December 22, 2023

Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam spokesperson Abu Obeida, from Hamas – Islamic Resistance Movement – made the following statement on Dec. 21, 2023, which was published on Resistance News Network.

Seventy-six days have passed since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle and the barbaric Zionist terrorist aggression on our people in the Gaza Strip, and the enemy continues to commit war crimes recorded in the history of crimes against humanity.

Our fighters in the field are still confronting the aggression and fighting the trembling criminal enemy, inflicting heavy losses on its soldiers, officers and machinery and paralyzing its entity despite its possession of a huge arsenal.

The enemy receives massive military support, which only reflects the weakness of this entity dependent on unjust and aggressive alliances that will eventually be cut off, whether sooner or later.

Our fighters on the ground continue to destroy the enemy’s vehicles and target them with all available types of weapons, trapping their soldiers in fatal traps, pursuing them outside their vehicles and in buildings where they fortify themselves in assembly areas, inflicting dozens of deaths on enemy soldiers and hundreds wounded and injured, with escalating losses that hardly cease around the clock and will increase as long as the aggression continues.

The tally of vehicles destroyed by our fighters in the past week includes dozens of vehicles, as we announced successively, while the number of military vehicles targeted since the beginning of the ground aggression is 720, including troop carriers, tanks, bulldozers, vehicles, and military trucks.

The targeting by our fighters of enemy forces ranged across all axes of the Zionist incursion, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Khan Younis in the south, throughout the days of aggression.

In the past week, our fighters carried out more than 15 successful sniper operations and more than 12 direct engagements with machine guns, medium weapons, and hand grenades.

Our fighters, in the combat operations, widely used anti-personnel explosive devices, guerilla action devices, and anti-tank explosive devices of all types against fortifications, personnel, and vehicles in operations.

After 11 weeks of confronting the aggression and the brutal Nazi war, we in the Al-Qassam Brigades affirm that the enemy army on the ground is preoccupied with searching for illusions of victory and achievement.

Sometimes they announce the assassination of field commanders and the targeting of fighters on the ground. Sometimes they celebrate discovering an old, out-of-service tunnel or bombing a used rocket launcher. Sometimes they boast about seizing military sites or offices and residences that were previously bombed with tons of explosives, and sometimes they display random destruction and killing as a reaction to their failure and massive losses.

This lost, crisis-stricken, arrogant enemy has not learned a single lesson from historical experiences. It previously assassinated leaders and killed thousands of our people’s fighters, but their blood sprouted victory, and their souls bequeathed to our resistance its strength and vigor.

The enemy previously destroyed, corrupted, killed, displaced, and committed massacres throughout its bloody history, leaving our people no choice but to take revenge and make it pay for its crimes and massacres, insisting on resistance and striving to sweep it away.

The enemy continues to repeat its historic foolishness and mistakes because, like other occupying invaders, it is disconnected from the reality of our people, ignorant of their culture and civilization, and does not comprehend the meaning of the will of free peoples striving to liberate themselves from occupation.

The enemy’s goal to eliminate the resistance is doomed to failure, and this is an indisputable fact. As for the goal of recovering its prisoners, the enemy’s failed operations, which are related to what we declared from the first day of the war, have proven that the course of this issue is exchange.

‘Stop the aggression’

The continuation of aggression does not allow for the release of prisoners at all, let alone their liberation through direct military operations. Therefore, if the enemy and its public want their prisoners alive, they have no choice but to stop the aggression.

It is not possible to release the enemy prisoners alive, except through entering into negotiation through known pathways via mediators. This is a fixed position, and there is no alternative except the continued fall of the enemy’s prisoners dead by the fire of their arrogant army and by the decision of their political leadership, which evades facing and acknowledging the truth.

We salute our people in the occupied West Bank and Al-Quds, who are facing a Nazi onslaught that reflects the enemy’s lies, crimes, and indulgence in tyranny, whether our people fight armed with weapons and gear or unarmed, fighting with a few rifles, stones, and daggers. So take the book with strength, O sons of our people, and mobilize your weapons to defend your dignity, sanctities, villages, homes, and honor.

We salute the fighters of our nation who are confusing the enemy, and those behind it, by hitting their front militarily, economically, morally, and security-wise, especially on the Yemen and Lebanon fronts, making the occupation seek help from its masters for protection, fearing what that what is to come is more daunting and severe, by the power of Allah and His command.

Finally, we hold on to the hands of our great, patient people, who bear burdens like mountains in facing this Zionist Nazi holocaust, but stand tall and patient on their land.

We salute all the fighters and resistance fighters of our people in the field who have amazed both enemy and friend with their steadfastness, bravery, resilience, and heroism. We are certain that this patient, epic endurance will not be in vain in Allah’s balance, will lead to a good outcome, opening, and dignity, and will be a prelude to a great victory by the help of Allah and His strength.

It is indeed a jihad of victory or martyrdom.