By Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo

Unlike the Palestinian message, the Israeli message is not global, but very much a localized cry for help: get us out of Gaza.

This is not your typical video. The event itself might be similar to numerous other events: a fighter emerging from a tunnel, placing a bomb under an Israeli Merkava tank, and returning to his tunnel before a massive explosion takes place.

This is what is called an operation from zero distance. But the video, this time, is different, as it was not released by the Al-Qassam Brigades or any other group. There is no foreboding music in the background, no slick edits, no red triangles. The reason? The video was released by the Israeli army itself.

This raises many questions, including why the Israeli army would report the bravery of a Palestinian fighter and the successful blowing up of the pride and joy of the Israeli military, the Merkava.

The answer might lie in the sense of despair in the Israeli military, an army that knows well that it has lost the war or, at best, is unable to clinch victory, even after it laid Gaza to waste and exterminated nearly 10 percent of its population (between the killed, wounded, and missing).

مقاوم فلسطيني خرج فجأة من بين الأنقاض، وثبّت عبوة ناسفة على دبابة إسرائيلية من مسافة صفر، ثم عاد إلى مخبئه قبل أن تنفجر .

في غزة للصفر قيمة. pic.twitter.com/OvNwKZwago

— Tamer | تامر (@tamerqdh) June 10, 2025

This sentiment is now very well-known among Israelis, as Israeli media, which initially touted the idea of ‘total victory,’ is now the one promoting a version of Israel’s own total defeat.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Itzhak Brik wrote that Israel is on the verge of “collective suicide” and that the army has effectively been defeated by Hamas in Gaza.

“With a political and military echelon of this type, there is no need for external enemies; they will bring disaster upon us in their stupidity,” he warned, adding:

“We may soon reach a point of no return, and the only thing left for us to do is pray to our God to come to our aid, and then we will all become messiahs who pray for miracles.”

Brik can no longer be accused of being the detached former soldier who is horribly misreading the situation on the ground. Even those on the ground are expressing the exact same sentiment.

On Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted an Israeli infantry soldier who expressed a feeling of brokenness after returning to fighting in Gaza, stating that “everyone is exhausted and uncertain.”

‘Hamas has Defeated Us’ – Ret. Israeli Maj. Gen. Brik Speaks of ‘Collective Suicide’

The Israeli soldier reportedly added that he feels there is no appreciation for the lives of soldiers fighting in Gaza and that they have moved from offense to defense, noting that the soldiers “doubt the objectives of the war.”

Many in the pro-Palestine circle, which now represents the dominant global narrative on the war, are celebrating the bravery of the young men in the video and, by extension, the bravery of Gaza, deeply wounded but still fighting, in fact, winning.

But there is more to the story than this. The fact that a tank belonging to the 401st Brigade would be blown up in such a way, under the watchful eye of Israeli drones, which could only report the event without being able to change it, is telling us something.

But unlike the Palestinian message, the Israeli message is not global, but very much a localized cry for help: get us out of Gaza.

Whether Israeli politicians, lead among them the master of political survival, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, will listen or not, that is a completely different question.

(The Palestine Chronicle)