Article by group’s military wing says that during the month, a fighter ‘dedicates himself to Islam by day, defends Palestine by night’
The military wing of Palestinian terror group Hamas called the Muslim holy month of Ramadan the “month of jihad,” in an article published on Tuesday — a day before two West Bank terrorists killed four people in an attack in Tel Aviv.
According to the watchdog organization MEMRI, which monitors the Arabic-language media, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades’s article claims that during the fast month, “the jihad fighter dedicates himself to the study of Islam by day he sets forth to defend his homeland, Palestine, by night.”
The article — entitled “Ramadan – The Month of Jihad, Fighting and Victory over the Enemies” — praises “jihad for the sake of Allah [as] the pinnacle of Islam,” calling it “one of the best and most noble deeds.”
The piece also harks back to the 2014 Gaza war between Israel and Hamas, which partly took place during Ramadan. “This month has seen the actualization of exceptional Islamic victories,” it says.
During the war, the article claims, “the Palestinian resistance, chiefly the Al-Qassam Brigades, fought the most impressive battles of heroism and martyrdom.”
While fasting, the piece continues, the Hamas military wing “dealt the enemy fatal blows in the eastern parts of the Gaza Strip… and Allah helped them achieve such a great number of victories that they [shattered] the myth of the undefeatable [Israeli] army, expelling it, defeated, from the Gaza Strip.”
The terrorists, 21-year-old cousins Muhammad and Khalid Muhamra from the West Bank town of Yatta, entered Israel near Beersheba already armed. They then traveled to Tel Aviv, where they carried out their attack at the Sarona Market. Both were caught shortly after the shooting.
Hamas said in a statement early Thursday that the two gunmen were members of the organization. It praised the shooting as “heroic” and intimated that more attacks would follow over Ramadan, which started on Monday.
A Hamas media outlet shared a photo of a traditional Palestinian Ramadan treat being stuffed with a bullet with the caption “Tel Aviv operation.”
As reported by The Times of Israel