Netanyahu Killing Israeli Troops Rather Than Taking Deal: Abu Obeida

By Al Mayadeen English

Al-Qassam spokesperson says that Netanyahu is not accepting an exchange deal because it does not serve his "political and personal interests."

The Israeli government is sending its soldiers into "Gaza's alleys to return in coffins" in search of the remains of captives that it had deliberately targeted and killed earlier, Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said on Saturday.

In a brief statement on his Telegram page today, Abu Obeida emphasized that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers to "kill his soldiers while they search for remains and bodies rather than proceed with a prisoner exchange."

Explaining Netanyahu's actions, he said that the exchange agreement "does not serve Netanyahu's political and personal interests."

Last week, Abu Obeida revealed that Nadav Popplewell, 51, an Israeli who holds British citizenship, died after succumbing to wounds sustained in an Israeli strike a month earlier.

In a second appearance on Monday, Abu Obeida announced that the Resistance lost contact with the group tasked with guarding a group of Israeli captives held in the Gaza Strip, including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

The Israeli army has returned after almost eight months of the war to fight in areas in the northern Gaza Strip, despite claiming earlier that the areas were "under control".

Commenting on the occupation's renewed offensive, Abu Obeida said in a speech on Friday that the Israelis believed that if they spent more than 220 days burning everything to the ground, they would face little resistance, "but they were surprised to find that they were once again in hell, facing fiercer resistance than before."

The spokesperson said that "the enemy and its Nazi government practiced the most heinous crimes of extermination," while boasting about its crimes committed in Gaza as "military achievements" as they "use terror and systematic criminality as a strategy in the aggression on Gaza." 

"The enemy is limiting the announcements of its losses," he added, while the Resistance's data on the battles reveal that the casualties are "much larger" than what the Israeli occupation is revealing.

In conclusion, Abu Obeida praised the Resistance and the Palestinian people who, after 224 days, are still on their feet, fighting fiercely and standing unwaveringly in the face of "Israel".