Gaza: Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday the group was showing flexibility in negotiations with Israel over the Gaza war but at the same time was ready to continue fighting. In a televised speech, Haniyeh also called on Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank to march to Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray on the first day of Ramadan on March 10, raising the stakes in the indirect talks for a truce deal to have come into force by then.
Haniyeh also called on the self-styled Axis of Resistance — allies of Iran consisting of Lebanon’s Hezbol-lah, Yemen’s Houthis, and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — as well as Arab states, to step up their sup-port for the Palestinians in Gaza.
“It is the duty of the Arab and Islamic nations to take the initiative to break the starvation conspiracy in Gaza”, Haniyeh said, referring to what Palestinians say appears to be a deliberate policy by Israel to deny them food. Moreover, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has called on members of the “resistance ax-is” that supports Gaza to boost their involvement in the battle against Israel.
In a speech on Wednesday, Mr Haniyeh called on the Arab world to support the resistance in Gaza and the West Bank with money and weapons “before it is too late”.
He said Hamas was showing flexibility in negotiations with Israel but was ready to continue the fight.
Mr Haniyeh called on “brotherly” Arab countries to deter the “enemy” and reject its invasion of Rafah.
He also called for an end to Israel’s “starvation siege” in the northern Gaza Strip.
Mr Haniyeh said that the resistance carried out the October 7 attack at the time when Israel was work-ing to “liquidate the Palestinian cause”.
“The attempts to liquidate the cause kicked off with former US president Donald Trump’s recognition of East Jerusalem as a capital of Israel,” he said.
He urged Palestinians in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank “to march to Al Aqsa Mosque on the first day of Ramadan to pray and break the siege”.
“The siege of Gaza and Al Aqsa is the same, and if all the components of the Palestinian people join the battle, this will break the siege of Al Aqsa and Gaza,” he said. –Agencies
