"We express our gratitude and thanks to Kuwait's stance backing the Palestinian people in the international institutions and its preliminary position on rejecting normalization with the Israeli Occupation," the Hamas leader Ezzat al-Rishiq said. 

On his twitter account on Monday, al-Rishiq hailed the Kuwaiti long jump athlete Saleh al-Haddad for pulling out of Championship of Flanders since an Israeli athlete is participating in the long jump contest.