Osama Hamdan of the Hamas Political Bureau reacted to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel's move to ban Hamas in Britain in an interview that aired on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar) on November 19, 2021, saying that the new "Nazi" government in London wants to attack the Palestinians. He explained that this is a new aggression against the Palestinians after the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Hamdan further claimed that Hamas members are "freedom fighters" according to international law and that they are fighting to defend their people and their rights. He added that Home Secretary Patel has created this "fake story" because after the recent Israeli "attack on Jerusalem and Gaza," British people have come to understand Palestinian suffering and what was "really going on." On November 20, 2021, Home Secretary Patel announced that Hamas was going to become illegal in the UK. This would include membership in the organization, including its political wing, to invite support for the group, or even to wear clothing with the emblems of the group.
Osama Hamdan: "There is a new British aggression against the Palestinian people. The first one was 1917, with what was called the Balfour Declaration, which created Israel on the Palestinian homeland. Now, after more than 104 years, the new government, the new Nazis in London, they want to attack the Palestinians another time, as if they are not sufficient with all the suffering of the Palestinians in the last century.
"What I want to say, as Palestinians, everyone knows that we are defending our people, we are defending our rights, and according to the international law, we are freedom fighters against occupation and stopping the occupation's violations against the Palestinians. This minister created a problem with the Palestinians another time.
"I believe this is happening because of one very important reason: after the last Israeli attack on Jerusalem and Gaza, everyone realized that the international community was not happy with what Israel has done with the Palestinians. And the people in Britain, they started to read a new story about the Palestinian sufferings. What she did, she wants to prevent the British people to understand really what is going on, to prevent their relations with the Palestinians as people, and she created this fake story. We have declared clearly every time that we are resisting the occupation, and we will continue that until we achieve our goals as Palestinians to liberate our lands and to establish our independent sovereign state."