Sinwar says Hamas ready for long 'war of attrition' with Israel in Gaza

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas has the resources to sustain its fight against Israeli invaders, the group's political bureau chief Yahya Sinwar has said, nearly a year into the Gaza carnage.

Sinwar, who last month replaced slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, said in a letter to the group's Yemeni allies on Monday that "we have prepared ourselves to fight a long war of attrition".

Sinwar told Houthis that groups in Gaza and elsewhere in the region would "break the enemy's political will" after more than 11 months of war that began on October 7.

"Our combined efforts with you" and with groups in Lebanon and Iraq "will break this enemy and inflict defeat on it", Sinwar added.

Sinwar's letter came as Israeli continued its carnage in the besieged enclave, where medics and rescuers said that latest Israeli strikes killed at least two dozen Palestinians.

In a televised speech, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said: "Our operations will continue as long as the aggression and siege on Gaza continue."

He was speaking after the group released video footage of the launch of a surface-to-surface missile which Houthis said was a hypersonic missile that they fired at Israel on Sunday failing all Israeli interceptors.

After months of mediation efforts towards an elusive Gaza truce deal, often sabotaged by Netanyahu, the United States was working "expeditiously" on a new proposal to bridge the remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

"We continue to engage with our partners in the region", including mediators Qatar and Egypt, to achieve "a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement", Miller said.

He noted that Israel's demand to keep troops on the Palestine-Egypt border and details on the release of captives remained the main sticking points.

War with Lebanon looming?

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant — who PM Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly plans to sack — warned on Monday that the prospects for a halt in fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon were dimming, yet again raising fears of a wider regional conflagration.

Gallant last week said Hamas "no longer exists" as a military formation in Gaza.

Tensions have surged along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, amid fears that regular exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah throughout the war could explode into an all-out war.

On Monday, Hezbollah claimed "dozens" of attacks on Israeli positions, and Israel's military said it struck targets in Lebanon.

"The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to tie itself to Hamas," Gallant told visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein, a Defence Ministry statement said.

Netanyahu later told Hochstein he seeks a "fundamental change" in the security situation on Israel's northern border.

The US State Department's Miller told reporters: "We have long made clear that we believe a diplomatic solution is the correct way, the only way, to bring calm to the north of Israel and allow Israeli citizens to return to their homes."

He said Israeli officials "have always made clear ... that they would ultimately prefer a diplomatic resolution".

Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said on Saturday his group has "no intention of going to war", but if Israel does "unleash" one, "there will be large losses on both sides".

Genocidal war on Gaza

Hamas says its October 7 blitz on Israeli military sites and settlements that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to near-daily Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas fighters rolled into as many as 22 locations outside Gaza, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometres from the Gaza fence.

At some places they are said to have gunned down many soldiers as Israel's military scrambled to muster response. The hours-long attack and Israeli military's haphazard response including controversial Hannibal Directive resulted in the killing of more than 1,130 people, many of them Israeli soldiers.

Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 101 remain in Gaza, including dozens who the Israeli army says are dead, some of them killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Tel Aviv has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 100,000 since then.

Some 10,000 Palestinians are feared buried under the rubble of their bombed homes. Another 10,000 have been abducted by Israel and dumped in Israeli jails and torture chambers.

But experts and some studies say this is just a tip of an iceberg and the actual Palestinian death toll could be around 200,000.

The Lancet medical journal published a letter from three academics on July 5 estimating that indirect deaths, caused by factors like disease, might mean the death toll is several times higher than official estimates and possibly above 186,000.

"This high number is despite various ceasefire agreements over the past six months. If deaths continue at this rate — about 23,000 a month — there would be an additional 149,500 deaths by the end of the year, some six and half months from the initial mid-June estimate. Using the method, the total deaths since the conflict began would be estimated at about 335,500 in total," Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, wrote in an article in The Guardian.

Israel is accused of carrying out genocide of Palestinians in Gaza at the International Court of Justice while the prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are seeking arrest warrants for top Israeli leadership including Netanyahu.