A Hamas official has claimed that 50 members of the Palestinian terror group were among those killed by Israeli fire during Monday’s mass protests at the Gaza border.
Hamas leader Salah Bardawil said in a televised interview that of the "62 people martyred, 50 were Hamas."
Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry previously stated that 60 total Palestinians were killed during the riots on Monday.
"Take his word for it. This was no peaceful protest," said Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus, who tweeted out the interview.
Despite admitting that Hamas members were killed in the so-called Great March of Return, Bardawil claimed that Palestinian civilians, not the terror group, initiated the protests. Israeli intelligence, however, said the Iran-backed terror group has encouraged civilians, especially teenagers and children, to approach the Israeli border, while Hamas terrorists waited for an opening to cross and commit terror attacks on Israelis.
The bloody riots made Monday the deadliest single day in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since the 2014 war between Hamas and Israel. The heightened violence corresponded with the christening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, which on enraged Palestinians who view the eastern part of the city as a future capital.
“The Hamas leadership is a group of cannibals that treats their children as weapons. They have rockets, sidearms, and a different kind of weapon: women and children," Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Wednesday. “Their goal is to lift Gaza’s blockade but not to build their economy or hold talks about coexistence, but rather to smuggle weapons (into Gaza) to continue to build up their military force and create a pseudo Hezbollah model."
The IDF said it sent about 40 pallets of emergency medical supplies to the people of Gaza, but Hamas sent it back, “preventing the people of Gaza from receiving the aid they need.”
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