Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters, members, senior leaders and militants of the group's armed wing rallied in Gaza city on Wednesday marking the 29th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic movement.

Earlier on Wednesday, Hamas members called through mosque loudspeakers on all its supporters to gather in Gaza city's downtown.

Masked Hamas militants on dozens of four-by-four vans, dressed in military uniforms and well-equipped with various kinds of arms, drove all around city, while the crowds of Hamas supporters chanted slogans in support for their movement and waved green flags.

"In spite of the bad weather condition, these crowds came here to say that all of us are supporting Hamas, the movement that adopts the armed resistance against the occupation, which caused this occupation painful strikes over the past 29 years," Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader told the rally.

Hamas, which stands for Islamic Resistance Movement, was founded on Dec. 14, 1987, by its spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in 2004. The movement has been behind a series of bombing attacks into Israel that killed hundreds of Israelis.

Al-Hayya, who addressed the rally, said that his movement was able to force Israel to accept reaching a prisoners' swap deal with Hamas.

He added "Hamas is also able to force the occupation to reach another prisoners swap deal," referring to missing Israeli soldiers who are still into Hamas militants' grip.

Israel waged three large-scale military air and ground offensives on the Gaza Strip since 2008, the largest was in 2014 which lasted for 50 days and killed 2,200 Palestinians and 70 Israelis. The Israeli offensives on Gaza had also left large destruction in housing and infrastructure.

Hamas is a major opponent to the peace process with Israel and it had been listed by the United States and Europe among the world's terrorist organizations. Although it opposes peace with Israel, the movement joined the parliamentary elections held in 2006, and managed to oust Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party.

In the summer of 2007, Hamas had violently seized control of the Gaza Strip following weeks of internal fighting with Abbas security forces. Since then, the movement has been ruling the enclave, but the mediation efforts of Qatar, Egypt and Turkey had so far failed to end 10 years of split between Hamas and Fatah.

"One day, our armed struggle will be united in both Gaza and the West Bank," al-Hayya said, adding "we were always right when we said that peace with the occupation was absurd, therefore we should gain our unity and end the current internal division."

The senior Hamas leader called on Abbas, Fatah and the Palestinian National Authority to immediately stop security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank and give a free hand to Hamas militants to defend our people in the West Bank and in Jerusalem, calling on the PNA to release all Hamas prisoners from its jails.

source: Xinhua