1 year of October 7 attack: Hamas says Al-Aqsa Flood brought Israel to ‘square zero’

Speaking on the first anniversary of the October 7 raids by the armed Palestinian group’s fighters last year, a senior Hamas official on Monday said the deadly attack took Israel back to “square zero”. Hundreds of Hamas operatives had stormed southern Israel a year ago and killed around 1,200 people of different nationalities and taken more than 250 others belonging to different countries as hostages, triggering a war in Gaza that has subsequently spread to Lebanon, and intensified hostilities between Iran and Israel.

“Al-Aqsa flood returned the occupation to square zero and threatened its existence,” Khaled Meshaal, the former head of Hamas, said on the Al Arabiya TV station, using the group’s name for the attack.

Hamas calls those raids the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. In January, Hamas released a 16-page report defending its attack on Israeli sites, highlighting its motives behind the October 7 cross-border raids and linking it to the Palestinian cause.

Titled “Our Narrative…Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”, the Hamas report was aimed at refuting Israeli claims of terrorism. Hamas said Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was a necessary step to counter Israel’s plans to eliminate the Palestinian cause, seize lands, Judaize the Palestinian lands, and establish complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque and holy sites.

Hamas asserted that Operation Al-Aqsa Flood represented a strategic move to end the Israeli blockade in the Gaza Strip, Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, restore Palestinian national rights, and ultimately establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Israel has its seat of governance in Jerusalem.

During the one year of Israel-Hamas conflict, at least 41,870 Palestinians — a majority of them civilians — have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip. The figures are based on the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

Meshaal said last year’s October 7 attack was “a natural response to the occupation and its accelerating plans for settlement, siege and aggression against Al-Aqsa,” referring to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City.

He also accused Israel of threatening Egypt and Jordan, despite long-standing peace agreements between the countries, saying “the enemy wants everyone in the region to be subject to him and he does this even with countries that do not fight him”.

He said that Israel “attacks Arab and Islamic national security everywhere”.

(With inputs from agencies)