Palestinian writer and researcher specializing in Arab and Palestinian studies
This delves into the development that occurred with the military wing of the Hamas movement until it became capable at the operational level of carrying out a strategic and historical operation, the Al-Aqsa Flood operation. The operation showed the broad and deep reconnaissance and operational complexity at this apparatus's structural, organizational, military, and intelligence levels.
The study reviews the critical stages that led to the transformation of the Al-Qassam Brigades, both subjectively and in terms of their position in the Hamas movement. This development was clear to widen and deepen its role, especially since the second Palestinian Intifada (the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000) was the new revival of the Al-Qassam Brigades and the foundation for the length of the following Palestinian path. However, these transformations benefited from favorable conditions. The path of the Hamas movement is necessarily based on the ideological presence of the resistance cause and the historical continuity of the Al-Qassam Brigades.
The study analyzed the military history of the Hamas movement, singling out its military wing in the Gaza Strip since it enjoyed the historical continuity that led it to this significant development.
Unlike its branch in the West Bank, which suffered various circumstances in the late stages after the defeat carried out by Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2007, Alqassam brigades flourished in Gaza after that event.
In the context of this review, the strategic vision of the Brigades begins to transform the Gaza Strip from an unfavorable environment because it is devoid of the appropriate topography for resistance, lacks helpful political geography, and is relatively separate from a relatively favorable environment. It invested in its distinctive elements, such as its sandy soil, and by benefiting from political transformations.
Hamas military wing revealed an investment of human and material resources to establish long-term steadfastness in a heavy war in which Israel threw its entire weight on this narrow coastal strip (the Gaza Strip) since 7 October 2023. Israel benefited from the absolute support from the United States and expanded its war with a paralyzed official Arab position. Despite all this, Hamas could fight the Israeli army in Gaza for nine months. It could rehabilitate its organization all the way and still fight Israeli tanks, special units, and the air force with a high number of casualties and destruction of tanks on the Israeli side.
Keywords: Hamas, Al-Qassam, Gaza War, Israel, the Israeli army, the Palestinian people, the resistance