A senior Hamas official assured on Sunday that the Palestinian Islamist movement’s chances of continuing the war with Israel remain “high”, despite the losses it has suffered during the more than eleven months of war in the Gaza Strip.

“The possibilities of resistance continue to be high,” Osama Hamdan stressed during an interview he gave to Agence France-Presse.

“There were martyrs and sacrifices (…) but, on the other hand, there was an accumulation of experiences and new generations were recruited into the resistance,” he explained.

His remarks come less than a week after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad asserted that Hamas “does not exist” as a military formation in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out the Palestinian Islamist movement after an unprecedented raid on southern Israel on October 7 killed 1,205 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to his count. AFP based on official data.

Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 97 remain in Hamas hands in the enclave, but 33 of them have been declared dead by the Israeli military.

The large-scale Israeli military operations of retaliation have killed at least 41,206 people in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has ruled since 2007. According to the UN, the majority of the victims were women and children.

Against this background, Prime Minister Netanyahu is under heavy pressure to conclude a ceasefire agreement, which would be accompanied by the release of the hostages who remain alive, in exchange for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli detention centers.

The announcement this month by Israeli authorities that they had found the bodies of six hostages in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, which they said had been “executed” by Hamas, sparked outrage in the country and fresh protests with a central demand for the Netanyahu government to sign a deal.

But after months of indirect negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US, the situation appears to be at an impasse, with one side blaming the other.

The Hamas official accused the US, Israel’s main international ally, of not exerting “enough pressure”.

“The US government is not putting sufficient or appropriate pressure on the Israeli side. Rather, he is trying to justify avoiding any commitment from the Israeli side,” he pointed out.

After announcing the deaths of the six hostages, Mr Netanyahu accused Hamas of refusing any compromise and assured that it would not ease the “pressure”.

The Israeli prime minister also claimed that at least 17,000 fighters of Hamas’ military wing have been killed since operations in the enclave began.

The war between Israel and Hamas has also mobilized other movements in the region that express solidarity with the Palestinians, notably Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The latter claimed responsibility yesterday for a rocket attack in central Israel, which caused no casualties but forced many Israelis to rush to shelters.

For Osama Hamdan, this was “a message addressed to the entire region” and “showed that Israel is not an immune entity”, that “its capabilities have limits”.

He also commented on the attack committed at the beginning of the month by a Jordanian truck driver on a border post of Jordan and the occupied West Bank, when three Israeli border guards and the attacker were killed, estimating that it shows popular anger throughout the region.

Referring to Arab leaders who have normalized relations with Israel or are planning to do so, Osama Hamdan wondered how they would feel if their country was under occupation and the world remained indifferent. “If you consider Israel such a blessing (…) give it a part of your own country,” he said sarcastically.

The Palestinian official also referred to post-war scenarios, assuring that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar will never leave the besieged enclave.

Hamas is demanding a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, including the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, a narrow strip of land along the border with Egypt that has become a major obstacle to indirect negotiations for a possible ceasefire.

Osama Hamdan also said that after the war, the Gaza Strip would be ruled by the Palestinians, a “joint Palestinian government”, adding that representatives of various factions would soon meet in Cairo to agree on a common vision for the enclave’s post-war course.