In a statement released by the leftist militant group, Khalil Maqdesi, a member of the central committee, called the attack “a natural response to the ongoing racist policies and crimes of the occupation, and it is the occupation that is responsible for the escalation in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine.””The PFLP will continue to target every institution of the occupation. No place in Jerusalem should be safe so long as the Palestinian people are not safe. ‘Security’ cannot be built on the backs of the Palestinian people. The only result of the occupation attacks on Jerusalem will be continued and escalating resistance among the Palestinian masses.”

Although the statement stopped short of claiming the attack, which left five Israelis dead, it clarified PFLP’s position that “resistance” to Israeli occupation was necessary by any means necessary.

“Resistance is our only path; there is no other way in which Palestinians can liberate their land and achieve their rights. Resistance includes many methods of struggle, including, centrally, armed resistance and armed struggle. Revolutionary violence is necessary in order to confront and overthrow the colonization of our land and the confiscation of our rights,” Maqdesi said in the statement.

“We are witnessing lynchings, the targeting of Palestinians, demolishing homes, confiscating land, building colonies, taking unprecedented measures against Muslims’ and Christians’ holy sites in Jerusalem on a daily basis.”

Maqdesi also highlighted in the statement that the Jewish neighborhood of Har Nof where the synagogue attack took place was built on the ruins of the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, site of one of the worst massacres by Zionist militias in the 1948 war that led to the creation fo Israel and the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.

Maqdesi also stressed that despite the attack on the synagogue, the Palestinian struggle is one for national liberation and not against the Jewish people.

“The PFLP is not a religious organization and our resistance is not based on religious convictions. We are struggling to liberate Palestine from a settler colonial project imposed on our people. Occupiers and racists do not belong to the land of Palestine; there are, and must be, consequences and repercussions for the theft of our land and our rights.”

“The PFLP also wants to send its message to a billion and a half Muslim brothers and sisters that our fight is not with Jews and is not based on religion; it is about justice, liberation and return to the homeland, and this is your struggle,” he said in the statement.

“Our message today to the Jewish people around the world is that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was never a conflict between Muslims and Jews. Palestine has embraced the Jewish community for hundreds of years. What stands between us is this colonial project.”

“We know that thousands of Jews around the world are true and genuine voices for the struggle, leading boycott movements and joining the Palestinian struggle for liberation on a daily basis. We salute each and every one of them,” he added.

The PFLP on Wednesday and Thursday organized celebrations throughout Gaza Strip for the attack.

They raised Palestinian and PFLP flags as well as posters of the two Palestinians who carried out the attacks while handing out sweets.

PFLP central committee member Sameer Bakir said on the occasion: “Everyone was waiting for who can stop this cancer growing in Jerusalem.”

“The Palestinian presidency’s condemnation of the operation which came as a natural response to the menacing of settlers and excessive crime is deplorable,” he added, stressing the larger context of Israeli colonization and discrimination against Palestinians in Jerusalem.

PFLP leader in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis Hani al-Thawabta, meanwhile, said that armed resistance is the only path to freeing all Palestinian land.