‘If residents of Gaza start dying as a result of not having enough ventilators (due to the coronavirus), Hamas will make six million Israelis unable to breathe.’
Those are the words the leader of the Islamist organization, Yahya Sinwar, in response to a statement from Israel’s Defense Minister Naftali Bennett. Last week, Minister Bennett insisted that humanitarian concerns over Gaza must also be applied to Israel – namely the return of the bodies of two IDF soldiers who fell in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge conflict between Israel and Gaza, which are still being held hostage by Hamas.
During an interview with the Hamas-controlled Al-Aqsa broadcast, which has been viewed by TV7, Sinwar levelled a threat to Israel’s top defense official, saying: “Bennett, I refer you to the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 17, to read what awaits you, and what awaits your filthy [Zionist] entity.”
“God forbid, if a time comes when we have no choice but to watch our citizens breathe their final breaths and when there are no ventilators,” vowed the Islamist leader, “I say to Bennett that we will make six million Israeli settlers unable to breathe.”
“Do not worry about the resistance in Gaza,” Sinwar went on to state, in the name of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed.
In sharp contrast to the massive global effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hamas leader boasted that, “The whole world is hit by the coronavirus, but the members of the Al-Qassam (Brigades, his group’s armed wing) are working day and night to complete their preparation for the liberation” (‘of the Islamic lands of Palestine’).