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What's next for Palestinian resistance after Sinwar?

October 28, 2024 at 11:30 am

Hamas’ Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar speaks to the press in Gaza City, Gaza on May 26, 2021 [Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency]

When Israel killed Yahya Sinwar, did the occupation state also kill Palestinian resistance, or at least weaken it and diminish the spirit of its fighters? Will the resistance groups surrender to unjust conditions imposed by the Zionist enemy to stop the fighting, which Sinwar refused to accept when he was still alive? Those who killed him hoped that he would be removed from the equation so that they could agree a deal to save the Zionist entity from its predicament in Gaza. They have never been prepared for a lengthy war of attrition.

Indeed, they did not even imagine it, because ever since the cancerous entity was established in the heart of the Muslim world, its wars have been short and sharp. This one has lasted more than a year, with no sign of an end, and has exhausted Israel militarily and economically.

Victory for the warmongering Zionists is elusive.

Killing the head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in July, and then killing his successor, Yahya Sinwar on the battlefield, weren’t military victories about which they could brag about to their people. They actually exposed their cowardice, despite the arrogant words announcing the political murders. Israelis celebrated false victories.

So, will Hamas accept the ceasefire agreement proposed by US President Joe Biden, which humiliates the Palestinians and disposes of the rights of the martyrs who watered the land with their blood? Sinwar rejected such a deal to the very end, as he fought the Zionists with nothing but a stick until his last breath.

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Those who ask this question do not understand the nature or psychology of the Palestinians, who hold on to their land, nor do they understand those who believe in resisting oppression until victory or martyrdom. Neither the Israelis nor the Americans and their craven allies understand the value of the land to its owners because they have imposed settlers from around the world to steal, colonise and occupy someone else’s land to which they have no real attachment. Look at how they scar the landscape with their hideous settlements and apartheid wall.

The difference between the indigenous people and the settlers is like the difference between day and night.

Hamas will not accept a ceasefire agreement that Sinwar had previously rejected, and it will not budge an inch from its previous conditions. Nor will it release the Zionist captives unless the occupation forces withdraw from all of Gaza.

As for those who counted on legitimate resistance being weakened the after the killing of its leader, Jabalia invites them to see with their own eyes the heroism and strength there; the enemy tanks that have been destroyed; and the occupation soldiers fleeing in terror and panic. This is despite the brutality of the Zionist enemy, which takes its anger out on innocent civilians in its hatred and helplessness.

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Sinwar was not the first Palestinian leader to be martyred in battle or killed treacherously by the Zionist forces. Sheikh Izzedine Al-Qassam was killed in the thirties; Hamas named its military wing after him. Hamas founder and leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a quadriplegic, was assassinated with the utmost cowardice while in his wheelchair as he was leaving the dawn prayer in his local mosque. Then, weeks later, the occupation regime assassinated Sheikh Yassin’s successor as leader, Dr Abdul Aziz Al-Rantisi, as well as Yahya Al-Ayyash, the inventor of the movement’s rudimentary rockets. None of these political murders weakened Hamas or the general spirit of resistance, and nor will they.

The effort will continue until Palestine is liberated and free of Zionism.

Yahya Sinwar was born fourteen years after the establishment of the Zionist, settler-colonial, apartheid entity. Neither he nor the other Palestinians chose this fate; the struggle was imposed on them after World Wars One and Two and the carving up of the Middle East by Western powers and the occupation of their land.

None of the current resistance fighters have lived in a free Palestine; they were born in and grew up under a brutal military occupation. The collective memories have been handed down generation after generation, though, and they carry the tragedy of the ongoing Nakba in their hearts.

The early Zionist settlers were deluded by thinking that, “The old [Palestinians] will die and the young will forget.” The old kept the keys to their stolen homes and handed them down to their children, who will stay on the path towards liberation. They have not forgotten, and will not do so. They will in turn hand down their keys to the next generation until Palestine is free of Zionism from the river to the sea.

The Palestinian cause has been reinstated as one of national liberation, not something that can be negotiated away or otherwise compromised. The refugees’ legitimate Right of Return, for example, is an individual right for every Palestinian; no political leadership can give it away in exchange for faux “freedom”. Hamas knows this, and will not abandon its principals in the legitimate quest for self-determination and freedom.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.