Hamas says ready to confront any fresh infringement on al-Quds

Hamas says the Palestinian resistance movement is prepared to confront any fresh attempt by the Israeli regime to infringe on the holy occupied city of al-Quds.

“Hamas is prepared to stand up to any plot that could seek displacement of the residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, divide the al-Aqsa Mosque, change its identity or Judaize it,” Abdul-Latif al-Qanu, the Gaza Strip-based group’s spokesman, told the Sawa radio station on Sunday.

The Israeli regime intensified its attacks on Palestinians in the holy city with the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan. The escalation saw Israeli forces assaulting Palestinian worshipers and preventing Palestinians from gathering and performing their religious duties.

Later in the month, the regime began trying to evict Palestinians from the city’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Gaza rose up in protest against the atrocities, something to which the regime responded with ramped up military attacks. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, its fellow Gaza-based resistance movement, then started firing thousands of rockets against the Occupied Territories, eventually forcing the regime to accept a ceasefire on Friday.

The Hamas’ official said the Palestinian nation kept its defensive choices at hand in case the occupying regime sought to renew its attacks on the al-Aqsa Mosque’s compound that is located in al-Quds’ Old City.

The Israeli escalation against Gaza, meanwhile, resulted in the martyrdom of hundreds of Palestinians. Most recently, Palestinian media outlets reported that another Palestinian, identified as Mahmoud Ammar Abu Jarrad, a resident of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, had attained martyrdom from the injuries he had suffered during the Israeli aggression. The Hamas’ official also announced that a “security delegation” from Egypt had just visited the enclave to assess the aftermath of the Israeli atrocities.

The delegation, he said, examined the extent of the damage, Gaza’s reconstruction and potential ending of Israel’s siege on the territory as well as potential prolongation of the standing ceasefire.

ME