Every Palestinian family feels the effects of the international embargo. But the more the pressure on the government grows, the more support we receive, both from the Palestinian street and from the Arab and Islamic world.

The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine – all of Palestine, Allah willing.

Which Israel should we recognize? The Israel of 1917; the Israel of 1936; the Israel of 1948; the Israel of 1956; or the Israel of 1967? Which borders and which Israel? Israel has to recognize first the Palestinian state and its borders and then we will know what we are talking about.

When I said a few weeks ago that our people would eat cooking oil and olives if necessary, I didn't mean that there really would be only oil and olives. What I meant was that our people have the necessary patience to endure the current difficult situation. Palestinians would rather do without certain food items than their national rights.

Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.

We are pushing towards the dream of having our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. If there is a real project that aims to resolve the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under full Palestinian sovereignty, we will support it.

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a supposedly 'legitimate' state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.