HAMAS political bureau member, Osama Hamdan, reiterated his Movement’s position on the formation of a national unity government capable of running the Palestinian affairs, describing this option as a ‘priority to close ranks in the face of the current challenges’.
In press remarks on Monday, Hamdan said that Hamas and Fatah officials agreed in their last meeting in Cairo on the need to form a committee to manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip.
However, the meetings that were supposed to be held later to make arrangements in this regard were postponed due to certain developments on the ground, most notably the martyrdom of Hamas political bureau chief Yehya as-Sinwar.
In another context, Hamdan pointed out that the Israeli occupation regime seeks through ceasefire negotiations to achieve what it failed to do on the ground, stressing that what the Israelis want to get through the negotiation rounds is ‘unacceptable and impossible’.
‘The occupation aims to get back the captives being held by the resistance through pressure,’ Hamdan said.
‘It wants the resistance to raise the white flag and surrender first and then decide whether to stop the war or not.’
The Hamas official affirmed that Hamas is keen on putting an end to the Israeli aggression against its people in Gaza, but he said that the talk about a temporary truce for five days and then resuming fighting cannot serve its people’s interests.
He highlighted that the ongoing battle in Gaza is related to the file of the prisoners, warning that ‘the lives of Israeli captives become in danger if the resistance fighters who take care of them went missing.’
Another senior Hamas official says the Israeli regime would not have been capable of pressing ahead with its brutal war of genocide against the Gaza Strip without US and Western support.
Speaking to reporters, Sami Abu Zurhi, a high-ranking spokesman for the Palestinian resistance movement, said that the support had taken ‘the form of financial and military aid, as well as political and media backing’.
‘We hold the US administration fully responsible for the massacres and crimes committed by the Zionist occupation against our people,’ he said.
The official strongly condemned imposition of sanctions by the US Treasury Department against several Hamas leaders and its labelling the movement’s legitimate resistance operations as ‘terrorism’.
Zuhri noted that the bans had come after the US used its veto power at the United Nations Security Council against a draft resolution calling for an end to the war and delivery of aid to Gaza.
‘These actions further prove that the US administration is complicit in the genocide against our people, bearing legal, political, and moral responsibility for these crimes.’
The official called on the administration of US President Joe Biden to ‘atone for its misdeeds and pressure the occupation into immediately halting its aggression against our people’ before the imminent end of its term.
‘Likewise, we call on the incoming administration to review the hostile policies of the Biden administration and rectify its catastrophic errors.’
Separately, Zuhri said the Israeli regime ‘deludes itself if it thinks that by committing more massacres, genocides, ethnic cleansing, and forced displacement, it can achieve its aggressive goals in Gaza. This land has always been and will remain Palestinian.’
He, meanwhile, called on the international community ‘to activate all forms of support, relief, and backing for our people in Gaza, strengthen their resilience and steadfastness on their land, and enable them to defend their land and legitimate rights.’
The spokesman hailed Palestinian resistance fighters for being engaged in ‘scripting the greatest epics of heroism in the history of our nation’ through their ‘valiant’ retaliatory operations.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Zuhri pointed to the regime’s escalation and tightened siege, most notably against healthcare facilities and staff, in northern Gaza for nearly 50 days that has resulted in the deaths of more than 2,300 people.
‘The occupation’s crimes against the healthcare system in Gaza are systematic war crimes aimed at destroying all aspects of human life and displacing our people,’ he said.
The official noted the regime’s recent back-to-back attacks against the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the city of Beit Lahia, which featured direct shelling of the facility and shooting of its medical teams, patients, and the wounded.
‘This includes the deliberate shooting and injuring of the hospital’s Director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, in a criminal attempt to assassinate him and terrorise all hospital staff to prevent them from fulfilling their humanitarian duties.’
Israeli forces are using quadcopters to shoot at any Palestinian who is moving in Jabalia or Beit Lahiya.
They have also been using explosive robots on residential homes and neighbourhoods.
This is the first time these explosive robots have been used this much throughout northern Gaza.
Due to the lack of civil defence crews and ambulances operating in northern Gaza, many wounded Palestinians are left trapped under the rubble, unable to reach the only partially functional hospital in the area – Kamal Adwan.
That hospital’s director has been making a lot of appeals for supplies and medication.
The rescue organisation says its crews in Gaza City are out of fuel to run fire, rescue and ambulance vehicles.
‘Our teams will not be able to respond to citizens’ calls until the Israeli occupation allows humanitarian organisations to enter the necessary quantities of diesel,’ Palestinian Civil Defence said in a statement.
It said Israel’s refusal to allow aid, including fuel, into northern Gaza ‘is tantamount to sentencing to death citizens whose homes are bombed by the Israeli occupation and exposed to fire’.
An UNRWA official said Israel is still blocking essential aid to the Strip.
At least 44,249 people have been killed and 104,746 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the enclave’s Health Ministry says.
Of those, 14 Palestinians were killed and 108 wounded in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry added.
Israeli warplanes continued hammering northern Gaza on Tuesday. One strike hit a family home in Jabalia, causing numerous casualties, according to the WAFA news agency.
Winter rain storms have damaged thousands of tents in Gaza in recent days, leaving displaced people even more vulnerable to the cold.
A school sheltering hundreds of Palestinian families in a Zeitoun neighbourhood was bombed on Tuesday, killing 11 Palestinians sheltering there and wounding 13 others.
Eyewitnesses on the ground said the strike penetrated two floors in that school causing a very pervasive scale of destruction in the site of the strike.
The school was not warned by the Israeli military before the time of the strike, where civilians have been widely impacted negatively by the attack.
There is ongoing accumulating trauma resulting from the strike, especially children and women at the site of the attack.
More than 204 evacuation centres have been targeted, with very staggering numbers of casualties emerging from a single strike in these very densely populated areas.
Civilians say that the Israeli army is noticeably concentrating on targeting densely populated areas.
According to the civil defence teams in the Gaza City all firefighting and ambulance vehicles have stopped working in the Gaza City area because the Israeli forces are not giving them access and denying them fuel.
That’s why they are unable to respond to any citizens’ appeals and calls.
It’s very obvious that the Israeli forces are restraining and hindering all types of life saving actions for more than 50 days.