A senior official within the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas admitted to a Saudi media outlet that the October 7 terror attack caused the destruction of the organization because of the ferocity of Israel’s response.
Israel Hayom reported Sunday:
A senior Hamas official currently based in Turkey told Saudi media that the 37th anniversary of the terrorist organization’s founding comes during a period of decline due to defeats in Gaza and the broader region.
The official disclosed, “Hamas is suffering from a genuine leadership crisis. The Al-Aqsa Flood attack backfired on us, submerging us in a sea of blood and crises. The most recent blow was the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, with which Hamas had been attempting to rebuild relations.”
According to a report by the Saudi news site Elaph, the Syrian government has ordered Palestinian terrorist groups to shut down their offices, hand over their weapons, dismantle training camps, and leave Syria as soon as possible. The primary Palestinian group active in Syria has been the Islamic Jihad. In contrast, Hamas’s political bureau left Syria earlier due to its support for Islamist rebels at the start of the Syrian civil war, which sparked a rift with Assad.
Israel Hayom also cited reporting that Palestinian terrorists in Syria fled to Iran, but may leave for other countries due to the fear of assassination (Israel is suspected of having killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.)
There are also Hamas officials in Turkey, and some are in Qatar — including some who reportedly returned there at the urging of the incoming Trump administration, solely for the purpose of negotiating a hotage deal by January 20.
The report that Hamas leaders are accepting that the October 7 terror attack was a strategic mistake is a reversal from past months, and suggests that Israel is succeeding in restoring a deterrent against its enemies.
However, there are European nations who continue to reward Hamas, with Ireland the latest to join South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Ireland, Spain, and Norway also recognized a Palestinian state.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
