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Hamas vowed on Monday to rearm in defiance of any Israeli and international efforts to prevent the Islamic resistance group from replenishing its arsenal of rockets and other weapons after the Gaza war.
"Do whatever you want. Manufacturing the holy weapons is our mission and we know how to acquire weapons," Abu Obaida, a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, told a news conference.
Addressing journalists with his face masked by a checkered Arab scarf, he said that only 48 Hamas resistance fighters were martyred in the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Abu Obaida also said that Israel lost "at least 80 soldiers" in the fighting; however the Zionist entity has adopted the media blackout policy concerning its losses there.
Palestinians report that at least 1,300 people were killed in the Strip in the past three weeks, including 420 children.
Abu Obaida went on to say that "all options would be open" if Israel failed to pull its occupation troops out of the Gaza Strip within a week, a demand raised by Hamas when it announced on Sunday a ceasefire after three weeks of fighting. "We have given the Zionist enemy one week to pull out of the Gaza Strip, failing which we will pursue the resistance."
The Islamic resistance movement's capacity to fire rockets into the occupied territories 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 the Zionist entity, he said.
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," Hamas' armed wing’s spokesman 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."
Israel, which has declared unilateral ceasefire, has threatened to renew military action if Hamas tries to smuggle more weapons into the Gaza Strip. Israel wants Egypt to prevent arms from reaching Palestinian resistance fighters through tunnels running under the border with the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Israel signed a security accord with the United States that calls for increased information-sharing, technical assistance and the use of various US "assets" to prevent weapons from getting to Hamas from air, land or sea.
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