MID: Hamas says it lost only 48 fighters in Israel's war
19 Jan 2009 9:11 PM
GAZA CITY, Jan 19 AFP - Hamas's armed wing said on Monday it lost only 48 fighters during Israel's 22-day operation in Gaza and vowed to fight on unless the Jewish state withdrew its forces from the Palestinian enclave.
"We announce to our people the martyrdom of 48 Qassam fighters," Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a televised press conference.
Israel reported killing more than 500 Hamas members during Operation Cast Lead which it launched on Gaza on December 27 and ended on Sunday with a ceasefire.
Gaza medics said a total of more than 1,300 Palestinians have died.
Abu Obeida also claimed that Israel lost "at least 80 soldiers" in the fighting. The Jewish state listed 10 soldiers killed.
The spokesman repeated the "victory" cry declared by Hamas leaders on Sunday as the guns fell silent and underlined that Hamas' own ceasefire would only last a week unless Israel fully withdrew troops from Gaza.
"We have given the Zionist enemy one week to pull out of the Gaza Strip, failing which we will pursue the resistance."
The Islamist movement's capacity to fire rockets into Israel had not been reduced, he added. One of Israel's main aims during the offensive was to stop rocket attacks.
"Our arsenal of rockets has not been affected and we continued to fire them during the war without interruption.
"We are still able to launch them and, thanks be to God, our rockets will strike other targets" in Israel, he said.
Abu Obeida listed the projectiles Hamas fired at Israel during the war as 345 Qassam rockets, 213 Grad rockets and 422 mortar shells.
Israel's efforts, backed by the United States and European leaders, to prevent Hamas from re-arming, would also fail, Abu Obeida said.
"Let them do what they want. Bringing in weapons for the resistance and making them is our mission and we know full well how to acquire weapons."
Israel had failed to achieve "any of the objectives it had set for the war .. and only killed hundreds of children, women and old people."
"The main aim of the war was to destroy Hamas and this resulted in crushing failure," he said.
"What we lost during this war in terms of military capability is small and we managed to compensate for most of it even before the war ended."
