Haniyeh says sacrifices of the people will not be in vain

Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that the Palestinian people are proving that the Zionist lie of Palestine being “a land without a people for a people without a land”, and the claim that “the old will die and the young will forget” has ended forever. The head of the Hamas political bureau made the comment during his speech to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba, the Catastrophe of the creation of the occupation state on Palestinian land. The sacrifices of the people, he added, will not be in vain.

“The Nakba saw our fathers and grandfathers facing Zionist gangs which attacked them in their safe villages and cities and displaced them by force of arms and the horror of massacres and mass murder, making them leave their land for a life as refugees,” said Haniyeh. “This anniversary has come at a time when our people are fighting the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, the prelude to liberation and independence, God willing, and our heroes are rubbing the occupier’s nose in the dirt and confirming that their disappearance from our land is a Qur’anic inevitability and a historical fact.”

The Zionist occupiers and their supporters, continued the Hamas leader, wanted the Nakba to destroy the Palestinian people and end their sacred cause. “However, the cause of Palestine is present and strong in the consciousness of our people, our nation and the free people of the world. The years of catastrophe and asylum have not ended it. Instead, successive generations of our people carry our banner at every time and in every place.”

The former democratically-elected Palestinian prime minister pointed out that almost eight decades years after the catastrophe, the occupation state is still living in fear on occupied land, fighting with cruelty and brutality while the free people of the world call out ‘Free, Free Palestine’.”

READ: Palestinians mark 1948 Nakba in the shadow of war in Gaza

The people of occupied Palestine, he said, have foiled all conspiracies and malicious plans against them, remaining steadfast and unwavering everywhere. “The people of Jerusalem have stood faithfully within the borders of the city, remained stationed in Al-Aqsa Mosque and stood firm in the face of all Judaisation attempts for 76 years. Our people in the territories occupied in 1948 have remained steadfast in their cities and villages, holding on to their identities and flags despite the attempts to assimilate and contain them, while the Palestinians in the West Bank remain resolute and resisting occupation.”

The Jewish settlers’ “miserable” attempts to uproot the Palestinians from their land and establish colonies have failed, insisted Haniyeh, and the occupation army and the settlers continue to live in fear of the “heroic” operations by young Palestinians in the West Bank.

“The Palestinian people in refugee camps abroad and in the diaspora continue to hold on to their right to return to their land and homeland, with the key of return and deeds being passed down through the generations. The fourth generation in most countries continue to don the Palestinian keffiyeh and the Palestinian thobe, and I declare in all forums and conferences that there is no turning back from the right of return.”

All of Israel’s settlements and the settlers who live in them are classed as war crimes. As the people living under Israel’s military occupation, meanwhile, the Palestinians have the legitimate right under international law to resist the occupation by all means, “including armed struggle”, as well as the right to return to their homes inside the land occupied by Israel since 1948.