“Hamas Is A Political Force That Won Democratic Elections, Not Highway Robbers”

The UN Special Rapporteur, Ms. Francesca Albanese, said that many people have no idea what the Hamas movement is, and merely repeat accusations against it.

She explained in a speech during a seminar, broadcast by the UN-accredited monitoring organization “UN Watch” account, that Hamas is “a political force, whether we like it or not, and won what was described as the most democratic elections in Palestine in 2005.”

She went on to say: “Hamas established a system, and built schools, public facilities, and hospitals. It was simply what we call the authority, the de facto authority in Gaza.”

She affirmed: “Therefore, it is essential that you understand that when you think of Hamas, you don’t necessarily have to think of highway robbers or people armed to the teeth or fighters… It’s not like that.”

Ms. Albanese had described the occupation army’s deliberate starvation of the people of the Gaza Strip and the killing of their children as “Nazi crimes.” Albanese said in a tweet published on the “X” platform, “Our generation was raised on Nazism as the greatest evil, and it is, and the crimes of colonialism should not have been forgotten.”

She continued: “But today there is a state that starves millions and shoots children for fun, under the protection of both democracies and dictatorships,” referring to the Israeli occupation.

These statements came in response to the occupation’s crime of killing a Palestinian child with special needs in the Gaza Strip, as part of the ongoing 22-month savage Zionist war of starvation and extermination.

It is worth noting that the child, Muhammad Al-Sawafiri, died as a result of the deterioration of his health due to the escalating war of starvation in the Gaza Strip.

The statements of the UN official reopen the file of the relationship between the “Hamas” movement and the image portrayed by Western and Hebrew media. While Zionist propaganda is keen to portray the movement as a “group of killers” or “violence-thirsty militants,” her statements dismantle this discourse and remind that “Hamas” is a political force that came to power through the ballot boxes in 2005, and that it played administrative and service roles within Gazan society.

Politically, Ms. Albanese’s statements challenge the prevailing Zionist narrative in the West, which seeks to strip “Hamas” of any political or social legitimacy.

Insisting on presenting the movement as a purely military organization makes it easier for the occupation to justify its continuous aggression against Gaza and evade recognition of the political dimension of the conflict.

However, the UN rapporteur underscored that reality is more complex than this simplistic image, reflecting a desire to re-open the international discussion about the need to view the movement within the broader Palestinian political context.

Albanese’s statements coincided with the ongoing Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip, where “Israel” and its Western allies are working to entrench a discourse that criminalizes any political or social expression of the Hamas movement. This rhetorical framework not only serves the objectives of the current war but also seeks to strip Palestinians of their right to political expression and weaken any attempt to propose serious negotiating alternatives in the future.

The importance of these statements lies in the fact that they come from a high-ranking UN official, which gives them additional weight in international discussions.

They serve as an implicit message that the siege imposed on the discussion about “Hamas” in the West has begun to crack, and that there are growing voices within UN institutions that refuse to reduce it to its military dimension.

This shift, though limited, reflects the beginning of the unraveling of the unilateral Zionist narrative and opens the door to a more balanced view that may affect international political discourse in the long run.