By Wesam Bahrani
Qualitative operations support Palestinian negotiators
TEHRAN- On Monday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas targeted Israeli occupation forces in a minefield prepared with explosive devices and unexploded Israeli missiles in central Gaza.
The al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, published video footage accompanied by a statement saying it lured a large Israeli force into a mine ambush in the area of al-Mughraqa that resulted in “14 enemy soldiers dead and injured”.
Al-Qassam revealed that the minefield where Israeli forces were lured was prepared with explosive devices and Israeli F16 missiles that the regime’s warplanes had dropped on civilians in Gaza but failed to explode.
Hebrew media has spoken of difficult battles in the same area with the Israeli news site rotter.net reporting that three soldiers from the Israeli army were killed and eleven others sustained injuries in a mine explosion inside Gaza.
Other Israeli media outlets circulated reports of a “difficult security incident,” in which dead and wounded soldiers were evacuated from the vicinity of the Nitzanim base north of Mughraqa, central Gaza.
Israeli media reported helicopters landing at the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon and the Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, carrying dead and wounded soldiers from the Nitzanim base.
This is the second ambush against Israeli forces in the same area in the space of one week with the armed wing of Hamas using similar tactics. On April 24, Hamas issued a statement that read:
“The fighters of al-Qassam lure two Zionist armored forces into separate mine ambushes using improvised explosive devices and F16 missiles that were launched at civilians and did not explode in the Mughraqa area in central Gaza Strip.”
The Palestinian resistance groups have been conducting guerrilla-style warfare operations in Gaza for about 7 months in response to Israeli aggression and in defense against the occupation army’s ground incursions.
Many had expected the Palestinian resistance forces to ambush Israeli ground units. Experts believe this has had a devastating effect on Israeli forces, putting pressure on Netanyahu’s government to withdraw troops from Gaza.
The ambushes have represented a qualitative aspect of the resistance’s military response, inflicting human and material losses on the Israeli army and undermining the morale and combat readiness of its soldiers.
Among the most notable operations that the resistance forces executed were very qualitative ambushes in Khan Younis in the south of the Strip, in particular the Zana Ambush.
Al-Qassam confirmed that its fighters set up a well-planned ambush for a unit of occupation soldiers, resulting in casualties among them, and targeted vehicles coming to support the infantry forces, causing direct hits.
One day after the Zana ambush, the Israeli military announced the withdrawal of all its ground forces from southern Gaza. It is not known if the decision was taken as a result of this particular ambush or the many similar operations before it.
As a result of the resistance ambushes that led to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Khan Younis in recent weeks, some military officials now fear a ground invasion in Rafah.
Serving and former Israeli generals have told Israeli media that a ground operation in Rafah would be a major mistake and a “strategic ambush for Israel the Israeli military”.
In addition, Palestinian factions continue to fire rockets from the Gaza Strip and elsewhere.
On Monday the armed wing of Hamas issued a statement reading “the al-Qassam Brigades bombard the headquarters of the Eastern Brigade 769 Camp Gibor in northern occupied Palestine from southern Lebanon with a concentrated rocket barrage; in response to the massacres of the Zionist enemy in resilient Gaza and the uprising West Bank.”
After seven months of fighting in Gaza, Israeli troops and the general public have grown exhausted. The Israeli leadership has failed to achieve its stated goal to eliminate Hamas.
The only way for Tel Aviv to escape the Gaza quagmire is through indirect negotiations with Hamas that can bring about a ceasefire and more importantly before the famine spreads throughout the entire Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war to pressure Hamas at the negotiating table.
This is while Hamas, which represents all Palestinian resistance factions at the negotiations, is using force against the Israeli military to stand firmly behind its terms during the talks and avoid an Israeli invasion of Rafah.
No comments:
Post a Comment