GAZA CITY (AFP) – Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza City on Sunday to mark the 21st anniversary of the creation of the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Busloads of demonstrators flooded into the city from across the densely populated territory, waving the green flags of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
The head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, addressed the rally, which was intended as a show of strength.
Hamas political supremo Khaled Meshaal said on Sunday it was unlikely that a truce with Israel in and around the Gaza Strip would be renewed when it expires next week.
""Khaled Meshaal said that it is most likely that the truce will not be renewed,"" Hamas said in a statement, adding that the comments were made in a television interview.
The comments by Meshaal, who lives in exile in Damascus, came as Israeli and Egyptian officials met in Cairo on renewing the six-month truce which was agreed under Egyptian mediation in June.
Hamas accuses Israel of failing to honor its side of the bargain by easing its crippling blockade of aid-dependent Gaza.
“There is no sense in extending the truce while the enemy is not respecting it and is keeping Gaza in a state of siege,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum, without saying whether the Islamic Resistance Movement intended to declare it over.
Israeli defense ministry official Amos Gilad, who led the Israeli side in the Egyptian-brokered negotiations for the original truce, was in Cairo on Sunday for talks on extending it.
Despite a spate of tit-for-tat attacks since November 4 that has prompted some Israeli ministers to call for a major ground offensive against Gaza, Gilad has repeatedly spoken out in favor of extending the truce, arguing that there is no military solution.
“Experience shows that military operations don't always solve problems in the Middle East,” he said late last month. “You have to find the optimal solution. To date no appropriate military solution has been found for the Strip.”-