Palestine factions condemn UK labelling of Hamas as ‘terror group’

Palestinian factions have condemned the UK’s decision to designate the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation.

British Home Secretary Priti Patel argued on Friday that it was not possible to distinguish between Hamas’s political and military wings.

She also called Hamas “fundamentally and rabidly anti-Semitic” and asserted that she would push for the ban in Parliament next week.

“This decision targets the legitimate Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation,” the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced in a statement.

It also pressed: “This decision is an extension of the UK’s hostile stances towards Palestinian people and their rights. This decision is completely biased to the Zionist entity and its aggression on the Palestinians and their legitimate rights.”

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Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine expressed: “This hostile and oppressive decision does not serve anyone except the Zionist occupation.”

In a statement, the Islamic Jihad Movement added: “Resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinians. All the Palestinian resistance groups will never give up this right, whatever the form and size of British bias against it.”

The Mujahideen Movement proclaimed in a statement: “Backlisting the Palestinian resistance is a continuation of Western hostility to the Palestinians, their issue and their resistance.”

The movement reiterated: “This decision gives a new cover to the Zionist occupation so that it increases its aggression and crimes against our people and our resistance.”