A Palestinian man walks past a mural depicting U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on November 5, 2024. (AFP)

Ramallah, November 9 (RHC)-- The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says Donald Trump’s new U.S. administration has to learn from Joe Biden’s mistakes and work seriously to stop the Israeli genocide of the people of Palestine.  Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday. 

In his victory speech, the president-elect claimed he would “end all wars.” Trump has always claimed that if he were the president, Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza would not have begun in the first place.

Hamas said in a Wednesday statement that its stance toward the upcoming US administration would depend on “its practical behavior towards our Palestinian people, their legitimate rights and their just cause.”  Trump, it said, has to "work seriously to stop the war of genocide and aggression against our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

The Palestinian resistance group urged Trump to end Israel’s hostilities in Lebanon, “stop providing military support and political cover to the Zionist entity, and to recognize the legitimate rights of our people.”

“This blind support for the Zionist entity must end because it comes at the expense of the future of our people and the security and stability of the region,” said Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau.

As Americans vote to elect their next president with Republican Donald Trump already declaring victory against his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, netizens say both are war criminals.  Hamas also promised to “continue to resist the hateful [Israeli] occupation.”

It said the people of Palestine “will not accept any path that detracts from their legitimate rights to freedom, independence, self-determination, and the establishment of their independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem (al-Quds) as its capital." 

In a controversial decision, Trump formally recognized al-Quds as the capital of Israel when he was in office in December 2017.   

Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel described Wednesday the return of his close ally to the White House as a “huge victory."

Observers say Trump will go easier on Israel than the Biden administration, which has widely supported the regime’s war machine in Gaza over the past year.