An official for the Hamas terrorist organization, which just weeks ago launched a war against Israel by invading and committing atrocities that left some 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians dead, now says it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect its own civilians from Israel’s military response.

Israel has, in fact, launched a series of air strikes on known Hamas operations in Gaza since the Hamas terror attack, in which militants drugged themselves and carried instructions to commit atrocities, such as burning whole families alive and beheading babies.

The air strikes have done damage to Hamas’ military components, but as those installations often are adjacent to housing, or even hospitals, ancillary damage has been unavoidable.

Further, Hamas has constructed hundreds of miles of tunnels for its terror equipment, personnel and campaigns, which will require on-the-ground Israeli military operations to neutralize.

Now Mousa Abu Marzouk, of Hamas’ “Political Bureau,” says those tunnels are for Hamas fighters, and are not intended to protect civilians.

According to a report from the Middle East Media Research Institute, Marzouk said during an interview on Russia Today TV that since 75% of the residents in the Gaza Strip are refugees, it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them.

He was asked about the “500 kilometers of tunnels,” and why Hamas failed to provide any bomb shelters for civilians.

He said, “We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. These tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels.”

In fact, the agenda appears to be to keep civilians close by Hamas’ military installations to act as shields, as previous reports confirm Hamas had closed roads to evacuees, who had been warned by Israel of the coming offensive.

In fact, he charged that the United Nations must not only protect civilians, but provide for them.

“Everybody knows that 75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees, and it is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them. According to the Geneva Convention, it is the responsibility of the occupation to provide them with all the services as long as they are under occupation,” Marzouk said.

This article was originally published by the WND News Center.

This post originally appeared on WND News Center.