CAIRO: Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Saturday it mourned Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah following his killing in an Israeli airstrike, saying his death would only fuel the fight against Israel.
“Crimes and assassination by the occupation will only increase the determination and the insistence of the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon to go forward with all their might, bravery and pride on the footsteps of the martyrs...and pursue the path of resistance until victory and the dismissal of the occupation,” Hamas said in a statement.
His death marks a heavy blow to Hezbollah as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks. It is also a huge blow to Iran, given the major role he has played in the Tehran-backed regional “Axis of Resistance.”
The ‘Axis of Resistance’ refers to groups including Hezbollah that are backed by Iran and have been waging attacks on Israel since war erupted between their ally Hamas and Israel on Oct. 7.
“We reaffirm our absolute solidarity and standing with the brothers in Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, who are taking part in the battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood to defend Al-Aqsa mosque, alongside our people and our resistance,” Hamas added.
Islamic Jihad, another Iranian-backed Palestinian group, said in a statement: “Sooner or later, the resistance forces in Lebanon, Palestine, and the region will make the enemy pay the price of its crimes, and taste defeat for what its sinful hands have done.”
Gaza has a population of 2.3 million people, most of whom have been internally displaced by the war, which has killed 41,500 of them, according to Gaza health authorities.
Israel and Hamas have been fighting since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing some 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
Asked how Nasrallah’s death would affect the fight against Israel, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters: “The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah will not break the will of the resistance and we are confident that the occupation will lose the battle,” said Abu Zuhri.
Hamas says Nasrallah ‘assassination’ will only strengthen resistance
https://arab.news/9cwmt
Hamas says Nasrallah ‘assassination’ will only strengthen resistance
- “Crimes and assassination by the occupation will only increase the determination and the insistence of the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon to go forward,” Hamas said
- His death marks a heavy blow to Hezbollah as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks
Syria’s Kurds hail ‘positive impact’ of Turkiye peace talks
- “The peace initiative in Turkiye has had a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmad
- “We want a dialogue process with Turkiye, a dialogue that we understand as Kurds in Syria”
ISTANBUL: Efforts to broker peace between Turkiye and the Kurdish militant group PKK have had a “positive impact” on Syria’s Kurds who also want dialogue with Ankara, one of its top officials said Saturday.
Earlier this year, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ended its four-decade armed struggle against Turkiye at the urging of its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan, shifting its focus to a democratic political struggle for the rights of Turkiye’s Kurdish minority.
The ongoing process has raised hopes among Kurds across the region, notably in Syria where the Kurds control swathes of territory in the north and northeast.
“The peace initiative in Turkiye has had a direct impact on northern and eastern Syria,” said Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast.
“We want a dialogue process with Turkiye, a dialogue that we understand as Kurds in Syria... We want the borders between us to be opened,” she said, speaking by video link to an Istanbul peace conference organized by Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party.
Speaking in Kurdish, she hailed Turkiye for initiating the peace moves, but said releasing Ocalan — who has led the process from his cell on Imrali prison island near Istanbul where he has been serving life in solitary since 1999 — would speed things up.
“We believe that Abdullah Ocalan being released will let him play a much greater role... that this peace and resolution process will happen faster and better.”
She also hailed Ankara for its sensitive approach to dialogue with the new regime in Damascus that emerged after the ousting of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad a year ago.
“The Turkish government has a dialogue and a relationship with the Syrian government. They also have open channels with us. We see that there is a careful approach to this matter,” she said.
Turkiye has long been hostile to the Kurdish SDF force that controls swathes of northeastern Syria, seeing it as an extension of PKK, and pushing for the US-backed force to integrate into the Syrian military and security apparatus.
Although a deal was reached to that end in March, its terms were never implemented.
“In this historic process, as the Middle East is being reorganized, Turkiye has a very important role. Peace in both countries — within Turkish society, Kurdish society and Arab society.. will impact the entire Middle East,” Ahmad said.
Syria’s Kurdish community believed coexistence was “fundamental” and did not want to see the nation divided, she said.
“We do not support the division of Syria or any other country. Such divisions pave the way for new wars. That is why we advocate for peace.”
