Tens of thousands of people rallied in central Gaza City on Saturday to mark Hamas's 20th anniversary, in a show of force six months after the Islamist movement seized control of the territory.
Waving green flags and banners, throngs of Palestinians poured into Katiba Square ahead of the rally at which Hamas leader Ismail Haniya and other officials reaffirmed their commitment to armed struggle against Israel.
"Resistance and jihad (holy struggle) is the best path to the liberation of Palestine, not negotiations and meetings, sitting at round tables and exchanging smiles and chuckles with the Jews," Haniya told the crowd.
The rally was the largest show of strength since the Islamists seized control in Gaza in June, routing forces loyal to president Mahmud Abbas and future deepening the economic and political isolation of the coastal strip. It came just a month after a similar mass rally by Abbas's Fatah movement ended in bloodshed when Hamas forces opened fire, killing several people.
But speaking from the main podium and wearing a green Hamas baseball cap Haniya again called for dialogue with his Fatah rivals "without conditions," accusing Abbas's government in the West Bank town of Ramallah of preventing a return to unity.
"We are for dialogue and we call for it and welcome it, but the door to dialogue there (in Ramallah) has been closed. We say there should be a dialogue with no winners, no losers, and no conditions," he said.
Abbas has said he is willing to return to the negotiating table with Hamas but only on the condition that it reverses what he calls its "coup" and gives control of Gaza back to his Palestine Authority. "We are ready to explore any issue," Haniya said, "but I say by God we will not accept any condition to return to negotiations."
Meanwhile Palestinian security forces said they arrested at least 26 Hamas supporters in raids across the West Bank, the latest in a series of measures aimed at dampening the Islamists' power in the territory Abbas controls.
Hamas television said that supporters in Gaza streamed in from towns and villages all across the coastal territory, home to some 1.5 million people, in cars and horse-drawn wagons, blocking streets throughout the city centre.
Tens of thousands of veiled women, masked men and children waving Hamas flags mixed in the crowd, but the exact number of people attending the rally remained unclear.
A huge banner reading "We will not recognise Israel" was placed on the backdrop of the stage in defiance of Israel's closing of Gaza to all but essential humanitarian supplies after Hamas's bloody seizure of power.
Below it hung the portraits of past Hamas leaders who had been killed by Israeli forces. Former minister and senior Hamas member Said Siam told AFP that the massive turnout "is the answer to those who say Hamas is losing ground." And top Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahar said that "our message to the world is that this movement cannot be destroyed.
"This celebration shows how in 20 years we have grown from a movement of 1,000 people to huge numbers," he told AFP. "The roots (of Hamas) stretch into the heart of the nation and into every part of the land," Mushir al-Masri, a former parliamentarian, shouted to the crowd from the podium.
"Twenty years - from the stone to the knife, from the bullet to the bomb, from the mortar to the rocket, and from the martyrdom operations (suicide bombings) to the tunnels of Hell." Hamas's exiled leader Khaled Meshaal said in comments published on the movement's website on Saturday that the Palestinians are capable of launching a new uprising against Israeli occupation like the intifadas of 1987 and 2000.
"Our people are capable of launching a third or fourth intifada until victory is ours," the Damascus-based Hamas chief said. Meshaal admitted that his movement's 20th anniversary came amid "difficult circumstances and a painful situation for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza."
In September Israel declared the territory a "hostile entity" and the following month began restricting fuel supplies, creating what the World Health Organisation described on Monday as an "intolerable" humanitarian situation.
Israel, along with the European Union and the United States, regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but in January 2006 it won an overwhelming victory over the long-dominant Fatah party in democratic parliamentary elections.
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