MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Hamas-led attack last October was the deadliest day in Israel's history, and it triggered the deadliest attack on Palestinians in their history, one that continues. NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy had a rare interview with a Hamas leader in Qatar about that attack and its aftermath.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Basem Naim is one of Hamas' top political leaders. We meet at the group's office in Qatar. It's a villa in the suburbs of the capital, Doha. The German-educated surgeon and former health minister from Gaza says Hamas was surprised by how quickly Israel's defenses crumbled on October 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed from Gaza across Israel's heavily fortified border.
BASEM NAIM: There is a difference between regrets and mistakes. Maybe there are some mistakes done because no one was expecting that this superpower which has suffocated Gaza for years and years that will collapse suddenly within few minutes or hours.
BATRAWY: He says ordinary people from Gaza rushed to the breach. It would take days before Israel regained control of the area. Israel says the attack killed around 1,200 people with another 250 taken hostage. Israel calls it the worst terrorist attack in its history. Naim calls it chaos.
NAIM: Maybe this has led to some mistakes or had led to some steps which was not part of this operation.
BATRAWY: Israel published body cam footage Hamas militants filmed on the day of the attack. Scenes show hundreds of bodies at a music festival, the blood of people killed in their homes and terrified Israelis being dragged off to captivity. Still, Naim says...
NAIM: But at no time I would regret defending my dignity and freedom regardless of the prices. We were living in a prison, and we have tried to knock the doors of this prison.
BATRAWY: Naim says few among Hamas knew of the operation and its timing. He was out of Gaza for a short trip to Turkey. He tells me if he'd known, he wouldn't have left Gaza city, where his wife and two youngest children are struggling to survive. Gaza's Health Ministry says Israel's retaliation has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, including some 11,000 children. Among those killed are Naim's mother and grandchildren. Israel says its target is Hamas and blames the group for operating among civilians. Naim says the stunning level of devastation and loss in Gaza is a price no innocent person should have to pay. But he says it's part of what Palestinians are forced to pay.
NAIM: You are talking about a siege on Gaza, an inhuman, suffocating siege for 17 years. The whole generation is losing everything - no vision, no horizon or no scenarios that this will end soon.
BATRAWY: He says Palestinians have tried all means, peaceful and armed, to achieve an independent state. He says years of negotiations and even recognition of Israel by other Palestinian parties had failed. Jewish settlements were expanding in the occupied West Bank. A new far-right government was now leading Israel, and another Arab state, Saudi Arabia, was inching closer to establishing ties with Israel.
NAIM: We were nearly deleted from the agenda of the region and the international community. And I think today, the situation is totally different.
BATRAWY: Nearly everyone in Gaza has been displaced from their homes, and the UN says it will take years to clear the munitions left behind and rebuild. In order to achieve a cease-fire that leads to international funds to rebuild Gaza, Naim says Hamas understands the group will have to make concessions.
NAIM: We are not willing to come back to govern Gaza Strip.
BATRAWY: Instead, Hamas says it wants a unity government backed by all Palestinian factions to run Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to block the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying it would harm Israeli security. He's under pressure, though, to end the war, now in its 11th month, and strike a deal with Hamas that would free the remaining hostages. But he says Israel will continue the war until Hamas is eliminated.
I spoke with Naim two weeks before Hamas' top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Iran in a presumed Israeli attack. In a message of defiance, Hamas named the man believed to have directed the October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar, as his successor. Naim says killing Hamas' leaders only hardens its support.
NAIM: If they disarm Hamas, if they smash Hamas today, they have already created, in Gaza Strip and in Palestine, a new generation, sooner or later, who will fight back - five years, two years, 10 years. But it is a matter of time when is the next round unless they give us our general rights as Palestinians.
BATRAWY: How do you see this ending?
NAIM: You mean about this round of the conflict or generally?
BATRAWY: A reminder that for Hamas, this devastating war is a bloody chapter in a much broader confrontation with Israel. Aya Batrawy, NPR News, Doha, Qatar. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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