A senior Hamas official is facing a storm of fury from residents in Gaza after dismissing the Strip’s soaring war death toll as little more than “material calculations” — remarks that many are calling dehumanizing and disgraceful.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a high-ranking Hamas spokesperson based in Qatar, made the comments in a podcast interview originally aired in late March but which resurfaced this week, quickly going viral across social media platforms in Gaza and beyond.

Abu Zuhri noted that Gaza’s birth rate — reportedly around 50,000 since the war began — exceeds the number of people killed in the conflict. “The martyrs — the wombs of Gaza’s women will give birth to twice as many,” he said. “This is the price that must be paid. If we thought in material terms, we would not be able to hold onto our land.”

The remarks triggered a visceral backlash from residents of Gaza, who viewed them as a callous dismissal of the staggering human cost of the war — which has claimed the lives of tens of thousands, including large numbers of women and children.

One Gazan man posted a video, visibly angry: “A man outside the Strip says that everyone who was killed can simply be replaced. This is someone deluded beyond reason — he’s not one of us.”

Another resident slammed the disconnect between Gaza’s leadership and its people: “Your children are outside the Strip. You ignite this war, and we are the fuel?!”

The backlash moved from online spaces to the streets. In Khan Younis, hundreds gathered in an anti-Hamas demonstration on Tuesday, chanting directly against Abu Zuhri: “Oh Abu Zuhri, you disgrace, even the child wants to live.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)