Osama bin Laden called on Palestinians on Thursday to use "iron and fire" to end the Israeli blockade of Gaza Strip. In an audiotape broadcast by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite channel on Thursday, al Qaeda leader urged Muslims to keep up the struggle against U.S. forces in Iraq as a path to "liberating Palestine".
"My speech is about the Gaza siege and the way to retrieve it and the rest of Palestine from the hands of the Zionist enemy," he said.
Bin Laden slammed attempts to achieve reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. "Palestine cannot be retaken by negotiations and dialogue, but with fire and iron," he said.
According to him, Arab leaders were accomplices in Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip. "We tell our brothers in Palestine who could not join the jihad in the land of al-Quds (Jerusalem), to get rid of illusions of political parties and groups which are mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy and to take their positions among the ranks of the mujahideen in Iraq," he said.
