Coinciding with its committing more massacres against civilians in Gaza, the Israeli occupation army announced that it was able to free two prisoners held in the Strip (Getty)

The Israeli occupation government, and behind it the Hebrew media, established the world, but did not stop it. Celebrating, applauding, intimidating, and glorifying the process of liberating two Israeli prisoners in the Rafah area - the Palestinians - in the Gaza Strip.

The ministers of the "Zionist entity", its generals, its press, and its media figures... began to weave stories and tales, and claim heroism, about this night operation, which was described as "complex, complex, and difficult", with the participation of all security agencies: intelligence, police, and military.

The blessings of the Shifa Complex

The operation was accompanied by a new massacre of Palestinian civilians, resulting in the death of a hundred martyrs and dozens of wounded. Meanwhile, the Hamas movement announced that the two freed prisoners were not in the possession of the resistance. Rather, they were in the hands of civilians in a residential building.

The details that the Israelis are promoting about the operation seem disjointed and devoid of coherence and documentation... similar to many “fabrications and lies” that have been promoted by the occupation army since the beginning of the aggression against Gaza, which has entered its fifth month.

Perhaps the most famous of them is the lie of the “Al-Shifa Medical Complex,” which the “occupation army” bombed (11/3/2023), stormed it, and killed and wounded the inmates, including premature and sick children, under the pretext that the Qassam Brigades’ command headquarters is located under this complex. Then the Army of Shame, devoid of honor and morals, published fabricated and fake “video clips” to prove its claims, which did not convince anyone, even its supporters in the West, and some of which were later deleted.

Rafah invasion

Why is this Israeli exaggeration and glorification of the process of freeing two prisoners after 130 days of captivity, during which the army failed to free any prisoner by force?... What is the relationship of this operation to the ongoing negotiations for the prisoner exchange deal sponsored by the United States, and upon which Egypt and Qatar are based?... Does it have anything to do with what The Zionist entity announced its intention to invade the Palestinian city of Rafah on the Egyptian border?

The "occupation army" and its security services failed for more than four months to liberate their prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. It had previously caused the killing of a prisoner held by the Al-Qassam Brigades, during a failed attempt to liberate him (12/9/2023), in which two soldiers were killed. Two Israelis, and his soldiers shot three freed prisoners who called for help in Hebrew.

No resistance prisoners were released except during the exchange deal that took place last November, coinciding with the truce (11/24 - 12/1/2023). Also, in its previous wars with the resistance, whether Palestinian or Lebanese, the “Zionist entity” did not succeed in liberating its prisoners or kidnapped soldiers except through deals and through intermediaries.

Hamas reservations

The problem lies in the major defeat that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” inflicted on the entity, and the unreality of the “war goals” announced by the Prime Minister of the Zionist entity, Benjamin Netanyahu, and repeated daily - tirelessly - about the complete crushing of the “Hamas Movement”, dismantling its military capabilities, and liberating the prisoners. It has, or "detainees", as the entity likes to describe them.

Hence, the occupation’s approval of the deal being negotiated - according to what is known as the “Paris Framework”, to which Hamas responded with reservations leading to a ceasefire for about five months - this means in practice that Israel has not won, and that it has failed to achieve its goals. From the war.

Netanyahu, with American and European support, aims to put pressure on Hamas, to soften its negotiating position, to accept his conditions... in a way that does not allow it to impose its own conditions... Therefore, he is waving and threatening to invade Rafah, to which about one million and 400 thousand Palestinians were displaced from northern Gaza. (They live in tents).

Transaction terms

The Rafah invasion - if it happens - will be a new, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. If Hamas backs down and accepts his conditions (including the departure of Hamas leaders from the Gaza Strip), and waives its reservations and conditions, Netanyahu will have achieved the victory he seeks, especially since he and his generals claim The previous exchange deal last November was the result of military pressure.

This is despite the fact that the Israeli army did not achieve any military achievement of value in all the areas of the northern Gaza Strip into which it penetrated by land over the course of four months. Rather, it retreated every time under the painful strikes and ambushes of the resistance, and the heavy losses it suffered among soldiers, officers, and equipment.

The invasion of Rafah may be carried out by the "Zionist army", to divert attention from its failures in the northern regions, and to focus it on Rafah, in the hope that it will achieve an achievement to be proud of.

As for killing "civilians", this is something that this usurping entity does not worry about. It does not deny that it considers them human monsters that must be killed, and that they - whether children, women or the elderly - are members of Hamas and must be killed as well. He also does not fear the so-called “international community,” as long as the latter is under American hegemony.

“The statements of US President Joe Biden,” and other politicians from his administration, and the West, about protecting civilians, are just talk, sold to the world and the Arabs, to mitigate the crudeness of his arrogant racist image, and nothing more than that... and they completely contradict Western military, material, and moral support for the occupation. And his aggression against Gaza.

Amplify and employ

Returning to the relationship between the process of “liberating the two Israeli prisoners” and Israel’s intention to invade Rafah. This process is being exaggerated and exaggerated, in order to exploit it in marketing the invasion process as inevitable to liquidate Hamas, free the resistance prisoners, and improve the conditions for negotiation.

If the occupying state fails to invade Rafah, it will eventually be forced to accept an exchange deal with Hamas. What a disappointment for the occupation! The liberation of only two “prisoners” after 130 days of fighting is a miserable achievement. This means that “Israel” will need many years of war to forcibly liberate its prisoners held by the resistance factions (135 prisoners)... in particular. Its army killed a large number of prisoners as a result of the brutal bombing of the Gaza areas.

We ask God for victory for the resistance, mercy for the martyrs, and healing for the wounded Palestinians.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.