Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad appeared in a TV interview on Wednesday, his first public look because the Israeli strike concentrating on the phobia group’s leaders in Qatar final week.
Hamad, who fled Gaza shortly earlier than the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, bloodbath sparked the continued battle, confirmed in an interview with the Al-Jazeera community that he was on the web site when it was attacked. His look was the most recent signal that the assault had did not kill the terrorist group’s management.`
“We had been discussing a ceasefire proposal, lower than an hour after the assembly started, we heard an explosion,” he stated, referring to Hamas’s management.
“We’re skilled within the sounds of missiles and understood it was an Israeli strike. We left the place shortly, and thank God we survived,” he stated. “God destined us to outlive this treacherous aggression towards us and sister Qatar.”
Six individuals, together with a Qatari officer, had been killed within the strike, however all the terror group’s senior leaders are thought to have survived. Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political management since 2012.
Israel’s try to kill Hamas’s political leaders with the September 9 strike prompted worldwide condemnation, however a defiant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Qatar to both expel Hamas officers or “deliver them to justice, as a result of should you don’t, we’ll.”
Harm is seen after an Israeli strike focused a compound that hosted Hamas’ political management in Doha, Qatar, on September 10, 2025 (AFP)
Hamad moreover advised Al Jazeera on Wednesday that Washington lacks credibility as a mediator for a ceasefire deal, citing what he known as the group’s “bitter” expertise with the truce efforts.
In response to Trump’s warning that there could be “hell to pay” if Hamas used hostages as human shields, Hamad stated the US president “doesn’t scare us,” and claimed that captives are held in response to “beliefs and Islamic rules.”
“We cope with the prisoners in response to our values, and regardless of the massacres towards our individuals, the one placing them at risk is the [Israeli] occupation itself,” Hamad added.
A composite picture of 5 members of Hamas’s management focused by Israel in Qatar on September 9, 2025, L-R: Zaher Jabarin, Khaled Mashaal, Khalil al-Hayya, Muhammad Ismail Darwish, Nizar Awadallah. (Mahmud Hams/Louai Beshara/KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)
A lot of hostages have been murdered by terrorists in captivity. Hostages who’ve been rescued and launched have described being tortured, together with enduring beatings, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and hunger, whereas their captors had no scarcity of meals. A current video of a hostage confirmed him emaciated and compelled to dig his personal grave.
The continuing battle started when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged by means of southern Israel’s communities on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 individuals, largely civilians, and taking 251 hostages.
Terror teams within the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, together with 47 of the 251 kidnapped by terrorists within the October 7 assault, 20 of whom are believed to nonetheless be alive. There are grave considerations for 2 others. The rest are regarded as useless.
The Hamas-run Gaza well being ministry says greater than 65,000 individuals within the Strip have been killed or are presumed useless within the combating up to now, although the toll can’t be verified and doesn’t differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it had killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and one other 1,600 terrorists inside Israel in the course of the October 7 onslaught.
Israel says it seeks to attenuate civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas fights from civilian areas, together with houses, hospitals, colleges and mosques.
Israel’s toll within the floor offensive towards Hamas in Gaza and in army operations alongside the border with the Strip stands at 465.
AFP and Instances of Israel workers contributed to this report.
