A senior Hamas official instructed AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian Islamist motion had ample assets to proceed preventing Israel regardless of losses sustained over greater than 11 months of conflict in Gaza.
“The resistance has a excessive capability to proceed,” Osama Hamdan instructed AFP throughout an interview in Istanbul.
“There have been martyrs and there have been sacrifices… however in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of recent generations into the resistance.”
His feedback got here lower than per week after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant instructed journalists that Hamas, whose October 7 assault triggered the conflict, “now not exists” as a navy formation in Gaza.
“The variety of casualties… is far lower than what is predicted in a battle of this dimension, stage and breadth,” Hamdan mentioned on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched retaliatory navy operations to destroy Hamas after the group’s shock assault on southern Israel, which resulted within the deaths of 1,205 individuals, largely civilians, in keeping with an AFP tally based mostly on Israeli official figures.
The Israeli navy marketing campaign has killed at the very least 41,206 individuals in Gaza, in keeping with the Hamas-run territory’s well being ministry, which doesn’t present breakdowns of civilian and militant deaths.
Militants additionally seized 251 hostages on October 7, 97 of whom are nonetheless held in Gaza, together with 33 the Israeli navy says are useless.
Netanyahu is going through mounting home stress to seal a deal wherein hostages could be launched in alternate for Palestinian prisoners.
Israel’s announcement this month that the our bodies of six hostages had been recovered from a tunnel in Gaza after they have been “executed” by Hamas spurred an outpouring of grief and anger, resulting in a short normal strike and large-scale demonstrations that continued in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Saturday evening.
However months of negotiations geared toward securing a truce — mediated by america, Egypt and Qatar — have apparently stalled.
Within the interview on Sunday, Hamdan mentioned america, Israel’s most vital navy backer, was not doing sufficient to power concessions from Netanyahu that may finish the bloodshed.
“The American administration doesn’t exert adequate or applicable stress on the Israeli facet,” Hamdan mentioned.
“Moderately it’s attempting to justify the Israeli facet’s evasion of any dedication.”
Throughout two press conferences after officers introduced the deaths of the six hostages earlier this month, Netanyahu mentioned it was Hamas who refused to compromise and vowed “to not give in to stress” on remaining sticking factors.
He additionally mentioned Israel’s navy marketing campaign had killed “a minimum of 17,000” Hamas militants.
Israel ‘not immune’
The conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas has drawn in different Iran-backed teams within the Center East, notably Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Huthi rebels in Yemen.
On Sunday the Huthis claimed a missile assault on central Israel that, whereas producing no casualties, triggered a rush to shelters and added to regional tensions.
Hamdan mentioned the assault confirmed the boundaries of Israel’s capability to defend itself, together with its oft-touted aerial defence system.
“It’s a message to the complete area that Israel will not be an immune entity,” Hamdan mentioned.
“Even Israeli capabilities have limits.”
Hamdan additionally reiterated Hamas’s view that an assault earlier this month wherein a Jordanian truck driver shot useless three Israeli guards at a border crossing underscored widespread anger at Israel within the area.
As for Arab leaders who’ve normalised diplomatic ties with Israel or are contemplating doing so, Hamdan mentioned they need to ask themselves how they might really feel if their international locations have been occupied and the world stood by and watched.
“Should you see Israel as a blessing and a acquire… give them a bit of your nation,” he mentioned, jokingly including that it may very well be known as “the brand new Israel”.
‘Day after’ planning
Hamas has dominated Gaza since 2007, however with Israel calling for the group to be eradicated it’s unclear what type it can exist in after the conflict.
Hamdan mentioned on Sunday it was unattainable to think about a state of affairs wherein Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar would depart the besieged territory.
Sinwar and different leaders “are able to be martyred hundreds of occasions in Palestine relatively than leaving it as a result of the whole lot he’s doing is to free Palestine,” Hamdan mentioned.
Hamas has demanded an entire Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, together with the Philadelphi hall, a slender strip of land alongside Egypt’s border that has emerged as a key sticking level within the truce talks.
Hamdan mentioned that Hamas needs “joint Palestinian rule” in Gaza, including that Hamas officers and representatives of different Palestinian factions would meet quickly in Cairo to debate their post-war imaginative and prescient.
“The day after the battle is a Palestinian day,” he mentioned.
(Apart from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)