Thousands of Palestinians took part today in a rally at Al-Katiba Square in downtown Gaza commemorating the 35th anniversary of the foundation of the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement of Hamas.
Based in Gaza, Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, defeating its nationalist rival Fatah.
Hamas was announced as an Islamic resistance movement on 14 December, 1987, just days after the eruption of the first Palestinian Intifada on 8 December, 1987, when an Israeli settler ran over a number of Palestinian workers east of Gaza, killing six of them.
Its main founder and spiritual leader is Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a quadriplegic refugee. He spent more than two decades inside Israeli occupation jails.
Sheikh Yassin was assassinated in an operation supervised directly by late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in March 2004.
