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Head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haneyya has said that the “heroic” confrontations in Beita town and the martyrdom of Mohamed Khabisa proved the fact that “the Palestinian people can never accept any legitimacy conferred upon the Israeli occupation and its settlements on their land, no matter how big their sacrifices will be.”
Addressing mourners and the family of Khabisa in Beita town over the phone on Saturday, Haneyya offered his sincere condolences to the martyr’s father and family, and paid tribute to the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, particularly in Beita town.
The Hamas leader also said that the popular uprising in Beita asserted the facts that the Palestinian people are united in their resistance of the occupation and that the resistance option is the only strategic means for the liberation of the land.
He affirmed that the resistance in Gaza, which he described as “the people’s shield and sword,” is proud of such popular unity in the arena of confrontation with the occupation, and works on “building up its strength in order to achieve the liberation project.”
He also said that the great sacrifices the Palestinian people make in Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank confirm that “there is no future for the occupation on the Palestinian land and that the Palestinian people are able to uproot the occupation through upholding their unity and resistance.”
Mohamed Khabisa was shot dead by Israeli gunfire during renewed skirmishes last Friday with soldiers near Mount Sobeih in Beita town, southeast of Nablus.
For several months, local youths from Beita town and other areas of Nablus started to organize protests against the Israeli occupation and its settlers, who set up an outpost on Mount Sobeih that overlook Beita and other Palestinian areas.
Last July, the Israeli occupation army agreed with settlers living illegally on the mount to vacate their outpost settlement after promising them to keep their structures and mobile homes in the area and turn the mount into a military post.
At the time, a spokesperson for those settlers declared that they plan to establish a religious institute in the near future on the mount, which will remain a military-controlled area.