Shejaiya Nightmare

The Israeli military has announced that eleven more of the regime’s troops have been killed, including a lieutenant colonel who commanded a Golani Brigade regiment. 

A spokesperson for the Israeli military also announced that at least seven other Israeli troops had sustained injuries. According to Israeli media reports, many of them are in critical condition. 

The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz acknowledged the regime’s war on Gaza is “taking a heavy, painful, and difficult price from us”. 

Most of the troops have been killed in the Shejaia neighborhood near Gaza City. 

Shejaia is in northern Gaza, just south of Jabalia. 

The Palestinian resistance had earlier announced that it was engaged in fierce street-by-street battles with the invading Israeli ground forces in Shejaia and had inflicted heavy losses on the regime’s troops and military vehicles. 

Israeli media say most of the troops, who belonged to the elite Golani Brigade, were killed in combat with the Palestinian resistance. 

As one of the Israeli military’s most highly decorated infantry units, the Golani Brigade is often one of the first brigades to be called to duty. It is part of the Israeli special forces, and most (of the latest Israeli military fatalities), have been killed in Shejaia. 

Since the start of the Israeli ground offensives in Gaza, the Palestinian resistance has inflicted heavy losses on troops serving under the Israeli Golani Brigades across the enclave. 

In the latest battles in Shejaia, at least seven of them were from the Golani Brigade. At least two were also from the 669 Special Search and Rescue Unit. 

Another soldier who served under the Israeli combat engineering corps was killed in a separate battle with the Palestinian resistance in a different area of the northern Gaza Strip. 

Among the latest Israeli military fatalities are: 

Lieutenant Colonel Itzhak Ben Basat, aged 44, head of the Golani Brigade’s commander’s team.  Itzhak Ben Basat is the most senior regime military commander to have been killed in the Israeli ground offensives to date. 

Lieutenant Colonel Tomer Grinberg, aged 35, another high-ranking senior commander of the Golani Brigade. 

Major Roei Meldasi, a company commander in the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion. 

Major Moshe Avram Bar On, a company commander in the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion. 

Captain Liel Hayo, a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion. 

Major Ben Shelly, a squad commander in the Israeli Air Force’s Unit 669. 

Another three were from the Special Rescue Tactical Unit and the School of Combat Engineering.  

According to Israeli media and accounts of the Golani Brigade in Hebrew, four troops had entered several buildings that they believed had been abandoned. 

The armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam brigades, then ambushed them by opening fire and according to Israeli reports hurled grenades, whilst detonating an explosive device. 

Contact with the Israeli troops was lost, and out of fear that they had been taken hostage, more troops were sent to rescue them. 

During the botched rescue attempt, other troops from the Golani Brigade as well as the elite rescue units came under heavy gunfire from the al-Qassam brigades who had by now entered the buildings. 

The armed wing of Hamas then killed and injured more Israeli troops from zero distance. 

The Israeli military claims 436 troops have been killed since the start of Operation al-Aqsa Storm on October 7. 

Since the start of the Israeli ground offensives on October 20, more than 120 troops have been killed, according to the Israeli military. 

Yet, experts say the regime is known to downplay its military death toll and reveal the true extent of casualties once a war is over. It is a matter that has been backed up by Israeli media. 

The occupying regime also claimed on Wednesday that 1,704 Israeli soldiers have been injured since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza.

Israeli media say this figure contradicts hospital data, which suggests a much higher number of soldiers have been injured since the regime began its war on the besieged coastal enclave. 

Many of the regime’s troops are in critical condition. 

Shejaia is part of the same areas where the Israeli military first began its ground offensives. 

Whilst the regime is now focusing its ground offensives in the southern Gaza Strip, it is evident that the Israeli military has done little to dent the strength of the Palestinian resistance in the north. 

In essence, Palestinian resistance factions are still operating with the same power and resilience across the entire blockaded Gaza Strip since Operation al-Aqsa Storm on October 7. 

Contrary to Israeli propaganda, there is no Israeli military edge against the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. 

The is whilst Tel Aviv’s stated goal of eliminating Hamas is evidently a task that has proven to be too difficult for the Israeli military. 

In man-to-man combat with the Palestinian resistance, more Israeli troops have been killed than armed members of the Palestinian resistance factions in the coastal enclave. 

It has led many to speculate that the real goal of the Israeli regime is one of a genocidal nature against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. 

Tens of thousands of Israeli airstrikes have killed nearly 20,000 Palestinian civilians and reduced the Gaza Strip’s residential buildings to rubble. 

According to UN agencies, the regime is also using starvation as a weapon of war against the civilian population of Gaza. 

The strict Israeli ban on food and water to enter the strip has sounded alarm bells among UN bodies and international humanitarian agencies who say, at this rate, many of Gaza’s civilian population will starve to death. 

As more images emerge of traumatized and injured Palestinian children being treated on the ground by doctors with basic supplies in overcrowded hospitals, the majority of the international community is turning in favor of the Palestinians. 

This is something that was reflected by the latest UN General Assembly vote in the early hours of Wednesday morning (occupied al-Quds time).