Khaled Mashal, the terrorist leader in charge of the Hamas “diaspora office,” delivered a speech on Wednesday in which he called for Palestinians in the West Bank to engage in mass suicide attacks against Israel, insisting “the escalation of this conflict is required.”
Mashal made the remarks in a video recorded for an anti-Israel conference in Istanbul, Turkey. The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hardline Islamist, is explicitly pro-Hamas despite its status as a genocidal terrorist organization and the perpetrator of an unprecedented massacre of upwards of 1,000 people in Israel on October 7, 2023. Erdogan himself has repeatedly claimed that Hamas “is not a terrorist organization” while comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.
The senior Hamas terrorist’s plea for more “martyrdom operations” follows several rounds of failed attempts at negotiations by the administration of leftist American President Joe Biden, which has pressured Israel to stop its self-defense operations in Hamas-controlled Gaza following October 7. The most recent round took the form of a visit to Israel by Secretary of State Antony Blinken during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in which he demanded Israel broker negotiations with Hamas. Blinken left the Middle East empty-handed as, by his own admission, the Israeli government was open to a “bridging proposal” – a deal to make a deal – but Hamas adamantly refused to contemplate it.
“It is not enough for us to be proud of the resistance, watch videos on TV, and be full of praise for their heroism and sacrifice,” Mashal proclaimed in his remarks in Istanbul, addressing the global Muslim community. “Pride and appreciation are required, and supporting them financially is also required, but these are not enough.”
“Today, in the West Bank, within the 1948 borders, and in the diaspora, the escalation of this conflict is required,” he continued, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “Today, in the West Bank, we have seen some successful early signs of martyrdom operations. We want to go back to the martyrdom operations. This necessitates an all-out conflict.”
Senior Hamas official Khaled Mashal makes a speech during the funeral ceremony of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran’s capital Tehran at the Imam Abd al-Wahhab Mosque in Doha, Qatar on August 02, 2024. (Ahmet Okur/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“We should unleash all forms of resistance, and first and foremost, the martyrdom operations,” Mashal demanded. “We should engage in these operations. We should have an all-out confrontation. We should reignite this spirit in the West Bank and the 1948 borders. Otherwise, Israel will fight us piece by piece.”
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Hamas terrorist encouraged university students around the world to disrupt academic activities in support of his organization, telling the leaders of protests that occurred towards the end of the spring semester that they “should be proud” and continue opposing Israel.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency published a report on Mashal’s speech that notably omitted the call for “martyrdom” by the residents of the West Bank. It instead emphasized the call to disrupt campuses.
“With the return of the academic year and the approach of the first anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation (on Oct. 7), there must be a preparation at all fronts,” Anadolu quoted him as saying, “to send a message to Washington and the world to stop the aggression on Gaza.”
Hamas has a long history of calling for genocide and engaging in gruesome acts of violence against both Israelis and Palestinians. In Gaza, Hamas regularly hides weapons stockpiles and terror tunnels in schools, humanitarian aid offices, and children’s bedrooms. Hamas also reportedly runs a pervasive espionage network tracking the lives of Gazans to ensure no organized resistance to its rule can develop.
Despite its history, the Biden administration has spent much of the ensuing months following the October 7 attack attempting to bring Hamas to the negotiating table for diplomacy similar to that of a rational state actor. Blinken’s trip to Israel in late August – which also included stops in Egypt and Qatar – featured pleas by American officials for Hamas to consider a “bridging proposal” to begin negotiations to end Israel’s self-defense operations in Gaza. Blinken conceded that talks with Netanyahu were “very constructive” following his time in Israel and implored Hamas to approach negotiations with an open mind.
“In a very constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu today, he confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal, that he supports it,” Blinken told reporters. “It’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same and then the parties … have to come together and complete the process of reaching clear understandings.”
Hamas responded with the negotiations by expressing outrage, claiming that the deal Israel agreed to was different from the one they thought was initially being negotiated.
“The Israelis have retreated from issues included in Biden’s proposal,” a Hamas spokesman, Osama Hamdan, told the Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera. “Netanyahu’s talk about agreeing to an updated proposal indicates that the US administration has failed to convince him to accept the previous agreement.”
The deal on the table that Hamas rejected, according to the State Department, was “virtually identical” to a previous Hamas proposal.