By Wesam Bahrani – May 8, 2024
Hamas resistance movement has accepted a ceasefire agreement mediated by Egypt and Qatar. Now it remains to be seen if and how the United States pushes its proxy regime in Tel Aviv to agree to the deal that came after marathon negotiations.
If the Israeli regime rejects the text of the deal, drafted by Egypt, Qatar and the US itself, and carries on with its genocidal aggression on Gaza, all indications point towards a wider regional conflict, which could potentially have dangerous ramifications for the Benjamin Netanyahu regime.
The Axis of Resistance has sent signals that it will not sit idly by while more Palestinian women and children are slaughtered by the occupation forces and will step up its military operations against the Israeli occupation on multiple fronts and on a level not seen over the past seven months.
This Axis of Resistance continues to expand, from Palestine to Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen to Bahrain and now Egypt as well. The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas is nowhere near being eliminated. It continues to inflict heavy blows on the illegitimate regime, pushing it closer to annihilation.
So, the key goal of the Israeli regime’s unbridled aggression on Gaza – to wipe off Hamas – has failed.
There is nothing the Israeli military invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza – the only so-called ‘safe zone’ – will achieve for the Zionists other than the massacre of more women and children.
Nearly five months after the Israeli occupation boasted about eliminating Hamas in northern Gaza, the regime forces were back there last week fighting the armed wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades.
The regime warplanes repeatedly pounded the al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza recently, claiming the Hamas command center was operating there. It then raided the medical facility and went on to raze it to the ground and still failed to prove its claims.
Every hospital, school, shelter and other civilian infrastructure that the Israeli occupation forces have bombed and raided, from the north and all the way south to the city of Khan Younis, with lofty claims that it defeated Hamas has all turned out to be a farce.
The regime has failed to hoodwink the international community and even settlers who have been protesting against Netanyahu’s war-mongering cabinet for months now.
The reality is that the armed wing of Hamas is still active, inflicting heavy blows on Israeli forces on the streets across Gaza using guerrilla warfare tactics. Only the ambushes planted against invading troops have proven to be enough to force entire IOF battalions to withdraw from areas they had occupied.
What are the contours of Gaza truce deal accepted by Hamas?
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During the battles in the southern city of Khan Younis that took four months before the Israeli military withdrew under intense fire, Israeli media was reporting and naming fatalities among the Israeli forces on an almost daily basis, and yet the official Israeli military death toll stayed static.
The Palestinian resistance has proven with its actions that it is as strong as it was on October 7. Considering the operations it is carrying out daily, the resistance has only grown in strength.
The terms that the embattled Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu seeks in order to boast about a victory to Israeli settlers is the dismantling of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance laying down its arms with its leaders surrendering or leaving the besieged territory.
For seven months, this has not been achieved militarily or through negotiations. For seven months, the Palestinian resistance has sent a clear and categorical message: it will never leave Gaza, not in this lifetime, and whoever doesn’t like it can smack their heads against the wall in frustration.
At present, Netanyahu’s political survival hinges on the massacre of Palestinian women and children. That is to either continue the genocidal war and expand it to Rafah or face a prison sentence.
Sustaining genocide is going to come at a higher cost than before. The world today has one thing on mind and that is Palestine, while the mission of the Axis of Resistance is also solely focused on Palestine.
The US is aware of what faces the Israeli regime much more than the regime itself. CIA director William Burns traveled to Cairo on Friday to change the ceasefire text and agree to the terms of Hamas in order to avoid the region going up in flames. This is the region that is home to US military bases.
If there is no sustainable ceasefire in Gaza and the slaughter of Palestinian civilians continues and expands, especially in Rafah, all options would be on the table for the Axis of Resistance.
Hamas is not only negotiating on behalf of the Palestinian resistance factions or the people of Palestine but on behalf of the Axis of Resistance. What is happening in Gaza today concerns all of them.
No end to the genocide means the Mediterranean Sea will be on fire, the doors of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait being shut by the Yemeni military and the resistance movement to international maritime traffic.
The strait will not only be close to Israeli and Israeli-affiliated ships but all companies that have any links with the occupying entity. Before, it was maritime links, now it’s any links.
That equates to about 90 percent of companies worldwide. Yemen has proved it is capable of imposing such an embargo on the occupying regime if it does not halt its genocidal onslaught against Palestinians.
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The Iraqi resistance will increase operations against vital Zionist targets to a level not seen over the past seven months. Even entering the occupied Golan through Syria has been spoken about.
Drones and missiles from Iraq heading in the direction of the Israeli-occupied lands have already increased over the past few days and that has rattled the regime and its Western backers.
The Secretary-General of Kataib Seyyed al-Shuhada, a major faction within the Iraqi resistance, Abu Ala’a al-Walaei perhaps summed it up best by saying “The battle of al-Aqsa Storm has strengthened, after seven months of resilience and genocide”.
“The Zionist enemy believes it will achieve the alleged victory through crimes and shedding blood, but its efforts are in vain,” Al-Walaei asserted.
“The great struggle of the battle of al-Aqsa Storm has drawn two paths before the world, with no third option: the path of resistance and support for the oppressed Palestinian people, and the path of the greatest devil, America, and its feeble Zionist ally.”
The Iraqi resistance commander went on to warn the Zionists that “your temporary occupation will not stay for long before our land is liberated, you are humiliated and encircled.”
Hezbollah, according to reports, (there is no information from the Lebanese resistance movement), will start operations to liberate the occupied Sheba’a Farms if a full-scale invasion of Rafah commences.
And we have seen more resistance players joining the fray recently from Bahrain to Egypt. They all have the same goal and the same enemy and the enemy knows who is it dealing with.
The Axis of Resistance doesn’t want a war. Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire, an agreement that the Gaza-based resistance movement said it was extremely flexible in reaching.
The ball is in Netanyahu’s court and his fascist ministers need to listen to their superiors in Washington and sign the deal on the table because the geopolitics of the region has changed.
Wesam Bahrani is an Iraqi journalist and commentator.
(PressTV)
