AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Hamas says US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will not be capable of pressuring the Palestinian resistance movement into accepting a pro-Israeli so-called ceasefire proposal that is being advanced by Washington.
“If the US secretary of state travels to the region and thinks that his presence amounts to [piling up] pressure on us, he is delusional,” Osama Hamdan, senior Hamas representative in Lebanon, told the country’s al-Manar television network on Monday.
Blinken is visiting Egypt, the occupied Palestinian territories, Jordan, and Qatar to push through the proposal, which US President Joe Biden came up with on May 31.
Under the plan, the Israeli regime would withdraw from population centers in the Gaza Strip -- which the regime has brought under a genocidal war -- and Hamas would free the captives it seized.
At least 37,084 Palestinians have been killed in the war that was launched after Al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation, during which Gaza’s resistance groups seized the captives.
Hamas has vowed not to release the captives unless Israel completely ends its aggression, withdraws its troops, and there is a proper exchange deal.
On Sunday, the US announced that it had requested a United Nations Security Council vote on a draft resolution backing its proposal.
Hamdan, however, said, “If the United States was serious about the issue of ceasefire, it would stop or at least decrease its military support for Israel.”
The US has provided the Israeli regime with thousands of tons of military hardware since the onset of the war.
The Hamas also official said the Israeli army was “worn out and incapable of keeping up the battle” in Gaza.
Despite all the “conceitedness” that it displays, the army has been caught up in a “war of attrition” in the coastal sliver, he added.
“The power of the resistance is greater than the enemy’s power of occupation,” Hamdan said, adding, “The upcoming days will prove the extent of the resistance’s power.”
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