The new stars of the caravan of martyrs

At a moment when the whole world was glued to screens to watch the prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel, Israel's vulgarity during this exchange and, in contrast, Hamas's magnificent organizational ability, it was announced that Abu Obeida was expected to give a speech. The encounter at the prisoner exchange was truly like a separate scene of the war. Like a program on the Qassam Brigades' side in which every detail was thought out and every detail was loaded with a separate message and symbolism like a great line of art, like a new encounter after the ceasefire.

In this encounter too, the whole world watched the clear superiority of Hamas, which had put up an epic resistance for 471 days and, with the most limited means, uprooted the Zionist occupying forces. The Qassam Brigades, with all their nobility, discipline and humane approach, seemed to be thrashing Israel, tossing it about and crushing it. The scene of the Israeli female soldier being walked through the rubble and brought up onto the platform in front of the house of Martyr Yahya Sinwar is in particular a scene of an aesthetic that the finest films could not manage. This magnificent show, in which how well all the prisoners had been treated was rubbed into the eyes of the whole world, is in itself a separate victory. At this very moment of victory, one could expect Abu Obeida's statement to be just a speech savoring this scene.

Yet Abu Obeida, unlike ever before, appeared with a decor in which 7 portraits, most of them previously unknown, were placed in the upper-left corner of the screen. Then in his speech he announced that the most effective and mysterious name of the Qassam Brigades, its brain, Muhammad Deif, had joined the caravan of martyrs. Then he gave the news of the martyrdom of his deputy Marwan Issa, and then of 5 other names in the command echelon.

After a moment's hesitation of "when did he become a martyr, wasn't there a ceasefire?", it was of course understood that they had been martyred long before, at different places and times. We are faced with yet another magnificent example of command in this exceptional war that the Qassam Brigades have been waging since October 7. It turns out that, although all these names, which the Zionist force had targeted from the start, were martyred, for months we had been seeing a resistance as if nothing had happened, even one growing stronger, more ambitious and more effective on the field with each passing day.

The very fact that this news was released today, with this timing, shows in itself that everything is under control and that Hamas is displaying its whole organizational capacity at its best. Even if the foremost leadership stratum was martyred, it did not disperse, collapse or unravel; on the contrary, every remaining unit continued its operations as if nothing had happened, with more resolve, determination, perhaps even additional motivation.

An unparalleled war took place in which the Qassam Brigades increasingly confronted them in every corner, everywhere, descending upon them like a nightmare. This was reflected both in the Israeli media and in Blinken's statements. Hamas confronted them from everywhere, from every corner, and as many new ones were born as the Hamas militants they killed. Moreover, every moment of Yahya Sinwar's martyrdom, laying out the details of a magnificent epic, turned into a far greater weapon against Israel than his being alive. Among the Hamas mujahideen, far from grieving at Yahya Sinwar's martyrdom, it became a very strong source of motivation for being worthy of him and following in his path.

The same holds for the 7 martyrs Abu Obeida announced yesterday. The most important dimension in these martyrdoms is that in this Jihad movement no one is an exception as a leader, that the entire leadership cadre is in the field, and that no one deems his own blood more valuable than that of the others.

What Abu Obeida said when he gave the news of the martyrdom of Deif and the other commanders is not dry rhetoric: "How bitter it would have been for Muhammad Deif, who struggled for more than 30 years, and Marwan Issa, the strongest pillar and strategist of Qassam, to die in their beds? For these brave men who dedicated their lives to jihad, the crowning of their lives full of resistance with martyrdom was the most fitting end. They remained faithful to the promise they gave to God, and God Almighty rewarded their loyalty with martyrdom. Those brave men dedicated every moment of theirs to jihad in the way of God. And those brave men struck the enemy in the heart in the Al-Aqsa Flood.»

Of course the second most important dimension of these martyrdoms is showing that Hamas is not a leader-centered movement. Each of these leaders guides and motivates like a star, but with their martyrdom they already do the most they could do, turning those left behind into leaders too. Today thousands have been raised within the Qassam Brigades who can lead and will show the same performance in leadership. Therefore the martyrdom of these symbolic names is not good news for Israel but bad news.