Israeli land grab plan aggression against Palestinians: Hezbollah, Hamas

The Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements, Hamas and Hezbollah, have censured Israel’s plan to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank as an act of “aggression against the Palestinian people,” calling for a united front against the US-backed land grab bid.

In a letter to Secretary General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Monday, Ismail Haniyeh, the Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, highlighted the “grave dangers” posed by Israel to the Palestinian cause, according to a statement by the Lebanese resistance group.

“The Palestinian people are capable of confronting this plan,” the statement said, calling on Arab and Muslim nations and “free people of the world to quickly move to stop the occupation’s continuous aggression against the Palestinian people.”

According to Lebanon’s al-Manar news website, the letter was handed by Hamas’ representative in Lebanon Ahmad Abdul Hadi and an accompanying delegation to Head of Hezbollah’s Palestinian File Hassan Hoballah.

The two sides reiterated their unified stance against the Israeli plot.

Hoballah reiterated Hezbollah’s support for the Palestinian struggles against Israel’s occupation, stressing that all the conspiracies against the Palestinian cause would be thwarted.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had set July 1 as the date for starting the annexation plan’s implementation, but the move faced delays amid internal rifts and as Tel Aviv awaits a green light from Washington.

The contentious plan — which would allow Tel Aviv to annex about 30 percent of the West Bank  — is in accordance with a West Asian scheme drawn up by the administration of US President Donald Trump and unveiled in January on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The scheme — which Trump calls the deal of the century — largely gives in to Israel’s demands while creating a Palestinian state with limited control over its own security and borders, enshrining the occupied al-Quds as Israel’s “capital.”

The US-backed annexation scheme has drawn international criticism and triggered waves of protest rallies around the globe.

ME