'The enemy has failed by creating a real Holocaust on the soil of Gaza,' Meshaal, who lives in exile in Syria, said in a pre-recorded statement aired on Arab satellite televisions Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya.
'Palestinian blood has become a means to win elections,' he said, addressing the Israeli people whose leaders are to face off in general elections on February 10.
Mr Meshaal said the military campaign had been a failure. 'What did you achieve through this war... other than the killing of children, of innocents?' he asked the Israeli leadership.
'You have lost on the moral and humanitarian fronts... and you have created a resistance in every house,' said Meshaal.
'In all modesty... I can say with full confidence that on the military level the enemy has totally failed, it has not achieved anything.
'Has it stopped the rockets?' he asked of Israel's declared aim in launching the offensive.
And he told residents of the embattled Gaza Strip, where Israel's offensive has killed more than 850 people including 270 children since it was launched on December 27, that victory was near.
'The resistance (against Israel) is fine ... Be patient and steadfast. Victory is coming,' the Hamas leader told the 1.5 million inhabitants of the territory.
Mr Meshaal also reiterated Hamas's rejection of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and rejected the notion of deploying international forces in the impoverished Gaza Strip.
'We are the victims,' he said, adding that the 'aggressor, the Zionist enemy... must apply the resolution and immediately withdraw from Gaza'.
Any truce must be preceded by a halt to the Israeli offensive, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, the lifting of a crippling blockade on the territory and the reopening of crossings with the coastal enclave.
'With an open mind we will work with any initiative or any resolution but only based on these demands... and then we can talk about a truce like we did before,' said Meshaal.
In June, Egypt brokered a six-month truce between Hamas and Israel that expired before the offensive on Gaza. Hamas leaders were back in Egypt on Saturday to discuss a Cairo truce plan.
'We will not accept a permanent truce because... as long as there is an occupation there is a resistance,' he said.
Mr Meshaal also insisted that Hamas 'will consider any international troops imposed on our people as an occupation force'.
The exiled Hamas chief stressed the right to combat Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Mr Meshaal also urged the Arab people to join the Palestinian people in a new uprising against Israel.
'We are facing the most difficult days of the battle. We need a third intifada in the West Bank and on the Arab street so that the aggression on Gaza stops,' he said.
He called for an urgent Arab sumit and asked Arab countries which have relations with Israel, without naming them, to cut ties.
Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with the Jewish state while Mauritania, which also enjoys full diplomatic ties with Israel, withdrew its ambassador in protest over the Gaza offensive on January 5. -- AFP