Haniyeh to Israel: Hamas is ready for every scenario

Ismail Haniyeh said in a televised speech late on Tuesday that the movement has taken a firm decision not to stop resistance as long as the Israeli regime continues its crimes and violations in the occupied al-Quds and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“We have the right to respond to the Israeli offensive and protect the interests of our people as long as the Israeli occupation continues the escalation,” Haniyeh said.

The top Hamas official hailed as “victory” and a new “balance of power” the massive rocket fusillade on Israel, including an unprecedented 130 rockets fired at Tel Aviv and its suburban areas earlier in the day, and said the Palestinian resistance movement would not leave Jerusalem al-Quds alone.

“We have achieved victory in the battle for Jerusalem, the defense of Jerusalem,” Haniyeh said. “Hamas is ready for every scenario, whether escalation or ceasefire… We, as Palestinians, will not abandon Jerusalem and the resistance, holding the occupation fully responsible for the escalation.”

"In the specific, there have been urgent calls since yesterday and until now with the brothers in Egypt, Qatar also with the United Nations. We said to everyone that who had ignited fire in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa and the flames extended to Gaza is the Israeli occupation, therefore, it is responsible for the consequences," he added.

Haniyeh said the “links between Gaza and Jerusalem al-Quds are unchangeable," underlining that the holy city has drawn up a new “scale of power” at the political level. “We reiterate that we will not backtrack on the equation of a 'bombing for a bombing' that the Palestinian resistance is trying to impose on the Israeli occupation,” Haniyeh added.

During his televised address, the head of the political bureau of Hamas highlighted the unity of Palestinians in their fight against Israeli occupation and said that Hamas had so far acted on three fronts. “The first is the al-Quds front, the second is the Gaza front... and the third are the Palestinians in the lands occupied in 1948,” he noted.

Haniyeh also underlined that the resistance movement would remain the armored shield of the Palestinian people and would continue to fend off the Israeli aggression at any cost.

The top Hamas official made the remarks after the Palestinian resistance movement fired scores of rockets toward Israel, hitting Tel Aviv and the surrounding areas in retaliation for the regime’s aggression against the Gaza Strip.

The retaliatory strikes came shortly after a 13-storey residential block in the Gaza Strip was hit by an Israeli air raid, with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad resistance group saying they would respond by firing rockets at Tel Aviv.                                                    

Palestine's official Wafa news agency said Israeli airstrikes on various locations in the Gaza Strip had claimed the lives of 35 people, including 12 children and three women, and left more than 200 others injured.

Tensions have escalated in Jerusalem al-Quds, the occupied West Bank and Gaza throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, amid the planned forced expulsions of dozens of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where illegal Israeli settlers are looking to take over the properties of Palestinian families.

The Palestinian Red Crescent announced on Tuesday that more than 700 people have been wounded in attacks by Israeli forces in East Jerusalem al-Quds and the West Bank.