A Palestinian resistance fighter during the funeral of a martyr in Nablus (Al Jazeera)

Nablus -

With its location, details, objectives and results, the "Deir Ibzi' operation" west of the city of Ramallah, at dawn last Friday, constituted a new addition to the Palestinian resistance operations in the West Bank - which have come to be described by their type - whether individual or adopted by cells supported by some organizations and factions.

Since the beginning of this March, the West Bank has witnessed 5 commando operations, which caused deaths and injuries among the ranks of Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers, and their impact was greater in their place, time, and method of implementation.

With the occupation's direct admission, it confirmed the quality of these operations and that the "Deir Ibzi' operation" enabled the perpetrator to prepare well for it, not by chasing him and barricading him for about 7 hours, but by planning it in advance and erecting stone barriers to hide through it, according to the Israeli Walla News website.

The perpetrator also clashed from a distance of 30 meters with the occupation soldiers with a rifle equipped with a telescope, and was able to kill one of them and wound 6 others. He demonstrated proficiency in military methods, defense and attack.

This quality was not limited to guerrilla operations only, but also appeared when the resistance fighters confronted the occupation army’s incursions into the Palestinian areas, and prepared them in advance using homemade explosive devices and other means of resistance.

This comes as Israel talks about finding in every military operation at the brigade level 30 to 40 explosive devices, some of which weigh 150 kilograms, most of which are self-produced, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Eli settlement, where a commando operation took place in early March and led to the killing of settlers (Al Jazeera)

Its individuality is the secret of its quality

Before "Deir Ibzi'", the "Eli" settlement operation south of Nablus was also a landmark event, especially since it led to the killing of two settlers. It was followed by the "Homesh" settlement operation north of Nablus, targeting soldiers and penetrating their fortifications with an explosive device, wounding 7 of them, then luring two members of the Shin Bet resistance fighter. Near the "Gush Etzion" settlement, south of Bethlehem, and they were shot directly at them.

While the occupation warns of other operations due to the spread of weapons and their ease of access to the resistance, political and security experts and analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera Net attribute the reason for the spread of these operations to the horror of the war on Gaza and the occupation’s ongoing violations in the West Bank, which means that they will not only increase, but will develop and take new forms.

Security expert Major General Wassef Erekat says that the recent operations are “as qualitative as the testimony of the occupation itself,” whether in terms of their perpetrator, timing, method, choice of targets, and the extent of their impact on the Israeli army and society.

These operations are considered to be self-defense in the face of the occupation’s arrogance, its killing of Palestinians, the severing of ties with the West Bank, its economic and military besiegement with more than 700 barriers, and in the face of settlers’ incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing Palestinians from entering it, and restricting them.

All of this - in the opinion of the security expert - makes it likely that operations will increase and increase their pace, and he says that the occupation’s attacks are the biggest incentive for Palestinian youth to escalate their operations.

Since they are “individual operations,” according to Erekat, this will increase their success and effectiveness, because they are complex for the security and intelligence agencies, as they are limited and unpredictable and are carried out by individuals who make their decisions without consulting anyone, and thus choose the time and place without any circulating information.

New wave and patterns

For two decades, guerrilla operations in the West Bank have been characterized by their succession in the form of “waves,” according to the assessment of writer and political analyst Nihad Abu Ghosh. They were spontaneous and emotional and carried out by young men. Then they became more organized through battalions spread throughout various areas of the West Bank, such as the Jenin and Lions’ Den brigades in Nablus.

Abu Ghosh says, "We are (now) facing a new and rising wave of resistance operations, characterized by greater organization and precision and the participation of more security personnel who have training and experience in dealing with weapons and the geography of the place, as well as maturity. Israel believed that the perpetrators were young, desperate, poor young men who were suffering from problems." "social".

He added, "But we now have new types of people carrying out specific guerrilla operations, and the standards now include every Palestinian who is married and has family and financial stability, including teachers, doctors, and businessmen. This confirms that resistance is the people’s reaction, and reflects a general situation rooted in culture, society, and the convictions of many." ".

These people - as the political analyst says - carry out their operations “for individual motives” and are not directed by a partisan or official decision, and are not due to misery or the economic situation, but rather the result of the accumulation of the state of oppression experienced by the entire Palestinian people.

Regarding the continuation of these operations, Abu Ghosh expects their increase and quality as well, which is what Israel itself says, and he believes that they will remain individually or in small “circular” groups, meaning limited cells that are not linked to the organizational structures of the factions.

But its spread throughout all areas of the West Bank will continue to worry Israel, because the entire West Bank has become a front and area of ​​clashes with the occupation, as there are more than 300 settlers, and dozens of camps and army checkpoints.

Statistics from the Palestine Information Center (given) indicate that since the war on Gaza, 29 specific operations have been carried out, resulting in the killing of 18 soldiers and settlers, and the injury of 111 others.

variables

For his part, Adel Shadid, a political analyst and specialist in Israeli affairs, considered that the resistance in the West Bank and its operations are increasing in quality as well.

He explained that this reflects a group of variables, the most important of which is that the West Bank has overcome the shock that occurred on October 7, which was not only a shock to Israel, which sought to adopt a policy of intimidation at the beginning of the war, but also to the entire Palestinian situation in the West Bank and the occupied interior, which began to move with activities that do not call for... Not only does it stop the war, but it also supports Gaza.

The West Bank also realized that there is an international Israeli project aimed at isolating it from Gaza, and showing that the war is not against the Gaza Strip, but only against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), thus weakening the Palestinian situation, as Shadid says.

He believes that this left a sense of danger, and the national situation began to restore itself through cells and individuals who carried out specific operations that carried a political message more than a military and security one, that Gaza and the West Bank are one national situation, and this is important because it canceled the Israeli legitimacy for the war, and its fragmentation through its tools for the Palestinian situation.

The quality of the resistance operations - according to Shadid - lies in the fact that they took lessons from past lessons and advanced and adapted their work to the current reality. Although they were few operations, they constituted a “state of deployment” in all the cities of the West Bank, which will force the occupation army to redeploy in those areas, and will affect On the course of the war as well.

The political analyst attributed the occupation's inability - despite all its security and intelligence measures to completely control and prevent these operations - to the development of self-resistance cells and ideology. He says, "The occupation has major failures, and despite its redeployment in the West Bank, it realizes that it cannot prevent resistance in general."

Source: Al Jazeera