Orientul Mijlociu

General Info:

The Quds Force (Persian: نیروی قدس, romanized: niru-ye qods, lit. ’Jerusalem Force’) is one of five branches of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army’s Iraq War General Stanley McChrystal describes the Quds Force as an organization analogous to a combination of the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the United States. Responsible for extraterritorial operations, the Quds Force supports non-state actors in many countries, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yemeni Houthis, and Shia militias in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

General Info:

Hamas is a Palestinian Islamic organization, with an associated military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the Middle East including Qatar. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by Canada, Israel, Japan and the United States. Australia and the United Kingdom have designated the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades as a terrorist organization.

Sheikh Ibrahim Rida, an Islamic scholar at Egypt’s renowned Al-Azhar University, said on a November 6, 2023 show on Sada Al-Balad TV (Egypt) that the Jews are quarrelsome people who killed many prophets and spread corruption on earth. He said that no one should find it strange that they are annihilating children, homes, and schools.

In the recent weeks, the Cairo-based Al-Azhar institution, the leading center of religious learning and supreme source of religious authority in the Sunni Muslim world, and senior members of this institution, have been voicing support for Hamas and for terrorism and inciting against the U.S. and Israel, while using virulently antisemitic rhetoric. For example, a fatwa (religious ruling) recently issued by Al-Azhar praised the Palestinian resistance and even called on Israeli Arabs to join the struggle against Israel, saying that this country is destined to perish. Senior Al-Azhar clerics, including Muhammad Omar Al-Qady, dean of the Faculty for Islamic and Arabic Studies at Al-Azhar University, and Abbas Shuman, formerly the deputy of Sheikh Al-Azhar and currently the inspector general of the institute’s fatwa committees, incited against Israel and made antisemitic remarks, calling the Jews “descendants of apes and pigs,” “killers of the prophets” and “enemies of humanity” and hoping for their perdition. Al-Qady also directed his invective at the U.S., calling it the “greatest Satan” and a “mafia” state with a “drunken” president.

General Info:

Hezbollah is a Shi’a Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council. After the death of Abbas al-Musawi in 1992, the organisation has been headed by Hassan Nasrallah, its Secretary-General. The United States, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Canada and Israel have classified Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, though in early 2015 an assessment from the United States director of National Intelligence removed it from the list of terrorist threats against the United States. The European Union and New Zealand have proscribed Hezbollah’s military wing, but do not list Hezbollah as a whole as a terrorist organization.

General Info:

The Galilee Forces (Quwat al-Jalil) are a Palestinian militia allied with the Ba’athist Syrian government, currently fighting in the Syrian Civil War. Its serves as the armed wing of the Movement of the Youth of the Palestinian Return (Harakat Shabab al-Oudat al-Falastinia). The Galilee Forces have a sub-unit, the Badr Brigades, which is active in Aleppo.

Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Persian: سازمان اطلاعات سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی) is an Iranian intelligence agency within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and part of Council for Intelligence Coordination. The Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was established on Khamanei’s initiative in 2009.

Islamist Jihadist Movement in Palestine known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a Palestinian Islamist organization formed in 1981 whose objective is the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state. PIJ has been labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.

Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, was said to have observed “the guerrilla must swim in the people as the fish swims in the sea”.

It is a lesson known to terrorists and revolutionaries from the IRA to the Taliban and is likely to explain the apparent absence of many Hamas fighters in Gaza.

On the day after Abu ‘Obaidah, the spokesperson for Hamas’ Al-Qassam Islamic Brigade, mentioned the death of the 19-year-old Israeli soldier, “originally from Morocco” as she had described herself in an earlier video clip, I was chatting with my sister, who happened to be in Morocco, and naturally asked her what the news outlets there were saying about Abu ‘Obaidah’s broadcast. She had just been reading the local newspaper (Al Akhbar) and told me with consternation that news about the war on Gaza was buried on page 12 of the newspaper.