From the Liveblog of
Sunday, November 26, 2023
Ramallah crowd chants Hamas slogans as it celebrates return of Palestinian prisoner
Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel
A crowd in Ramallah welcomes one of the 39 Palestinian prisoners released today as part of the truce deal between Israel and the terror group Hamas.
In a video of the street celebrations that erupt when the prisoner arrives in the city, the young man is filmed among the crowd hugging his mother, a green Hamas flag wrapped around his head. The mother shouts, “With our soul, with our blood, we will redeem you Hamas,” prompting the crowd to chant the same slogan.
In Ramallah, mother of a Palestinian prisoner released during the Israel-Hamas truce chants "With our soul and blood we will redeem you, Hamas" pic.twitter.com/a8maTv10mp
— Gianluca Pacchiani (@GLucaPacchiani) November 26, 2023
The phrase is a common Palestinian chant, usually applied to the redemption of the al-Aqsa mosque.
Another video from the mass gathering shows a woman shouting, “We did not come here to celebrate, but rather to cheer and show our loyalty to the resistance [i.e., Hamas] and Gaza.”
The green banner of the terror group is not commonly displayed in Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority under the control of Fatah, a rival group to Hamas, but has frequently appeared in images released over the past three nights from celebrations for released prisoners.
