The resistance is joined from Egypt

There are thousands of would-be Mohammad Salahs in all the Arab countries

Feelings aside, a political reading needs to be made of Sunday’s guerrilla operation at al-Awja, in which Egyptian border policeman Mohammad Salah killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded two others, causing real alarm in the Israeli occupier state and confounding its heavily medalled and starred generals.

Several points are worth noting in this regard.

First, the 22-year-old conscript planned his attack well. It was no spur-of-the-moment incident. Wire-cutters, five ammunition clips, military daggers, and a Qur’an were found in his possession. He walked seven kilometres from his base to reach the border fence with occupied Palestine, and used the cutters and daggers to breach it.

Second, all of the casualties were Israeli soldiers in military uniform, as he was. He did not target civilians, unlike Israeli occupation troops in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose latest victim was a toddler.

Third, getting across the barbed wire security barrier, which is equipped with surveillance cameras, whether through the breach he made or via the fortified emergency gate, was a considerable feat, demonstrating great intelligence and determination and willingness to be martyred.

Fourth, this operation and the major military and security breach it entailed highlighted not only the failings of Israel’s army but also the high calibre of the emergent new generation of young Arab resistance fighters it is facing.

Fifth, Mohammad Salah drew on a proud legacy of similar operations by Egyptian personnel, starting with Suleiman Khater’s 1985 attack on Israeli troops and settlers in Sinai, in which seven were killed, and followed by Ayman Muhammad Hussein, who crossed the border in his army uniform and opened fire on Israeli vehicles in November 1990, killing five Israelis and injuring 27.

Sixth, despite all the drones, cameras, and motorised and foot patrols at the border, Israel’s generals did not learn of the attack until five hours after it took place. So much for the army’s supposed ‘invincibility’.

The psychological blow dealt by Mohammad Salah to the Israeli military and security establishments was far more serious than the actual casualties he inflicted — especially after the recent security breach in the north when a fighter crossed in from Lebanon and detonated a bomb in Megiddo in the Galilee. Time will tell when similar attacks begin across the eastern front, or by sea on the western front. Preparations are underway.

Electrified, barbed wire, or cement fences will not be able to protect the occupier state and its settlers. Resistance fighters can make breaches through them, go over them with rockets, or tunnel under them. And there are hundreds of thousands of young people who share Mohammad Salah’s commitment and resolve in Egypt and all other Arab and Muslim countries.

The resistance is joined from Egypt