Israel failed to achieve its goals in Gaza war: Nasrallah

The Hezbollah secretary general has congratulated all the Muslims on the Palestinian resistance fighters’ recent victory over Israel, saying that Tel Aviv failed to achieve its goals in its eight-day offensive in the Gaza Strip.

“Once again blood triumphed over the sword,” Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Friday.

Israeli airstrikes, shelling, and artillery fire left at least 160 Palestinians, including many women and children, dead and over 1200 others injured from November 14 to November 21. An Egypt-mediated ceasefire agreement, which took effect at 1900 GMT on Wednesday, ended the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

Nasrallah stated that Israel failed to achieve any of its goals, saying, “(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu did not set high goals for this war; he set low goals so that he would achieve them and announce his victory, but even these he failed to achieve.”

He pointed out that “the first goal was to destroy the Palestinian resistance’s leadership. He failed in this respect. The second goal was to destroy the resistance’s missile system. He also failed (to achieve this goal). The third goal was to reinforce Israel’s deterrence power. The (Gaza) war rather weakened this power.”

He went on to say that the assassination of Hamas commander Ahmed al-Jabari is a big loss, but the resistance movements no longer depend on individuals.

The Hezbollah chief said Palestinian fighters managed to fire as many as 200 rockets a day from Gaza into Israel during the war.

Gaza has been blockaded since 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

The apartheid regime of Israel denies about 1.7 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs that pay proper wages, and adequate healthcare and education.