Home
Discover Islam
Quran Recitations
Lectures
Fatwa
Articles
Fiqh
E-Books
Women
Boys & Girls 
Articles
Tens of thousands of supporters of the Islamic Jihad movement rallied in the streets of Gaza on Friday. Young men and boys bore portraits of fighters killed in combat.
Ramadan Shallah, the group's exiled chief in Damascus, sent a recorded message marking the anniversary of the assassination of the group's leader Fathi Shiqaqi in Malta in 1995, by Israeli secret agents.
Senior leaders of Hamas, joined the open-air gathering, the largest for years in honor of Islamic Jihad with up to 100,000 attending according to its organizers.
Islamic Jihad officials said Friday's turnout was a "referendum by the Palestinian people rejecting peace-making with Israel."
Negotiations between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have faltered over the latter's refusal to freeze settlement building in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem.
"The choice of negotiation has reached deadlock, and we are wondering why is there such an insistence by the Palestinian Authority on negotiation with the enemy," said Shallah.
He urged an end to ‘peace talks’ and fresh efforts to heal the rift between Abbas's Fatah movement and the Islamic resistance groups.
Raising hopes that the three-year-old split may be coming to an end, Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya said it was time for unity in the face of Israel.
"There is only the choice of Jihad and nothing else ... There is no more room to make bets, on the Americans or anyone else," said Hayya.
PHOTO CAPTION
A Palestinian girl waves Islamic Jihad flags during a rally in Gaza City October 29, 2010.
Agencies
