Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Thursday called for a new uprising against Israel after the United States recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, Al Jazeera reported.

“We should call for and we should work on launching an intifada [uprising] in the face of the Zionist enemy,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (pictured above) said in Gaza.

Haniyeh said that the US’ move has killed the peace process, the accord and the settlement process. “The US decision is an aggression, a declaration of war on us, on the best Muslim and Christian shrines in the heart of Palestine, Jerusalem,” he said. “Jerusalem, all of Jerusalem, is ours.”

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United States President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital breaks away from years of policy and leaves room for uncertainty in West Asia. This also begins the process of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

For decades, the United States had held that the status of Jerusalem should be decided through negotiations between Israel and Palestine, which wants East Jerusalem as the Capital of the future state. A majority of countries, including India, do not recognise Israel’s claim to the whole of Jerusalem where several Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites are located.

While Israel has called the decision “historic”, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the announcement was “deplorable”, and called Jerusalem the “eternal Capital” of the state of Palestine.

Several countries, as well as the United Nations, the European Union and the Vatican, criticised Trump’s move. Eight of the 15 current members of the UN Security Council have called for an urgent meeting by the end of the week. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was “a moment of great anxiety”, and there was “no alternative to the two-state solution” in the region.