Hamas leader rejects ceding ‘an inch of’ Palestine

In a speech in Gaza marking the 25th anniversary of the Islamist group's founding, Khaled Meshaal said: "Palestine is our land and nation from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, from north to south, and we cannot cede an inch or any part of it."

"Resistance is the right way to recover our rights, as well as all forms of struggle -- political, diplomatic, legal and popular, but all are senseless without resistance," he said.

On Palestinian unity, he said: "We are a single authority, a single reference, and our reference is the PLO, which we want united."

He was referring to the Palestine Liberation Organisation which, in the eyes of the international community, is the sole body that purports to speak for all the Palestinian people."

In 2006, Hamas won a landslide general election victory, routing Abbas's long-dominant Fatah party.

Some 18 months later, Hamas ousted Fatah forces from Gaza after several weeks of running street battles, and the Islamist group now rules it. As a result, Abbas now holds sway only over the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Meshaal entered Gaza from Egypt on Friday on his first ever visit and his first to the Palestinian territories since 1975, accompanied by his deputy Mussa Abu Marzuk.

He spoke at a rally organisers said was attended by more than 100,000 supporters in the Al-Qitaba complex west of Gaza City, which was transformed into a sea of green Hamas flags.

The celebrations come just over two weeks after an Egyptian-brokered truce ended eight days of bloodshed with Israel which left 174 Palestinians dead.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ofir Gendelman, retorted on Twitter that Hamas was celebrating "25 years of murdering Israelis by rockets and suicide bombings, as well as executing Fatah members and violating Pal human rights."