Ismael Abu Haneieh, a prominent leader of Hamas in Gaza Strip, said on Tuesday that the group had never wanted to throw Jews in sea.
"We don’t hate Jews because they are Jews," he said
Abu Heneieh added that Hamas is not hostile to the Jews of Israel because of their ethnic and religious identity but because they occupied historic Palestine.
“Hamas is not hostile to Jews because they are Jews. We are hostile to them because they occupied our land and expelled our people,” Ismael Haneieh added.
Rejecting the idea of expelling the Jews into the sea Abu Haneieh commented by saying that “We did not say we want to throw the Jews in the sea or feed them to sharks. We just said that there is a land called occupied Palestine. It was burglarized and it needs to be returned to the Palestinian people.”
These statements came days from the elections and as Hamas is preparing for a strong showing in the January 25 parliamentary elections, opinion polls forecasted the group earning between 30 to 40 percent of votes, placing it only second to the ruling Fatah movement with 40 to 50 percent.
