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Armed factions in Gaza: Region on verge of explosion

Blaming Israel for violence, Gaza factions warn: “We will not allow attacks on border protesters to continue” • Armed groups say they are “shocked by Arab world’s silence.”

Palestinian Clashes at Gaza Border
Gazans at the border with Israel during a “Great March of Return” riot, May, 4, 2018. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Armed Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip warned on Wednesday that the situation in the region was on the verge of exploding.

Following an emergency meeting in a situation room in Gaza, the factions issued a joint statement blaming Israel for the escalation in Gaza.

“The Zionist enemy carries the responsibility for the escalation in Gaza, and we will not allow the continued attack on activists in the marches of return. All signs indicate that the situation is on the verge of exploding as a result of the blockade, and we will not agree to the people in Gaza dying of starvation,” the statement read.

“The Zionist occupier’s continued evasion from the understandings necessitates the Arab and international representatives pressure the occupying Zionist government and demand it adhere to the understandings for calm,” the factions continued.

The groups also came out against the Palestinian Authority, saying, “The continued sanctions imposed on the strip by Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas] and his people position the region on a powder keg that will explode first in the face of the Zionist enemy that allows for the non-payment of salaries.”

In their statement, the Palestinian factions said they were “shocked by the Arab world’s silence in light of the Zionist enemy’s crimes against the Palestinian people and the Islamic holy sites.

“We call on the international and Islamic institutions to take responsibility as far as concerns the Zionist crimes and stop them,” they said. “We will not abandon out brothers in the Zionist occupier’s prisons and we will forever remember the blood of the martyrs, which has not been spilled in vain.”

“This political environment could discourage congressional committee staff and federal agency personnel from pursuing investigations or enforcement actions involving antisemitism,” Karen Paikin Barall of the Brandeis Center told JNS.
“They get social credit within their political bases in terms of talking about settler violence and and taking up the side of the Palestinians on issues between them and Israel,” Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute told JNS.
The U.S. envoy also said antisemitism “didn’t exist” during his upbringing and warned of an unintended clash between Israel and Turkey.
“There is not, and there will not be, a Palestinian state,” the Israeli prime minister pledged. He also called for the corruption trial against him to be dropped.