A SENIOR Hamas leader has refused to acknowledge that his group killed civilians in Israel, claiming only conscripts were targeted.
Moussa Abu Marzouk told the BBC that “women, children and civilians were exempt” from Hamas’s attacks.
His claims are in stark contrast to the wealth of video evidence of Hamas men shooting unarmed adults and children.
Israel says more than 1,400 people were killed by Hamas in the 7 October attacks, most of them civilians.
Mr Marzouk, the group’s deputy political leader, who is subject to an asset freeze in the UK under counter-terrorism regulations, was interviewed on Saturday in the Gulf. He is the most senior member to speak to the BBC since the 7 October atrocities.
The BBC pressed Mr Marzouk on the war on Gaza, specifically on the scores of hostages being held inside the territory.
He responded that they were not able to be freed while Israel was bombing Gaza. The Hamas-run health ministry says 10,000 people have been killed since Israel started operations last month.
“We will release them. But we need to stop the fighting,” he said.
Mr Marzouk recently travelled to Moscow to discuss eight Russian-Israeli dual citizens snatched on 7 October by Hamas, a proscribed terror organisation in many countries including the UK and US.
He said Hamas members in Gaza had “looked for and found two female hostages” from Russia but were unable to release them because of the conflict.
They could only realistically release hostages, he said, if “the Israelis stop the fighting so we can hand them over to the Red Cross”.
Challenged by the BBC about the attack of 7 October, Mr Marzouk claimed that Mohamed el-Deif, the leader of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades military wing, had ordered his men to spare civilians.
“El-Deif clearly told his fighters ‘don’t kill a woman, don’t kill a child and don’t kill an old man’,” he said.
Reservist soldiers were, he said, “targeted”. He maintained that only “conscripts […] or soldiers” were killed.
But women, children and civilians were “exempt”, he said.