“The goal is clear, specific, and precise—the removal of ‘israel’ from existence.”
Imad Fayez Mughniyeh. Martyred on this day in 2008 by a car bomb in Damascus following several attempted assassinations by the CIA and Mossad. Today, we remember the martyr Hajj Imad for all that he sacrificed for the sake of liberation and resistance.
It is impossible to describe in a few sentences all that Hajj Imad offered to the regional resistance. This leader, who worked all his life in silence and away from the spotlights to serve Palestine, the mother of all causes.
Described as the “untraceable ghost,” Hajj Radwan would sneak in and out of Gaza from Lebanon without detection, confusing the enemy entity. Being Hezbollah’s second in command, he worked hand-in-hand with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, providing them with military strategy, training, weaponry, and information during the Intifadas.
The extensive tunnel network under Gaza that now terrifies the occupation was his and Hajj Qassem Soleimani’s idea, as described by Hamas official Ahmed Abdulhadi.
Former PIJ head Ramadan Shallah recalled, “I don’t remember a time when Hajj Imad refused a request for the resistance. If you told him his coat was nice, he would take it off and give it to you. He was a natural leader, able to manage 100 tasks without failing any. Imad Mughniyeh restored the Palestinian cause as an Arab and Islamic cause. His fingerprints are on every missile and bullet in Palestine.”
From Hezbollah’s inception, Hajj Imad commanded some of the most notable resistance operations against occupation and colonialism, including the Beirut barracks bombings, killing 300 US and French soldiers.
Hajj Imad had a deep relationship with Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Both of their sons, Jihad and Hadi, were martyred.
Upon the martyrdom of his son Jihad years later, in an IOF airstrike in Qunaitira, commander-in-chief of the Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, sent a letter to Sayyed Nasrallah, offering his condolences.
For our leaders, the goal has always been clear, specific, and precise. The Unity of the Fields has always been present, years before that battle took place. Today, despite all the pain, we witness the fruits of years of hard resistance, resolve, and hard work, that rose on the 7th of October, never to set again.
Hajj Imad’s philosophy, that “what fights within us is the soul,” encapsulates the essence of our resistance. Our enemies may own weapons. They may own the world’s support and International Court’s verdicts. What they will never own, unlike our people, the children of the land, is their fighting spirits, the unwavering will, to take on a tank bare-handed.
Hajj Qassem Soleimani said: “The punishment for the blood of Imad will not be firing rockets. The punishment for the blood of Imad will not be killing a single person. The punishment for the blood of Imad, and those like Imad who were martyred in Palestine and Lebanon, and those martyred in Iran and the other regions during the zionist entity’s conspiracy, will be the uprooting and removal of this zionist entity murderer of children.”
Glory to our leaders, who have set the example of martyrdom.
Glory to our steadfast people and their unwavering will to fight for the homeland.
Glory to the martyrs.