28 September 2001

In the name of Allah the most Gracious the mot Merciful

Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Communiqué

On the first annual anniversary of the Aqsa intifada

When the intifada broke out this same day last year in defense of the holy Aqsa Mosque against the provocative visit of terrorist Sharon, the most optimistic observers estimated that it would continue for a few days or weeks. However, a whole year has elapsed and our people’s intifada is still persisting with the grace of Allah then with the steadfastness and determination of our struggling people that sacrificed all for the sake of their country. This is the spirit with which the executors of martyrdom operations carried while penetrating the enemy’s fortifications to spread panic in the hearts of the Zionist occupiers of our country day and night in each and every part of our holy land.

Our people have disappointed the capitulatory elements that kept on championing realism slogans, declaring that our people’s struggle was over and that we had nothing else left to accept except what the Zionists offer at the begging tables which they falsely call “negotiations”! In return our people did not disappoint their Nation’s aspirations but rather during that year, our people continued to surprise the Nation with acts greater than its expectations and healed the breasts of believers who look forward to victory over the aggressors and to ejecting them from our holy land.

Our people have displayed and still are displaying a legendary and astonishing steadfastness and unprecedented determination to regain their right to their national soil and rejection of undermining that right under any pretext despite the unprecedented Zionist continuous terrorist campaign during the reign of both terrorists Barak and Sharon. Those terrorist campaigns employed all means to enforce surrender on our people and factions including live bullets, internationally-banned explosive bullets, depleted uranium, artillery and tank shells and American-made planes such the Apaches and the F-16s and others. Consequently all conspiracies to abort the intifada were foiled due to that people’s solid determination and their dependence on Allah first and foremost then on backing of the Arab and Islamic Nation.

Our Mujahid Palestinian people:

 On this great occasion, your Movement, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirms the following lessons from the first year of the intifada:

First: The intifada achieved big gains for the Palestine cause and led to important changes in the Arab-Zionist conflict represented by endorsing the resistance program as a strategic option for the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic Nation. Such a consequence necessitated perpetuating and developing the intifada in addition to resisting any attempt to halt or abort it before it reaches its aspired goal of cleansing occupation off our lands.

Second: The intifada crystallized and boosted Palestinian national unity and pushed forward horizons of joint Palestinian national endeavor along the way to drafting a Palestinian national program based on intifada and resistance. It was proven in practice that intifada and resistance united our people and that the settlement process and negotiations divided them.

Third: The intifada raised the popular interaction at with the uprising as the Nation expressed its huge support to the Palestinian people. The masses were able of compelling the official Arab leaderships to hold an emergency and ordinary summits. Yet, the official Arab stand, which is suffering from American pressures and internal difference, did not succeed so far in living up to the Nation’s popular aspirations and demands represented in breaking relations with the Zionists, ending all forms of normalization and opening the borders for the Mujahideen to join their brothers in Palestine.

Fourth: The intifada succeeded in neutralizing the balance of force with the enemy, which was on its side, when compared to the Palestinians and to each Arab country separately. The martyrdom operations and other heroic attacks succeeded in achieving the “balance” with the Zionists who could not withstand great casualties while our people showed growing patience and sacrifice actualizing Allah’s words: “If ye are suffering hardships, they are suffering similar hardships; but ye have hope from Allah, while they have none.” This is the first and basic step that enhances the possibility of the intifada and resistance’s success in flushing occupation out of our lands without peace agreements or concessions.

Fifth: The intifada unveiled the real fanatic image of the Zionist society, which elected a man like Sharon to rule with a big percentage of votes in his favor and which still is expressing support to the terrorist government that is formed out of various forces of that society. Hence, the intifada exposed the false peace calls and erased the so-called barrier between the Zionist “left” and “right” or the “doves” and the “hawks”. The Zionist society brazenly exposed its image as a society of hawks that only believed in violence to achieve its goals.

Sixth: The absolute American bias in favor of the Zionists and Europe’s inability to exercise any effective role in the region showed that we must depend on the Nation’s options of Jihad and resistance rather than American or other mediations.

Our Mujahid Palestinian people … our great Nation’s masses

The first anniversary of the blessed intifada fell at a time when repercussions of the explosions in the USA were still live where attempts to form an international alliance to combat “terrorism” were still ongoing. The American administration wants to make of our people’s intifada an oblation for the success of this alliance. At the same time, the Sharon government is exploiting the world’s preoccupation with what happened in America to launch more terrorist attacks against our people. More than twenty Palestinian martyrs fell over the few days that followed the New York and Washington explosions without any international condemnation voiced coping with the magnitude of occupation forces’ massacres!

And again the Zionist aggression escalated yesterday against our people in Rafah when occupation forces killed seven martyrs and wounded scores others in less than 24 hours.

We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) congratulate our people over continuation of their Jihad and intifada and salute all those who resist the enemy and its terrorism especially the Mujahideen who are deployed in all areas of our holy land, guarding the country, chasing the Zionist usurpers and defending the Nation’s honor and dignity. We pray that Allah would accept all our victims as martyrs, to reward them the best and to aid us in catering for their families and the families of the wounded and the steadfast detainees. We affirm that our people did not and would not forget their sacrifices and would continue to exert utmost efforts to ensure their release from Zionist jails.

We would like here to affirm the following:

1-All forces of our people, backed by our Arab and Islamic Nation, are determined on persisting with and escalating the intifada until eradication of occupation from all of our usurped lands. This was evident in our people’s marches and rallies that rejected ceasefire agreements and denounced security coordination with the enemy.

2-We urge the Palestinian Authority to break away from the so called peace process once and for all, adopt the resistance program, refuse all forms of coordination and negotiations and security meetings with the enemy, not to be deceived by American promises or bow to its pressures and reject any ceasefire calls since the intifada and resistance are our people’s legitimate rights.

3-We call on the Arab and Islamic countries to shoulder their duty in backing the Palestinian people’s steadfastness and Jihad and to stick to their excellent stand in rejecting attempts to label Palestinian resistance as terrorism. Our people’s resistance should never be put alongside terrorism in one basket and we as Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians should not pay the price of the New York and Washington explosions.

4-We ask our people in the diaspora to display more interaction with our people’s intifada in the occupied homeland and share with them in the duty of resisting occupation.

Finally, we pray that the second year of the intifada would be full of blessing and that Almighty Allah would expedite victory and liberation for our people. We are confident that our people’s resistance would continue as long as occupation continued and that all the enemies and defeatists’ cunning schemes to halt the intifada and return our cause backwards to the mirage of humiliating settlements would end up in utter failure Insha’allah.

“So lose not heart, nor fall into despair: for ye must gain mastery if ye are true in Faith. If a wound hath touched you, be sure a similar wound hath touched the others. Such days (of varying fortunes) we give to men and men by turns …”

The Islamic Resistance Movement
Hamas – Palestine
Friday 11^th Rajab 1422H
28^th September 2001AD