"The next conflict will be unprecedented. If there is an open confrontation – the entire Israeli home front will be involved," Hamas deputy political leader Saleh Arouri told Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen TV in an interview Monday evening.
"We are ready at all times to confront the occupation [Israel]," boasted Arouri. "We're at the stage where we will not tolerate the pressure in Gaza and we are ready for an open fight."
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The next round of fighting, Arouri threatened, will be different than any other past war. "The occupation will pay the price," he said.
Arouri began the interview by saying the Palestinian people do not have the option of accepting the split between Fatah and Hamas. He claimed that the Palestinians have been stabbed in the back three times recently: The Trump administration's deal of the century, the Israeli sovereignty initiative, and the normalization treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
According to Arouri, this provided Hamas the impetus to initiate contact with members of Fatah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to contend together with the "dangers strangling the Palestinian cause." He went on to say that the differences between the sides were strictly political rather than personal.
Arouri also told Al Mayadeen that Hamas and Fatah had agreed on three initiatives to be implemented by joint committees. These committees, he said, will lead the "popular resistance" in Judea and Samaria, reforms in the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and mend the internal rift between Fatah and Hamas, sparked by Hamas' hostile takeover of Gaza in 2007.
The purpose of these steps, Arouri explained, is to contend with Israel's plans to apply sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria.
"The official announcement [delivered at the joint conference last week] illustrated the right of our people to use all-out resistance. We have no agreed to a popular resistance in [Judea and Samaria]. It is the right of our people to assume any form of resistance, and we will not concede any aspects of it," he said.
"The peaceful popular resistance will escalate in accordance with the occupation's response to the marches and activities," Arouri warned.
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