Foreign Policy: Killing Sinwar Will Only Make Hamas More Fierce

A Foreign Policy magazine report confirmed that Israel’s killing of the head of the Hamas political bureau, Yahya Sinwar, will only make the movement more fierce. It added while it may seem like a great achievement today, with time, others will rise in his place – as is always the case – and the resistance will continue.

Middle East affairs specialist Stephen Cook, a columnist for the magazine, said that history shows that “it is impossible to eliminate a resistance movement” by killing its members, and the martyrdom of their leaders will not deter “those who support the cause”, but will lead them to redouble their efforts to achieve their goals.

The writer pointed out that resistance is not a “sterile” project, but rather “an essential part of the identity of those who belong to it,” and for this very reason Sinwar did not want to die a natural death but rather to be martyred by a tank shell on the battlefield, believing that this would strengthen the resistance.

The writer warned the Israelis not to be distracted by celebrating and distributing sweets from reality, and addressed them, asking: “Do you remember the most prominent founders of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, or the Palestinian leader Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad)? What about the former Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Abbas al-Moussawi, or the founder of the Islamic Jihad Movement, Fathi Shaqaqi? They were monsters to Israel in the past, and it was able to assassinate them all, but the resistance continued.”

He added: “As skilled as the Israelis are in avenging the blood of their dead, they have never succeeded in putting a real end to the resistance over the past decades, so what makes them think that killing Sinwar will lead to a different result this time?”

In the writer’s opinion, Israel’s killing of Sinwar will not break Hamas, but will ignite anger and a desire for revenge in the hearts of its members, just as the assassination of its founder, Hassan al-Banna, in 1949 did not weaken the Muslim Brotherhood.

Cook believes that Israel’s failed strategy of eliminating movements by targeting their leaders is similar to the mentality of the United States after the 11 September attacks. Although the US forces killed the founder of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the organization survived, as did the Islamic State after the killing of its founder, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and these organizations still pose a threat to the United States to this day according to JO24.

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Israelis Today: ‘Outcasts’ With an ‘Unknown Future’

On the 1st anniversary of the Al Aqsa Flood well-known Al Jazeera journalist Ahmad Mansour, wrote (in translation from Arabic)

Most of the Western press reports and documentaries that were written or published about the first anniversary of the battle of #طوفان_الأقصى emphasized a compelling fact: That the Israeli entity and society after 7 October, 2023 changed forever, and the residents of the occupying state lost the feeling of security, in addition to the spread of psychological illnesses, economic losses, and a feeling of hatred, and that they have become outcasts everywhere, and by all people, and that the blood of the Palestinians that was shed and their homes that were destroyed have become a curse that will follow them wherever they go, but their racist, hateful politicians are taking them to a deep abyss and an unknown future.

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An Eye For an Eye

CROSSFIREARABIA – Israelis will not rest if the Palestinians don’t get their independent homeland and statehood to live free just as was the case before 1948 when Israel was forcibly created.

This present Israeli war on Gaza has shown that clearly.

While the Israeli war machine may have destroyed, nay, obliterated the whole of the enclave, the strip continues to be filled with resistance fighters who move above and below grounds with their weapons fighting their enemies.

Israel, its leaders, politicians and military, long propped up by American weapons have long known that but they continue to destroy rather than own up to Palestinian aspirations and the fact that the incessant conflict will not end otherwise.

In this war, slaughter, genocide – going into its second year now and shows no signs of stopping but on the contrary moving northwards to Lebanon – there developed a sense of equilibrium and proportionality although on a much smaller scale judging from the vast different of the protagonists.

Israel used massive bombs on civilians and sent them into a whirl of displacements, while Hamas continually fired rockets and missiles on the settlements and military bases surrounding Gaza and further beyond.

The immediate effect of that was the mass evacuation of the Israeli population from all these settlements, in effect as soon as the Israeli big guns started to ‘hammer’ the cities, town, villages and hamlets of northern Gaza soon after 7 October, 2023.

Displacement

Today, the Jewish settlements, more likely big towns and cities with high tech infrastructure stand empty; their populations have long been moved to hotels and guest houses by the extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, for their safety.

They still wait their return but there is no end in sight as to when will this happen. The late Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, just before he was killed by Israel, said the occupation entity will not rest in peace, neither will the Jews return to their homes, until the bombs on Gaza stop.

Hezbollah had taken up the fight with Israel soon after 7 October as a support to Gaza through rocketing its northern parts with missiles. This process also set off a mass drove of Israelis to leave their homes, like their counterparts in the south, to be housed in a hotel accommodation away from the bombs and raging fires.

As the war genocide on Gaza continued in the following months, the return of these settler Israelis to their homes continued to be foggy, unknown. Many of these settlements and conurbations like Kiryat Shmona and Maalot today stand empty like ghost towns.

In Gaza around 2 million people out of a population of 2.2 million were forced into internal displacement, continually moving between areas from the north of Gaza to its southern border.

Likewise, the number of Israelis that were displaced was, initially estimated at 400,000 people with an extra 60,000 forced to leave when Hezbollah increased their missiles on the north after June 2024.

While they have been living in hotel accommodation many Israelis have been trying to get out of the country over the past months with the figures ranging from 500,000 up to a million.

Further to that about a quarter of Israelis polled by the Kan official channel, say they are truly thinking of leaving the country and 14 percent of them are supporters of Likud and the extremist rightwing parties. Indeed, soon after 7 October, the Ben Gurion Airport became filled with travelers as Hamas rockets started to land on Tel Aviv.

The airport is filled again today with travelers because of incoming missiles from Hezbollah from the north and the occasional ballistic missiles coming all the way from Yemen by the Houthis and/or the fright Israelis got from the recent incoming 200 missiles they saw in their skies from Iran.

There is no doubt that ordinary Israelis are under a lot of strain with sirens going off and on, all the time signaling for them, to go into the underground shelters. Video clips see them running asunder to the shelters, and who wouldn’t be scarred?

After all, the people of Gaza and now Lebanon are experiencing it all the time. For them however, there are no sirens, no warnings of 2000-pound bombs being dropped on their heads with no questions asked; their slaughter appear to be “manageable” foe western states who sell weapons to Israel.

The war can stop anytime. Hostages, around 110 from the original 250, can be returned anytime if there is a ceasefire but the Israeli prime minister is stuck on bringing them home by force, or so he says.

 Meanwhile Israelis are literally running. One videoclip in a Tel Aviv mall show people moving hastily to ahead, no doubt, to the underground shelters as the sirens blast all over.

Thus, there is a military equation that is being played out here: ‘You bomb us we will bomb you’. The Israeli army must realize that this is what is happening, and the stakes of the war game just keep getting higher and higher with Israel headed by Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, being lead to the abyss.  

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‘Bibi, You Are Not Going to Win this War’

Look Bibi, you are not going to win the war so stop acting as if you are going on! The sooner Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu realizes that the better it would be for everyone.

 But will he? Netanyahu is on a rollercoaster. Unable to finish off Gaza and Hamas, he turns his army to Lebanon and Hezbollah but he is soon stuck in the ‘mud’ despite the mass bombing, the destruction and the murder of innocent civilians.

The Israeli army has tried to cross the border at least seven times but has failed. It tried to enter a few hundred yards into southern Lebanon but soon pushed back every time by Hezbollah fighters. The Israeli army is finding out this party is no pushover despite the early pagers and the walkie talkie deathly-traps disasters.

Despite its air superiority and massive bombings that killed much of its top cadres including the dramatic killing of Secretary-General Hassan Nasarallah, Hezbollah fighters soon picked up and regained their strength and armor.

On the ground, the Israeli soldiers were not going to cross into Lebanon and that was a promise kept up by the skirmishes, heavy fighting, engagement and combat. Israeli soldiers were being stopped at the door so to speak, they were being killed and injured as reported by Hezbollah and admitted to by the Israeli army.

In addition to that, Hezbollah has been launching missiles and rockets on northern and central Israel all week, reaching all the way to Haifa and Tel Aviv, Acca, Tiberias, Safad with settlements, military basis, Mossad headquarters, the Galilee and all way to the occupied West Bank.

What this meant is that sirens were going off all the time and people were going in and out of underground shelters because of the extent of the missiles that were mostly coming from southern Lebanon but occasionally from Yemen and from Islamic resistance groups in Iraq and even Syria.

Psychology Strain

So the psychology has been a strain on its people, military and even politicians for on average between 100 and 150 missiles were being launched on the Israeli interior and on a daily basis. The majority of these are falling on these areas all the time and wreaking havoc and nervousness.  Their deflection by the Israeli Iron Dome has  failed badly in this war with Israelis feeling the heat as 23 percent of the population polled are already thinking of leaving the country.

Hezbollah is launching the different missiles despite the constant bombing being made by Israeli warplanes on the southern district of Beirut which is considered as the main Hezbollah stronghold. The Israelis are bombing intensely the Lebanese district, almost on the same level that was being practiced on the Gaza Strip, especially in the early months of the period following 7 October.

However, Hezbollah is stronger than Hamas and continuing its battering of the north of Israel – as can be seen – and will be maintained for a long time. Observers are saying Hezbollah seeks to send a clear message to Israel that ‘if you bomb our south district we will continue to strike places like Tel Aviv and Haifa’ which are the major economic and technological hubs and conurbations in Israel.

It is not an east ride for Israel after it killed Nasrallah which was seen as a brief moment of success and jubilation not least most of all from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who wanted to celebrate this act on the first anniversary of 7 October. But this wasn’t to be for soon, Israel was hit by 200 ballistic missiles launched all the way from Iran and increasing the psychology of fear among the Jewish population.

Israel has already tried to play down that affair by saying these missiles were not effective but they later admitted at least two of their military bases were hit. On the point of conjecture, everyone is expecting Israel to strike Iran and expand the regional war. But the Americans, whose generals and politicians are presently in Israel, they maybe trying to persuade the Israeli government not to because of the deadly consequences and slippery-slope scenarios.

Meanwhile, and feeling the pain again, Israel is going back to pound poor old Gaza in a most intense and obscene way and manner while seeking once again to drive the population of northern Gaza further down south and create a military zone and fill it with Jewish settlements through its so-called ‘Generals’ Plan’. 

This was the idea put forward at the start of this war on the enclave last year. It failed then – despite talk of driving the Palestinians into the Sinai Peninsula – and no doubt it will fail now.

This is because after a whole year of destruction Hamas and its fighters continue to be a force to be reckoned with. They have not been destroyed despite the mass bombs dropped on Gaza but they are regrouping throughout the enclave and dealing painful blows to the Israeli army.

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To Great Gaza After 1 Year

By Awni Rajoub

A year has passed, and Gaza is still under fire, burning daily under a barrage of bombs and missiles. A year of total destruction, killing and displacing women, the elderly, and children. More 42,000 martyrs, including thousands of innocent children, fell victim to a war machine that knows no mercy.

Despite all this, and despite the ongoing pain, Gaza is still standing, steadfast, and resisting.

Doesn’t this represent the greatest victory for the human spirit? Doesn’t this express greatness and an invincible sense of belonging to the land and the homeland?

O Islamic nation, the Arab nation, where are you?

Gaza is screaming in pain, under its rubble are children waiting for hope, and its women are burying their sons under the dirt.

In the face of all this destruction, Gaza continues to resist. It resists the most hateful military force the world has ever known. An enemy that does not distinguish between a child, an elderly person, and a woman, an enemy that strikes without mercy, without compassion.

Gaza has no water, no medicine, no food. Yet its people eat the bark of trees and the grass of the earth to stay alive, to remain alive.

But they do not live only to survive, they live to fight. To tell the whole world: We are here, we do not die, we are not defeated.

As for you, O Arab nation, O Muslim nation of two billion, where are you from Gaza? Where is your anger? Where is your conscience? Where is your jealousy for your brothers and sisters in Palestine?

While you are swaying with joy and dancing in your streets, Gaza is burying its sons.

While you are silent, Al-Aqsa is being desecrated, and the land is being raped.

Where are you from this? How can you allow yourselves to remain silent in the face of this injustice?

But despite everything Gaza refuses to be broken. Gaza does not ask for pity, it asks for justice.

While it bleeds Gaza is telling the world: Israel is an occupying state, a state that kills children, a state that displaces innocents. Israel deserves nothing but condemnation and isolation from the international community. How does the world accept the continuation of this brutal occupation? How does it allow these crimes to go unpunished?

Gaza, a symbol of pride and dignity, we owe you for standing up despite all the wounds, despite all the pain. You are the one thar remains, your people will remain free.

Thank you Gaza, we have learned from you the meaning of steadfastness. We have learned from you that resistance is not an option, but a duty and a right.

You are dignity, you are hope and the desired

Gaza, Gaza in the heart of every Arab

Gaza, victory and joy in the hearts of all Arabs

Tomorrow is near for those who see it

This article was translated from Jordan24.

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