Al-Azhar to Palestinian Resistance: ‘Do not feel weak and do not grieve, you will be superior if you are true ‎believers’

Egypt’s top Sunni Islamic institute, Al-Azhar, has reiterated its support for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance in its resistance against Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.

“A kind and blessed greeting to the Palestinian resistance, and the innocent people of Gaza who represent a symbol ‎of honor and steadfastness, especially the children and enduring women there. A blessed greeting ‎to you, heroes, as you face with your emaciated bodies and bare chests such savage fire by a terrorist army ‎stripped of any sense of mercy, morality, or humanity. They have brazenly committed countless ‎brutal crimes, including bombing hospitals; destroying mosques and churches; and killing ‎children, women, media reporters, and helpless innocent citizens,” Al-Azhar said in a statement.

“Greetings to you, heroes, as you, in unswerving faith, are confronting battleships, aircraft carriers, and ‎missile launchers, drawing on your belief in Allah and showing no fear or humility in the face of ‎your enemies,” the statement added.

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“O Heroes, derive strength from the noble Quran, and seek help through the Word of Allah ‎Almighty that reads, ‘So do not feel weak and do not grieve, and you will be superior if you are true ‎believers’,” the statement continued.

Al-Azhar also praised “the noble and valorous stance of Mr. António ‎Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, as he fearlessly and forthrightly calls for the necessity of stopping ‎the aggression against the weak and oppressed people in Gaza.” 

“Salute to you [UN Chief], brave man, as you shout ‎out the word of truth and justice,” the statement said.

Al-Azhar also praised those who stand by the Palestinian people and condemn the brutal Israeli massacres committed in Gaza against children and innocent civilians.‎

It called on the governments of Arab and Muslim countries to immediately harness their capabilities, resources, and ‎power to support the Palestinians and to stop the oppression exercised against them by this usurping Zionist entity.‎

"The Zionist enemy has recently turned into a raging wolf, afflicted with the rage of killing children, women and innocents, and enjoying eating their flesh and drinking their blood without any deterrent or control. [The Zionist enemy] is encouraged to do so in silence like the silence of the dead in their graves that has struck our international world, paralyzing its will and ability to restrain this entity and put an end to its attacks of daily bloodshed of Gaza's children, women, elderly and youth," said Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb in a statement following a recent massacre committed by the Israeli occupation when it shelled Gaza's Jabalia camp on Tuesday.

Israeli occupation airstrikes destroyed an entire residential block in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. About 400 people, mainly children, were killed and injured, while a large number of people are still under the rubble. The Gaza Health Ministry spokesman said that the block was hit by six missiles with one ton of explosives each

Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb said on Friday, “What is being perpetrated by the vicious Zionist occupation in Gaza, in the form of intense bombing, killing, cutting off electricity and internet, destroying all aspects of life, and blocking information about the scale of massacres and war crimes taking place, constitutes blind terrorism and a blatant violation of legal and humanitarian conventions and norms.”

He called upon all Arab and Islamic nations and the free people of the international community to unite and “find an immediate solution and rescue the oppressed Palestinian people.”

Violence escalated between the Palestinians and Israelis on October 7, when Palestinian fighters from Hamas launched an unprecedented military operation, called Tufan Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa Flood), against Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied settlements near the Gaza Strip. The military operation is an attempt to end Israel’s violations against Palestinians, who have been deprived of their rights to their lands, and to put an end to the Israeli siege against Gazan residents and violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In response, Israel has since launched hundreds of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 8,525 people (including 3,542 children and 2,187 women) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and injuring more than 21,000 others. Meanwhile, the escalation of violence resulted in the killing of 1,400 Israelis and 3,400 others injured.