A senior Hamas official said Friday that the terror group does not give shelter to Gazan civilians because it's the United Nations' responsibility to protect them.
"Everybody knows that 75 percent of the people in the Gaza strip are refugees, and it is the job of the United Nations to protect them," said Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas political leader, in an interview with Russian state media translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
The interviewer had asked Marzouk why Hamas did not build bomb shelters for Gazan civilians given that it already built 500 kilometers of tunnels for its terrorists to use.
"We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed," said Marzouk. "These tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels."
Marzouk also appeared to claim that Israel had a similar responsibility to shelter the civilians.
"According to the Geneva Conventions, it is the responsibility of the occupation to provide them with all the services as long as they are under occupation," Marzouk said.
Hamas has long faced criticism that it does not care for the welfare of innocent Gazan civilians.
The group has developed a reputation for using civilians as human shields. House lawmakers this month introduced legislation to sanction the terrorist group for hiding behind civilians.
Last week, the Israel Defense Forces released an audio clip that it said showed a Gazan civilian telling an Israeli military officer that Hamas was shooting civilians who attempted to evacuate from their positions to escape danger.