Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal ended decades of exile from Palestinian land on 8 December with a triumphal first ever visit to the Gaza Strip. After passing through the Egyptian border crossing, Meshaal knelt and touched the ground with his forehead, offering up a prayer of thanks. He was then greeted by dozens of officials from an array of competing factions. Meshaal attended a mass rally that has been billed as both a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas and a “victory” celebration following the November fighting. Israel rejects Hamas’s assertion that it won the conflict, which killed some 170 Palestinians and six Israelis.
Speaking to reporters, Meshaal said his arrival in Gaza was like a rebirth that followed on from his natural birth in the nearby West Bank in 1956 and a second that was his narrow escape from an Israeli assassination squad in 1997.
Meshaal vowed never to recognise Israel and said his party would never abandon its claim to all Israeli territory. “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on an inch of the land,” he told a sea of supporters at an open-air rally. “We will never recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation and therefore there is no legitimacy for Israel, no matter how long it will take.”