A senior Hamas leader called on Tuesday for a third intifada and the resumption
of suicide bombings against Israel.
The demand came in response to the
government’s recent decision to approve the construction of hundreds of housing
units in east Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim.
Ahmed Halabiyeh, director of
the Jerusalem Department in Hamas, said that armed Palestinian groups, including
Hamas, should initiate a confrontation with Israel over its plans to build new
apartments in Jerusalem and its suburbs.
The Palestinians, he added,
should resort to various methods of resistance, first and foremost “martyrdom
operations in the heart of Israel.”
He urged Palestinians to “ignite a
third intifada to save the Aksa Mosque and Jerusalem.”
The “enemy is
waging a fierce onslaught on Jerusalem and accelerating plans to Judaize the
city geographically and demographically,” he told reporters in Gaza
City.
Israel, he charged, was spreading the “cancer of settlements to all
parts of Jerusalem.”
The Hamas official also accused Israel of working to
undermine the foundations of the Aksa Mosque to bring about its collapse so it
could replace the structure with the Third Temple.
Halabiyeh urged Arabs
and Muslims to declare a state of full mobilization to “liberate Jerusalem, the
Aksa Mosque and Palestine.”
Also on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority
warned that the recent Israeli plans to build new housing projects in Jerusalem
would undermine the two-state solution and foil international efforts to reach a
just and comprehensive peace in the region.
Nabil Abu Rudaineh, spokesman
for the PA presidency, said that the government’s plans would eventually lead to
a one-state solution.
The “State of Palestine would take all available
measures to respond to the Israeli plans, which are a red line that the
Palestinians won’t allow to be implemented,” he said.
Abu Rudaineh also
condemned Israel’s decision to withhold tax and customs revenues belonging to
the PA as a “criminal and aggressive act.”
Israel would have to bear the
consequences of its actions, he declared.