Around a week ago, the Israeli military decided to launch a sudden series of offensives against eastern Rafah, along with the Zeitoun neighborhood and Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip. Despite claiming to have already dismantled the Resistance in northern Gaza months ago, what they have experienced there recently has been death and embarrassment.

On May 6, after Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire proposal that would have led to a comprehensive prisoner exchange and the end of the war, the Zionist entity freaked out and decided to push ahead with its planned incursion into the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah. It began by pushing forward around three kilometers to reach the Rafah Crossing, before expanding its operation further in the eastern areas of Rafah. 

What the Zionists also committed themselves to was the re-invasion of the Zeitoun neighborhood, later launching another incursion into Jabalia town and refugee camp. While the Israeli military was surprised by the performance and qualitative leap in the tactics of the Resistance, compared to previous months, in all areas of Gaza, the Jabalia Resistance battalions had something new in store.

The Israeli military decided that a re-invasion of Jabalia was their next primary focus, but have failed to produce any viable justification for its actions, especially when the Zionist leadership claimed to have already defeated the Resistance there months ago. When entering the densely populated area, it is likely that they believed it to be easier than the times before and conducted the offensive in a very similar manner to how it had done throughout the war.

While the Resistance had previously waited for the Zionists to invade an area, before launching their guerrilla-style counterattacks, there was a change in strategy on the part of the Resistance battalions this time. The Palestinian Resistance opted to confront the Israelis head-on and to try to hold them back for as long as possible, in an effort to see whether they could successfully kick them out. The Resistance battalions in the Jabalia refugee camp, the area known in Gaza as "the Thorn of Palestine", adopted the attitude of the previous generations of al-Qassam brigades fighters during the Second Intifada and adopted the phrase of the people: "You will not enter our camp." This embodies the frequently repeated line of al-Qassam’s spokesperson, Abu Obeida, who states that "this is a resistance of victory or martyrdom."

The Jabalia refugee camp is famous for having started The Intifada in 1987 and is considered by many to be to Gaza what the Jenin refugee camp is to the West Bank, a hotbed and stronghold of Resistance. After several attempts by the Israeli military to take over the Jabalia refugee camp during the early 2000s, the Zionist entity launched an invasion of northern Gaza in October of 2004, with a special focus on the Jabalia camp. Yet after killing over 130 Palestinians – most of whom were civilians – they were forced to retreat. Their primary stated goal at the time was to prevent the firing of rockets, which had just killed two Israelis, but failed to prevent the Resistance from continuing its rocket attacks shortly afterward. 

This time around, the Resistance is not the same as the Resistance in 2004 and doesnt resemble the Resistance in previous battles. In the earlier days of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the casualties inflicted on the Zionist forces were surprisingly high. Nobody expected that the Resistance, after eight months of war, would have become stronger and capable of implementing more complex operations than before. The Resistance managed to carry out dozens of ambushes, fire over 100 RPG warheads at Israeli military vehicles, plant explosive charges under tanks, use drones to drop anti-personnel munitions, carry out sniper operations, and engage in various gunbattles. The Jabalia battalions also managed to cut off the supply line to the invading army, forcing them to change it multiple times. 

On top of all of this, the Israeli military and political leadership have been shown to be liars before their own population. Their soldiers are growing tired and ill-motivated, they return to their families in body bags or with serious injuries, in a location that their regime claims was pacified and that the Resistance there was already defeated. Even the rocket fire from the northern Gaza Strip has increased over the past weeks, while the dozens of videos published by the Resistance factions prove that the tunnel systems are still intact and effective at launching attacks.

As is always the case, the Zionist entity has inflicted mass murder against Jabalia’s civilian population, callously blowing up civilian infrastructure and committing a litany of war crimes. While the impacts of these cruel practices cannot be diminished by the effectiveness of the Palestinian Resistance, it demonstrates that murdering innocent people does not equal a military victory. What the effectiveness of the Resistance does do, however, is to inspire steadfastness in the people and to grant solace to those afflicted as the result of the Zionist crimes against their families. 

Although it is not completely clear why the Resistance suddenly decided to alter its tactics in Jabalia, there are a few factors that could have contributed to making this decision. The first is the scale of the atrocities committed against civilians in places like al-Shifa Hospital, during the more recent Israeli incursions into populated areas. When the Zionist invaders enter areas and seize control of civilians, they imprison, torture, execute, sexually abuse, and use them as human shields. It is likely that the Resistance may have sought to change tactics in Jabalia in order to prevent a repeat of the ways in which the Zionist militants treated civilians elsewhere. 

Another reason could have been to learn from the enemies' reactions to such tactics, this could be especially useful for the Resistance fighters in Rafah, who will likely use a wide variation of tactics themselves and will benefit in attaining new knowledge from what has occurred in Jabalia. Unlike the Zionists, who continue to make amateurish mistakes that are laughable when comparing them to other nations' armed forces, the Palestinian Resistance is constantly evolving and learning from battle experience. This is not to say that the temporary entity does not learn at all, or adapt in different ways, but it is clearly still failing to correct basic issues and failures in the field.

Once again, the Israelis have been pricked by the Thorn of Palestine and are losing more confidence in the face of an unrelenting, motivated, and focused Resistance. What we are seeing from the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza is unprecedented and will be studied for years to come. With limited tools and while their people are subjected to starvation and genocide, the Resistance continues to write epics through some of the most astounding battles in Urban Warfare history.