In an interview with Al Jazeera, the Gaza head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar said that the point of the Great March of Return, the name Hamas has given to the weekly riots at the border fence with Israel, was “to turn that which is most dear to us – the bodies of our women and children – into a dam blocking the collapse in Arab reality,” according to a translation of the interview published Wednesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Sinwar described the riots as “wonderful and civilized” as opposed to firing “thousands of missiles down” onto Israel. He also boasted that members of Hamas took off their uniforms and joined the riots. Sinwar described “the sacrifice of” Palestinian children “as an offering for Jerusalem and the Right of Return.”

Salah Bardawil, a Hamas official, admitted this week in an interview that 50 of the reported 62 people killed on Monday were members of Hamas.

The Hamas chief’s interview comports with remarks of a Gazan who was captured after crossing the border fence. The Gazan told his interrogators that Hamas had initiated the riots in order to deflect dissatisfaction with their misrule of Gaza. He added that the terror group was endangering women and children.

Members of Hamas “tell women to go forward,” the unidentified man said. “They say to a woman: Go ahead, you’re a woman and the army doesn’t shoot women. They tell small children: Go ahead, the army doesn’t shoot small children.”

Another Hamas leader this week also did away with the pretense that the riots are peaceful. Mahmoud al-Zahar told Al Jazeera, “When we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public.” Zahar added, “This is peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies.”

[Photo: la grande Soirée Rai / YouTube ]