Despite the rhetoric, Hamas is reportedly intent on keeping Gaza out of the conflict and has even prevented rocket fire multiple times.
By World Israel News Staff
The Hamas terror group issued a call for Palestinians to join the “resistance” in Jenin following a large-scale anti-terrorism operation by the IDF in the Palestinian city, while other terrorists based in the Gaza Strip threatened to launch rockets at Israeli cities.
Hours after Israel initiated the campaign, their largest offensive in the West Bank in approximately two decades, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh issued a statement, “Our people and their resistance everywhere know how to respond to this barbaric aggression.”
Hamas official Mushir al-Masri addressed Jenin-based terrorists during a rally in Gaza, saying: “Our missiles are next to your guns, and we will not leave you alone.”
Some 1,000 IDF troops are involved in the operation against Jenin, which has become a hotbed of terror.
According to Palestinian health officials, 8 Palestinians have died in the operation.
Haniyeh urged, “We call on our people throughout the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] to stand by Jenin and defend its people in order to thwart the enemy’s plan.”
“The blood being shed in Jenin will determine the nature of the next stage in all directions,” he said.
Deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, encouraged Palestinians in Judea and Samaria to participate in the Jenin conflict. He stated, “We are ready to sacrifice our lives, and the enemy’s threats do not scare us. We will hit the enemy at the time and place of our choosing, and by any means, whether with stones, bullets or rockets, like the Kassam that was launched a few days ago from Jenin.”
Ziad Nakhleh, a Senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader, labeled the IDF operation in Jenin as a “massacre”, and announced that the Gaza-based, Iran-backed terror group will retaliate. “What is happening in Jenin is a massacre by the enemy against the Palestinian people,” Nakhleh said according to a translation of his remarks by The Times of Israel.
Despite the rhetoric, there has been no rocket fire from Gaza until now and Israeli reports said Hamas is intentionally keeping Gaza, which it rules, out of the conflict and has even prevented rocket fire multiple times since the launch of the operation in Jenin.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded that Palestinian leaders urgently meet to discuss the operation in Jenin, as reported by the official Wafa news agency.
Spokesperson for Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, termed the operation as a “war crime” against “our defenseless people.”
Nabil Abu Rudeineh called on the international community “to break its shameful silence and take serious action to compel Israel to stop its aggression against our Palestinian people, and to hold it accountable for all these crimes.”
Jordan also issued a condemnation of the “Israeli aggression” in Jenin, and has urged the international community to apply pressure on Israel to halt the operation before the situation “explodes.”
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