Palestinian Resistance Groups Produce a Steady Stream of Combat Videos

Jon Elmer 

22 November 2023

In this battle that began on 7 October, resistance groups have produced a steady stream of videos documenting the fight.

In this segment from our latest livestream, we talked about the multiple fronts of resistance beyond the battle for Gaza and the role that the media arms of these groups have played in documenting a crucial element of the fight.

The media arms of all the major fighting groups in this gradually-escalating regional conflict have been busy: the Qassam and Saraya al-Quds brigades in Gaza release regular battlefield videos despite the frequent communications shutdowns in Gaza and constant Israeli bombardment.

The other fronts in this war are active as well.

In Yemen, Ansarallah released through their media arm video footage of the seizure of what they said was an Israeli-owned ship in the Red Sea.

When the spokesperson for the US State Department reportedly asked Ansarallah – also known as the “Houthis” – to release the ship, a senior official in the Ansarallah media wing responded on social media, “no.”

The ship is reportedly being held in a Yemen harbor, according to satellite imagery obtained by The New York Times.

Ansarallah and the Yemeni Armed Forces have attacked Israel and its allies with missiles and drones several times since the war in Gaza began, including downing a US MQ-9 Reaper drone off the coast of Yemen earlier in the month.

For their part, Hezbollah’s media arm in Lebanon has published more than forty videos in the past six weeks of their fighters hitting Israeli targets in the north, including a video of their heavy warhead Burkan rockets being fired at an Israeli military base.

The Burkan, which can carry a several-hundred-kilogram payload, is the heaviest munition deployed so far by the group. It is an escalation that Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah spoke of in a recent address.

The defense of Gaza

It is of course Gaza that is the focus of the resistance.

Over the weekend, the Qassam Brigades released a video that was a collection of many of their attacks, beginning with the 7 October surprise attack on Israeli military’s Gaza Division when their fighters burst through Israel’s billion-dollar high-tech border fence and overran Israeli military bases and outposts, capturing equipment, vehicles and dozens of soldiers.

The videos from Gaza have been steady, particularly since the Israeli ground invasion began in the last week of October.

Helmet camera footage recorded by Palestinian fighters have shown fierce urban battles as the fighters hit tanks, armored troop carriers, bulldozers and Israeli military positions inside buildings in the Gaza Strip.

Footage released by the Qassam Brigades shows house-to-house fighting in areas that the Israeli military has been attempting to occupy for more than three weeks of their ground invasion. This includes documentation of battles in Beit Hanoun, in the northeast of the Gaza Strip, that show obvious Israeli casualties.

In the battle for Gaza City, a Qassam video shows a fighter hand-delivering a Gaza-made Yassin anti-tank round between the turret of an Israeli tank and its more heavily armored hull, a tactic they have demonstrated previously.

Another video shows more Yassin anti-tank weapons and what appears to be captured Israeli military equipment.

Israel also releases videos, although they have yet to show a Palestinian fighter engaging their troops. Often the videos are very short and show IDF troops, apparently unopposed, firing off into the distance and blowing up buildings.

In a recent audio message, the Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Obeida said that while Palestinian fighters in Gaza were confronting the military, the Israeli military was focused on attacking hospitals and civilians.

Throughout the course of the last six weeks, the extraordinary footage broadcast by the fighters themselves – from the first moments of the 7 October attack through the Israeli military’s ground invasion of Gaza – has been a key piece in our understanding of the battle.