Al-Qassam captures Israeli troops, and gear in the complex Jabalia operation

The Palestinian Resistance continues to confront Israeli occupation forces for the 232nd day, inflicting heavy casualties among enemy forces on Saturday. 

Most notably, Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades conducted a complex operation in the Jabalia refugee camp, the details of which were revealed by Abu Obeida just past midnight. 

In a voice-recorded message, al-Qassam’s military spokesperson, Abu Obeida, revealed the details of the complex operation, which he said saw Resistance fighters kill, injure, and take captives members of an Israeli force. 

Details of al-Qassam’s top-tier operation

Abu Obeida said that the first stage of the operation saw Resistance fighters lure an Israeli occupation force into a tunnel, ambushing them inside.

The Brigades’ fighters confronted the force at point blank, killing and wounding its members, he said.

After an Israeli reinforcement unit arrived at the scene, the Resistance group targeted it using explosives and confirmed direct hits.

Detonating the tunnel behind them, Abu Obeida said that the “fighters then withdrew… having inflicted casualties on all members of the [Israeli] force, leaving them dead, wounded, or captured, and seizing their military equipment.”

This marks the first announcement since October 7, 2023, that details an operation in which members of an Israeli force were taken captive by the Resistance. Abu Obeida promised that more details on the operation would be released at a later time. 

For now, al-Qassam Brigades’ Military Media Unit released this video, showing an Israeli soldier being pulled inside a tunnel and the captured military gear of several Israeli fighters. 

Operations executed by the Palestinian Resistance on May 25

The Jabalia refugee camp has witnessed several Israeli military campaigns that saw fierce confrontations. Following each invasion of the camp and the city of Jabalia, Israeli occupation forces have claimed that they “cleansed” the area from Resistance fighters. However, this last invasion has seen some of the fiercest fighting experienced since October 7. 

On Saturday alone, al-Qassam fighters shot two locally produced tandem rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), known as al-Yassins, at two Israeli Merkava 4 tanks. A sniper unit, equipped with an al-Ghoul sniper rifle, shot dead an Israeli soldier in al-Qassamiyah in the northeastern part of the camp. 

Al-Qassam sapper units also detonated explosives set in a building in the Jabalia refugee camp, killing and injuring members of an Israeli special unit that had been lured into the building.

The Brigades’ fighters also targeted two Israeli Merkava 4 tanks in two separate areas in the Jabalia refugee camp. 

In the southernmost city of the Gaza Strip, Rafah, al-Qassam fighters fired an al-Yassin charge at an Israeli tank positioned at the Salah al-Din Gate, a secondary crossing located at the Palestinian-Egyptian border. 

On its part, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) al-Quds Brigades announced that its rocket force targeted a grouping of Israeli occupation forces and armored vehicles in northeaster Rafah with a 107 mm rocket aimed directly at the force. 

Al-Quds Brigades’ mortar units also fired a large quantity of 60 mm shells at groupings of Israeli soldiers in al-Qsasib neighborhood in Jablia. Concurrently the group’s mortart units targeted Israeli supply routes in the Nitzarim Axis.