Hamas: We Aren't 'Fanatics' Like Al Qaeda

In an interview Monday, Hamas' interior minister revealed the deadly cost to Hamas of the Gaza War and denied that al Qaeda was active in Gaza.

In an interview Monday with the London-based Arabic language daily Al-Hayat, Hamas' Interior Minister Fathi Hamad (who also heads the Hamas Public Affairs Department), made two interesting points.

1. He said that approximately 400 – 500 Hamas members were killed by Israel during the Gaza War, having claimed immediately following the operation that less than 50 of its men had been killed. The Israeli Defence Forces maintain that out of the approximately 1,166 casualties, 709 were terrorist operatives (with the majority from Hamas).

and

2. Denying allegations that al-Qaeda operatives were active in Gaza, he said:

We are moderate people, and we don't like extremists or fanatics.

For anyone curious as to how ‘moderates’ should act according to Fathi Hamad, you can view this video of a speech he made in February 2008, in which he says:

For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly and the mujahideen. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: 'We desire death like you desire life.

With moderates like that, who needs extremists or fanatics?