[News] Beit Hanoun’s fury: How Gaza’s obliterated northern town defies Israeli victory

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Beit Hanoun’s fury: How Gaza’s obliterated northern town defies Israeli
victory
By Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012>

Wednesday 16-July-2025 -
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/beit-hanouns-fury-how-gazas-obliterated-northern-town-defies-israeli-victory/

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu geared up for what was
intended as a triumphant visit to Washington, commencing on Monday, 7 July
2025, Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades in Beit Hanoun were meticulously preparing
their own stark counter-narrative. On the very inaugural day of the Israeli
leader’s high-stakes diplomatic trip, the battalion launched a devastating
strike, inflicting significant casualties on Israeli soldiers. The Israeli
army, notorious for obfuscating its military losses, begrudgingly
acknowledged five soldiers killed and 14 wounded, some critically.

This audacious operation, coupled with numerous others across both northern
and southern Gaza, offered an undeniable truth: Israel’s utter inability to
secure any segment of the Strip. This failure undermines its proclaimed
intent to establish control over the genocide-stricken territory, seemingly
as a prelude to forcibly displacing the entire population, first to Rafah
in the south, and ultimately, towards Egypt.

Netanyahu may possess a sharp political cunning, yet his acumen primarily
serves his personal survival as a politician. It demonstrably fails to
harness politics for the genuine good of his nation, let alone for global
stability. He might project an image of eloquence, but this perceived
mastery of words often flourishes only because he remains largely
unchallenged within his customary political circles.

Consider, for instance, this pronouncement he uttered on July 6, 2025, just
hours before his flight to Washington:

“Our joint involvement brought a great victory over our mutual enemy –
Iran. Iran has dedicated itself, for years, to our destruction, and for
years, we had apprehensions: What should we do about Iran? Would we be able
to take on Iran? And now, our heroic pilots flew in the skies of Iran, and
the IDF did wonders, along with the Mossad and all other security branches…”

Stripped of critical context, this self-congratulatory declaration implies
an earth-shattering event poised to fundamentally alter “the face of the
Middle East,” a favored refrain of Netanyahu’s. Yet, beyond the relentless
and baseless claims of having decisively defeated Iran – a narrative
utterly devoid of credibility among sober political analysts – mere hours
later, Palestinians in Gaza, enduring over 639 days of a relentless and
internationally recognized genocide, delivered an undeniable message:
Israel cannot even subjugate Beit Hanoun.

What, then, is Beit Hanoun?

In essence, this small town, encompassing an approximate area of 12.5
square kilometers (4.8 square miles), persists merely as a geographic
marker and a name. It has been almost entirely obliterated, its entire
pre-war population, estimated at around 60,000 residents, wholly displaced.

Owing to its perilous proximity to the Israeli border, often as close as
1.5 kilometers (approximately 1 mile), Beit Hanoun has been a primary
target in nearly all of Israel’s prior aggressions against Gaza. It bore a
disproportionately heavier burden of destruction compared to other
Palestinian areas, dating back as early as 2004, 2006, and 2014.

However, the latest war and genocide have left virtually no building
intact; some structures have been bombed repeatedly, rendering the entire
area a haunting tableau of charred devastation. Indeed, numerous charred
remains of victims still lie in the streets of Beit Hanoun or entombed
beneath its vast rubble to this day.

Adding profound insult to grievous injury, the city was literally branded
with the Star of David. In January 2025, chilling satellite imagery starkly
revealed a giant Star of David carved into what was once fertile farmland
in Beit Hanoun. Historically, alongside Beit Lahia and other eastern
regions, the town constituted a vital segment of Gaza’s food basket – a
role that became acutely critical during the two decades of suffocating
Israeli siege.

Though much of this crucial agricultural land had already been appropriated
by the Israeli army as ‘military zones,’ it still managed to somewhat stave
off outright famine. Thus, the deliberate destruction of Beit Hanoun
fundamentally equates to a deliberate assault on Gaza’s very capacity for
survival.

Yet, Beit Hanoun simply refuses to die. On the contrary, it persists as one
of the most active and formidable fronts for the Palestinian Resistance,
posing one of the most perplexing military quandaries for the Israeli army.
This defiance occurs despite Israel’s state-of-the-art killing technology,
overwhelming troop numbers, and a seemingly endless supply chain, courtesy
of Uncle Sam’s boundless generosity.

When Israel initiated its full-scale ground offensive on Gaza on 27 October
2023, it commenced precisely in Beit Hanoun. Astonishingly, it took the
Resistance merely three days – between 27 October and 1 November – to
discern the tactics of the invading Israeli army and adapt accordingly.

On 1 November, Al-Qassam declared it had decimated four Israeli Merkava
tanks and armored vehicles using Yasin 105 anti-tank rocket-propelled
grenades, followed by the precision targeting of an Israeli soldier
gathering with a quadcopter drone. On 11 November, the Israeli army itself
reluctantly admitted to the killing of four soldiers and the wounding of
others in a booby-trapped tunnel in Beit Hanoun. The Resistance further
asserted it had detonated an anti-personnel improvised explosive device
(IED) targeting Israeli forces occupying a civilian home in the area.

Numerous other operations followed, each as lethal and sophisticated as its
predecessors. It became terrifyingly evident that the more destruction the
Israeli army wrought upon Beit Hanoun, the more fiercely and resiliently
its resistance emerged. Desperate for a conclusive victory, the Israeli
army brazenly declared on 18 December 2023, that it had “dismantled” the
Al-Qassam battalions in the town. Consequently, its war tactics in the area
supposedly shifted from a full-scale invasion to “holding operations,”
predicated on the false premise that the Israeli army was now in “full
control.”

That, too, proved to be another pipedream. The Israeli army was repeatedly
forced to withdraw from Beit Hanoun as Palestinian fighters, expertly
utilizing previously excavated tunnels – and possibly newly dug ones –
infiltrated back into their ravaged town. They ingeniously leveraged the
very mass destruction inflicted by the Israeli army to their strategic
advantage, turning the urban wasteland into a complex battlefield.

The deadly 7 July attack on Israeli forces marked the 639th day since the
war’s inception on 7 October 2023. This operation unequivocally signaled
Israel’s failure, not only to occupy the town definitively, but also to
truly conquer any part of Gaza. Beit Hanoun is, in essence, a microcosm of
Gaza’s undefeated, and arguably undefeatable, nature.

And like every sacred piece of land in Gaza and throughout Palestine, the
history of Beit Hanoun predates the very existence of Israel by millennia.
Beit Hanoun, an ancient settlement, is believed to have been founded by a
pagan king named Hanoun. Archaeological findings in the area testify to
both ancient constructions and uninterrupted habitation across countless
epochs.

It was there, just west of Beit Hanoun, that the Ayyubids famously
vanquished the Crusaders at the Battle of Umm al-Nasser hill in 1239. To
commemorate that pivotal victory, a mosque was consecrated bearing the
battle’s name. Tragically, this very mosque, the revered Umm al-Naser
Mosque, was obliterated by Israel in November 2023, with news of its
destruction confirmed in January the following year.

If the human spirit were merely quantifiable by stones and concrete, Beit
Hanoun would have been meticulously erased from both existence and memory
long ago. The human spirit, however, can only be truly measured by the
unyielding steadfastness of a people’s collective will. As clever as he may
perceive himself to be, neither Netanyahu nor his formidable, US-backed
army will ever manage to defeat this ancient Palestinian town, nor Gaza,
nor the indomitable Palestinian people themselves. If history has
bequeathed us any certain lesson, it is precisely this.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
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