We owe defeating Israel to Gen. Soleimani: Islamic Jihad official tells Press TV

A ranking Islamic Jihad official says the Gaza Strip’s resistance movements owe their victory in the face of the Israeli regime’s latest war on the territory, to senior Iranian anti-terror commander, General Soleimani’s lifelong efforts to invigorate them.

“When we talk about Martyr Qassem Soleimani, we talk about his role in preparing, equipping, training, and supporting the Palestinian resistance,” Khaled al-Batsh, member of the Gaza-based resistance group’s Politburo, told Press TV’s Face to Face program on Saturday.

“Our achievements in the battlefield and our steadfastness is thanks to what this man presented to the Palestinian cause in term of political, military, and civil support,” he said.

“In all aspects, this man was with us in all the details.”

He noted how, as a token of loyalty to General Soleimani, al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has named one of its “heavy-caliber rockets Martyr al-Qassem” after the martyred commander. Hamas, the Islamic Jihad’s fellow resistance movement, rules Gaza.

More broadly, the official associated General Soleimani and other leading resistance figures’ names with “any battle against the Zionist presence, Zionist colonialism on the Palestinian land or the American colonialism in the Arab region that aims to control the sources of wealth and oil and control the geopolitics in the region.”

General Soleimani, a perpetual symbol of resistance to the depredations of US imperialism

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General Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), was martyred in a United States’ drone strike against Baghdad last year. The strike that also led to the martyrdom of his companions, came while the commander was on an official visit to the Iraqi capital.

During his lifetime, the commander played an indispensable role in reinforcing the region’s resistance groups so they fend for themselves in the face of the Israeli occupation and aggression and also take on the regime’s regional and extra-regional supporters. General Soleimani also enjoyed far-and-wide appeal both in the region and beyond, as the most decisive regional anti-terror commander. The latter was owed, in part, to his successful efforts to defeat Takfiri terrorists in this corner of the world.

After his martyrdom, the regional resistance groups, including those in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, vowed to continue his path with conviction.

What the Islamic Jihad official was referring to as victory, was the resistance’s forcing the Israeli regime into stopping a 12-day war that it had launched on Gaza earlier this month. Soon after the regime launched the war, Gaza’s resistance groups began firing more than 4,000 rockets towards the occupied territories.

Palestinians celebrate victory, Israelis mourn 'embarrassing' ceasefire

Palestinians celebrate their victory against the Israeli regime as a ceasefire unilaterally declared by Tel Aviv and accepted by resistance groups in Gaza goes into effect.

‘Victory represents strategic transformation’

Al-Batsh called the success, a step towards ultimate victory against the Zionist regime and those backing it across the world.

“This is sign and message for Gaza to the entire region that some changes can happen if people decide to change and confront the American hegemony and the Zionist project, and put an end to the Western intrusion in the region,” he noted.

A message that “resistance cannot be defeated, but Israel can,” and that the fate of Palestine cannot be changed with a “stroke of a pen,” said the resistance official.

He was pointing to America’s pro-Israeli schemes and agreements.

The United States devised one of the schemes that it had controversially dubbed “deal of the century,” under former US President Donald Trump. The plan endorsed the American support for the Israeli regime’s claim to the holy occupied city of al-Quds as the regime’s “capital,” and entitled the regime to annex the lands on which it has been building illegal settlements.

Al-Batsh was also referring to many US-facilitated deals last year that saw some regional states normalizing their ties with the Israeli regime.

All Palestinian factions have condemned both the scheme and the détente agreements with one voice.

The Islamic Jihad official also hailed the uniting power of the resistance’s recent triumph. The resistance’s victories, he noted, managed to unite all within Palestine as well as pro-Palestinian people around the world around the Palestinian cause of liberation from Israeli occupation and aggression, al-Batsch stated.

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