisoner in the US and is subject to an asset freeze in Britain under counter-terrorism rules, said the hostages would not be released as long as Israel continued to bomb Gaza.

‘We will release them. But we have to stop the fighting,” he said.

Marzouk was challenged by the attack, claiming that Mohamed el-Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, had ordered the thousands of armed men who poured into Israel on October 7 to spare civilians and target only reservist soldiers.

‘El-Deif clearly told his fighters: ‘Don’t kill a woman, don’t kill a child and don’t kill an old man,'” he told the BBC. Saying that only reservist soldiers were ‘targeted’, he insisted that only ‘conscripts (…) or soldiers’ were killed.

Women, children and civilians were “exempt,” he said.

The BBC said Marzouk appeared irritated at points during the interview.

When challenged over video footage clearly showing Hamas fighters shooting and killing civilians, the broadcaster said he avoided answering the question.

He was also asked whether Hamas’s political wing had been informed of el-Deif’s preparation for the attack, the largest terrorist attack in Israel’s history.

Marzouk said the military wing of the group’s Qassam Brigades “does not need to consult with the political leaders.” It is not necessary.’

Hamas’s political wing, which is based in Qatar, often distances itself from its forces in Gaza, which are believed to number around 40,000.

Children’s toys and personal items lie on the blood-stained floor of a child’s bedroom on October 17, following the deadly infiltration by Hamas gunmen and the attack on Kibbutz Beeri

A woman looks at newly dug graves for the victims of the October 7 attack during the funeral of Albert Miles, 80, who was killed in his home in Kibbutz Beeri during the deadly infiltration of Israel by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, on the cemetery in Kibbutz Revivim, October 30

However, many Western governments, including Britain, do not distinguish between the two. Britain declared Hamas a terrorist organization in 2021, saying at the time: ‘the approach to distinguishing between the different parts of Hamas is artificial. Hamas is a complex but distinct terrorist organization.”

Marzouk, who is believed to have a net worth of billions of dollars, has been active in the Islamic political world since 1968. He was elected the first head of Hamas’s politburo in 1992 and has been the bureau’s vice chairman since 1997.

He also founded the Islamic Republic of Palestine, an organization accused by the United States of raising money for Hamas.

The US named him a Specially Designated Terrorist in 1995.

That same year he was arrested for activities in support of terrorism and deported after two years. He then moved to Jordan, then to Syria and then to Cairo in 2012.

Last week, Marzouk stated that his terrorist group’s political office is not responsible for protecting the citizens of the coastal strip.

Palestinian militants drive an Israeli military vehicle seized on October 7 by armed men infiltrating areas in southern Israel’s northern Gaza Strip

Smoke rises as Palestinians drive away from the Israeli kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7

‘We built the tunnels because we have no other way to protect ourselves from being killed in air raids. We are fighting from the tunnels,” he said.

He went further, adding: “Seventy-five percent of Gaza’s population are refugees, and it is the UN’s responsibility to protect them.”

The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 10,000, the health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said on Monday, including more than 4,100 children.

More than 2,300 people are missing and believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings, the ministry said. The ministry makes no distinction between civilians and fighters, and Israel says it has killed thousands of fighters.