PA Minister of Religion: "We kiss the hand of every prisoner," "Jihad" against Israel "continues until the day of Resurrection"

PA TV transmits Friday sermon at the Al-Tashrifat Mosque in the presidential compound, Ramallah, delivered by Mahmoud Al-Habbash, Minister of Religious Affairs:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs: “We are proud of this [our prisoner’s] crime” – “love for Palestine”
     "We deal with suffering caused by the occupation (i.e., Israel), which holds thousands of Palestinian prisoners – thousands of prisoners, who are moved from place to place in the occupation's prisons; perhaps hundreds of thousands of prisoners, who have been moved from place to place in the occupation's prisons – they have committed just one transgression, they have only one charge [against them], and how good and how honorable is that charge: resistance to the occupation, the effort to be rid of the occupation, national action for the sake of Palestine, for the sake of independence and for the sake of liberty. That is the great charge, that is the charge which we are proud of. Yes. We are proud of this charge, and we are proud of this crime, if they refer to it as a crime. If our love for Palestine is a crime, if our resistance to the occupation is a crime, if our resolve in our land is a crime, then how good and how honorable is this charge! We are proud of this charge… Our resolve does not mean submission; our resolve does not mean foregoing; our resolve does not mean acceptance of the situation as it is. We do not accept this situation. We are acting to change it, and we are acting to be rid of it. Our Jihad for Allah continues until the day of Resurrection; our resolve in this land continues until Allah rules on the matter with certainty. If we have accepted negotiations and peace solutions, this does not mean that we are relinquishing our rights – not in negotiations and not outside of them. There are red lines, which all the decisions of the Palestinian people and all the decisions of the Palestinian institutions have agreed upon unanimously… We kiss the head and the hand of anyone who acts for the liberation of the prisoners, and before them we kiss the head of every prisoner; we kiss the hand of every prisoner and kiss the heads of their mothers and their fathers, and their hands, out of [respect for] their resolve, for their honor, and for their greatness among our people, our cause and our Jihad."

Note: 5,500 Palestinian prisoners are currently serving time in Israeli prisons for terror-related offenses. According to a report from the PA Ministry of Prisoner's Affairs, 792 prisoners are currently serving life sentences in Israeli prisons.