Hamas Rejects Establishing Palestinian State in Gaza, Parts of Sinai

Date: 16 April 2019 - 21:17

News ID: ۶۴۸۹۹

GAZA (Dispatches) – Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Hamas resistance movement, announced on Tuesday that his movement rejects the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and parts of the Sinai Peninsula.
Haniyeh made the remarks during a session of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) held in Gaza.
"The Gaza Strip won't expand south into the Peninsula of Sinai. The Gaza Strip will expand north into the land of Palestine," Haniyeh told Hamas members of the PLC.
"We reject the relocation of the Palestinian people in various Arab states and we reject an alternative homeland in Sinai or in Jordan," he stressed.
"We reject the cancellation of our people's rights of return," the Hamas chief concluded.
The remarks come as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to unveil his administration's plan – dubbed "the deal of the century” – on the Zionist-Palestinian conflict.
A group of former senior European politicians have signed a letter to the European Union that calls on the bloc to reject the so-called U.S. peace plan for the Middle East if it is one-sided and unfair to Palestinians.
The letter, addressed to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and sent to The Guardian newspaper to publish, was signed by 25 former foreign ministers, six former prime ministers and two ex-NATO secretary generals.
"It is time for Europe to stand by our principled parameters for peace in Israel-Palestine,” read the letter, calling for a solution that guarantees a separate and fully sovereign state of Palestine.
"We are convinced that a plan that reduces Palestinian statehood to an entity devoid of sovereignty, territorial contiguity and economic viability would severely compound the failure of previous peace-making efforts,” the former officials said.
They also criticized the Trump administration for its "disturbing indifference” to the expansion of illegal settlements, which are backed by the Zionist regime’s recently re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Unfortunately, the current U.S. administration has departed from longstanding US policy,” the letter said, criticizing Trump’s 2017 recognition of "only one side’s claims to Jerusalem [al-Quds].”

The picture taken from the Mount of Olives shows the Old City of al-Quds with the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the center, on December 7, 2018.