Hamas calls to be removed from UK’s terror list, claims it is a 'liberation and resistance movement'

The terrorist organization Hamas has officially asked the United Kingdom to remove it from the country’s terror list, the British news outlet The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

The Jihadist organization justified its request by saying that it is “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project."

The senior Hamas political bureau official, Mousa Abu Marzouk, argued that the terrorism designation of Hamas is “unjust” and accused the British government of being complicit in alleged Israeli crimes. 

“The British government’s decision to proscribe Hamas is an unjust one that is symptomatic of its unwavering support for Zionism, apartheid, occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine for over a century," Marzouk claimed.

"Hamas does not and never has posed a threat to Britain, despite the latter’s ongoing complicity in the genocide of our people."

Hamas is represented by the legal firm Riverway Law. The firm stated, “Rather than allow freedom of speech, police have embarked on a campaign of political intimidation and persecution of journalists, academics, peace activists and students over their perceived support for Hamas. People in Britain must be free to speak about Hamas and its struggle to restore to the Palestinian people the right to self-determination.”

This is literally one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen.

The UK has completely lost it pic.twitter.com/Oj2KPfO5Zh

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 10, 2025

Hamas’ legal representatives admitted that the Jihadist group’s actions fall within the definition of terrorism as stated in Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000.

However, the terrorist organization further claimed that this definition also applies to “any organization worldwide that uses violence to achieve political aims – including Israeli forces, the Ukrainian military and even the British Army.”

In its legal argument, the Hamas team ignored the fact that the conventional definition of terrorism is deliberate attacks on civilians, something that distinguishes terrorist organizations like Hamas from professional law-abiding armies like the British and Israeli militaries that seek to minimize civilian casualties. 

In November 2021, the then-British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced the British government’s decision to designate all of Hamas as an outlawed terrorist organization. 

“Today I have taken action to proscribe Hamas in its entirety. This government is committed to tackling extremism and terrorism wherever it occurs,” Patel stated. London admitted that its previous distinction between Hamas’ military and political wings was “artificial.” 

At the time, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett welcomed the British decision to outlaw Hamas as a de facto terrorist organization in its entirety. 

"Until now only the military arm has been defined as such. Now, members of 'the political wing' will be exposed to the same exact sanctions," Bennett stated. 

In August 2024, the British news outlet The Telegraph reported that Hamas intended to “seize” remains of British soldiers who were buried in Gaza during the fighting in the First and Second World Wars.

The report was based on a Hamas document that was dated in October 2022 and retrieved by the Israeli forces in Gaza.

The purpose of the unimplemented Hamas plan was reportedly to embarrass the British government and pressure former British Prime Minister Liz Truss to refrain from moving the British embassy from Tel Aviv to the Israeli capital Jerusalem. 

Hamas was founded in 1987 and is a direct offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which ideologically blended Islamism with European fascism in the 1930s.

Hamas’ founding charter openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of all Jews around the world. The charter clearly reveals Hamas’ genocidal intentions towards the Jewish people. 

During an interview with the BBC in November 2023, Israeli President Isaac Herzog displayed an Arabic translation of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf that Israeli forces found in Gaza and which had belonged to a Hamas terrorist. 

“This is Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, translated into Arabic. This is the book that led to the Holocaust and the book that led to World War II,” Herzog stated. 

“This book was found a few days ago in northern Gaza. In a child's room, which became a base used for terrorist activities by the terrorist organization Hamas. The terrorist wrote notes, marked the sections, and studied again and again, the ideology of Adolf Hitler to hate the Jews, to kill the Jews, to burn and slaughter Jews wherever they are. This is the real war we are facing,” the Israeli president said. 

Hitler’s Mein Kampf has for years been a bestseller and is widely available in much of the Muslim and Arab world.