Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar wrote in the Washington Post that there can be no peace between the Palestinian Authority and Israel without including Hamas in negotiations. Using the liberal-leaning Post as a platform, he castigated American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for acting "as if a few alterations here and there would make the hideous straitjacket of apartheid fit better." He repeated accusations that Israel is "choking off fuel supplies...[and] killing men, woman and children."

Invoking the murder of Jews by the Nazi regime, he added, "Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world's largest open-air prison, can do no less."