Hamas will devote all political and diplomatic measures possible to lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip, Hamas official Halil al-Haya said Friday at a rally in Gaza in honor of Hamas's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. "The Palestinian people will throw off the siege... All the nations in the region know that Hamas won't allow the Palestinian people to die of hunger," Haya declared. | Unless the widows need more ammunition. |
| I think they're thinking more in terms of knocking down fences and storming into Israel to despoil the grocery stores. Certainly not in terms of growing their own food, which is beneath the honor & dignity™ of a warrior cult. |
Haya said that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's regime in Gaza would soon be expanded. "The government is working tirelessly, and soon we will expand our services in order to fulfill all our [obligations]," he said.
Meanwhile, the World Tribune Web site has reported that Hamas is seeking to take over Al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip, one of the last Fatah-controlled institutions in Gaza. The report said that Palestinian sources have reported that Hamas operatives were sent to seize the university, a Fatah stronghold for almost 30 years. The university also opposed Hamas's takeover of the Strip. "Hamas sees Al-Azhar as the last bastion of Fatah in the Gaza Strip," a Palestinian activist said. "All the other Fatah institutions have either been destroyed or went underground."