After 9 months of devastating war on the Gaza Strip, elite Israeli forces from the Yamam Unit and the General Security Service (Shin Bet) were able to recover 4 prisoners held by the resistance who were being held in the Nuseirat area in the middle of the Strip.
In an area not exceeding 9 square kilometers, the occupation forces fought fierce clashes with the resistance and under intense fire bombardment from the air, sea and air to recover their captives, who did not include any soldiers. They were captured at a music concert in one of the settlements around the Gaza Strip. They are also part of 128 prisoners held by the resistance, according to Israeli estimates.
In the details of the operation that began to unfold according to Israeli websites, the occupation forces infiltrated the Nuseirat camp with humanitarian aid trucks to enter the area without attracting the attention of the resistance.
The Israeli Kan channel reported that Palestinian resistance fighters chased the car that evacuated the prisoners, opened fire on it, and damaged it. The occupation army was unable to bring a helicopter near the place where the prisoners were evacuated and required additional reinforcements.
External support
In no case can the matter be taken out of the context of the support that Israel received from many international intelligence agencies.
The British website “Declassified”, which specializes in politics and intelligence, reported that the British army carried out – from December until last May – 200 aerial spy missions over the Gaza Strip in support of Israel.
It also comes after Israel used its maximum technological and firepower to eliminate the resistance and weaken its capabilities.
In this context, more information began to emerge that there was American participation in what happened in Nuseirat. Israeli websites reported that an American official arrived in Tel Aviv yesterday to follow up on the operation, which indicates that Washington had a fundamental role in providing intelligence information and the participation of the occupation army in this operation. The operation was carried out, and the official was waiting at the water jetty that had been created at the moment the operation was carried out.
This was confirmed by the Axios news website, quoting a US administration official, who said that the “American kidnappers cell in Israel” helped in recovering the prisoners.
Faint victory
Israel sought to show that it had achieved what it described as victory and achievement, but it appeared as a “faded victory” that gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and their allies more time to continue the aggression against Gaza.
The occupation army’s arrival of some prisoners is not a major achievement worthy of celebration. Rather, it is an achievement that tastes like “defeat and insult,” according to what observers say. How could the small and besieged Gaza Strip, most of whose areas have been destroyed, succeed in keeping the prisoners all this time, especially since Israel’s faint victory was achieved with American assistance? .
Also, the image that the occupation army and the Netanyahu government seek to portray as a victory and a new opening in the war is evidence of Israel’s decline and failure, as previous attempts to free prisoners only resulted in the killing of them and many prisoners in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, and also demonstrated the weakness of Israeli intelligence.
Resistance gains
In the context of the battles between the resistance and the occupation army and achieving achievements, it cannot in any way be overlooked that the resistance was able during the battle to capture and kill Israeli soldiers. On May 25, Abu Ubaida, the military spokesman for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement, announced ( Hamas) reported the capture, killing, and wounding of Israeli soldiers during a complex operation that afternoon in the northern Gaza Strip, where they lured an Israeli force into a tunnel in the Jabalia camp.
Abu Ubaida said that Al-Qassam fighters ambushed members of the Israeli force inside the tunnel in Jabalia and at its entrance, and they were able to engage this force from a distance of zero.
He explained that Al-Qassam fighters attacked the support force that rushed to the place with explosive devices and directly hit them, and then withdrew after blowing up the tunnel used in the operation.
Abu Ubaida confirmed that Al-Qassam fighters killed, wounded and captured all members of the Israeli force, and seized military equipment.
Since that time, Israel has not announced what happened in that operation, which in military terms is considered a severe blow against the occupation army and an achievement for the resistance.
War…continuing resistance
What happened in Nuseirat will not change much in the course of the war, as the process of recovering two former prisoners – and finding the bodies of some of the prisoners who were killed by the Israeli bombing – did not result in a significant change in the course of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
The resistance continued to exhaust the occupation forces and inflict great losses on them. The occupation penetrated into many areas of the Gaza Strip, but withdrew and was unable to do so and free any of its prisoners. The course of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip shows that the occupation army is suffering major losses. According to the Israeli Channel 12, it has lost Army reserve units began searching for volunteers to fight in Gaza through advertisements on the WhatsApp application.
The Israeli channel added that the announcements searching for volunteers for the army come in light of a severe shortage of soldiers in reserve units. She confirmed that soldiers in reserve units in Gaza and the north expressed the difficulty of maintaining their strength throughout this time. The channel quoted a reserve soldier as saying, “There is a state of great exhaustion among the soldiers, and great pressure from families and workplaces.”
Similar process
What happened in the Nuseirat operation was expected to happen in the first days of the war, as the number of prisoners held by the resistance numbered in the hundreds, and some of them were not with the resistance, but rather with some Gaza families who captured some Israelis in the process of storming the settlements around the Gaza Strip, which took place in the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood.
Last February, the occupation army was able to recover two prisoners in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, in a night military operation that coincided with a violent bombardment of the city, resulting in the death of at least 63 Palestinians. The operation was carried out with the participation of the army, police special forces, and the Shin Bet, and Netanyahu followed it up.
Negotiation path
What happened in Nuseirat may give Netanyahu and his allies a chance to breathe and present what happened as an achievement to be credited to them, and it may push Netanyahu and the United States to become more stringent in the negotiations to stop the war and try to pressure the resistance to make concessions and agree to what is on the table, according to what US Secretary of State Anthony Blicken said. .
But following the negotiation process and the resistance’s position indicates that what is happening will not affect its position and will not push it to make concessions that are not commensurate with its achievement on the ground and the amount of sacrifices and steadfastness made by the people of the Gaza Strip that helped the resistance in its position.
In addition, the resistance may later not accept the United States as a mediator and deal with it as a party to the war. If this is done and new mediators are introduced, this will give strength to the resistance in the negotiations.
The resistance had previously announced through Al-Qassam’s military spokesman that “the price we will take for 5 or 10 living prisoners is the same price we would have taken for all the prisoners if the enemy’s bombing operations had not killed them.”
Also, last month and a few days ago, the resistance was able to capture many occupation soldiers in Jabalia, and still holds dozens of prisoners. It appears that the resistance has prepared itself for a long and complex battle, as military experts and the resistance itself say.
Whatever the case, the declared goal of the occupation since the beginning of its war on the Gaza Strip remains to end the presence of the Hamas movement, recover the prisoners, and eliminate the resistance and its capabilities, none of which has been achieved so far.