Hamas, PIJ revive an old resistance tactic in Israel: martyrdom operations
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have vowed to conducting martyrdom operations in Israel as the Zionists continue to kill defenceless Palestinian civilians.
At around 5 am on February 25, 1994, a New York-born deranged Zionist (tautology duly noted) named Baruch Goldstein walked into the historic Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian city of Hebron in the West Bank and gunned down 29 fasting Muslim worshippers gathered for the fajr (first of the five daily prayers) during the holy month of Ramadan — which coincided with the Jewish festival of Purim that year. The terrorist Zionist’s (tautology duly noted again) victims were all Palestinian boys and men. Other than the 29 worshippers Goldstein killed, over 120 were injured.
Incensed by the increasing violence against innocent civilians, topped by Goldstein’s massacre in the auspicious month, the Palestinians vowed a response. Lacking powerful weapons and other means of hurting the usurping European Jewish settlers, who were increasingly squeezing them in their ancestral lands and killing them at will, they were left with limited methods of retaliation. They took to blowing themselves up and taking down with them as many Zionist thugs as they could. That was the origin of martyrdom operations (better known in the west as suicide bombings) in Palestine.
British-Palestinian academic Azzam Tamimi, who has written several books on Hamas, says about the origins of the martyrdom operations: “Hamas decided to use the human bomb because they said, ‘we are defenceless, we cannot protect ourselves, and there is nothing with which we can deter these settlers and these occupiers.’ So they adopted that tool.
“And it was devastating for the Israelis to the extent that some Israeli leaders went to see [Hamas co-founder] Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in prison…They went to see him and ask him, ‘Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, how can we put an end to this bloodshed?’ And he came up with the idea that became known later on as the hudna, or the long-term truce. He said to them, ‘if you stop killing us, we will stop killing you.’ And we are willing to enter into a long-term truce with you provided you withdraw your settlers, you release our prisoners, and end the occupation.
“But rather than heed his advice or take him seriously, they increased their violence against the Palestinians. And this has been the story since then. The Israelis think they have the power with which they can crush the resistance. The resistance never dies — so long as the people are occupied, there will continue to be a generation that will resort to resistance in order to gain freedom.”
At the time of the Palestinian adoption of the human bomb, resistance missions were executed with knives and other such primitive weapons. As the resistance built its military capabilities, it put aside martyrdom missions and relied on modern weapons to inflict damage on the occupiers, without necessarily sacrificing their fighters in the missions they undertook.
On Sunday night, the Palestinian resistance revived martyrdom operations. A Palestinian fighter from the West Bank wore an explosive-laden backpack and exploded it in Tel Aviv on August 18, injuring one Israeli. The bomb appeared to have gone off prematurely. “It was a miracle that it did not explode in the nearest synagogue or in the shopping center. It could have ended in dozens of deaths,” The Jerusalem Post quoted a police official as saying.
A day after the blast, Al Qassam Brigades — the military wing of Hamas — claimed that it conducted the operation in conjunction with Al-Quds Brigades — the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) — via a post on its Telegram channel.
“The Al-Qassam Brigades, in conjunction with the Al-Quds Brigades, announce the implementation of the martyrdom operation that took place yesterday evening, Sunday, in the city of ‘Tel Aviv,’” the post read.
The announcement added that the such missions will “return to the forefront” unless the Israelis cease their brutal genocide in Gaza and do away with their policy of assassinating resistance leaders. “The Brigades confirm that martyrdom operations inside the occupied territories will return to the forefront as long as the occupation massacres and displacement of civilians continue and the policy of assassinations continues.”
Hours later, Hamas released a memetic warfare missive that showed a blasted bus and a suicide belt splashed with an ominous message: “We are coming.”
The attack in Tel Aviv came on the eve of the 21st anniversary of a martyrdom operation in the Israeli capital by Raed Misk, whose 2003 operation killed 23 Zionists and wounded 135 others as he detonated a bomb in a packed bus.
The timing of Sunday’s operation cannot be a coincidence.
One of the abiding themes of all of the Palestinian resistance communiqué that relates to the fighting in Gaza since October 7 has been the proclamation that the fighters returned safely to their bases after executing their operation, implying that they were not martyrdom missions.
Since October 7, the resistance groups in Gaza have been urging the Palestinians in the West Bank as well as in 1948 Palestine (Israel proper, if you are of Zionist persuasion) to take up arms against the occupiers. Now, this latest admission by the Palestinian resistance confirms further escalation in the ongoing battle against the occupiers.
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Al-Arabi TV on 19 August that “the Palestinian resistance launched a new model through the Tel Aviv operation.”
Statements from resistance factions lauded the latest development and vowed to employ all means necessary to fight Israeli terrorism.
Mujahideen Movement:
We bless the martyrdom bombing operation that took place in the city of “Tel Aviv” and consider it an important development in the confrontation against the Zionist genocidal war against our people.
This martyrdom operation and the ongoing operations deep within the Zionist entity are proof that our people and their resistance still hold the initiative and have many options to defend our people, who are being subjected to the most horrific massacres led by Netanyahu’s Nazi government.
Popular Resistance Committees:
The martyrdom operation in “Tel Aviv” marks the beginning of a new and significant phase in striking at the Zionist arrogance and tyranny that kills and slaughters women, children, and infants, and carries out a war of genocide against all aspects of life in Gaza and other Palestinian cities.
The blessed and necessary “Tel Aviv” operation is a new blow to the entire Zionist system. It represents another security and intelligence failure for the Zionist entity and confirms that the Zionist leaders will bring nothing but destruction and death to the Zionist public to preserve their positions and political gains, which will never benefit them.
The “Tel Aviv” operation once again proves the ability of our people and their resistance to strike the Zionist enemy and its settlers, penetrate all fabricated security measures, and inflict heavy blows with full force.
Resistance operations have increased significantly in the occupied West Bank this year. The Cradle, citing Hebrew media, recently reported that “hundreds of operations have been carried out since the start of 2024. Despite most of them being in the West Bank, the operations have targeted ‘every point in Israel.’”
As the Israelis drag their feet on a ceasefire deal that they have precisely zero interest in concluding and which they are blatantly using as a cover to massacre innocents by the dozens every single day in Gaza, the options for the Palestinian resistance factions — which have shown considerable restraint in their dealings with the Zionists and their enablers in the West — are limited when it comes to stopping the genocide of their people.
In his book, On Suicide Bombing, Talal Asad makes the argument that the human bomb is an innovation to inflict damage on repressive regimes that leave precious few options to the occupied. He writes: “The insurgents are faced with an adversary that possesses formidable military weaponry as well as methods of controlling civilian populations in occupied territory that are often very effective, and this superiority cannot be met directly.”
Short of options while confronting a barbaric occupation conducting a live-streamed genocide for the past 11 months in full glare of the global public with scant regard for international law or humanitarian consideration and with the full support and complicity of the “civilised” West, the Palestinian resistance has now chosen to revive an old tactic.
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Sorry if this post is not appropriate for substack- I recently joined x to follow what's going on in Gaza. It's a horror show, and lots of Palestinians have gofundme fundraiser set up in the hope of raising enough funds to escape death. I've been trying to spread the word on x, but my account is small and nobody sees it. Anyway, here's a fundraiser a 17 y.o has set up for his parents and siblings (18,15,14 & 7) They are in a desperate situation, and even small amounts could help (I don't think they even have a tent yet). If anyone has a way of sharing this elsewhere on social media, I'd greatly appreciate it-
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-seventeenyearold-mohamed-and-his-family-escape-gaza
(I don't know him or his family, I just felt bad for him, especially since they have so far to go in raising money--I can't imagine what it's like to be a 17 y.o., having to set up a gofundme to try to save your life and that of your family, but that's the horror this world has been reduced to).
Hello Palestine Will Be Free. I really loved your article about the new recruites giving Israel hell. But this one I must say is the most scary thing I've read so far on Substack - since it sounds like you would support the idea of Hamas going back to martyr operations. I can't say it any clearer - it will be the end of Palestine. It will be the end of the support that is now overflowing the planet from millions of young people who never was engaged in this struggle from before. It will mean the end of the possibility that activists have today, to explain that Hamas are not terrorists; they are a resistance movement, fighting a legitimate fight against occupation, for freedom for all Palestinians, for peace and a sovereign state, on the internationally recognized borders of 1967. And when the occupation is over, the resistance is over. It’s a strong message, it is true and it is something everyone can get behind.
It will only take one bus explotion in Tel Aviv, and that description will be gone. All the thousands of young activists who spend hours on the social medias trying to tell others what is going on, they will be silent. They will be shocked, and start to doubt, and many of them will turn around and say that they were wrong, and that the Israel-supporters were right from the start: that Hamas is nothing but a religious extremist terrorist group with gruesome fighters, capable of any beastly behaviour.
It will be so bad for the Palestinian cause that someone should tip Netanyahu that the Israelis should do it themselves – nothing will support Israel more than a suicide bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv.
And now I will explain this – to be precise: The problem is not civilians casualties – that we can understand will happen in a war. The problem is the young man killing himself in the process. It is not in our culture, or religion, and very far from it. In Norway during the second world war, our resistance guys killed Germans and sabotaged them in all thinkable and unthinkable ways. They were smart, and fought smart with the little means they had. And they lived to be our national heros when the war was over.
If anyone reads this who is not living in a Western country or knows Western society well, I can make an example. There are some very clear differences between for instance our culture, and the Islamic one. In the West, a young woman can go to bed with as many men she desires, before marriage, and still be respected and get married. It’s a matter of equal rights. Some of us older feminists would rather see men sleeping with fewer, than the young women sleeping with more, but that’s a Western debate. The point is: The day that all the leaders of Hamas, jointly from all sides of the movement, together can say: «Yes, we understand and respect that part of Western society – even if we don’t want it in our own». That is the day they can think that we in the West will be equally understanding about martyr operations. Which is never.
Israel is killing extreme amounts of Palestinians. The resistance shouldn’t add to that number by killing their own precious young men, volunteerly. It’s the bragging, laughing Israeli soldiers who should be the primary target – not a single Palestinian fighter. The Palestinian fighters should live to be celebrated when freedom comes, to receive all the gratitude they deserve.
If a martyr operation happens, I have nothing more to say. It will be the end of my thirty years of activism for Palestine. It will be too much of a heartbreak to see all the sympathy that we now have all around us, dissapear from the public scene. What will be left in the West will be hate and anger and deathwishes. If any of you have any lines into the movement – brigades or otherwise, please tell them from me: don’t do it. Go into the struggle with Israel with all armed means, which is your right, and you have our heartfelt support. But make sure the fighters get home safely.