Palestinian resistance group Hamas has won the Gaza war and prevented Israel from achieving its goals, the former head of the Israeli National Security Council has said.

“This war was a disastrous Israeli failure in Gaza," Giora Eiland, a retired general, told Maariv newspaper on Sunday.

"This war was a failure for a very simple reason that Hamas did not only succeed in preventing Israel from achieving its goals, but also remained in power,” he added.

A Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement took effect at 0915 GMT on Sunday after a few hours’ delay due to Israeli accusations of Hamas of delaying the release of a list of captives set to be released.

It was originally scheduled to start at 0630 GMT.

Eiland, who headed the National Security Council from 2004 to 2006, said the ceasefire deal does not prevent Hamas from rearming.

"If Hamas moves against Israel, it will be violating the agreement," he said.

Israel's brutal war

Eiland was the mastermind of the so-called Generals’ Plan, which calls for imposing a blockade on northern Gaza and forcibly displacing Palestinians from the area as part of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on the enclave.

Nearly 47,000 people have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 110,700 others injured in the Israeli war since Oct. 7, 2023, according to local health authorities.

The Israeli war has left more than 11,000 people missing, with widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis that has claimed the lives of many elderly people and children in one of the worst global humanitarian disasters ever.

In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.