Agencies GAZA

Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya praised the October 7 massacre as a major achievement that would be taught to future generations of Palestinians with pride, while touting the ceasefire-hostage deal that was announced shortly before he spoke on Wednesday as a “historic moment.” “Our people have thwarted the declared and hidden goals of the occupation.

Today we prove that the occupation will never defeat our people and their resistance,” al-Hayya was quoted as saying during a televised speech from Qatar. He praised the Hamas-led massacres of Israelis on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 captives, amid atrocities including rape and torture.

The deadliest slaughter of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust was a “military accomplishment” and “a source of pride for our people… to be passed down from generation to generation” ,al-Hayya said. Hamas’s top negotiator in the ceasefire and hostage talks said despite suing for an end to the war, the group would continue to pursue Israel’s destruction, looking toward Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “compass”.

“Our people will expel the occupation from our land and from Jerusalem at the earliest time possible,” said al-Hayya. “Our enemy will never see a moment of weakness from us,” he added. Al-Hayya, who served as Hamas’s chief negotiator in the hostage talks, additionally hailed other Iran-backed organizations such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, for launching solidarity attacks on Israel. 

Al-Hayya claimed Hamas “will not forgive” the suffering inflicted in the Gaza Strip amid the war sparked by its October 2023 attack, which led to mass devastation throughout the coastal enclave. The Hamas-run health ministry has reported over 46,000 killed in Gaza since then, an unverified figure that doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.