“Beat Hanon” Gaza; Palestinian people’s resistance center

Mehr News, International group: if we want a point to name in the Gaza Strip as a center of resistance, we should mention the city of Beit Hanoun. Beit Hanoun was one of the first areas that was involved in the war after the Al-Aqsa storm operation, and Hamas forces were actively present there until the last days before the ceasefire.

Geographical and demographic location

Beit Hanoun is a Palestinian city on the northeast coast of the Gaza Strip at an altitude of 50 meters above sea level. According to the report of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, this city had a population of 52,237 in 2017. This city is located near the Hanun River. Beit Hanoun is nearly 6 kilometers away from the Zionist settlement of “Sderot” located in the territories of 1948. Beit Hanoun is an agricultural town and most of its residents depend on agriculture and land cultivation for their livelihood. Before the recent war, the most famous feature of this city was the cultivation of citrus fruits and vegetables. The distinctive feature of this city is the presence of many schools under the supervision of the United Nations Relief Agency.

The geographical advantage of this city is the presence of the largest land crossing that connects the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. Not all Palestinians can use the Beit Hanoun crossing. Its use is limited to Palestinians who have a Palestinian Authority identity card or a Zionist work permit, Egyptian citizens and international aid workers.

Until the recent war, this area was the only crossing used by about 18,500 Palestinians who were allowed access to the West Bank and the occupied territories for various reasons. were doing The Zionist regime was closing this crossing until one week before October 7, 2023. Hazem Qassem, the spokesman of Hamas, called the closure of this crossing a form of collective punishment by the Zionist regime.

Beit Hanoun in the struggle against the occupation

Beit Hanoun, due to its geographical and historical location, has been one of the centers of Palestinian struggle against the invaders. During the years of the second intifada and successive wars in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army did a lot of destruction in Beit Hanoun, attacked this city many times and also destroyed large areas of agricultural land with bulldozers and bombarded this area. This city was targeted by Israeli armored units in November 2006. In these attacks, 52 people were martyred and 250 people were injured. These attacks led to the destruction of large areas of cultivated land, industries, bridges, roads, power plants and water supply networks. In April 2008, in an attack by the Zionist forces on Beit Hanoun, five members of a family (a mother and four children) were martyred.

The people of Beit Hanoun suffered heavy losses in the attacks of the Zionist regime in the 8-day war in 2012 and the 51-day war in July 2014. On July 18, 2014, eight members of the Abu Jarad family, including four children, were martyred when a rocket fired at their house in Beit Hanoun. On July 19, five civilians, including four members of the Zweid family, were martyred by the shelling of Zionist forces in Beit Hanoun. On July 24, a United Nations school in Beit Hanoun, where about 1,500 displaced people were sheltering, was hit by several rockets and at least 16 people were martyred and 150 others were injured. On July 25, the forces of the occupying regime targeted Beit Hanoun hospital with bullets.

Beit Hanoun resistance from the beginning to the end of the war

The city of Beit Hanoun has been targeted by the Zionist regime since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa storm. One of the general strategies of the Zionist enemy to deal with this operation in the first days is to destroy the front lines of residential areas in The entire border strip, especially in the most northeastern part of Gaza, was in Beit Hanoun. Beit Hanoun was also one of the places where the Zionist Army started the ground war with the resistance forces on October 27.

This area has been the site of important developments since the beginning of Operation Storm. In a report in the middle of the war, Israel Hum newspaper quoted an unnamed Israeli army officer as saying: “Beit Hanoun was heavily bombed during the first attack on the city in October 2023, which led to further destruction of the area. Now there is an unimaginable number of Israeli casualties in Beit Hanoun

Also, less than two weeks after the start of the al-Aqsa storm operation, the Independent newspaper quoted a source in Hamas and announced that this group attacked the settlements in the Gaza Strip. A strategic security treasure has been acquired. The intelligence officers of the Zionist regime were preparing to meet with the spies to obtain information about the Palestinian resistance, but they were surprised when Hamas fighters attacked their offices and took their files and computers. This information was obtained in the attack on Beit Hanoun/Erez crossing.

After more than 15 months of this war, satellite images of the city of Beit Hanoun indicate that its residential areas have been destroyed like other cities in the Gaza Strip. A major part of the infrastructure, buildings, services, public centers, hospitals, schools and other places have also been destroyed in this city.

The residents of this city are exposed to the most severe air and ground attacks of the Zionist regime, especially in the two months of November and December 2024. were located Especially since the end of December, the occupiers started a massive operation in Beit Hanoun with the aim of evacuating it from Palestinians and completing the demolition of the buildings. Nevertheless, forces of the Zionist regime were not safe from resistance ambushes anywhere in Beit Hanoun until the last days before the ceasefire. In fact, since the beginning of the war, despite the occupation of this city by the Zionists several times, we still saw rocket attacks from this area.

Network 13 of the Zionist regime announced in January 2025 about the level of preparedness of the resistance fighters in Beit Hanoun: “The resistance fighters have used explosives in all the alleys that came from inside the tunnels are activated. We do not see them with the naked eye. We have not directly identified the fighters for a week and a half. They have completely bombed Beit Hanoun with large amounts of explosives. All alleys and intersections are filled with the latest cameras, some of which are thermal cameras that cover a 360-degree range.” The continuation of Hamas operations in this city even made senior officers of the Zionist army recommend to political authorities that a permanent security buffer zone be established in a part of Beit Hanoun.

Result

The city of Beit Hanoun in the northeast of Gaza has played a prominent role in Gaza from the beginning to the end of the recent war. The location of this city in the northeast of Gaza is its main advantage. The people of this city suffered a lot of losses in the 2008, 2012 and 2014 wars with the Zionist regime. At the same time, the peak of their resistance was manifested after the Al-Aqsa storm operation. Although this city was under direct fire from the beginning to the end of the war, the presence of Hamas forces continued in it until before the ceasefire.