West Bank rally marks Hamas attack

AFP | Washington                                           

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

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Waving Hamas flags and carrying portraits of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, hundreds rallied in support of the Palestinian struggle in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday, the first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel.

About 400 Palestinian protesters of all ages and representing various political factions marched in the de-facto Palestinian capital, which is controlled by long-time Hamas rival the Palestinian Authority, an AFP correspondent reported.

Activists organised the rally on the first anniversary of Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel under the slogan “we will not lose faith in the revolution”. Beyond the characteristic yellow and green flags of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, protesters also waved the flags of Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

Hezbollah, as well as the proIran Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Huthis in Yemen, have sporadically fired rockets and missiles at Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

Demonstrators also chanted “salute from Ramallah to Hezbollah soldiers”, and “put the sword against the sword, we are the men of Mohammed Deif”, in reference to Hamas’s military chief. Israel says it killed Deif -- nicknamed “the cat with nine lives” -- in a strike in July, which Hamas denies.

Other participants held up a box shaped like a coffin that bore the words “International Law” on its sides. “We came to remember our martyrs, wish recovery for our wounded, and congratulate the resistance (to Israel), whether Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, or Yemeni, for their struggles over the past year,” Jamila Johar told AFP, saying he was “hoping for victory”.

Others praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel outright. “We came to raise our voices and say that the Palestinian struggle continues, and that the 7th of October took us from a phase of humiliation to a phase of dignity and pride,” said a man who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Similarly, Afaf Ghatasha, who identified herself simply as a member of the Palestinian People’s Party, said October 7 “changed the course of the Palestinian cause, the region, and the world.”

“We came to say that the world will not find stability until the occupation ends and a Palestinian state is established,” she added.

The Israeli military has been fighting against Hamas in Gaza since its unprecedented attack on Israel a year ago, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry