The military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine has reacted to Israeli announcements that it will attack the Gaza Strip.

The al-Quds Brigades said in a statement Friday that Israel would be digging its own grave by attacking Gaza.

According to the statement, upper echelons in Tel Aviv resort to making threats due to their inability to end the resistance against Zionist crimes.

Earlier in December, the movement rejected the possibility of any "unilateral truce" with Israel, saying that halting the resistance in exchange for food rations would only benefit Tel Aviv.

Israel placed the Gaza Strip under a blockade after the democratically-elected Palestinian government of Hamas took control of the coastal area in mid-June 2007.

The UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday declared Israeli policies against the Palestinians -- the indigenous population of the land -- and the blockade of the Gaza Strip to be "crime(s) against humanity."

In response to the UN report, Israeli ambassador in Geneva Aharon Leshno Yaar said Tel Aviv "remains committed to reinforcing areas in which we are succeeding and bettering those areas that need improvement."

According to UN human rights rapporteur Richard Falk, however, Tel Aviv was responding to what he described as low-level criticism by "normally cautious UN officials". Falk suggested Israeli crimes to be worthy of an International Criminal Court investigation.

Despite its objection, Israel was forced to permit deliveries of humanitarian aid and gas to Gaza on Tuesday after days of full closure of all Gaza crossings.

Last week, however, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told military officials to prepare plans for an attack on Gaza -- home to 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians.

HSH/AA