WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian resistance movement Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday warned of the consequences should the Zionist regime resume its policy of assassinating Palestinians.

His media adviser, Taher al-Nunu said the Hamas leader sent messages to several foreign leaders warning against any resumption of the assassinations.

Haniyeh said that the “repercussions of any assassination attempt will be larger than expected,” al-Nunu said.

Earlier this month, several Zionist public figures called on the occupying regime’s officials to assassinate Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, in response to retaliatory attacks on the regime positions.

Tension has been rising across the Palestinian territories amid repeated arrest campaigns by the occupying regime and settler incursions into the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Al-Quds.

The Zionist regime’s military said on Tuesday Mohammed Deif, the commander of the movement’s armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, and its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are the obvious targets.

 

‘Low Quality’ Targets

 

The occupying regime’s so-called military intelligence division — Aman — has expanded the number of sites that the army could target in the Gaza Strip by 400 percent since the beginning of the term in the office of chief of staff Aviv Kochavi, Haaretz reported on Wednesday. However, senior espionage unit officers have described most of the targets to be “low quality”.

According to the newspaper, the regime’s army has been seeking to expand what it describes as the “bank of targets” in the Gaza Strip since its military assault against the enclave a year ago. This has been in preparation for a possible new attack.

Security officials in Aman believe that the targets are of less importance than what they had wanted, as a result of rounds of fighting between the occupying regime and the Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, during which the regime bombed hundreds of Hamas sites. The officials described the inability to collect a high profile bank of targets as “very problematic”.

In another development, Zionist troops launched an arrest campaign with raids and attacks in various parts of the occupied West Bank at dawn on Wednesday, while also besieging Jenin refugee camp, where intermittent clashes were witnessed. According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, 17 Palestinians were arrested.

A spokesman for the occupation army, however, said that its troops had arrested 14 Palestinians across the West Bank, as well as four Hamas fighters on the pretext of managing the activities of the resistance movement at Bir Zeit University. A number of released prisoners are among those arrested.

The Zionist troops came under fire when they stormed into Jenin. They surrounded a number of houses in al-Hadaf neighborhood.  

Furthermore, Al-Quds’ former Grand Mufti and main preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, said the Zionist troops’ decision to prevent him from travelling does not intimidate him and will not stop him from continuing to preach at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

In an interview with Al-Resala, Sheikh Sabri added that for the fourth time in a row, the occupying regime has issued a decision banning him from travel on flimsy pretexts, saying, “They claim that I violate public security and that I am in contact with terrorist organizations.”

He stressed that the regime’s decision aims to curb his activities and sow terror in the hearts of Al-Aqsa’s supporters, adding that this aggressive and unjust policy does not exist anywhere in the world except in the “occupation’s mind”.

He pointed out that the means of communication are available, and he can express his positions and convey Al-Aqsa’s voice to the world.