Senior Hamas official: Palestinian state recognition ‘one of the fruits of 7 October’

One of Hamas’s most senior officials has described the publicly stated intent of the UK, France and other countries to recognise a Palestinian state as “one of the fruits of 7 October”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera over the weekend, Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas, posed rhetorical questions to his interviewer, stating: “Why are all the countries recognizing a Palestinian state today? Before October 7, did any country dare recognize a Palestinian state?”

Hamad continued by saying: “The fruits of October 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue — and they are moving toward it with force. That is, that the Palestinian people are a people who deserve a country.”

One of the key criticisms of the UK’s announcement of its intention to recognise a Palestinian state is that it would be seen as a reward for Hamas’s actions on 7 October – a criticism which the British government has consistently rejected.

In his comments to Al Jazeera, the senior Hamas member also claimed that “we have been raised since childhood – I’m not just talking about Hamas, but about all Palestinians and all members of the Palestinian factions – who bore arms, fought and waged Jihad, were martyred and irrigated the soil with their blood, the weapons have always been our main force in confronting the occupation.

“Therefore, there has always been Palestinian consensus about this. No Palestinian is saying now that the resistance must end, because surrendering our weapons means the end of the resistance and the end of the Palestinian cause. We, as Palestinians, will not surrender our weapons – they need to understand this.”

Hamad, who left Gaza for Lebanon a few weeks before the 7 October attack, also claimed that “the Palestinians are not doing anything illegal. We are fighting for our freedom.

“We are not terrorists and we are not using any terrorist methods”, the terrorist continued.

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared the video on social media, stating: “In his own words, senior Hamas terrorist Ghazi Hamad admits: ‘The recognition of a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of October 7’.

“Don’t let terror collect its reward.”

Writing for Jewish News on Friday, Keir Starmer sought to assure the Jewish community, saying: “our demands on Hamas have not changed. The hostages must be released immediately. Hamas must lay down their weapons and accept that they have no future role in the governance of Gaza – so that the Palestinian people can build a future in peace.”

The Prime Minister also said that “We will make an assessment ahead of the UN General Assembly on how far the parties have met the steps we set out – and of course that includes the terrorists of Hamas. No one side will have a veto on recognition through their actions or inactions.”

However, this appears to contradict reports of a meeting which took place at the Foreign Office on Thursday night between senior government officials and British family of hostages. The following day, Adam Rose and Adam Wagner KC, the lawyers representing the British hostage families said:

“It was clear from the meeting last night that the British government’s policy will not help the hostages, and could even hurt them. We do not say this lightly, but it was made obvious to us at the meeting that although the conditions for recognising a Palestinian state would be assessed ‘in the round’ in late-September, in deciding whether to go ahead with recognition, the release or otherwise of the hostages would play no part in those considerations.

“In other words, the ‘vision for peace’ which the UK is pursuing, and which the families heard much about last night, may well involve our clients’ family members continuing to rot in Hamas dungeons, just as British and British-linked hostages Emily Damari and Eli Sharabi did before them.”