Tens of thousands celebrate Hamas’s founding anniversary in Gaza

Thousands of jubilant Hamas members rallied in the plaza carrying the Movement’s green flags and different placards and banners, amid chants of religious and national slogans.

Prominent national figures from other Palestinian factions attended the festival, including Ahmed Helles, member of Fatah’s central committee, and Nafed Azzam, member of Islamic Jihad’s political bureau.

Many girl and boy children were seen wearing military clothes and green headbands and caps, while others put on Palestinian scarfs (keffiyehs) and camouflage headbands of al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas and the West Bank’s “Lions’ Den” resistance group.

On the festival’s stage and behind its podium, there was a large poster of the Aqsa Mosque with a picture of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the late founder of Hamas, and the famous silhouette of Mohamed ad-Dhaif, the shadowy figure who heads Hamas’s armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades.

The poster also includes a drawing portraying crowds of people marching in large numbers into the Aqsa Mosque compound while carrying flags of Hamas and Arab countries.

In an impressive scene, dozens of armed fighters from al-Qassam Brigades’ special units marched during the festival and took the stage, while several Palestinian drones were overflying the area.