Above photo: A spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades talks to the press in the town of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, November 11, 2019. AP/Hatem Moussa.
This is What Al-Qassam Commander Said in His Speech.
Mohammed Deif, commander of Al-Qassam Brigades, declared in a televised speech on Saturday morning that the ‘Al-Aqsa Flood Battle’ has begun.
His statement was made following a major Palestinian military operation targeting Israeli cities, towns and settlements with an estimated 5,000 rockets.
The Palestinian attack, which led to an Israeli ‘declaration of war,’ included the infiltration by dozens of fighters into several border settlements and towns.
Here are translated excerpts from Deif’s speech:
The Zionist colonial occupation occupied our Palestinian homeland and displaced our people, destroyed our towns and villages, committed hundreds of massacres against our people, killing children, women, and elderly people and demolishing homes with their inhabitants inside in violation of all international norms and laws and human rights conventions.
We have previously warned the Israeli occupation against continuing their crimes and appealed to world leaders to work on putting an end to the Israeli crimes against our Palestinian people and detainees and their holy sites and homeland and to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to abide by international law and resolutions.
Neither did the Israeli occupation leaders heed our demands nor did the world leaders act in this regard.
Instead, the Israeli occupation intensified its crimes, crossing all red lines, particularly in occupied Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque – the Muslims’ first Qibla and third holiest site.
The Israeli occupation forces have escalated their raids into the Al-Aqsa Mosque, desecrating the Muslim sacred sites and repeatedly attacking worshippers, particularly women, children, and elderly people.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation banned the Palestinian citizens from accessing the Al-Aqsa Mosque and allowed Israeli colonial settlers to defile the Muslim sacred site and conduct daily raids into the Muslim holy compound.
During such raids, Israeli colonial settlers performed religious rituals and prayers and blew the horn at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They have declared their intentions to build their purported temple on the ruins of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
…
The Israeli occupation has desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque, from which the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ascended to heaven on the al-Isra wa al-Mi’raj journey.
Hundreds of Palestinian citizens have been killed and wounded so far this year in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation and colonial settlers.
In the meantime, the Israeli occupation is holding thousands of Palestinian detainees in its prisons, where they are subjected to the most heinous forms of oppression, torture, and humiliation.
Hundreds of Palestinian detainees have been jailed for over 20 years; dozens more have suffered cancers and other diseases; several more have died as a result of medical negligence and deliberate slow-death policies.
However, our calls for a humanitarian swap deal were met with rejection by the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli occupation forces storm the towns and villages of the occupied West Bank on a daily basis, raiding and ransacking Palestinian homes and shooting and detaining Palestinian citizens.
Hundreds of Palestinian citizens have been killed and wounded in crimes committed by the Israeli occupation.
We have decided to put an end to all of the occupation’s crimes. The time is over for the enemy to act without consequences. Thus, we announce the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, and in the first strike within 20 minutes, more than 5,000 rockets were launched.
Starting from today, security coordination (between Israel and the Palestinian Authority) ends. Today, the people reclaim their revolution, correct their path, and begin the Right of Return.
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Oh, our people in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), expel the occupiers and demolish their walls. O, our people in the interior (Palestine ‘48 regions), Al-Naqab (Negev), Al-Jalil (The Galilee), and the Triangle (Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem), ignite the earth with an inferno beneath the feet of the occupiers.
Oh, our brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, today is the day when your resistance merges with the resistance of your brothers in Palestine. It is time for the Arab resistance to unite.
We call for mobilization towards Palestine. Oh, our brothers in Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, and the rest of the Arab countries, take action and heed the call.
The era of losing bets has ended, and the occupation must be expelled.
Oh, our people in all Arab and Islamic countries, start marching now not tomorrow, and storm the borders and walls.
…Today, whoever has a gun, bring it out; it is time. Everyone should come out with their trucks, cars, or ax. Today, history opens its most pure and honorable pages.”
(The Palestine Chronicle) with Orinoco Tribune translation.