Hamas's footage of the Breaking the Sword ambush — and a message to those who want to disarm the resistance

"As for handing over the weapons, that will happen only when your heads are reaped on the day we meet."

On Sunday, I reported on a deadly Hamas ambush in northern Gaza that the Israelis acknowledged killed one of their genocidal soldiers. It’s the first fatality reported by the Zionist state since it collapsed the three-phase ceasefire deal before it entered the second phase in early March, and restarted extensive bombardment throughout the Gaza Strip. The same ambush also resulted in five severe injuries to Israeli soldiers, including critical injuries to two.

On Monday afternoon, Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, released the footage of the operation it named Breaking the Sword — a reply to the occupation force’s March 18 terror bombing of Gaza which the terrorist state named Strength and Sword. In that overnight terror blitz that engulfed all parts of Gaza, nearly 600 Palestinian civilians were slaughtered — over 200 of them children.

Hamas’s ambush footage shows a group of its fighters climbing out of a tunnel in open fields and targeting a convoy of Israeli vehicles with shoulder-fired RPGs and a hail of bullets. One Israeli vehicle overturns in the assault. The footage then cuts to the targeting of a new Israeli military position with RPG shells and rocket fire.

Here’s the footage (followed by timestamps and translations of events in the video, courtesy of RNN):

Watch: The complex Breaking the Sword ambush against enemy forces near the separation fence east of Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip.

Al-Aqsa Flood.

0:26 -

• Our fighters were able to carry out the Breaking the Sword ambush on Al-Awda Street, east of Beit Hanoun:

• Targeting a Storm military jeep during the ambush.

• Targeting the support force that came to the place with an anti-personnel Television-3 explosive device.

• Targeting a newly established position of the enemy forces with four RPGs and a number of mortar shells.

0:56 - Newly established enemy military position on Al-Awda Street.

1:05 - The passing of a Zionist truck and a Zionist jeep while waiting for the target.

1:15 - Targeting the Storm military jeep belonging to the enemy leadership.

1:45 - The overturn of the jeep and liquidating those inside it.

1:57 - Targeting a newly established enemy military position.

2:21 - Targeting the newly established enemy military position.

It’s worth reminding that Gaza is under round-the-clock aerial surveillance. Buzzing drones are a near constant. Israeli troop movements are often accompanied by overhead drones for protection against the resistance fighters. These factors further burnish the unmatched bravery of the Palestinian fighters in their operations.

A senior Al-Qassam official revealed further details about the deadly operation to Al Jazeera, putting things into perspective. The unnamed official said that the ambush occurred in the buffer zone from which the occupation forces had not withdrawn, and it took place on Al-Awda Street in Beit Hanoun, just 300 meters from the separation line.

It goes to show how the tunnel infrastructure remains largely intact despite continuous Israeli troop presence in the buffer zone, and that the resistance fighters remain capable of causing severe damage to the Israelis even after 18 months of non-stop genocidal assault on their territory.

Later in the day, Hamas used part of the ambush footage to send another clear message to the Israelis and their sympathisers in the Arab and Western world: the resistance won’t give up its weapons.

On a poster showing its fighters spraying bullets at the Israelis, Hamas wrote a short but incisive poem:

We broke your sword on a day of glory…
And the fighter echoed Allah’s pledge
that the rifles shall remain unsheathed,
their barrels quenched by the Brigades’ blood.

As for handing over the weapons, that will happen only
when your heads are reaped on the day we meet.

Disarmament? Not a chance.

The poster lauds the ambush and makes clear that disarmament of the resistance is out of the question.

After collapsing the January 15 ceasefire deal, the Israelis have been pushing Hamas to accept new terms in a fresh deal. The Zionists, with the full backing of the Trump administration, have inserted new clauses that were not part of the January 15 deal. Among the new terms, they want the resistance to lay down its weapons and exit Gaza.

Anyone familiar with Israel’s duplicity in such deals would know that giving up arms will only open the Palestinians up for slaughter without an iota of resistance. There is enough precedent for it, the most infamous of which is the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982. The Palestinian resistance, then operating out of Lebanon, evacuated Beirut in early September and within two weeks of its withdrawal, Israeli terrorists oversaw the massacre of over 3,500 defenceless Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims at the hands of Christian militias.

Netanyahu has openly declared that this is exactly what he intends to do once the resistance disarms. No matter what the resistance does, there will be no place for Palestinians in Gaza.

“Hamas will lay down its weapons,” Netanyahu recently declared. “Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will see to the general security in the Gaza Strip and will allow the realisation of the Trump plan for voluntary migration.” He went on to add:
“This is the plan. We are not hiding this and are ready to discuss it at any time… We have an alliance with the greatest superpower in the world.”

Since the Israelis have inserted the disarmament clause, resistance leaders across factions have declared it a Zionist pipe dream with no basis in reality. “The movement categorically rejects any proposal calling for the disarmament of the resistance,” Hamas’s Head of International Relations, Hussam Badran, declared on April 17. “Such demands are unhelpful to resolving the crisis and out of step with an acceptable national vision.”

Hamas’s political bureau member Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri had the same message: “The proposal presented to us is an Israeli one and includes, for the first time, the disarmament of the resistance as a condition for starting the second phase of negotiations. Surrender is not an option for the Hamas movement, and we will not accept breaking the will of our people. Hamas will not surrender, will not raise the white flag, and will use all pressure cards against the occupation.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) spokesman Mohammed al-Hajj Musa has been equally blunt about the impossibility of the resistance surrendering their weapons to the Israeli terrorists. He told Al Jazeera:

“The core issue is not the size of the weapon, nor the nature of the weapon, nor its geographical location. The core issue is that they want to strip us of our will and force us to submit to the theft of whatever remains of our lives.

“Therefore, the Palestinian resistance — and we, in the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine — say that we will not surrender a single bullet except as a fiery bullet directed at the chest of those who try to take even a single bullet from us. We say that this weapon will always be directed at the heart of the occupation. And we will not give anyone the opportunity to even discuss with us the issue of the weapon.

“This is the weapon of the martyrs, the legacy of the martyrs.

“This weapon is a trust from all those now under the rubble or living in tents.

“And this weapon is a trust of the entire Palestinian people — guarded with blood, guarded with souls.”

After these trenchant denouncements of the treacherous Israeli plan over the past few days, Hamas has now delivered the same message more succinctly and poetically through its poster:

As for handing over the weapons, that will happen only
when your heads are reaped on the day we meet.

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