Palestinians atop an Israeli military vehicle during the Al-Aqsa Storm operation.   (By AP)

Gaza City, October 7 (RHC)-- Hamas says Operation al-Aqsa Storm, which was launched last year against the Israeli regime in response to its intensified atrocities against Palestinians, shattered the regime’s “perceived military superiority.”  Khalil al-Hayya, a senior member of the Palestinian resistance movement’s Political Bureau, said, “Performing the operation, Palestinian fighters carried out heroic acts that have changed the balance of power.”

“Our objective is clear, we seek the complete liberation of our land and holy sites, the establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state, and the return of refugees to their homeland.” He told Palestinian Arabic-language al-Aqsa television channel on Sunday ahead of the first anniversary of the operation.

The surprise operation saw Hamas and its fellow Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance movement of the Islamic Jihad storming the occupied Palestinian territories and taking more than 240 Israelis captive.   The Israeli regime brought Gaza under a genocidal war in response. The war has so far claimed the lives of nearly 42,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The Hamas’s official, however, asserted that the regime has not and would not be able to realize its objectives through force.

Reflecting on the ongoing Palestinian struggle, he noted that “a year later, our people continue to write a new chapter of history with their resistance, blood, and steadfastness.”

Al-Hayya, meanwhile, appreciated the support that was being thrown behind Gaza by resistance movements throughout other parts of the region, namely Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq.  “We are united in this battle,” he said, addressing the Lebanese people and resistance.

He expressed gratitude towards the Yemeni resistance fighters and people for their military and moral support for Gaza, saying their missile and drone strikes had “significantly shifted the battle’s dynamics, striking deep into the heart of the occupied territories.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Palestinian official pointed to Iran’s Operation True Promise II, which took place on Tuesday in response to the Israeli regime’s deadly aggression against the country and other regional nations, including its assassinations of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh and the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The operation that saw Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) firing 200 missiles towards Israeli military and intelligence bases all over the occupied territories, served to exact revenge on the regime over the assassinations, al-Hayya said.  The Islamic Republic actions are “reshaping the battlefield,” he said, likening the Iranian missiles to “meteors filling the skies over the occupied Palestine.”

The official finally called on other Muslim nations to likewise step up their support for Palestine, saying “now is the time for roaring resistance from east to west.”

He also urged the international community to end its silence, which “only perpetuates the aggression against our people and the Lebanese,” and instead take action against the regime, which he denounced as, “the epicenter of evil and destruction in the region, and the source of its instability.”