GAZA (Dispatches) – Hamas
political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh says Zionist prisoners in the besieged Gaza Strip “will not see daylight” until Palestinian inmates held in the occupying regime’s jails are released.
The head of the Palestinian resistance movement made the remarks in an interview with the international Arab forum for solidarity with detainees in the occupying regime’s jails on Saturday, the movement official website reported on Sunday.
Haniyeh stressed that the issue of the Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist regime’s jails would remain a top priority for Hamas and the movement supports these inmates by strengthening their steadfastness and working hard until they enjoy “the sun of freedom.”
He also added that Hamas has managed to free more than a thousand Palestinian detainees from the regime’s jails in the Wafaa al-Aharar (“True Promise of Free Men”) prisoner swap deal with the occupying regime in 2011.
Haniyeh emphasized that the regime does not make compromises willingly, confirming that “this enemy gives nothing without forcing it to do so.”
More than 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly held in the occupying regime’s jails. Hundreds have been incarcerated under the practice of the so-called administrative detention, which allows holding Palestinian inmates without trial or charge. Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in detention for up to eleven years.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Haniyeh paid homage to Operation Sword of Al-Quds, which was the latest military confrontation between the regime and the Gaza-based resistance groups, including Hamas.
He confirmed that this confrontation with the occupation forces was a milestone in the history of Palestine, as it has “put the region on the path towards ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine”.
The Zionist regime started a 12-day war against the already Tel Aviv-blockaded Gaza Strip on May 10. As a result of the brutal aggression, more than 250 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 66 children, with more than 1,900 people wounded.
Gaza’s resistance groups, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in particular, responded to the aggression on the same day that it started targeting the impoverished enclave.
Throughout the offensive, the groups fired more than 4,000 rockets towards the occupied territories.