The recent killing of eight staff members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) by Hamas fighters, most of whom were Palestinians, underscores a long-standing truth that much of the world still refuses to confront: Hamas is not only Israel’s enemy. It is the enemy of the very people it claims to defend.
For days, the GHF had warned of mounting threats. Now, tragedy has confirmed them. The GHF said on Thursday that eight of its “local team members and volunteers” had been killed when Hamas gunmen attacked a bus transporting its Gazan staffers, updating the death toll of five it announced the previous day.
Meanwhile, brave Gazans have taken to the streets, risking their lives to demand that Hamas relinquish control of the Gaza Strip. These protests, however scattered or suppressed, reflect what many have long observed: Hamas is a terrorist, fundamentalist regime that exploits its own people, turns them into human shields and uses their suffering as a political weapon in its war to destroy the Jewish state.
This is not conjecture. It is declared openly by Hamas itself.
Acknowledging this reality does not mean endorsing every aspect of Israel’s military strategy following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. But it does mean understanding the true nature of the conflict. Hamas and those who support it bear full responsibility for the war that followed its brutal assault, which left some 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 taken hostage.
There can be no peace for Palestinians while they remain in the grip of violent extremists. And there can be no moral clarity from those who conflate perpetrators and victims—those who turn a blind eye to Hamas’s crimes while parroting its propaganda in Western capitals.
Behind Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen stands a single orchestrator: Iran.
Tehran arms, funds and commands these terrorist groups across the region. Their purpose is not Palestinian liberation—it is regional domination under a messianic, Islamist vision. And while the world fixates solely on the war in Gaza, the Iranian regime has quietly accelerated its nuclear program.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, recently broke with diplomatic protocol to sound the alarm. Iran’s uranium enrichment has reached dangerous levels. Experts now estimate Tehran could produce ten nuclear bombs within weeks using its current stockpile of enriched uranium.
At the helm of this agenda are Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—the regime’s military-industrial backbone, controlling its nuclear operations and commanding its terrorist proxies. The IRGC is the operational brain behind the region’s most destabilizing forces. And yet, many in the international community still refuse to label them a terrorist organization.
These same voices, notably in parts of Europe and within the United Nations, continue to portray Hamas as a legitimate expression of “resistance”—a euphemism that insults the memory of the victims of Oct. 7 and betrays the Palestinian civilians held hostage by this death cult.
As global attention remains fixated on Israel, Iran and its proxies are exploiting the distraction to advance a broader strategy of chaos. The war in Gaza is not isolated; it is a front in a regional campaign orchestrated from Tehran, backed by Moscow, and enabled by international cowardice.
It is time for moral clarity. It is time to call Hamas and the IRGC what they are: terrorist actors committed not to peace but to the destruction of Israel, the destabilization of the Middle East, and the repression of all who stand in their way, including their own people.