GAZACITY, 16 December 2007 — Hamas threatened to launch a new uprising against Israel yesterday when hundreds of thousands of Islamist supporters rallied in Gaza City to mark the group’s 20th anniversary. “Our people are capable of launching a third and a fourth intifada until the dawn of victory rises up,” said Khaled Meshaal, the group’s exiled leader in a speech recorded on Friday at his base in Damascus.
The central square in Gaza City was awash with green flags and dozens of armed, masked men from the group’s military wing patrolled in a crowd estimated at between 300,000 and 500,000.
Waving green flags and banners, throngs of Palestinians poured into Katiba Square ahead of the rally at which Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other officials were expected to speak. A huge banner reading “we will not recognize Israel” was placed on the backdrop of the stage in defiance of Israel’s closing of Gaza to all but essential humanitarian supplies.
Founded in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed by Israel in a 2004 airstrike, the group has a charter that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state and the establishment of an Islamic state on all of what was British-run Palestine.
Tensions are high between Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ secular Fatah faction, which the Islamist group routed from Gaza in a civil war in June.
The rally was held at the spot where seven Fatah supporters were killed by gunfire last month while commemorating the fifth anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Hamas said Abbas ordered a ban on similar pro-Hamas rallies in the West Bank where the Palestinian President’s Fatah movement holds sway. Meshaal said Abbas, whose administration is backed by the West, lacked the support of the Palestinian people.
“Whoever thinks his legitimacy comes from the international backing is under an illusion, the legitimacy is the people,” Meshaal said.
In another speech to the rally, senior Hamas official Mushir Al-Masri warned Israel to expect many casualties if Israeli troops invade the coastal territory in an attempt to stop almost daily rocket firing into Israel. “Jews, go back, because we have already dug graves for you,” Masri said.
Israel carries out regular raids on Gaza and has killed dozens of fighters in the past month. This week Israel’s Army chief Gabi Ashkenazi said a major Israeli invasion was becoming more likely. “We will come to the point where we will have to carry out the big operation,” he said. Former minister and senior Hamas member Said Siam told AFP that the massive turnout “is the answer to those who say Hamas is losing ground.”
Meshaal admitted that his movement’s 20th anniversary came amid “difficult circumstances and a painful situation for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza.” In September Israel declared the territory a “hostile entity” and the following month began restricting fuel supplies, creating what the World Health Organization described on Monday as an “intolerable” humanitarian situation.
