News - World: The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has termed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s so-called ideas about a “future” for the Gaza Strip that excludes the resistance from the territory’s rule as mere “delusions.”

The group made the remarks in a statement on Wednesday, reacting to an earlier speech by Netanyahu at the US Congress, in which he recounted the self-proclaimed vision.

“We in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirm that the war criminal Netanyahu's visions for the future of the Gaza Strip are mere delusions and fantasies he is trying to market,” the statement read.

The Israeli premier has alleged that the regime sought to “eliminate” Hamas from Gaza through a genocidal war that Tel Aviv has been waging against the territory since October 7.

The brutal military onslaught has so far claimed the lives of at least 39670 Palestinians, mostly women and children, but has stopped far short of realizing the regime’s goal of defeating the resistance.

Hamas asserted that it was the Palestinian people alone, who had the right to determine their fate and decide who governs them.

“They have decided to rally around the option of resistance and confront the occupation wherever it exists until it is swept away from our pure land and our independent Palestinian state is established with [the holy occupied city of] al-Quds as its capital,” it added.

Elsewhere in the statement, the movement denounced the United States for offering Netanyahu the chance to deliver the address, despite mounting international protests calling for his apprehension and prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians.

“Netanyahu should have been arrested as a war criminal and handed over to the International Criminal Court instead of being given the opportunity to polish his image before the world and cover up the mass killings and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip,” Hamas asserted.

By offering Netanyahu a podium besides providing his regime with all means of political and military support, the group said, “Washington affirms its full partnership in the heinous violations committed in the Gaza Strip.”

The movement, meanwhile, underlined that the regime was persisting with its atrocities with outright American support, while various human rights reports had confirmed Tel Aviv’s perpetration of acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

The atrocities, it added, included using starvation as a weapon of war and preventing aid from reaching Gaza through enforcement an all-out siege against the coastal sliver.

Source: Press TV