Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk has submitted a lengthy witness statement to a British court, arguing that London should end its proscription of Hamas as a terror group.
The Palestinian group claims to be “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project,” in a filing reported by the Drop Site News outlet.
Hamas openly seeks to destroy Israel, regularly attempts to target Israeli civilians, and, on October 7, 2023, led an invasion by thousands of terrorists who systematically killed and kidnapped Israelis of all ages, including civilians at their homes and at a music festival, as well as British nationals.
In his statement, submitted on Wednesday, Abu Marzouk claimed the onslaught was solely directed at military targets, falsely asserting that the targeting of civilians that day was marginal or done mainly by non-Hamas members.
He accused Britain of complicity in the Israeli “genocide” against Palestinians by arming Israel, and claimed the group poses no threat to the United Kingdom.
Marzouk also stressed that “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — a demand that necessitates the eradication of Israel.
A legal team from Riverway Law representing Hamas pro bono — since it would be illegal to receive money from the group — argued that since Britain has a duty to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity, and since Hamas “is the only effective military force resisting – and seeking to end and prevent – the ongoing acts of genocide and crimes against humanity being committed by the Zionist State against the Palestinians in Gaza,” it should drop Hamas from the terrorism list, Drop Site reported.
The lawyers also claimed that while Hamas’s actions fit the definition of “terrorism” in British law, so do those of the IDF, the Ukrainian army, and even the British military.
Hamas and other terror groups are still holding 59 of the hostages abducted on October 7. Hostage-taking is a crime against humanity under international conventions.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 50,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
The Home Office told The Guardian newspaper that it does not comment on proscribing cases.
Britain’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel of the opposition Conservative party said: “Hamas is an evil Iranian-backed terrorist organization, which kidnaps, tortures and murders people, including British nationals,” the Guardian reported.
“They pose an ongoing threat to our security and to the peace and stability of the Middle East and they have weapons and training facilities that put lives at risk and threaten our interests. They show no respect for human rights, life and dignity and have oppressed people living in Gaza for too long.”
In November 2021 the UK designated all of Hamas an “Islamist terrorist group,” warning that its members and those who support the group could face stiff jail terms. The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, had been banned in Britain since 2001 but the interior ministry extended the measures to its political entities as well.