The consensus and solidarity already built among Palestinians will play an important role in securing their future victories, said the deputy head for political and international affairs of the Society for the Defence of Palestinian Nation (SDPN).
In an exclusive interview with Iran Daily, Hossein Rooyvaran described the development of such a consensus as necessary among Palestinians on the importance of continuing the resistance until the liberation of the Arab country from Israel’s grip.
Turning to the Israeli forces’ brutal murder of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Al-Quds on Friday, he noted that the act of terror played a very important role in building consensus among Palestinians.
“The resistance movement formed in Palestine is Islamic in nature,” he noted, adding that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement are among the organizations formed within the framework of the Palestinian resistance.
He noted that, however, numerous developments have taken place within the process of the Palestinians’ resistance, acknowledging that the resistance front has moved beyond the organizational levels.
The Palestinian affairs expert said, recently, two young Palestinians with no link to any organization carried out anti-Israeli operations in Tel Aviv’s proximity as they had felt a duty toward the resistance movement.
Turning back to Abu Akleh’s martyrdom, he noted that what’s very important about her assassination is that it was carried out by the Zionist regime while she was covering news about the raids by Israeli forces on Palestinians in the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.
The other important aspect of her martyrdom is that she was Christian, which has caused Palestine’s Christians to join the fray, the expert said.
Such cases show that Israel is an inhumane regime that does not care about or have any mercy for people even if they are unarmed, have immunity as reporters, or even are Christians, Rooyvaran regretted.
Commemorating the 74th anniversary of Nakba Day (the Day of Catastrophe), the expert underlined the occasion’s significance for Palestinians.
On May 15, 1948, the Zionist regime displaced nearly two-thirds (800,000) of the entire, 1.4 million, Palestinian population and expelled them from their homeland to live in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, he said.
During those days, Rooyvaran noted, the Zionist regime destroyed about 600 villages and occupied cities, settling Jews in them, to practically occupy Palestine and reveal its usurping nature to the world.
The deputy SDPN added at the time, the founder and first prime minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion made a historic remark: “The old will die and the young will forget.”
What has, however, unfolded on the ground is that although the old have died, the young have not forgotten, he emphasized.
Rooyvaran maintained that the fourth generation of Palestinians is resisting more determinedly than their fathers, which is manifested in their operations against the occupying Israeli regime.
He said great changes have recently taken place in Palestine, among which has been the victory of the resistance movement in the Saif al-Quds Battle and its success in striking a balance in terms of deterrence against Israeli aggression.
“The resistance movement has become so powerful that the same Zionist regime that occupied Gaza in six days through an aggression in 1967 has failed to capture an inch of the Gaza Strip’s soil through seven or eight wars it has waged against the enclave since 2008.”
This indicates, Rooyvaran noted, that the resistance movement has developed capabilities to the extent that it can thwart each and every Israeli attack and come to the scene at any moment to defend the Palestinian cause and holy sites, such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He expressed hope that these changes and developments would open up brighter horizons before efforts to resolve the Palestinian crisis.
Turning to the formation of a committee, dubbed the Winograd Commission, by the Zionist regime after the 33-day war in Lebanon in 2006, the deputy SDPN said, “Comprising 4,500 military forces, officers and commanders, it has issued a 600-page report on the performance of the Zionist regime in six months.”
Rooyvaran noted that the most significant point in this report is that while it says Israel is recognized by the Western powers as the top military power in the region, it admits that the resistance movement has been able to “neutralize” this military dominance and create new equations through asymmetric warfare.
“Not only has the resistance movement been formed in Palestine, but a resistance axis has been developed in the region to support the Palestinian fighters,” he said, adding that the resistance axis can establish new equations domestically and regionally.