Hamas leader calls for ‘all Palestine’

GAZA CITY: Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal on Saturday rejected ceding “an inch” of Palestinian territory to Israel or recognising the Jewish state, in a speech in Gaza marking the 25th anniversary of the Islamist group's founding.

“Palestine is our land and nation from the (Mediterranean) sea to the (Jordan) river, from north to south, and we cannot cede an inch or any part of it,” he said of the borders currently held by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, at a rally.

“Resistance is the right way to recover our rights, as well as all forms of struggle -- political, diplomatic, legal and popular, but all are senseless without resistance,” he said.

On Palestinian unity, he said: “We are a single authority, a single reference, and our reference is the PLO, which we want united.” He was referring to the Palestine Liberation Organisation which, in the eyes of the international community, is the sole body that purports to speak for all the Palestinian people.” Hamas does not belong to the PLO, whose chairman is Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, but Meshaal said a year ago that it and other factions were “on the path to joining” it. His remarks could be seen as the latest bid by Hamas to integrate with the PLO and consolidate Palestinian ranks.

In 2006, Hamas won a landslide general election victory, routing Abbas's long-dominant Fatah party.

Some 18 months later, Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza after several weeks of running street battles, and the Islamist group now rules it. As a result, Abbas now holds sway only over the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Meshaal entered Gaza from Egypt on Friday on his first ever visit and his first to the Palestinian territories since 1975, accompanied by his deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk.

He spoke at a rally organisers said was attended by more than 100,000 supporters in the Al-Qitaba complex west of Gaza City, which was transformed into a sea of green Hamas flags.

The celebrations come just over two weeks after an Egyptian-brokered truce ended eight days of bloodshed with Israel which left 174 Palestinians dead. “We used only 10 percent of our capacity in the fighting,” a masked spokesman for Hamas military wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades told the crowd.

AFP