By Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute—
As Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations pursue their efforts to spare the two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip another war with Israel, the Islamic Jihad organization is promising its people more suffering, violence and bloodshed. The terrorist organization is also promising to continue the fight until it achieves its goal of annihilating Israel.
The Iranian-funded Islamic Jihad’s latest pledges came as the organization, the second largest group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas, celebrated this week the 32nd anniversary of its founding.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians participated in a major Islamic Jihad rally in Gaza City under the banner “Our Jihad – The Promise Will Soon Be Fulfilled.” The promise, of course, refers to Islamic Jihad’s pledge to “liberate Palestine, from the Sea to the River – a well-known euphemism for the destruction of Israel.
Particularly disturbing is that a large number of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, an enclave often described as suffering from a high percentage of poverty and unemployment, continue to support Islamic Jihad, one of the organizations there that has done nothing to improve the living conditions of its people. Their hatred for Israel seems to be stronger than any wish to better their situation by revolting against failed Palestinian leaders and groups.
Islamic Jihad has, since its establishment, brought on Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip nothing but misery, destruction and death.
During the Second Intifada, which erupted in September 2000, Islamic Jihad and its military wing, Al-Quds Brigades, took credit for killing dozens of Israelis in more than 60 terror attacks. Since 2008, Islamic Jihad has fired thousands of rockets and mortars from the Gaza Strip into Israel, killing and wounding several Israelis. According to Iran’s state-run Press TV, Islamic Jihad terrorists fired 3,000 rockets at Israel during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war.
After the war ended, the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera TV network broadcast a video of Islamic Jihad’s tunnel systems. In the video, an Islamic Jihad member declares that the organization is preparing for its next war with Israel and that the tunnels will be used to launch terror attacks and mortars on Israel. Continue Reading….
