Hamas says it has 35,000 armed supporters in the Gaza Strip, the TASS Russian News Agency reported on Tuesday, citing the Al-Hadath television channel.
“We have 35,000 [armed] supporters amassed in Gaza and we are ready [for further ‘resistance’],” the channel quoted a spokesman for the terrorist organization as saying.
The comments come as Israel prepares for a massive air, ground and sea invasion of the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7 massacre of at least 1,400 Israelis.
Israeli forces will face a network of terror tunnels underneath the Strip that Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, former acting head of Israel’s National Security Council, recently said could reach into the thousands of kilometers.
“The aim, as we have said, is to destroy Hamas’s capabilities. People do not understand what is beneath Gaza. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of kilometers of tunnels under the Strip. These are mainly located under the north of Gaza, therefore we are moving people to the south of the Strip,” Nagel said in an interview with Globes.