Palestinian factions condemn UAE Embassy inauguration in Israel as ‘treason’, ‘great sin’
The Gaza-based resistance movements condemned the inauguration of the UAE Embassy in Israel, describing it as “treason” and a “great sin” against the Palestinian people, Al Mayadeen reported.
The UAE officially inaugurated its embassy in Israel, less than a year after the two sides agreed to establish formal relations under a Us-brokered deal.
The inauguration ceremony on Wednesday was hosted by the UAE Ambassador to Israel Mohammad al-khaja, with the regime’s President Isaac Herzog in attendance, according to Press TV.
The embassy is situated in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange building, also known as the Bursa.
Israel opened its embassy in the Emirati capital in late June. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid inaugurated the Israeli Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Israeli Consulate in Dubai during a two-day visit.
In reaction to the UAE’S move, the Hamas resistance movement issued a statement saying, “The opening of the UAE Embassy in Israel is an insistence on [committing] a great sin against the people of Palestine and the entire region, who completely reject any form of dealing and normalization with the Zionist regime.”
It added, even more dangerous is that this behavior comes from the UAE in the aftermath of the Zionist regime’s terrorist attacks and aggression against the Palestinian people and their sanctities, in which innocent civilians were massacred and houses were reduced to rubble with people inside them before the eyes of the entire world.
Hamas said the UAE’S move is tantamount to legitimizing the Zionist enemy and encouraging it to perpetrate more crimes against the Palestinian people and forge ahead with its racist and extremist plans.
Before long, the likes of the UAE, which have normalized ties with Israel, will realize what a grave crime they have committed against their own people and those of the region, the statement added.
Hamas noted, “We stress the necessity of abandoning this dangerous Emirati policy, and taking efforts to correct this wrong path.”
In addition, spokesman of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement Tariq Salmi said in a press statement that it will
be recorded in history that at a time when the occupiers and usurpers were accelerating their crimes in Al-quds, demolition of houses and attacks on Al-aqsa Mosque, the Emirati rulers were opening their embassy in the occupied lands.
He added, “This embassy may have been built on the ruins of a house or piece of land belonging to a Palestinian family that had been abandoned or destroyed during the 1948 Palestinian exodus (also known as Nakba).”
In reaction to the same issue, a member of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s Central Committee, Abbas Zaki, said Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed is a traitor, and the UAE must be expelled from the Arab League due to normalizing ties with Israel.
Israel and the UAE have signed a raft of deals in various areas, ranging from tourism to aviation and financial services, since they signed the normalization agreement in August last year.
Israeli ministers had previously visited the UAE, but Lapid is the most senior Israeli diplomat to have made the trip, and the first to travel on an official mission.
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed agreements with the Emirati foreign minister and Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani during an official ceremony hosted by former US president Donald Trump at the White House on September 15 last year.
Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Al-quds as its capital, view the deals as a betrayal of their cause.