Our Palestinian Vision – Leadership of Palestinian Resistance Groups Issue Joint Statement

December 28, 2023

The Joint Room of the Palestinian Resistance Factions in Gaza. (Photo: Joint Room, Supplied)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

A joint statement was issued in Lebanon by the leadership of major Palestinian Resistance groups on Thursday, December 28. 

The statement was released following “a consultative meeting in Beirut”, a press release, a copy of which was received by the Palestinian Chronicle, read. 

The groups involved in the Lebanon meeting were the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command. 

Below are excerpts from the final statement. 

Liquidating Palestine 

First, Israel’s ultimate aim through its ongoing brutal attacks on Palestinians everywhere, and ongoing genocide in Gaza, is to displace the Palestinian people and to “end the Palestinian national cause and liquidate the legitimate national rights of our people, in determining fate, establishing the independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds (East Jerusalem) as its capital, and ensuring the right of return for the refugees of our people to their homes and properties, per Resolution 194.”

Thwarting Israel’s Objectives

Second, the Resistance has managed to “thwart the enemy’s goals, demonstrating its incompetence and the fragility of its forces in the field.” 

In this context, the attendees affirmed “their determination to continue the resistance in the field, and in other forums, until the brutal war on our people stops, and the aggression is repelled from the Strip.” 

Our Demands 

Third, the leadership of the Resistance groups highlighted their collective objectives in the ongoing war in Gaza as follows: 

1) Immediate cessation of the war of genocide, scorched earth, and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli enemy on the Gaza Strip.

2) Breaking the siege on the Strip, starting to supply our people with all necessities of life, and simultaneously rebuilding and reconstructing the infrastructure institutions and facilities. This includes providing the necessary supplies to reactivate and support the medical system, which is almost collapsing under the barbaric acts of the Israeli aggression, and transferring serious injury cases from the Strip to treatment abroad in brotherly and friendly countries.

3) Arab, Islamic, and international commitment to reconstruction, and requesting brotherly and friendly countries – and international and regional organizations, foremost among them the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations – to launch an international initiative to reconstruct what the occupation and barbaric aggression have destroyed in the Gaza Strip. 

US-Israeli Pipedreams 

Fourth, the groups stressed their condemnation and rejection of the “scenarios by Western and other pro-Israeli (political entities) of the so-called ‘day after’ in Gaza.”

“These are mere pipedreams that will not be realized now or in the future, especially after the signs of the enemy’s defeat began to appear, in its explicit acknowledgment of its deaths and injuries at the hands of our resistance,” the statement read.

The statement also reasserted the unity of Palestinians, and that there is no such a notion as a solution to Gaza, and another cause in the West Bank and a third in Jerusalem. 

“The Palestinian cause is the cause of all of Palestine, land, people, rights, future, and destiny. The solution to the cause can only be achieved through the departure of the occupation and all forms of settlements, paving the way for our people to determine their national destiny on their land.”

Strategic Unity

Fifth, the groups also suggested a political course to mend the rift between the various Palestinian factions, and to end all outstanding political issues to ensure that the current unity lead to a  “unified strategic .. struggle” that reintroduces “our cause as a national liberation cause for a people under occupation.”

1) We call for “a comprehensive national meeting that includes all parties without exception, to implement what was agreed upon in previous Palestinian dialogues, and to confront the consequences of the brutal war on our people in the Gaza Strip, and the barbaric attacks by (Israeli Jewish) settler gangs and occupation forces, and settlement and annexation projects in the West Bank, especially in Al-Quds.” 

2) We reject “all solutions and scenarios for the so-called ‘future of the Gaza Strip,’ and (present) a national Palestinian solution based on forming a national unity government that emerges from a comprehensive national consensus including all parties, responsible for unifying national institutions in the occupied lands in the West Bank and the Strip. 

3) We emphasize “the necessity of a ceasefire and the permanent cessation of all acts of aggression, and the complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, as a condition for discussing prisoner exchange based on the of ‘all for all’ principle. 

4) We call for the “developing and enhancing the Palestinian political system on democratic foundations, through general elections – presidential, legislative, and national council – according to a full proportional representation system, in free, fair, transparent, and democratic elections, with the participation of everyone. 

(The Palestine Chronicle)