Hamas displays weapons for first time
The Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas has put its weapons on public display for the first time, drawing hundreds of Palestinians brandishing rocket launchers for selfies.
Dressed in black balaclavas and tactical camouflage suits, members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades mingled with young men and women at the exhibition in Gaza City’s Unknown Soldier’s Square, AFP reported. “Resistance is an image and a memory. Take souvenir photos with many of Al-Qassam’s weapons,” the group said in an invitation on social media and posters in mosques. The event follows the latest surge in worsening violence, which cost 16 Palestinian and four Israeli lives in the occupied West Bank over six days in late June. In May, groups in Gaza and Israel traded fire for five days, killing 34 Palestinians. One Israeli woman died. Among the Hamas weapons on display in Gaza City on Friday were a range of locally manufactured missiles, “Shihab” drones, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Russian-made “Kornet” missiles.
Exhibitions also took place on Saturday in the north and centre of the Gaza Strip, where people are normally forbidden to approach and photograph military sites.
The exhibition is “encouraging and means that the liberation of our land is near”, said Gaza resident Shahadeh Dalou, who came with his children. Around 2.3 million Palestinians live in the impoverished Gaza Strip which has been under a crippling Israeli-led blockade since 2007. Israel and Palestinian resistant groups in Gaza have fought several wars since.