“Despite our full desire to stop the aggression against our people, we are prepared for a long battle of attrition against the enemy, dragging them into a swamp where they will gain nothing but the death of their soldiers and the capture of their officers,” Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said in a video message.
“This is because we are the people of this land and are its rightful owners,” he added.
Abu Obeida said Palestinian combatants have targeted 100 Israeli military vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers as well as bulldozers in the past 10 days. They have inflicted heavy casualties on Israeli soldiers by blowing up tunnels, launching rockets and mortars, and through sniping and close-quarters combat.
The Israeli military, he said, does not announce the exact figure of its losses in Gaza.
The al-Qassam Brigades combatants inflicted severe blows on the Zionist enemy in the eastern flank of Rafah city, Abu Obeida said.
He said the Israeli military had made a big mistake by deciding to launch a ground invasion of Rafah, the Zaitoun neighborhood, and the Jabalia refugee camp, rendering its troops easy targets for Palestinian combatants.
The Israelis, he said, thought that if they spent seven months burning everything to the ground, they would face little resistance, "but they were surprised to find that they were once again in hell, facing fiercer resistance than before".
In his Friday night message, Abu Obeida said, "Despite the war of starvation, destruction, and killing, our resistance, and behind it our people, are coming out to face the enemy from everywhere."
Our combatants are confronting the enemy with great momentum ... blowing up buildings, tunnel openings, and minefields, he said.
Our combatants face a trembling, floundering force, and leave it broken and disappointed, while "the American weapons built to exterminate our people cause enormous destruction, which is the only achievement of this crisis-stricken enemy."
Abu Obeida praised the Resistance and the Palestinian people who, he said, are still on their feet after more than 220 days of Israeli aggression, fighting fiercely and standing unflinchingly in the face of Israel.
The Israeli occupation, Abu Obeida said, "would find the Resistance standing in its face every time it aspired to reach a goal or achievement and prevent it from achieving victory".
Israel launched its genocidal war against the Gaza Strip, targeting hospitals, residences, and houses of worship, after Palestinian Resistance movements launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation al-Aqsa Storm, against the usurping entity on October 7 last year.
At least 35,303 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, and another 79,261 individuals have sustained injuries. More than 1.7 million people have been internally displaced during the war as well.
AMK/PressTV