Military Reality and Long-term Geo-Politics in Palestine
13.10.2025
Today is the prison exchange between the Resistance Fighters, Hamas and the other organizations*, and the Israeli State.
It reminds us of the long-term political reality behind the Israeli genocide: Palestine is under Israeli military occupation.
The prisoner exchange reminds us that Palestinian Fighters, therefore, as resistance forces, have the right to resist. And that this is recognized today, even by Israel and the USA. Although we are not supposed to mention it. It is a taboo. Hamas and other Resistance Fighters have been negotiated with. They have the right to exist, and to resist. And this is accepted today in the ceremonies of the release of prisoners.
The Resistance Fighters, like all such resistance fighters have the right, under international law, to resist by any means, including armed struggle against military occupation or colonization. Under international law, an army of occupation, however, does not, repeat “not”, have the “right to self-defense”, which is why Israel, USA, UK, France, etc in their propaganda to cover Israel’s ongoing crimes have had to repeat the false phrase to the contrary, again and again and again hoping that repetition would change the law. But, it does not.
So, while in LALIT, we call the Israeli onslaught against Gaza not “war” that implies a military confrontation between two armed forces but “genocide” that means a State attacking a people or a part of a people to get rid of them, we nevertheless recognize that there has been, and still is, an important military element to the Palestinian struggle, an element that is often ignored, as if it were a taboo to recognize its existence.
Today we will look at that.
It is important in measuring the general “balance of forces” in this on-going struggle for national liberation from colonization, dating back at least 78 years.
The forces on Palestine’s side are:
1. The Palestinian people and their Resistance Fighters.
2. Whole countries support Palestine in different ways -- these countries make up some 95% of the world’s population – and are increasing in number.
3. Now broad masses of people all over the world, including in the heart of Israel’s support the USA, openly and loudly support Palestine – through boycotts, general strikes, direct action, passive resistance of all kinds, demonstrations, encampments, petitions, talks, forums.
Forces that Back Israel
1. The Israeli people – not all but most – and the full weight of Israel’s military apparatus.
2. The USA arms and money and State support, with dwindling European collusion.**
3. Other countries representing less than 1% of the world’s people.
4. Israel’s strength depends upon collusion by many States, like Mauritius, that today pay only lip-service to Palestine – like many other states from Saudi Arabia’s theocracy to Turkey’s repressive State – while refusing to isolate Israel.
So, let us go into the military aspects of the Palestinian people’s struggle.
The Resistance Fighters in Palestine
There is the bravery and steadfastness of the Palestinian people for 100 years – people now in Palestine, that is to say the West Bank and Gaza including East Jerusalem, living in Israel including in Israeli jails, and living elsewhere as refugees, since the Nakba of 1948 or the war of 1967.
And then there are, and always have been, the Palestinian Resistance Fighters, amongst the people, as part of the people.
What were the “war aims” of the Resistance Fighters in the 7 October attack?
Hamas said, in the context of the military occupation by Israel of Palestine, that “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal.” (21 January 2024 Hamas document, Palestine Chronicle.)
In fact, what happened on the ground was that the Resistance Fighters’ military attack broke the Israeli “intelligent” fencing around Gaza in dozens of places, destroyed the electronic communications network of the Israeli military, knocked out the Israeli border forces called the “Gaza Division” of the IDF completely, including their central fortress and ten other bases around Gaza, and then took soldiers prisoner, as well as civilians.
That was the military reality on the ground that day.
Many civilians in Israel are armed, so the Resistance Fighters had battles with civilians once the Israeli army was knocked out so completely.
In all 1,200 people were killed, 300 on-duty Israeli military people, and the rest were killed either by fighters or by the Israeli hell-fire missiles that vaporized vehicles taking prisoners from the festival in Israel to Gaza. The helicopters and tanks were under instruction to obey the Israeli “Hannibal Directive” that instructs Israeli soldiers to kill their own Israeli compatriots rather than let them be taken prisoner as was happening.
However, Israeli propaganda invented atrocities out of thin air: the supposed “beheading of babies”, the “burning of babies”, the “cutting off of women’s breasts”, and the “mass rapes”. All concocted to shock us all. In truth, one baby, little Millie Cohen, was killed. She died in cross fire while in her mother’s arms. There is no evidence at all – by survivors, witnesses, or scientists giving forensic evidence – of any rape. The Israeli “atrocity propaganda” was designed to cover up their military defeat of 7 October and simultaneously to attempt to “justify” the ensuing slaughter en masse of the civilians of Palestine.
What were Israel’s war aims? Let us quote: “The Israeli army aimed at “Destroying Hamas's military and governing capabilities, and bringing the captives back home” This is a Prime Minister Netanyahu statement of 23 October 2023. What Israel has done since then is drive Palestinians around Gaza, as one might drive flocks of animals, and destroying their sources of social, economic and political life, while intentionally slaughtering at least 67,000 Palestinians, one-third of whom are children, and injuring hundreds of thousands, while traumatizing an entire people. The ICJ found “plausible genocide” by early 2024. The UN Navi Pillay Report confirms this. So do all human rights organizations who have conducted enquiries. Israel keeps UN investigators and even journalists out of Gaza.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited judgment in the ICJ case against Israel, to which Mauritius contributed fine “oral submissions”, found the occupation “unlawful”, meaning that the Resistance Fighters right to resort to armed struggle was confirmed by the highest world court.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has become a WANTED war criminal, with an International Criminal Court warrant against him.
So, who has won? The Resistance Fighters, grouped around the leadership of Hamas, got the captives they intended to get freed, freed. So, they won their war aim. At enormous cost in terms of Palestinian lives and society. But, they are getting 250 long-term prisoners released, and another 1,700 taken hostage by the Israelis since 7 October.
Israel brought "the captives back home", 20 prisoners of war in today’s exchange. That was one war aim. But, the other aim was at “Destroying Hamas's military and governing capabilities”. This has clearly not been done.
So, we have to study the balance of forces now.
Since the 7 October, people all over the world have learnt about the injustice the Palestinians have suffered for nearly 100 years. People have taken a stand world-wide. Many Governments have hardened their stands against the crimes of Israel.
Israel is a pariah state now.
The Palestinian people are heroes and heroines, in the sense that they show how human dignity can withstand the forces of barbarism, even in the most extreme cases.
But now, as Palestinians have to work out how to stay alive in the ruins they find themselves left in after the Israeli pillage and destruction, and while their Resistance groups, all of them together, organize democratic processes for Palestine, we, the people all over the world, who have taken a stand these past two years, now have to act.
We have to work out ways of acting, in particular of forcing our respective States to act, so as to isolate Israel so much that it takes its responsibility to end its illegal occupation of Palestine altogether, to pay reparations, respect international law and ICJ judgments, and become an ordinary state or part of a larger ordinary state.
We note that all over the world actions continue: in London people go on writing on a bit of carton that “I support Palestine Action” and getting arrested for it. In Norway, people hit the streets to get Israel removed from international football. All over Europe there are moves to cut Israel from Euro-vision. In Italy, workers continue to block ports to Israel. And here, in Mauritius, we must persist in our multi-pronged strategy of forcing our Government to make amends for withdrawing from oral submissions at the most recent ICJ case against Israel and from managing not to be amongst countries in the UN walk-out when Netanyahu took the podium.
For the military aspects of this article, LALIT credits, in particular, the fearless journalists and writers like Jon Elmer and others at the Electronic Intifada website, and Helena Cobban and Rami G. Khouri for their contribution to understanding Hamas and the other Resistance Fighters’ groups.
We need to understand the military element of the liberation struggle otherwise we might not realize an aspect of the strength of the Palestinian people’s struggle. We cannot rely merely on stopping the genocide, but we must support the struggle to end the occupation, the colonization and the apartheid. That is what we need now to do. And we are, together, in a stronger position than we were on 6th October 2023. In LALIT, we have been in this struggle for nearly 50 years, so we know what we mean when we say the struggle is in a stronger position than before. So, let us galvanize ourselves for more struggle.
* The Resistance organizations work together on the ground. They include:
Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah)
Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP)
Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement
Palestinian People’s Party
Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
Palestinian National Initiative Movement
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command)
Palestinian Democratic union (FIDA)
Palestinian Liberation Front
Arab Liberation Front
Arab Palestinian Front
Vanguards of the Popular Liberation War (As-Sa’iqa Forces)
** There are whole countries that support Palestine to the extent of bombing Israel, like Yemen’s Ansarullah. Other whole countries refuse to recognize the State of Israel: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Comoros, Cuba, Djibouti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, North Corea, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Venezuela and Yemen. Other States have acted by taking Israel to the ICJ. South Africa took Israel to the ICJ for genocide, and was joined by Chile, Belgium, Libya, Bolivia, Spain, Mexico, Egypt, Columbia, Nicaragua, Turkey and Ireland. Others have recently banned arms sales to Israel: Italy, Japan, Spain, Canada, Colombia, the Netherlands and Belgium. And in 2025, nearly all countries in the world recognize Palestine as a State. Out of 193 countries, only those representing some 5% of the world’s population are against: Israel and the USA have with them only right-wingers like Hungary, Czech Republic and Argentina. Papua New Guinea also voted against recognizing Palestine. It has a growing population of evangelical Zionist Christians, as to the other three States that support Israel, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau.
