RUTHFULLY YOURS

Some people in Israel are demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu step down and agree to Hamas’s demand to end the war in the Gaza Strip, as if Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was just another round of fighting with the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group.

These Israelis fail to understand that the October 7 massacre is just another phase of the Islamists’ Jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Hamas did not attack Israel on October 7, 2023, just because it wanted to release Palestinian convicts from Israeli prisons or improve the living conditions of the Palestinians under its rule in the Gaza Strip. The attack, resulting in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and the wounding of thousands more, as well as the abduction of more than 250 to the Gaza Strip, came as part of Hamas’s Jihad to destroy Israel and replace it with an Islamist state.

For Hamas and other Islamist organizations, the conflict with Israel is not about prisoners, settlements or checkpoints. It is a conflict about Israel’s very existence in the Middle East. The Jihad does not aim to free prisoners or remove settlements and checkpoints, but to murder Jews and obliterate Israel.

Since its violent, brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has done nothing to help the local residents. Instead of building hospitals, schools and economic projects, Hamas, with the help of Iran and Qatar, has devoted huge resources to manufacturing weapons, such as rockets and missiles, and building a massive network of tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip. The result was that the Gaza Strip quickly became one of the largest bases for Jihad and terrorism in the Middle East.

After the October 7 massacre, Hamas repeatedly affirmed its commitment to Jihad against Israel. On February 21, 2025, Hamas said in a statement that its “determination and resolve to continue the path of Jihad until liberation and victory has increased.” For Hamas, “liberation” means the elimination of Israel through Jihad and “armed resistance” (terrorism).

Hamas, in a document published shortly after the October 7 attack, openly admits that it is opposed to the presence of Jews in Israel. The document frankly admits that the conflict did not start as a result of the Holocaust, or when Israel declared independence in 1948, or on October 7, 2023, but 105 years ago, “including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation.” The document goes on to explain that Hamas “is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.”

Hamas’s 1988 charter emphasizes the importance of Jihad as the main means for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to achieve its goals: An uncompromising Jihad must be waged against Israel and any agreement recognizing its to right to exist must be totally opposed. Jihad is the personal duty of every Muslim. Hamas, according to the charter, views the “problem of Palestine” as a religious-political Muslim issue, and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as a conflict between Islam and the “infidel” Jews. “Palestine” is presented as a sacred Islamic land, so it is strictly forbidden to give up even one inch of it because no one (including Arab-Muslim rulers) has the authority to do so.

Significantly, the charter quotes Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, as saying: “Israel will arise and continue to exist until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished what went before.” Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

US President Donald J. Trump would do well to designate the Muslim Brotherhood, the font of all the Islamic jihadist organizations, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Such an act would make it difficult for those countries that promote and finance jihadi terrorists to keep on doing so.

Article 2 of the Hamas charter states:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterized by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embraced of al Islamic concepts of life, culture, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, inflation, science, of the occult and conversion to Islam.”

Since its founding, Hamas has remained completely faithful to its charter. Hamas has never recognized Israel’s right to exist; it has rejected all peace agreements between Arabs and Israel, and, most importantly, not only has it carried out thousands of terrorist attacks against Israel, its leaders have vowed to keep on carrying out terrorist attacks “until Israel is annihilated.”

Last week it was reported that Hamas’s patron, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major-General Ebrahim Jabbari, stated that Iran’s “Operation True Promise 3 will be carried out at the right time, with precision, and on a scale sufficient to destroy Israel and raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”

The massacre on October 7 was just another phase in the Islamist groups’ efforts to eliminate Israel. Iran and Hamas do not care if tens of thousands of Palestinians lose their lives, so long as it is permitted to pursue their Jihad against Israel.

What happened on October 7 should be seen in the context of Qatar’s, Iran’s and Hamas’s continuing Jihad. The massacre on October 7 was just another phase in the Islamist groups’ efforts to eliminate Israel. After the October 7, massacres, the Qatari government media consistently praised the massacres, and weeks ago vowed more of them.

Two weeks after the October 7 assault, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal acknowledged that his group was intentionally sacrificing Palestinians to achieve as part of the Jihad against Israel: “We know very well the consequences of our operation on October 7,” he said. “The Palestinian people are just like any other nation. No nation is liberated without sacrifices.”

Anyone who believes that Hamas would abandon Jihad as a result of a ceasefire agreement is engaging in extreme self-deception. Hamas has not yet accomplished its mission of destroying Israel. Hamas’s main goal, especially now, is to remain in power after the war.

The terrorist group in Gaza bears full responsibility for the death of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians. Any deal that keeps Hamas in power would pave the way for the Islamist murderers, rapists and baby-killers to carry out still more massacres against Israelis.

It is time to remind the world of what senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said after October 7:

“The Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas’s name for the Oct. 7 invasion] is just the first time, and there will be a second, third, and fourth, because we have the determination, the remove, and the capabilities to fight…. Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country.”

Regrettably, there is no alternative to eradicating Hamas. In a civilized world, a terrorist group that is openly hell-bent on genocidal destruction has forfeited its right to exist.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.