Israeli Arabs should ‘join their people in fighting,’ insists Hamas official

The IDF killed Israeli civilians during Hamas’s October 7, Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said in an interview with BBC Arabic on November 6, adding a call for Arabs living in Israel to join Hamas’s terrorist assault on the state.

In the interview, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Marzouk said:

“Most of the civilians who were killed [on October 7] were killed by Israeli forces. The best evidence of that is the houses in which they were killed. Those houses were destroyed by shells from tanks and planes, and not by the AK-47s our people had.

“Those [Israeli] Arabs must not remain isolated,” the official said about the large Arab population living within Israel. “They should join their people in fighting the occupiers. They should do whatever they can to fight those occupiers.” 

“Inside Israel?” the interviewer clarified. 

#ICYMI: Hamas Official Moussa Abu Marzouk Calls on Israeli Arabs to Join the Fighting, Despite Fears of Losing Citizenship: "Cowardice Will Not Protect Them from Humiliation"; Doubling down on His Controversial Statement: We Cannot Fit 2.5 Million Gazans in Our Tunnels #Hamas pic.twitter.com/iIb65OrY4d

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) November 11, 2023

In response, Marzouk affirmed “Yes. Inside Israel, in the West Bank, and everywhere.” 

The interviewer, interrupting Marzouk, prompted, “We spoke with many of their representatives, and they are really fearful that any act of the kind you suggest would lead to their [Israeli] citizenship being revoked…”   

“Their cowardice will not protect them from the humiliation that will be their lot,” Marzouk responded.

Where are the hostages Hamas brought to Gaza?

“So far we have not even managed to make a list of all [the hostages]. The truth is that we do not need [the foreign nationals] among them. We want to release them but they [the IDF] should at least stop shooting,” Marzouk said.

The interviewer proceeded to probe, “Does that mean they are held by different factions or in different places? Why can’t you [make a list]?" 

“Both are true,” answered the official. “They are held by different factions. Some are held by the Qassam Brigades. They are held in various places- so both things are true.” 

On the topic of the tunnel networks that Hamas has constructed under the civilian population of Gaza, Marzouk stated “We have built those tunnels and now it became clear why. Thanks to those tunnels, we are fighting the occupiers and we will defeat them.

“Do you want me to get two million people [into tunnels?” the official asks the interviewer in reference to the civilian population of Gaza. “There is no agriculture in Gaza. There are no streets and you expect me to fit 2.5 million people in the tunnels?

“If [Israel] discovers the tunnels,” Marouk continued, “it has bombs capable of destroying them.”