Haneyya delivers first speech as Hamas’s leader

The newly-elected head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, Ismail Haneyya, delivered on Wednesday his first speech since taking office in which he addressed all Palestinian issues.

Held in Gaza city, the speech was attended by a large number of officials from different Palestinian factions as well as other political, media and religious figures.

Haneyya stressed that the escalation waged against the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails must stop, describing the administrative detention policy targeting both Palestinian citizens and MPs in the occupied West Bank as “terrorism”.

He expressed his pride of the Palestinian resistance, especially the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas Movement, and denounced labeling it as a form of terrorism, explaining that the real terrorism is embodied in the Israeli occupation.

Haneyya pointed to a US-Israeli project that is aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause, stressing that the Palestinian people will never accept any settlements that contradict their rights of return and establishing a Palestinian state.

As for Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque, Hamas’s leader asserted that the attempts exerted by the Israeli occupation to obliterate the Islamic identity of al-Aqsa Mosque through the repeated settlers’ incursions and the temporal and spatial division of the mosque will fail.

Haneyya praised in his speech the steadfastness of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, “the center of conflict”, as he put it, and those in the 1948 occupied territories who are constantly subjected to Israeli terrorism and racial discrimination.

On the issue of the Palestinian refugees in the diaspora, he underlined that the right of return is sacred and inalienable, appealing to the Arab countries hosting Palestinian refugees to provide them with decent living conditions.

Speaking about the situation in Gaza, he strongly condemned the latest decisions imposed by the Palestinian Authority on the Gaza Strip which led to furthering the suffering of the Gazan citizens living under an 11-year blockade.

Haneyya pointed out that efforts are ongoing with the Egyptian authorities to reach solutions for Gaza’s crises, appreciating at the same time the role Qatar has played in the past years in supporting Gaza by all means.

He proposed a political initiative that stipulates the formulation of a unified political program and the formation of a national unity government that assumes its obligations toward the Palestinian people in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The initiative also includes preparing for free and fair legislative and presidential elections with the participation of all parties, ending security coordination between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and removing all obstacles to achieving the initiative, the foremost of which is reversing all punitive measures taken against Gaza.

Haneyya stated that Hamas seeks to maintain good relations with all Arab countries without interfering in their internal conflicts.

At the international level, Hamas’s leader asked the international community not to believe the “black propaganda” waged by Israel against his movement, emphasizing that Hamas is a national liberation movement and a genuine part of the Palestinian people.