The head of Hamas resistance movement in the occupied West Bank says Palestinians have the right to resist the occupying Israeli regime, and are resolved to continue the path of resistance despite hardships.

“The Palestinian people have no other option” but to resist, Zaher Jabarin told al Jazeera on Tuesday.

He added that the Palestinian people have proven that they don’t care about Israeli threats, stressing that they won’t surrender, despite all the Israeli crimes.

The Hamas official reiterated the Palestinians’ right to resist the Israeli occupation by all means.

Referring to the incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque compound by extremist Israeli officials, Jabarin described the situation as “a religious war.”

He stressed that the major battle will be over al-Aqsa Mosque and al-Quds, noting that the Israeli plots against the holy site will fail.

“Let [Israel’s minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir know that his fate will be like that of all the extremists who attacked our sanctities. Ben-Gvir’s fate will be like that of Ze’evi,” he said, in an apparent reference to Rehavam Ze’evi, an Israeli minister who was killed in 2001.  

On August 13, Ben-Gvir joined hundreds of settlers who intruded into the mosque compound in the occupied East al-Quds. 

During his recent provocative visit, Ben-Gvir said that it was his “policy” to allow Jewish prayers on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third-holiest site where only Muslims are allowed to pray under a status quo arrangement originally reached more than a century ago.

This week, Ben-Gvir also revealed his intention to build a Jewish synagogue inside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

He said that if he could, he would build a synagogue on the al-Asqa Mosque complex.

Jabarin urged Muslim scholars across the world to perform their duty to defend al-Aqsa and Islamic holy sites.

He also stressed the importance of unity among Palestinians to resist the occupation, amid the current difficult circumstances.

Regarding the talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Jabarin blamed Israel’s prime minister for the lack of an agreement, saying Benjamin Netanyahu wants to prolong the war in order to achieve his personal interests. Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019.

Jabarin’s remarks come as negotiations are underway in Egypt to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

Months of on-off talks have failed to yield an agreement to end Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged strip.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 40,476 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 93,647 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

Since the start of Israel’s aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip in October, the West Bank has also seen a rise in violence from Israeli forces and settlers that claimed the lives of hundreds of Palestinians.