WEST BANK/GAZA (Dispatches) – Palestinian resistance factions in the Gaza Strip have agreed to raise their alert level after the Zionist regime military began a month-long war exercise, which includes troops from all branches of the military and thousands of combat reservists.
The alert comes a year after the Zionist regime launched a brutal campaign against the blockaded coastal strip and as tensions on the ground in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories are heading towards a large-scale eruption.
The Joint Operations Room of Palestinian Groups announced in a statement that it had ordered an increase in the alert level in the face of the drill, dubbed “Chariots of Fire.”
The resistance groups underscored that they are constantly monitoring and following up on the behavior of the enemy, and would not hesitate to respond to any folly against the Palestinian people.
“We assure our people that the resistance groups will remain the protective shield for them and their just cause,” the statement read.
According to the Zionist regime’s military, the four-week drill will simulate a multi-frontal and multidimensional war against the regime’s enemies in the air, at sea, on land and the cyber front.
Last December, a retired Israeli general warned that the occupying regime’s military was not ready for any future war, predicting that the regime would be hit with 3,000 missiles a day in case an all-out war breaks out.
In May 2021, the besieged Gaza Strip experienced renewed bloodshed and destruction as the Zionist regime launched a devastating 11-day military offensive on the enclave.
It was the fourth major offensive launched by the regime on the Palestinian territory in 14 years, compounding the already dire living conditions and the high rates of poverty and unemployment in Gaza, which has been under a Zionist-Egyptian blockade since 2007.
The assault in May killed 261 people, including 67 children, and wounded more than 2,200, according to the United Nations. The bombardment also destroyed 1,770 residential units and partially demolished at least 14,300 other units, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Anti-Zionist groups in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, as well as Hamas in the Gaza Strip, are feared to launch missiles and drones at the occupied territories, so that the average number of missiles fired at the regime would reach 3,000 a day, MivzakLive News quoted Yitzhak Brik as saying at the time.
In another development, Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Monday strongly condemned the latest remarks by Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett concerning the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Al-Quds.
Aboul Gheit, in a statement, rejected Zionist regime attempts to change the historical and legal status quo of Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He said any claim of sovereignty by the occupying regime over Al-Quds and its holy Islamic and Christian sites represents a blatant violation of international law, and an infringement on United Nations resolutions.