Masked men belonging to various Palestinian factions announced in Hebron on
Saturday the establishment of the Brigades of National Unity and the beginning
of a third intifada against Israel.
In a video posted on several
Palestinian websites, a spokesman for the new group said it consisted of members
of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine.
The spokesman said that although his group backed Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s statehood bid at the UN, “We will not give
up one inch of the land of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
He said the group would “pursue our struggle until we
expel the occupation and liberate all Palestine.”
The spokesman said that
the new group had decided to launch the third intifada “from the heart of Hebron
so that it could extend to all Palestine.”
The spokesman also threatened
to kidnap IDF soldiers and kill Israelis if Israel arrested or killed
Palestinians.
“We will strike at you with an iron fist with full force if
you don’t stop your aggression against the Palestinian people,” the masked man
threatened.
The spokesman demanded that Israel remove all checkpoints and
barriers in the West Bank, release all Palestinians from Israeli prisons,
withdraw fully from Palestinian territories, release funds belonging to the PA
government and reopen all the border crossings. •