GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in a defiant speech during his first ever visit to Gaza, told a mass rally yesterday he would never recognise Israel and pledged to “free the land of Palestine inch by inch.”
A sea of flag-waving supporters poured into the city centre for celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Islamist group, which has ruled the Gaza Strip – a small splinter of coastal land – since 2007.
Meshaal was born in the nearby West Bank but spent all his adult life in exile before arriving in Gaza on Friday for a triumphal visit. The trip comes two weeks after an eight-day conflict between Israel and Hamas that ended with a ceasefire.
“Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land,” he told the crowds, saying he wanted the Palestinians to have all the territory that makes up modern-day Israel.
“We will never recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take,” he said.
Hamas said 500,000 attended the four-hour rally, held under a leaden winter sky. There was no independent crowd estimate.
“Oh dear Meshaal, your army struck Tel Aviv,” supporters chanted, referring to missiles that Hamas’s Qassam military brigade fired for the first time last month at Israel’s largest city, 70 km (40 miles) up the coast, and also at Jerusalem.
“Oh Qassam, do it again, hit Haifa next time,” the crowds said, referring to a port city north of Tel Aviv.
Hamas said it won the short conflagration, which killed some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis, mostly civilians. Israel disputes this, saying it not only killed Hamas’s top military commander but also destroyed much of the group’s arms stockpile.
Once treated as a pariah organisation by its neighbours, Hamas has seen its standing in the region rise on the back of Arab Spring uprisings that have ushered in several sympathetic Islamist governments sharing much of its own ideology.
Underlining its improved status, delegations from a host of friendly states, including Qatar, Turkey, Egypt and Bahrain, all attended the rally. By contrast, Israel, the United States and most Western governments view Hamas as a terrorist group.
Meshaal picked out neighbouring Egypt for particular praise, calling it “our backer”. He then took a swipe at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has led a deadly crackdown against a nationwide rebellion in his country.
“Hamas does not support any regime or state that launches a bloody battle against its people,” said Meshaal, who quit his home in Syria earlier this year after falling out with Assad.
Meshaal is seen as more moderate than many other Hamas officials, and although he stuck to the group’s hard line on Israel, he held out the chance of reconciliation with the rival Palestinian faction Fatah, which holds sway in the West Bank.
“After the Gaza victory, it is time now for ending this chapter of division and build Palestinian unity,” he said.
Hamas kicked Fatah out of the Mediterranean enclave after a brief civil war and all attempts to reconcile the two groups have failed so far.
While Hamas rejects dialogue with Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party say they want a negotiated deal based on the lines that existed before the 1967 war, when Israel took the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005, but still imposes a land and sea blockade that it says is necessary to prevent arms smuggling. It continues to occupy the West Bank and has annexed East Jerusalem – a move not recognised internationally.
Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction of Israel but its leaders have at times indicated a willingness to negotiate a prolonged truce in return for a return to 1967 lines – something Meshaal made no mention of at yesterday’s event.
