Beirut, February 24 (RHC)-- A senior official with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas says the United States carries out reconnaissance missions over the Gaza Strip to help out the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocidal war against the territory.

American aircraft conduct flying operations over the coastal sliver to provide the regime with intelligence that would assist it in continuing to wage the military onslaught, Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ senior representative in Lebanon, said during a press briefing in Beirut on Friday.

The official did not specify the type of the aircraft, but the U.S. is known for flying unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, around the world in the service of its intelligence gathering operations.

The U.S. has been contributing ample political and military support to the Israeli military onslaught that the regime began against Gaza on October 7, 2023 following al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise operation staged by the coastal sliver’s resistance movements.

The American administration has so far vetoed three United Nations Security Council resolutions that have called for immediate cessation of the Israeli aggression.  Washington has also armed Tel Aviv with more than 10,000 tons of military hardware since the onset of the genocidal war of aggression.

Hamdan said the Israeli regime would not be able to continue the war -- which has so far killed 29,514 people, mostly women and children -- without support on the part of Washington, Tel Aviv’s main ally.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Hamdan urged taking place of an independent investigation into a recent UN report revealing multiple forms of abuse by Israeli forces against Palestinian women and children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.  He slammed the West’s silence concerning the regime’s reported violation of the rights of abducted Palestinian women.

The Hamas’ envoy, meanwhile, said the “terrorist administration” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to prolong the war to help the premier escape his legal woes.

Hamdan, however, asserted that the regime would not be able to secure the release of the captives, who are being held by Hamas since Operation al-Aqsa Storm, through the use of force.  Hamas has repeatedly asserted that it would not release the captive unless the Israeli regime stops its aggression.