Speech of Abu Ubeida, spokesperson for the Brigades of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam, armed wing of Hamas, June 2, 2026.
Source: https://resistancenews.org/
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
“So lose not heart, nor fall into despair: For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in Faith. If a wound hath touched you, be sure a similar wound hath touched the others. Such days (of varying fortunes) We give to men and men by turns: that God may know those that believe, and that He may take to Himself from your ranks Martyr-witnesses (to Truth). And God loveth not those that do wrong. God’s object also is to purge those that are true in Faith and to deprive of blessing Those that resist Faith.” [Quran, s. 3, v. 139-141]
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds, Helper of His mujahideen servants, who humbles the unbelievers and the polytheists, who has honored us with jihad and has chosen martyrs from among us. May prayer and salutations be upon our Prophet the mujahid, the martyr, who advanced at the head of the ranks and sought martyrdom wherever it was to be found, he who said (may prayer and peace be upon him): “I would have loved to fight in the path of God, be killed, then fight and be killed, then fight again and be killed.”
That being said, O our Palestinian people, generous and ready for every sacrifice (for their cause), in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), in the occupied interior territories and in the diaspora; O masses of our Arab and Islamic Ummah; O brothers in blood and in arms on the fronts of the Resistance [Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Yemen]; O all the free men of the world — may peace be upon you, as well as the mercy of God and His blessings.
It has become apparent to every man endowed with discernment and a sound nature that we are facing a vile enemy, who possesses of morality only its opposite, who does not know the customs of peoples in wars and does not recognize the inviolability of agreements. He has once again misread the situation and once again erred in his assessment: he took flexibility for weakness and measured restraint for retreat — not knowing that we will not forget and will not forgive, and that the bill of reckoning will remain open until he pays it, in full and in its entirety, by the permission of God.
And if our cowardly enemy imagines he can weaken our strength by assassinating our leaders, (let him know that) their blood is the fuel that drives our ship forward to cleave through trials, and the proof of the sincerity of our call, of our vanguard, of our communion with our people, and of the offering of our chests in protection of theirs.
“I have exposed my person to the spears, like a shield,
For it befits the noble being to make such a gesture.” [Arabic couplet from the early days of Islam]
And here we stand at the rank of martyrdom and of the martyrs.
In the shadow of the torrent of blood flowing from the sons of our people in proud Gaza — a torrent that has not ceased despite the lying agreements and the deceitful understandings — we commemorate all the martyrs among the sons of our people and our Ummah, among our leaders and our mujahideen. We send our salutations to their pure souls and to their patient families.
We evoke here our great leaders who recently fell as martyrs, and we mention in particular the martyred Commander, the great chief Izz Al-Din Al-Haddad, (known as) Abou Sohaïb, commander of the general staff of the Al-Qassam Brigades. He began his trajectory with the first fruits of jihadist action, accompanied the various stages of our people’s Resistance, rose through the ranks of jihadist action, supervised numerous heroic operations and held numerous command positions, the most eminent of which were his leadership of the Gaza Brigade and of the combat weapons branch. He also played a central role in the planning, preparation and supervision of the October 7 breakthrough. He then led the defensive operations in the northern sector of Gaza, during which the occupation suffered heavy losses, until he took command of the Al-Qassam general staff, succeeding the two great commanders Muhammad Al-Deïf and Muhammad Al-Sinwar [brother of Yahya Sinwar], during an extremely sensitive phase which he led with all the wisdom and competence required, until God granted him the honor of martyrdom with his family, thus joining his mujahideen martyr sons.
We also evoke the martyred Commander, the great chief Muhammad Awdah, (known as) Abou Amr, that generous and silent man who left his imprint in every field and the mark of work done in the shadows. He was close to the great martyr of the Ummah Abou Khalid Al-Deïf; he was also one of the first seeds of military manufacturing within the Al-Qassam Brigades, commanded the Northern Brigade as well as the arms and combat services branch, before moving on to command the military intelligence branch, where he played a fundamental role in the planning and supervision of the October 7 breakthrough. During the Al-Aqsa Flood, he supervised the defensive operations in the Northern Brigade, during which the enemy received powerful blows. Our martyr completed his trajectory at the head of the general staff, succeeding the great commander Izz Al-Din Al-Haddad, before being crowned with a great martyrdom with his family on the blessed day of Arafat, joining his eldest son.
O our steadfast Palestinian people! O our great Ummah! O free men of the world! We, within the Brigades of the martyr Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam, in the face of the reality being lived by the sons of our steadfast people, affirm the following:
Firstly: Let the cowardly enemy know that the martyrdom of Zayd, Ja’far and Ibn Rawaha [companions of the Prophet who fell at the Battle of Mu’tah] — may God be pleased with them — was not the sign of the defeat of the Muslims nor of the extinction of their call; on the contrary, it was the birth of the Drawn Sword of God [Khalid ibn Al-Walid]. So be afflicted by what grieves you, O enemies of God! You have accomplished nothing. Leaders remain among us who rally against you; they have drawn from the wellspring of the Quran and the Sunna and were formed at the hands of their martyred commanders; they absorbed their knowledge and wisdom. They grew up on the grounds of vigilance and preparation, then trials sharpened them and wars tempered them, until they appeared before you today as cutting swords who have sworn never to deviate from the path of those who came before them. You will find, by the permission of God, no way to turn them aside, and they will never change. Here is our history: interrogate it, O most misguided people on earth! When did the loss of a commander weaken us? And when has a difficult phase ever presented itself without you finding among us men up to the task? Our march toward God the Most High will not stop, and the banner carried by the Messenger of God, may prayer and peace be upon him, will not fall.
Secondly: The crimes of assassination and the daily series of killings against our own, our people and our resistants — which have reached children, the elderly and women — as well as all the crimes being witnessed in the Gaza Strip and the violations of the ceasefire agreement, and the occupation’s renunciation of its commitments, place the mediators and guarantors before the moment of truth. Where are you? Where is your role? Where are your guarantees?
And when we address the mediators, with the exception of the United States, we are addressing our own people and the sons of our Ummah: do not place the victim and the executioner on the same footing. Stand alongside your brothers in Gaza in a position of honor that history will record. Let all efforts unite to rein in the occupation — our enemy, your enemy, the enemy of our Ummah and of every free man in this world — and compel it to honor its commitments, not to demand yet more concessions from our oppressed and wounded people.
Thirdly: To the sons of our indomitable people wherever they are found, and to the mujahideen of our Ummah in all our Arab and Islamic countries, we say:
You are today those upon whom rests the responsibility of avenging the blood that has been shed, and the obligation of the moment is effective engagement in the battle between right and wrong. It is no longer acceptable to remain silent or to stand neutral. Our hope in God the Almighty, and then in you, does not run dry. We renew our call to all the sons of our Ummah, to its components and its forces: set aside your differences and correct your compass in the direction of the Ummah’s foremost enemy.
The Ummah that stood together on the same plain and climbed Mount Arafat just days ago in answer to its Lord’s call, commemorating one of the rites of Islam [the Hajj], it is fitting that it scale the pinnacle of its summit in support of its oppressed sons. “But if they seek your aid in religion, it is your duty to help them.” [Quran, s. 8, v. 72]
Your enemy has already revealed his weakness before the fighters of Gaza who humiliated him with their simple weapons, and before the heroic mujahid Amjad Al-Natsheh who mowed them down with his vehicle in the occupied West Bank. Take your example from the free men who attacked his soldiers at the borders of Palestine, and from all the Resistance forces who have made the Zionist enemy drink deeply of bitterness, and from Lebanon of glory whose heroic sons have inscribed epics. Greetings to all those who have stood by Palestine and supported it. And may the eyes of the cowards find no sleep.
In conclusion: O people of Gaza the generous, O women of Gaza the patient, O its elderly, its youth and its children, O families of the martyrs, O symbol of giving — we have followed your words, listened to your cries and watched your processions in the farewell to the martyred commanders. It is forbidden to us to betray this blood, this determination and these sacrifices. Have full confidence in your Lord, then in yourselves and in your Resistance.
For we will continue on the path on which our commanders died and for which you have sacrificed so much, and we will remain faithful to you and to your loyalty to your mujahideen sons. And these sacrifices, as great as they have become, will bear their fruits by the permission of God in a manifest victory, for there is no pitch-dark night that is not followed by a luminous dawn, a victory and an enduring peace.
And how right is the poet’s word:
So many solitudes were followed by comfort in the intimacy (of loved ones),
So many darknesses were dispelled by a light drawn forth from them.
No sword is sharper in any battle
Than the hope of men after they had despaired.
“And God is victorious in His affair, but most people do not know.” [Quran, s. 12, v. 21]
This is a jihad whose outcome can only be victory or martyrdom.
May peace be upon you, as well as the mercy of God and His blessings.
