GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A video launched by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ navy wing, on Jan. 8 confirmed navy workout routines carried out by the group’s naval commandos dubbed the “Frogmen Unit.” The video included footage of unit members off the coast of Gaza seizing a harness hooked up to the again of a dolphin, which included a holster for a gun- or spear-like gadget.
Al-Qassam Brigades claims the gadget is an “Israeli instrument” supposed to focus on its members.
Israel didn’t subject any official response to al-Qassam Brigades’ claim.
The video confirmed photographs of some members of the naval unit, together with Mohammad Abu Samaan, Ahmad al-Louh, and Ali Bris who have been killed in a automobile explosion a number of meters from the Gaza port on Might 17, 2021, throughout Israel’s operation “Guardian of the Walls.”
The navy factions in Gaza had dubbed this similar operation the “Sword of Jerusalem” battle. Combating between the 2 events lasted for 11 days, and ended on Might 21, 2021, after Egyptian and UN mediation.
In response to the video, Abu Samaan, one of many Frogmen Unit leaders, was the primary to find an Israeli military dolphin. He appeared within the recording carrying a harness he had taken from a dolphin. The video, nonetheless, doesn’t specify the date of the invention.
The primary publicly introduced naval operation by al-Qassam Brigades’ Frogmen Unit was throughout Operation Protective Edge launched by Israel in opposition to the Gaza Strip in 2014, which lasted for about 51 days. Throughout this offensive, the unit infiltrated Israel by way of the ocean and targeted the Israeli naval base reverse the Zikim navy coaching base, on the shore of the Mediterranean on the northern Gaza Strip border with Israel.
Israel accuses Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah of serving to Hamas set up, practice and supply gear and weapons to the Frogmen Unit. The id of the commander of this unit stays secret.
Mohammad Abu Harbid, a safety analyst from Gaza, advised Al-Monitor, “Israel’s use of animals for navy functions is believable. In previous years, Israel sent birds over the airspace of Arab nations. It claimed that they have been used for analysis or scientific functions.”
He added, “A number of vultures have been found in numerous Arab nations corresponding to Lebanon, Sudan and Syria years in the past carrying a tag studying ‘Tel Aviv College.’ These nations claimed the vultures have been used to hold out spying missions by the Israeli intelligence providers.”
It needs to be famous that many universities do use GPS tags to trace migratory patterns of birds.
This isn’t the primary time Israel has been accused of utilizing marine animals for assaults. In 2010, following a spate of shark assaults off the Egyptian Pink Beach, rumors circulated that the Mossad had launched “killer sharks” to hurt Egyptian tourism. Israel promptly dismissed these claims.
“There are lots of of dolphins within the Gaza sea,” Abdel Fattah Abed Rabbo, a professor of environmental sciences on the Islamic College of Gaza, advised Al-Monitor, and the widespread bottlenose dolphin is “one of many smartest animals on this planet.”
The USA and Russia have used dolphins for navy functions for many years, he mentioned, “and Israel [may be] creating its capabilities on this discipline as nicely.”
Al-Qassam Brigades fighters are deployed at sea in addition to on land, Abu Harbid defined, and the invention by Frogmen Unit proves that it’s increasing, regardless of the challenges imposed by the siege of Gaza since 2007. The unit has allowed Hamas to hold out land raids by way of the ocean, as occurred within the Zikim operation within the 2014 conflict.
“Al-Qassam Brigades’ discovery of the dolphin spy got here as a shock to Israel,” Mustafa al-Sawaf, a political analyst near Hamas and former editor-in-chief of the native Felesteen newspaper, advised Al-Monitor. “This video is being launched now for the primary time, though it dates again to earlier than the navy confrontation in Gaza in Might 2021.”
He famous that the video had unveiled solely few particulars of what al-Qassam Brigades was capable of uncover.
Ibrahim al-Madhoun, a member of Hamas’ nationwide relations division, advised Al-Monitor, “The Frogmen Unit, shaped in absolute secrecy, is among the most necessary items of al-Qassam Brigades. All of its members are Hamas members from the Gaza Strip, and so they obtain intensive coaching.”
“It’s not straightforward to develop the Frogmen Unit’s capacities amid the Israeli siege,” he continued, however al-Qassam “has attracted consultants on this discipline to the Gaza Strip. Israel doesn’t know the way the unit was developed nor the gap that frogmen can attain. Al-Qassam Brigades is making an attempt to maintain this unit out of the media highlight.”
The timing of the discharge, Madhoun argued, “was in honor of the Frogmen Unit’s members who died within the final conflict on Gaza. This unit found that Israel is utilizing dolphins to trace Al-Qassam Brigades’ marine commandos and perform suicide assaults in opposition to its members.”
It appears al-Qassam Brigades’ frogmen have turn into a mannequin for different resistance factions. Al-Quds Brigades, the navy wing of the Islamic Jihad, featured members of its personal naval unit it formed in November 2021 in one of many parades organized by the factions periodically within the Gaza Strip to showcase their navy capabilities.
A number of sources from Islamic Jihad refused to touch upon its naval unit to Al-Monitor.
