Palestinians to continue Intifada until demands met: Hamas

Top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh says Palestinians will continue their Intifada (uprising) against Israel until all their objectives are achieved.

Haniyeh said the “sacrifices of the Palestinians and their heroic resistance in the face of Israel will eventually come to fruition,” Arabic-language Palestine al-Yawm news agency reported.

He made the remarks during a telephone conversation with the family of slain Palestinian teenager Ahmed Younis Koazibh on Wednesday.

Haniyeh further praised the young Palestinian men killed at the hands of the Israeli military forces, saying they can “thwart Israeli schemes and disrupt all its calculations.”

Seventeen-year-old Koazibh, a resident of the town of Sa’ir, northeast of the West Bank city of al-Khalil (Hebron), was shot and killed by Israeli military forces at the Gush Etzion Junction after allegedly stabbing an Israeli soldier last month.

Tensions have been running high in the West Bank after Israel’s imposition in August of restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem). Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam.

The restrictions have enraged Palestinians, who are also angry at increasing violence by Israeli settlers frequently storming the al-Aqsa Mosque. They say the Tel Aviv regime seeks to change the status quo of the compound.

At least 145 Palestinians, including children and women, have lost their lives at the hands of the Israeli forces since the beginning of last October.

Palestinian mosque demolished 

Separately, Israeli forces demolished a mosque in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Rakhama on Wednesday.

Taleb Abu Arar, a member of the Knesset for the United Arab List political party, said he sought to dissuade the Israeli authorities and prevent the demolition, but was unsuccessful.

“They (Israelis) do not spare any effort in exerting pressure on the Arab population of the Negev in their attempt to clear the land of Arabs and to displace them,” he said.

“The demolition of the mosque today, and the demolition of mosques in the Negev in general, is a declaration of war on Islam, in line with the religious war that Israel has been igniting in the region,” Abu Arar said.

He said Israeli authorities demolish homes and “slam the doors of livelihoods” on the face of Palestinians living in Bedouin villages.

Also on Wednesday, Israeli forces demolished five dwellings belonging to Palestinian Bedouin families in the Abu Nuwwar community of East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Dawood al-Jahalin, a spokesperson for the Abu Nuwwar Bedouin community, said the families were not given any time to remove their belongings before the dwellings were leveled to the ground.

“I showed them a court decision banning demolition, but the officer in charge refused to see it and instead told me he had a demolition order from Israeli authorities,” al-Jahalin said.