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How the Gaza Truce Exposed Israeli Intelligence Failures

FILE - Fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, control the crowd as Red Cross vehicles come to collect Israeli hostages under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abed Hajjar, File)
FILE - Fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, control the crowd as Red Cross vehicles come to collect Israeli hostages under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abed Hajjar, File)
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How the Gaza Truce Exposed Israeli Intelligence Failures

FILE - Fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, control the crowd as Red Cross vehicles come to collect Israeli hostages under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abed Hajjar, File)
FILE - Fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, control the crowd as Red Cross vehicles come to collect Israeli hostages under a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, Jan. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Abed Hajjar, File)

The public appearance of Hussein Fayyad, a senior commander in Hamas' military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, following the Gaza truce, has stunned Israel’s security establishment.

Eight months earlier, Israel had declared him assassinated.

Fayyad, known by his nom de guerre “Abu Hamza,” was seen addressing residents in the streets of Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza. He spoke about “victory and combat,” a development Israeli officials have described as a “security failure.”

In May, the Israeli army announced his killing and even released a photo purportedly confirming his death.

Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the recent video of Fayyad was recorded during the funeral of several fighters from the Beit Hanoun Battalion, who were killed in clashes with the Israeli army.

Among them was a fighter from the Abu Amsha family, who reportedly led an operation that killed Israeli soldiers shortly before the ceasefire came into effect.

Fayyad’s recent appearance sparked controversy in Israel.

His video, which circulated widely on social media, prompted the Israeli army to issue a statement on Wednesday. The military had previously declared Fayyad’s death, claiming he was responsible for multiple attacks, including launching anti-tank missiles and mortars.

However, after further checks, the Israeli army admitted that the intelligence used to confirm his death was not accurate.

As of Thursday afternoon, the statement was only available in Hebrew, with no translation for foreign media or Arabic speakers.

Fayyad gained prominence after the 2014 war, where he led Hamas fighters and inflicted heavy losses on Israeli forces. He became the commander of the Beit Hanoun Battalion, reorganizing it after the conflict.

During the 2021 Gaza conflict, Fayyad directed mortar attacks on Israeli forces near the Erez Crossing and fired anti-tank missiles at targets along the Gaza border.

Fayyad survived several assassination attempts, including one in the latest conflict.

Fayyad’s case is not the first instance where Israeli military reports have been inaccurate.

According to Hamas sources, the Israeli military issued inaccurate or false reports regarding the assassination of Hamas and Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades leaders during the conflict.

Some of the individuals targeted were either injured and later recovered, or were not present at the locations claimed to have been hit.

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades operate a military structure comprising five divisions: the Northern Division, Gaza Division, Central Division, Khan Younis Division, and Rafah Division.

Each division includes several brigades, which are made up of units, factions, and military formations, collectively comprising thousands of fighters.

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Despite Truce, Lebanese from Devastated Naqoura Cannot Go Home 

Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
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Despite Truce, Lebanese from Devastated Naqoura Cannot Go Home 

Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

All signs of life have disappeared from the bombed-out houses and empty streets of the Lebanese border town of Naqoura, but despite a fragile Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire that has held since November, no one can return.

The Israeli military is still deployed in parts of Lebanon's south, days ahead of a January 26 deadline to fully implement the terms of the truce.

The deal gave the parties 60 days to withdraw -- Israel back across the border, and Hezbollah farther north -- as the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers redeployed to the south.

The Lebanese military has asked residents of Naqoura not to go back home for their own safety after Israel's army issued similar orders, but in spite of the danger, Mayor Abbas Awada returned to inspect the destruction.

"Naqoura has become a disaster zone of a town... the bare necessities of life are absent here," he said in front of the damaged town hall, adding he was worried a lack of funds after years of economic crisis would hamper reconstruction.

"We need at least three years to rebuild," he continued, as a small bulldozer worked to remove rubble near the municipal offices.

Lebanese soldiers deployed in coastal Naqoura after Israeli troops pulled out of the country's southwest on January 6, though they remain in the southeast.

The Israelis' withdrawal from Naqoura left behind a sea of wreckage.

Opposite the town hall, an old tree has been uprooted. Empty, damaged houses line streets filled with rubble.

Most of the widespread destruction occurred after the truce took hold, Awada said.

"The Israeli army entered the town after the ceasefire" and "destroyed the houses", he said.

"Before the ceasefire, 35 percent of the town was destroyed, but after the truce, 90 percent of it" was demolished, he added, mostly with controlled explosions and bulldozers.

A resident previously displaced because of the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, stands in his damaged home as he returns to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

- Smell of death -

Under the November 27 ceasefire deal, which ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.

At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.

Both sides have accused each other of violations since the truce began.

Around the nearby UNIFIL headquarters, houses are still intact, but almost everywhere else in Naqoura lies destruction.

Facades are shorn from bombed-out houses, while others are reduced to crumpled heaps, abandoned by residents who had fled for their lives, leaving behind furniture, clothes and books.

AFP saw a completely destroyed school, banana plantations that had withered away and unharvested oranges on trees, their blossoming flowers barely covering the smell of rotting bodies.

On Tuesday, the civil defense agency said it had recovered two bodies from the rubble in Naqoura.

Lebanese soldiers who patrolled the town found an unexploded rocket between two buildings, AFP saw.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began firing across the border into Israel in support of its ally Hamas, a day after the Palestinian group launched its attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP that its forces were committed to the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

They said the army was working "to remove threats to the State of Israel and its citizens, in full accordance with international law".

UN vehicles drive past debris of damaged buildings in Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

- 'We want the wars to end' -

On the coastal road to Naqoura UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have set up checkpoints.

Hezbollah's yellow flags fluttered in the wind, but no fighters could be seen.

Twenty kilometers to the north, in Tyre, Fatima Yazbeck waits impatiently in a reception center for the displaced for her chance to return home.

She fled Naqoura 15 months ago, and since then, "I haven't been back", she said, recounting her sadness at learning her house had been destroyed.

Ali Mehdi, a volunteer at the reception center, said his home was destroyed as well.

"My house was only damaged at first," he said. "But after the truce, the Israelis entered Naqoura and destroyed the houses, the orchards and the roads."

In the next room, Mustafa Al-Sayed has been waiting with his large family for more than a year to return to his southern village of Beit Lif.

He had been forced to leave once before, during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

"Do we have to take our families and flee every 20 years?" he asked. "We want a definitive solution, we want the wars to end."