An official from the Hamas resistance movement has held the United States responsible for Israel’s recent massacre of desperate Palestinians seeking food aid in the Gaza Strip.
The unnamed official made the remarks on Saturday, two days after Israeli forces opened fire on the Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid trucks in Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street, killing at least 118 people and injuring 760 others.
“The occupation’s massacre on al-Rashid Street in Gaza during the distribution of aid was met with a green light from the US,” he said in an interview with the London-based New Arab news website.
The bloodshed, he added, was meant to “pressure the Resistance to make concessions at the negotiation table that would strip the Palestinian people, residents of the [Gaza] Strip, and the Resistance of the gains achieved on October 7.”
On October 7, 2023, Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against Israel in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
In response to the historic raid, which shook Israel’s security establishment, the occupying regime launched a genocidal war on the besieged Gaza.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 30,320 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded 71,533 others during the Gaza aggression.
Thursday’s killing of the Palestinian aid seekers was one of the single deadliest tragedies in Gaza since the Israeli offensive began. It has drawn global condemnations, with world leaders calling for an independent inquiry into the carnage.
Israel is intentionally starving the Palestinians by blocking the passage of relief supplies into Gaza in a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.
The Hamas official said that Israel’s starvation tactic in Gaza is “fully coordinated” by the administration of US President Joe Biden.
‘US in collusion with Israel in Gaza truce talks’
He also noted that the US administration is “in clear collusion” with the occupying regime in negotiations with Hamas over a Gaza ceasefire.
He further said that Washington is “negotiating on behalf of the occupation” and that it does not want the Resistance to appear victorious by fulfilling its demands to complete a prisoner exchange deal.
Hamas, he emphasized, is preparing its final response to what has been discussed with mediators in Paris and Doha in the past week.
Meanwhile, the official said the Hamas military wing, known as al-Qassam Brigades, is currently in a very good condition.
“What the resistance lost of its strength does not exceed 20% of its material capabilities, and in terms of human losses, it is much less than what the Israeli army announces,” he added.
