Hamas’ recent battle cry for violence against US latest in litany of threats

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JERUSALEM – The Hamas movement intensified its campaign of terrorism targeting American interests, declaring in a chilling December announcement that more violence is warranted against the U.S. after the jihadi group murdered over 30 Americans and over a thousand Israelis on the October 7 massacre in Israel.

Earlier this month Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesperson warned, “When Blinken is justifying the killing of women and children, the sons of our nation should say to him: ‘You are the enemy, just like Netanyahu, and you must pay the price, just like Netanyahu.’ . . . We need violent acts against American and British interests everywhere, as well as the interests of all the countries that support the occupation.”

The Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) first located and translated Abu Zuhri’s call for terrorism against American and British interests across the globe.

Earlier this month, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security warned about threats to public safety due to the war between Hamas and Israel. Hamas was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997.

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Palestinian Hamas terrorists are seen during a military show in the Bani Suheila district on July 20, 2017, in Gaza City, Gaza. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

When asked about the new Hamas threat, a spokesperson for the State Department told Fox News Digital, “We have been clear about our position on Hamas, which the United States designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997 due to its premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets. As Hamas clearly demonstrated on October 7, they are committed to terrorism. And Hamas has only compounded and perpetuated the suffering of the Palestinian people at every step of this crisis. “

The spokesperson added, “Hamas’s attack on October 7 killed more Americans than any overseas terrorist attack since 9/11. Hamas has killed Americans in other attacks as well, including three Americans – Malki Roth, Judith Shoshana Greenberg and Chana Nachenberg – in the 2001 Sbarro restaurant bombing in Jerusalem.”

Police and medics surround the scene of a terrorist attack at the Sbarro Pizza restaurant in downtown Jerusalem, August 9, 2001. The family of an Israeli-American girl killed in the 2001 Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem is seeking a meeting with President Biden in hopes of forcing Jordan to extradite a woman convicted in the deadly attack. The parents of Malki Roth sent a letter to the White House on Sunday, July 10, 2022, asking to meet with Biden when he visits Jerusalem. They want the president to put pressure on Jordan, a close American ally, to send Ahlam Tamimi to the U.S. for trial. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) (AP)

For Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was murdered in 2001, the U.S. government is not flexing its counter-terrorism muscle to secure the female Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who was responsible for killing Malki and other Americans.

Roth told Fox News Digital that Tamimi lives as “a celebrity in the Arab world for the killings she carried out, and lives free as a bird today in Jordan.” 

Yahya Sinwar, leader of the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip at a celebration of the 35th anniversary of Hamas’ founding. December 14, 2022. (Photo: Majdi Fathi/TPS.) (TPS/Majdi Fathi)

He added, “Despite repeated public statements from various parts of the U.S. government, the Sbarro monster continues to evade U.S. justice. In part, this is because Jordan, a U.S. ally and the country that receives more foreign aid than any other, is willing to push the envelope in order to show how understanding it is of the Hamas cause. But in a more meaningful sense, it’s because of the outrageous unspoken view among the inside-the-Beltway circle that King Abdullah has to be treated with kid gloves.”

Roth said, “The U.S. State Department through three presidents has paid lip service to justice and the need to extradite Tamimi to Washington. To those of us close to the events, it’s plain that the real priority at State is to keep Jordan happy. In that sense, we parents and families of Tamimi’s victims are the enemy. It’s no exaggeration to say that we have been treated with disdain and even hostility for the past decade.”

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IDF soldiers seized two air pistols, weapons and Hamas flags in the Palestinian town of Ein Yabrud, IDF said.  (Israel Defense Forces)

Jordan’s King Hussein has refused to extradite Tamimi to the United States. Jordan’s government did not immediately respond to numerous Fox News Digital press queries.

Hamas’ threats against the U.S. and its interests are not new and have been consistent since the terror group’s early days.

Hamas member of parliament and cleric Yunis Al-Astal declared on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV on April 11, 2008, “Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs [i.e., the Jews] in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam – this capital of theirs will be an advance post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.” 

MEMRI translated the 2008 Al-Astal diatribe against Americans, Catholics and Jews.

Sami Abu Zuhri, the head of the political department of Hamas abroad, on December 5, 2023, threatens U.S. “interests,” including Secretary Antony Blinken. (MEMRI)

Just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Iranian-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad declared in a manifesto in the West Bank and Gaza that “Americans are the enemies of the Palestinian people” and that they “too are a target for future attacks.” 

In 2002, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas founder and leader, announced, “Because the Israeli and American enemies are ravaging the earth; they do not believe in anything besides power. The Ummah [Muslim worldwide community] must adopt the principle of Jihad and fighting the enemies.” In 2004, an Israeli air strike eliminated the terrorist leader Yassin in Gaza City.

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This image, made from undated bodycam video footage taken by a downed Hamas terrorist and released by Israel Defense Forces, shows a Hamas terrorist walking around a residential neighborhood at an undisclosed location in southern Israel. Israel’s military brought together a group of foreign correspondents on Monday, October 16, 2023, to screen a 40-minute reel of gruesome footage compiled from Hamas attack on October 7. (Israel Defense Forces via AP)

In 2011, a Hamas preacher declared in Gaza the goals of the Hamas terrorist organization are “Death to the Jews and to America.”

Jacob Olidort, director of research at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America‘s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy, told Fox News Digital, “The intention of Hamas striking at Americans and other Westerners is likely sincere, as the 10/7 attack, which also claimed American lives, demonstrates. That, along with the strategic threat the group poses to Israel as well as its barbaric threats to civilians, Israeli and Gazan alike, make Israel’s mission of eliminating Hamas a U.S. interest. 

Despite the protests and massive rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S. and Europe, Olidort questioned Hamas’ ability to commit terror attacks against the West. “As far as the threat to the United States, the United Kingdom or others in Europe, Hamas may be limited in what it can achieve. For decades, the group has fashioned itself with the narrow focus on Israel and so lacks the platform, message or infrastructure to direct or inspire large-scale attacks on American or European targets in the way that ISIS or Al-Qaeda have in the past.”

NEW YORK, DECEMBER 28: Pro-Palestinian protesters gather at a funeral procession for children who were killed in Gaza and swarm Zuccotti Park, of the Occupy Wall Street movement fame, World Trade Center and Wall Street in New York City, on December 28, 2023. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images) (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

He continued, “These elements, combined with the robust international coordination against Hamas mean the chances are slim. That said, Iran, its patron, and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed proxy, have both the capabilities and intention to do so. Preventing them from doing so, as well as blocking any normalization of Hamas’s political wing, should be priorities for the United States and its allies in both supporting Israel and protecting their citizens.”

Yet, Europe and Germany have permitted Hamas operatives and pro-Hamas groups to raise funds and recruit new members within the E.U. After Fox News Digital sent a press query to Frank Nopper, the mayor of the German city of Stuttgart, the city’s administration scrubbed its website this week of an allegedly pro-Hamas group called the Palestine Committee Stuttgart that used the municipal website to ostensibly raise funds for Islamist terrorist entities in Gaza.

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November 18, 2023, Berlin: Women take part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration. (Photo by Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Lior Haiat, told Fox News Digital, “Israel opposes any transfer of funds to Hamas or any other Palestinian terror organization, including through civil society organizations. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working with different countries around the world to designate Hamas as a terror organization and to prevent any transfer of funds to it.”

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the director of the Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin), told Fox News Digital, that the members of Palestine Committee Stuttgart “are plainly soliciting funds for the Islamic terrorists groups in Gaza and are openly displaying their affiliation with the designated and outlawed Samidoun organization. It’s shocking that only two months after the brutal murder of German citizen Shani Louk by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, that Stuttgart’s Mayor is so resistant to shutting down this source of funding to her murderers. Shani’s blood calls out from the ground for justice.”

Benjamin Weinthal reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe. You can follow Benjamin on Twitter @BenWeinthal.