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Palestinians launch general strike over assassination of Hamas leader

Palestinian Authority chief calls for unity against Israel after Hamas leader assassinated, sparking general strike across Judea and Samaria.

By World Israel News Staff

Palestinian Arabs across Judea and Samaria launched a general strike Wednesday, in response to the assassination of Hamas politburo chairman Ismail Haniyeh hours earlier in Tehran.

In a joint statement released early Wednesday morning, secular nationalist and Islamist factions in the Palestinian Authority called the killing of Haniyeh in Iran part of a “war of extermination” by Israel, and declared a general strike in all Arab towns across Judea and Samaria.

“The national and Islamic factions in Palestine announce a comprehensive strike and anger marches to (protest) the assassination of the great national leader Ismail Haniyeh, which came in the framework of Zionist state terrorism and its war of extermination,” the Palestinian Arab factions said.

Mosques throughout Judea and Samaria used loudspeakers to mourn Haniyeh’s assassination and call for acts of “resistance” following his killing.

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas condemned Haniyeh’s assassination Wednesday as a “cowardly act and a dangerous development”, and urged Palestinian Arabs “to unite” against “the Israeli occupation.”

Jordan also issued a sharp condemnation of the killing of the Hamas leader, claiming it violated international law.

“We condemn in the strongest terms Israel’s assassination of the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh,” Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi wrote Wednesday, calling the killing “a heinous crime and a flagrant violation of international law.”

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“Israel’s continuation of its aggression against Gaza, its violation of the rights of the Palestinian people, and its crimes against them, and without international action to curb its aggression, will drag the region towards more wars and destruction.”

Haniyeh was killed at approximately 2:00 a.m. Wednesday, when a rocket was fired at his private residence in Tehran. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that Haniyeh’s bodyguard was also killed in the strike.