The Palestinian resistance turns the tables and corrects the equation

It is too early to come up with definitive and final conclusions about the operation launched by the Palestinian resistance from Gaza and called it “Al-Aqsa Flood,” which surprised friends before enemies, and included successful breakthroughs from land, air, and sea, and revealed a series of Israeli security and military failures. The Palestinian resistance succeeded in controlling a large number of settlements around the Gaza Strip, inflicting heavy losses on army personnel and settlers, and capturing dozens of soldiers and settlers. But it is clear, before the dust of the battle settles, that it represents a turning point and a qualitative turning point in the history of the conflict, and there is no doubt that what comes after October 7 is not the same as before.

Even the most ardent enthusiasts of the resistance and supporters of its choices and performance did not expect that the Al-Qassam Brigades/the military wing of the Hamas movement would have accumulated its experience and developed its capabilities, in order to be able to accomplish this operation that dazzled the world, and revealed the fragility of the Israeli military and security system and the ability to penetrate it. It is true that the expected Israeli response will be brutal and harsh and will most likely go beyond traditional responses, as more than one official has threatened, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Galant. Throughout its criminal history, Israel has become accustomed to creating an equation based on inflicting heavy losses on the people in exchange for adopting or supporting resistance, in addition to the political and moral dimension of this approach, which seeks to establish the conviction that Israel’s massive military surplus is capable of imposing the political outcomes determined by the occupying state.

The theory of excess Israeli power has only proven itself with regimes and regular armies. It has failed before with the Lebanese resistance, just as it has failed with all previous rounds of fighting with the Palestinian resistance. In general, it was unable to impose surrender and raise the white flag on the Palestinian people. But all of the above battles and rounds of combat will seem like mere rehearsals for the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, which will be recorded as a special and unprecedented day in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Perhaps the closest example to it is the surprise of the October War, exactly fifty years ago, with the huge difference between the capabilities of the two Egyptian armies. On the one hand, the Syrian side is with the capabilities of the resistance, and the huge difference between Israel’s capabilities at that time and its current capabilities, which Netanyahu braggedly described during his extremist government’s presentation to the Knesset as a technological and military “superpower.” If the October War shattered the myth of the “invincible” Israeli army, then Operation Al-Aqsa Flood shattered the myth of absolute superiority that Israel praises in all fields, including military, intelligence, industrial and economic superiority.

There is a series of failures and aspects of failure that were revealed by the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, including the intelligence failure. Perhaps this in itself is a complex failure, as Israel expected to neutralize the Hamas movement from participating in the previous rounds that focused on targeting the Islamic Jihad movement, resulting from several tools. This was deterred by the movement’s fear of the assassination of its leaders, its eagerness to cling to power in Gaza, and its adherence to some facilities, including increased work permits and regular supply of Qatari aid. It has also been proven that all Israeli security capabilities that claim to monitor all Palestinian movements, residence, plans and movements failed to monitor the plans and processes of preparing and equipping hundreds or even thousands of fighters who participated in the operation.

The operation also revealed glaring operational and military failure points, including the failure of the Iron Dome system, along with “David’s Sling,” to repel and thwart the Palestinian rockets that rained down on Israel within just two hours. Thousands of rockets fell (five thousand according to Al-Dhaif and 2,200 according to Israel) and succeeded in paralyzing them. Economic life, the suspension of Lod Airport, and many international companies canceling their flights to Tel Aviv. Among the aspects of failure was the exposure of the ease of penetrating the impenetrable wall fortified with cement walls, sand hills, barbed wire, electronic wires, sensitive sensors, cameras, and military techniques that can fire merely to detect intrusion, in addition to what Israel did during previous years by imposing a buffer zone no less than three hundred meters wide. From the borders, building platforms, flying reconnaissance planes, and other monitoring tools created the impression that even a small bird cannot penetrate these borders and fortifications except with prior Israeli approval. Thus, the operation proves the ease of penetrating all of these barriers by land, air, sea, and along the border strip, including storming all the settlements surrounding Gaza.

Perhaps one of the most prominent aspects of the Israeli defect and failure is what the operation revealed about the weakness of the combat preparations of the Israeli soldiers and military units, as if all of them “slept on guard,” as the common Israeli proverb says about those who fail in their missions.

It is certain that this operation will have strategic repercussions both on the morale of the Palestinians and the Arabs, as well as on the Israelis’ confidence in themselves, their army, and their government, which had proven before this operation to be the most failed government in Israel’s history on the security and economic levels. It would also reinforce the logic of what is known as the axis of resistance, that is, the axis that rejects normalization and adheres to the option of resistance, especially since Israel never stops directing threats to this axis, especially against the Republic of Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah. Israeli threats were not limited to words, as there were aggressive operations carried out directly or by proxy against Iran and its allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

As for the most prominent axes of the Israeli failure, it is the historical and political failure after Netanyahu and his extremist government were prepared that they would be able to resolve the conflict by force, and they were also prepared that they would be able to bypass the Palestinians and their national rights, and establish the equation of “peace for peace” instead of “land for peace,” and Netanyahu, who raised a map During his speech at the United Nations, he removed Palestine and the Palestinians from the conflict equation as if they did not exist, or were merely a population burden being dealt with by the logic of sanctions and facilitations. The resistance process came to prove that the Palestinians are the main and most important element in this historical conflict.