A Hamas official abruptly ended a CNN interview on Saturday when asked whether the terror group would accept responsibility for the deaths of Palestinian civilians killed in the war.
Hamas member Osama Hamdan abruptly ended an interview with CNN correspondent Jim Sciutto when asked if Hamas regretted the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. Gaza health officials say 40,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war.
Hamdan responded by accusing Shute, who was reporting from Tel Aviv, of taking Israel’s side in the decades-long conflict.
“Asking whether Israel regrets what it has done seems to me like giving Israel the right to kill Palestinians,” Hamdan said. “You have to understand that Israel has been killing Palestinians for the last 76 years.”
The two then got into an argument, with Hamdan accusing Sciut of only seeing the conflict through “Israeli eyes”.
“No one saw Israelis killing thousands of Palestinians over the last 20 years,” Hamdan said, claiming that Shute was unaware of the thousands of Palestinians killed in the 2008 and 2014 Gaza wars.
“I was actually here in 2014 and 2008,” Shute said, adding that the station had reported on Palestinian civilian deaths “in great detail.”
“What you’re saying is not true. I was here during both conflicts. My question is whether Hamas has accepted any responsibility for the deaths of its people in Gaza,” Shute said.
Hamdan and Shute continued to go back and forth, repeatedly interrupting each other as CNN correspondents tried to get them to answer questions.
“You cannot ask or answer the question on your own. Either let me answer it or finish the point yourself,” Hamdan replied, eventually ending the interview by telling Shute, “You just want to hear yourself and the Israelis.”
The conflict began on Oct. 7 when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and forcing about 250 into Gaza as hostages.
The Gaza Strip Health Ministry said last week that more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war broke out 10 months ago.
The ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip said Israeli attacks had injured 92,401 people and forced more than 85 percent of the population to flee their homes.
The casualty figures do not distinguish between civilians and militants.
With post wire.
