GAZA: Hamas said Sunday its Oct 7 attacks on the Zionist entity were a “necessary step” against Zionist occupation of Palestinian territories. But the Islamist group admitted in a 16-page report justifying the attack that “some faults happened... due to the rapid collapse of the (Zionist) security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza”.

The document was the group’s first public report released in English and Arabic explaining the background to the attack, when fighters broke through Gaza’s militarized border. “If there was any case of targeting civilians it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces,” Hamas said in the report. “Many (Zionists) were killed by the (Zionist) army and police due to their confusion.”

Zionist officials have alleged fighters committed sexual assaults, but Hamas rejected the accusations, saying they were intended to “demonize” it. The group said the attack was “a necessary step and a normal response to confront all (Zionist) conspiracies against the Palestinian people”.

On Sunday, Hamas urged “the immediate halt of the (Zionist) aggression on Gaza, the crimes and ethnic cleansing committed against the entire Gaza population”. And the group said it rejected any international and (Zionist) efforts to decide Gaza’s post-war future. “We stress that the Palestinian people have the capacity to decide their future and to arrange their internal affairs,” the report said, adding that “no party in the world” had the right to decide on their behalf.

Hamas pointed to the historical origins of the conflict, saying “the battle of the Palestinian people against occupation and colonialism did not start on October 7, but started 105 years ago, including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation”. The group said it wanted to “hold the (Zionist) occupation legally accountable” for the suffering it had inflicted on the Palestinian people.

The Gaza health ministry on Sunday said the death toll in the war-torn Palestinian territory breached 25,000 as the Zionist entity pushed its southward offensive and renewed bombardment in the north. Witnesses told AFP Zionist boats were bombarding Gaza City and other areas in the north early Sunday. Hamas has also reported heavy combat in the north.

“Dozens are still under the rubble,” the Hamas government’s media office said, adding that the dead and injured “could not be transferred to hospitals due to the continued artillery shelling on... Khan Yunis and the Tal al-Hawa area in Gaza City and the north”. Thick plumes of smoke billowed above Khan Yunis on Sunday morning, AFP journalists saw. The Zionist entity’s relentless bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 25,105 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says about 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza, with about one million crowded into the Rafah area. UN agencies have warned better aid access is needed urgently as famine and disease loom. Violence has meanwhile surged in Zionist-occupied West Bank since Oct 7. The Zionist military said it demolished two houses in Hebron belonging to two Palestinian gunmen who carried out an attack on a road between Jerusalem and Bethlehem in November.

An AFP journalist saw a fireball erupt and smoke billowing from a home on Sunday as Zionist armored vehicles maneuvered through Hebron’s roads during the raid. Palestinians gathered outside the crumpled remains of one of the homes on Sunday, with young boys weaving their way through a thicket of tangled metal and rubble. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported clashes between Zionist troops and Palestinian fighters in a village south of Jenin and the towns of Arura and Qalqilya. – Agencies