'Gaza violence similar to uprising in Warsaw ghetto,' says Hamas official

Hamas senior official Mahmoud al-Zahar compared Hamas fighting against Israel to the Jewish uprising against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.

"Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world's largest open-air prison, can do no less," he wrote in an opinion piece published Thursday by the Washington Post.

Last week's attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot, he wrote, "should not surprise the West. Palestinians are fighting a total war waged on us by a nation that mobilizes against our people with every means at its disposal – from its high-tech military to its economic stranglehold, from its falsified history to its judiciary that "legalizes" the infrastructure of apartheid. Resistance remains our only option.

"The US-Israeli alliance has sought to negate the results of the January 2006 elections, when the Palestinian people handed our party a mandate to rule. Hundreds of independent monitors, Carter among them, declared this the fairest election ever held in the Arab Middle East. Yet efforts to subvert our democratic experience include the American coup d'etat that created the new sectarian paradigm with Fatah and the continuing warfare against and enforced isolation of Gazans," he added.

Al-Zahar went to accuse Israel of the escalating situation, saying the "escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis 'peace conference' in November has been consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment – in violation of international conventions.