The most popular man in Palestine has no face. Abou Obeida (“the father of Obeida”), his nom de guerre, appears on the screens, masked by a red keffiyeh which only lets his eyes guess. He has been the voice of Hamas since the start of hostilities against Israel on May 11. The only officer to speak regularly in the armed wing of the Islamist movement, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, whose leadership lives cut off from the world.
Each of this spokesperson’s interventions sparked a wave of announcements, on Facebook, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean: “Abu Obeida will speak. ” Palestinians in Gaza watch with a mixture of fear and pride his promises of shooting against Israel. For those of Ramallah, the political center of the occupied West Bank, it is a link to this conflict so close, which some observe from the hills, at night, exclaiming when the trace of a rocket fire announced by Abu Obeida passes. through the web of intercepting projectiles of the Israeli defense system, Iron Dome.
Military fatigues tightened on a heavy chest, Palestinian flag on the heart, on the shoulder an escutcheon of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida speaks with a confident voice. He was already active during the three previous conflicts against Israel, in 2008, 2012, and 2014. “But 3G did not exist in Ramallah at the time. Now anyone can follow him ”, notes journalist Mohammed Najib.
“He gives us hope”
“I listen to it when I want to know what’s really going on in Gaza and Israel. He makes us feel strong despite the destruction. Despite the injustice of what is happening to us, it gives us hope ”, said Hanine Ali, a 25-year-old schoolteacher, born in Gaza, who lives in a neighborhood in East Jerusalem enclosed behind the separation wall.
This is the whole logic of an asymmetric war. Abu Obeida is an important officer for Hamas: he asserts his resistance to an Israeli power far superior to his own. Palestinians praise the reliability of his announcements. Their certainty that gunfire will follow his words contributes to his prestige. He made people laugh, on the evening of May 15, pretending to reverse this balance of power, announcing that the movement was interrupting its fire on central Israel: “By order of Commander Mohammed Deif, the curfew in Tel Aviv and its surroundings is lifted for two hours, from 10 p.m. to midnight”, he said.
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