Resistance kills several Israelis in one of Gaza’s deadliest attacks since October 7
"The most foolish decision Netanyahu can make would be to keep his forces inside the Gaza Strip."
Continuing with what has become a remarkably regular occurrence, there was another deadly attack on Israeli terrorists, killing at least five and wounding more than a dozen others, in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, on Monday night (July 7). This complex ambush, carried out in several stages, has been described by some Israeli outlets as the deadliest since October 7 — raising the familiar prospect that Israeli leadership is concealing the true casualty figures from the Palestinian resistance operation.
Indeed, no fewer than five Israeli hospitals — Assuta, Soroka, Beilinson, Tel Hashomer, and Ein Kerem — prepared to receive casualties from the ambush. “Typically, 17 casualties (as currently claimed by the Zionists) from the Gaza Strip would be distributed among two hospitals,” Resistance News Network reported — another sign that the numbers have been significantly dialled down by the Israeli censors.
In yet more evidence of the scale of the deadly attack, Netanyahu, who is currently in the United States, had his meeting with Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, interrupted to inform him about the beating his terrorists had just taken in Gaza.
The ambush, which began at 10 pm on Monday night, targeted the terrorists from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion — the ultra-Orthodox battalion that conscripts Haredi Jews in the occupation forces — as they moved on foot to conduct an operation.
Interestingly, the area had already been heavily bombed from the air by the Israelis to “soften” the ground for the foot soldiers to operate — but the Palestinian resistance had anticipated their moves. They laid explosives and monitored troop movements, detonating their bombs at precisely the right moment to inflict maximum damage.
Following a familiar pattern, the resistance then targeted the rescue mission with explosives as soon as it arrived at the scene. A second rescue mission that came to extract the first rescue mission was also attacked, prompting a third rescue mission, which, remarkably, was also targeted. The machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attacks by resistance fighters were accompanied by intense mortar fire, which made the Israeli rescue mission fraught with danger.
It took some time for the Israelis to recover all the bodies from the site of the incident.
Doron Kadosh, a military correspondent for Israeli Army Radio, published the following details of the deadly operation on his Twitter account:
Details of the initial investigation into the incident involving explosive devices and an ambush attack on IDF forces in Beit Hanoun, where five soldiers were killed:
1. The incident occurred as part of a two-brigade operation that the IDF is conducting in Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip — the Gazan town opposite Sderot — which has been captured and recaptured countless times during the war, and where the IDF has operated multiple times with large forces. On Saturday night, another attack began there, involving two brigades — the Northern Brigade and the 646 Reserve Brigade. The operation’s objective: attacking and clearing the area of terrorists [read: Palestinians], after Beit Hanoun was under siege and surrounded on all sides.
2. The incident began shortly after 10:00 PM last night, when a force from the 97th “Netzach Yehuda” Battalion, the first ultra-Orthodox battalion in the IDF, was crossing a route on foot as part of the attack.
3. Two explosive devices placed on the route were detonated, one after the other, targeting the Netzach Yehuda foot patrol. The IDF states that this was an area heavily bombed from the air in recent weeks as part of aerial “softening” operations in preparation for the ground operation. Nevertheless, the two explosive devices planted in the area exploded precisely as the force passed through. The initial assessment is that they were remotely activated as part of an ambush.
4. During the evacuation of those injured in the explosive device incident, terrorists [read: resistance fighters] opened fire from an ambush on the rescue forces. The rescuing forces sustained additional casualties, and the evacuation became complex and prolonged. Additional rescue forces were dispatched to the scene to evacuate all the injured.
5. An ambush attack involving gunfire following the activation of explosive devices is a pattern of action that has occurred several times in recent weeks, in incidents where Hamas terrorists [read: resistance fighters] planted explosives targeting our forces. The terrorists [read: resistance fighters] operated similarly in previous incidents, including the one in which Sergeant Asaf Zamir, of blessed memory, was killed, and in the explosive device incident targeting the Puma (engineering vehicle) in which 7 engineering soldiers were killed in Khan Yunis.
6. In total, five soldiers were killed in the entire incident, most of them from Netzach Yehuda Battalion. Fourteen soldiers were injured — two seriously, six moderately, and six lightly. All the wounded were evacuated for medical treatment at a hospital.
Soon after the incident, the Israeli press was abuzz with the rapidly rising casualty count. At first, it reported two deaths, before the number started climbing steadily and then suddenly stopped once the leadership imposed a gag order on the incident.
With losses mounting, opposition leaders in Israel appear keen on a ceasefire. “For the sake of the fighters, their families, the kidnapped, and the State of Israel: this war must end,” Yair Lapid said. Similarly, Yair Golan wrote on Twitter that Israel “must urgently implement a comprehensive hostage deal, bring our brothers home, and end the war.”
None of the resistance factions has issued a field report about this ambush yet. However, Al-Qassam Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, issued a poster late at night, presumably referring to the ambush.
The poster shows an Israeli tank transforming into a casket, with the message: “The funerals and bodies of enemy soldiers will become a constant occurrence, God willing, as long as the occupation’s aggression and its criminal war against our people continue.”
It is a direct quote from Abu Obeida, the spokesman of Al-Qassam Brigades, who posted it on his Telegram account after his fighters executed a stunning ambush in Khan Yunis on 25 June.
Al-Qassam Brigades captioned the poster, “We will crush the prestige of your army.”
On Tuesday morning (July 8), Abu Obeida issued a series of updates, referencing the Beit Hanoun operation and warning the Israeli leadership, “the most foolish decision Netanyahu can make would be to keep his forces inside the Gaza Strip”:
The complex Beit Hanoun operation is an additional blow delivered by our mighty fighters to the prestige of the frail occupation army and its most criminal units in a field that the occupation thought was safe after it left no stone unturned.
The battle of attrition that our fighters are waging with the enemy from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south will inflict additional losses on it every day. And if it recently succeeded in miraculously freeing its soldiers from hell, it may fail to do so later, and additional prisoners will fall into our hands.
The steadfastness of our people and the bravery of their courageous resistance fighters are exclusively what forge equations and shape the features of the next phase, and the most foolish decision Netanyahu can make would be to keep his forces inside the Gaza Strip.
Beit Hanoun has proven to be a graveyard for the Israelis. They suffered heavy losses in the area in early January this year, when a series of deadly ambushes convinced them that a ceasefire was the best course of action to stem their severe losses.
The mid-January truce swiftly followed.
The perpetually lying Israelis had announced the death of Al-Qassam commander of the Beit Hanoun battalion, Hussein Fayyad (Abu Hamza), in May last year, before swiftly walking back their claim when Fayyad appeared in a January resistance video, giving a pep talk to his fighters: “In this place, the deputy of the commander of the Nahal Brigade was killed. He had advanced in order to commit genocide against Beit Hanoun. They will not pass without being punished.”
Seven months after that Fayyad pep talk, and 21 months into the ongoing genocide, the Israelis are still nowhere close to passing anywhere in Gaza without being severely punished for their egregious crimes.
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