Can Israel Eradicate the Resistance?

Perhaps Netanyahu, along with the Israeli and Western military and political leaders, who have been executing a campaign of genocide in Gaza for over a year, believed that by assassinating the martyr Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” they had managed to eliminate the movement, its military wing (the Al-Qassam Brigades), and the spirit of resistance.

This belief, however, is a grave misconception, contrary to historical experiences that prove otherwise. The history of resistance and liberation movements teaches us that the blood of martyrs and leaders serves as fuel that drives determination, ignites potential, encourages followers, and kindles the fire of retribution. It sustains the resistance until its goals are fully realized by expelling the occupier and purifying the land from its defilement.

Here, we recall the words of the late scholar Sayyid Qutb: “Our words will remain dead figures of wax until we die for them, giving them life and eternal existence.” Indeed, this is how it is. We have witnessed how Sinwar’s heroic end, which the Israeli occupation unintentionally orchestrated, breathed life into his words and, through his death, granted life to a nation and the continuity of the resistance.

The concepts of resistance, courage, and self-sacrifice for the sake of homeland, honor, and faith are often instilled first and take root in the hearts and souls of the people. They remain dormant until they find the opportune moment and the suitable battlefield to transform into realities, experiences, and stories that generations proudly pass on. History preserves these tales among the eternal records, producing heroes and revealing traitors, cowards, and collaborators alike.

The occupier, with its crimes, massacres, and violations, pours fuel onto the fire of the oppressed nations. This inflames the flames of revolution and uprising, crafting a stage for sacrifice, resistance, bravery, and courage as a counteraction to their brutality. This pattern is not unique to one occupation but is common to all, and every free people will resist any form of colonization.

Therefore, no matter what the occupation does, the resistance will not despair, surrender, or abandon its duty easily. The resistance persists, utilizing every available means, and its banner will not fall. Its legacy will not end until Palestine, all of Palestine, is liberated, no matter how long it takes, no matter how few allies it has, or how much betrayal it faces, no matter the cost.

Israel, along with the United States and Western allies, strives tirelessly to extinguish the spirit of resistance, the ideology of sacrifice, and the commitment to struggle. They are acutely aware that the awakening of this spirit poses the greatest danger to them, threatening their grip. As Sayyid Qutb once remarked: “They continuously mislead this nation about its faith, diverting it from its Qur’an, so it does not draw its sharp weapons and complete preparation. They feel secure as long as this nation remains distant from its sources of strength and clear streams of knowledge. Anyone who diverts this nation from its faith and its Qur’an, knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, serves as an agent of the Jews. The Jews will remain secure from this nation as long as it is distracted from the singular truth from which it draws its existence, strength, and dominance.”

They know very well that speeches, articles, applause, chants, online virtual wars do not shake their foundations, threaten their armies, or curb their criminality. They only fear the awakening of the spirit of resistance and the morals of sacrifice and redemption within the hearts of oppressed and occupied people. That is the real, definitive, and only threat.

Thus, America and Israel have ensured that Arab armies remain weak, surviving on annual U.S. military and financial aid that buys their silence, secures officer training programs, and academic military scholarships, thereby guaranteeing their loyalty. They accumulate old equipment and weapons, and the latest technologies are withheld, ensuring that the Israeli army remains superior to all others.

This is how we understand the scale of the horrific American and Western campaign against the people of Gaza, particularly against the resistance, which seeks to obliterate it entirely, kill the spirit of resistance and its warriors, and replace the ethics of valor and sacrifice with those of defeat, surrender, treachery, indulgence, comfort, and fear. Hence, the genocidal war continues to ravage Gaza, employing all forms of killing without mercy, without distinguishing between children, women, men, and the elderly, destroying homes, hospitals, schools, universities, mosques, and all means of life, utilizing starvation and deprivation of food, water, and medical care as weapons.

This is a fierce, brutal war and collective punishment against an entire people because they are the popular base for the resistance, because they chose the path of freedom, emancipation, and liberation, and they chose sacrifice, valor, and resistance. The hope was to extinguish this flame within their hearts, to erase this faith from their souls and replace it with disbelief in the resistance and its path. They intended to turn Gaza into a cautionary tale, a warning to anyone who might dare one day to walk the path of resistance, to raise their head against Israel, or to confront and oppose it.

Today, we witness a spirit of defeatism, the killing of chivalry, valor, and concern for the honor of women among some Arab brethren who have left the people of Gaza to face their fate alone amidst massacres, holocausts, and tragedies that melt and bleed the hearts of the free. When honor is lost, the homeland is lost, dignity is lost, and the sanctities that armies are supposed to defend are lost.

Yet, these youth, who have humiliated Israel’s might in the soil of Gaza, have, at the same time, raised the heads of the entire nation. With pride, they have proven that the Israeli army can be broken, deterred, and defeated, and that liberation is possible. Driving out the occupier and purifying Al-Aqsa Mosque is not a distant dream.

The journey begins within the self, the first battlefield. If we conquer it, we will be more capable of overcoming the occupiers by instilling the values of resistance, sacrifice, courage, love for the homeland, and devotion to faith. Sayyid Qutb rightly said: “Every young man who joins the resistance is a youth reclaimed by manhood and virtue. He is a youth whose soul has been drained of indulgence, laxity, and decadence. He is a youth purified of vice, filth, and defilement, ready to give and sacrifice, free from selfishness, from the darkness of egotism, and from the curse of individualism. If he survives the battle, he becomes a man the nation takes pride in. And if martyrdom is his destiny, he meets his Lord in the best state a believer could ever achieve, dedicating himself to a cause greater than himself and a life larger than his own existence.”

Signs of victory emerge from the hardships we face these days. When we conquer our desires, our selfish ambitions, and our foreign aspirations in this land, and when our eyes lift to higher goals than the pleasures and comforts of individuals, victory draws near, and adversity does nothing but forge, purify, and create men and heroes.