اردو
  • Hamas warns Arabs against warming up to Israel

    Featured
    Head of Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh Head of Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh

    The Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has strongly warned the Arab world against “restoring” ties with Israel, saying all effort had to be directed towards preventing the occupying regime from “infiltrating” into the Muslim world.

    “The Zionist occupiers are the common enemies of the Muslim world. It is our responsibility to boycott them, expose their crimes, and prevent them from infiltrating the Islamic community,” said Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Political Bureau of Hamas resistance movement.

    “We must work hard to reject and criminalize all plots aimed at restoring ties, be it on political, economic, cultural, academic, or social fronts,” added Haniyeh, who was addressing the 32nd International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran via video link.

    Back-to-back official remarks and media reports have shown that Israel and Arab states, at the head of them Saudi Arabia, have been increasingly gravitating towards one another over the past many years. This is while those were the very states that previously depicted themselves as Tel Aviv’s enemies and supporters of the Palestinian cause.

    “Tehran is the capital of a land, which accompanies and is aligned with the Islamic Ummah, especially the Palestinian nation. This conference guarantees the Palestinian nation’s steadfastness,” Haniyeh added.

    He added that US President Donald Trump could not forcibly hand the occupied holy city of Jerusalem al-Quds over to the Israelis in the same way that the former British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour was not able to give them even “a palm’s length” of the Palestinian soil.

    The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the UK government during World War I, announcing support for the creation of Israel. The declaration was named after Lord Balfour, the then British foreign secretary who penned the document.

    Late last year, Trump recognized al-Quds as Israel’s capital, and earlier this year, he transferred the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the city. Both moves ignited outrage among Palestinians and were followed by stern international warnings.

    “This land is entirely ours,” Haniyeh asserted.

    He also vowed that the Palestinian resistance would reject the United States’ “deal of the century.”

    Haniyeh was referring to a yet-unannounced US plan for the Middle East, which reportedly circumvents many of the Palestinians’ demands.

    The Hamas chief added that Muslims had to devise a strategy to confront Israeli plots to Judaize al-Aqsa Mosque.

    The regime invariably imposes restrictions on visits by Palestinians to the mosque, while freely allowing Israeli settlers to frequently visit the site accompanied by an armed escort.

    Also addressing the conference, the deputy leader of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah said al-Quds was the pivotal issue of the Islamic world.

    Sheikh Na'eem Qasim said the Palestinians could not be divided and they would refuse to give up even one inch of their land.