Former Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal announced from Turkey on Sunday that Gaza’s ruling terrorist organization has more “surprises” in store for Israel in future days.
“We will not give up the right of return. Gaza has surprised Israel with something new – and we have more surprises,” Meshaal promised, the Hamas website reported.
Speaking during a breakfast meeting in Istanbul arranged to mark the 90th anniversary of the Muslim Brotherhood, Meshaal said, “Israel will not be recognized” and the “deal of the century will be foiled.
In a televised speech in the southern Turkish city of Adana, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “terrorist” — also on Sunday — and Israel a “terrorist state.” The epithets were a response to the deaths of 15 Gazans – including 10 convicted terrorists – who were killed Friday by IDF soldiers as they were attacking the security fence in the Hamas-driven ‘march of return’ along the Gaza border. At least two terrorists also attempted to launch a shooting attack from northern Gaza, using the demonstrations as cover. Eight of those killed were members of Hamas.
Erdogan has long championed Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization, which was spawned by the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Turkey’s Islamist president has for decades maintained close ties.
“Netanyahu tries to take advantage of the current crises in the Arab world to liquidate the Palestinian cause benefiting from the existence of such extremists as U.S. President Donald Trump, and the help of some parties in the Arab and Muslim world,” Meshaal said in his address to the breakfast in Istanbul.
“All these conspiracies will not pass. They have started to eliminate the right to return, to take over Jerusalem and to ban funding the Hamas movement, but resistance will always continue and their efforts will always fail because the Palestinian people will never stop resistance, especially with more surprises from Gaza,” he added.
Defiant Hamas leaders warned Sunday that Palestinians would continue their protests along the Gaza fence, vowing to go beyond the barrier next time and promising fresh surprises for Israel.
“The Palestinians will not give up the ‘right of return’,” former Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said during a visit to Turkey. “We will not recognize the legitimacy of the occupation and we will not surrender in the face of the siege [on the Gaza Strip].”
Mashaal noted that Israel had prevented weapons from reaching the West Bank, only to get car-ramming and stabbing attacks. “Our people are capable of defending themselves,” he said. “In the past, the enemy was used to rockets being launched from the Gaza Strip. But this time Gaza surprised [Israel] with something new, and there’s more in stock.”
The Palestinians, Mashaal added, will also continue their struggle against US President Donald Trump’s yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East.
“The Zionist enemy thought that the Gaza Strip was easy prey,” Mashaal said in a speech before more than 1,000 Turkish delegates attending a conference in Istanbul. “They [Israel] believed that the people of the Gaza Strip are like metal that can’t be broken. They also discovered that they will not be able to defeat the resistance. Our grandfathers, fathers, and sons fought there and were martyred there.”
Fifteen Palestinians were killed and scores more were wounded as tens of thousands of Gazans marched on Israel’s border fence on Friday.
IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis said Friday that the military had faced “a violent, terrorist demonstration at six points” along the fence.
He said the IDF used “pinpoint fire” wherever there were attempts to breach or damage the security fence. “All the fatalities were aged 18-30, several of the fatalities were known to us, and at least two of them were members of Hamas commando forces,” he said in a late afternoon statement.
As of Saturday evening, Hamas, a terrorist group that openly seeks to destroy Israel, itself acknowledged that five of the dead in the so-called “March of Return” were its own gunmen.
Haniyeh said that the mass protests will continue, adding that no one knows where the demonstrators will stop next time. “We wish to tell the world that the March of Return was peaceful and civilized, and women, youths, children and elderly participated in it,” he said. “The killings by the Israeli army were premeditated,” he said.
Referring to Trump’s long awaited peace plan, the former Hamas leader said: “The deal of the century is being cooked in a dark rooms, and they feel that some Muslims are cooperating with them.”
Mashaal was apparently referring to reports that some Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had been pressuring the Palestinians to accept Trump’s plan, if and when it is announced.
The enemies of the Palestinians, he said, “have begun realizing that their conspiracies will not pass. That’s why they have devised a new scheme to obliterate the right of return, tighten their grip on Jerusalem and dry the sources of funding for Hamas.”
The Palestinians, he said, “will not be defeated because their sons are fighters and sons of martyrs.”
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