Hamas invited Elon Musk to the Gaza Strip to witness the scope of the devastation caused by Israel’s bombardment, but the tech billionaire said it was “dangerous there right now”.
The invitation from senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan came on Tuesday.
“Seems a bit dangerous there right now, but I do believe that a long-term prosperous Gaza is good for all sides,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns.
He had visited a kibbutz the previous day that was targeted by Hamas gunmen during the October 7 attack in southern Israel and declared his commitment to do whatever was necessary to stop the spread of hatred.
Hamdan called on Musk, who recently met Israel’s prime minister and president, to also visit Palestine and acquire a more rounded perspective.
“We invite him to visit Gaza to see the extent of the massacres and destruction committed against the people of Gaza, in compliance with the standards of objectivity and credibility,” Hamdan said in a press conference in Beirut.
“Within 50 days, Israel dropped more than 40,000 tonnes of explosives on the homes of defenceless Gazans,” the official added.
Musk has recently faced criticism that his social media platform is rife with anti-Semitism and white nationalist rhetoric promoting violence and hatred.
During his visit to Israel, Musk expressed shock upon seeing the decimated kibbutz of Kfar Aza, saying that Israel had “no choice” but to eliminate Hamas.
He also struck an agreement under which “Starlink satellite units [would] only be operated in Israel with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Communications, including the Gaza Strip,” a sharp turn from his previous musing that he could provide Starlink to enhance communications in Gaza amid numerous telecommunications blackouts.
The Hamas official also called on the United States “to review [its] relationship with Israel and to stop supplying them with weapons,” and for the international community to quickly send specialised civil defence teams to help retrieve thousands of bodies from beneath the rubble.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
