The resistance battles Israel in southern Gaza, with Jon Elmer

Um, as usual, we're going to start in the south of the Gaza Strip. Um, as Norah said in her excellent and devastating uh, newscast, um, the targeting of schools is something that is happening uh, consciously by the Israelis. The Israeli military is also reporting on targeting these schools. They're not covering it up. They've reported on more than 75 uh, air strikes in the last two months on schools. Um, and so the military is claiming these and saying that they're uh Hamas command posts and whatever. Um, but they're openly putting on record that they're targeting these civilian um these civilian the only place in Gaza for civilians to go. And as Norah said, um, people are pressed into 11% of the Gaza Strip, which is the number that the civil defense used a few days ago and the Israeli military used today, which is interesting that the Israeli military is using uh civil defense numbers uh for things like that. But when the casualties come, they uh cast aspersions on the casualty rates that we know are act are on underount. Um, so we're going to go from the south of the Gaza Strip to the north and the Netzarim corridor, which you can see here on this map of all of Gaza. And when we zoom in here on Rafa, um, we could see where the main battle space has been, and this is now 106 days into the Rafa invasion that was supposed to be uh, a few weeks. Uh the American administration is still not saying it's a full-scale invasion of Rafa, but the destruction along the Philadelphia corridor is what is important to note. And the Philadelphia corridor has of course come up significantly in the ceasefire negotiations um the fraudulent ceasefire negotiations uh because Israel is now um formally through maps uh to their delegations delivering maps to the delegation their delegation delivering maps showing them remaining in the Philadelphia corridor. And the Philadelphia corridor didn't come out of nowhere. This is not something that popped up during this war. The Philadelphia corridor goes back to 1982. It goes back to the Israelis leaving the Sinai Peninsula and their peace agreement with Egypt and cutting Rafa Egypt and Rafa Gaza in half uh and splitting the territory. So, this is something that goes back. This is a strategic corridor that Israel believes is necessary uh for cutting up the Gaza Strip. So, uh, the fact that it's in the news now and seems like it's something new, uh, it's important to always note that this is, uh, not the case. There's a long history of battles in, uh, in this area, uh, along the Philadelphia corridor. Notably in 2001, uh the first tunnel operation uh dug underneath an IDF position on the Philadelphia corridor with 500 lb of explosives using a tunnel uh to devastating effect in 2001. And then in 2004 when I was reporting from Rafa, there was a series of operations along the corridor that were tunnel uh dug under IDF positions uh along the corridor um that essentially were part of the critical mass of operations of resistance that drove the Israelis out of Gaza. And Ariel Chiron at the time said, "We had a dream, the dream to colonize Gaza, uh but the dream could not be implemented." And the dream could not be implemented because of the resistance in Gaza, because of the tunneling in Gaza. Um, and that is what the Israelis have encountered since their May invasion uh of Rafa is that there's tunnels all underneath the border. And uh the Israelis have said uh originally that it was going to be uh weeksl long uh operation and now the IDF talks about years um to stay in this corridor. So that's their that's their fantasy right now is to stay uh in in the Philadelphia corridor. Um so just wanted to uh bring attention to that because it's in the news now. But of course uh listeners of this show, we've been tracking the Philadelphia corridor since the beginning of the Rafa invasion and even before knowing that it would be uh a strategic corridor that Israel is trying to fight along. So if we look and see Telles Sultan there in the west side that's where the the uh core of these operations are are happening um uh this week and again everything you're seeing this week is from uh the the days since you saw me last. Um so yeah let's go to number one tomorrow. This is an operation by the Cassam Brigades against uh an Israeli position in a hospital. Also, we know that they uh bomb schools, bomb hospitals, and occupy uh the hospitals as well. This is an operation against the Indonesian hospital. You can see the thermmoaric Iranian uh thermmo RPG7 thermabaric warhead. And that's the North Korean uh F7 fragmentation warhead that you're seeing there. Seeing fighters mouse holeing again. Um the sophisticated types of operations moving around between buildings without going outside. All these things we've seen since the beginning of the battle. Um you can see through those two uh sniper loopholes there. You can see um the soldiers in a window. This is their loophole version. Um clearly marking their position. Again the only curtain in the entire building bombed out destroyed Indonesian hospital. You can see it there. It's been rendered inoperative for many months. Um so this operation is again it's a Casam Brigades operation. You can see the way that the the thermabaric warhead just punches through that wall. And on the back side uh of the building, you can see the F7. It was a combined strike. And we have the filming from a third position. Um so again, spotters all over these operations in multiple places. That's something you're going to see. And again this dedic this operation was dedicated to uh Ismael Haneia uh as all of the operations uh many of the operations almost all of the operations recently have been by all the factions. Um and there's the medevac again untouched medevac. Um, and you can see here at the end of this video that they're going to bring in fruit here in triangles, which is again the fighters in the battalions uh across Gaza communicating with each other because we've seen that uh that started with the Talawa battalion uh when they got from the runner that picked up their video uh when they got those uh desserts uh in triangles and now all the other battalions are communicating with each other uh by doing the same thing. So interesting to note that again constant communication. There's nothing like people being trapped uh without communication. These fighters are publishing these videos on the same day in many cases um that they're being uh executed uh and they're able to communicate with each other. Command and control is still intact um in all of the important ways. Of course, the war is devastating. It's devastating for everybody. It's costly on the resistance. It's costly on the Israelis. Um, but there's no there's nothing like dismantling the four battalions in Rafa that's going on here. In fact, the Israelis have limited their operations in the town of Rafa um down mostly to the corridor, which is why we see this fighting um in Telesultan, which is a builtup area along the corridor. Um, and the fighters say at the end here, the one fighter says that uh that one of the fighters brought us a basket of fruits as a treat so that they may rejoice in the victory of this operation. Uh, and the sign says uh that you're going to see coming up. The sign says to um it it shouts out the other the Talahawa battalion that used the triangles, the uh Conunus battalion that did it as well. And then there was the pizza in uh the uh Telesultan in the western edge and these fighters praying after their operation. Uh and on the sign says Rafa Brigade uh Western Battalion Teleultan. So the fighters again want to identify where they're from, marking uh the battle space, giving us in these videos the kind of reporting that we would just never get otherwise. And their media operations has been a critical part of this um media strategy uh throughout the war to show the world um that Israel is losing. Like Dr. Morandi said, the fighters themselves broadcasting these images have played a key a key role in that. So uh that is continuing a pace this week. If we look at number two um this is a sural goods operation RPG7 operation. We see a D9 armored bulldozer NMR troop carrier and Marava tank operating together. Again this is in Talis Sultan the main battle space. Those close quarters battles 15 Yasine strikes just in the last week in this area. Um the fighters identifying here in the volume that we cut out that that that hit the tank. Um, and the fighters are going to move to a second location here. And the one fighter says to the other, he says, "We destroyed it." And the other fighter says, "Let's do another. We succeeded in the first. We'll probably succeed in the second, too. God is generous." They're just laughing at each other. And and part of this operation, the joy of their resistance, uh, and they're fighting back, obviously. Um, a key part of this genocide is the resistance that has been carried out by the fighters but also by the people themselves that Norah covers every week uh in her uh newscast. Just the resistance of all all elements from the children or in many ways the most fierce resistors are the children. Um, and in this operation here you can hear when they're moving between the buildings, you can hear machine gun fire from the tankmounted machine gun. Um so we're not looking at pot shots that are being taken here. This is right in the core of the battle space um that's happening um an operation again and this operation was dedicated by SL Kuds. You can see the towing uh D9 bulldozer here towing uh the NMR troop carrier. Uh so it's a mobility kill. Somewhat surprising with the RPG7. It's not a tandem charge round that uh Sai was firing there. Um but it uh immobilized the tank. uh mobility kill is something that is also a very strategic um it's a tactical victory uh with strategic implications because the damaging of the tanks they take time to fix they're out of battle um it stretches Israel's uh resources further um and so we're seeing that consistently uh throughout these uh battles we're wondering uh it's it's it's fair to wonder uh how they're going to fight a war in Lebanon that they're promising ing uh when they're again as Dr. Mirandi said unable to uh handle this small area in the Gaza Strip where people have been trapped uh for decades uh without access to the outside world. U if we look at number five here tomorrow we'll go to Khan Ununice. Um this is just an I brought brought this one because it's a it's ingenuity here. U this is a different type of operation than we've seen. This is a sail goods. They're calling this an abmoabil. What it is is just a rocket assisted uh gorilla action device. The device we've seen the fighters place by hand under the turrets of tanks uh here where in Kunis where there's a command post here uh and the Israelis are staying mostly on the edges um and they're unable to reach uh the resistances uh isn't able to release uh reach them with their close quarters weaponry. They're here mounting up um an improvised rocket assisted munition um and firing it uh at the Israeli position. Again, these are uh fragmentation weapons uh that explode. They're for an area. They cover an area. Um so they don't need to be as accurate, but you can see they use the same principles um as the mortar and rocket teams. You can see the measuring um and putting into the ground into these makeshift launchers. uh at the at the proper uh coordinates to fire and then they fire simultaneously which is also an asset. And also just a note in this video, we're seeing it from three different angles. Again, spotters all over um AEL. We're showing uh here uh in the upper corner it says camera one. You're going to see camera 2 and camera 3. And those cameras aren't just for filming the operation. Those cameras are those spotters are positioned around the city. That's part of the uh intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance that's happening constantly and the reason why the resistance um always has the upper hand on these Israeli movements. uh because they have these spotters in these positions. So they're not deploying these spotters just to take video of their operation. These spotters are in place uh and taking the video as part of that. So let's look at number six because another engine uh ingenuity um we see uh a makeshift um suicide drone here, an armed explosive laden drone. You can see it's a styrofoam uh and and it works. And they launched this drone in Conunus um along with a firstperson view camera, an analog camera that you're going to see here. This is the first of its kind that we've seen uh in Gaza with a camera like this um on a makeshift drone that could be deployed by an engineer in Gaza who has the time. the war has lasted long enough um to be carrying out operations like this um where the engineers have time to operate with the little resources that they have right now uh in certain circumstances um and do it successfully and we can watch this um armored armed drone uh he's they're putting the fuse in it um and the fighter says uh that this drone attack will bring inevitable death. They targeted the house of the enemy soldiers that are fortified. So, the Israeli military taking up positions inside houses, which is something they do uh constantly. And you can see uh the FPV, the first person view of this drone. Just um yeah, remarkable uh ingenuity in the most difficult circumstances um pretty much that humans can imagine is going on right now in Gaza. Uh and the resistance still carrying out operations like this. So, I just wanted to bring you those two just to show you uh how they're able to do that in the middle of the battle. And uh let's look at number seven tomorrow because this is actually from the beginning of the war. This is the Zooari drones. Muhammad Zari was the founder of the Kasam drone program. Uh he was assassinated in Tunisia in 2016. And this is from October 7th. These videos were released. I haven't showed you guys these videos yet. The drones always get bumped by having so much material uh to cover each week. So, uh we haven't shown these, but this these drones, these Zoari drones, suicide drones, one-way attack drones, um armed drones, uh are were a a key part of the October 7th operation. They were part of the blinding operation, the cover fire uh for the blinding operation um that dropped communications for the Gaza division. Uh and you can see this drone program has been in place for many years, but we had never seen it on this scale before. Uh during the 2014 war, uh the first drone was sent during the 2014 war and Israel shot it down with a Patriot missile, which is a billion dollar plus battery and a multi-million dollar missile uh shooting down a drone in 2014. The drone program accelerated between 2014 and now. And on October 7th, there was more than three dozen of these fired simultaneously uh during that operation on October 7th. So, just wanted to show those drones. They haven't made it in there. The Zoari drones um again, uh ingenuity inside Gaza under siege uh building these weapons themselves from scratch uh has been happening with everything from hand grenades now all the way through to an air force. And we saw in that video that we just watched the uh Kasam fighter had an air force patch on his uh on his sleeve there showing that they have an airwing uh division as well. So uh major developments that are happening under the most brutal circumstances. If we look at [Music]