Hamas believes West Bank to be ‘next’ theater of war between Israel, resistance

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas believes the Israeli-occupied West Bank to be the “next” area of main confrontation between the Israeli regime and the Palestinian resistance.

Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau and a former Palestinian minister, who has served several portfolios, made the remarks to the Middle East Eye news and analysis website on Saturday.

“We believe that the main confrontation will be in the West Bank not in Gaza Strip because again the Israeli regime is considering the West Bank, including [the holy occupied city of] al-Quds, to be strategically the next goal of its annexation,” he said.

UN blasts Israel’s use of ‘war fighting’ methods in West Bank's Jenin

The UN human rights office says it is "deeply concerned by the use of unlawful lethal force" by Israel in occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

The regime occupied the West Bank, including al-Quds, the eastern part of which Palestinians seek as the capital of their future state, during a heavily-Western-backed war in 1967.

Afterwards, it proceeded to set up several hundreds of illegal settlements in the territory, and create insufferable impediments to the Palestinian freedom of movement there amid continued Western backing, including by the United States, the regime’s biggest ally.

Naim’s remarks came around a week after the regime was forced to approve of a ceasefire deal with Hamas that is expected to end Tel Aviv’s 15-month-long war of genocide against Gaza that has claimed the lives of at least 47,000 Palestinians.

Now, the movement warns that Tel Aviv, which had ramped up its deadly aggression across the West Bank during the war too, could be turning the occupied territory into its next central battlefield against the Palestinian nation.

Naim, meanwhile, asserted that the Palestinian resistance would not settler for the option of living under occupation amid the regime’s deadly attacks.

“We cannot fight to improve the conditions of a prison. We are looking to get rid of the prison itself,” he said.

“If the Palestinians cannot reach their goal of an independent state, including Gaza Strip and the West Bank and al-Quds, no one can enjoy security or stability or prosperity in the region,” Naim warned.

‘Israel failed to achieve any of its wartime goals’

The official also hailed the Palestinian resistance’s causing the Israeli regime to stop short of achieving all of the goals it had sought to achieve throughout the war on Gaza.

“We can say this is a declaration of victory because [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, from day one, and his regime has raised and declared three goals for his aggression against the people in Gaza,” he said.

He identified the goals as “crushing the resistance and ending the government or the governance of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, plus transferring most of the Palestinian population there, if not all of them, outside the Gaza Strip to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, and lastly to retrieve the soldiers forcefully,” Naim said, referring to the Israeli forces, who have been captured by Hamas.

“I think it was clear last Sunday,” he said, referring to the day of implementation of the ceasefire deal, “that he (Netanyahu) has failed in all the three goals,” the Hamas’ official hailed.

Hamas publishes video of killing Israeli forces responsible for Yahya Sinwar’s assassination

Hamas kills the Israeli commander, who had led the operation that resulted in the assassination of the resistance movement’s former revered leader last year.

“The resistance is still there in dozens, in their uniform, with their new cars,” he said, reminding that “the resistance was able to [remain steadfast until] the last moment” of the war, striking Israeli targets at will.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk