Hamas on the anniversary of the Stone Intifada

This statement, from the Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement, was released by Resistance News Network on Dec. 8, 2023.

Palestinian youth in Nablus on the West Bank in 1988 during the first Intifada.

On the 36th anniversary of the Stone Intifada: The Al-Aqsa Flood is a continuation of the Stone Intifada, until the occupation ends and our people’s aspirations for liberation and return are realized.

The 36th anniversary of the Stone Intifada came on Dec. 8, 2023, amidst a Nazi aggression waged by the Zionist occupation against our people in the Gaza Strip for over two months, failing to achieve any of its goals in the face of our people’s steadfastness and the bravery of our resistance and the strikes of the men of the Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades.

The Stone Intifada was an important milestone in the ongoing struggle of our people, ignited from the land of proud Gaza, its flames spreading to all arenas of the homeland, able to bring our national cause back to its Arab, Islamic, and international presence. 

Today, the ongoing battle of Al-Aqsa Flood – from that steadfast land with its patient and enduring people, and the men of resistance, strong, brave, and inflicting heavy losses on the enemy – renews the spark of this Intifada and completes its blessed journey, at a time when enemies planned to erase the features of our national cause and obscure our legitimate rights, monopolizing our Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa.

We in Hamas, on this blessed anniversary, pay tribute to the souls of the martyrs of our people’s intifadas and heroic battles, and pray to Allah Almighty for a speedy recovery for the wounded and injured of our people due to Zionist criminality, affirm the following:

• First: The battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, this great historical epic written by the Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades and the Palestinian resistance, embraced by our people across the homeland and abroad, is a legitimate right of our people to defend themselves, their land, and their sanctities, and a natural continuation of our people’s intifadas to confront the aggression of the Nazi occupation, thwarting all its settlement and Judaization plans.

• Second: We will confront and thwart the plans of the Nazi occupation and its supporters to displace our people from their land, imposing solutions that rob them of their right to freedom and dignified life on their land. We renew our rejection of all settlement and normalization projects with the Zionist occupation, which poses a real danger to the security and stability of the nation and the world due to its dangerous colonial project.

• Third: We stand today with pride and honor before the steadfastness, patience, and sacrifices of our people in the Gaza Strip — men, children, women, elders, and families — as they set the finest examples of heroism and sacrifice in solidarity, cooperation, challenge, sharing bread and water, despite the killing and horrific massacres, loss of family and loved ones, hunger and thirst, amidst an aggressive war and barbaric bombing that affected all aspects of human life.

• Fourth: We call upon our Palestinian people in the occupied interior and the entire West Bank to travel and station in Al-Aqsa Mosque, challenging the occupation’s prevention of access. We call on our revolutionary youth in the cities, villages, and camps of the occupied West Bank to clash with the enemy and inflict heavy losses on its soldiers and settler hordes by all means, in solidarity with the Al-Aqsa Flood battle in defense of our land and Al-Quds.

• Fifth: We call on our Arab and Islamic nations and the free people of the world to continue their solidarity movements with the Gaza Strip, and to take to the streets in marches and demonstrations in all cities, capitals, and squares, rejecting aggression and supporting the justice of the Palestinian cause and our people’s right to freedom and self-determination in establishing the Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital.

          This statement was lightly edited.