A Hamas commander appearing on Lebanese television says the terrorist group is “justified” for anything it does and that the group has no qualms about sacrificing so-called “martyrs” in its quest to rid the Middle East of the Israeli state.

The comments, recorded and transcribed by the right-leaning Middle East Media Research Institute, suggest that Hamas is in no mood for a cease-fire and will continue murdering innocent civilians as long as it exists.

“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” the political leader for Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, tells an interviewer from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. “We must remove that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arabic and Islamic nation and must be finished. We are not ashamed to say this with full force.”

He says Hamas “must teach Israel a lesson” and that the attacks of October 7 that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead and kicked off a war that has now claimed thousands of Palestinian lives as well “are just the first time.”

“There will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight,” he says. “Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

He claims the group did not mean to kill civilians on October 7, but that the group is justified for carrying out the attacks. The occupation of what he calls “all the Palestinian lands” in the Levant must end and he says “of course it does” when asked by the interviewer if that means the annihilation of Israel.

“The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood and tears,” he says. “We are the victims of the occupation, therefore nobody should blame us for the things we do. … everything we do is justified.”