Sinwar: Next war with Israel will change the Middle East

The next battle between Israel and Hamas will change the shape of the Middle East, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar said on Saturday.

Addressing Palestinian academics in the Gaza Strip, a defiant Sinwar again boasted that Hamas had won the last round of fighting with Israel.

Sinwar’s address, reminiscent of speeches made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, was repeatedly interrupted with cries of “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Great) and other slogans in support of Hamas.

Sinwar claimed that Israel had failed during the 11-day fighting to destroy “the capabilities of the Palestinian resistance.” He also claimed that Israel destroyed less than three percent of the Hamas tunnels during the fighting.

“Our people proved to the occupation and the rest of the world that our ummah (Muslim community) is ready to defend the al-Aqsa Mosque,” Sinwar said.

He praised the Palestinians in Jerusalem for resisting Israeli “schemes to Judaize Jerusalem, divide the al-Aqsa Mosque and carry out ethnic cleansing.”

Sinwar denounced Arab countries and rulers who signed peace treaties with Israel. He also lashed out at the Palestinian Authority for conducting security coordination with Israel in the West Bank.

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Sinwar listed what he called “strategic goals” that Hamas allegedly achieved during the military confrontation with Israel.

“First, we proved to the enemy that we are capable of protecting and defending the al-Aqsa Mosque and that we are ready to pay a heavy price,” he said. “The uprising of our people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the 1948 lands (Israel) put pressure on the enemy more than the rockets of the resistance.”

Sinwar said that the demonstrations near the border with Jordan and Lebanon during the Israel-Hamas fighting “sent a message to the enemy that it must not be deceived by what it hears from the [Arab] rulers who normalized their relations with Israel that “the ummah is finished and has collapsed.”

Hamas’s second achievement, Sinwar noted, was that it managed to “thwart” Israel’s ostensible plan “to divide the al-Aqsa Mosque in time and space” between Muslims and Jews.

Sinwar said that the third achievement Hamas scored was that it succeeded in rallying Palestinians behind the “resistance.”

“We humiliated Tel Aviv,” the Hamas leader boasted, referring to the rockets and missiles that were fired at the city during the military confrontation. “We turned Tel Aviv into a mop.”

Sinwar said that Hamas’s strategic goal was to “break the pride of this criminal and arrogant enemy.” He scoffed at Israel for building a 70- meter- deep wall along the border with the Gaza Strip, adding: “What kind of a state is this that has to build such a wall? Israel is thousands of times weaker than the home of a spider. Israel is a weak, shaky state.”

The Hamas leader said that the last round of fighting with Israel represented only a “small battle” and that the next war will be more significant.

Addressing the PA, Sinwar called on its leaders not to expect anything from the US administration. He said that the only way for the Palestinians to achieve their goals was through unity and a “popular resistance backed by an armed resistance.”

According to Sinwar, some Arabs and Muslims are “generously supporting the resistance.” He said that those who are supporting Hamas are afraid of revealing their identities out of fear of being held accountable by the international community.