Hamas official says group has ‘high ability’ to continue conflict

A senior Hamas official said yesterday that the Palestinian movement had ample resources to continue fighting Israel despite losses sustained over more than 11 months of war in Gaza.
“The resistance has a high ability to continue,” Osama Hamdan said during an interview in Istanbul.
“There were martyrs and there were sacrifices... but in return there was an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations into the resistance.”
His comments came less than a week after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told journalists that Hamas, whose October first week storming of Israel triggered the war, “no longer exists.”
“The number of casualties... is much less than what is expected in a battle of this size, level and breadth,” Hamdan said yesterday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched retaliatory military operations to destroy Hamas after the group’s surprise storming of southern Israel.
The Israeli military campaign has killed at least 41,206 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not provide breakdowns of civilian and fighters’ deaths.
Netanyahu is facing mounting domestic pressure to seal a deal in which hostages would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
But months of negotiations aimed at securing a truce have apparently stalled.
In the interview yesterday, Hamdan said the United States, Israel’s most important military backer, was not doing enough to force concessions from Netanyahu that would end the bloodshed.
“The American administration does not exert sufficient or appropriate pressure on the Israeli side,” Hamdan said. “Rather it is trying to justify the Israeli side’s evasion of any commitment.”
The war between Israel and Hamas has drawn in other groups in the Middle East, notably Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Houthi fighters in Yemen.
Yesterday the Houthis claimed a missile attack on central Israel that, while producing no casualties, triggered a rush to shelters and added to regional tensions.
Hamdan said the attack showed the limits of Israel’s ability to defend itself, including its oft-touted aerial defence system.
“It is a message to the entire region that Israel is not an immune entity,” Hamdan said.
“Even Israeli capabilities have limits.”
Hamdan also reiterated Hamas’s view that an attack earlier this month in which a Jordanian truck driver shot dead three Israeli guards at a border crossing underscored widespread anger at Israel in the region.
As for leaders who have normalised diplomatic ties with Israel or are considering doing so, Hamdan said they should ask themselves how they would feel if their countries were occupied and the world stood by and watched.
Hamdan said yesterday it was impossible to imagine a scenario in which Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar would leave the besieged territory.
Sinwar and other leaders “are ready to be martyred thousands of times in Palestine rather than leaving it because everything he is doing is to free Palestine,” Hamdan said.
Hamas has demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, including the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of land along Egypt’s border that has emerged as a key sticking point in the truce talks.