Islamic Jihad ‘preparing for big battle’ with Israel

A member of the political bureau of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Mohammed Al-Hindi, said on Tuesday that the resistance group is preparing for a “big battle” with the Israeli occupation authorities.

“The Palestinian cause is the key to solutions and stability for the whole region,” Al-Hindi said on Al-Aqsa TV. “We stick to resistance and do not care about the Palestinian Authority’s talks with the occupation, which thinks that its repeated attacks on the occupied West Bank will end the battle. No, the Palestinian factions and the Palestinian people are preparing for the big battle.”

He reiterated that Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank are “the essence” of the struggle with the Israeli occupation state.

The senior Islamic Jihad figure stressed that all of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, Palestine occupied in 1948 and the diaspora, “are standing behind the resistance fighters” in their fight against the Israeli occupation.

At the same time, he said that the targeting of the PA [by Israel and its allies] and turning it into a “fully paralysed body” will multiply the security threats in the region. “That is why so many countries in the region are trying to bolster the PA,” he claimed. “The Israeli occupation needs the PA to maintain powerful security services in order to guard the occupation state and maintain the security of its settlers.”

Hence, added Al-Hindi, a strong PA is an Israeli security interest, even though this means that the West Bank “is no longer valid” for an independent and viable Palestinian state.

When asked to comment on the latest Israeli election, he said: “It deepened the social friction within Israeli society. There is a leadership crisis. Netanyahu is trying to form a government but at the same time he does not want to lose the normalisation deals [with Arab states].”

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