Is the Palestinian resistance creating a new history with Operation Al-Aqsa Flood?

The West is panicked by the Palestinian resistance against Zionist–Israeli forces. Those who hail the Ukrainian neo-Nazis’ terrorist attacks against the Russians as an epitome of “liberation struggle”, call the Palestinian liberation struggle “terrorist”. In the conflict between the exploiter and the exploited, there have been desperate attempts by many to blur the line between the two.

In the wee hours of Saturday, October 7th, the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance launched a barrage of rockets into Israel and a surprise attack to liberate vast swathes of Palestinian land from Zionist occupation. It was difficult for the Israelis to wake up to the fact that the Palestinian people, who had been beaten for so long, would use tractors and bulldozers to tear down the barbed wire fences erected by the occupiers.

Some 7,000 Soviet-era rockets were fired on Israeli military targets, along with ground attacks by the Palestinian resistance fighters. The lack of an air force in the Palestinian resistance was covered by fighters paragliding and attacking Israeli forces with hand grenades. Everyone has risked their lives to give a big blow to the occupiers who have colonised their lands, existence and dignity. 

Israel suffered massive setbacks. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers were killed in an instant, dozens of them surrendered, and a general was even dragged away in his underwear by the Palestinian resistance forces. Thousands of rockets rained down on the occupied territory crushing key military bases and stunning the much-hyped “Iron Dome” air-defence system that Israel had built.

The Africans, Arabs and Persians were quite amazed to see such a well-planned strategic offence that forced the Zionist occupiers to retreat. Lebanon’s Hezbollah expressed its solidarity with Hamas. The people of Iran took to the streets and cheered at the plight of the exploitative Zionist forces. 

Countries like Saudi Arabia, which had been trying to normalise relations with Israel for a few years, blamed Tel Aviv for the spike in violence. The people of Egypt welcomed the resistance despite their government’s open collaboration with the Zionist forces.

Westerners are awestruck to see the spontaneous joy of the people, their solidarity with the exploited and their hatred for the exploiters. Those who generously handed over weapons to the Ukrainian Nazis to defeat the Russians have called for the disarmament of the Palestinian resistance, which they term “terrorist”. 

Suppressing the fact that many innocent people have lost their lives in the last 75 years due to Israel’s brutal aggression and occupation, the Western mainstream media are making a fuss about the Palestinian resistance’s rocket attack on Israel. They are carrying out a biased coverage to vilify the Palestinians and shape the mass opinion in favour of the Zionists.

Analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict

Over 75 years, the Palestinian people have been exiled from their lands following the establishment of the Zionist state of Israel. They have been repeatedly brutally attacked by the US-backed Zionist invaders, who occupied their homes and land. 

Data on casualties of the conflict between 2008 and September 2023 shows that the Zionist terrorists have killed and injured more Palestinian civilians vis-a-vis what the Palestinian resistance has done.

Data also shows that the Zionist forces have killed Palestinians, irrespective of gender and age. Here is the data on the number of people killed and wounded by the Zionist forces in the occupied territories.

On the other hand, the situation in the Gaza Strip has been extremely grim. Located far from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip is bordered by Egypt to the south, the occupied territories of Israel to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Israel captured this strip in 1967. That occupation reigns till today.

Since 2007, the Zionists imposed a land, water and air blockade of the Gaza Strip, trapping approximately 2.2m people living in this 326 square km area. The people of Gaza are imprisoned in one of the largest open-air prisons in the world. Even after all these, the Zionist forces continue to attack the Gaza Strip regularly to massacre Palestinians and destroy their homes.

Gaza casualties from Zionist attacks—from 2008 to September 2023—are given below.

The Gaza Strip is under Zionist fire following the ongoing Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. As of Sunday night, the Zionist attack in the Gaza Strip has killed about 431 people and injured about 2,200.

In addition, the Zionist invaders have cut off the electricity supply to Gaza, and Israeli airstrikes on the city’s water and sewage systems have also disrupted those services.

Despite suffering brutal repression, the people of Palestine are guilty in the eyes of the Western powers. Therefore, the so-called global human rights vigilantes don’t hesitate to fully and unconditionally support Israel against them.

However, as the data given below shows the Palestinian resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has wreaked havoc on the Zionist occupation, the tables have turned and the Zionists have incurred huge losses. This change in the equation has panicked and irked the West.

Palestinian Resistance’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood

This military operation, which started on Saturday, is not a spontaneous militant attack, but a well-planned strategic offence. There is ample evidence that the Palestinian resistance has planned Operation Al-Aqsa Flood based on the changing geopolitical realities of the world and the Middle East.

The Palestinian resistance knows that the West’s economy is in deep crisis as a result of the shadow war being waged by the US and its allies against Russia using Ukraine as their pawn. Meanwhile, the head of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi government, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has repeatedly received large sums of money from the US, Canada and other Western countries under the guise of financial aid. At the same time, the West has been providing Ukraine with billions of dollars worth of weapons.

Thus, the West’s coffers are under severe strain. The US is forced to cover the economic losses by printing more dollars. These printed dollars are used to cover the US government’s expenses and, as a result, the US economy is on the brink of a colossal collapse. 

If the US government deploys its forces and donates dollars in support of Israel right now, its financial crisis will accelerate. On top of that, if the US forces were to enter Palestine in any way to aid Israel, the entire Middle East would flare up against that aggression, and Russia and China would use this opportunity to diplomatically discredit the US and its Western allies.

Palestinian resistance united in support of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood

Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group is also getting involved in the conflict. Hezbollah has reportedly fired rockets targeting the Zionist bases from Lebanon. Other resistance organisations have threatened the Zionists and their allies. It’s alleged that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are directing Hamas’s strategy and tactics, although a visibly jubilant Tehran has denied any role in this. 

Since these forces have won the war against Western aggression in Syria, in which they fought a proxy battle against the Zionist puppets, their morale is high. Although the Israeli forces, heavily armed with expensive war equipment, are portrayed as lethal, they have no real combat experience. The Israeli forces have experience in only attacking ordinary unarmed civilians. 

Iraq’s Iran-backed Qata’ib Saeed al-Shuhada Brigades said in a statement that all US forces, bases and US-controlled regions in the entire Middle East would be legitimate targets of the Resistance Axis if the US military directly gets involved anywhere in the conflict.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in Ramallah. He said that the Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves, especially against Israeli aggression in the Al-Aqsa Mosque and against the oppression of Zionist forces in the occupied territories.

On the other hand, the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLF) welcomed Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in a statement and called on all Palestinian people to join the Palestinian resistance, strike the enemy’s core and destroy its supply routes.

In general, all Palestinian organisations have welcomed the armed insurrection against Israeli occupation. Due to Iran’s growing influence over these incidents and the geopolitical mileage it has been gaining, the US ally Saudi Arabia is under heavy pressure to oppose the Zionist forces.

Adverse reactions from US allies

For a long time, Saudi Arabia has maintained regional rivalry with Iran for the sake of the US, but this year diplomatic relations between the two countries were established and the ice began to melt through the mediation of China. Yet there remained a simmering conflict between the two sides—Shiite republican Iran and the Wahhabi al-Saud monarchist group—which the US was using to pressure Saudi Arabia into closer ties with Israel. 

Diplomatic efforts to normalise relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel have been ongoing for several years. However, with the growing influence of China and Russia on the Middle East and the gradual decay of the US-led unilateral world order, the Saudi monarchy has been taking independent initiatives that go against the overall US interests in the region. The Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has provided an opportunity for Riyadh to seize the opportunity and exert its influence.

The way Arab and Persian public opinion has turned in favour of the Palestinian resistance forces following the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, it became harder for Saudi Arabia to continue its diplomatic initiatives to normalise ties with Israel. So, to the great surprise of Tel Aviv and Zionist warlord Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia blamed the ongoing Zionist occupation and oppression for the spike in violence and characterised the offensive as a part of the popular discontent against the occupation.

The fact that Saudi Arabia, the US’s biggest ally in the Middle East, stood up against the Zionist forces in this way— Zionism and Wahhabism are allegedly two solid pillars buttressing the US hegemony in the Middle East— and supported the Palestinian resistance, shocked the West.

Zionist Israel established diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2020. During this war of resistance, the UAE has also taken a neutral approach rather than siding with Israel. This neutral stand of the UAE emerges from its growing closeness with China and Russia. The lack of support from Abu Dhabi has ended Tel Aviv’s hope of having Arabs standing for it.

As a result of this careful manoeuvring by the Palestine resistance, reportedly at the behest of Iran, Israel is looking to the West for support. The US and the UK have sided with Israel; France and other white European countries also sided with Israel. But China and Russia, which have emerged as alternative power centres of the world, did not take sides. Most of the emerging multipolar world did not take sides either.

Russia and China want peace and an independent Palestine

Although Tel Aviv has diplomatic relations with Beijing and Moscow, both sides are seeking a peaceful solution to the problem through the formation of two states under the Oslo Accords of 1993. Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peshkov said Moscow fears the entry of a third external power—pointing fingers at the US without naming it—into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can further complicate the situation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the US’s failed policies in the Middle East for the escalating tension and called for the formation of an independent Palestinian state as the only solution to the ongoing violence. He accused the US of never considering the interests of the people of Palestine in its scheme of things. 

Arab League General Secretary Ahmad Aboul Gheit told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the Arab League opposes violence on both sides. But Lavrov said there is no solution to the problem other than the creation of an independent Palestinian state. He opposed the double standards of the West regarding the Israeli attack.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has called for a cessation of hostilities and a cease-fire. Although Beijing maintains bilateral relations with Israel, it opposes Israeli aggression and condemns the killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip. 

What will happen in Palestine?

The Palestine resistance has launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as part of a well-planned offensive plan to demoralise and weaken the Zionist Israeli forces, exploiting the current geopolitical scenario. Hamas leadership claimed that they are bracing up for a prolonged battle and are waiting for a full-fledged ground aggression by the Zionist forces.

Geopolitical realities show that no regional power in the Middle East will actively stand up for Israel. Rising powers like China and Russia will not support the Zionists. Israel can’t have any real material gain from the support extended by countries like India, and if the US, its patron, gets directly involved in fighting the Palestinian resistance, it would be a major catastrophe.

If the Palestinian resistance can keep Israel engaged in the war for a long time, it will not hurt Palestine, because the people of Gaza are used to a hard life, but it will not be good for Israel’s economy because the crisis-ridden US won’t be able to bail it out for long. As a result, Israel will soon have to negotiate with the Palestinians and work following the Oslo Accord for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

If the Palestinian resistance forces Israel to negotiate following a protracted war, the myth of Tel Aviv’s so-called military superiority will be shattered forever, and the far-right Zionist ringleader Netanyahu will face a deep political crisis as well because he won the election, despite the corruption allegations levelled against him, by promising Palestinian genocide. As a result of this resistance struggle, Palestinians may have many opportunities to change their fate and write a new history.