Archbishop Atallah Hanna: “Israel’s threats of assassinating me and 22 other Palestinian national personalities won’t frighten us”

Head of the Sebastia Diocese of the Greek Orthodox Church in occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem), Archbishop Atallah Hanna, has stressed that the Israeli media incitement to assassinate him as well as 22 other Palestinian national personalities will not frighten them at all.

In a voice message he sent to the Syrian “Al-Thawra” newspaper via Telegram, Archbishop Hanna said “we, the threatened personalities, are trying to meet after the Zionist extremist threatened to kill us and incited to assassinate us through publishing articles in Hebrew newspapers and websites. We will issue a statement on this criminal behavior which the Israeli occupation has adopted since its establishment and we will explain our collective stance on these incitement campaigns,” stressing that the Palestinian national personalities will continue to be the voice of the Palestinian people and their living conscience until all the usurped rights are restored.

It is to be noted that Zionist threats of assassinating elite national Palestinian personalities are neither new nor strange. Over decades, the Zionist settlers and the Israeli occupation forces assassinated tens of national Palestinian personalities, threatened many others of killing just because they defended their land and people and resisted the occupation’s practices, but they have failed to undermine this resistance, according to “Al-Thawra” newspaper.

Today, the same scenario is being repeated with Archbishop Atallah Hanna and several other national Palestinian personalities after one of the Hebrew-language Israeli newspapers published a long article listing the names of the Palestinian national personalities considering them as leaders of incitement against the occupation.

Observers believe that when it reaches the level of open threat of assassination via the enemy’s newspapers, the situation will be dangerous, as the decision has already been made in the Mossad circles to assassinate symbols of the Palestinian struggle and it only needs a cover by extremist media outlets.

Hamda Mustafa