‘We saw charred corpses’: Resistance inflicts heavy losses on Israel in deadly Gaza ambushes

Despite brutal siege and bombardment, the resistance's bravery and strategy continue to frustrate Israeli military goals.

A ceasefire deal is on the horizon in Gaza, and it primarily means one thing: Israelis are taking heavy losses and need time to collect themselves. It’s a familiar pattern. In the first two weeks of January, the resistance was at its fiercest, killing Israeli terrorists all across the Gaza Strip. The pièce de résistance of their operations was in Beit Hanoun where a series of deadly ambushes forced the Israelis to the negotiating table. The Palestinian resistance has been dealing fierce blows to the Israelis all across the Gaza Strip for several weeks now, and the Israelis appear serious about a truce again. Palestinian leadership on Friday accepted the contours of the latest ceasefire proposal, demanding minor revisions. The Israelis are expected to begrudgingly accept the proposal — for now.

This time the battles have been fiercest in Khan Yunis in the south and Shuja’iyya in the north. In both areas, Israeli forces have suffered significant losses that seem to have finally broken their resolve.

The deadliest operation in Shujai’iyya was carried out on Wednesday (July 2) by Al-Quds Brigades, the military arm of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. That day, Al-Quds Brigades published a field report of what it called a “sophisticated, complex operation” that targeted “dozens of soldiers.”

Here is how the Quds field report described the operation:

This morning, we carried out a sophisticated, complex operation targeting dozens of soldiers and a convoy of Zionist enemy vehicles in Al-Huda Square, east of the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood in Gaza.

The complex operation began with the detonation of a minefield against the invading Zionist vehicles, forcing soldiers and officers to frantically enter the surrounding houses.

Our brave fighters targeted the forces entrenched inside the houses with a guided missile, followed by a TBG anti-fortification missile.

We surprised the targeted forces and engaged them at very close range with light and medium weapons. By the grace and power of Allah Almighty, we killed and wounded the crews of the targeted vehicles, officers, and soldiers.

A couple of days later, on Friday (July 4), Al-Quds published a nearly five-minute long video of the operation, which, as has been the case with all such resistance videos, perfectly matches with the action described by the fighters in their field reports.

The ambush took place at Al-Huda Square, in the Shuja’iyyah neighbourhood, at 9 am on Wednesday, and was undertaken by the elite forces of Al-Quds.

At the start of the video, as the fighters laid down six explosives for the approaching Zionist tanks, one fighter says, “After they enter the square, they will damn themselves for having ever entered.” After the mines successfully go off on the invading tanks, fighters are then shown preparing for the second part of the mission and moving through a freshly dug tunnel, specifically in preparation for this operation. The subtitle reads, “A tunnel connection established during this war, only three days ago, in light of the enemy’s invasion.” Before they head off for the mission, one fighter says a prayer, “With Allah’s will, we will lure them. O Allah, give us the honour.” A second fighter then sends a pointed message to the Zionists and Arab traitors seeking to disarm the Palestinian resistance: “Whoever seeks to disarm us, we will take their soul, God willing.” A fighter then takes aim at the command turret of a Zionist tank after which the Israeli terrorists, realising they have been caught in an ambush, are shown running inside civilian houses they have been using as military bases to fortify themselves. The fighters had anticipated this sequence of events and were closely monitoring the Israeli movements with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), missiles, and machine guns ready to fire at them. After saying the customary prayer — “And you did not throw when you threw, but it was Allah who threw.” — the fighters fire a 107mm guided missile at a house in which ten terrorists had fortified themselves. One fighter subsequently fires a TBG shell at a second house, in which, the caption notes, “20 soldiers and officers” had taken shelter. Towards the end of the video, enemy helicopters are shown preparing to evacuate the dead and wounded terrorists.

Here is the video in full:

The video closes with the following message: “Our valiant fighters returned to their bases safely, under the protection of the Gracious. To be continued...” That last line indicates there will be more videos of this operation in the coming days.

Within minutes of the video’s release, Al-Quds Brigades published a series of messages from the commander of the Shuja’iyya operation. “We saw charred corpses of enemy soldiers and officers,” the commander revealed, adding that an astonishing 40 Israeli terrorists were targeted in the operation:

We carried out the complex ambush with prior planning that matched the operational terrain precisely, and we controlled the enemy and its advancing vehicles with fire in al-Huda sector east of Shuja’iyya.

In this particular operation, the enemy soldiers lacked both the ability to take initiative and to respond. They resorted only to fleeing and screaming, and barely fired a shot at our fighters.

We saw charred corpses of enemy soldiers and officers. As usual, the enemy lies and hides behind its finger to conceal battlefield losses.

We affirm that we targeted about 40 enemy soldiers and officers, leaving them dead or wounded, by the grace of God.

This complex operation stems from our belief in the importance of making the enemy taste the same cup of death, killing, and displacement that it forces upon our people every moment.

Unsurprisingly, the lying Israeli military reported just one killed and five wounded on Wednesday. “The missile fire on the forces killed an IDF soldier and seriously wounded five other soldiers,” Maariv’s military correspondent reported. “All the injured received first aid and were evacuated by Air Force helicopters to hospitals in central Israel.”

This operation is further indication that resistance commanders are able to monitor Israeli troop movements, lay elaborate traps, and catch the unsuspecting Israelis in deadly ambushes they never see coming. This is not the handiwork of a leaderless force with fighters merely spraying and praying. Far from it. This is proof that the command and control structure of the resistance in Gaza remains firmly in place despite 21 months of a brutal genocidal war it has resiliently fought.

Another video, published by Al-Quds Brigades earlier this week, highlights how the resistance has been able to execute complex missions that would not be possible without a robust command‑and‑control structure in place.

On June 30, Al-Quds Brigades published details of a complex operation. This time, however, it provided a virtual simulation video of the operation that took place on May 10 in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood. Why no video? This is one of the very few operations in which the resistance has revealed its own casualty figures. Of the four martyrs in Al-Quds ranks from this operation, one was the fighter in charge of filming it.

The operation was named after Sheikh Nour Abdul Karim al‑Bitawi, commander of the Jenin Brigade in the West Bank. He ascended to martyrdom after being besieged in a home targeted by a Zionist airstrike in Nablus on May 9. The operation dedicated to him took place a day later.

Nour al-Bitawi: “We are a people who have sold our souls to Allah Almighty. The occupation has not been able to break us, and by the will of Allah Almighty, no one ever will.”

The narrator takes the viewer through the operation:

Saturday, May 10, 2025, precisely at 1:45 PM, marked the epic operation of the martyr Nour al-Din al-Bitawi, a commander in Saraya Al-Quds in the West Bank.

Three days earlier, a combat unit consisting of six fighters from Al-Quds Brigades’ special forces had arrived.

Their mission: field reconnaissance and execution of an operation that began with planting a highly explosive device in the vicinity of the combat junction. Three days passed — until May 10 arrived.

When one of the fighters tasked with monitoring enemy movements near a newly established site east of Shuja’iyya spotted a brightly lit, armoured Israeli Merkava tank with two soldiers on top — one of them seated on its roof — he gave the signal to the anti-armour fighter, who did not hesitate to fire a Tandem warhead from extremely close range.

Moments later, heavy shelling resumed from air and land, with barrages of gunfire, bombs, artillery shells and smoke grenades.

As helicopter aircraft entered the scene to evacuate the dead and wounded — whose cries were clearly heard by the fighters — the group began preparing to resume the complex operation.

At that point, a force arrived at the scene of the operation, thinking the area had been cleared by the previous wave of shelling. This was a reinforcement unit from the IOF Reserve Brigade consisting of two tanks and three military jeeps, approaching the targeted vehicles. The arriving force moved right into the heart of the kill zone, where the Thaqib type high-explosive device detonated — by the grace of God — leaving dead and wounded among the enemy’s soldiers and officers from their ranks.

Immediately afterwards, special forces from Al-Quds Brigades launched an intense close-range firefight with medium and light weapons, including a successful sniper strike against one enemy soldier.

By God’s grace, the group carried out an effective withdrawal and cover maneuver, after having inflicted severe casualties — killed and wounded — on the enemy.

During the ground-based withdrawal, made possible by changes in the surrounding environment, four fighters were martyred, including the military media officer tasked with covering the complex operation. The rest of the force, by the grace of God, returned safely.

The video concludes with photos of two Israeli terrorists whose deaths were acknowledged by the Zionists:

Casualties of the operation according to the enemy’s own admission: Two were killed, and around nine other soldiers and officers were wounded with serious to moderate injuries — though the commander of the operation confirms that what was concealed by the enemy is far greater than what they admitted in this heroic operation.

The Nour al-Bitawi operation:

Shuja’iyya has long been the Israeli Achilles heel in Gaza and it has been no different for them during the ongoing genocide. It continues to be unconquerable even after 21 months of unrestrained, unabashed Western-funded and -supported Israeli barbarism.

Despite relentless attempts to break its resolve, Shuja’iyya remains a symbol of unyielding Palestinian resistance, where every failed Israeli advance deepens the costs for their forces. The resilience of the fighters in Shuja’iyya not only frustrates military objectives but also serves as a stark reminder of the price Israel pays for its continued savagery — a price measured in mounting casualties and a growing need to pause and regroup.

On Friday, the Israeli press reported two further deaths of Israeli terrorists, one in the north and the other in the south of the Gaza Strip. As their losses mount with no headway in their stated intent to clear the Gaza Strip of Hamas and eventually all of its residents, the Israelis appear eager to get a breather from the fire of the Palestinian resistance.

In the proposed ceasefire deal, as it stands, there is still no provision for a permanent end to the Israeli genocide after an initial 60-day truce. On the evidence of the performance of their troops in Gaza, it is quite clear that the Israelis want to give their struggling terrorists some respite from being relentlessly pursued in deadly ambushes. Nothing suggests that they won’t launch a fresh assault in two months. However, apart from killing more civilians, they are unlikely to achieve any military objectives. The resistance, despite its relatively primitive tools, remains too brave and resilient for the world’s best-equipped, funded, and supported terrorist organisation.

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