Deadly Beit Hanoun ambush footage revealed, with Jon Elmer

You are watching and listening to electronic inifada. I am John Elmer. This is the resistance report for day 699 of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza. I am reporting this on the 4th of September. Let's begin with the maps. As always, I will be breaking down the Beethanoon ambush coming up. Um, Casam released footage from the ground of that operation that I had reported on in early July. And we had only had um thermal imaging camera footage of that from the Israelis. Um, but uh so stay tuned for that. But let's first um understand the con uh the context of the battle as it stands right now. And these are the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs maps that I've been using for the last uh few months. You can see 86.5% is a shoot tokill zone in Gaza. And this is going to be an issue um as the evacuation from Gaza City um the million people that live in Gaza City. Um some portion of them uh are expected to leave Gaza City. A significant portion are expected to remain in Gaza City. Um but they're being driven out of Gaza City and told to go to areas in the south. But as you can see from this map very clearly, the areas uh are already full. The white areas on the bottom towards the bottom of the map is Alawasi. That is the tent camp that's lined up on the sand dunes. It has no infrastructure and there's hundreds of thousands of people there. Darbala has been packed uh throughout the war. there's not room for people in Darabala. And so the Israeli military hasn't formally issued uh the evacuation order for Gaza City, but the preliminary maps show um that the Israeli military expects people to go to areas in the south that are covered by those shoot tokill zones that are in those areas um that you could see uh that are under um shoot tokill which is separate as I keep saying and I want to make sure that everyone is very clear on this that purple is not area controlled by the Israeli military. Um, we know that we know that in Conunice, there's a number of pockets in Conunus um that the Israelis never took over, particularly in eastern Conun. Um, but we do know that Rafa is that way. You can see at the bottom of the map and that map shows um the corridor um the Mor corridor there. But yeah, just to say these are not uh areas that Israel controls. These are areas where they shoot to kill anything that moves in that area from a distance, firing at them um uh with heavy machine guns, with tank fire, and that's where the aid massacres uh exist as well in those shoot tokill zones. So this week uh the Israelis have begun the call up of their reserves. The first reserves uh began earlier this week. the number is supposed to end up around 60 to 80,000. Although the Israelis are being really slippery with these numbers because they know a lot of people, a lot of reserves are not going to report um at this point. Um and the Israeli military has had to redeploy. They're going to deploy the reser that are called up into the West Bank, into the uh on the northern border with Lebanon, on the eastern border with Jordan. Um, and they're going to send the standing army who are in those uh places I just mentioned into Gaza. So they'll the the conscription army goes into Gaza. The reserveists stay out as much as possible because it is a very unpopular um war at this point in Israel. The genocide is not unpopular. Is nearly universal support for the genocide in Gaza. Um but the uh Israeli they don't want the Israelis don't want to fight in this war and that goes all the way to the top of their um leadership. The active chiefs of the Mossad which is the external security shabbach internal security man is military intelligence. Um those chiefs and others are all including the IDF chief of staff are against the uh Gaza city invasion. They believe that the 60-day ceasefire that Hamas had on the table for the past month, which was Netanyahu's proposal uh a month ago, and then he pulled it back off the table playing games because he wants the war to continue. Um Netanyahu believes if the war ends um that um he will be elected out of office and will go to jail for his corruption charges. Um, so there's still a lot uh to be determined about the exact way the forces are going to be used in Gaza. The resistance has been able to prepare for this battle for more than a year because the second the first battle of Gaza City ended in uh in early 2024. Um there was a poll in Marie uh newspaper this week that uh sort of underscored all this that only 25% of Israelis, Jewish Israelis pled believe that Israel is winning the war. About 20% believe that Kasam is winning the war. Um so we know how this is going. Um the defense minister said that Gaza city will become like Rafa and Beth Hanoon. Both areas have been virtually wiped out. Um and so this genocidal intent by the Israelis is consistent now for 699 days. And also because of the lack of uh military uh the military's lack of interest in fighting this battle, they have a draft dodgers issue. Uh Yedio Arinote reported this week that the army and the police will be reinforced not only at Bangorian airport but also near maritime and land border crossings looking for draft dodgers who are trying to flee the country. So uh something to to take note of there. So the next map you can see this is the Israeli version of the map um which you can see is completely different than that um the uh United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs map. Um still this is too generous to the Israeli military. They do not control large pockets of communis including the camp and the downtown of communis are not controlled by the Israelis. There's pockets towards the east, Abbisan, Al Kabira, that they do not control. Those were where we saw the bulk of the operations um that made um June and July the deadliest months for the Israelis in the past year. Um so this map was posted. You could see the two um Hebrew written terms there are the corridors. The bottom one is the um the Morag corridor which I broke down on a previous show and the Magan O corridor is the one that cuts Conunus there from the eastern uh to the western communis is split in half and we know they don't control that corridor because on the show uh on our last show two weeks ago I told you about an operation a 20 strong Casam commando raid breaching operation tunnelbor breaching operation against the Israeli position uh in the Magnan Oz corridor. So they don't control that. Um but when they published this map, they bragged about 20 about 10,000 air strikes during Gideon's chariots part one. And the Gaza health uh health ministry said more than 10,000 people were killed during that time. Israel is trying to say that they have 75% control over the Gaza Strip, but they don't. Those dotted lines that you see, those are buffer zones and those are the buffer zones that Israel is trying to make permanent. Um, but the resistance has attacked them in those buffer zones. And we're going to see later on in the show, um, the attack in Beth Hanoon is in that buffer zone where you see that dotted line on the far right side of the map on the eastern edge. So the bottom right corner of that map, that's Beth Hanoon and that area was part of the was the staging area for um this pretty remarkable ambush of Israeli troops. Uh Army Radio reported yesterday that the IDF admits yesterday morning that they are that after nearly two years of war, there is quote enormous wear and tear on manpower and equipment. The IDF will enter Operation Gideon's chariots B uh with only 60 to 70% readiness of the heavy bulldozers for the engineering missions. During the war, dozens uh dozens of heavy bulldozers were damaged by anti-tank missiles and charges and were completely taken out of service. This is actually the first time we've even had dozens be mentioned. It's obviously way higher than dozens. Um but this the this is this is information that is covered by the Israeli military sensor. We don't hear how many tanks uh bulldozers armored personnel carriers are taken out of service. So this was the closest we have gotten. Um and they said so they say 60 to 70% readiness. Um so they're suggesting that somewhere around 40% of their uh armored bulldozers have been taken out of the battle. um which is consistent with uh 699 days of resistance reports where we cover that uh extensively. This next map or sorry this next slide is um this was another leak. This is a leak um by channel 12 but this was an IDF leak. Um this is a booklet of lessons learned from Gideon's chariots part one part A. They haven't clarified if it's A or one um B or two but we'll see in the coming days. uh distributed this booklet to all ground forces and it was given to every training officer um in the Israeli military. Every ground force maneuvering division was given this report and it says uh what you see on the screen there says uh Gideon's chariots failed. It didn't defeat Kasam or the Hamas government. It didn't free captives. Quote, made every mistake possible. Um gave the enemy resources. It was a they fought a war of attrition without parameters or a timeline. They poorly handled Kasam's guerrilla warfare. Um but yeah, the I think the the takeaway point is every possible mistake was made in this battle that the IDF themselves admit they lost. Um and Harets pointed out that among the other shortcomings cited was that troops redeployed to areas where they had previously operated and IDF combat methods had proved ills suited to counter Hamas's guerilla tactics. Now, this is something I've been pointing out on the show since day one. They were arrived at the areas that they thought that they had previously taken operational control over and they thought no one would be there. Um but as we know the territorial battalions remain in those areas. So when the Israelis went back into eastern Kununis to Abbasan Alabir they were immediately hit by the Abbisan al- Kabir Al Kabira battalion of the Cassam brigades. And those uh surprises um come from a fundamental misunderstanding of the Israeli military of the way that the Palestinians fight and the way that they are organized. And I think that that was a remarkable note to pull out of this leaked document. Again, another leaked document. We went 6 what 30 days without a leaked document or video. And then in the past two months, we get leaks multiple times a week. So, it's been interesting to see that internal fight uh within the Israeli military and political echelon giving us access to these documents that we previously uh wouldn't see. Um, so the next slide, let's move to the northern Gaza because that's where the focus of this uh uh this show is and the war is right now. Zetun neighborhood, you can see that in the southeast of Gaza City. Um the Shajaya neighborhood and Tufa uh both of those areas um to the east of Gaza City were part of Gideon's chariots one and they have massive destruction near total elimination of eastern Shijaya uh and Tufa as well. Beeton virtually wiped off the map. Looks like a moonscape. Um, really we're talking like post-apocalyptic looking areas in the north of Gaza, all over Gaza, but the north of Gaza in particular. Civil Defense reported uh the other day that in an 18day span, 1,000 buildings were destroyed in uh the Zetun neighborhood and the neighboring neighborhood uh of Alsabra, which is just to the um north of Zetun. essentially the same neighborhood, connected to the same neighborhood. Um, and we saw in Zetun, uh, as soon as the Israelis went in, we saw that multi-stage ambush by the Nukeba elite special forces of the Kasam brigades that I broke down last show. Um, so they were ready for them in Zetun. And also earlier this week um the army radio reported and the IDF reported that seven IDF fighters were injured um overnight in a NMER armored personnel carrier that was hit by a uh IED. So again, just proof that uh these uh CASAM operations and munitions are continually um penetrating these vehicles. They're inside the cabin and seven soldiers were wounded. Sounds like they got lucky. um seven soldiers wounded um when uh a a blast penetrates inside the cabin uh can be far more costly than that. As we know throughout the war, the war began on the second day of the war. Um Kasam with a Yasine 105 penetrated um the back of a Nom troop carrier and killed everybody on board. And it's happened a number of times throughout the war. Um let's take a look at um number five because you can see what's happened to Zetune here. These are satellite images that cover these two the the So August is 8th is what you're seeing right now. For people listening, we look at a map here that looks there's a lot of damage, but it it it looks like a city. You can make out a city in this August 8th satellite image from the New York Times from planet um from the satellite. And then if we flip it to August 25th, it looks like somebody took a massive eraser to it. Um, it's just ashen, gray, uh, and totally destroyed for like what is that? Four, four or six city blocks in a row, just completely wiped out in that period of time, 17 days. Um, so you can see the destruction that's happening. They're not willing to fight the resistance. They're not they don't they want to draft dodge. They want to flee the country, but they have no problem executing this genocide. Um, as Nora always points out in the newscast, if you didn't catch that today, you should go back and listen to uh her newscast covering the humanitarian impacts of this war. Um, okay. Let's take a a look at number 6B. Here we have a Sural Kuds uh Kasam joint operation. A good look of a tunnel and tunnel formation. You can see the fold in the wall, those turns. Um, those are what makes the tunnels effective. U, they're not just straight lines. They're not like a subway line. Um, and here on the wall you see, uh, well, you see them there. That's an Eton wheeled armored personnel carrier coming down the hill. They're going to show you a tank on the left there and the Eton on the right of the screen. and they're going to fire a Cornet anti-tank guided missile system uh at this Eton armored vehicle. On the there's a poem on the wall on the side. I just want to point out it is f a poem from a 12th century Iraqi poet um that talks about the nature of keeping prisoners and it says when we held power when we held power mercy was our way. When you held power, blood spilled. You deemed it permissible for prisoners to be killed while we showed mercy again and again. Let this mark the divide between us. That's what Saral Kuds has put up on the wall handwritten poem uh from the 12th century to point out at this moment in time as Palestinian prisoners are being killed uh in captivity and while prisoners in is Israeli prisoners in Gaza are big in the news in Israel. um that they put those little notices and we've seen this all throughout the war where the individual units will put uh put those um those kind of little marks. We've seen Casam reading books uh at various stages that are meant to be significant. We've seen graffiti on the walls of the um of the of the shot where um where the fighters give their chance to speak to the world. And every time they do it, um, invariably it's eloquent. Um, it's usually deeply rooted in history and in Palestinian struggle and it's topical. It's about what's happening uh at the moment today. So that poem about prisoners um is very salient message um at that moment at this moment in time. So that is the strike on the Eton. It believes that they they've they've hit the Eton. That's what's burning there. And that's the medevac helicopter. We couldn't get any closer look at that Eton. When the war started, I told you that they were going to use these Etons. I expected they would be used much more than they have been used. We did. We saw them in Rafa um during the Battle of Rafa and we've seen them in the buffer zones. We've seen them be hit by cornets a couple of times um in the buffer zone areas, but they haven't been deep into uh Palestinian territory in those Eton armored vehicles. They are wheeled um that made their debut on the battlefield on October 7th. They uh rushed them into service. Um but it's interesting because they must believe that the Shawad um and the Yasin are damaging to those vehicles. Um that's the only supposition about why they're not using them more uh in Gaza. So a direct hit. So let's let's take a look uh here at number seven. Number seven, this is a um this is an elementary girl school in uh southern Gaza City. You can see the Israelis are using it as a position. Sar Alud's pointing that out. You can see the dust cuz that's a tank driving in there. Um you can see the Merkova there in the bottom left. Um for people who are listening, you're looking at a school building uh surrounded by destruction which is uh all around it. There's a D9 armored bulldozer driving by. Um, so you can clearly see that it's a position uh within the school. Uh, Sural Kud's artillery teams here using 60mm mortars that Kasam uh and Sarah build in Gaza. They also capture these and they've also smuggled these, but uh they also build them. Um, and we're going to watch this artillery unit land artillery inside the uh school enclosure where we see the tanks uh operating here. So, I show you this one because we can see where the um where the mortars land and again uh right inside the base. So, perfect aim with that. And the Sariah fighter says, "We deliver a clear message that must be said from the heart of the battlefield to the enemy who continues to threaten and launch new operations. You have named this latest one Gideon's Chariots 2. We remind you the of the defeat that you suffered in Gideon's Chariots 1 will be the same again, only greater, God willing. You launched an operation called Gideon's Chariots um two, and we begin by God to repel it." Um, so they are ready for uh for Gideon's chariots, too. And they're obviously always very on top of the moment of the news. And we see them sometimes these fighters, they put uh the date that the operation took place. They send a message to a martyr. Um, and they're always very up to-date on the information. So these fighters in their positions are well connected to what's going on. In military terms, that's called command and control. Um it's what the Israelis did not have on October 7th and the reason for um the collapse of their forces on October 7th. Um Kasam dismantled them, dismantled their uh command and control. Um so yes, this is um you'll see here, watch the the the rounds land. Most of these mortar videos, we don't see where they land, but here is a perfect shot uh multiple times right inside the campus. Um so these are direct hits and if a mortar is a direct hit, it's a fragmentation um an area weapon. So um it sprays the whole area. So that that's uh this is an elementary girl school. Let's look at the next slide. Um number eight here. can see. So this is this started circulating about 6 days later on social media. This circulated and BBC verified it. They verified that this is an army base. Um that was what BBC verified put their um their mind to. It's pretty obviously a military base. I don't think anybody would say it's anything, but if you're wa if you're listening to this, um there's 2 4 6 8 10 12 there's two dozen uh armored vehicles and in the top there's another halfozen uh engineering vehicles and they're using the school as a military base. We've seen this all through the war. Schools, hospitals be used as military bases. Um and then yesterday, if we go to slide number nine, this is we've also seen them do this uh throughout the war. They left the base and they destroyed it. They blew it up. They blew up the school. The elementary girls school is now uh virtually vaporized by wiring it uh on the ground with explosives. Um and they just wipe it out. So um that's the genocide part of this uh military battle and they do it um with with plea with Tik Tok videos. Um but yeah, devastating a school. So number 10, just wanted to bring in this is the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the DFLP, the National Resistance Brigades. Um, just wanted to bring them in to show you they are using here these TC TC6 mines. These are they're not anti-tank mines. Kasam used these on October 7th for vehicles. Um, they put them in place of like jeeps. Um, and they use them at intersections. And you can see him screwing on the top there. That's the pressure plate that he's screwing on at the top. So these are are um they don't require an external um pressure plate. Um so the DFLP is setting this up. Um the martyr Omar Alcasam Brigade um is also their name, the National Resistance Brigades, and you can see them moving in put it into position. They don't have camera uh on the operation, but you can see here that it looks like they're um they're packing it up right on the edge where the Israelis would bulldoze. Um and so the the bulldozer would hit that and it's not a single mine. You can see how they've stacked them together. So, um just a chance to get the DFLP operations in there. They're in here every week carrying out mortar operations. So, um they're on the battlefield still. All the groups are still on the battlefield. Um, this next one, this is an operation that came from Shajaya that was released while we were away. Um, this is an operation from July the 7th. This is Saral Kuds and the Casam Brigades in a joint operation. This commander here says, "We prepared a complex ambush between Sale and the Casam Brigades in the area with pre-planted explosive devices. after detonating these explosives, um the remaining vehicles that come to the the reinforcements, you can see him doing uh marking it on the paper where the reinforcements will come from. Um and Casam and Sariah both predict the route that the reinforcements will come uh very well. And that's why these operations work because there's multiple layers um that go into these operations. They're not just randomly placed. And the interesting thing about this operation is that it's a joint operation. You can see the fighter there moving with the um the EFPs. They plant one Shawad, which is Kasam's u explosively formed penetrator. And they also plant one Takib, which is uh Saral Kud's um explosively formed um explosively formed projectile. Um and you can see them bearing it here with their pressure plates. And this fighter says um there's war plananes above us. There's soldiers in front of us in their tanks and we have overcome all this with the help of God and we are now preparing a second explosive device in this pure sand of Gaza. Um so there's and if you you can always find these videos um on my Twitter feed. My Twitter feed is just an archive of these videos. Um but you can hear the drones you can hear uh the drones flying over and here they're indicating where the tank is driving. You can see it there. it hits um and knocks the camera out of the cameraman's hands. So clearly um a good explosive device. Um and they're going to hit another one. And here you see the fighter loading up the tandem 85. This is Sariah El Cud's primary anti-tank weapon. And he's going to head out and hit the tank on the reinforcement path that they predicted. And there he is. Um just as was predicted. So um a well organized operation in Shijaya. Um during the destruction of Shijaya, the resistance is continuous in all of these areas. Um and here the fighters climbing through the window, returning to their base safely. Uh again, interesting to note the way that they're traveling outside with the blankets. Um we can look at number 12. They travel outside with the blankets like that to so that their form doesn't get picked up by AI. Um uh they we've seen them use a bunch of different ways to cover themselves. But so now we're going to focus on the Betanoon Battal um the Beet Hanoon Battalion and the Beethanoon ambush. This was on July 7th. It took place um Bethanoon, you see it in the upper right there of the map. Um and you see the eras checkpoint um the exit from Gaza that has been closed for two uh effectively closed to Palestinians for um 20 plus years. Um so it's a very symbolic um place target. It was a target on October 7th very symbolically. Um and the Bhanoon Battalion who have been told that they have been beaten um they were told they were beaten in uh November 2023. Um, and we know that they have come uh with many operations, which we can see in this next clip here. They put a little sizzle reel together of their operations. Number 13 here, and you'll you'll recognize some of them. I had to pull out some of the a couple of the sniper hits. Um, but that was the two the two kills with one shot. These were the massive IEDs during the generals plan um that flipped the tank that tossed the turret off the the Merkova tank and separated it. There you see the destroyed vehicles. And this was the ambush that started during the um when Israel went back to war. And this was the tunnelorn ambush that um that hit them in the buffer zone when Israel was not expecting it um and flipped over that jeep. Could have been a captured soldier in that situation, but the fighters returned to their base safely. Um you can see coming up here the turret toss. The medevac helicopters not being targeted. all of the destroyed gear. Um so the behadnoom battalion is announcing its presence here um with these operations and on this uh this reel they have um Hassan Fiad Abu Hamza um the Beethanoon battalion commander they have his quote on there that he said when he emerged after Israel said that they killed him and he emerged in the ceasefire uh alive and walking around with no entourage uh walking around his community and meeting people who came home during during the January ceasefire. Um so that was a potent little uh introduction to uh this operation that was um according to Israel's uh numbers there was more than 20 casualties in this uh Beth Hanoon ambush. So let's take a look at that. That's number 14. Um so you're going to see it's targeting um the Neta Yehuda Battalion. They are the ultraorththodox battalion and they have been targeted previously. This operation was the 7th of July, the same day as that um operation in Shujaya that I just showed you. There's the Nets Yehuda Battalion. They have been hit many times. They were the victims of the double sniper uh hit. They were the victims of the hit uh early on when the soldier uh went feet first uh feet to the sky through the tank uh hatch. This is showing where the bombs are planted and where the areas crossing is. So, we're talking right in the buffer zone area underneath uh that's an Israeli uh watch post up there. They have multiple positions along here. So, these are under the nose of the Israelis. You're going to see them, the Israeli soldiers here just doing everything wrong. That was just them spraying ammunition randomly. Uh and it happened that there was a camera beside it. So, there random spray. And look at them all bunched up here, which is not how you should be moving uh through a battle space. They had just arrived um into the into Gaza 1 hour before. So they're on foot. They had just arrived. They're all bunched up here. Um and they're about to get hit by um a television uh IED, which is essentially um a massive claymore mine that Casam built. Casam weapon. Um you can see it here. It detonates. They use the topography of the land. Presumably, they use tunnels as well, but they used the topography of the land. And then here is the footage that we saw right away on July 7th. This is the footage of from a thermal camera from the IDF that shows the total chaos. And the IDF has no idea what's going on in this operation. In their field report investigation, they said that there was 10 Casam fighters shooting at them. There was no Kasam fighters shooting at them. They're both IEDs planted on the route, detonated at the right moment. They were planted 12 hours before um this foot patrol came in for 4 days before that, the military bombs, destroys, air strikes um the area and destroys everything and they think that there's no fighters in the area. So once that's completed, the Casam fighters move forward, plant the explosives um and the uh Netsah Yehuda battalion who just show up in on the Gaza border, they go they walk on foot into this and they walk into a double strike um that hits the reinforcements um that go to the area. And this is just remarkable because they tie in the uh there's the second blast and they'll tie in here the footage from the Israeli thermal camera which is behind the hill that we can't see. Um apparently according to the Kasam commander there was a third See there it is. Uh there's the thermal camera and that is behind the hill. So, they're actually the way that the videographer or the the way that they've put this video together actually shows you through the hill that you can't see by, but that's what's going on through that hill. So, again, the media ops wing of Casam doing um Yman's work throughout this war uh to show us this story. And it's remarkable just how um this whole incident took 90 minutes. Um the Israelis had no idea. They talked about and then in that last scene um it says not over yet. So that is the Beet Hanoon Battalion saying um after killing and wounding 20 Israeli soldiers um that the the battle in Beethanoon is not over yet. So that is a remarkable operation. Um significant number of casualties on the Israeli side and they pointed that out. It was one of the largest single um events for casualties uh throughout the war. Uh five killed um and um 14 seriously uh or moderately wounded in that operation. Um and just finally um we have here a Cassam poster released the other day that says Gaza, the last fortress, stands tall with its people. you'll sooner reach the stars than see Gaza surrender. So that is the resistance report for day 699 of Israel's genocidal war. Uh war on children basically um as Nora pointed out earlier in uh the show. [Music]