A senior Hamas leader Tuesday called for a third intifada and the resumption of suicide bombings against Israel.
Ahmed Halabiyeh, director of the Jerusalem Department in Hamas, said that armed Palestinian groups, including Hamas, should initiate a confrontation with Israel over its plans to build new houses in Jerusalem and its suburbs.
The Palestinians, he added, should resort to various methods of resistance, first and foremost "martyrdom operations in the heart of Israel."
Abu Halabiyeh urged Palestinians to "ignite a third intifada to save the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem."
He told reporters in Gaza City that the "enemy was waging a fierce onslaught on Jerusalem and accelerating plans to Judaize the city geographically and demographically."
Israel, he charged, was spreading the "cancer of settlements to all parts of Jerusalem."
The Hamas official also accused Israel of working to undermine the foundations of the Aqsa mosque to bring about its collapse so that it could replace it with the Third Temple.
He also urged Arabs and Muslims to declare a state of full mobilization to "liberate Jerusalem, the Aqsa Mosque and Palestine."
The call came on the heels of an arrest of two PFLP terror cell members plotting to kidnap Israelis to secure the release of the organization's leader Ahmed Sa'adat, who is serving a 30-year sentence in Israeli jail.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited the IDF’s Central Command and was briefed on the escalation of Palestinian violence in east Jerusalem and the West Bank in recent weeks.