Senior Hamas Official Mousa Abu Marzouk: Nobody Could Have Anticipated The Consequences Of October 7; We Did Not Expect A Barbaric World War against Us, In Violation Of International Law

Mousa Abu Marzouk of the Hamas Political Bureau was asked in a February 22, 2024 interview on Alghad TV [Egypt] if Hamas’s Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades had any expectations regarding the consequences of the October 7 attack. Abu Marzouk said that "nobody in the whole world" could have expected such a "barbaric" response by Israel. He added that nobody could have anticipated that the U.S., Britian and other Western countries would unite to wage war against Hamas.

Interviewer: "When the [Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam] Brigades did what they did on October 7, did they have expectations regarding the consequences of that attack?"

Mousa Abu Marzouk: "Look, the consequences of the attack...Nobody in the whole world expected them to be so barbaric, and in such violation of all the international laws, treaties and norms. Nobody expected the [Israeli response] to be so barbaric, because, ultimately, the resistance fights soldiers. It is not fighting civilians with planes and tanks."

Interviewer: "What would you do if you had expected these consequences?"

Abu Marzouk: "Nobody expected that all the Western powers, The U.S., and Britain, would wage world war against civilians. Nobody expected that.

[...]

"Do you think anyone in the world could have expected there to be a world war, in the sense that America, Germany, Britian, France, Italy, and Spain – all of them would gather their armies, and the U.S. would send its two largest aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean Sea, all in order to fight a movement?

[...]

"By what logic could anyone have expected that the U.S. and the entire West, would unite, without exception, in order to wage war against a movement? Who could have expected this?"