Hamdan: Our land will only be Palestinian, for the Palestinian people

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Al Mayadeen
7 Jan 2024 23:19
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The senior Hamas officials says the Resistance will take revenge from the Israeli occupation for the assassination of leader Sheikh Saleh al-Aroui and his companions.

Hamas politburo member Osama Hamdan during a televised address on Sunday, January 7, 2024 (Screengrab from Al Mayadeen's live broadcast)

The assassination of martyr Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri will not change or alter the Resistance's convictions, Hamas politburo member Osama Hamdan confirmed on Sunday, vowing that revenge from the Israeli occupation entity for its crime is definitely coming.

"The enemy will face a response from us that will teach it that the assassination will not weaken the Resistance," Hamdan said in a televised address.

However, he stressed that the greater revenge that the Resistance will take is the liberation of occupied al-Quds, ending the occupation, and the return of Palestinians to their land.

"The ones who will leave the land of Palestine and go back to where they came from will be the occupying settlers," Hamdan stressed.

"Our land will only be Palestinian, for the Palestinian people."

Additionally, the senior Hamas official said the assassination of al-Arouri and his companions in Beirut's Southern Suburb shows, once again, that the Israelis do not "respect laws and conventions or recognize the security and sovereignty of any state."

We are the owners of the land

The intensity of the Israeli bombing of Gaza is unprecedented in recent history. Human rights organizations and war observers recently estimated that the volume of explosives dropped on the Strip during the last three months is equivalent to more than 3 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.

On that note, Hamdan said that "Israel" destroyed 70% of civilian homes in Gaza and put 30 of the Strip's main hospitals out of service as part of its plan to forcibly displace the Palestinian people.

He also emphasized that "voluntary migration" is a malicious slogan chanted by Nazi extremists in the occupation entity. "This plot will not be realized for we are the owners of the land and will remain in it, while they are the ones who will leave."

Addressing US-Israeli statements about forming and imposing a "new government in Gaza," which does not include Resistance factions and is under the supervision of the occupation entity, Hamdan confirmed that this scheme shall not pass.

"Gaza will only be a part of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with al-Quds as its capital," he said.

Resistance is still in position in northern Gaza

Regarding the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, he reiterated that the captives will not be released unless the occupation agrees to the conditions of the Resistance.

Commenting on claims made by the occupation army that it had completed its operations in northern Gaza, Hamdan confirmed that Resistance fighters and units are still in their positions, while the Israeli army "withdrew from there without achieving its objectives and without freeing a single captive."

The myth of the mighty Israeli army was shattered "before the courage of the Resistance," he said, adding that the Resistance "remains firmly attached to its land and continues to launch rockets daily toward the heart of the entity."

Elsewhere in his speech, the politburo member highlighted that the US administration is a full partner in the Israeli war on Gaza.

"There will be no security or stability in the region as long as the US administration continues to approach it from a Zionist perspective."

"Regional stability begins with ending the Zionist aggression on our land and recognizing the rights of our Palestinian people," he added.

Last week, South Africa filed a lawsuit to the International Court of Justice against the Israeli forces for violating the UN's Genocide Convention, as the brutal war on Gaza continues for over three months now.

In the submitted comprehensive document, Cape Town detailed that the operations conducted by Israeli occupation forces "are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial, and ethnical group."

Hamdan praised the friendly state of South Africa and called for other countries to "support its stance and file more legal suits in international courts against this entity."

They are not numbers

Hamdan discussed the crimes of the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, listing the casualties among the martyrs and the wounded, in addition to the material losses.

He stated that the number of martyrs in the Gaza Strip has reached 22,920, with over 7,000 people still missing under the rubble, while the number of martyrs in the West Bank since October 7 last year is now 321.

Moreover, the top Hamas official pointed out that over 4% of Gaza's residents are now either martyred or injured.

Hamdan continued to say that the "enemy is burning homes with innocent civilians inside, with the latest example being the massacre of the Abu Alba family this morning" in northern Gaza.

"We do not count them as numbers, but as individuals with lives, dreams, and rights," he said.

بلغ عدد الشهداء في قطاع غزة 22920 وبلغ عدد الشهداء في الضفة 321 منذ السابع من أكتوبر، وعدد المفقودين تحت الركام في قطاع غزة أكثر من 7 آلاف

القيادي في حركة حماس أسامة حمدان#فلسطين #غزة #الميادين pic.twitter.com/6YgLtqUbIU
— قناة الميادين (@AlMayadeenNews) January 7, 2024

The collapse of the health sector has been catastrophic for the people in the besieged Strip. Hamdan revealed that out of 6,000 people in urgent need to receive medical treatment outside Gaza, only 650 were able to leave.

Since the launch of its war, the occupation entity has killed 110 journalists, with the most recent three martyred on Sunday.

Hamdan said that this indicates "the collapse of the Zionist narrative and the attempt by the entity to suppress the truth."

As for the historical sites in the Strip, he stated that the occupation has destroyed more than 200 of the 325 archaeological and heritage sites registered in Gaza.

Earlier this week, Palestinian Minister of Culture, Atef Abu Seif, described the Israeli aggression on cultural sites as a "systematic and targeted” campaign against the territory's “culture and heritage sector with its material and intangible components, through which it seeks to erase national memory, promote distortion of facts, and fight the Palestinian narrative."

“This is a war on human beings and their place and their story in that place,” Abu Seif remarked.

The Israeli occupation has been increasing and intensifying its aggression targeting Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Just on Sunday, occupation forces killed 7 Palestinian youths in Jenin, four of whom were brothers.

But despite all the "Israeli savage aggression, Resistance fighters [in the West Bank] remain steadfast," he stressed.