By Wesam Bahrani
In a major sign of the widening regional solidarity with the oppressed and starving Palestinian population in the besieged Gaza Strip, the Iraqi resistance has begun to directly target the Israeli regime’s military sites and assets.
In what has been branded a new phase, the Iraqi resistance against the American occupation, which considers Washington’s main regional proxy, the Israeli regime, by the same token, launched a drone attack against Umm al-Rashrash.
Umm al-Rashrash is the Israeli-occupied Palestinian city that the regime refers to as Eilat.
Since October 7, the occupying regime has effectively emptied Umm al-Rashrash from its settlers and turned the city in the southern region of the Israeli-occupied territories into a military garrison.
The move has backfired and turned Umm al-Rashrash into an open target for attacks by the Palestinian resistance and the Yemeni military.
And now the Iraqi resistance has also entered the fray – hitting the occupying regime where it hurts the most.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq announced that it targeted the city in retaliation for the Israeli regime’s daily massacres of Palestinian civilians that have drawn widespread global condemnation.
The death toll in the besieged coastal strip since October 7 now tops 20,000, most of them children and women. Hospitals, schools, refugee camps – everything has been decimated in the Israeli strikes.
Following the end of the week-long ceasefire earlier this month, the Iraqi resistance group considerably expanded its operations against illegal US bases in Iraq and Syria as well as the US embassy in Baghdad, which it accuses of direct complicity in the Israeli massacre of Palestinians.
In a statement, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq declared that it has entered a new phase in its battle against the unlawful US occupation and Israeli interests.
The statement referred to an increase in attacks from Iraqi soil against the Israeli regime’s military sites and assets affiliated with the occupying regime.
It has been widely viewed as a sign of increasing solidarity with the people of Gaza at a time when the regime has unleashed its genocidal war against them.
In another statement, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq revealed that it had targeted a vital Israeli asset in the Mediterranean Sea.
It attributed the attack as retaliation for the Israeli aggression “against our brothers in Gaza”.
A source from the Islamic Resistance in Iraq explained that a critical infrastructure that was targeted in the Mediterranean Sea was the Karish gas field platform, the regime’s offshore gas field.
‘In continuation of our approach to resisting the occupation, in support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted a vital target a few days ago in the Mediterranean, with the appropriate weapons, we achieved a direct hit,” read the statement issued by the Iraqi resistance.
Toward the end of the statement, the Iraqi resistance group affirmed that they “shall continue to destroy the enemy’s strongholds”, a clear and categorical warning to the Zionist regime.
It is widely believed that a long-range drone loaded with a large amount of explosives was used in the complex operation carried out by the Iraqi resistance forces.
The statement implies that the new phase of operations has started. It also reveals that the Iraqi resistance is not hiding its operations against the regime from the public eye.
There is nothing secretive anymore. It’s all in the public domain.
In a similar fashion to the Yemeni military, Iraq’s Islamic Resistance has claimed responsibility and allowed sources to reveal further information to the media.
In essence, it has made its position and military measures against the Israeli regime known to the world.
The Secretary-General of the al-Nujaba Movement in Iraq, Sheikh Akram al-Ka’abi, affirmed that the military resistance against the American occupation and the Zionist regime will not stop until victory is achieved, stressing that the resistance “does not retreat or compromise”.
In a post on social media, al-Kaabi also touched on the US occupation saying “The closer we get to victory, the louder the screams of some people become, until we cannot distinguish whether the occupation does not want to leave or is being protected by some,” referring to what he believes is the protection of the American occupation by a small group in the political circle.
He called on some parties in Iraq that if they do not support the Islamic resistance in its actions against America and its Israeli puppet, at least not take sides with “the enemy of Iraq, your enemy and our enemy,” pointing out that the tricks of the American occupation will not deceive the resistance.
The number of attacks against the illegal US bases in Iraq has already surpassed 100.
There is an Iraqi saying that reads, “Those who have been soaked with water are no longer afraid of the rain”. It has been widely used among Iraqis who have for two decades faced an extremely difficult era.
The shock and awe campaign of the US military invasion of Iraq in 2003 began this campaign of terror, which automatically made a resistance emerge that kicked out the occupation in 2011.
During this period from 2005 to 2008, there were almost daily terrorist attacks staged by al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). AQI then slowly transformed into Daesh, which took over two-thirds of Iraq in the summer of 2014.
The Takfiri group wreaked havoc, which many Iraqis say was a creation of the US and its Israeli proxy.
Despite Daesh acting like AQI on steroids, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) liberated the country from the terrorist group in 2017.
Then came the US assassination of top anti-terror commanders, the chief of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani and PMU deputy commander Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis in January 2020 that sparked nationwide protests.
Muhandis was a very popular figure in the Arab country. It is perhaps fair to say that having survived so much terror from the US to AQI to Daesh, the Iraqi resistance no longer has anything to be afraid of.
The legacy of Muhandis is to stand firmly with the oppressed against occupation and tyranny, even if that tyranny and terror are being waged against innocent children beyond the Iraqi borders.
This explains why the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has stood with the oppressed children of Gaza. Children in the besieged strip are on the verge of starvation as documented by the UN and international aid agencies, who accuse the Israeli regime of using “starvation as a weapon of war”.
It also paves the way for the Iraqi resistance to expand its operations against the Israeli regime until it ends its indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
It would not be a surprise to see more attacks in coming weeks against Israeli military sites such as Umm al-Rashrash or Eilat as well as other operations targeting Israeli interests in the region.
If an Israeli merchant vessel is attacked in the Arabian Sea, (and one has been hit after Yemen imposed an embargo on Israeli vessels in the Red Sea), we should not be surprised that this attack may be the work of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
Wesam Bahrani is an Iraqi journalist and commentator.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
