CrossFireArabia
Activist Anas Samhan writes a reflection on the relentless tragedies of war, encapsulating the unyielding suffering endured by countless displaced people in the Gaza Strip. He paints a harrowing picture of destruction, hunger, killing, and hard conditions of seasons. Samhan’s words underscore the diverse, unimaginable ways people face death in such circumstances.
CrossFireArabia
With the intensification of the Israeli bombing of northern Gaza and with a siege of more than 80 days now, especially of Jabalia, its camp and Beit Lahia, the resistance is using all available tools to counter the Israeli aggression despite turning north Gaza into an eyesore of destruction and not a place for survival.
The resistance continues to show unparalleled bravery standing up Israeli soldiers who can be seen carrying their dead and wounded on a daily basis.
The Jabalia camp, one of the largest refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, reflects, with its history and reality, a miniature image of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Analysts point out the operations launched from Jabalia reflect the roots of the Palestinian struggle rooted in the camps since the Nakba in 1948.
“We are the ones who used to chase the Israeli patrol in our camp here (Jabalia) with the sticks”… This was one of the expressions used by martyr leader Nizar Rayyan inside the Jabalia camp. He was martyred in the first wars that the resistance fought with the Israeli occupation forces in 2008-2009, showing the bravery of the people of Jabalia and their legendary steadfastness in confronting the occupier.
“Just as we rubbed your noses in Ashdod, we will rub your noses in Jabalia,” Rayyan used to say.
While the 444 days of this rabid war on Gaza Strip should have been enough to end the resistance – according to Israeli and American thinking – the Al-Qassam and Al-Quds Brigades fighters in Jabalia say this is wishful thinking even if thousands of Mujahideens are killed, and the weapons run out as the recent stabbing operations show. These operations shouldn’t be interperated to mean as some suggest that weapons are running out for the enemy’s daily losses are not decreasing while the capabilities of the resistance are rising.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas military wing, announced Sunday, it targeted nine soldiers inside a house with a “TBG” shell west of Jabalia camp, confirming they have either been killed and/or wounded whilst stating it destroyed an Israeli troop carrier with a “commando” explosive device in the Al-Alami area in the center of Jabalia camp.
The brigades added that “a Zionist officer was sniped in Abu Al-Aish Street in the center of Jabalia camp, north of the Strip,” and said it targeted a second Israeli troop carrier with a “commando” explosive device west of Beit Lahia, north of the Strip.
As well last Friday, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced it carried out a complex operation in Jabalia camp; where one of its fighters advanced towards an Israeli sniper and his assistant, and stabbed them to death, adding the fighter wore the uniform of one of the dead, and an hour after the operation, he advanced towards an Israeli force of six individuals, and blew himself up with an explosive belt, killing and wounding its members.
Last Saturday, Al-Qassam Brigades announced on its Telegram channel its fighters carried out a complex operation, stabbing three Israeli soldiers to death, seizing their personal weapons, then storming a house where a foot force had taken cover, killing two of its soldiers at the house gate.
On Sunday, the Al Jihad Al-Quds Brigades stated that one of its heroic martyrs stormed a Zionist troop carrier and carried out a special operation by detonating a suicide bomb among the soldiers who were at the entrance to the Al-Awda Towers in Ezbet Beit Hanoun.
Military analyst Major-General Fayez Al-Duwairi says “zero distance” is a golden opportunity for resistance fighters in their confrontation with the occupation forces, given the big difference between the equipment of the Israeli army with its high capabilities, and the weapons made by al- mujahideen locally.
He added the more the intensity of the ground aggression and Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip areas increases, the greater the resistance’s opportunity to engage directly with enemy forces.
Since the start of the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, the resistance fighters have shown the most prominent of their weapons to target the Israeli enemy, including Al-Yassin 105 shells, tandem shells, sniper weapons, Shawaaz bombs and machine guns according to the Palestine Information Center.
However, the use of the stabbing weapon and explosive belts which emerged in recent days to carry out martyrdom operations, indicates that the weapons used by the resistance are no longer as accessible as they were in the past, due to the tight siege imposed by the occupation, and the intensity of the operations carried out by the resistance fighters, which has led to the depletion of the battalions’ weapons stockpile.
The heroic operations carried out by the resistance fighters in northern Gaza over the past 80 days have resulted in the killing of more than 70 soldiers and officers in the occupation forces, in the Jabalia camp and camp alone, including the bombing of more than 100 military vehicles, 17 sniper operations, and 26 clashes with a foot force.
In a Yedioth Ahronoth interview with an Israeli officer he said the confrontation in northern Gaza these days is through the alleys, face to face with Palestinian fighters who do not fear death and refuse to be arrested.
Major-General Mohammed Al-Samadi believes that the significance of the stabbing operations and martyrdom operations in Jabalia confirms that the resistance is cohesive and strong, and adapts according to combat developments, and carries out hit-and-run operations, and carries out operations through small groups, including the lone wolf operations carried out by one of the mujahideen against the occupation forces, causing casualties and injuries in their ranks.
Al-Samadi added in an interview with Al Jazeera the resistance in northern Gaza has killed 17 soldiers through sniper operations, and that one fighter in the resistance factions can kill a group of individuals in the occupation forces, indicating that the occupation suffers from weak morale among its fighters, and also suffers from an intelligence failure in knowing the resistance’s tactics.
CrossFireArabia
The Al-Quds Brigades, the Islamic Jihad’s military wing, announced that its fighters detonated an explosive device among Israeli soldiers inside a tanker in Beit Hanoun, north Gaza, two days after a similar operation by the Al-Qassam Brigades was carried out
“One of our heroic martyrs was able to storm a Zionist troop carrier and carry out a qualitative operation by detonating an explosive device among the soldiers at the entrance to the Al-Awda Towers in the Beit Hanoun estate,” the Quds Brigade stated on its Telegram account.
Before that the Hamas Al-Qassam Brigades stated, Friday, that “a Qassam fighter was able to eliminate a Zionist sniper and his assistant this afternoon from zero distance in the Jabalia camp.”
It stated that an hour after that “the fighter disguised himself in the uniform of an Israeli soldier was able to reach a Zionist force of six soldiers and detonate himself using an explosive belt in the force, killing and wounding them.”
Further, the Al-Quds Brigades showed a videoclip of its fighters targeting Israeli soldiers and vehicles in the northern Gaza Strip, after seizing a drone and learning the coordinates of the occupation forces’ positioning.
Al-Qassam Brigades also broadcast scenes of its fighters confronting the Israeli occupation army and its vehicles in the axes it is stationed at in the northern Gaza Strip, and sent defiant messages through its field commanders.
Aside that, the Israeli Army Radio said three of its soldiers were injured – one in critical condition – in the explosion of an explosive device in a tank in the Gaza Strip.
The radio added that the soldiers were injury in an incident during a raid launched by the Harel Brigade in the central Gaza Strip Sunday.
This is while a reserve soldier was seriously injured during battles in the central Gaza Strip, an Israeli army spokesman confirmed.
The Palestinian resistance factions, led by the Al-Qassam Brigades, are launching special operations and engaging in fierce clashes against the occupation forces that have penetrated all parts of the Strip now, for more than a year, especially in the Jabalia camp in the north, where the Israeli army is involved in a continuing a military operation that has left dozens of martyrs and great destruction to homes and facilities according to Al Jazeera.
CrossFireArabia
By Dr Ahmad Tibi
In the midst of the Spanish Civil War, some time in 1937, fascist dictator Francisco Franco’s regime bombed the Basque town of Guernica, with the help of Germany and Italy. In less than four hours, and after bombs weighing a total of 22 tons were dropped on it, the town was completely destroyed.
Hundreds were killed in the bombardment, which shocked the entire world and became a symbol of the cruelty of those times. Guernica was immolated in the fire of fascistic propaganda and in historical memory it is testimony to the fragility of justice during war. Pablo Picasso’s famous masterpiece, “Guernica,” has become a symbol of the destruction and horror of war.
In the bombing of Guernica, no pilot refused to obey orders. They flew – and carried out their job as dictated. Obedient soldiers. Eighty-seven years later, it is the same old song. No Israeli pilot has stood up and said “No.” “This is the limit.”
The bombardments in the Gaza Strip have hit and damaged hospitals, schools, kindergartens, mosques and churches, bakeries, public buildings and entire neighborhoods – leaving behind tragedies too numerous to elaborate – and not a single pilot has said “No.”
During the past 14 months, and after multiple Guernicas in Gaza – human morality is facing yet another test. Since the war began, tens of thousands of children, women and men have lost their lives, and entire towns – like Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalya – have been wiped off the face of the earth in bombings by the IDF.
Cities comparable in population size to Herzliya and Dimona have been bombed into rubble. And the world, with its silence and its armaments and materiel support, is supporting this. The media in Israel wobbles between total denial and depicting the actions as heroic, justified, essential deeds.
How can a pilot be proud of this? How does he sleep at night? Killing 17,000 children and wounding about 100,000. Killing masses of civilians is not “self defense” even in the face of the horrors of the killing of dozens of children alongside hundreds of other civilians in the Gaza border communities.
We have arrived at an absurd rule: Nothing justifies October 7 – but in the name of October 7 everything is justifiable. There is no security justification for such massive bombing. No military action can justify bombing helpless human beings, or the eradication of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalya from the face of the earth. This ethnic cleansing is reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing of 530 villages in 1948.
In the Israel of 2024, after 14 months of nearly constant bombardment, day and night – the voice of refusal has gone silent and is unheard. In the Jewish Israeli public, voices of protest and resistance are hardly audible.
The planes thunder and morality is silenced – and there are even those who are demanding yet more bombing and even more destruction. The few who refused to be conscripted this year – for example, Ido Ilam – and kudos to him for that – can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and the letters of refusal and resistance actions on the fingers of two, but no more than that.
Conscientious objection is entirely a personal gesture: It is a political act of resistance to the system. It is a refusal to commit war crimes in the name and for the sake of the system, a refusal to be part of a process of destruction and ruin. A refusal to kill. A refusal to steal. To destroy. To burn down a home. To rob. To deprive. And to ruin. But refusal only because of a judiciary reform is not enough.
Without refusal to take part wholesale military destruction, human society sinks ever deeper into its moral darkness, which has no limits.
“The West,” which for years fought for the values of democracy and human rights, is choosing to turn a blind eye to the horrors of Gaza. Under cover of “the right to self-defense” – as though Israel were not a regional military superpower and lacked might and means – the West is allowing it almost unlimited freedom of action and giving it a green light to destroy Gaza and deepen the occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.
The ethnic cleansing taking place before our very eyes, and which is being broadcast live on social media, is made possible under the auspices of the Western countries that are enlightened only in their own eyes.
And the administration of the Democrats in the United States, led by President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will be remembered forever in disgrace, alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the destroyers of Gaza, perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and mass murder of women and children.
What will they say about this a few decades hence? What will you tell your children? Your grandchildren?
Ultimately, every individual’s morality – including a pilot’s morality – is measured by his deeds. What he agrees to do and what he refuses to do. Are you prepared to press the button that will kill scores of children? That will burn to death three generations of a single family? Can you look in the mirror after you have bombed an entire neighborhood?
Do you love the person the mirror reflects back to you in the morning? Gaza, like Guernica, did not ask to be a moral test and a symbol of the human cruelty of these times. Above all, it is a place, a home to millions of people – men, women and children – who want to live outside the walls of the biggest prison in the world. A prison that has become the biggest graveyard in the world.
Gaza, like Guernica, reminds us how important it is to resist and refuse to participate in injustice – loudly and clearly, even at a steep personal price. Where there is resistance, there is hope, and where there is hope there is a future for all of us.
Dr Ahmad Al Tibi is a Palestinian-Israeli politician and has been a member of the Knesset since 1999. This opinion was reproduced from the Israeli Haaretz.
CrossFireArabia
Contrary to the false statements by Israeli military spokespersons, Amos Harel, a military analyst for Haaretz, reveals that the destruction of Jabaliya is part of the “Generals’ Plan,” which aims to expel Palestinians from northern Gaza.
There are those in the southern command and field forces dangerously supporting this plan.
