'Cut off their heads': Hamas leader repeats murderous directive to kill Jews

A senior Hamas leader this month joined a years-long chorus from fellow extremists telling Palestinians to kill Jews using multiple methods, including cutting off their heads with knives, according to translated videos.

In a video released on May 17, the Israel Defense Forces portrayed the latest such demand, from Fathi Hammad, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau. 

"People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives," Hammad shouted while speaking at a May 7 rally. The video was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). "With your hand, cut their artery from here," Hammad said. "A knife costs five shekels. Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]."

Leaders of the militant group have for years alternately issued and retracted the deadly instructions. Hammad five years ago called for Palestinians around the world to murder Jews.

"All of you 7 million Palestinians abroad, enough of the warming up," Hammad said at a 2019 protest near Gaza. "You have Jews everywhere, and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, if God permits."

Those comments brought condemnation, including from Hamas.

"These statements do not represent the movement's official positions and consistent, adopted policies that stipulate that our conflict is with the occupation, which is occupying our land and sullying our holy sites, and not with Jews around the world or with Judaism as a religion," the organization said in a statement posted on its website.

The IDF in its Monday video showed that Hamas leaders consistently have called for Jews to be killed.

The deputy speaker of the Hamas parliament, Ahmad Bahr, in 2012 invoked a wide-ranging curse on his perceived enemy.

"Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters," Bahr said at an official gathering. "Oh Allah, destroy the Americans and their supporters. Oh Allah, count them one by one, and kill them all, without leaving a single one."

Earlier this month, Hammad reissued his murderous directives.

After telling his followers where to slice their victims' necks, Hammad described how cheaply the weapons could be obtained. "It costs just five shekels," he said. "With those five shekels, you will humiliate the Jewish state."

In remarks translated by MEMRI, Hammad continued: "The Jews have spread corruption and acted with arrogance, and their moment of reckoning has come. The moment of destruction at your hands has arrived."

Those comments, too, brought swift rebuke.

"This week's events are part of a wave of terror led by the terrorist organization Hamas, resulting from reckless and irresponsible incitement to commit violence," tweeted Dov Hikind, a former New York Democratic State Assemblyman who now runs a group called Americans Against Antisemitism. "Senior members of the terrorist organization Hamas have made public calls for violence."

Calls to violence also have come from a political faction in Pakistan, where a National Assembly member on Monday said that his country's military should declare jihad, and use nuclear weapons against Israel.

In a speech translated by MEMRI, politician Moulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali cited the various powerful weapons in Pakistan's arsenal, and insinuated that they were going to waste.

"Mr. Chairman, when will this atomic power be useful?" Chitrali said. "Will we use these missiles as toys? To show our kids? Or will we keep these missiles and this atom bomb in some museum, so that we will be able to say [in the future] that at a certain era we had managed to acquire nuclear power?"

The May 17 video on Hamas included a 2018 clip featuring the group's leader in Gaza, saying Israel will never get anything but guns and fire.

"They will never get anything but martyrdom," said Ismail Haniyeh, chief of the Hamas political bureau. "They will never get anything but death and killing."

Israel should believe the declarations, the IDF said. "Hamas has always been clear about its main objective: to eradicate Israel and Jewish people, no matter where they live."

A representative from Hamas did not immediately respond to a social media message from Just the News.