22 June 2005 [Official PA website www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=2&id=955 ]

23 June 2005

"The enemy is waging war against the Islamic Jihad arresting more than 300 mujahid in the past two months"

Source: Islamic Jihad Movement website on 22 June 2005

In the name of God, the most merciful, the most compassionate. "Fight them and Allah will punish them by your hands; cover them with shame and Allah will help you be victorious over them and heal the breasts of the believers" [Koranic verse].

To the masses of our steadfast heroic Palestinian people: The Zionist enemy has clearly declared war on the Islamic Jihad Movement and its leaders and cadres as part of its bloody and vicious war against our heroic mujahid Palestinian people. No day passes without this enemy committing a crime against our patient and steadfast people that chant for Palestine, the resistance, and the mujahidin. Our people continue to uphold the path of free resistance men. They continue to offer martyrs and wounded and to treat their bleeding wounds while the mujahidin continue to embrace them and protect despite the Zionist-US plot that is being hatched against our mujahid Palestinian people. Today, we reaffirm the option of jihad and resistance against the Zionist enemy that continues to commit acts of murder and assassination and continues to attack, destroy, and confiscate our lands, and proceed with its settlement building activities.

In the past two months, the Zionist enemy has arrested thousands of mujahidin, including more than 300 mujahid sons of the Islamic Jihad Movement. Today, we reconfirm that our people and heroic mujahidin have resolutely decided to remain a thorn in the palate of the Zionist entity that is ignoring all Palestinian or international understandings. The Zionist enemy is committing crimes against the free mujahidin. It has killed in cold blood mujahid Murawwah Kamil, the commander of the Al-Quds Brigades in Jenin, mujahid Shafiq Abd-al-Ghani, mujahid Abd-al-Fattah Radad, and scores of unarmed sons of our Palestinian people using its military arsenal while the world did not move a finger. And when the heroic mujahidin decide to retaliate against these crimes, some weak-minded people - whom we did not see or hear in the confrontation arenas - come out to denounce and condemn the resistance operations that confront and retaliate against the aggression and defend the sons of the Palestinian people. We affirm that this policy is part of the vicious Zionist media war that falsely claimed - through statements distributed in the Bayt Hanun township last night - that the heroic mujahidin are seeking to abort the calm. These weak-minded people have forgotten the blood of the martyrs and the more than 8,000 Zionist violations of the calm that included murder, arrests, destruction, confiscation and looting of lands, continuing to build the racist separation wall, the expansion of settlements, the Judaization of Jerusalem, and the desecration of the Holy Koran.

In view of these dangerous developments, we in the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine stress the following points:

1. The Zionist war targeting our movement and its leaders and mujahidin will only increase the movement's power and solidity and its adherence to the Palestinian constants.

2. Any stupid action by the Zionist enemy against our people's leaders and mujahidin will be met with an earthshaking response based on the principle of calm for calm and violation with retaliation.

3. We stress what all the Palestinian factions stressed when the issue of the calm was raised and that focused their eyes on the interests of the Palestinian people. However, this does not mean that we should stand idly by before the enemy's crimes against our mujahid people. The forces of our people have the right to respond to any Zionist violation at the right time and the right place.

4. Our retaliation against the enemy's violations does not amount to violation of the calm. All the forces are agreed on coordination of action and response to the violations of the occupation forces.

5. We urge our mujahidin to be extra cautious and vigilant and to foil the attempts of the occupation and its aeroplanes from harming them.

6. We call on the Palestinian [National] Authority [PNA] and President Abu-Mazin to stand alongside our people's option and their resistance. We urge them not to rush into sitting with the enemy from whom nothing good is expected. The failure of yesterday's meeting between Abu-Mazin and Sharon is the best evidence that attests to this fact.

7. Finally, we stress to the world and to the sons of our heroic people that the arms of the resistance will remain raised against the enemy as long as the occupation exists on our land and as long as the occupation's government persists with its aggressions against the sons of our people. No one can force us to give up our legitimate right and to retaliate against the Zionist violations.

The jihad -the jihad of victory or martyrdom -will continue. The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine on Wednesday, 16 Jamadi al-Ula 1426 Hegira, corresponding to 22 June.

IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis Website: www.imra.org.il