Hamas rejects French PM's claims, says al-Quds eternal capital of Palestine

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says al-Quds will remain as Palestine’s capital forever, dismissing claims by France’s Prime Minister Jean Castex. 

Castex, speaking for a Jewish representative organization in France, had said that the occupied al-Quds was an all time capital of Jews.

Hamas said the French prime minister’s words will not give Israel any legitimacy, adding they will only encourage the regime to increase its aggression towards al-Quds and the holy sites that belong to Muslims and Christians.

The group also said Israel’s racist behavior and occupation of Palestine is illegal under every international law including those of the European Union. 

Separately, Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance movements warned Israel over the continuing brutal siege against the impoverished Gaza Strip and the regime’s land expropriation and illegal settlements expansion activities in the occupied West Bank and al-Quds.

The two movements made the warning during a meeting that brought together their senior officials in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut on Friday, the Arabic service of Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported.

“The continuation of the occupying Israeli regime’s settlement projects in the occupied West Bank and al-Quds, and its continued siege of the Gaza Strip cannot be tolerated, and the Palestinian resistance front cannot allow the situation to continue as it is,” they stressed in a joint statement.

Gaza Strip, home to some two million Palestinians, has been under an all-out Israeli siege since June 2007. The tight blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

Israel bars UN team from probing its crimes during Gaza war

The Israeli regime refuses to cooperate with a UN probe investigating the crimes it committed during the Gaza war last May.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law as they are built on occupied land. The United Nations Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.    

Hamas and Islamic Jihad underlined the need “to achieve national Palestinian unity, on the basis of partnership, restructure and development of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and an agreement on a national struggle campaign [against Israel].”

EU spokesperson in al-Quds: Israeli violations, settlers’ attacks in contravention of intl. law

The EU spokesperson in al-Quds says the attacks committed by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians violate the international law.

The resistance groups also expressed their opposition to the Tel Aviv regime’s flagrant violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights, and cautioned Israeli authorities against the grave consequences of their practices.

Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards.

Palestinian inmates have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held at Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of the so-called administrative detention. Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.

Palestinian prisoner threaten to set fire to Israeli detention centers in protest at repression

Palestinian inmates threaten to set fire to Israeli jails and detention centers across the occupied territories in protest at repressive measures by Israeli prison authorities.

Palestinians and human rights groups say "administrative detention" violates the right to due process since evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.

The detention takes place on orders from a military commander and on the basis of what the Israeli regime describes as secret evidence. 

Rights groups describe Israel’s use of administrative detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on the regime to bring the practice to an end.

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