The "shadow unit" is surrounded by a lot of secrecy, as the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military arm of the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas") maintains its secrecy due to the sensitivity of the mission for which it was established, which is to "secure the Israeli prisoners" in Gaza and keep them in the "circle of unknown". To ensure successful prisoner exchanges with the occupying power.
The task of supervising the unit is entrusted to the Commander-in-Chief of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Muhammad Deif, and its existence was revealed for the first time 10 years after its founding in 2016, after assuming the task of securing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, which ended in a successful prisoner exchange deal.
Since then, no one has heard anything about this unit until the spokesman of the Al-Qassam Brigades, nicknamed "Abu Ubaida", announced at the end of July 2022 that one of the members of the "shadow unit" had been killed and 3 others were injured as a result of Israel targeting one of the places where a captured Israeli soldier was being held during the Israeli war. on Gaza in May 2021.
Birth and founding
The Shadow Unit was established after the Al-Qassam Brigades, with the participation of the "Popular Resistance Committees" and "Jaysh al-Islam", managed to kidnap Shalit in June 2006, when they assigned it the task of securing the captured soldier, becoming one of the most important and secretive military units of the Qassam Brigades.
This unit - which is described as a "special mission unit" - remained secret until the beginning of 2016, when it was revealed through a short video clip broadcast by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa satellite channel in Gaza.
Highlights
The unit was able to hide the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from the eyes of the Mossad and its agents for about 5 years, until the resistance forced the occupying country to acquiesce in its demands to complete the "Wafa Al-Ahrar" exchange deal, popularly known as the "Shalit deal", after which 1050 prisoners were liberated from the occupation prisons.
Then she was entrusted with the task of detaining 4 Israeli prisoners since 2014, including two soldiers who were captured by the Qassam Brigades during the third Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, which the resistance calls "the battle of the eaten storm", in addition to two others who entered Gaza in mysterious circumstances and fell into the "grass of the Qassam."
The file of prisoners in the prisons of the occupation occupies a special place with the Al-Qassam Brigades, which considers their liberation a “priority” for it, and says that the shadow unit was “originally established for operational considerations within the framework of the mission of breaking the chains of Palestinian prisoners in enemy prisons,” and stresses that its work will not end until after. Cleaning up the prisons of the occupation.
The principle of treating prisoners in this unit - as announced by the "Al-Qassam Brigades" - is based on "treating the enemy prisoners with dignity and respect in accordance with the provisions of Islam, and providing them with full care, both material and moral, taking into account the enemy's treatment of the Mujahideen prisoners."
Member selection criteria
The resistance says that the mechanism for selecting members of the shadow unit and their specifications is carried out with great care from all the brigades and combat formations of the Al-Qassam Brigades, according to precise criteria, which it described as a “golden scale.” They are subjected to several direct and indirect tests, and they undergo special training to raise their security and military capabilities.
These standards and specifications are as follows:
He has a deep affiliation with the Palestinian cause and the resistance project.
A high desire for sacrifice and redemption.
High level of intelligence and good behavior in times of crisis and emergency.
High ability to sense risks.
A person who enjoys secrecy, secrecy, and hates gossip.
It has unique security and military capabilities.
Martyrs
5 martyrs who worked in the unit died during separate Israeli attacks since 2008, and no one knew of the tasks they were entrusted with until after the Qassam Brigades revealed them, as she said that they "were closely linked to the process of disappearance and detention of Shalit for 5 years."
She added, "Behind the curtain of darkness is their jihad, and among the people they live their normal lives, so you do not feel that they are hiding or keeping a secret behind them, and they are the ones who inflicted successive defeats on the Zionist security services with all its names, after they stood helpless before finding their captive (Shalit). They are the heroes of the Qassam shadow unit." Field commanders:
Sami Al-Hamayda:
He was born on January 18, 1975 to a refugee family whose roots go back to the occupied city of Ramle, and who lived in the Shaboura refugee camp in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. He was martyred in 2008 in an assassination operation carried out by an Israeli warplane.
Abdullah Labbad
He was born in 1968 in the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, after his family was expelled from the city of Majdal during the Nakba in 1948. At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, he joined the Al-Qassam Brigades. 2011.
Khaled Abu Bakra
He lived in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. His family roots go back to the occupied city of Beersheba. He participated in planting explosives and digging tunnels. On the night of November 1, 2013, inside one of the Qassam Brigades tunnels, he was martyred, accompanied by Muhammad Rashid Daoud and Muhammad Issam al-Qassas, after a clash with An Israeli force in an operation called the "Gate of the Unknown" by the Phalange.
Muhammad Rashid Dawood
He was born in 1987 in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Yunis. He was active in the "artillery unit" of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and was martyred in the "Gate of the Unknown" operation.
Abdul Rahman Al Mubasher
He was born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, and rose as a martyr in 2015 after the collapse of a resistance tunnel.
The Al-Qassam Brigades decided to keep the name of the last martyr of the shadow unit for "security reasons", only to reveal that he was killed in the Israeli war on Gaza in May 2021.