Albawba.com
Damascus
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement has affirmed that its military operations against Israel will be carried out “over an area of 27,000 sq.km, which is all Palestine,” according to Ziad Nahal, the group’s Damsacus-based spokesman on Thursday.
Nahal, in a statement to Albawaba.com here, was reacting to a statement by the secretary of Fateh in the West Bank, Marwan Bargouthi, who insisted that confrontation with Israel should not exceed the Palestinian territories into Israel.
“We operate on the basis that armed resistance is a right for al Palestinians in all parts of Palestine,” Nahal insisted.
“The Islamic resistance has and will never abandon military action, and the martyr [suicide] attack today was not a turning point in our movement. Rather, it was reassertion of our established conviction of all forms of resistance including such attacks,” he said.
The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility Thursday for a Palestinian suicide bombing against an Israeli military post in the Gaza Strip that injured one soldier.
The group said in a statement that one of its fighters, "the martyr Nabil al-Arrir, 24, attacked a Zionist military position near the Gouvim (Jewish) settlement in the Gaza Strip, causing victims in the enemy ranks.”
The movement said it "will continue suicide-operations, as they are the sole way to achieve a liberation of our land and victory."
"This suicide-operation is not the first (Islamic Jihad has carried out) and will not be the last,” the statement added.
In response to a question whether the operation was carried out to mark to anniversary of the assassination of the group’s leader, Fathi Shiqaqi, at the hands of the Israeli Mossad in Malta in 1995, Nahal stressed that it was a mere coincidence.
“What is coming will prove that such operations are not connected to the anniversary.”
The Islamist added that Israel underplayed the size of casualties of the attack.
The Islamic Jihad will hold on Friday a rally on the fifth anniversary of Shiqaqi’s assassination, expected to be attended by Hizbollah’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah.
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
