Unity of Palestinian resistance against Israel's 'war on terror'

In every crisis, some names are heard more, whereas others are forgotten in the fog of war. The current situation in Palestine after October 7, 2023, was no exception to this unspoken rule.

Abu Obeida and Mohammed Deif can be counted as exemplary figures who gained popularity among the local, regional, and international public.

This doesn’t come as a surprise, though, since the former is a spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and the latter is the head of the same group.

I guess most of the people who followed the events after October 7 had never heard of the name Ayman Nawfal. He was a senior commander of the Qassam Brigades and the commander of the Gaza Central Region.

Nawfal’s death and what followed will tell us a different story than how mainstream media portrays the war, especially the narrative that Israel wants to sell to the international public opinion that what is taking place in Gaza is a war between Israel and Hamas.

Nawfal was announced dead on October 17, the 10th day of the war, and for whom not only the Qassam Brigades but also the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Marxist-Leninist organisation – the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – issued a message of condolence.

This may come as a surprise to some of those who are following the events in Palestine. How come a Marxist-Leninist group embraces an Islamist group’s dead as its own? The answer to this question lies in the dynamics of political life under siege in Gaza since 2006 and the situation that forced different factions to unite under an umbrella to break the blockade.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to state that every form of resistance has been tried in the last 75 years by the Palestinians against Israeli occupation through peaceful protesting and peace talks or kids throwing stones at tanks.

Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 (when Hamas won most seats), and Israel’s total air, sea, and land blockade of Gaza in the next year split Palestinian politics not only ideologically but also physically between the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Despite numerous attempts and military incursions by Israel to “eradicate Hamas” over the last 17 years, that goal was never indeed achieved.

On the contrary, although Hamas won the 2006 elections in Gaza, it was not the only political group that was operating and active in the region. Islamist groups, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad and its military wing, the Quds Brigades, to “radical leftist” movements who were at their prime back in the 1970s, such as the PFLP or Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), have been active in Gaza.

Ever since the Israeli blockade, there have been attempts to unite the different armed factions with the primary goal of ending the siege.

On various occasions since 2006, Palestinian groups have undertaken joint operations with the Qassam and the Quds alliance, being the earliest of this kind.

Similarly, in 2011, for example, armed wings of PFLP and DFLP operating in Gaza coordinated on the battlefield during an attack against Israeli targets.

After the war in 2014, representatives from five different groups were able to sit together in a broadcast from Gaza and underline the strategic importance of establishing a united front to break the siege and fight against Israel.

Interestingly enough, against the narrative that was established to read the Palestinian resistance based on their ideology, all the four groups mentioned have their history of splitting from each other.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad was founded after a separation within the leadership of the Islamic movement in Palestine, which later became Hamas, whereas DFLP was formed as an offshoot of PFLP in the late 1960s.

On March 30, 2018, Gaza was now facing a new political reality, with many people from different political backgrounds coming together to show that non-violent politics is possible.

Thousands of Palestinians peacefully marched to the fences in the "Great March of Return," protesting the air, sea, and land blockade of Gaza and demanding fundamental human rights.

Yet they were again faced with the brutality of the Israeli occupation, where the soldiers indiscriminately targeted civilians.

Since the "Great March of Return" was a grassroots movement that was not politically oriented or controlled by any group, armed factions were left with no choice but to answer the call of Gaza’s public for unity.

This became a reality as 12 different groups united under an umbrella organisation named ‘The Joint Room of the Palestinian Resistance Factions’ in May of the same year. They organised four military drills together; the last one took place in September 2023, a couple of weeks before October 7.

Israel’s moment of 'war on terror'

Despite the evidence of unity among the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation, the post-October 7 narrative of Israel is, instead, something that the world is familiar with from the long decade of the ‘war on terror’.

The United States gifted this phrase to the international community after 9/11 and set the bar too high by underlining, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists who are targeting our way of life and democracy.”

It is as if Israel is protecting the civilisational codes of Europe by initiating a genocide in Gaza. Footsteps of mass killings after October 7 were evident in the early days after the atrocities of Israel started and resembled itself in the form of the Israeli Prime Minister's spokesperson to the Arab world, Ofir Gendelman, linking Hamas with Daesh terrorists.

This equalisation was a sign of two primary goals and should have been an early warning for what was going to come.

First, Israel’s end goal from Gaza was like what happened in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, which Daesh held as its provinces. The fighting went on from building to building until the last members of Daesh were made sure to leave the cities, either dead or taken into custody in internally displaced people camps.

Secondly, Israel didn’t want to lose its chance to achieve its goal of “Palestine without Palestinians”.

That’s the reason why the narrative targeted its Western allies, especially the Europeans, where it hurt most and resorted to the Daesh card.

Since day one, Israel was sure that it would get the backing of the US, but it had to make sure that European states and the public were on the same page with Israel’s genocidal intentions.

After all, it was the European cities that were the victims of Daesh terror attacks more than the Americans and Israel had to project itself as fighting a battle not just for itself but also for the West as well.