Hamas: ‘This war will last forever’

Members of the Ezz-Al Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, parade on trucks with rockets in a street in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on May 27, 2021. / Getty Images
Adam Kredo • June 1, 2021 12:35 pm

Following a two-week-long war with Israel this month in which Hamas and other terror groups bombarded the Jewish state with missiles funded and provided by Iran, Hamas is moving to restock its weapons cache.

“With the end of the Israeli regime’s latest aggression, the Palestinian resistance has resumed the process of rocket production,” Fathi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s politburo, was quoted as saying over the Memorial Day weekend by Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency. “Our factories and workshops have restarted producing thousands of rockets to stop [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s intransigence in Al-Quds [Jerusalem] and Tel Aviv.”

Hamas leaders also said that despite the current calm between the sides, “This war will last forever.”

The comments shows that the weapons pipeline between Iran and Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip remains intact following a series of Israeli defensive strikes meant to eradicate the terror group’s supply of rockets. Hamas fired thousands of missiles into Israeli territory during the war, many of them more sophisticated than the typical crude rockets normally fired by the group. Iran is largely responsible for providing Hamas with the funding and materials needed to produce these advanced missiles.

Iranian leaders have made clear in recent days that they will continue arming and funding Hamas, comments that have stoked outrage among Republicans in Congress. Many U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to abandon its diplomacy with Iran aimed at inking a new Iran deal. They say that the billions of dollars in sanctions relief the United States will give Iran will go to funding terror proxy groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, which also fired rockets at Israel during the most recent conflict.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar also made clear during the weekend that the terror group plans to continue attacking Israel until the country gives up its land.

“The option of war against Israel and its discriminatory measures against the Palestinians is still there,” he said. “Palestinians are not after war, because it carries heavy costs. However, this war will last forever because Israel has occupied our lands, displaced our people, and continues to engage in carnage,” Sinwar said.

Iranian military leaders also praised Hamas’s strikes on Israel and pledged to support the group’s mission to destroy the Jewish state.

Iranian defense minister brigadier general Amir Hatami said on Sunday that with Iran’s help Hamas’s missile arsenal has turned into a “nightmare for the Zionists,” according to a separate report in Fars News.

“The Zionist regime will not see the next 25 years, and from now on, missiles, drones and the defense capabilities of the (real) owners of Palestine will be the nightmare of the usurper settlers,” Hatami was quoted as saying.

Major General Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, also said on Sunday that the most recent war with Israel showed that Hamas’s arsenal is more powerful than ever.

“The recent war has imposed a powerful Palestine on the Zionist regime’s calculations,” Salami was quoted as saying. “The Palestinians will grow stronger day by day, and the Israelis should know that they will not be able to live beside an enemy which enjoys a great power now,” he added.