Gaza City, December 17 (RHC)-- The Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas' military wing has announced killing at least 36 Israeli forces in the course of the past 72 hours.  Al-Qassam Brigades made the announcement through a statement released by its spokesman Abu Ubaida on the Telegram messaging app.

"Our fighters confirmed the killing of 36 soldiers and the injury or death of dozens of other Zionist soldiers," the spokesman said.  He noted that the battleground gains had come about following complicated maneuvers, during which al-Qassam's fighters "engaged them (the Israeli troops) at point-blank range" and "carried out successful sniper operations against them."

Abu Ubaida also confirmed that throughout the past 72 hours, the fighters had managed to either "completely or partially" destroy as many Israeli military vehicles.  "They (the fighters) also targeted headquarters and field command rooms, shelled military gatherings with mortar shells and short-range rockets on all fronts of the battle," he noted.

Penetrating into the occupied territories, al-Qassam fighters, meanwhile, "directed rocket barrages towards various targets at different ranges inside the Zionist entity," Abu Ubaida concluded.

The Hamas military wing says it has targeted southern Tel Aviv with missiles in response to the Israeli regime’s bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip.  The Israeli regime has, itself, confirmed that as many as 116 of its forces have been killed in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas is headquartered, since October 7, when the regime began bringing the Palestinian territory under a genocidal war.

Also on Thursday, Gaza's Health Ministry said nearly 18,800 people, mostly women and children, had been killed in the war that the regime started following an operation staged by the territory's resistance movements.

Speaking to Press TV on Wednesday, a senior Hamas official reaffirmed the movement's determination to continue standing up to the Israeli regime's unbridled aggression.   Osama Hamdan, Hamas' senior representative in Lebanon, said the movement was ready for "a long war" against the Israeli regime, and would not give up resistance.