Jaysh al-Ummah Statement on Gaza: Overview and Analysis

Since the 7 October massacre in which Hamas and other militants killed hundreds of Israeli civilians, it has become common to see Hamas described as a ‘jihadist’ group. While this label ostensibly makes sense in that Hamas sees its fight against Israel as a form of jihad and ‘Islamic resistance,’ and some of the group’s officials have spoken about a future in which the Muslim world is united under a caliphate, applying the label to Hamas can obscure differences between Hamas and groups that are more conventionally labelled as jihadist: in particular, the ‘Salafi-jihadist’ groups, of which the most familiar are the Islamic State and al-Qa’ida . For example, Hamas’ use of the Palestinian national flag is something that would be rejected by jihadists, who believe that national flags represent identities that deviate from the necessity of unifying Muslims as one political and religious community (that unity being embodied in a future Caliphate).

Moreover, Hamas maintains ties with Iran and refrains from declaring existing governments of Muslim-majority countries to be ‘apostate’ systems that must be violently overthrown. Hamas’ ties to Iran are particularly unacceptable to the Islamic State (which declares Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood from which it derives, to be ‘apostates’), and Hamas’ general approach to existing governments in the Muslim world is to be contrasted with jihadists around the world who wage insurgent campaigns against Muslim governments in places such as the Sahel and Somalia on the basis of establishing ‘proper’ Islamic governments in those lands through violent revolution, and then ultimately uniting the Muslim world through those newly established governments.

In Gaza, there are groups that can be labelled as jihadist in the more conventional way. Two of the most notable ones now are Jaysh al-Ummah (the subject of this post) and Jaysh al-Islam. I conducted interviews with both of these groups in 2019: Jaysh al-Ummah being supportive of al-Qa’ida, while Jaysh al-Islam supports the Islamic State. Both of these groups have also experienced tensions with Hamas (though Jaysh al-Islam is more at odds with Hamas than Jaysh al-Ummah is), and have been relatively quiet since 7 October. Compared to Hamas, these forces are marginal, and they are likely to remain marginal even if Israel manages to dismantle Hamas’ administrative control of Gaza.

Jaysh al-Ummah has now released a statement about the ‘al-Aqsa Flood’ operation launched by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent campaign in Gaza. The statement illustrates that the group participated as a minor faction in the original 7 October massacre and is fighting against the Israeli forces in Gaza (confirming what the group once told me in 2019 about it being permissible to wage jihad alongside Hamas despite its criticisms of the group’s governance of Gaza, since Hamas is not considered ‘apostate’ by Jaysh al-Ummah). Similarly like Hamas, the group endorses attacks by Palestinians against Israel, whether acting in groups or alone.

But the statement also shows jihadist divergences with Hamas. Most notably, the group specifically calls on Muslims around the world to do whatever they can to target the interests of Western countries for supporting Israel and fiercely denounces governments of Muslim countries such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (‘the statelet of the Hebrew conspiracies’) and Saudi Arabia (whose royal family are called ‘The Salul Family,’ a typical jihadist designation for them because of their ties with the West). The statement indeed follows typical jihadist rhetoric in portraying the current Muslim governments as illegitimate entities to be overthrown.

Below is the statement fully translated, plus a clarification from the group’s al-Raya Media about its silence over the past two months. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Jaysh al-Ummah in Bayt al-Maqdis
Friday: 23 Jumada Awal 1445 AH corresponding to 8 December 2023 CE

General Command
Statement number: 45

The al-Aqsa Flood Battle: the one who has abandoned them does not harm them.

“And what is the matter with you that you do not fight in the path of God and the oppressed men, women and children who say: ‘Our Lord, get us out of this city whose people are oppressive, and grant us a trustee from You, and grant us a helper from You.’”

More than two months have passed since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Flood Battle, in which the mujahidin of Jaysh al-Ummah in Bayt al-Maqdis have written the greatest lines of heroism in the pages of might and glory, in which they have expended the most precious ting they have in order to support the Shari’a and the oppressed, despite their small numbers and equipment. For God ennobled the mujahidin to assault the borders and fences and kill the Jews in the early morning of 7 October. Thus they inflicted a great massacre upon God’s enemies, and in that epic battle fell the brave knight Abu Mujahid al-Ghazawi, one of the knights of the Shari’a: (may God accept him), so that he should water the tree of Tawhid [monotheism] with his blood.

Then the artillery units struck the damned settlements of the Jews and what they have usurped, and likewise the military positions with dozens of missiles and heavy calibre mortar rounds. Once the Jews’ forces began the land incursion into the north of the Gaza strip and Gaza City, the mujahidin of Jaysh al-Ummah received them with their IEDs, anti-tank fire and machine guns, killing and wounding them. As a result of these clashes, the mujahid brother Ahmad Salih Shadi (may God accept him), who is the nephew of the mujahid shaykh Abu Hafs al-Maqdisi, was killed. For he directly clashed with a force on foot in the Shaykh Radhwan neighbourhood in Gaza City. By the grace of God alone, the lions of Tawhid from the sons of Jaysh al-Ummah and the purely devoted of their mujahidin brothers continue to defend the abodes of the Ummah and write pages of might and defiance in fighting the enemy.

We are facing the Jewish killing machine, genocide, the Jews’ feasting on the blood of the Muslims (including the children, women and elderly among them), and a systematic series of displacements of this defiant Muslim people. We send to our Palestinian people in Gaza the sincerest expressions of thanks and appreciation for their patience and steadfastness, and what they have recorded from the most magnificent scenes of effort, sacrifice, giving, and surrender to and contentment with God’s decree of fate. Scenes from which the blind and the one with sight can see the brotherhood of the mujahirin [migrants] and the ansar [supporters/locals], and the division of housing, goods and morsel of bread. So may God decree your reward.

On the other hand, it has become clear to the sons of our Ummah who have been deceived by the culture of the disbelieving West and their false democracy and their so-called human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights, how the Jews have trampled these things with their feet, the tracks of their tanks and the embers of their aircraft. For children, women and elderly have been killed, and the taboo of the bodies of the martyrs and premature babies has been violated, and mosques, hospitals and homes for the disabled have been destroyed, and not even the Christians’ churches have been safe from the Jews’ oppression. Neighbourhoods have been wiped off the map, families have been erased from the civilian record, and all this is just a round from the series of Jewish killing and infliction of damage that have been ongoing for dozens of years, and there is no power or force except in God.

Oh our Palestinian Muslim people, wherever you are in the West Bank, the occupied interior and the diaspora. Hurry to a profitable sale, hurry to do business with God, business in which the one who renounces, clearly loses. Attack God’s enemies- the Jews- as much as you can, set traps for them wherever you can with IEDs and snipers. Make your Ummah see the way to deal with this, and that you are sons of war who have been born for war. For God’s sake, think of the martyrdom operations [suicide bombings], for by God they have greater impact than a million rockets and mortars. For God’s sake, think of the love wolves, the likes of Khayri ‘Alqam, Ra’ad Khazim, Dheya’ Hamarasha and others besides them. For they made the entity state stand on one foot and paralysed its security apparatuses with their heroic operations. Through the likes of these blessed operations, you will turn the table on the Jews, and through them, by the permission of God, there will be deliverance for your brothers in mighty Gaza.

Oh our Islamic Ummah from east to west. The time has for come for you to shake off the clothing of humiliation and submissiveness, and get rid of the rulers who exercise authority over our necks, and rise up as one man to support the religion of God and the oppressed. For in the authentic hadith on the authority of Ibn ‘Umar (may God be pleased with him): he said: I heard the Messenger of God (SAWS) saying: “If you engage in usury by selling goods, and you take the tails of cows, and you are content with farming, and you abandon jihad, God will impose humiliation on you. He will not remove this humiliation until you return to your religion.” So where are the proud youth of the Ummah from the fields of might? For the interests of disbelief are spread about in the abode of Islam, and by God, their interests, states, and security are weaker than the spider’s web for the one who sincerely wants to mobilise. For you is an example in what the Kouachi brothers (may God accept them) did to the Charlie Hebdo newspaper artists, and how these brothers put the dog of France on his leash, tied up their newspapers and silenced their tongues, in support of the Messenger of God (SAWS).