Victory in Gaza and Lebanon
Marches of return
[Mohamed El Saife/CBC with a minor addition]
Published: 2025-02-01
Updated 2025-01-03: Added The Duran’s “Israel Lost the War - What are the Consequences Alastair Crooke” to Sources.
Notwithstanding the burdens of loss and suffering inflicted by the Israeli Occupation Forces, Palestinians and their Arab brothers and sisters from southern Lebanon this week walked back into their lands. The state of Israel destroyed their schools, hospitals and homes (90% of Gaza’s housing units, according to the United Nations) but they have defiantly and proudly returned to their land.
In southern Lebanon, a lone woman stood opposing an Israeli tank. In the video, an ambulance's siren wails as a stream of refugee's flows off screen. The camera operator and friends are struck, as are we all, by the force of the lady's bravery.
[Aldanmarki X/Twitter]
Hostage Exchange
Hamas have released hostages for exchange, according to the phases agreed in the current ceasefire. The captives were released to the Red Cross in good health and spirits, well dressed and smiling.
Saturday’s exchange was carefully choreographed, with militants standing in rigid formation and wielding Tavor rifles - standard weapons of Israel's elite forces - in a deliberate show of strength.
At the centre of the scene, a table was positioned where a Hamas fighter and a Red Cross official formally signed the handover documents. Behind them, a banner in Hebrew prominently declared a provocative message: ‘Zionism Will Not Prevail’.
"This wasn't a gesture of weakness," said senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Mardawi in an interview. "It was a statement of legitimacy, strength, and the affirmation of Palestinian resistance."
...
"This just shows how profoundly the government has failed," an Israeli political analyst, who asked to remain anonymous, told The New Arab. "Netanyahu promised strength, and now Israelis are seeing the exact opposite."
[Moataz al-Halaq & Youssef Abu Hashish]
Alastair Crooke has noted the political problems created for the government of Israel by the Hamas release. The section of the Israeli population which has been demanding that their government secure the release of hostages is emboldened. Israelis who demand that the Palestinians in Gaza are annihilated and that Hamas is destroyed are left defeated. The mercantile class is losing money. A significant portion of Israeli society emigrated. Israel's government still stands to answer the charge of genocide before the International Court of Justice.
Israel is a pariah state, guilty of horrific crimes against humanity, a campaign of war crimes and the illegal invasion of multiple states. The political and military groups the Zionists labeled as their enemies remain, not just undefeated, but strengthened.
Brigades
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’s al-Quds Brigades and Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades employed intelligent tactics which played to their strengths, even with their limited resources. They ambushed and laid traps, using their tunnel networks and detailed knowledge of their territory. They inflicted constant injury and death on the invading army.
Not only do the Israelis themselves admit that most of the tunnels weren’t destroyed, but even in areas where the invading army had been stationed for over a year and destroyed every structure in sight, were sites from which long-range rockets were fired. In December, the Qassam Brigades even fired M75 rockets at Israeli settlements in occupied al-Quds from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. Tellingly, the first Israeli prisoners were also released by the Qassam Brigades' elite Shadow Unit out of northern Gaza, which surprised the Palestinians and Israelis alike.
The real reason why the Israelis didn’t defeat the Palestinian Resistance factions, is because they weren’t really there to fight them. The primary target of each of their invasions, throughout the Gaza Strip, was always civilian infrastructure. Each invasion would culminate with the takeover of a hospital like Al-Shifa, Kamal Adwan, or the Nasser Medical Complex for example. They rounded up civilians who were either held hostage in their homes prior, or were displaced and living in UN schools, hospitals or stadiums.
Hizbollah
Newly installed President of Lebanon, General Joseph Aoun, has preformed his vassal role. The Lebanese military stood by as the Israeli Occupation Forces destroyed homes and massacred civilians during and after the "ceasefire" in southern Lebanon. Hizbollah's political support grew with each abject, passive failure of the Lebanese Army to defend Lebanon.
Lebanese and Palestinians civilians, returning to destroyed homes in southern Lebanon, know who fought and who stood idly by, facilitating the destruction. They will rebuild, and everybody knows which local political organisation will be there to help in the process.
Ansarallah
The ruling political party in Yemen, Ansarallah, ceased their attacks on Israeli shipping immediately the ceasefire was announced, as they said they would from the beginning.
They, and Yemeni civilians and civilian infrastructure, have been attacked by the US, UK and Israel for their principled compliance with the Genocide Convention. Ansarallah's political standing has been significantly elevated internationally because of their solidarity with Palestine and its people.
Larry Johnson has stated many times that they defeated the US Navy.
Hamas
Prof. Marandi commented that were an election to be held in the West Bank, it would not be Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority which would win. It would be Hamas. The Zionists' genocidal campaign has unified Palestine.
It is not only that Israeli's Zionist government has been defeated, but that the standing of the political organisation they attempted to destroy stands, fists raised in the air. Israel and its Zionists have murdered civilians and destroyed homes, hospitals and churches. In so doing, they have defeated themselves and empowered those they sought to destroy.
Scott Ritter and many others noted this almost certain outcome from the very beginning. All Hamas had to do to win was to survive. They not only survived, but continued to resist and demonstrated their strength with the release of well cared for Israeli soldiers.
Each day of the ceasefire in Gaza, Palestinians have dug the bodies of their relatives from the wreckage created by the Israeli Occupation Forces, raising the tally of their murders. The reckoning of the scale of the Israeli atrocities will continue to grow.
Only 4% of Israeli settlers believe that "Israel's" objectives of the war have been fully achieved, a public opinion poll conducted by the Israeli newspaper Maariv revealed, several days after the Gaza ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian Resistance and "Israel" took effect.
The al-Qassam Brigades have haled a martyred leader, Mohammed Deif.
Neither he nor his memory will be confronted by the International Criminal Court. Instead, western signatory states will need to tip-toe around their lack of compliance for not arresting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gvir, constantly reminding their citizens of their country's complicity in the carnage.
The Zionists may have money at their beck and call. They may have US politicians in their back pockets. They may well have marched into Syria. But, they have not defeated the Palestinian people.
The psychological manipulation of their lies about the events of October 7th has been exposed. They repeatedly attempted to gas Palestinians in their tunnels, or to drown them en masse.
While the world will continue to remember the persecution of Jews during WWII, the Zionists have defiled that sacred, victimhood for themselves. They carpet bombed a prison camp they created for over a year all the while starving the prisoners.
The Zionists have published the evil within themselves and looked defeat in the eye.
Palestine stands on the victory of its people.
[via Ramzy Baroud and @Alhamdhulillaah]
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Sources
On Holocaust day, Palestinians have overcome Israel's genocidal war and returned home; David Hearst; Middle East Eye; 2025-01-29
Dear World: This Is What Palestinian Unity Looks Like; Ramzy Baroud; Antiwar; 2025-01-30
How Hamas is leveraging captive exchanges as a show of strength; Moataz al-Halaq,Youssef Abu Hashish; The New Arab; 2025-01-30
Only 4% of Israelis believe war on Gaza achieved goals: Poll; Al Mayadeen English; Al Mayadeen English; 2025-01-31
How a ceasefire will reveal the true scale of Gaza's death toll; Alessandra Bajec; The New Arab; 2025-01-22
Amid fragile ceasefire, the Gaza tribunal on genocide will bring us closer to justice; Richard Falk; Middle East Eye; 2025-01-20
Hamas confirms death of military chief Mohammed Deif; MEE staff; Middle East Eye; 2025-01-30
Israeli quadcopters: Ongoing crimes against humanity; Kit Klarenberg; Al Mayadeen English; 2025-01-29
Abu Obeida announces martyrdom of Hamas leader Mohammad Deif; Al Mayadeen English; Al Mayadeen English; 2025-01-30
The Israelis are shocked that they didn’t beat Hamas, here’s why they failed; Robert Inlakesh; Al Mayadeen English; 2025-01-28
The United States' Pet General Appointed President of Lebanon; Craig Murray; Craig Murray; 2025-01-10
Israel Lost the War - What are the Consequences Alastair Crooke, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen; Christoforou and Mercouris interview Crooke; The Duran; 2025-02-01
Israel Slaughters and Destroys in Southern Lebanon; Craig Murray; Craig Murray; 2025-01-31
Iran & Hezbollah's Plan, Ready for Israel's Worst?; Alkhorshid interviews Prof. Mohammad Marandi; Dialogue Works; 2025-01-29
Alastair Crooke: Trump, Netanyahu, and Collision; Napolitano interviews Crooke; Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom; 2025-01-27
Copyleft: CC0
"Palestinians and their Arab brothers and sisters from southern Lebanon…" This is the first time ever that I have seen or heard Lebanese referred to as 'Arabs'. The problem here is a confusion of Arabic language and culture with Arab ethnicity. Arabs live in Arabia with some nomadic Bedouin tribes wandering all over the place. But they were never colonists while they were conquerors, thus the Arabic language from Yemen to Morocco to Iraq, all conquered, all ruled by Arabs.
The Zionists call the indigenous Palestinians Arabs, except for Palestinian Jews. They do so deliberately to create an Other about the Palestinians, the easier to kill them and take their land.
Utterly heartbreaking.
The little people suffer.