Palestinian Islamic Jihad calls on Israeli Arabs to start intifada
Call for violent uprising comes days after PIJ official claimed Israel is at its weakest
A spokesperson for the Al-Quds Brigade military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization called on Israeli Arabs to join the fight against Israel by starting a violent uprising.
“We call on all the fighters of our people and the free people in the West Bank and in Israel to mobilize for this war, so that there will be an overall intifada that will create the basis for the end of our enemy and its expulsion from all of Palestine,” Abu Hamza said.
Hamza’s comments came at the end of a large-scale military drill by PIJ combatants in the Gaza Strip. The call echoes recent comments by representatives of the Gaza-ruled Hamas terror group who claim that an intifada, or violent uprising, is coming.
“All the signs are that the intifada is coming,” a Hamas member told Reuters recently. “There is a new generation of people who believe the only solution is armed struggle.”
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh recently called protests by Palestinians an intifada.
The Israeli government has been worried about the growing number of weapons being illegally smuggled into Palestinian communities, as well as the unwillingness or inability of the Palestinian Authority to confront terror groups in places like Jenin.
On Saturday, senior PIJ official Khaled al-Batash said Israel is strategically weak and that today's situation in the West Bank is similar to the time of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Al-Batash said that Israel would be weakened by any loss, saying, “The enemy cannot afford even one defeat.”
The PIJ official also said the rapprochement of Iran with Saudi Arabia announced last week, with the mutual reopening of each other’s embassies, would return the Arab and Islamic nations to the “right path.”
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.
