Al-Qassam Brigades paid tribute to the secretive Shadow Unit, credited with securing Israeli captives in Gaza and ensuring the success of prisoner exchanges, as its rare public appearance sparked debate in Israel.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, issued a tribute on Tuesday to the Shadow Unit, following the handover of Israeli soldiers who had been held captive by the resistance.
In a statement published on Telegram, the Qassam Brigades wrote: “A fitting tribute to the unknown soldiers of the Shadow Unit,” describing the group as responsible for protecting and concealing the prisoners held by the resistance, despite Israel’s persistent attempts to uncover their fate.
The Brigades added that the tribute was “for those who safeguarded the enemy’s prisoners throughout two years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada under the most difficult conditions, giving their effort and blood until the resistance’s promise of freedom for our prisoners was fulfilled.”
The Qassam Shadow Unit, its very name sends tremors through the corridors of Zionist intelligence, symbolizing the highest form of clandestine warfare and security professionalism in the modern era. To outsiders, it’s a ghostly entity, no faces, no leaks, no statements, just… pic.twitter.com/VI4YwxFrx2
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) October 14, 2025
The Shadow Unit operates in strict secrecy due to the sensitive nature of its mission — ensuring the security of Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip and maintaining total anonymity to preserve the success of future prisoner exchange operations.
The existence of the unit was first publicly acknowledged in 2016, a decade after its establishment, when it was revealed that it had been assigned to guard Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit — an operation that ultimately led to a successful prisoner exchange.
Ahead of the prisoners’ release on Monday, members of the unit allowed the captives to speak by phone with their families.
One member even addressed a family in Hebrew, requesting that they share the video publicly so that Israeli media would broadcast the footage of the conversations from inside Gaza.
Israel’s Channel 12 later reported on “the appearance of a Hamas shadow unit responsible for securing prisoners during the first batch’s release in Gaza City.”
The presence of the unit, the channel noted, provoked outrage among Israeli commentators, who interpreted its public reemergence as proof that “Hamas rules Gaza, period.”
(PC, AJA)
captive by the resistance — stop using these Zionist propaganda terminology! They are “Prisoners of War”!
I totally agree. Not oly that, but most of them are soldiers anyway. So they are by no means captives.