6/23/2024–|Last updated: 6/23/202409:23 AM (Mecca time)
Military expert Major General Fayez Al-Duwairi said that Israel’s talk of victory over the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) – confirms its failure to destroy the resistance as it pledged at the beginning of the war.
He added – in an analysis of the military scene in the Gaza Strip – that talking about reducing the Qassam force and not eliminating it “means that it is still present regardless of its combat efficiency or the damage it has sustained,” noting that talking about weeks to end the Rafah operation means that the resistance is still there. Exists in one form or another.
He said that what is being promoted is an attempt to say that Israel has succeeded in trimming the nails of the resistance, stressing that this talk carries political goals, namely that Al-Qassam is no longer capable of repeating what happened last October 7.
Al-Duwairi based this hypothesis on the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the occupation army will remain in the Gaza Strip until the resistance is disarmed, and that Israel is the only one capable of that.
The military expert suggested that the Israeli forces would be withdrawn from the cities and kept in the Philadelphia and Netzarim axes and the area parallel to the fence, noting that the fence area and the Philadelphia axis represent 45% of the area of the Strip.
He said that this deployment will be with reserve forces, because the active forces will be directed to the northern front (the border with Lebanon), noting that trying to disarm means entering a war of attrition because it will be based on raids.
Putting pressure on the resistance by bombing civilians
Regarding the escalation of the bombing of Gaza City and the incursion into the center of Rafah, Al-Duwairi said that it was an attempt to put pressure on the resistance and force it to make concessions in a prisoner exchange deal without making concessions from the Israeli side.
He concluded by saying that talk about US President Joe Biden’s initiative has declined significantly over the past few days despite the resistance’s response to the proposal, which means that the response was not satisfactory for Tel Aviv, which is trying to put pressure militarily to obtain concessions.