Hamas Official Challenges UK Terror Designation in Court Filing

 London, April 10, 2025 – A senior Hamas official, Moussa Abu Marzouk, has called on the British government to remove the organization’s designation as a terrorist group, submitting a detailed witness statement to a UK court this week. The filing, part of a legal challenge, argues that Hamas’s actions do not threaten the United Kingdom and seeks to reframe the group’s role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Marzouk described Hamas as “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project,” according to a report by the Times of Israel citing Drop Site News. He contended that the group’s October 7, 2023, offensive targeted military objectives and that most civilian casualties resulted from actions by non-Hamas actors. Marzouk further accused the UK of complicity in what he termed Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians, pointing to Britain’s arms supplies to Israel. He reiterated Hamas’s stance, stating, “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” a position that implies the elimination of the state of Israel.

Represented pro bono by Riverway Law due to financial restrictions on transactions with Hamas, the group’s legal team argued that the UK’s obligation to prevent crimes against humanity and genocide warrants delisting Hamas. The firm asserted that Hamas “is the only effective military force resisting and seeking to end and prevent the ongoing acts of genocide and crimes against humanity being committed by the Zionist State against the Palestinians in Gaza.” They further claimed that if Hamas’s actions qualify as terrorism under British law, so too would those of the Israel Defense Forces, the Ukrainian army, and even the British military.

The legal challenge comes amid ongoing controversy over Hamas’s tactics, including the abduction of hostages—a recognized crime against humanity. Hamas and other militant groups are believed to still hold 59 individuals taken during the October 7 attack. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reports over 50,000 people killed or missing since the conflict’s onset, though the figure remains unverified and does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. Israel, in contrast, claims it has eliminated approximately 20,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza and 1,600 during the initial incursion, while emphasizing efforts to minimize civilian casualties. Israeli officials accuse Hamas of embedding within civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, to shield its operations.

The UK designated Hamas as an “Islamist terrorist group” in November 2021, expanding a prior ban on its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, to include its political arm. Responding to the court filing, Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel condemned Hamas, telling The Guardian, “Hamas is an evil Iranian-backed terrorist organization, which kidnaps, tortures and murders people, including British nationals.”

As the legal proceedings unfold, the challenge tests the UK’s stance on terrorism designations and its broader foreign policy in the Middle East. The court’s eventual ruling could have significant implications for international law and Britain’s relations with both Israel and Palestinian factions.