On YESTERDAY’S second anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, Palestinian Resistance Movement, Hamas, reaffirmed that its top priority is an immediate end to the ongoing Israeli genocide and aggression against Gaza, while maintaining its full commitment to the Palestinian people’s national rights and their struggle for liberation and independence.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum said the Palestinian people in Gaza have endured two years of ‘a genocidal war marked by starvation, mass destruction, and ethnic cleansing, the most brutal assault in modern history.’
Barhoum said that Israel had failed to achieve its declared goals, including forced displacement, recovering captives through military means, and installing proxy entities, despite committing systematic massacres against civilians.
He noted that the war has left more than 67,000 Palestinian martyrs, nearly 170,000 wounded, and over 15,000 missing, mostly women and children. At least 500 people, he added, have died of deliberate starvation amid ‘full US partnership and UN paralysis.’
He emphasised that 95% of the victims were unarmed civilians, calling the atrocities ‘an eternal stain on the face of the Israeli regime and its enablers.’ The resistance, he stressed, remains committed to its legitimate struggle until freedom and independence are achieved.
Barhoum said the Israeli war is not only against Hamas but ‘an all-out war against Palestinian existence,’ aiming to crush the people’s will and erase their cause. He warned that Israel’s expansionist policies threaten the stability and sovereignty of Arab and Muslim nations.
Holding both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government and the US administration fully responsible for the crimes in Gaza, Barhoum said the two share ‘political, legal, and moral accountability for an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.’
He reiterated that Hamas had shown serious engagement with all ceasefire initiatives, including the latest proposal by US president Donald Trump, based on its national responsibility toward its people.
He said the Hamas delegation currently participating in talks in Egypt seeks to achieve a comprehensive agreement that meets the aspirations of Palestinians in Gaza, emphasising six key demands:
1 A permanent and comprehensive ceasefire;
2 Full withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from all areas of Gaza;
3-Unrestricted entry of humanitarian and relief aid.
4 Return of displaced residents to their homes;
5 Immediate launch of a full-scale reconstruction process under a national Palestinian technocratic body;
6-A fair prisoner exchange deal.
He warned that Netanyahu is deliberately obstructing the negotiations, as he did in previous rounds, but said Israel has failed to secure any ‘false image of victory’ despite its overwhelming force and US-backed genocide.
- A boy was shot in the head in eastern Gaza yesterday. There were also at least six Palestinians killed in separate attacks across Khan Younis in the south. Palestinians are still being killed throughout the Gaza Strip and the Israeli military’s explosive robots continue destroying residential neighbourhoods.
Students defy Starmer’s march for Gaza veto
MORE than 10,000 students marched through central London yesterday on the second Anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation which broke the Israeli siege of Gaza on 7th October 2023.
Marchers assembled outside King’s College in the Strand where they began with chants of ‘1234, Occupation no more! 5678, Israel is a terror state!
They also chanted: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! – From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever!’ ‘Say it now and say it loud, Gaza you make us proud!’ and ‘Netanyahu, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!’
The president of the London School of Economics (LSE) campaign for Palestine addressed the crowd, saying: ‘This didn’t start on October 7th 2023. There have been 77 years of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
‘When a mother is killed, when a baby is killed, when babies can’t feed from their mothers, how can we be complicit? When Gaza burns to the ground, our hearts should burn. There have been 65,000 people exterminated in Gaza in the last two years alone.’
They then marched to the LSE where there were calls for it to stop working with companies that support Israel and where they were joined by students from LSE, SOAS, Goldsmiths and other universities.
They were again addressed by student representatives, including Haya Adam, who told the crowd: ‘We will win in the end. It’s the ones who try to demonise us are the ones who have no humanity.
‘We are witnessing this genocide in real time. No-one can pretend they did not know what is happening.’
They also chanted: ‘There is only one state, Palestine 48!’
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