Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahhar said that the world has accepted the Taliban's expulsion of the United States occupation as legitimate and the same will be true for Gaza. He made his remarks in an interview that aired on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas-Gaza) on August 19, 2021. Al-Zahhar said that a "liberation" enterprise is different from a "terrorist" one. He further said that the leaders of the Gulf countries, who normalized ties with Israel will soon flee their countries like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia and Ashraf Ghani recently fled Afghanistan.
Mahmoud Al-Zahhar: "What happened in Afghanistan has many implications for our region. How come? First of all, Afghanistan expelled the U.S. from its territory, thus legitimizing the expulsion of the occupation. This means that what Hamas is doing here to expel the [Israeli] occupation is legitimate. If the world accepted it [in Afghanistan], why shouldn’t it be accepted with regard to Gaza? A liberation endeavor is different from a 'terrorist' endeavor, as they call it.
"The Arab region around us has reached a level of normalization with the Israeli entity, which is unprecedented in the millions of years of the region’s history. [It is inconceivable] that a foreign enemy becomes a friend and an ally, whereas in the past, there was resistance to the French and British occupation, and to the Italian occupation in North Africa. And before that, there was resistance to the Roman and Persian occupation. Therefore, this issue is of utmost importance. Just as Ben Ali fled [from Tunisia] and [Ashraf] Ghani fled…"
Interviewer: "From Afghanistan."
Al-Zahhar: "Tomorrow, the leaders from the Gulf states that normalized relations [with Israel] will flee too, because the removal of the Israeli entity is a Quranic truth that we must work on implementing now. There will be a lot of pressure on us, but we hope to be victorious and bring about the removal of the occupation."