Middle East News

Haniya: Hamas won't recognize Israel

May 15, 2011, 8:02 GMT

Gaza City - Ismail Haniya, the de-facto Palestinian premier in Gaza, reiterated in Gaza City on Sunday that his Islamist Hamas movement would not recognize Israel.

He told hundreds of worshippers at Gaza City's main mosque 'to pray for the end of the state of Israel.'

'The Zionist project in Palestine must end,' Haniya told participants at the dawn prayers at al-Omari Mosque, as Palestinians were marking Nakba Day.

Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic and marks the dispersal of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their villages in what is now Israel, in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that erupted a day after Israel was established on May 14.

Haniya, who praised the reconciliation pact signed with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah party in Cairo on May 4, said that 'to achieve our goals, the liberation of our occupied territories, we should have one leadership.'

Hamas, which was founded in 1988 in the Gaza Strip, has been listed by Europe and the United States as a terrorist organization, after its militants carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel.

Hamas called on Palestinians to participate in rallies and marches all over the Palestinian territories to mark Nakba Day.

Two main marches were planned later Sunday in Gaza. One is to head to the Erez border crossing with Israel, the second to the border crossing of Rafah with Egypt.

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