مسئول فلسطينى سابق: 7 أكتوبر مست بهيبة الجيش الإسرائيلى ومصر أفشلت التهجير القسرى

The head of the Palestinian Center for Research and Strategic Studies, Major General Mohammed Al-Masry, confirmed that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7 was a major setback for the Israelis and reflected the failure and weakness of the intelligence, military and security of the occupation army and undermined its prestige. He stressed that Egypt thwarted the plan for the forced displacement of the residents of the Gaza Strip.

Al-Masry, the former deputy head of the Palestinian intelligence service, said in an interview with the Middle East News Agency in the Palestinian territories on Friday that the Palestinian people’s conflict with the Israeli occupation did not begin on October 7, but has been ongoing directly since the 1948 Nakba, which left the Palestinians scattered throughout the world. However, the situation has become much more difficult since 1967 and Israel’s control over historical Palestine. He pointed out that the Palestinian people have offered tens of thousands of martyrs since the 1965 revolution, and up until 1993, when the “Oslo Principles” were signed, in which the Palestinians took the path of a political settlement, which has not yet resulted in any progress, as a result of the Israeli position that evaded its responsibilities towards the agreements.

He added that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” on October 7, which was carried out by Hamas and some factions from the Gaza Strip, which has been under siege for 17 years, and only rationed amounts of food were allowed into it to keep its residents alive, came as a shock to the occupation.

He added that Netanyahu and his government were always working persistently to strengthen the Palestinian division by supporting the de facto government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and were allowing the entry of $30 million per month, with the approval of the Shin Bet and Mossad and through Qatari support. Netanyahu and his government were under the illusion that by entering this money and receiving Gaza workers to work in Israel, they had provided a state of comfort that would take the Gaza Strip out of the state of conflict, but the factions practiced very strong intelligence deception, and surprised the occupation and the whole world with this strike that reflected the state of failure and weakness in intelligence, military and security, and affected the prestige of the “invincible” Israeli army.

He stressed that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” was a very big setback for the Israelis, and led to great civilian, human and political losses, and even on the military level, and he added, saying: When Israeli technology is struck in its own home, and Unit 8200 that covers the Middle East and the world to spy on it, and the satellites and high-tech, all of this no longer has value, when simple citizens enter, some of them barefoot, to bring down the prestige of Israeli technology, as the Israelis signed agreements with all countries of the world to sell espionage technologies (Pegasus), the Iron Dome and the Merkava, all of these military and intelligence technologies were struck in one day and in a few hours, and the occupying state lost control, and from here came its retaliatory response with intensive air strikes for 20 days, before it began to need the Strip by land.

Al-Masry highlighted the “hypocrisy of the Western world” in dealing with the Israeli aggression on Gaza, saying: During the 20 days of air strikes, the Western world came to Tel Aviv, led by US Secretary of State Blinken, who presented himself in a racist manner, not as an American Secretary of State, but as a Jew, then US President Biden, who said that he was a Zionist. Then they sent 2,000 Marines who had trained and worked well in Fallujah, Iraq, and other areas, to transfer their expertise to the Israelis in attacking the Gaza Strip. Then came the British, French, and German drones to carry out intelligence gathering missions in the Gazan airspace, and America sent an aircraft carrier, and even a nuclear submarine off the coast of Gaza. This aggression was not really on the Strip, but rather an aggression against the Palestinian people, and it was not directed against Hamas, but against the Palestinian people and national identity. Israel found its way, on October 7, to completely end the settlement with the Palestinians, with whom it could not settle the matter, for many long years, and thus it mobilized the world and everyone was with burning Gaza.

He continued that the war on the Gaza Strip used all types of weapons, and the estimate two weeks ago was that 73 thousand tons of explosives were dropped on Gaza, and the infrastructure was completely destroyed by 70 to 80%, and all the necessities of life in the Strip ended, pointing out that there were declared military goals and undeclared goals, the declared ones being to end Hamas’s rule, both authoritarian and military, and to retrieve the prisoners without conditions, and then to form a ruling security system in the Gaza Strip that deals with the occupation, and these are declared goals that have not been achieved so far, as for the undeclared goals, they are to displace the Palestinians, but the Palestinians have held out and remained on their land.

He added: The Palestinian political leadership had a position, but we must record a very important position for which President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi is to be thanked, who said that the displacement project will constitute a liquidation of the Palestinian cause and is considered a threat to Egyptian national security and Egypt will not allow it. We also thank King Abdullah II of Jordan, who considered this matter an aggression against Jordan, and I believe that this project has been aborted, but voluntary displacement is still ongoing. After the ceasefire, when a Palestinian finds himself in Gaza without water, electricity, school, mosque, university, roads or a home, what can he do? He is a human being who wants to survive, with the rest of his family, and this is a greater danger than the danger of a military battle, which is how can the Palestinian be enabled to remain in his land and thwart the project that aims to expel him demographically, whether forcibly or voluntarily.
* American sea pier.

The former deputy head of the Palestinian intelligence service addressed the issue of the “American sea pier” and said: “There was fear of the American sea pier, but the waves of the Gaza sea came and uprooted it. We say that all of Gaza is easy, but the people of this land subdued it and created two Gazas… Gaza above the ground… and Gaza underground… and we always say that the land is kind to its people above the ground and underground… you are dead or alive… the land is kind to you… because it knows its people well… therefore the Israelis today cannot decide the issue of Gaza because the people of Gaza understand Gaza well, and they know how to invest in the nature of this land. They fight inch by inch… and those who fight are our children, grandchildren, and families from our own skin, and it is the battle of all Palestinians.”

* The danger to the West Bank

Major General Mohamed Al-Masry said that there is a sense of danger in the West Bank, more than in the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli strategic and biblical ambitions are focused on the West Bank, which they call “Judea and Samaria”, in reference to the era of the two Jewish kingdoms in the land of historical Palestine, and they want to revive their dreams again, and even before the October 7 war, there were daily violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and violations even against our Christian brothers, and the call to prayer was sometimes banned in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, and prisoners were assaulted and abused under direct instructions from the extremist Israeli Minister of National Security Ben Gvir, and our sons were executed in the streets and land was confiscated, and on the political level, Israel did not recognize the legitimate Palestinian leadership, and Netanyahu was raising the map of the occupation over all of historical Palestine.

Al-Masry stressed that when there are 750,000 settlers in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, who possess 270,000 weapons, and tens of thousands more waiting to be armed, this is not an armed civilian militia, but they have become another army in the West Bank, a counterpart to the occupation army that withdrew a large part of its forces to place them in the Gaza Strip. Before October 7, 55% of the Israeli military forces were in the West Bank, because the battle was in the West Bank to implement the policy of “mowing the grass.” But what the Israelis did not understand is that in the culture of Palestinian farmers, when the grass is “mowed,” the grass grows stronger.

He continued: This is what happened. The policy of mowing the grass in the West Bank camps produced a generation that is more attached to the land, fights and knows no fear. This generation that is fighting today in the camps did not exist at the time of the invasion of Jenin in 2002. Therefore, Israel is creating a new generation of Palestinians to fight it, whether in the West Bank or Gaza. What it has created in Gaza today will not be tolerated in years. Today, the number of fighters is increasing compared to what it was at the beginning of the war, and the joining of young people to the factions has greatly increased. The occupation has left the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip no choice but to defend themselves. At a time when the Israelis complain about a shortage of artillery shells, vehicles and morale, you see the Gazans making ammunition from the rockets that fall on the Strip and recycling them. Small factories are still operating, and therefore this people is creative and is looking for the least thing to defend themselves.

* The Palestinian leadership and the strategic battle on the political and legal levels

Al-Masry added that it is worth highlighting the official Palestinian leadership and what it has done, as it has waged a strategic battle on the political and legal levels. This policy has cornered the occupation and isolated Israel internationally. The International Court of Justice is keeping up with and following up on the attacks and genocide against the Palestinian people, and this is no small thing. This is a blow to the Israeli narrative and story entirely, and to the history of Jewish oppression that has ended. Now Israel has emerged as a hideous, tyrannical and criminal state that is exterminating a people en masse. More importantly, the International Criminal Court. The public prosecutor is demanding the issuance of an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, the Minister of Defense and other names related to the army and security. This is something very advanced, and until recently it was a sacred matter that no one could approach. In addition, the European countries have recognized the State of Palestine, and demonstrations have erupted in Europe and America itself, due to the Palestinian blood that was shed in Gaza and the sympathy with the Palestinian who is being killed in front of the world.

In response to a question about the situation if Israel does not withdraw from the Netzarim axis in the middle of the Gaza Strip, Al-Masry replied that Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, had answered this question by saying that the fighting will continue, and this is what he said several months ago, when he mentioned that as long as there is a single soldier on an inch of the Gaza Strip, the conflict will remain within the framework of guerrilla warfare. The current war will end in its current form because the matter is no longer useful and exhausting for the occupation, and there will be a transition to guerrilla warfare on the part of the Palestinians, and an intelligence war for the occupation based on surgical operations and prior information before bombing and assassinations, as is the case in the West Bank.

* The explosion in the West Bank is a matter of time

Al-Masry said that the problem in the West Bank will explode, and its explosion is “a matter of time,” stressing that the West Bank is the central point in the mind of the Israeli far right, whether the escalation with Hezbollah turns into a comprehensive war or not, pointing out that the occupation wants to resolve the conflict in the West Bank, and this opportunity has come to it, in light of the ongoing war, and it wants to control the land, and Area C in particular, and for this reason it is working to expel the population and displace the Palestinian population mass from Area C to Areas B and A, and this is important in order for it to have the opportunity to seize the land and Judaize the holy sites, as we see daily interventions in Al-Aqsa Mosque, so that the Palestinian mind is trained to accept this issue, as it accepted it in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, with the temporal and spatial division.

He added that the occupation will not succeed in this, because the issue of conflict, when it threatens peace and security in the entire Middle East, international interventions come, and the truth is that there is a great concern for the occupation on the front with Lebanon, and there are those who downplay this matter, and this is not true, as there are 3 military divisions on the northern front and there are 100 thousand displaced persons and daily mutual shelling and a state of clash, but if Israel wants to go to blow up the north in order for Netanyahu to continue the battle and remain in power, the northern front will have high prices, more than what the occupation expects, first as a result of the high state of armament of Hezbollah, and the experience it gained from the war in Syria and the large population and unusual geographical depth, as Lebanon is a state, and its situation is not like the situation of Gaza, and there is a geographical extension in Syria and Iraq, and the party has allies in the field and internationalization or expansion of the war on the northern front will be high, and the damage to the occupying state will be greater than what the occupation itself expects.

He added that in light of this high price, Israel may decide to go to another front, which is the West Bank, which has the least loss for it in the foreseeable future. However, if the intifada erupts in the West Bank for a third time, the front will be much more intense than Gaza. The main reason is the demographic overlap of the population, the original population, which is the Palestinians, and the subjects who came from abroad, which is the settlers, who own 270,000 weapons. Certainly, the Palestinians also own weapons, and everyone knows that there are weapons in the West Bank that have not been used against the occupation.

When asked whether the Israeli “lawn mowing” operations against Palestinian resistance fighters in the West Bank had greatly reduced the resistance, Al-Masri replied that the occupation operations in the Jenin camp had caused the camp phenomenon to spread to other places in the West Bank, so there were now the “Nour Al-Shams”, Balata, Al-Amari, and Aqbat Jaber camps, and the resistance was everywhere, and Israel was unable to eliminate it, but they (the Israelis) want chaos, and this occupation is criminal, and the fascist government in Tel Aviv wants to implement its project in the West Bank, and the clash is coming.

* Palestinians are not warmongers

Al-Masry said: “We are facing changes after October 7, and these changes require the Palestinians to change, the region to change, and Israeli society to change. Today, it is rebellious and wants war, but 70% of its priorities are returning the prisoners. After the war stops, there will be room for people to think with flexible heads. War is not in anyone’s interest, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis. The only solution is to search for a solution that satisfies all parties. If we want a solution, it must be through a regional solution that includes all the countries of the region, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, because this region must reach a stage of harmony, calm, stability, and development for these peoples, and this will not happen unless the occupying state abandons its fascism and extremism.”

He added: “The last speech of President Abu Mazen at the United Nations began with the first sentence, where he said that he is delusional who believes that there will be security and stability in the region without the Palestinians obtaining their rights to establish their free and independent state with Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution for the refugees. Two months later, the war broke out. As Palestinians, we are their pain and we are their cure, the Israelis. If they want us to be this permanent disease, they will perpetuate the occupation, and if they want there to be calm and stability and to remain part of the region, they must give the Palestinians their rights.”