The resistance in Gaza.. Is there a similarity with the Algerian revolutionaries?

There is no doubt that the October 7 operation made Hamas and the resistance factions prepare for a long war scenario through a complex network of tunnels extending throughout the entire Gaza Strip, which has an area of 356 square kilometers. It also relied on population density that would be an obstacle when the occupation forces advanced, etc. This is one of the dangers of urban and street wars.

According to a report by British writer David Hirst on November 5, the launch of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle by Hamas and the Palestinian resistance was carefully studied and targeted. To stop the plans of extremist Jewish groups to demolish the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque and build the alleged temple, especially after they succeeded in dividing Al-Aqsa Mosque spatially and temporally by using the security services and political interventions of the government of the occupying state to impose a fait accompli by coercive force.

Hirst believed that the Hamas movement possesses various and important weapons, most of which are locally made, despite the huge challenges it faces before the Israeli army, which targets infrastructure and the defenseless innocent population in Gaza, in addition to the endless European and American political and military support for the Israeli entity, most notably the short- and long-range missile system that has reached To Tel Aviv and its environs.

But among these weapons that have proven effective in the urban warfare taking place today are: Al-Yassin 105 missiles, which are an advanced version of the Soviet RPG missiles, are among the most effective weapons used in Israeli tanks and Tiger armored vehicles. They have led to hundreds of tracked vehicles being completely or partially out of service, and are still used by the resistance to this day after more than Nine months since the start of the war.

There is no doubt that the guerrilla war and the decentralized cities made the Israeli tanks deployed without guidance or complete protection in the range of the cluster groups of the decentralized resistance factions, which began targeting them with strobe explosives, and the high destructive capacity of these explosives, and in many versions of the visible resistance, its members plant and paste these explosives in the structure Merkava tanks, whether from the front or the rear, and then heavy and growing losses occurred.

The resistance in Gaza aims to prolong the guerrilla and urban war. It seems that it studied well the previous examples in which the Israeli forces were exposed to this type of war in the Egyptian city of Suez, when the occupation army took advantage of the temporary cessation of the war to create a gap and rush towards Suez and overthrow it to improve the conditions for negotiation with the Egyptian side on October 24 and 25, 1973 AD.

But according to Muhammad Abu Laila in his book “All the Men of Suez, Among the Secrets of the Fedayeen in the October War,” the Egyptian popular resistance led by Sheikh Hafez Salama and a large number of Suez residents, as well as 160 fighters from the 19th Infantry Division of the Egyptian army, which had not withdrawn from The city up to that date; This popular resistance relied on guerrilla and street warfare, and was able to kill 80 Israeli soldiers and control hundreds of rifles, mortars, and RPG groups.

In the face of this violent resistance, which was targeting tanks and sniping at soldiers, the Israeli forces withdrew and worked to surround and besiege Suez for a period of more than 100 days, until the siege ended, and the Israelis left and were unable to occupy the city. Nine years later, the Israeli forces repeated the same thing in besieging and destroying the city of Beirut. However, the intervention of international parties eventually forced the Israeli forces to withdraw.

There is no doubt that the resistance relies on other types of tactics and weapons, such as the cyber warfare sector, drones, and information penetration of various Israeli systems, as well as other field weapons such as hand grenades, and its acquisition of Chinese and Russian weapons, some of which have been announced and others may not have appeared. So far it seems.

Gaza is following in Algeria's footsteps

The resistance in Gaza is very similar in its appearance, continuity, tactics, strategy, and tools to what the Algerian revolutionaries did during their resistance to the French occupation, which perched on Algeria’s chest for more than 130 years. France had occupied Algeria since 1830 AD, and it was the first town in the Middle East and North Africa to fall into the hands of Western occupation after the failure of the French themselves before the days of Napoleon Bonaparte to occupy Egypt and their departure from it in 1801 AD.

The French occupation of Algeria was criminal and bloody. They took all the measures that the occupation army takes today in continuing their occupation, apartheid, and ongoing wars against Palestine in both its military and cultural, material and moral aspects. They began to implement a plan to erase Algeria’s cultural characteristics, including religion, language, and historical monuments, in order to facilitate, in their claim, the restoration of Algeria. Algeria for Christianity, and they did not stop implementing that plan - hour of the day - throughout their presence in Algeria. Therefore, Imam Bashir Ibrahimi considered the French occupation of Algeria “an episode of the first Crusade,” and that “a century of Crusades was a star, not an army of the French attacked,” and that this Crusade’s intensity did not diminish, its color did not change, and its fervor did not weaken with the succession of years and the development of ideas; Rather, it remained the same, “France gathered together or was crushed, or had different colors, white and red,” as he described it.

In this regard, France adopted methods of repression, military force, ethnic cleansing, and massacres against the Algerian resistance, starting from Emir Abdelkader Al-Jazairi at the beginning of the French occupation, through the resistance of Zaatasha and Sharif Boubaghla, until the resistance of Al-Maqrani and Bouabama in the last third of the nineteenth century, ending with the formation of the Association of Algerian Muslim Scholars, and then announcing the establishment of the Algerian Resistance. The Algerian Revolution, which lasted from 1954 until independence in 1962 AD.

The treachery of the French was evident, just as the treachery of the Israelis is evident today, in many events, perhaps the most prominent of which is what happened on May 8, 1945 AD, the day the end of World War II was announced, and the joy of the Algerians on this day, as they thought that the French would be true to the promises they had made to them during the war. That war led to the evacuation of Algeria, so this day turned into a huge massacre that is still immortalized in modern history, in which 45 thousand Algerians fell in one day, and the number rose to one hundred thousand martyrs by the end of that month, according to researcher Kamal Ben Yaish in his book “Massacres.” May 8, 1945.. Setif massacre.

In the face of these massacres and treachery, and the reneging on pledges, the Algerians realized that armed resistance was the only way to confront the French occupation, just as the Palestinians realized early on, since the first Palestinian revolution in 1936-1939 AD, that resistance to the British and the Zionist movement was the final solution. This was evident during the Nakba, its aftermath, and even Our present day in the battles of the Al-Aqsa Flood.

The senior leadership of the Algerian Liberation Organization was keen to receive support from regional and international powers opposed to Western imperialism. Cairo embraced it during the days of Abdel Nasser and supplied it with weapons and equipment. The Algerian resistance also resorted to the Soviet Union to achieve an armament and military balance in the face of advanced French and Western weapons.

Between his announcement of negotiations in 1958 and his evacuation from Algeria, the battles continued for four full years, during which the French realized that they would not be able to stand in the face of the determination and resolve of the Algerians to liberate their country, in addition to the daily losses in lives and equipment. On July 5, 1962, Algeria officially gained independence, and the occupier withdrew. French about the country that caused millions of martyrs after more than 130 years of occupation. Will the Palestinian resistance repeat the story of the first Algerian resistance?

Source: Al Jazeera