Khan Yunis – How the Gaza Resistance Crushed Netanyahu’s Iran ‘Victory’ Narrative
By Palestine Chronicle editors
On June 24, one to two Palestinian fighters managed to stage one of the most daring and deadly resistance operations against the Israeli army in Khan Yunis.
As soon as the US military dropped 14 GBU-57A/B MOP bunker buster bombs on Iran’s main nuclear facilities on June 22, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ready to announce a long and awaited ‘victory’.
Assuming that Iran was desperate to stop the war, he quickly declared that Israel was “very, very close to achieving its goals” and end the war.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with an actual victory over Iran but the perception of victory that Netanyahu, with the aid of US President Donald Trump, wanted to imprint upon Israeli, American and global consciousnesses.
Since October 7, 2023, Netanyahu has been desperate for anything that resembles a victory over his many enemies. Though he did claim victory repeatedly in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, and even Iran itself, all evidence pointed to the contrary.
Even Gaza, purportedly the weakest of all links, has proved to be an astonishingly formidable war front, where over 625 days of war achieved nothing for Israel, aside from an unprecedented genocide for Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s calculations, however, once again, proved of no consequence, and not only because Iran did manage to deliver the final, decisive strike, but because Palestinians in Gaza had something to say.
On June 24, one to two Palestinian fighters managed to stage one of the most daring and deadly resistance operations against the Israeli army in Khan Yunis.
The nature of the event, first communicated by Arab and Middle Eastern media, seemed exaggerated, or, at best, unclear.
News reports spoke of dozens of Israeli soldiers killed and wounded in an attack that targeted one or more Israeli military personnel carriers.
Israeli media, however, soon picked up on the story and seemed to confirm what Arabic media was reporting.
The sheer extremity of the event caused any plans for a public celebration to quickly dissipate, a stark difference from the widespread victory celebrations in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran. Netanyahu, in turn, seemed nervous and tense, speaking of a “historic victory” with a demeanor that implied he was in fact announcing his nation’s surrender.
This attitude may have had something to do with the Iranian response, which continued until the last minute of the war, just before the official ceasefire.
But considering the details that emerged later, Netanyahu’s grim victory announcement was most likely linked to the event in Khan Yunis.
According to Israeli Army radio, a Puma armored personnel carrier belonging to the army’s combat engineering corps caught fire following a powerful explosion at around 5:30 pm in Khan Yunis.
Initial investigations suggested that a single Palestinian resistance fighter had approached the vehicle and attached an explosive device to it. The device detonated, igniting the armored carrier and trapping the soldiers inside.
If that was not bad enough, a five-minute video by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, provided second-by-second details of what had occurred east of Khan Yunis.
Particularly shocking is the fact that the operation, which Al-Qassam included under the battle codenamed ‘Stones of David’, took place in an area not far away from the fence separating besieged Gaza from Israel. This is a part of Gaza that Israel occupied many months ago, in its first attack on the southern Palestinian city.
The video showed Palestinian fighters in total control of the battle area, multiple cameras, fighters chatting, making political statements, infused with verses from the Quran and promises that the battle will not yield until the Israeli army withdraws.
All of this culminated in the most shocking of the events. A Palestinian fighter lowered the Shawath explosive device inside the hatch before retreating, where all the fighters from a fairly short distance watched as the soldiers inside screamed while their Puma APC was set ablaze.
Israeli news reports indicated that the charred bodies of soldiers were not removed from inside the vehicle until hours later, and that the rescue teams could not extinguish the fire until the vehicles were pulled out into the Israeli side of the fence. This implies that even with massive firepower and thousands of Israeli soldiers in that small area, the Israeli army was still unable to create a safe zone for rescue.
In Israel, the enthusiastic discussion that preceded and accompanied the so-called Gideon Charriots Operation has largely dissipated. The latter was supposedly meant to be the final blow to the resistance, which would, in theory, allow Israel to control Gaza and to ethnically cleanse its population.
The Khan Yunis operation, and another, hours earlier in Jabaliya, among others, should leave no doubt that the Gideon Chariots, like the General’s Plan, and all others, have also failed.
The question is, do Netanyahu and his extremist ministers have more up their sleeves, or would they accept that neither genocide nor famine will bring the resistance of the people of Gaza to an end?
(The Palestine Chronicle)