RAMALLAH
Palestinian resistance faction Hamas on Wednesday called for escalation against Israel in the occupied West Bank following the death on Tuesday of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail and the Israeli killing on Wednesday of another Palestinian near Ramallah.
Hamas said escalations should be made "by any means necessary," calling on supporters to turn the two slain men's funeral processions "into a revolution."
"Israel commits its crimes under the cover of international conspiracy and Arab silence," Hamas said in a statement.
"Israel gives its defeated army and hordes of settlers a license to do whatever they want in the West Bank, where they murder and detain our people," it added.
A Palestinian detainee died in Israel's southern Eshel Prison on Tuesday, triggering a hunger strike the following day by nearly 7,000 Palestinian prisoners.
And early Wednesday, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire during clashes with Israeli troops in the Al-Ammari refugee camp near Ramallah.
Hamas urged unity among Palestinians with a view to supporting fellow Palestinians killed or detained by Israeli authorities.
Israel launched a massive detention campaign in the occupied West Bank following the June 12 disappearance and killing of three Jewish settlers.
Around 2,000 Palestinians have since been detained and 40 others killed by Israeli forces.
About 500,000 Israelis now live in more than one hundred Jewish-only settlements built since Israel seized the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "occupied territories" and considers all Jewish settlement building on the land illegal.
The Palestinians want these areas, along with the Gaza Strip, for an eventual independent state of Palestine.
By Qais Abu Samra
englishnews@aa.com.tr
www.aa.com.tr/en
