Hamas, the Gaza-ruling Palestinian terrorist group, has banned New Year celebrations throughout the Gaza Strip. While hotels and restaurants are allowed to host festivities a day earlier or a day later, those businesses and individuals are prohibited from celebrating on January 1.
“Celebrating the new year contradicts the instructions of Islamic religion,” said Police spokesman Ayman Batniji. “It’s a Western custom that we don’t accept in Gaza.”
“The interior ministry and police department did not give permits to any restaurants, hotels or halls for end-of-year parties,” he said.
Adding another reason for why Gazans should not celebrate the new year, he advised fellow Palestinians to show “solidarity with the families of the martyrs of the Jerusalem intifada.” The police spokesman is referring to deceased Palestinian terrorists, most of whom attempted to end the lives of innocent Jewish men, women, and children.
Up to 136 Palestinians have been killed in foiled terror plots since October 1. Palestinian leadership has successfully activated much of its population, with senior officials in both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas falsely claiming the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is under siege by Israelis.
Hamas took power in Gaza in 2006 and shortly thereafter, in order to comply with Islamic customs, banned alcohol and other items in order to become more subservient to their religion.
Hamas is planning to escalate its jihadi tactics into the coming year, and its radicals are planning suicide bomb attacks against high-ranking Israeli officials, Hamas terrorists told Arabic media on Thursday.
A Hamas official told Al-Akhbar, a Lebanese paper connected to terror group Hezbollah, that they are considering activating sleeper cells in the West Bank to target Israeli Jews. The paper quoted Hussam Badran, a Hamas spokesman, who said that 2016 would bring in a new round of “resistance operations” against the Jewish state.
Fatah, the Palestinian jihadi outfit that controls Palestinian territory in the West Bank, is celebrating the new year in a different manner: by reminding social media followers of its 51 year terror campaign against Israel. The group has taken to Facebook and Twitter, writing threatening posts that include images of bullets, knives, and rifles.
“We march, we are not afraid of the fire and we do not fear death. With blood we will redeem the homeland and saturate its ground,” said one of the postings.
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