Alwaght- Hundreds of Palestinians on Friday staged demonstrations in the besieged Gaza Strip to protest a decision by the US to add Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah’s name to its terrorist blacklist.
Organized by various Palestinian political factions, protest marches set out on Friday from mosques throughout the besieged coastal territory.
Participants in Friday’s rallies in Gaza also condemned a US decision to withhold $65 million in financial aid to the UN Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to millions of Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the region.
Addressing demonstrators, Hamas spokesman Samaan Atallah said “We hope the Arab and Muslim nation will stand by the Palestinian people and help us liberate Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
Emad al-Agha, a leader of the Fatah movement (Hamas’s secular rival), decried Haniyeh’s “terrorist” designation, urging Palestinians to escalate their protest activity against “hostile” U.S. policy decisions.
Earlier, hundreds of Palestinians took to Gaza's western streets at nightfall Thursday, condemning the US decision to blacklist Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah as a “global terrorist”.
The rally kicked off following Ishaa (evening) prayers at mosques west of Gaza city.Hamas chief Ismail Haniyah and a number of the group’s leaders were in attendance.
Speaking at the rally, ex-prisoner Iyad Abu Fanouna said: “The real terrorists are the Israelis who have been murdering Palestinian children.”
“The real terrorists are the ones who sowed in the seeds of occupation in our soil and fed it by weapons and missiles to strike Palestinian homes,” added Abu Fanouna.
On Wednesday, the U.S. administration classified Haniyah as a “specially designated global terrorist” and imposed a raft of financial sanctions against him.
Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which is headquartered in the Israeli blockaded Gaza Strip, was founded in 1987 on a strategy of armed struggle against the occupation, and has a military wing known as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Haniyah, 54, was elected to be the group's political chief in May 2017, replacing Khaled Meshaal. Born in a refugee camp in Gaza, the leader has long been seen as pragmatic and firm in his stances against the Israeli regime.
