Iran ‘ally and supporter’ of Palestinian resistance, nation: Islamic Jihad movement leader

The secretary general of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement has hailed Iran’s unwavering support for the resistance groups and factions across the occupied Palestinian territories, saying the Islamic Republic is an ally of the Gaza-based movement and a supporter of the resistance and Palestinian people.

“Iran is an ally of the [Islamic] Jihad movement and the Palestinian people, and its political stances are hostile to Israel and supportive of the resistance,” Ziad al-Nakhala said in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera news network on Sunday.

“Iran stands against the American policy and Israel, and supports the resistance,” Nakhala added. “While the Arab regimes are in alliance with the Israeli regime and the West and do not support the resistance, Iran supports the Islamic Jihad movement and all Palestinian resistance groups.”

The secretary general of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement stressed that the Arab regimes are moving towards normalizing their relations with Israel and stay “loyal to the United States, whose weapons kill the Palestinian people.”

Pointing to the Israeli regime’s illegal expansionist policies, Nakhala said Tel Aviv has in recent years seized a large part of the West Bank and that the number of settlers has witnessed an exponential rise.

"The Zionist regime has occupied a large part of the West Bank and is building settlements on a large scale, and the number of settlers has reached more than 800,000," Nakhala told Al Jazeera.

He added, "The Zionist regime basically does not recognize us as a nation, while they want us to recognize this regime. The occupation of Palestine must end because the people who replaced the Palestinian people were gathered from different parts of the world and settled in our land."

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“What is happening in the West Bank proves the failure of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)’s project to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank,” he said, adding, “The US had adopted a project to rehabilitate the Palestinians so that they could coexist with Israel, and the [Palestinian] Authority had no other choice.”

During the exclusive interview with the Doha-based news network, Nakhala referred to the economic and political pressures that were being exerted on the Palestinian resistance groups in order to recognize Israel, stressing that the Islamic Jihad movement has a clear vision on the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and is not obliged to follow the same path as other resistance factions.

Nakhala said that Israel is after implemeing a Western project in the region, “which is on the basis of complete abolition of the Palestinian nation.”

He said the Islamic Jihad movement had launched an initiative to confront the Western project represented by the Zionist occupation in the region, underlining, “Palestine is a right of the Palestinian people, and this is linked to ideological, political and religious facts.”

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