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Military Analysis: The Gaza Resistance is Back

CrossFireArabia
April 22, 2025

Military, strategic expert Major-General Fayez al-Duwairi said the recent operations carried out by the Palestinian resistance groups in the Gaza Strip, led by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, reveal a remarkable ability to perform on the ground, despite Israeli military superiority.

He added that attempts to weaken the resistance are still far off.

In a full military analysis al-Duwairi explained that what happened in Beit Hanoun and the al-Tuffah neighborhood cannot be limited to a single operation, but reflects several separate ambushes in which advanced tactics were employed, including tunnel detonations and preemptive surveillance of enemy movements.

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing released a video of the “Breaking the Sword” ambush it carried out east of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, which resulted in the death of one soldier and the injury of others whilst also engineering an Israeli force that was lured into a booby-trapped tunnel shaft in the al-Tuffah neighborhood and detonated it, resulting in a number of casualties.

Al-Duwairi pointed out that the attack on the Israeli force east in Tuffah is an independent operation and believes the succession of these operations confirms the resistance’s return to the tactics of the first phase of the war, when it held the initiative.

The military expert believes these attacks reflect the resistance factions’ readiness to employ different methods in confrontation, including booby-trapping, sniping, and direct engagement at close range.

He pointed out that the video footage broadcast by the Qassam Brigades from Beit Hanoun, showing the resistance fighters infiltrating through a tunnel, demonstrates a high degree of professionalism, especially since the fighters emerged from a tunnel previously monitored by the occupation, indicating a failure of Israeli intelligence to assess the extent of the threat.

Five stages

Speaking on Al Jazeera, he explained that this complex ambush was executed in five stages, including surveillance, targeting the first vehicle, and then surprising the support force. He indicated that the resistance various weapons were used, including RPG launchers, machine guns, and mortar shells, indicating tight field coordination.

The retired major-general emphasized what was striking about the operation was that the ambush occurred in a buffer zone from which the occupation forces had not supposedly withdrawn, specifically on al-Awda Street, only about 300 meters from the separation line. This demonstrates the fighters’ great audacity and their ability to penetrate deep into Israeli territory in broad daylight.

He pointed out that field data reported by Israeli media, such as the amputation of two female soldiers’ legs as a result of the attack, confirms that the losses were heavy. The Israeli army was also forced to use 60mm mortar shells to attempt to regain control of the area after losing soldiers and equipment.

Al-Duwairi emphasized that the continuation of these ambushes and their various implementation methods prove that the resistance has not lost the initiative. Rather, it is now capable of moving whenever the opportunity arises, whether by reaching deep within the buffer zone or targeting occupation forces as they approach pre-prepared positions.

He pointed out that the tactic of the tunnel detonated east of the Tuffah neighborhood differed from the Beit Hanoun tunnel, explaining that the former involved a direct lure of an Israeli force into a booby-trapped tunnel, reflecting high-precision surveillance and the ability to remain patient on the ground until the appropriate moment for execution.

Major General Fayez al-Duwairi believes that the resistance’s field performance in recent hours reflects an important fact: The use of tunnels remains a black box for the Israeli army. He added that the ability to exploit this tactical advantage means that twisting the resistance’s arm remains out of reach.

Since the beginning of last March, the first phase of a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement between Hamas and Israel, which went into effect on January 19, with Egyptian and Qatari mediation and American support, has concluded, and the movement has adhered to it.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu evaded the start of the second phase and resumed the genocide in the Gaza Strip on 18 March, in deference to the most extreme faction within his right-wing government.

With full American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since 7 October, 2023, leaving more than 168,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing.

News

Gallant Admits Hamas Wouldn’t Harm Israel Captives

CrossFireArabia
April 21, 2025

In an interview on the “Call Me Back” podcast, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant admitted that they knew Hamas would do everything necessary to preserve the lives of Israeli captives because they were “their insurance policy.”

In an interview on the “Call Me Back” podcast, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant admitted that they knew Hamas would do everything necessary to preserve the lives of Israeli captives because they were “their insurance policy.”

Gallant’s admissions completely… pic.twitter.com/svYoribpoW
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) April 21, 2025

Gallant’s admissions completely contradict Israel’s claims and propaganda regarding the captives, especially concerning the Bibas children, confirming reports that some Israeli captives were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

News

Shin Bet Chief Reveals All Against Netanyahu

CrossFireArabia
April 21, 2025

The head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking surveillance of anti-government protesters and demanding his personal loyalty, in a testimony to the Supreme Court on Monday.

Netanyahu had tried to block Ronen Bar from submitting written testimony to the court, which the prime minister is expected to respond to in writing next Thursday.

Amid tensions between Bar and Netanyahu, the government decided on March 20 to dismiss the Shin Bet chief, but the court froze the dismissal order pending a review of opposition appeals.

According to the Israeli public broadcaster KAN, Bar wrote at the beginning of his affidavit that he had no knowledge of the reasons for his dismissal.

He said that the move “was not due to professional performance, but rather stemmed from an expectation of personal loyalty to the Prime Minister.”

“This reason – as I understand it – led to an extraordinary series of actions by the Prime Minister, alongside a media campaign against me on social media.”

The Shin Bet chief revealed that Netanyahu told him that in the event of a constitutional crisis, “I must obey the prime minister and not the High Court of Justice.”

Bar also said that Netanyahu requested Shin Bet to act against protesters opposing his government, calling it “an illegal request.”

According to Bar, Netanyahu told him “on more than one occasion” that he expected the Shin Bet to act against Israeli citizens involved in protests against the government.

Bar also wrote that he was asked to “provide details about the identities of Israeli citizens, protest activists, who had followed security personnel,” with particular emphasis on monitoring “protest funders.”

He disclosed that Netanyahu exerted “unusual pressure” on him to write a professional opinion, authored by Netanyahu or his aides, declaring that the prime minister should not appear in court to face ongoing corruption charges.

Bar added that Netanyahu tried to raise such matters at the end of meetings – after ordering his military secretary and stenographer, who operates the meeting recording device, to leave the room – “to prevent any record of the conversation.”

“I will soon announce the end date of my service,” he said, without specifying further.

Serious accusations

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Bar’s affidavit includes serious allegations against Netanyahu.

In response, Netanyahu’s office said that Bar submitted a “false affidavit” to the court, adding that it “will be refuted in detail in the near future.”

Later, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement rejecting Bar’s testimony to the High Court, calling it “full of lies” and proving that he “failed miserably” in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

Bar falsely claimed that he alerted the entire security system on the night of Oct. 7, 2023, but failed to notify the prime minister or then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

“If he had done so, the massacre would have been avoided,” the statement said.

According to the statement, Bar claimed he ordered the prime minister’s military secretary to be awakened at 5:15 a.m. local time, but his office director only contacted the secretary at 6:13 a.m., minutes before Hamas began its attack, despite having intelligence about a potential attack for more than three hours.

“This confirms what all ministers in the government already agree on: Bar failed catastrophically on Oct. 7,” Netanyahu said. “That alone justifies his dismissal.”

“Bar confirms the determination of all government ministers that he failed miserably on Oct. 7. This reason alone requires his termination,” the statement added.

Netanyahu’s office also accused Bar of concealing a statement issued two days before the attack.

On Oct. 4, 2023, Bar reported that the “renewal of understandings between Israel and Hamas based on the principle of quiet in exchange for concessions reveals the potential for preserving stability in the Gaza Strip.”

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that the testimony shows that Netanyahu is posing a threat to Israel’s security.

“The Shin Bet chief’s testimony proves that Netanyahu is a danger to Israel’s security and cannot remain Prime Minister,” he added in a statement.

“Netanyahu tried to use Shin Bet to surveil Israeli citizens.”

On Sunday, Lapid warned of possible political assassinations, naming Bar as a potential target, and accused Netanyahu and his ministers of inciting violence.

At the same time, Lapid also criticized Bar, saying he “should have resigned since Oct. 7, 2023,” due to his failure to prevent the Hamas attack.

Meanwhile, Yair Golan, leader of the opposition Democrats Party and former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, called Netanyahu “a direct threat to Israel’s security and the rule of law, and must step down immediately.”

In a post on X, Golan said Bar’s affidavit “is not just a warning, but a serious indictment and an emergency alert for Israeli democracy.”

He described Netanyahu as “a failure in security and politics, and deeply entangled legally.”

“Netanyahu is a chaotic leader heading a chaotic government, which is not only a threat to democracy, but a full-blown coup,” he added according to Anadolu.

The Israeli army resumed its deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18 and has since killed 1,864 people and injured nearly 4,900 others despite a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.

More than 51,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former Defense 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.

Opinion

Middle East Psychosis

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 8, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

As far as one is concerned, the Middle East has been for a long time a matter of balance of power overlapping with strategic reluctance to change its status quo. But the advent of US President Donald Trump is ushering a new era with all sorts of possibilities.

On the microcosm level for instance, Arafat’s Fateh movement in the PLO was checked in a formula of a balance of power by the leftists organizations as well as the Palestinian organizations sponsored by some Arab countries, the affiliation of all in the PLO created the sense of a balance of power.

However, with the emergance of the PNA and the affiliation of the Palestinian groups in it, albeit with variable influence, created a unit which under the balance of power notion, necessitated the creation of a check and balance on its power.

Consequently Hamas was created, and what seemingly appeared as contradiction between them, turned out to be a symbiotic relationship between them. Now, one cannot say with certainity what will happen next, however, if the objective is to maintain the balance of power by just weakening Hamas, this will require symbiotically weakening the PNA as well, but if the objective is to eleminate Hamas, the next step will be to eleminate the PNA.

As for the macro level, and as one often repeats, the Middle East, has at least for the last five decades was strategically governed by the famous triangle, Iran-Israel-Turkey, with the Arab world having little say in their own affairs , if at all.

However, since the fall of the Shah regime in Iran, the search started for a third angle to replace Iran in governing the Middle East, considering the open hostility of Iran towards West. Consequently some Arab countries jumped into the frey as possible candidates, like Egypt, then Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia. But as it seems, a preference for the old triangle was decided upon by the world powers, accepting the inconvenience of having to negotiate with Iran.

Now, we can see a new development that breaks the taboo of the old balance of power in the region.

Starting mid-way from the Biden administration, and with the start of the second Trump administration, the notion of balance of power by the usual triangle has turned into a balance of aggressiveness in the region, as Israel and Iran “bombard” each other, Turkey’s involvement in toppling Assad, and now the distinct possibility of confrontation with Israel in Syria, while being threatened itself by Iran if it cooperates in any possible American attack on Persia. Thus the stability which this triangle had sustained itself, is no more.

From appearances, at least how things look like: It seems Israel is being supported by Trump explicitly and by many other international parties implicitly, to be either the major power that has a say in Middle Eastern affairs. This means that Iran’s grip on the region will be curtailed through negotiations at least if not war; and here the symbiotic issue appears again, with Turkey’s role curtailed through pressures and/or and economic threats.

Here, as well, the aim is to designate Israel as only point of compass on the map of the Middle East, which Arabs are expected to flock to and normalise with.

In this case events will inevitably take a nasty symbiotic turn, meaning Iran will have to be attacked and taken out altogether with its surrogates from the power relations of the Middle East, and Turkey forced to take a more insular step from the affairs of the region, even with a regime change if required.

But we will have to wait and see what lies in store!

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris, France.

Opinion

Israel Kills Children as World Looks on

CrossFireArabia
March 26, 2025

By Luigi Daniele

Mark these words: South Africa is likely to win the genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but by then, it will be too late to save a single civilian life. The time for robust action is now.

The resumption of the exterminatory Israeli bombardments on Gaza has killed 174 Palestinian children and toddlers in less than 48 hours, according to Defense for Children International. UNICEF has also denounced the killing of more than 130 children in a single day, representing the largest single-day child death toll among Palestinians in years. This may be the deadliest episode in the history of Israeli military actions in Palestine.

Family members of slain Israeli captives, whose names and faces have repeatedly been used to justify further attacks on Palestinians, condemned their government’s actions as another betrayal of the hostages, with Yarden Bibas writing “military pressure endangers the hostages while an agreement brings them home”, and networks of Israeli families declaring Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu chose Ben-Gvir’s return to the government over the return of the hostages from Gaza.

In the midst of this carnage, Israeli ministers declare “a society that tolerates Hamas sympathizers within it has no right to exist,” or ask the very population they are destroying to “return the hostages and remove Hamas” unless they want to pay a “far more severe price” of “total devastation.”

Ideology of destruction

The ideology of the Israeli leadership is becoming increasingly explicit: It promotes the notion that Palestinians deserve elimination and are responsible for their own destruction. It is a paradigmatically genocidal ideology, typical of all the genocides in history, construing the victim group’s existence as undeserved, its survival as an intolerable threat, brutalities against it inherently justified, ‘called for’, and the forcing of the group into inexistence as a way of restoring the natural order of things as they should have always been. After all, key Israeli ministers declared “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” Declaring the inexistence of a people equates precisely to posing the premises for its elimination.

The honesty of the genocidal narratives of the Israeli executive, coupled with the use of hunger, thirst, diseases as weapons of war, reinforces crucially the validity of South Africa’s arguments at the ICJ, and of those states intervening in support of those arguments. As an international lawyer, my guess is that South Africa, even more likely after these renewed atrocities, will win the genocide case at the ICJ.

Despite the all-time record of crimes against children, Western states keep refraining from legal action, even those intervening in other ICJ cases to affirm that, in their interpretation of the Genocide Convention, the victimization of children, as the most vulnerable and crucial component of victim groups, should bring special weight in ascertaining the existence of genocidal intent. Beyond hypocrisy and racist double standards, Palestinian children are portrayed as less human and less worthy of protection than other children.

The irresponsibility of political leaders of third states indeed continues to kill. Silent when not complicit, incapable of acting for a single sanction, some are even offering safe harbors from ICC arrest warrants to their political and business partners wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, violating their own obligations as state parties of the Rome Statute.

In sum, the lawlessness unleashed on Palestinians is indeed infecting the world (dis)order, and it is evident that Netanyahu has all the interest in descending the entire region into a state of permanent war to stay in power. The global instability deriving from the winds of regional and global wars (in which the EU is diving rather than shifting its disastrous strategic approaches) will inevitably increase authoritarian repressions against dissidents, oppositions, and alternative visions in many of the countries revolving around this tragic abyss of history. War and authoritarianism always nurture each other. It is therefore not only in the interests of the survival of Palestinians, but a political necessity against the oligarchic shifts in our own countries to demand robust action now.

Protecting lives

Palestinians need a humanitarian intervention of a multilateral coalition to protect civilian lives. This presence alone can tackle an alliance of savage powers devaluing the lives of Palestinians as less than human and extracting profits from their massacres now, while preparing to extract more profits from exterminatory wars globally tomorrow. This would offer an immediate opportunity for world powers genuinely committed to reforming the international order towards a new multilateralism based on sovereign equality, self-determination, and peaceful coexistence to prove that their words are not empty slogans.

In other words, the paradox we face is that even the selfish pursuit of national interests—let alone legal or moral obligations—should be enough to trigger decisive action like the one proposed in this reflection.

A multilateral military presence, under UN auspices, to protect Palestinian civilians appears necessary as never before, since none of them will ever be safe under occupation by forces making clear they consider their existence as a people an offense to be redressed by annihilation. Should a coalition of states promote such an action, it would enjoy the support of masses of citizens across the globe, and gain moral leadership in these dark times, marked by the unchecked rise of international criminality.

Luigi Daniele is a senior scholar at Nottingham Trent University