Hamas: ‘These proud people will not know defeat or surrender’

The following statement was issued by Hamas – Islamic Resistance Movement – on Dec. 20, 2023, and republished by Resistance News Network.  

Greetings to our great people, our victorious resistance, and mercy to the martyrs of our people on the path of pride, dignity, liberation and return, healing to the wounded and freedom to the prisoners in enemy prisons. 

The sacrifices of our people put us on a one-way path that leads to victory in this battle and achieving the desired freedom.  Despite the pain, the scale of killing, destruction, and brutality practiced by the neo-Nazis in the Gaza Strip, with U.S. weapons and money, more than 19,000 martyrs rose, and the number of wounded and injured reached more than 52,000. 

However, our people continue their legendary journey of patience, steadfastness, defiance and sacrifice, and thwarting all of the occupation’s aggressive plans. 

These proud people have not and will not know defeat or surrender in their extended struggle, which does not stop except with clear victory. Our Palestinian people have paid priceless blood, and after the torrent of blood and sacrifices, there is no way to go back or look back. 

We have one path before us, which is victory in this battle, achieving freedom and a decent life for this great people, and establishing our independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty, with Jerusalem as its capital. 

The parties to the aggression have lost their balance and no longer think about the fate of the occupation officers in Gaza or its prisoners, or the political future of the parties to this war. The trio of absolute evil leads its audience towards another unknown, and towards dreams, illusions and goals, which have not and will not be achieved on the land of Gaza, and will be shattered on the rock of our people’s steadfastness and the valor of our resistance. 

This criminal trio no longer cares about the lives of the soldiers and officers of their defeated army, as they arrive daily to their beings, dead, wounded, body parts, disabled and mentally ill. 

This failed trio also does not care about the lives of its captives held by the resistance, when it continues its continuous barbaric bombing of the residents of the Gaza Strip, endangering their lives at every moment. This defeated army concludes its disappointment with futile attempts to imitate the resistance, and portrays its military achievements with its usual stupidity. 

It fires at walls, storms empty areas, and wins in a tunnel that has been abandoned for more than two months, which it used only once on the day it inflicted the largest strategic defeat and shook the occupying state, and only presents recordings that are militarily meaningless. 

The Biden administration, a partner in the war on Gaza, is permanently disrupting its cessation, and preventing the entry of aid. The U.S. administration requested to postpone the adoption of the Security Council resolution, which stipulates the suspension of the Zionist aggression against our Palestinian people and the guarantee of safe and unhindered access to aid. 

By using its veto and requesting to postpone the adoption of this resolution, this administration will remain a partner in the war of genocide committed by the occupation against civilians in the Gaza Strip, unless it works to curb and stop the aggression, and stop pumping weapons and ammunition via air bridges to this rogue terrorist entity. 

The U.S. administration’s continued call to the Zionist occupation to “protect civilians from harm and enable the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza” is nothing but an empty and worthless media slogan, in light of their complete support for this Nazi occupation, in a war of genocide and systematic war crimes against civilians and innocents. 

Here we say very clearly to Biden and his administration: You are partners in crime, and your hands are stained with the blood of women and children.

This statement was lightly edited.