Brooklyn, New York, Aug. 11 – A hundred people gathered in the Bay Ridge neighborhood to honor the late Ismail Haniyeh. The Palestinian leader was assassinated in Tehran by the Zionist apartheid regime on July 31. Three of his sons and four grandchildren were murdered in Gaza in an Israeli air strike in April.
Haniyeh was born in 1962 in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp, where his family lived after being driven from their home in the occupied Palestinian city of Ashkelon in 1948.
The vigil and Salatul Ghaib (a funeral prayer) was called by PAL Awda, New York / New Jersey: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition.
A leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, Haniyeh had been a key negotiator in the talks to stop the genocide being committed in Gaza by Netanyahu and Biden.
The foul murder of Ismail Haniyeh shows that the Zionist occupiers and its Pentagon backers want that genocide to continue.
Haniyeh’s assassination was as if Nixon and Kissinger decided to murder Lê Đức Thọ, the leading Vietnamese negotiator, at the Paris Peace Talks.
The vigil opened with a statement from PAL Awda:
“We send our condolences to Palestine and Palestinians across the world, for whom this loss is a national and personal tragedy as much as it is a political and legal crime. The Honorable Ismael Haniyeh lived a life in sacrifice and service to Palestinians with profound love and humility. He endured the most difficult conditions, lived a life in struggle, and under constant threat of assassination for his sacrifice and service to protecting the lives and lands of Palestinians. A life he was forced to live by the criminal and sadistic zionist project which has perpetrated the worst crimes seen in modern history for 76 years. Despite this, and in a show of epic mercy, patience, and peacefulness, the Honorable Haniyeh spent decades trying to broker peace.
“For all that he was, he was deeply beloved as a father, son and brother by Palestinians and all who met and worked with him. The Honorable Haniyeh was known for his depth of kindness and his affectionate demeanor. He truly embodied the traits of the most committed of freedom fighters and servants of the people. For this, he remains the last democratically elected leader in Palestine, to date.”
The statement held “the entire U.S. ruling class responsible” for Haniyeh’s assassination. “While the ICC has issued seven charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Benjamin Netanyahu,” less than a week before the murder, “Washington shamelessly welcomed and honored him at Congress. President Biden, Vice President Harris and GOP candidate Trump all met with him privately.”
A message was read from Lamis Deek, a human rights attorney and leader in the Palestinian community, denouncing Haniyeh’s murder. Omowale Clay, chairman of the December 12th Movement, praised Ismail Haniyeh as a leader dedicated to liberating Palestinians. Rabbi Weiss of Neturei Karta, who attended Haniyeh’s funeral in Qatar, condemned Zionism and its apartheid regime.
While an estimated 700 million people around the world have taken part in prayers to honor Haniyeh, corporate-owned social media in the U.S. censored publicity for the New York vigil.
The mourners marched a short distance through the community to a masjid, where prayers were held. Ismail Haniyeh will not be forgotten.
As the PAL Awda statement concluded, “In the words of the late Fred Hampton, Black Panther leader and Field Marshal of the Illinois Chapter who was murdered in 1969 by Chicago PD: ‘You can kill a revolutionary, but you can’t kill the revolution.'”
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