Press TV – Sept 14, 2024

A member of Knesset (the Israeli parliament) has strongly refuted a claim made recently by the regime’s army about achieving “victory” over one of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas’ brigades.

Ohad Tal made the remarks on Thursday after army spokesman Daniel Hagari alleged that the regime’s forces had “defeated” the group’s Rafah Brigade, killing more than 2,300 fighters and destroying over 13 kilometers of tunnel used by the resistance.

“I can’t go on like this,” Tal wrote in a post on X, former Twitter, saying Hagari “is simply not telling the truth.”

“I listen to the summaries from the security sources, and I have contact with various military sources, and I receive from them a completely different picture,” the legislator added.

Tal said even if the numbers given by the spokesman “is accurate [which it is not],” Hamas has still retained around 30 to 40 percent of its strength in Rafah.

The Islamic Jihad, Hamas’ fellow Gaza Strip-based resistance movement, still possesses “thousands” of fighters in the area too, he noted.

The claim made by the Israeli army came amid an ongoing genocidal war that the regime has been waging against Gaza Since October 7 as a means of, what it calls, trying to impose defeat on the resistance.

Reporting on Friday, Lebanon’s al-Akhbar newspaper said the army had alleged the “victory” as a means of trying to pressure the regime’s officials into working towards clinching a ceasefire in the military onslaught.

The claim was also meant to prompt Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give up his insistence on maintaining a military presence along the Philadelphi Corridor, the strip of land that runs along Gaza’s border with Egypt, which Tel Aviv alleges to be a “lifeline” for Hamas, the paper added.

Netanyahu has turned a deaf ear to vociferous international demands calling for an end to the hugely deadly consequences of the war that has so far claimed the lives of at least 41,118 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

He has also dismissed internal uproar against the continuation of the war by those demanding the release of the regime’s captives who remain in Gaza.

The premier has vowed to sustain the onslaught until Hamas’ “elimination,” a prospect that has been ruled out as impossible by the group and even some Israeli officials and Tel Aviv’s allies.

Back in June, Hagari, himself, asserted, “Whoever thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong,” adding, “Hamas is an idea, Hamas is a party. It’s rooted in the hearts of the people.”

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