BEIRUT (PIC)– Osama Hamdan Hamas’s international relations official has warned that Israel would face serious consequences over the new war launched against the Gaza Strip and said the war would lead to wide-spread Arab mobilization against Israel.
Hamdan asserted the right of the Palestinian resistance forces to respond to the military escalation in an interview with the Palestine newspaper published on Sunday.
”One of the reasons why Israel has escalated attacks against the Gaza Strip now is Israel’s increasing fear of changes happening in the region and Israel feels it has lost the secure environment that helped it to survive for six decades” Hamdan said emphasizing that the changes have come at a time when the resistance movement has become stronger.
He believed Israel resorted to limited military escalation because of its inability to wage a full-fledged war with the instability in the region and for fear of a more than forecasted negative reaction.
The senior Hamas official confirmed the party will respond to the ongoing Israeli escalation saying: ”There will be no retraction in our position especially since the general environment in the context of what is happening in the region and the Palestinian reality are all in our favor as long as we are patient and benefit from them in managing the conflict with the enemy.”
He said concerning the possibility of Hamas taking part in efforts to conclude a truce as Israel has released successive statements threatening to remove Hamas from power: ”Talks of ending Hamas will not make us stand in a position of self-defense. We’ve gone beyond that stage and Hamas has become a current movement of the Palestinian people.”
”Experience has proven that it is impossible to end ideas by force. If that was the case Hamas would have ended in the criminal war in late 2008 and early 2009” he said warning that Israel’s statements are part of a concurrent psychological warfare and should be taken with caution.
”The world respects the strong. If you are weak you will end up in the realm of begging. And those who beg could be given or not given” he said. ”So Hamas must show its strength correctly in order to achieve its political objectives.”
He confirmed that Hamas has asked European countries to pressure Israel to stop its attacks. ”Our discussions [with the Europeans] is concentrating on forming a new position that reads past experiences and takes into account the setbacks and crises to make sure that the Europeans play a positive role towards the Palestinian cause.”
He said when asked about Palestinian reconciliation: ”We are serious about achieving a comprehensive reconciliation and we will not let Israel’s actions affect our will…We are interested in achieving reconciliation that includes the participation of all of the factions without exception.”
Hamdan pointed out that Israel wants to put Hamas under pressure so that Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas is not called the only loser as current events take place. He said they want to do so by presenting Abbas as the one to save Gaza from an all-out aggression that Hamas is about to get the Palestinians involved in.
He further said concerning fresh Israeli statements that Mushir Tantawi commander of the the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which rules Egypt has supported Palestinian tunnels and reconciliation that these statements were designed to influence him: ”Israel is trying to put pressure on Egypt to hamper its positive role in the Palestinian cause because it knows that will change many equations. But Egypt is larger and stronger than all the pressures.”
He added that Tantawi is a man that has a national history that would stop him from ”bowing” to Israeli pressure and that his response to such pressure would generate a popular reaction from both the Egyptian and Palestinian peoples.
