Gaza resistance showcases military achievements during seventh prisoner swap, with Jon Elmer

so this is the resistance report for day 510 since the uh October 7th operation uh ceasefire day 40 um I am reporting on the prisoner exchanges that happened on Saturday February the 22nd and today is the 27th of February and as of today there's now been nine handovers um of Israeli captives seven living uh seven sets of living captives totaling 25 and two sets of of coffins of deceased Israelis um totaling 33 and now 800,00 Palestinians have been released um and Israel's still holding up um a 200 more that were supposed to be released uh in total so this is the end of phase one of the ceasefire this is the last exchanges of the ceasefire and that's what I'll be covering now so let's take a look at the Gaza map it's a good way to get our bearings so there's been release ceremonies that have taken place from uh the northern uh most Gaza strips so the northern um jabalia refugee camp uh just south of B lahia near camel adwan hospital um that's just just south of uh B lahia right at the top of the map there um there's been three or four in Gaza City itself one in the Gaza Port um in the middle camps Dar Al Bala had uh a relief conun has had several and I'm going to report right now on Rafa and if we look at the next map we get the zoom in on Rafa um and just to note that the Israelis have been violating this ceasefire throughout only 70% of the 600 Aid trucks that were supposed to come in a day have reached Gaza only 10% of the 200,000 tents um which is uh in a very it's winter it's winter there was storms all week this week and those tents um are not coming in they're supposed to be 200,000 of them um only 10% have passed through and no uh trailers that were supposed to go to civilians 60,000 um none of those have passed less than 15% of the 50 patients that are supposed to pass each day for medical care have been released um through the Rafa Crossing which you can see down at the bottom of that map that's where the exiting um of the patients is happening and there's been more than 350 Israeli security violations uh throughout this stage of the ceasefire so the map that we're looking at there you can see T suan that is where uh Yahya sinir was killed um in October uh the Philadelphia Corridor runs along the border with Egypt um that you see there to the left of the map Israel announced today that they are not going to leave the Philadelphia Cor Corridor which is a further violation of the ceasefire I don't uh these are kind of these statements uh leading into stage two I'm not sure how uh valuable they are because the uh stage two negotiations will include Israel leaving the Philadelphia Corridor so uh some of these statements are made for a domestic audience that um that the Israeli government wants to seem tough to um so this exchange um that I'm going to start with is the Rafa Brigade this was their first opportunity for an exchange um as I said they've happened all over Gaza this is Rafa's first it happened in eastern uh Rafa um and if we take a look at uh video number one here we can see uh the video report that Kasam uh released so we're watching The Shadow unit here the guards uh for the prisoners Shadow unit was set up in 2006 after the capture of gilad Shalit which was who was captured by the Rafa Brigade uh at Karam Shalom again you see a secured site um organized um no crowds you see weapons captured weapons on the stage there we'll I'll break down each of these components um in still frames after we watch this video again I'm leaving out the captives um not showing those um because it's a violation of the third Geneva Convention and also because YouTube uh takes them down although uh um we know that the standards are different for Palestinians than they are for Israelis so there you see Shadow unit that's the logo of the Shadow unit of the truck uh trucks arriving those are the shadow unit guards um meeting up with the Rafa Brigade here and this is the same um formalities that we've seen in all these exchanges they go up they meet with the Red Cross um they sign over in official papers here's the shadow unit meeting with the Rafa Brigade um and they hand over the Prisoners the prisoners were um spoke from the stage um briefly but they're not uh cohered they're not held in any way they're not in handcuffs they're not um they haven't been abused in any way um unlike Israeli um prison service does to the Palestinians um there's a lot of detail on this stage this was the Rafa brigade's first opportunity to communicate uh through these exchanges is you can see the paperwork being signed off here something we've seen at every exchange um and this is the release of the captives that we've edited out you can see in the destroyed buildings we have people watching people are fascinated by this process of course it's a um it's been 500 500 Days of their lives too uh totally absorbed in this entire um situation so there's a certain fascination with the release uh of these captives if we go to um number two here we can look at the stage uh in detail on the left there you see Muhammad um the commander of the cam brigades who was assassinated in July below him there you see ryad alatar he is the Rafa Brigade Commander that was assassinated in 2014 he led the galad Shalit operation which was a tunnel operation um at Karam Shalom uh in Rafa On the Border uh with Israel I mean it's not a border it's a a fence in a ghetto but that operation tunneled underneath the wall um and came up and captured the Israeli soldier the Israeli tank Gunner gillad shalid and brought him back into Gaza so ryad Al atar there is on the left on the right uh is Muhammad Abu shamala he was the Eastern U Battalion commander in the Rafa brigades he was also assassinated along with ryad alatar in 2014 while they were negotiating the ceasefire um during the 2014 War um and underneath you can see Muhammad Mahmud hamdan sorry he is the tesan Battalion commander who was killed with Yahya sinir um and a couple lesser known commanders Abdullah alhur he is the uh a chief of the Rafa uh Reserve Brigade and SOI abush Shara who is the leader of uh the weapons and services unit of the Rafa Battalion uh of the Rafa Brigade so you can see um we've seen this at each of these the martyrs local Martyrs uh shown on the stage if you look along the bottom skirt there we have the quote from Yahya sinir that he gave that uh I've interpreted from the poem of uh Ahmed shauki poem um that in front of true freedom is a closed door pushed a little more open by every hand bloodied in the struggle um and then you can see on that skirt of the stage there's operations there's seven operations that you can see along there I'm going to show you each of those seven operations but uh on the upper right of the stage you can see Muhammad alde um and he's saying um that we can change the course of history and that quote comes from the AL jazer documentary that had uh Muhammad alde speaking before the October 7th operation um commanding the operation and that's one of the things he said about October 7th while planning the operation so they've uh memorialized that on the right hand side of the stage facing the stage um and then on the back flash of the stage you can see operations uh the one on the left is of uh it's is from October 7th the soldier that you see won over he was captured in 2014 during the 2014 war in Rafa uh we see the hj8 anti-tank guided missile system which was Rafa Rafa used that uh system we'll show you that coming up but uh they memorialized that and an exploding tank in the air you see hang gliders uh that were synonymous with October 7th operation and then you see the ubiquitous uh helicopter medac the medac helicopters uh that were um a key part of uh Cam's videos throughout the war showing the medical uh evacuation of soldiers targeted in uh these operations so um it was an interesting thing because you see on the skirt there on the bottom you see those seven operations and throughout this war we've I've been showing you almost all of their operations and picking out the notable ones but this is the first time that we've heard from the Brigade themselves which ones they thought were notable um and so you can see those along the bottom I put those all together here for you in a little uh Rafa Brigade mixtape if we want to go to number three you can see these option these operations uh that they had on the wall so this is a tunnel operation uh with a shaad uh explosively form penetrator you're going to watch this Soldier I showed you this operation I showed you all these operations um during the war but you see he places it at the perfect the optimal distance to the back door of the marova tank um where the weakest Point other than the turret Gap uh is and he Dives back down into the tunnel and he's underground here is the one where the two fighters used gorilla action devices and ran up and hand placed them underneath the tank uh turret there and you watch that is the weakest spot on the tank and they put two of them in there um destroying that tank and that first operation with the tunnel operation was the 21st of May it was like just less than two weeks uh into the actual battle and the first week of the battle in Rafa um here we see a ner Troop Carrier and you're going to watch this one The Troop Carrier has two soldiers riding outside the hatch the commander uh the commanders are riding outside the hatch and you see they stop because because they're they see an ambush set up and they reverse and they're trying to reverse out of the Ambush uh when they're hit with a yene uh while both of those soldiers were outside U of the tank um so they that was a obviously a well-planned Ambush since they have the cameraman in the exact position to cover that operation that's the hj8 that I talked about and uh hitting uh a n Troop Carrier there and now it's burning this is the only time we saw this weapon used in Gaza was used by the Rafa Brigade and this is hosam the sniper from the operation avenging senoir series of operations um edited out his sniper hits because uh YouTube doesn't allow those but here comes another operation with a Guerilla action device hand delivered um to this ner Troop Carrier so Rafa Brigade they did a lot of hand delivered operations there's a number more of operations that they could have chosen from it's interesting to see these are the seven that they think are um are the ones that they wanted to represent them uh on the stage which is something notable because we don't we don't hear from them uh directly we just hear from them through their uh through the videos and so and this is the one where they destroyed this ner Troop Carrier and there's no audio on this one but the fighter is so excited about hitting this and he uh he yells out they are the killers of women and children um as that n blows up and a lot of times you see uh Israel's people saying uh that the tanks that the the yenes don't do anything you can see from this one that that is absolutely not uh true and so that was a notable operation uh and a success um and you can see it there burning afterwards uh in still burning um the cameraman's able to get right in there and see that shot um so those are the best of from the skirt of the stage that the Rafa Brigade wanted us to see if we look at number four we got more captured weapons and this is interesting because um so these are uh Israel weapon industries's tavore x95 Bullpup rifles that we've been seeing uh Fighters carrying that were captured um a lot of them were captured on October 7th but this is the first time um that uh one of the brigades has said that these weapons were captured in Gaza during battle so the Rafa Brigade made that point that these were pointedly captured during battles in uh Rafa and you can see the M16 and M4 variants that Israel uses so these are and you can clearly see their battle worn uh rifles so captured uh in in the course of battle and this is this still photo is of the soldier setting up the um the weapons on the stage here but he he's going to go back and hang dog tags from the soldiers that they captured the weapons from so uh pretty remarkable uh series of uh Rafa the Rafa Brigade really did it up in this uh in this one if we look at number five they also brought out their archers uh they brought out the Yassin teams um you see about a dozen of them there you can see some that are brand new some that are battle uh battle worn you can see the thermobaric Warhead on the far right uh of your screen there the the beige one um and this is the most of any Brigade has brought up out of their Archer team so the Rafa Brigade uh did that in Forest number six is the same thing just a different angle of them you can see them all here there's even more here this is about two dozen of them you can see the first one closest to you is in uh pristine shape and as you work down you can see the battle used ones the beige ones are the thermobaric warheads and those I've described to you many times during operations but you get a good shot of them there a good look of them there and as I've told you um over these uh 15 months the thermobaric is unique to Gaza the tandem charged thermobaric is is unique to Gaza they built the thermobaric inside the casing um of the tandem uh Soviet pg7 VR so the that's unique to Gaza uh I just like to point that out for people and one more silhouette of them here um because we always saw the uh firing we often saw it from the perspective of the launcher so that was a good uh opportunity to see the Yasin in its um in its form and of course this the Yassin was the Lynch pin of the defense of Gaza so the fact that they had these out in the ceremony um I think was uh really significant so that was the Rafa Brigade um on the same day um about an hour and a half later uh the central Brigade uh was able to um was able to carry out their first uh that they they had one previous release in darl Bala so this is their second release uh but this was in the nerat camp that you see there um just south of the narim corridor so the narat uh Battalion they were fighting um the building of the corridor as well as the magazi Battalion they were fighting the creation of the corridor along with the bar Battalion so the central Brigade is the narat Battalion the bar Battalion magazi Battalion and dar albala Battalion um and of course the central camps has many um key leaders from the cassam Bri Gades both living um in this generation and from previous Adnan Al Gul uh who the uh sniper rifle is named after and is the father of the Kasam weapons industry he's from al-ag magazi uh camp and um Iman nol was this uh Central Brigade um Commander he was assassinated earlier in the war and Marwan Isa um he was killed in March um he was assassinated in March and he was the number two and really the operational chief of the Kasam brigades the number two to Muhammad alde um and his uh his role marwin issa's role um in from the central brigades uh informing the professionalization of the cassam Bri Gades is going to be something that history will reflect um well on him for professionalizing and creating um you know Adnan Al ghoul's goal was to get weapons in the hands of the fighters and have that um to be to proliferate um and marwin Issa and and Ahmed Jabari were part of the uh we at the driving force to professionalize and create an army a national Army out of the cassan Brigade so all of that in the central uh camps history um so let's look at number nine this is or number 10 sorry this is their video uh that they released um of the exchange and here you see a real nationalistic um event you can see fighters from all factions are taking part in this event um you marching here in formation you'll note the headbands they're all wearing the same uniform they're wearing a national uniform um but each faction of the joint operations room uh is present there in the um in this Handover which was uh other factions have been present in other events but this was the most uh formalized one and it was a um a real statement to the Joint operations room that we've been covering throughout the war and you see here they put up the Palestinian flag so um real National Army uh Vibes coming out of this and that's them all across the stage there um I'll break down who was all there when we go to the still pictures but again a well organized uh event these are uh not the way that the Israelis describe them so um and marwan's son was there uh he was heing maran's son was carrying a sign that says this land grows resistance Fighters just as it grows olive trees which was a statement from Abu abeda earlier in the war so um yeah this is them marching in formation of course you have the cassam brigades are the head of the joint operations room um SAR Al kuds the popular front for the liberation of Palestine Abu Ali Mustafa brigades the Democrat atic front for the liberation of Palestines National resistance brigades the popular resistance committees were there in that line um there have the Nasser sadin brigades um and there's multiple brigades of multiple battalions of the alaxa martyrs brigades uh the mujahadin brigades and the ansar brigades are all in there marching in formation um really underscoring The Joint operations room we can look at the next slide too that just uh shows more of that um you can see them all on the stage there that the the 10 different factions that we've been reporting on throughout the war and underneath the stage on the skirt there in just in Hebrew as a message just to the Israelis um that's netanyahu's quote that he said military pressure is the only way to return the captives um so they're highlighting that that is incorrect because the captives were not return through violence um on that stage and one more of the joint operations uh in the closeup there you can see them the uh Alex am Mar's brigades Al amudi Battalion you can see the dflp there Sarah mujahadin brigades uh alaxa martyr's brigades and Kasam and that and the Abu Ali Mustafa brigades are um are there to in the uh the second from the right so uh join operations uh interesting uh statement made by the nerat release number 15 shows um the successes of the military operations this is the uh that sign says the hell of magazi made by our hands and our bless and blessed was our aim um magazi Battalion carried out the operation that killed 21 Israeli Soldiers the largest hole that Israel admitted to uh of the war and the operation was a multi-stage operation where um a Yasin Archer fired on an Israeli position that was full of anti-tank mines that Israel was using to demolish houses uh along the nerim corridor in order to build the narim corridor um and the cassam brigades magazi Battalion um got in got uh an i a series of IEDs a Minefield into to the area where these soldiers were staying in a house that was stacked with anti-tank mines um and they triggered the explosion of the building we can look at that operation next I queued that up with number 16 so it's the same Archer it's uh uh you guys probably remember me breaking down this operation he fires on the house then he comes around reloads uh with another um another yene here and fires on the Merc of a tank he Dives back down into the tunnel and down in the tunnel the guys here the building explode um and that was uh something that the Israelis had to admit to because it was a massive cloud of smoke and it was uh one of those difficult security situations that that Israel uh talked about when things went wrong so um so that's the central uh Brigade pointing to their uh most successful operations and that's the operation that you saw um right there and then number 17 um the there was this sentiment was in many of the last exchanges the isra this the sticker on says we'll force you to forget about your plans like forget about your objectives we forced you to make your military objectives fail um and we don't forgive either and this is a reference to the Israelis who dressed up the prisoners who were being released in uh threatening shirts that said we will not forgive we will not forget with star of David's on them they handcuffed the prisoners and made them put their heads down with their handcuffs behind their back and the Star of David on their back that said we will not forgive we will not forget and they gave them wristbands that uh had further threats about how they would hunt them down um after they were released and so this uh this guy's got a sticker on his Yasin referring to that but also the um Israel prison service found slogans carved on the walls of Palestinian prisoners cells before their release because this started uh two weeks ago Israel giving these threatening shirts um and in the cells the Palestinian prisoners about to be released said we will not forget we will not forgive and we will not kneel um slogans written by prisoners uh inside outside Israeli prisons so again communication inside and outside the prisons Communications to Gaza Communications to Palestinians RIT large and communication to the Israelis so this is what we've seen all along in these um ceremonies that um you might have heard in the western media were called grotesque um they really aren't they're uh pointed uh messaging uh events that are um there's a lot to to to break down in these so that was the central uh brigades opportunity and then I just want to show you the conun one this was on Thursday one week ago today and this was the Handover of the bbas family um and one other captive uh who was killed by Israeli bombs um and this ceremony um was called grotesque in the western media as well and what we're seeing is um the the fighters carrying coffins and put putting them up on a stand to be passed dignified into a red crescent uh vehicle you can see the fighters uh walking in formation here carrying it's far from grotesque it's actually a very dignified way of handling this situation where these this family was blown to Pieces by American and Israeli bombs um and the juxtaposition between this funeral uh s ceremony for these Israelis compared to the ceremonies um that Palestinians experienced where they're buried in Alleyways or the median of a road or all the kind of shocking non burials that happened in Gaza I just wanted to point this out um we can look at the next slide too because you really can see it in the next slide um they they had a a black curtain covering over the uh coffins so the stage had a black curtain and then they revealed um the coffins behind the curtain so they weren't even displaying the coffins um so this seemed very dignified to me and didn't match I mean the Israelis expect that you're not going to know what they're talking about about um about these ceremonies but this this ceremony here was the reason why Israel postponed releasing the prisoners they really uh bucked at this one um and at the one in uh in nerat where uh the shadow unit brought two prisoners who were not being released who were with their friends Soldiers the narat release was three soldiers and they brought two other soldiers along uh and didn't release them and had them on camera telling Netanyahu like don't forget about us move on to stage two um but when Netanyahu talks about the humiliation of these ceremonies he's not talking about the prisoners he's talking about all these messages that I'm breaking down for you here that are highlighting all of Israel's uh military failures and uh failures of the objectives of their operations so um and then there's just one more here that I wanted to show you because this is about the bibas family it's about the civilian family um and so the messaging on this one was very clear um 11,000 injured it says it says this is the that that sign says U Zionism in numbers 11 111,000 injured 9,268 massacres and then these focus on families because the BBS were a family 4,889 families with only one family member left 2, 92 families completely family names completely wiped off the Civil civil registry 17,8 181 kids killed 12,316 women 38,000 kids lost one parent 177,000 kids in Palace in Gaza lost both their parents so again they use this messaging for a little bit of perspective on uh the situation with the bases and the um the the final point I want to make is the national campaign uh to recover the bodies of Martyrs released a statement that says the occup the occupation Contin the Israelis continue to detain 665 bodies of Martyrs in the numbered cemeteries and refrigerators some of them since the 1960s and70s um the last of them was a martyr from Alara Camp yesterday um and so these these bodies are not returned um they're held by Israel um along with the more than 1500 Martyrs um the 1500 prisoners that were released um in this exchange so um while Israel's complaining about the way that these U dignified coffins were passed over to the Red Cross Israel is still holding 665 Palestinian bodies so th that is Prisoner exchange 7 It's the final one of phase 1 1781 Palestinians have been released 275 life sentences 295 long sentences 70 women and children um and the rest are from Gaza a th000 from Gaza plus 200 women and children that should be released in the coming days there are now um according to Israel there's 60 uh there's 59 now remaining um and so there's somewhere between 24 and 30 of them thought to be alive in Gaza and that is what the stage two negotiations will be about so that is the resistance report for this week we will continue to follow uh the ceasefire going forward um but that's the report for this week [Music]