Official PA daily editorial criticizes Hamas for not carrying out “resistance” but instead “apologizing to the enemy”
Editorial by the official PA daily
Headline: "Resistance if…"
"'If the latest battle against Gaza (referring to Israeli response to a barrage of missiles launched from Gaza into Israeli civilian population centers; see note below –Ed.) had continued, [mere] hours separated us from bombing Tel Aviv' – this is what Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad Ziyad Al-Nakhalah declared in an interview with the [Lebanese TV] satellite channel Al-Mayadeen… It is clear that Al-Nakhalah's 'if' is a misleading 'if,' an ‘if’ of 'the resistance' that has become pragmatic in a manner that no resistance in the history of mankind has known. The gravest and the worst of all is that this 'resistance' has become connected now in some way to the Israeli security and political position. If it seeks a battle, it is mainly a battle of messages, and the response to it does not pass the threshold of a counter-response; and if it seeks a ceasefire, it carries out a ceasefire, rests, and begins the talk of 'if' and the bragging under the slogan 'If they [attack] again, we will do so too,' and may Allah spare the believers the evil of war!
And if we want to go deeper in our analysis, it seems that Al-Nakhalah's use of the word 'if' constitutes a hyperbole of naïve denial of the reality and truth, as the bombing of Tel Aviv did not happen and will not be included as part of the threshold of the battle of messages. This was confirmed by Hamas’ apology during the escalation prior to the last one, when the harsh weather (!) caused the activation of a missile launch towards Tel Aviv. In this way, Hamas became the first resistance in history that apologizes to its enemy – on behalf of the weather – for one of its missiles falling in the area of the enemy's capital! (sic., Jerusalem is Israel's capital) And the logical and realistic question now is if the resistance is truly a resistance, why does it wait to continue the battle and bring about a decisive escalation?"
May 2019 Gaza rocket attacks – The Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations in Gaza launched a rocket barrage on Israeli civilian population centers on May 4, 2019, firing more than 700 rockets and murdering 4 Israelis in the course of two days. Israel responded by striking terror targets; 23 Gazans, many of them terrorists, were killed during the exchange of fire. On May 6 a ceasefire agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas.