Hamas interview is ‘just a page out of their book’: Ret. General

(NewsNation) — In an interview on Lebanese television, a Hamas official vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 attack on Israel “again and again.”

“The al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight,” Ghazi Hamad of Hamas said in the Oct. 24 interview.

Retired Lt. Gen. Richard Newton told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas the interview is “just a page out of their book.”

“This is very calculated. This is part of their efforts to continue, frankly, their war of terror,” Newton said.

Kirk Lippold, who served as the commanding officer of the USS Cole when it was attacked by al-Qaida in 2000, believes many moves by Hamas are part of a “very sophisticated information warfare campaign.”

“It’s always difficult for democracies when they try to conduct information warfare because anytime you try to shape public perception based upon facts, people are automatically suspect,” Lippold said. “When you look at what Israel has to deal with Hamas, people will seem to naturally believe them.”

In the Lebanese television interview, Hamad reportedly said, “We did not want to harm civilians, but there were complications on the ground.”

Lippold calls the claim a “bald-faced lie.”

“He is counting on the fact that people are going to believe him over Israel. What they did was brutal beyond comprehension. It was equivalent, if not worse than what ISIS was doing,” Lippold told Vargas.

More than 8,800 Palestinians have been killed and more than 22,000 injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported Wednesday, without providing a breakdown. On the Israeli side, more than 1,400 people have died, mostly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack on Oct. 7. Around 240 people were also kidnapped by Hamas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.