We've come to trust MEMRI's interpreters. Over the course of tens of thousands of Arabic to English or Persian to Hebrew to English or Pashtun etc. articles and possibly more importantly television and radio, I can recall less than a half-dozen cases where they got the interpretation wrong.
From the Middle East Media Research Institute (also on blogroll at right), October 8:
#10511 | 03:36
Source: Russia Today TV (Russia)Senior Hamas official Ali Baraka said in an October 8, 2023 interview that aired on Russia Today TV that Hamas had been secretly planning the invasion of southern Israel for two years, even as it was making it seem like it was busy governing the Gaza Strip. He explained that this is the reason Hamas did not join the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in its previous round of fighting against Israel. He said that Hamas notified its allies in other Palestinian factions, in Hizbullah, in Iran, in Turkey, and in Russia only after the invasion started, and he stated that any prisoner exchange deal should involve Hamas prisoners held in the United States. Later in the interview, Baraka said that Hamas has a license from Russia to locally produce bullets for Kalashnikovs, that Russia sympathizes with Hamas, and that it is pleased with the war because it is easing American pressure on it with regard to the war in Ukraine.
Ali Baraka: "The zero hour was kept completely secret. A limited number of Hamas leaders knew it. The number of people who knew about the attack and its timing could be counted on one hand.[...]
"In the past couple of years, Hamas has adopted a 'rational' approach. It did not go into any war, and did not join the Islamic Jihad in its recent battle."
[...]
Interviewer: "But all this was part of Hamas's strategy in preparing for this attack."
Baraka: "Of course. We made them think that Hamas was busy with governing Gaza, and that it wanted to focus on the 2.5 million Palestinians [in Gaza], and has abandoned the resistance altogether....
....MUCH MORE
If you speak the language you can test MEMRI by doing your own simultaneous translation and comparing with the above.
