La Vaun Yonqui

I have just published my article, "Yahya al-Sinwar’s 'camouflage plan' for Operation al-Aqsa Flood: A History of Palestinian Resistance Operations Between the 2021 War and Tufan al-Aqsa." The article reviews several important intelligence-gathering and preparatory activities that Sinwar undertook after the 2021 "Sword of Jerusalem" war to deceive the occupation while auguring the ground for the Tufan al-Aqsa operation. These were twofold, consisting of, on the one hand: feigning containment and socialization by publicly disbanding the al-Nukhba "Elite" Force, courting Qatari financial assistance in exchange for calm, and inaugurating a "trader permits" and “economic needs” worker program that allowed for day workers to cross the Green Line. Simultaneously, Sinwar oversaw the creation of a paraglider shell company, coordinated rocket launches from southern Lebanon with Hizbu'llah, strengthened the Joint Operations Room, and had a role in the "Rebel Youth" September 2023 border protests that allowed for the resistance to practice targeting the occupation's surveillance infrastructure and map out its response to kinetic strikes on the Malaka military post. This review of the proximate history to Tufan al-Aqsa evinces how Sinwar assiduously instrumentalized the appearance of containment and socialization. The article is linked in the first comment below. EXCERPT: "In their 27 February 2023 interview with host Ahmed Mansour, [...] Mahmoud Mardawi and Jasser al-Barghouti revealed Yahya al-Sinwar’s 'camouflage plan for Operation al-Aqsa Flood.' Specifically, when asked about the operation, al-Barghouti remarked that 'Abu Ibrahim, having understood how to realize his goal, set in motion his deception plan [...] to allow workers to enter Israel so that he could also enter himself, as he wanted to give the appearance that the situation was normal.' On 6 October 2021, the Chamber of Commerce in Gaza began accepting applications from thousands of Palestinian citizens who sought to work in the territories occupied in 1948 or in the West Bank. The Civil Affairs Authority received 2,600 applications shortly after the announcement, which were processed under the 'trader permit' category. In January 2022, through an “economic needs” permit program, the quota of workers permitted to travel beyond the 'Green Line' was increased from 7,000 to 10,000. It reached over 15,000 by October 2023. [...] One of the more perspicacious covert preparations was al-Sinwar’s creation of a paragliding shell company that, though initially open for public use, soon imposed exorbitant prices, which prohibited non-militants from flying and thereby licensed the resistance to train using its equipment. [...] On 12 September 2023, Palestinian resistance groups conducted the joint exercise “Al-Rukn Al-Shadid 4” (Mighty Pillar 4), designed to evaluate the speed and coordination of the resistance’s response in the event of an emergency. [...] Sinwar had directed the commanders overseeing this training operation to ensure that the training was done publicly 'because the enemy would detect any covert operation through aircraft.' This is, at least, the reasoning that he provided the resistance soldiers who participated in the training session. The real reason was, in fact, far-sighted: if the exercise was conducted openly, al-Sinwar determined, it would give the impression that Hamas was attempting to quell its rank-and-file who—given the recent disbanding of the al-Nukhba Force, Hamas’ increased appearances of “containment,” and the Qassam leadership’s recent decision not to participate directly in the 5–7 August 2022 'Unity of the Fields' and 9–13 May 2023 'Revenge of the Free' confrontations between PIJ and the occupation—were worried that Hamas was abandoning its decades-long strategy of militarily confronting the occupation. Indeed, this is precisely how the occupation’s own Shin Bet received the open military exercise, as evidenced by its own after-action assessment. [...] On 27 September 2023, the same day that a number of the 'Rebel Youth' activists detonated a homemade explosive device near the fence east of Khan Younis, a resistance sniper from Gaza targeted the occupation’s surveillance cameras east of Gaza. On 7 October 2023, resistance snipers would, alongside commercial drones armed with explosives, similarly target surveillance cameras. As is well known, at Nahal Oz, most of the surveillance cameras were disabled as an initial measure; a key preliminary operation before the main operation focused on targeting and blinding surveillance cameras, communications towers, and other Israeli intelligence-collection means using paragliders and drones that slipped into the Gaza envelope."