Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Iran ‘deserves credit’ for ‘building our strength,’ says Hamas chief

Without Iran, “we would not have reached this point” says Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar • Cuts to Qatari aid will lead to violent escalation, terrorist organization threatens.

Smoke trails rise as a rocket is launched from the southern Gaza Strip towards Israel on May 4, 2019. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.
Smoke trails rise as a rocket is launched from the southern Gaza Strip towards Israel on May 4, 2019. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar admitted on Monday that the Islamic Republic of Iran was responsible for “building the strength” of the Palestinian terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip by supplying it with both weapons and funding.

Speaking to a youth gathering in Gaza, Sinwar said Iran deserved “the greatest credit for building our strength. ... It has provided us with weapons and money, without which we would not have reached this point,” London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.

Sinwar also said that Hamas had created a joint “operations room” with 13 other Palestinian factions with the aim of confronting Israel.

He warned that the terrorist organization could turn Israeli cities into “ghost towns” and had enough rockets to fire on Tel Aviv “for six months in a row,” according to Ynet.

Meanwhile, Hamas threatened that cuts in financial aid from Qatar to Gaza would lead to an escalation in violence, the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Tuesday.

The report also said that the Qatari envoy to Gaza, Mohammed Al Emadi, had told Hamas during his last visit that Qatar would struggle to continue transferring $30 million dollars a month to Gaza.

One hundred eleven lawmakers said the barrier erected by residents of Carmel blocks children from Umm Al-Kheir from reaching school, while Israeli officials say a safe alternative route exists.
“I think it’s important to send a message. We’re not going to tolerate hate,” Kathryn Barger, a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, told JNS.
Authorities are treating the discovery of multiple swastikas made from yellow tape at Congregation Ohel Shulamit in Lakewood, N.J., as a bias-related crime.
“For too long, we’ve sort of downplayed these threats, because it didn’t cut off the water supply,” Annie Fixler, of FDD, told JNS.
Polls suggest that Abdul El-Sayed is likely to win the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan by double digits on Tuesday.
The wrecks, deliberately sunk during Nazi Germany’s retreat from the Soviet advance in 1944, have been exposed by the unusually low water levels.