Hamas official calls to abduct Israelis, swap for Palestinians
A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip called for the abduction of Israelis for prisoner swaps
A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip called on Thursday for the abduction of Israelis, who would be swapped for Palestinians held by the Jewish state.
“We tell the Zionist enemy: you are all a target for us and the resistance, we will fight you until we finally get rid of you and take as many captives as possible to free our heroes,” said Khalil al-Haya, whose Islamist movement de facto rules the Palestinian enclave.
“Our men, our women, our children all envision kidnapping your soldiers and settlers, wherever they are,” he said on the eve of Prisoners Day which Palestinians mark April 17.
“And it is our right because we have no other way to free our heroes, and it is the Zionist enemy responsible for this state of affairs,” Haya told hundreds of Palestinians.
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip rally each year on April 17 in solidarity with the nearly 6,000 prisoners held by Israeli.
Haya said Palestinian prisoners should “rest assured” because militant groups led by Hamas's military wing Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades “will release you as they did your brothers” in 2011.
The year Israel released over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for the captive soldier Gilad Shalit.
Ahmed al-Mudalal of the militant Islamic movement told the rally that “the resistance will not falter until Israeli prisons are emptied of their Palestinian prisoners.”
-
In West Bank raid, Israeli troops arrest 29 for Hamas links
Palestinian security officials said Wednesday the suspects were nabbed in and near the city of Nablus Middle East -
Hamas holds Gaza march for besieged Yarmouk refugees
Hundreds, many waving Hamas flags, took to the streets in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis in a march organized by the Islamic movement Middle East -
EU keeps Hamas on terror list despite court ruling
Brussels has lodged an appeal against a December ruling by the bloc’s second highest court that Hamas should be delisted for the first time since 2001 Middle East -
U.N.: Palestinian death toll highest since 1967
In 2014, Israel and Hamas fought a devastating war in Gaza that killed nearly 2,200 people, including 550 children Middle East -
Israel says arrests West Bank Hamas cell planning attacks
Members of the Palestinian Islamist cell had been based in the northern occupied West Bank town of Qalqilya, Shin Bet says Middle East -
Deadly attacks in Syria kill more than 100
More than 70 members of government forces were killed by ISIS militants in Homs and Hama provinces Middle East