Hamas marks Nakba Day, says Israel failed to achieve goals in Gaza

In marking the Nakba Day, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has hailed 222 days of “epic” resistance by the Palestinians against the Israeli war machine in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas says Israel has failed to achieve any of its declared objectives in Gaza.

Israel launched the brutalities in Gaza on October 7 after Hamas conducted the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation in the occupied Palestinian land.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Hamas marked the “painful” 76th anniversary of Nakba Day, describing the October operation as “a natural extension of our people’s resistance and their legitimate right to defend their land and sanctities.”

The movement hailed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm as a “strategic milestone that has restored the global presence of our cause, reinforced our national unity behind the resistance, shattered the enemy's arrogance, and solidified our ongoing struggle for liberation and return, and the end of the occupation.”

May 15 is marked around the world as the day of “Nakba”, or Catastrophe. The day refers to the large-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and their mass exodus, courtesy of the apartheid Israeli regime and its Western backers.

More than 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly removed from their ancestral homes in Palestine and 500 villages and towns were destroyed by Zionist militias before the Israeli regime declared its illegal establishment in 1948. Palestinians are still enduring the repercussions of this catastrophe to this day.

Since the onset of the current genocidal campaign, “the Zionist occupation, its fascist government, and Nazi army failed to achieve any of their aggressive goals against our people in the Gaza Strip, despite committing horrific massacres and waging a genocide war that targeted all aspects of human life, using all types of weapons and ammunition, with full support and participation from the US administration,” Hamas said.

Despite the unabated campaign of bloodletting, the regime has so far fallen short of realizing its “goals”, namely defeating Hamas, releasing the captives, and causing forced displacement of the coastal sliver’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

“The ongoing battle of Al-Aqsa Flood has cemented the unity, cohesion, and solidarity of our people in all squares of the homeland and abroad, and has proven to the world that our people do not know defeat, surrender, or concession of their land, constants, and rights, no matter how long it takes, and no matter the strength and crimes of the aggressor and its partners and supporters, reaffirming the legitimacy of our people's struggle and the justice of our cause and restoring its global presence, as a just national liberation cause, for the achievement of freedom, independence, and self-determination, and the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital,” Hamas stated.

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It also said all attempts by the Israeli regime “to quell Palestinian consciousness, undermine their resistance, obscure their cause, or erase it have utterly failed.”

Elsewhere in its statement, the resistance movement held Israel fully responsible for the constant suffering of all displaced Palestinians, both those within the occupied territories and the diaspora.

“The continuing suffering of millions of Palestinian refugees in camps within Palestine and in the diaspora is directly the responsibility of the Zionist occupation, and their legitimate right to return to their homes from which they were displaced cannot be compromised or neglected. Here, we call on the United Nations and UNRWA to assume their legal and humanitarian responsibilities in supporting the rights of refugees, providing relief, and ensuring a decent life for them until their return is achieved,” Hamas said.

Israel has killed more than 35,170 Palestinians, mostly women and children, in Gaza since that October day. 

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