Hamas: Netanyahu will face defeat ‘greater than what he fears’ in Gaza
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu against any plans to expand the regime’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip after more than three weeks of incessant bombardments in the besieged area.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Gaza-based movement’s military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, issued the warning after Netanyahu announced what he claimed to be the “second stage” of a ground incursion by the Israeli occupation army into Gaza.
“We are still waiting for him,” Abu Ubaida said in a video statement. “We will make him taste, by the strength of God, a defeat greater than what he expects or fears.”
The al-Qassam spokesman also hit out at Arab countries for a lack of humanitarian assistance to the besieged Gaza Strip and said the occupying regime was to blame for the failure to achieve an agreement over a prisoner swap with Palestinians.
“To the leaders of our Arab nations…We do not ask you to mobilize your armies and tanks, God forbid, to defend the children of Arabs and Islam in Gaza,” Abu Ubaida said. “But have you reached the point where you cannot send relief and humanitarian aid?”
The spokesman stressed that there were “numerous contacts regarding the prisoner issue,” and a chance to strike a deal; however, Israel was not willing to agree to the terms of the agreement, which focused on the release of 200 Israeli captives being held by the brigades, as well the rest who were kept by other Palestinian resistance factions.
The al-Qassam Brigades previously announced that around 50 of the captives had been killed in the Israeli war on Gaza.
