Palestinian Resistance factions denounce Netanyahu’s speech before U.S. Congress

The following statements were published by Resistance News Network on July 24 and July 25, 2024. 

Hamas 

We in the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, have followed the speech of the “israeli” terrorism government’s Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu before Congress. Accordingly, we affirm the following:

First: Netanyahu should have been arrested as a war criminal and handed over to the International Criminal Court instead of being given the opportunity to polish his image before the world and cover up the mass killings and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.

Second: While the head of the terrorist occupation government leads a brutal war aimed at exterminating our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, violating all international laws, norms, and humanitarian treaties designed to protect civilians – in an unprecedented manner in modern history — the U.S. Congress welcomes a speech from war criminal Netanyahu, where he repeats the same degrading propaganda and lies he made over nine months ago, which have been proven false and were used as a pretext to commit the most heinous crimes against women, children and the elderly in the Gaza Strip.

Third: Netanyahu tried to play on emotional strings, reverse facts and promote false narratives about October 7, while “israeli” and international investigations confirmed these allegations were false and that the “israeli” army committed mass murders of Israeli civilians in the Gaza envelope.

Fourth: Netanyahu’s speech reflects the depth of his military, security and international crisis, as he tried to publicly cover it with the philosophy of defeats suffered by his army in Gaza, promoting imaginary victories by liberating a number of captives, forgetting the horrific massacres he committed against civilians in Rafah and Nusseirat during their liberation.

Fifth: Netanyahu’s talk about intensive efforts to return the hostages is nothing but lies and deception of “israeli,” U.S., and global public opinion, while he was the one who thwarted all efforts to end the war and make a deal to release the captives, despite the continuous efforts of mediators from Egypt and Qatar – and despite the flexibility and positivity shown by the [Hamas] movement, which holds him fully responsible for the consequences of this stance and the fate of the prisoners in the Gaza Strip.

Sixth: All human rights and humanitarian reports have confirmed that Netanyahu and his army [have] committed acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza, unprecedented in contemporary global wars, using starvation as a weapon, preventing aid from reaching, burning and destroying the Rafah land crossing and killing many humanitarian workers – all of which confirm the falsity of his claims about aid entering and reaching the Strip’s residents.

Seventh: By continuing to provide all means of political and military support to the occupation, granting the government of Zionist terrorists the necessary cover to escape punishment, and providing it with a platform in Congress to wash the hands of fascist war criminals from the blood of innocent children, instead of holding them accountable for their crimes against humanity, Washington affirms its full partnership in the heinous violations committed in the Gaza Strip: genocide, starvation, and destruction of all aspects of life – as witnessed by the world with sound and image.   

Eighth: We in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirm that the war criminal Netanyahu’s visions for the future of the Gaza Strip are mere delusions and fantasies he is trying to market. The Palestinian people alone have the right to determine their fate and decide who governs them. They have decided to rally around the option of resistance and confront the occupation wherever it exists until it is swept away from our pure land and our independent Palestinian state is established with Al-Quds [Jerusalem] as its capital.

Ninth: Netanyahu’s attack on the Axis of Resistance reflects the depth of his military and security crisis due to the open fronts, which calls for more efforts from all arenas and fronts to inflict defeats on the criminal Zionist entity.

Tenth: We call on the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to declare their stance rejecting the occupation and work to end it by all means, supporting the steadfastness of our Palestinian people and their resistance until our people can exercise their right of return and self-determination under international law, which the Nazi Zionist occupation violates.

Our patient and stationed Palestinian people and their heroic valiant resistance, who are facing a brutal war that represents the peak of the occupation’s failed attempts to eradicate them—which has been ongoing for more than 76 years—will continue, along with all forces of resistance and the free people of the world, to confront this fascist aggression until it is broken and defeated from our land and sanctities.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The reception of war criminal Netanyahu in Congress confirms U.S. involvement and immersion in the genocide war. 

The speech by the Zionist enemy’s prime minister, war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, before the U.S. Congress was an attempt to market lies and sell delusions, as he tried to justify the genocidal crimes committed by his cowardly army in the Gaza Strip. 

The U.S. Congress’s reception of war criminal Netanyahu, who is primarily responsible for the Zionist genocide in Gaza, confirms that the U.S. is the main sponsor of terrorism and the Zionist genocide in Gaza, and is directly involved in unprecedented crimes against the Palestinian people. 

The invitation of war criminal Netanyahu by members of the U.S. Congress proves that this body is nothing more than a council for murderers and organized terrorism, serving as the godfather of the U.S. colonial entity and legitimizing its crimes globally. 

The enthusiastic applause from the Zionized Congress members was a farcical play and a scene embodying the degradation of U.S. policies and their deep complicity with Zionist terrorism. 

What was said in Netanyahu’s speech once again reflects the promotion of lies and distortion of facts. The Middle East, and indeed the whole world, faces the axis of Zionist terrorism backed by the criminal United States imperialism. 

Netanyahu’s lies about the number of casualties and massacres in Gaza being the lowest in any wars are blatant falsehoods; the occupation’s crimes in Gaza, as testified by all international organizations and institutions, are among the most horrific and brutal in human history. 

The boycott by a significant number of U.S. legislators of Netanyahu’s speech signifies their awareness that he is a liar and an outcast seeking to exploit this address for personal interests. 

The war criminal’s attempt to invoke the Holocaust to justify their crimes is a transparent attempt to export a victim narrative and justify the war crimes committed by the Zionist genocide regime against the Palestinian people. 

It is the Zionist entity and the U.S. that should feel ashamed, not the protesters who stood for justice and condemned the Zionist genocide. Netanyahu’s lies about an imminent victory are exposed by the significant losses his soldiers are suffering in the field at the hands of the heroic resistance fighters, proving that the resistance is present, strong, and its capabilities are increasing day by day. 

There is no “New Gaza” as Netanyahu deludes. Gaza will always remain an integral and inseparable part of Palestine, a thorn in the enemy’s throat, and a graveyard for them. Generations will continue on the same path and the resistance’s weapons will remain ready and aimed at the enemy – and any hand that approaches it will be cut off. 

After the war, Gaza will be free of occupation, and our people will not allow any administration or puppet government to take responsibility for the Strip. The Palestinian people will determine the future of the Strip and how it is governed.  

The “Abraham Alliance” Netanyahu spoke of is an alliance of the axis of evil in the region, and it will not achieve its goals, whether through normalization or by allowing the Zionist entity to infiltrate the region. 

All the free people of the world know that Palestine is the land of the Palestinian people, owned by them from the river to the sea – and that this false Zionist entity is destined for demise, living through an existential crisis inaugurated by the epic of October 7, deepened by the valiant resistance and support fronts of the resistance factions. 

The established reality on the ground, the legendary steadfastness of our Palestinian people, the painful and qualitative strikes by the resistance, and the global rallying around the Palestinian cause confirm beyond any doubt that the inevitable and decisive victory for our people and the imminent defeat of the Zionists is near. 

Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Palestine:

In response to the speech of the war criminal, wanted by international courts, the prime minister of the Zionist entity, Benjamin Netanyahu, before the U.S. Congress, it is important for us in the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine to emphasize the following:

First: Netanyahu’s speech is full of lies and slander, whether those related to the course of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle, and his repeating lies about beheadings and killing innocents that were proven false by the enemy’s media before others, or those related to the historical narrative. Netanyahu missed the fact that the Holocaust, with which he justifies the establishment of the entity, and which he appeals to the West with, occurred more than 20 years after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in the context of a systematic colonial plan to occupy our region and divide our nation.

Second: In his speech, Netanyahu proved that his fragile entity derives its existence from wars. By placing his entity in the service of Western policies and ambitions, speaking about the conflict between the West and the East, he proved that this entity only lives on bloodshed and inciting peoples against each other, which confirms that the existence of this entity is a danger to all of humanity.

Third: Netanyahu’s lies that his army did not kill a single civilian in the attack on Rafah, and is not waging a war of starvation and genocide against the Gaza Strip, indicate his mockery of the world and his shameless indulgence in lies.

Fourth: The imaginary heroics that Netanyahu tried to market by claiming to liberate some prisoners indicate the state of helplessness and failure he suffers in the field in the face of the steadfastness and resistance of the Palestinian people, which will not be changed by speeches or waves of applause.

Fifth: Netanyahu’s speech clearly stated that he has no intention of ending his aggression against Gaza, nor stopping the war, and that his endeavor is to obtain a U.S. mandate to expand the scope of the war to include the entire region, which proves his bloodthirsty mentality on which his entity and Netanyahu’s political future feeds.

Sixth: Netanyahu’s talk about the future of Gaza confirms that he seeks to perpetuate his occupation, and that he is continuing his crimes and the war of genocide against our people, without deterrence or control.

Seventh: We call on the free people of the world to expose Netanyahu’s plans and to make every effort to pursue and quarantine him, and we warn Western governments against falling into the trap of the criminal Nazi government in the entity. What Netanyahu and his gang are seeking is a war that spares nothing and no one, deluding themselves that it comes from the myths of the Talmud that feed their imaginations.

These statements were lightly edited.