TEHRAN - After the ceasefire went into effect on January 19, the Hamas resistance fighters openly reemerged on the streets of Gaza with military uniforms and Kalashnikov rifles. They were handing three Israeli captives to the Red Cross in Gaza City.  

The reappearance of Hamas fighters proved that 470 days of relentless bombardments and ground offensives had been mostly futile.  

The reappearance of resistance fighters among the cheering of the youth will continue to constantly haunt those Israeli extremists who suffered from the illusion that they could exterminate the fighters who bravely struggled for their rights.

The re-emergence of fighters proved that no nation, including Palestinians, will forego their rights to freedom and justice.

The January 19 and similar scenes that will surface in future days will be recorded as black days in the history of the Israeli occupation regime. The occupiers must live with these humiliating scenes in their minds. There is no way out.

Prime Minister Netanyahu had promised to totally “eliminate” fighters. Now he feels badly embarrassed and ashamed.

Herzi Halevi, Israel’s military chief, who announced he will resign in early March as the army had failed to prevent the October 7 attack, must also live all throughout his remaining life with these degrading scenes. In a letter sent to soldiers on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, he had claimed that the Israeli army had "defeated the military wing of Hamas" and was continuing to fight to wreck its capabilities. Amazing.

Analysts and military analysts inside and outside Israel were warning that it was impossible to defeat resistance fighters who were wholeheartedly ready to sacrifice their lives for their stolen lands. These warnings were sounded all through the days of the carnage in Gaza but the bloodthirsty political and military officials did not listen.

"It is said, for example, that Hamas has lost 6,000 fighters, but it seems to be recruiting, or rather mobilizing, around 6,000 members from its reserves," Hugh Lovatt, a political analyst at the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank, told Euronews in July 2024.

Analysts interviewed by Euronews explained that not only has Hamas not been defeated, but it still has the capacity to regenerate itself in terms of recruiting fighters and rehabilitating underground infrastructure.

"I think it's very easy, in fact, to recruit and regenerate, simply because there are many orphans and groups like Hamas have always recruited those orphaned in previous Israeli attacks," Joost Hiltermann, a political analyst at Crisis Group, told Euronews.

The Gaza war unequivocally proved that Zionist extremists have no alternative other than allowing the Palestinians to have their own country within the 1967 borders. It is to the benefit of cruel and extremist Zionists not to again test the will of the Palestinian nation for freedom and at least relative justice.