Jumblat Slams Israel Raids on Gaza: Murderer Regimes are Alike

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat on Tuesday called on the Palestinian people to “hold on to their rights and to continue the struggle,” condemning the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and describing him as “an expert in bloodletting.”

“Netanyahu – who is an expert in bloodletting – is pouring out all his wrath on besieged Gaza after he failed to market his idea about a military strike against Iran,” Jumblat said in a communiqué issued by the PSP.

Israel and Palestinian factions in Gaza began observing an Egyptian-brokered truce on Tuesday after four days of violence, which officials on both sides warned could flare up again.

The ceasefire was holding after more than 72 hours of cross-border fighting in which 25 Palestinians were killed and 200 rockets were fired at Israel.

Jumblat noted that the Israeli airstrikes were aimed at “frustrating the inter-Palestinian national reconciliation” between the Islamist Hamas Movement which rules Gaza and the secular Fatah Movement led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Druze leader stressed that reconciliation remains “the cornerstone for the path of the Palestinian national struggle.”

In an indirect attack against Syria, Jumblat said there was “resemblance between regimes that have practiced for decades and is still practicing mass murder, political assassinations and physical liquidation, and regimes practicing a policy of collective punishment against the entire Palestinian people and committing mass murders and systematic assassinations against the Palestinian leaders.”

“The frequent Israeli adventures will not prevent the steadfast Palestinian people from continuing its struggle for the sake of achieving its legitimate rights,” Jumblat added.

He stressed that the Palestinian people “is aware of its national interest and the means to maintain its struggle more than anyone else, in a manner that does not allow the Palestinian cause to be exploited … by regimes in the region seeking to serve their interests.”