(source: VOCfm Online)

 hamas

In December 1987, Palestinians challenged the brutal occupation in their continued resistance to the cruel Israeli invasion of their homeland. This was the first uprising or intifada. Hamas, as a resistance movement, arose from this intifada and has since become the most popular and influential Palestinian political movement, said Dr Feroz Osman, secretary general of the Media Review Network, upon the 22th anniversary of Hamas.

The group’s short-term aim has been to drive Israeli forces from the occupied territories, through attacks on Israeli troops and settlers in the Palestinian territories. This grass-roots organisation – with a political and a military wing – has a large number of active members with tens of thousands of supporters and sympathisers.

According to Osman, Hamas has two main spheres of operation: "The social programmes like building schools, orphanages, clinics, hospitals, soup kitchens and religious institutions; and secondly, resistance operations carried out by Hamas' underground Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades." Its founder Sheikh Yassin was killed in a missile attack on 22 March 2004, after an unsuccessful attempt on his life six months earlier. He was succeeded by Abdul Aziz Rantisi who was also murdered by the Israeli military forces." "The memory of Sheikh Izzedin Al-Qassam, the icon of resistance in the Arab world, still lives on in the collective conscience of many Muslims, despite the passage of nearly three quarters of a century since his death. It is no coincidence that the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas liberation movement, the Izzedin Al-Qassam Brigades, was named after him." MRN congratulated the hierarchy of Hamas and its followers "for remaining totally committed to the cause of the Palestinian people and its resistance to the illegal occupation of Palestine in the face of denial and indifference of the international community," Osman said on Tuesday.

MRN