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Osama Hamdan (; born 1965) is a Palestinian diplomat and former senior representative of Hamas in Lebanon and Tehran. He previously held the position of Head of International Relations Department for Hamas and Chair of the Political Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
In 1998, Hamdan was appointed as Hamas representative in Lebanon, a post he retains . In 2004, he served as Hamas' spokesman in Cairo during a dialogue between Palestinian factions. He has also participated in talks between Hamas and European officials. Hamdan has advocated Palestinian unity talks and in an interview with Al-Arabiya on May 20, 2009, he said "I understand that each of us Hamas must set conditions to reach an agreement. National dialogue must be based on national interests of the Palestinian people..."
In an interview which aired on Al-Jadid/New TV on May 4, 2011 as translated by MEMRI, Hamdan stated that "politically, the two-state solution is over" and that "we are entering the phase of the liberation of Palestine... the notion of Return: the return of the refugees to their homeland, and the return of the Israelis to the countries from which they came." Osama Hamdan, Head of the Hamas Foreign Liaisons: Armed Confrontation Will Continue to Be "the Backbone of the Resistance", the Israelis Must Return to Their Countries of Origin Al-Jadid/New TV (Lebanon), Clip No. 2949 (video), MEMRITV.org, May 4, 2011.
During the Gaza war, Hamdan acted as a media representative for Hamas, appearing from Lebanon across multiple platforms and channels internationally for interview and comment across various issues.
In a 2014 interview which aired on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV as translated by MEMRI, Hamdan stated that "killing children...is engraved in the historical Zionist and Jewish mentality." Commenting on the accusation of blood libel against Jews, Hamdan stated "we all remember how the Jews used to slaughter Christians, in order to mix their blood in their holy matzos. This is not a figment of imagination or something taken from a film. It is a fact, acknowledged by their own books and by historical evidence." Top Hamas Official Osama Hamdan: Jews Use Blood for Passover Matzos, MEMRITV, Clip No. 4384 (transcript), July 28, 2014. (video clip available here )
In a subsequent interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Hamdan defended his comments, stating that he was responding to comments made by Moshe Feiglin in the Israeli Knesset in which he called for the "complete destruction of the Palestinians in Gaza". Hamdan asserted that the organisation MEMRI had edited and 'cut' his words in a selective manner taking them out of context, going on to remark that "we are not against Jews, we are against the Israeli occupation".
Hamdan was sanctioned by the United States in 2003 as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by United States Department of the Treasury in response to the Shmuel HaNavi bus bombing.
In 2020, Hamdan was sanctioned by the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation of HM Treasury subjecting him to a travel ban from the country.
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