Hamas Cleric Extols Palestinian Women who "Surpass All Women, in Jihad and Martyrdom"

Hamas cleric Wael Al-Zard delivered an address in which he praised the Palestinian women for their willingness to commit Jihad and martyrdom. "The Palestinian woman... is no longer satisfied merely with equipping her sons for Jihad," he said in the address broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV on March 2, 2014. "She equips herself, prepares herself, trains herself, and takes up arms herself."

Following are excerpts:

Wael Al-Zard: The women of Palestine have surpassed all women of the world in Jihad. How could it be otherwise? We have seen the woman who prepares her son and bids him farewell, so that he could go to meet Allah as a martyr – women like the late Umm Nidhal Farahat, like Umm Bilal Rayan, wife of the late Dr. Nizal Rayan, and like many of the women of our land, Palestine.

We have also seen the woman who arms her husband with military equipment, with weapons, and with strength, sending him out of her home, and sending blessings in his wake.

We have seen the Palestinian woman who bids her brothers farewell, each promising the other that they will meet again in Paradise, Allah willing.

We have seen the Palestinian woman preparing equipment of war for her father. They give one another advice, and talk to one another, until they part ways. Perhaps they will meet again, and perhaps the meeting will take place at the river in Paradise, where the righteous sit next to the Lord.

That is the sacrifice. That is the self-sacrifice with which the women of Palestine have surpassed many Arab and Muslim women, even though today many Arab and Muslim women have joined the convoy of Jihad and martyrdom.

The Palestinian woman, in our land of Palestine, is no longer satisfied merely with equipping her sons for Jihad, with bidding her husband farewell as he sets out, or with praying for her father on one of the nights of battle. She equips herself, prepares herself, trains herself, and takes up arms herself.

We have seen the Muslim woman in our country selling her jewelry – the gold jewelry given by her husband as dowry – in order to buy the weapons with which she equipped her husband and armed her children.

She did not hesitate, and she bought a weapon for herself too.

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