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Abed Rabbo to Asharq Al-Awsat: Hamas’ Sinwar Was Stunned by Extent of Oct. 7 Breach

Veteran Palestinian politician Yasser Abed Rabbo speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Veteran Palestinian politician Yasser Abed Rabbo speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Abed Rabbo to Asharq Al-Awsat: Hamas’ Sinwar Was Stunned by Extent of Oct. 7 Breach

Veteran Palestinian politician Yasser Abed Rabbo speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Veteran Palestinian politician Yasser Abed Rabbo speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, mounted by Hamas on Oct.7, has left Palestinians at a critical juncture, torn between a potential new disaster and the hope for a Palestinian state.

Many questions linger: What about Hamas’ recent actions? How will Israel respond? What conditions does Hamas have for joining a peaceful settlement? And what about the Palestinian Authority’s plans for the future?

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a key figure in Palestinian politics since the late 1960s, shared his insights into the current situation: “Palestinians are facing an unprecedented crisis, surpassing even the historic Nakba (the catastrophe) of the past.”

“Back then, the Palestinian national movement was fractured, replaced by Arab initiatives that fell short of truly safeguarding Palestinian rights,” he added.

A fresh ‘Nakba’ in a changed landscape

In this new crisis, with its flaws laid bare by recent tragedies like the war in Gaza and the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Palestinian national movement endures.

This movement, according to Abed Rabbo, can’t be wiped out or replaced, regardless of military outcomes. It’s not just about comparing past Israeli brutality to today’s. The tools for killing and destruction are far more advanced now, but the aim remains unchanged.

Back in 1948, around 500 Palestinian villages, towns, and cities were destroyed, with a harshness no less than what we see today.

But now, Palestinians have a stronger memory than before.

Back in 1948, they couldn't imagine being completely removed from their homeland. Today, Palestinians of all ages fear being forced out of their land again, seeing this threat as real and tangible. They’re determined to defend their land, despite the destruction in Gaza.

Among the rubble, Palestinians declare: “I won't leave my homeland.” These words reflect the awareness built up over seventy years. Palestinian self-reliance can make a significant difference now.

The world isn't entirely pro-Israel. Some Western political circles support Israel, but with hesitance and, at times, shame, said Abed Rabbo.

Even those sympathetic to Israel acknowledge that a Palestinian state is the solution. They try to downplay Israeli crimes in Gaza, past and present. Today, some call Palestinians “subhuman,” while others openly advocate for expelling Gazans and expanding settlements, he added.

Nevertheless, the world is pressing Israel for accountability like never before. The International Criminal Court’s actions are significant. Despite Israel’s history of crimes against Palestinians, it has never faced trial for genocide, remarked Abed Rabbo.

What role for Hamas?

When asked if Hamas can help solve the problem, he noted that it is hard to say unless the Palestinian group is willing to rethink some of its approaches. While Hamas has been a strong Palestinian force and a key player in past uprisings, it needs to reconsider some of its strategies for real progress.

For Hamas to stay relevant, it needs to rethink its game plan, especially after the recent Gaza tragedy, stressed Abed Rabbo.

Israel’s aim to devastate Gaza completely raises serious questions. Despite potential accusations and sanctions, Hamas must decide its next move, he went on to say.

Consider this: While Hamas faces terrorism charges, Israeli settler activities in Palestinian territories go unchecked, involving killings and destruction.

However, there’s still room for Hamas to adapt, as history has shown with other Palestinian factions like Fatah. They managed to bounce back despite setbacks. Hamas needs to engage with the world and learn from the Palestinian experience, which can’t endure repeated tragedies indefinitely, clarified Abed Rabbo.

Sinwar and Arafat’s influence

When asked if Yahya al-Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, could accept what Yasser Arafat agreed to in the 1993 Oslo Accords, Abed Rabbo’s response was straightforward: “Yes.”

According to the veteran politician, learning from past experiences, Sinwar, unlike some ideologues, can adapt to changing situations.

Sinwar had joined Hamas during the first intifada in 1987 as part of its Islamic and resistance movement.

Another point is that the outcome of the Palestinian breach of Gaza’s borders on Oct. 7 was unexpected. It was perhaps meant to be a limited operation, involving the capture of some soldiers and minor clashes, said Abed Rabbo.

The aim was to initiate a limited confrontation with Israel, with minimal shelling and destruction, to improve conditions in Gaza under the suffocating Israeli blockade.

Abed Rabbo explained that Hamas had hoped to enhance livelihoods, economics, and possibly even secure geographical terms like a port or airport. Additionally, the movement sought conditions for Israel to accept Hamas leadership in Gaza politically.

This unexpected explosion, termed a failure by Israelis, may have surprised Sinwar and others, revealed Abed Rabbo.

Operation Al-Aqsa Flood: A military move

Regarding if he was aware of any regional timing when the Al-Aqsa Flood operation began, Abed Rabbo said no. He believes it wasn’t orchestrated by Iran or any other external force.

Hamas, according to Abed Rabbo, has ties with Iran but also seeks relations beyond that.

The Hamas leadership outside Gaza was caught off guard, leaving others, like himself, surprised, acknowledged Abed Rabbo.

Some tried to justify it as a decision by the internal military leadership, deflecting responsibility from the political leadership.

Hamas didn't anticipate Israel exploiting the situation to launch a destructive campaign, emphasized Abed Rabbo.

External forces, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, were surprised by the operation’s launch, asserted Abed Rabbo, adding that Iranian and Hezbollah leaders immediately tried to distance themselves from the operation mounted by Hamas.

Abed Rabbo also believes that the decision for launching the attack came from Hamas leaders in Gaza. They expected a smaller-scale operation and a limited Israeli response. But they were surprised by their own success and quickly capitalized on it by obtaining weapons from captives, causing a shock within Israel.

Need for renewing the Palestinian Authority

The recent events in Gaza highlight the urgent need for a fresh start in Palestinian leadership.

Keeping frank, Abed Rabbo pointed to the growing international talk about the need for a new Palestinian Authority. While some may see this as an excuse by global powers to dodge their responsibility, it's worth considering.

With a unified Palestinian leadership, including Hamas, Palestinians could have handled the situation more effectively, using all available resources to protect Palestinian interests.

It’s time to rethink priorities and strategies for a better outcome, stressed Abed Rabbo.

Missing chances to unite Palestinian forces has led to unilateral actions that caught others off guard, he lamented.

Palestinians need to seriously rebuild their unity under a single leadership and revive leadership within the national authority to navigate the current situation and seize diplomatic opportunities, advised Abed Rabbo.

Reforming the Palestinian Authority and Hamas: Are they willing?

As for whether the Palestinian Authority and Hamas could change for the better, Abed Rabbo said he thinks it is possible.

He believes Hamas needs to adapt to avoid a dire fate. Currently, the movement enjoys widespread support among Palestinians and in the Arab world.

Some argue that the conflict predates recent events, going back to the shortcomings of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which failed to curb Israeli occupation and settlement expansion.

Hamas and Fatah both have the potential, but it needs a real commitment from both sides to rethink their political approaches, said Abed Rabbo.

What Palestinians need is a government that represents national unity, not one faction over another.

Not a Hamas-led government in Gaza or a Fatah-led government in the West Bank, but a unified government embraced by all parties and trusted by Palestinians and the international community to work towards the goal of an independent Palestinian state, urged Abed Rabbo.

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'Metals of the Future': Copper and Silver Flow Beneath Poland's Surface

Smelter workers process copper at the Glogow plant in southwestern Poland, owned by KGHM. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP
Smelter workers process copper at the Glogow plant in southwestern Poland, owned by KGHM. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP
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'Metals of the Future': Copper and Silver Flow Beneath Poland's Surface

Smelter workers process copper at the Glogow plant in southwestern Poland, owned by KGHM. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP
Smelter workers process copper at the Glogow plant in southwestern Poland, owned by KGHM. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP

Thousands of meters beneath the ground, amid suffocating heat, lies one of the keys to Poland's rumbling mining sector -- and the world economy.

Whitish ore, rich in copper and silver, is extracted from the country's depths and exported around the world to fuel technological and energy transitions.

"These are the metals of the future," Ariel Wojciuszkiewicz, a geologist at the Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine in the west of the country, tells AFP, noting that copper and silver are "indispensable for electronic equipment, electric cars, and renewable energy installations".

Driven by the rise of artificial intelligence, renewable energies, and global defense needs, demand for these metals is expected to keep increasing in the future, with copper even being referred to as "red gold" and a "barometer" for world economic development.

Poland, responsible for as much as half of Europe's supply, is one of the industry's key players.

Equipped with a helmet and an emergency breathing device, Wojciuszkiewicz leads AFP journalists through the Polkowice-Sieroszowice mine -- one of three sites operated by KGHM, the Polish metals giant, which also owns local smelters and companies in the Americas.

The 24-hour operation runs at a constant roar as machines grind rock at deafening volumes, its tunnels stretching for hundreds of kilometers beneath Poland's surface.

The world's second-largest silver producer, the KGHM group also supplies between 40 percent and 50 percent of the copper produced in Europe.

Last year, it ranked eighth worldwide in terms of copper extraction volume, behind global giants such as BHP Group, Glencore Plc and Rio Tinto, according to industry statistics.

Global copper demand, already high, is expected to climb by over 40 percent by 2040, according to a 2025 UN Report.

To meet this demand, "it might take 80 new mines and 250 billion dollars in investments by 2030," the organization estimates.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), however, predicts that supply will lag 30 percent behind demand by as early as 2035.

- 1,200 degrees Celsius -

Dependence on copper is growing exponentially across the world economy's most innovative sectors.

"We don't realize how much we are surrounded by copper on all sides," Piotr Krzyzewski, KGHM vice president in charge of finance, explains to AFP.

"An electric car contains 80 kg of copper, compared with 20 kg in a conventional one," he notes, while "a wind turbine contains between four and ten tons of copper per megawatt."

Farther away, at the Glogow smelter, two workers in protective suits, armed with long lances, open huge furnaces where the ore is melted.

They work diligently as sparks fly from metal heated to 1,200C.

Several processing stages later, 99.99 percent pure copper plates, each weighing more than a hundred kilos, are shipped all over the world.

Last year, the KGHM group as a whole generated more than 36 billion zlotys ($9.7 billion) in revenue. Copper production reached 710,000 tons and silver production 1,347 tons, according to the group's annual report, published at the end of March.

No less than half of the silver is used in industry, mainly for electronics, solar panels, and medical applications. The rest goes to jewelery or serves as a safety net and financial asset.

But it is copper, now an irreplaceable metal for the economy, that has become the object of global strategic contention.

"Copper is on the strategic list of critical metals in Europe, the United States, and China," Krzyzewski tells AFP.

The metal's impact on geopolitics is already being noted in real time.

In July, US President Donald Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on copper, eventually limiting the measure to products made with the metal.

To justify his decision, he invoked the need to "defend national security".

"Copper is the second most used material by the Department of Defense!" he said.

- Record prices -

In 2025, copper prices jumped 41.7 percent, before hitting a record high of $14,527.50 a ton in January of this year.

Even in the face of the war in the Middle East and the slowdown of the global economy, the price remains high at about 12,000 dollars per ton.

In this uncertain context, Poland's subsoil appears to be a major asset for the energy sovereignty of the Old Continent.

"It's no longer about the security of our country alone, but the security of all of Europe," Krzyzewski says, adding that KGHM's resources "are still estimated to last for at least 40 years," not counting new exploration and concessions.

But mining consumes enormous amounts of water, making it subject to the effects of global warming and drought.

Features

Trump’s Anger Over Iran Thrusts NATO into Fresh Crisis

A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
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Trump’s Anger Over Iran Thrusts NATO into Fresh Crisis

A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. (Reuters)
A NATO flag flutters at the Tapa military base, Estonia April 30, 2023. (Reuters)

The NATO alliance has in recent years survived existential challenges - ranging from the war in Ukraine to multiple bouts of pressure and insults from US President Donald Trump, who has questioned its core mission and threatened to seize Greenland.

But it is the US-Israeli war with Iran, thousands of miles from Europe, that has nearly broken the 76-year-old bloc and threatens to leave it in its weakest state since its creation, say analysts and diplomats.

Trump, enraged that European countries have declined to send their navies to open up the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping following the start of the air war on Feb 28, has declared he is considering withdrawing from the alliance.

"Wouldn't you if you were me?" Trump asked Reuters in a Wednesday interview.

In a speech on Wednesday night, Trump criticized US allies but stopped short of condemning NATO, as many experts thought he might.

But combined with other barbs aimed at Europeans in recent weeks, Trump's comments have provoked unprecedented concern that the US will not come to the aid of European allies should they be attacked, whether or not Washington formally walks away.

The result, say analysts and diplomats, is that the alliance created in the Cold War that has long served as the basic fabric of European security is fraying and the mutual defense agreement at its core is no longer taken as a given.

"This is the worst place (NATO) has been since it was founded," said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who now leads the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"It's really hard to ‌think of anything that ‌even comes close."

That reality is sinking in for Europeans, who have counted on NATO as a bulwark against an increasingly assertive Russia.

As recently ‌as February, ⁠NATO Secretary-General Mark ⁠Rutte had dismissed the idea of Europe defending itself without the US as a "silly thought." Now, many officials and diplomats consider it the default expectation.

"NATO remains necessary, but we must be capable of thinking of NATO without the Americans," said General Francois Lecointre, who served as France's armed forces chief from 2017 to 2021.

"Whether it should even continue to be called NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization - is a valid question."

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies clear, and as the President emphasized, ‘the United States will remember.’”

A NATO representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

THIS TIME IT'S DIFFERENT

NATO has been challenged before, not least during Trump's first term from 2017 to 2021, when he also considered withdrawing from the alliance.

But while many European officials until recently believed that Trump could be kept on board with pomp and flattery, fewer now hold that belief, according to conversations with dozens of former and current US and European officials.

Trump and his officials have expressed frustration over what they see as NATO's unwillingness to help the United ⁠States in a time of need, including by not directly assisting with the Strait of Hormuz and by restricting US use of some airfields and ‌airspace. US officials have declared NATO cannot be a "one-way street".

European officials counter that they have not received US requests for specific ‌assets for a mission to open the strait and complain that Washington has been inconsistent about whether such a mission would operate during or after the war.

"It's a terrible situation for NATO to be in," said ‌Jamie Shea, a former senior NATO official who is now a senior fellow at the Friends of Europe think tank.

"It is a blow to the allies who, since Trump returned to ‌the White House, have worked hard to show that they are willing and able to take more responsibility (for their own defense)."

Trump's latest comments follow other signs of an increasingly unsteady alliance.

Those include his stepped-up threats in January to wrest Greenland away from Denmark and recent moves by the US that Europeans see as particularly accommodating toward Russia, which NATO defines as its principal security threat.

The administration has remained essentially mum amid reports that Moscow has provided targeting data for Iran to attack US assets in the Middle East and has lifted sanctions on Russian oil in a bid to ease global energy prices that have spiked during the war.

At a meeting of G7 foreign ministers ‌near Paris last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Kaja Kallas, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, had a tense exchange, according to five people familiar with the matter, underlining the increasingly fraught transatlantic relationship.

Kallas asked when US patience with Russian President Vladimir ⁠Putin would run out over Ukraine peace negotiations, prompting Rubio ⁠to respond with irritation that the US was trying to end the war while also providing support to Ukraine, but the EU was welcome to mediate if it wanted to.

NO GOING BACK

Legally, Trump may lack the authority to withdraw from NATO. Under a law passed in 2023, a US president cannot exit the alliance without the consent of two-thirds of the US Senate, a nearly impossible threshold.

But analysts say that, as commander-in-chief, Trump can decide whether the US military will defend NATO members. Declining to do so could imperil the alliance without a formal withdrawal.

To be sure, not everyone sees the current crisis as existential. One French diplomat described the president's rhetoric as a passing temper tantrum.

Trump has changed his position on NATO before.

In 2024, he said on the campaign trail that he would encourage Putin to attack NATO members that do not pay their fair share on defense. By the last annual NATO summit, in June 2025, the alliance was in his good graces, with Trump delivering a speech effusively praising European leaders as people who "love their countries."

Next week, Rutte, the NATO secretary-general, who has a strong relationship with Trump, is set to visit Washington in an effort to change Trump's view once again.

Analysts say European nations have good reason to keep the US engaged in NATO despite doubts over whether Trump would come to their defense. Among other reasons, the US military provides a range of capabilities NATO can't easily replace, such as satellite intelligence.

Even if Trump and the Europeans find a way to stay together in NATO, diplomats, analysts and officials say, the transatlantic alliance that has been central to the global order since World War Two may never be the same.

"I do think we're turning the page of 80 years of working together," said Julianne Smith, the US ambassador to NATO under Democratic President Joe Biden.

"I don't think it means the end of the transatlantic relationship, but we're on the cusp of something that's going to have a different look and feel to it."

Features

A Look at the UK’s Royal Navy, Which Has Faced Jibe After Jibe from Trump and Hegseth

Indonesian soldiers stand guard as Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey is docked at Tanjung Priok Port during a port visit in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)
Indonesian soldiers stand guard as Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey is docked at Tanjung Priok Port during a port visit in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)
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A Look at the UK’s Royal Navy, Which Has Faced Jibe After Jibe from Trump and Hegseth

Indonesian soldiers stand guard as Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey is docked at Tanjung Priok Port during a port visit in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)
Indonesian soldiers stand guard as Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel HMS Spey is docked at Tanjung Priok Port during a port visit in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)

US President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have been damning of the UK's naval capabilities. Their jibes may have stung in a country with a long and proud maritime history, but they do carry some substance.

The UK has been at the forefront of Trump’s ire since the onset of the Iran war on Feb. 28, when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to grant the US military access to British bases.

Though that decision has been partly reversed with the decision to permit the US to use the bases, including that of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, for so-called defensive purposes, Trump is adamant he was let down. He has repeatedly lashed out at Starmer and branded the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers as “toys.”

“You don’t even have a navy,” he told Britain's Daily Telegraph in comments published Wednesday. "You’re too old and had aircraft carriers that didn’t work.”

Hegseth, meanwhile, said sarcastically that the “big, bad Royal Navy” should get involved in making the Strait of Hormuz safe for commercial shipping.

For numerous reasons, the Royal Navy is not as big and bad as it used to be when Britannia ruled the waves. But it's not as feeble as Trump and Hegseth imply and is largely similar with the French navy, which it is often compared with.

“On the negative side, there is a grain of truth, with the Royal Navy being smaller than it has been in hundreds of years,” said professor Kevin Rowlands, editor of the Royal United Services Institute Journal. “On the positive side, the Royal Navy would say that it’s entering its first period of growth since World War II, with more ships set to be built than in decades.”

Capabilities and preparedness

It’s not that long ago that Britain could muster a task force of 127 ships, including two aircraft carriers, to sail to the south Atlantic after Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands. That 1982 campaign, which then-US President Ronald Reagan was lukewarm about, marked the final hurrah of Britain’s naval pedigree.

Nothing on that scale, or even remotely, could be accomplished now. Since World War II, Britain’s combat-ready fleet has declined substantially, much of it linked to changing military and technological advances and the end of empire. But not all.

The number of vessels in the Royal Navy fleet, including aircraft carriers, destroyers frigates and submarines has fallen from 166 in 1975 to 66 in 2025, according to The Associated Press' analysis of figures from the Ministry of Defense and the House of Commons Library.

Though the Royal Navy has two aircraft carriers at its command, there was a seven-year period in the 2010s when it had none. And the number of destroyers has halved to six while the frigate fleet has been slashed from 60 to just 11.

Diminished state

The Royal Navy faced criticism for the time it took to send the HMS Dragon destroyer to the Middle East after the war with Iran broke out. Though naval officials worked night and day to get it shipshape for a different mission than the one it was readying for, to many it symbolized the extent to which Britain’s military has been gutted since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

For much of the Cold War, Britain was spending between 4% and 8% of its annual national income on its military. After the Cold War, that proportion steadily dropped to a low of 1.9% of GDP in 2018, fuel to Trump's fire.

Like other countries, Britain, largely under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, sought to use the so-called “peace dividend” following the collapse of the Soviet Union to divert money earmarked for defense to other priorities, such as health and education.

And the austerity measures imposed by the Conservative-led government in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008-9 prevented any pickup in defense spending despite the clear signs of a resurgent Russia, especially after its annexation of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine.

No quick fix

In the wake of Russia's full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and with another Middle East war underway, there's a growing understanding across the political divide that the cuts have gone too far.

Following the Ukraine invasion, the Conservatives started to turn the military spending tide around. Since the Labour Party returned to power in 2024, Starmer is seeking to ramp up British defense spending, partly at the cost of cutting the country's long-vaunted aid spending.

Starmer has promised to raise UK defense spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027, and the updated goal is now for it to rise to 3.5% of GDP by 2035, as part of a NATO agreement pushed by Trump. That, in plain terms, will mean tens of billions pounds more being spent — a lot more kit for the armed forces.

The pressure is on for the government to speed that schedule up. But with the public finances further imperiled by the economic consequences of the Iran war, it's not clear where any additional money will come.

The jibes will likely keep coming even though the critiques are unfair and far from the truth, said RUSI's Rowlands, who was a captain in the Royal Navy.

“We are dealing with an administration that doesn’t do nuance,” he said.