Hamas political leader Khalid Mashaal says Palestinians have been the subject of a holocaust since Israel came into being in 1948.

"Israel is using the Holocaust as a cover to do what it wants," Mashaal said on Saturday.

He said that the Zionist regime is 'using the Holocaust' as a pretext to justify its atrocities against the Palestinians.

The Hamas political leader condemned Israel's air and overland raids which killed 49 Palestinians in the coastal strip and injured more than 150 people only on Saturday.

A majority of those killed are civilians, according to Palestinian Health Ministry officials.

He also took a swipe at the international community for their failure in putting an end to the Israeli cruelties, describing 'those who keep quite as accomplices to Israeli crimes'.

"If the world cannot end the occupation... then it is our right to defend ourselves," he said. "When the battle is imposed on us, the only thing left is resistance," he said.

Mashaal also said Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas provides the Israeli regime with 'a cover, voluntarily or involuntarily', to carry out its assault on Gaza.

DT/DT