AL-QUDS (Dispatches) –
Palestinians have staged a mass rally in occupied East Al-Quds in a show of support for a retaliatory operation by a member of Hamas resistance movement against the Zionist troops.
Palestinians staged a rally in Shu’fat camp after evening prayers to express their support for the Al-Quds operation and Sheikh Fadi Abu Shkhaydam, who conducted it on Sunday.
Carrying flags of Hamas, the demonstrators also chanted slogans in support of Hamas and its military wing, Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
They reiterated their support for the anti-occupation resistance groups and vowed to continue the path of Abu Shkhaydam.
Zionist troops fatally shot the 42-year-old Palestinian man near the Chain Gate, one of the entrances to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The Zionist police immediately closed the site to visitors following the incident.
Hamas praised the operation as “heroic”, noting that it aimed to serve as a “warning” to the Zionist regime “to stop attacks on our land and our holy sites.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement issued a statement, saying that the retaliatory operation was part of a natural response to the growing Zionist crimes against Palestinians.
“This operation is a natural response to the occupation’s incessant crimes against the Palestinian people, including killings, arrests, destruction of homes and farmlands, and sends a strong message to the enemy that its crimes and terrorist acts will not remain unanswered,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
Elsewhere in its statement, Hezbollah stressed that such retaliatory operations were a practical confirmation of the vitality of the Palestinian people and their firm determination to continue resistance until the liberation of the occupied lands and the sanctities.
Mohamed Hamada, a Hamas spokesman said in a press release that the resistance movement will not allow the Zionist occupying regime to persist in its aggression against the holy city.
He said that Sunday’s operation vindicated further the Palestinian people’s adherence to the path of resistance against the Zionist regime.
Hamas spokesman described the shooting operation as “a security breach message to the Israeli enemy,” affirming that such heroic operations would continue to take place across the occupied lands.
On Monday, Zionist troops arrested the brother of the Palestinian martyr, after storming their house in Shu’fat refugee camp in the occupied city.
The Palestinian Information Center, citing local sources, reported on Monday that a large number of Zionist troops broke into the house of Sheikh Fadi Shkhaydam’s brother and searched it thoroughly.
During the raid, all the family members were held in one room and the slain Palestinian’s brother Wissam was later detained and taken to an unknown detention center, the sources said.
Zionist troops also fired tear gas as clashes erupted close to Abu Shkhaydam’s house, they added.
Tensions have been running high in the occupied territories for months over the Zionist regime’s settlement activities and its planned eviction of Palestinian families from their ancestral homes.
At least 331 Palestinians have been killed and 16,000 more wounded in the Zionist crackdown on protests so far this year, according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
During the same period, the occupying regime demolished 721 Palestinian buildings and displaced 962 Palestinians in Al-Quds and the West Bank.