Hamas: Armed struggle against Israel will continue
According to Fatah, the Palestinians have been fighting against the “Zionist project and its hazards for more than 100 years.”
By KHALED ABU TOAMEHUpdated: DECEMBER 9, 2018 00:50A member of Hamas' military police walks through rubble at a site that was hit by Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on August 9, 2018(photo credit: MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)
Hamas said on Saturday that the “armed struggle” against Israel will continue because it’s a “strategic option to safeguard the Palestinian cause and restore Palestinian national rights.”In a statement on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the eruption of the First Intifada, Hamas said that “resistance was a legitimate right guaranteed by international laws and conventions.”The Intifada, Hamas said, was a “popular and mass revolution characterized by the unity of the Palestinian social fabric, strong family relations and interdependence.”It said, “31 years after the eruption of the uprising, which is also known as the stone intifada, Palestinians were still in need of unity, partnership and the reconstruction of their national project.”Hamas seized the occasion to repeat its rejection of US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace in the Middle East, which is also known as the “deal of the century.”The unseen plan, Hamas claimed, is aimed at “liquidating the Palestinian cause and undermining the rights of the Palestinians.”It also urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to lift the financial sanctions he imposed on the Gaza Strip more than a year ago.Hamas also lashed out at Arab countries for their alleged normalization with Israel. “Attempts at normalization with Israel are doomed to failure,” the terrorist group added. “Our people will stand against those who are promoting normalization regardless of the sacrifices.”In the West Bank, Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction vowed to “continue the struggle to end all forms of Israeli occupation.”In a statement marking the 31st anniversary of the First Intifada, Fatah, which did not specify the nature of the struggle it’s calling for, said that the Palestinians will pursue their struggle with “greater determination until the right of return for refugees is achieved, as well as the right to self-determination and the establishment of an “independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”According to Fatah, the Palestinians have been fighting against the “Zionist project and its hazards for more than 100 years.”The group voiced full support for Abbas in his rejection of the “deal of the century” and Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US Embassy there from Tel Aviv.Fatah called on Hamas to end its “black coup” and “repugnant schism” in the Gaza Strip.Palestinian unity, Fatah added, is the Palestinians’ “effective tool to defeat the Zionist project and occupation.”
