Hamas will not surrender its weapons to the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip after Israel's pullout from the territory, one of the Islamist movement's top leaders said Friday. "This army will continue to defend our homeland as long as one inch of Palestine remains occupied," Mahmud Zahar told reporters, after attending a training session of Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedin al Qassam Brigades.
During a keynote speech to the Palestinian parliament earlier this week, Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas urged all militants to end their rocket attacks on Israeli targets as part of a larger appeal for calm during the pullout.
"It is criminal to claim that there is only one weapon," Zahar said, in reference to declarations by Abbas insisting that the Palestinian Authority was the only legitimate security tool.
Abbas met Zahar and Hamas's two other top Gaza leaders on Tuesday in a bid to ensure the group's militants would not seek to scupper the historic pullout of Israeli troops and settlers.
Hamas, the group behind the majority of anti-Israeli attacks during the five-year uprising or intifada, claims the rocket attacks were instrumental in persuading Israel to leave Gaza after a 38-year occupation.
"These men will train others so that all Palestinians become mujahedeen and liberate the whole of Palestine," Zahar said Friday, in reference to his organisation's fighters.
"It is great crime to say that these groups should be dismantled," said the militant leader, cheered by thousands of Hamas supporters chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest).
As he reviewed the newly-trained Ezzedin al Qassam combatants, Zahar sent a strong message to Abbas's Palestinian Authority: "This is a sample of the invincible Al-Qassam Brigades and we hope that nobody else will suffer their wrath.
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