Read our editorial on the Palestinian armed resistance here.
On July 31, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that they had begun withdrawing many of its forces from the Gaza Strip following the conclusion of Operation Gideon’s Chariot and a months-long rise in Palestinian resistance activity. The operation had achieved none of its goals, which included defeating Hamas and occupying 75% of Gaza. Following the conclusion of the Operation, genocidal Prime Minister Netanyahu once again stated that a new operation to occupy Gaza will be underway, highlighting the aimlessness and deep crisis of the Israeli state.
The withdrawal included Israel’s elite 98th division in Northern Gaza, which was deployed in the southern city of Khan Younis until April 2024, and later deployed to fight against anti-imperialist forces in Lebanon.
According to Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, the armed resistance wing destroyed over 52 Israeli military vehicles in east Gaza alone over the course of their recent operations. “It is true that the destruction in residential areas is massive and extensive, but the field results confirm that the enemy received a painful blow in its incursion into eastern Gaza,” a field commander of Al-Quds stated.
While Israeli forces retreat and reorganize, the Palestinian resistance continues to attack occupying forces. On August 5, Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades reportedly fired mortar shells at Israeli forces south of Khan Younis. On the same day, a video was published by Al-Quds Brigades featuring joint actions alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s (PFLP) Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades and the Ansar Brigades involving an explosive attack against an Israeli armored vehicle and mortar attacks against Israeli troops in Gaza.
On August 3, Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, a pro-armed struggle split from Fatah, published video footage of their mortar attacks against Israeli soldiers and vehicles north of Khan Younis.
Amid growing defeat and crisis, Israel has become increasingly desperate and frenzied. Netanyahu’s security cabinet unanimously approved a proposal to take control of the Gaza Strip, continuing its genocidal “aid” distribution campaign and seeking to destroy Hamas—in other words, continuing the same old genocidal strategy that has led them stumbling from one failed battle to the next. In an interview with monopoly news network Fox News on August 7, Netanyahu doubled down on the genocidal campaign of massacring aid seekers: “we’re going to try to quadruple the distribution points that are manned by Americans”, where US mercenaries fire live ammunition on corralled Palestinians waiting for food.
Operation Gideon’s Chariot, initiated in May 2025, was quickly responded to and outmatched by the Stones of David counter-operation, led by Hamas, which involved complex ambushes against infantry and vehicles and included some of the deadliest attacks on Zionist forces since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Failing on the military front, the US and Israel opted to commit more rapid genocide through massacring aid-seekers and manufacturing a starvation campaign against Palestinians. This amplified genocide, however, backfired by further mobilizing Palestinians, anti-imperialist forces in the Middle East, and the masses internationally against Israel.
Image: Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades fighter shells Israeli soldiers and vehicles north of Khan Younis.
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