The biggest challenge in the West Bank is not whether it will be able to emulate the Resistance technology in Gaza, but whether it will be able to consistently develop its technology using homemade or smuggled equipment.
The West Bank-based Ayyash Brigade announced the firing of two ‘Qassam-1’ rockets on Monday from the city of Jenin towards the illegal Israeli settlement of Shaked.
The announcement comes only days after Israel invaded the town and refugee camp of Jenin, killing 12 Palestinians and wounding 120 more.
“Our mujahideen in the Ayyash battalion, with God’s help and success, were able to target the Shaked (illegal settlement) west of Jenin with two Qassam-1 rockets,” the battalion said in a statement.
The statement was joined by a brief video demonstrating the launch.
كتيبة مسلحة تطلق على نفسها اسم "العياش" تعلن مسؤولتها عن إطلاق صاروخين من طراز "قسام 1" تجاه مستوطنة شاكيد الإسرائيلية قرب جنين#الجزيرة #فيديو pic.twitter.com/5YOhgCC8qv
— الجزيرة فلسطين (@AJA_Palestine) July 10, 2023
“Despite the complex and sensitive security conditions and impossible work, and despite the lack of capabilities and tools, we continue to develop and prepare .. the strength of Qassam rockets in the land of the Ayyash Bank,” the statement added.
The Ayyash Brigades are believed to be associated with the Hamas movement, particularly its powerful armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades.
The name ‘Ayyash’ is a reference to the Qassam’s military commander in the West Bank, Yahya Ayyash, who was assassinated by Israel in 1996.
Why is this important
This is the third time that the Ayyash Brigades announces that it has fired rockets toward an illegal Israeli settlement.
Firing rockets has always been confined to Gaza.
When the Gaza Resistance resorted to the manufacture and firing of rockets toward Israel in response to Israeli occupation and violence, as early as 2001, the technology was quite rudimentary.
The rocket, with an estimated range of 3 to 4.5 kilometers (1.9 to 2.8 miles) was also called Qassam-1.
These rockets evolved greatly over the years. Although they are still rudimentary, mostly homemade, and imprecise, the explosive heads, range and number of these rockets have exponentially increased.
If West Bank groups emulate the Gaza experience at a larger scale, they will compound Israel’s so-called ‘security’ problems, as in its ability to control and suppress, with relative ease, West Bank Resistance.
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Why?
The West Bank is much larger in size and far more complex in topography than Gaza. Gaza’s total size is 365 square kilometers (approximately 141 square miles), while the size of the West Bank is 5,860 square kilometers (approximately 2,263).
With that in mind, the mountainous nature of the West Bank would also make it easier for rocket launchers to be hidden and operated.
Israel often hits densely populated areas in Gaza, killing thousands of civilians over the years while claiming that the Resistance in Gaza uses Gazans as human shields.
Although such claims were never substantiated, overpopulated Gaza has forced the Resistance to hide their rocket launchers underground.
The use of tunnels to hide military equipment, smuggle weapons and ammunition, and fight advancing Israeli occupation troops eventually gave Palestinian Resistance in Gaza an edge.
Tunnels in the West Bank might not always be a sustainable option due to the rocky nature of the soil. But West Bankers have much greater space – land mass, complex topography, and relatively smaller people-to-land ratio – to operate.
But why would West Bankers resort to this option in the first place?
In its invasion of Jenin, on July 3, Israel was hoping to emulate its relatively successful crackdown on Palestinian Resistance during the Second intifada (2000-2005).
Its 2002 invasion of major Palestinian cities and population centers left hundreds of Palestinians dead and thousands wounded. From Jenin to Nablus to elsewhere, Israel killed, wounded, or arrested most of the Resistance fighters.
This gave Israel the opportunity to restore the old status quo, further expanding its illegal settlements and entrenching its military occupation in the following years.
With the help of the US, Israel also instituted a new political paradigm that turned the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a complete henchman for Israel, directly involved in suppressing the Resistance.
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Two decades later, the armed resistance in the West Bank is resurfacing. The new Resistance is decentralized and is operating in complete independence from the PA.
Moreover, new resistance tactics are now being used, and the lessons of 2002 are being studied and applied, to ensure that even following massive invasions as that of Jenin, resistance dynamics in the West Bank remain unchanged.
Now, some, like the Ayyash Brigades in the West Bank, hope that rockets can be a unique addition to the ongoing fight.
Israel is also wary of this, and the Israeli occupation military has carried out numerous raids in recent months searching for rocket launchers.
On May 24, Kan Hebrew TV reported that in the village of Nazlat Issa, near Jenin, the occupation army had found a launcher used to fire an improvised rocket toward the Shaked settlement.
But the Ayyash Brigades seem to be in a stage of experimentation as far as the use of rockets are concerned.
Any progress in this field could entice others to emulate the brigades’ experience.
The Israeli response to any further investment in this tactic is likely to be harsh and deadly, but unlikely different from the current iron fist policy in which Tel Aviv uses against Palestinian fighters.
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The biggest challenge in the West Bank is not whether it will be able to emulate the Resistance technology in Gaza, but whether it will be able to consistently develop its technology using homemade or smuggled equipment.
Time will tell.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
I just don’t understand this war. Why are Israel and Palestine fighting for? Lands? Money? Religion? Technology maybe? I just read the analysis at the Palestine Chronicle and my doubts remain the same. We are all in this only -and unfortunately destroyed by all of us- world. Does it really matter where do we all come from, religiously speaking? To me, life is the best option. Not killing for pleasure as some Mara Salvatrucha warrior confessed have felt at some time. God bless everybody and lighten our hearts and minds.