Interview With Hamas Spokesman, Hammad Riqib

Hamas spokesman in Khan Younis, Hammad Al Riqib, said that the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, the branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, established a major tributary of the Palestinian resistance.

Al Riqib pointed out, in an exclusive interview with the correspondent of "Al-Qassam" in Khan Younis, that Hamas started after the famous trailer incident in 1987, as the movement was prepared for that.

He mentioned that there is no doubt that the foundation was linked to the accident of the murder of Palestinian workers and the necessity of revenge for the pure blood of Palestinians, but other motives had led to this project, including the need to restore to the Palestinian issue to the Islamic and Arab dimension, especially after some Palestinian parties had began to discourage the Islamization of the Palestinian issue, and started to highlight the Palestinian issue and the issue of conflict as purely political.

1- Did the martyrdom of the leaders affect the movement?

The leadership has been effective, its presence had a significant impact, not an exaggeration to say that charisma which they had enjoyed not only affect the Palestinian youth, but affected many of the Arab youth, stressing that the absence of such leaders has big effect, but not in terms of organizational and practical side. You can see today in the absence of great leaders for years, the movement is growing stronger and increasingly organized.

Today, the movement is the main hope of the Arab and Islamic nation in the performance of the duty of Palestine; it has become the real spearhead of the resistance in Palestine. It is still on the same path for which it was established 22 years ago.

Hamas has become nowadays the salt of the earth, as its leaders suffer and sacrifice side by side with their people; some of them were martyred, others lost his house while many of their sons were martyred.

2- After Hamas movement turned to political action, did it give up the resistance?

The idea that Hamas entered the elections was for legitimizing resistance regardless of the issue to go into government or not, but the main objective was to remove all the bad picture that some are trying to draw for our resistance.

Hamas was able to legitimize resistance through the government which contained a martyred Ministers like sheikh Said Siyam, sheikh Nizar Rayan, the justice minister Allah's mercy be upon them all. It's also headed by the great Hamas leader Ismail Hanyia.

By accessing the government, Hamas has increased its commitment to resistance because the land was not liberated yet and that the occupation is doing all the acts against our people, and that logic says that for as long as there is occupation, we ought to use the full potential chances including government, legislative council, presidency and the organization for the resistance until we liberate our home.

3- Did the last War affect the movement?

Each stage of the movement or any movement in the world had positive aspects and negative aspects; this was a fierce war that was used by the occupation forces to break the Palestinian presence, especially after the hard attacks the resistance suffered in West Bank. The Zionist occupation decided to crush the resistance in Gaza, so they used that destructive power.

In the barbaric aggression on the Gaza Strip there were significant losses, either in life or in material losses in the case of the destruction of architecture and infrastructure. These could be seen as negative aspects but the most important is that we won this battle, thanks to God.

Our enemy failed to achieve any of its goals: the rocket fire did not end; the resistance was not eliminated as the Zionist enemy threatened. Now, we are in Gaza, and we are planning for the interest of our people and our cause and the future. Al Qassam Brigades considered the last war as a real field experience that taught us many lessons in the political or military side.

Despite the severe hardships, the war gave us a lot of grants that it brought the issue back to the Arab and Muslim dimension. We all see dynamic support of the Movement between the Arabs and Muslims in the world, people are calling for the return of the worldwide attention to Arab and Islamic nation towards Jerusalem and Palestine.

4- What make this anniversary distinguished, after 22 years?

What distinguishes this anniversary, after twenty-two years, is that it comes to add a new year at the age of this movement in which it did not waive or hold the white flag. It comes after twenty-two years to say that Hamas is still standing on the Palestinian land after it won the most brutal it had been practiced before.

It comes this year, while Hamas has become closer to liberate the Palestinian prisoners from the Zionist jails in an honourable swap deal that deliver a clear message that resistance is the right path to restore our rights, and that the Zionist entity does not know any language, but the language of power. It is distinguished because Hamas has become more popular than ever before, and because we see introductions of victory.

Since the first moment, we have believed in our victory. In the past, we used to say Mohammed's Army will be back, and now we say: Muhammad's Army has begun to return.