From: The Times of Israel February 24, 2025
Senior Hamas official: I wouldn’t have backed October 7 if I’d known outcome for Gaza

Moussa Abu Marzouk says:
1. ‘impossible’ to call Gaza war a victory for terror group,
2. voices openness to discussing its disarmament;

Hamas: Words taken out of context, don’t represent us

Senior Hamas politburo member Moussa Abu Marzouk said he would not have backed the October 7, 2023 invasion and onslaught in southern Israel if he had known what the consequences would be for the Gaza Strip, in an interview with The New York Times that was conducted on Friday and published on Monday.

The October 7 attack — in which:
1. thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the Gaza-Israel border,
2. killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians,
3. and taking 251 hostages,
4. amid rampant acts of brutality and sexual assault —

sparked the subsequent war in Gaza, which:
1. has devastated the enclave,
2. seen tens of thousands killed,
3. and prompted the US president to call for the forced relocation of the more than 2 million residents of the Strip.

The war has also, through fighting on other fronts,
1. significantly weakened Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance,”
2. devastating the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon,
3. and indirectly contributing to the collapse of the Iran-backed Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.