Hamas Official Mahmoud Al-Zahar Visits Mandela's Prison Cell and Says to Palestinian Prisoners: You Will Drive out the Occupation and Rule Your Country like Mandela Did

A Hamas delegation visited Nelson Mandela's prison cell in South Africa. In a short video recorded during the visit, Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar compared Mandela's cell to Israeli prison cells. He said that Allah had decided that Mandela would get out of prison in the same way that He decided that the Palestinian prisoners will get out of prison and drive out the occupation. He also said that spending time in prison cells is a way to get closer to Allah, and encouraged Palestinians prisoners that they will eventually rule their country like Mandela did. The video was uploaded to the Internet on December 1, 2018.

Mahmoud Al-Zahar: In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. We are in the place where the fighter Nelson Mandela spent his days, a cell that is no more than two by two and a half meters, with this blanket and iron bars that resemble the iron bars in Israeli prison cells in which we, as Palestinians, have spent long years – the Saraya prison, the Ashkelon prison… Allah had decided that this prisoner [Mandela] would get out of prison, as He has decided that we would get out of our prisons and drive out the occupation. This is a message to every mujahid who wages Jihad for the sake of his land and his country: These locks and these prisons are not eternal. Spending time in these places is a way of getting closer to Allah. There is symbolism in Nelson Mandela becoming the president of a big country. To our brothers in the prisons of the Israeli occupation I say: Allah willing, you will get out of your prisons and rule the country, just like Mandela got out of prison and ruled this country.