Hundreds of thousands of Hamas supporters flooded the streets of Gaza city on Sunday, as the Islamist group marked 31 years since its inception. Speaking to the vast crowd of Hamas supporters, Ismail Haniyeh: the political bureau chief of the internationally recognized terror group, vowed to continue the organization’s armed struggle against Israel, underlining that “liberating every inch of (what he termed as) Palestinian lands, is a “Hamas responsibility.” While Haniyeh confessed to the deteriorating position of Hamas, both financially and diplomatically; the Islamist group’s political leader claimed that while leaders of Arab states seek to bolster relations with the Jewish state, their Arab populations support the Palestinian people, and are aligned with the Hamas ideology of liberating occupied Muslim lands. Furthermore, the Hamas leader hailed the latest surge of violence across the West Bank and called on the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to halt all security cooperation with Israel’s defense establishment.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Hamas supporters attempted to hold a demonstration in Ramallah, in support of the Gazan Islamist group. Shortly after the protest started, however, members of the Palestinian security forces rushed to the scene and violently subdued the protesters. Spokesman for the Western-backed Palestinian security forces, Adnan al-Dumeiri, revealed that while Hamas supporters claimed to demonstrate against Israel, the demonstration’s main focus was directed against the Palestinian leadership and security apparatus. The Palestinian spokesman underlined, while protests against Israel are welcomed across friction points in the West Bank, any attempt to demonstrate against the Palestinian leadership will be thwarted.