An outright Israeli defeat or ‘tactical victory’ in Jabaliya?
Palestinians look for survivors in a crater after a strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on 31 October 2023
Palestine Chronicle Editors write:
Former Israeli minister Haim Ramon said in an interview on Friday that Israel has failed to subdue what he described as ‘the weakest enemy of Israel’. In the same interview, with the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Ramon said that Israel is on the brink of an unprecedented strategic defeat in Gaza.
But this is where Ramon goes wrong in his analysis. According to the former Israeli minister, Hamas has been able to rebuild its strength everywhere Israeli forces have withdrawn, highlighting the army’s ‘surprise’ at the number of Palestinian Resistance fighters in Jabaliya.
Ramon is wrong because we have no evidence to suggest that the Resistance in Jabaliya was destroyed in the first place, in order for it to be ‘rebuilt’ later.
It is clear that the Israeli military, and analysts, continue to be driven by guesswork, maintaining the same false understanding of the capability of the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, which preceded the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.
Earlier, Israel’s Channel 13 quoted Israel’s top National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi as saying that Israel had not achieved any of its goals in the Gaza Strip. “We did not eliminate Hamas, we did not provide conditions for the return of prisoners, and we did not return the residents of the Gaza envelope to their homes safely,” he said. These views are largely consistent with growing mainstream consensus among Israeli military analysts.
So if this is the case, why did Israel return to Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, on May 12, and why did it withdraw fully from northern Gaza on Friday?
Back to the North
Long before Israel designated Rafah to be ‘the headquarters of Hamas’ in Gaza, northern Gaza was the main battleground for the Israeli army. Following weeks of battles, which led to the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians to the south, the Israeli army declared that it had destroyed Hamas and other Resistance groups in the north.
Yet, almost immediately after its initial withdrawal, the Resistance was back.