The announcement by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) – of the exhumation of the body of Israeli officer Hadar Golden from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip sparked widespread interaction on social media platforms.
Al-Qassam reported that it had recovered the bodies of 6 of its martyrs in the city, along with the body of Golden, who is considered one of the longest-serving Israeli prisoners in the hands of the resistance inside the besieged Strip, more than 11 years after his capture during the Battle of the “Eating Storm” in August 2014.
Al Jazeera shows exclusive footage it obtained of the Al-Qassam Brigades recovering the body of Officer Hadar Golden in Rafah#urgent pic.twitter.com/LXKF6FMinR
– Al Jazeera Channel (@AJArabic) November 8, 2025
Golden is considered a military and political knot for Israel, as the occupation army and its intelligence failed for an entire decade to restore it through military force or negotiations with the Palestinian resistance.
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An intelligence battle and a clash of wills
Reactions to Al-Qassam’s announcement of the discovery of the body varied among activists on social media, as they saw that the exhumation of Golden’s body from Rafah carried profound symbolism for Israeli society, as he was the only missing person since the 2014 war.
Others added that the resistance’s preservation of Golden’s body for 11 years inside one of Rafah’s tunnels reflects remarkable security and intelligence capabilities, as it was kept in complete secrecy despite the Israeli security inability to reach it, before it recovered it now within the arrangements of the ceasefire agreement.
11 years of retention #Resistance With the body of the Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin in complete secrecy, and after the occupation’s blatant security inability to reach him, the resistance extracted him from the ground of Rafah and handed him over as part of the arrangements of the ceasefire agreement.
A resistance that made the occupation unable to reach the bodies of its soldiers is a resistance that will not and will not be broken.…
– Khaled Fahd – Khaled Fahd (@khaledfahed4) November 8, 2025
Bloggers explained that the recovery process embodies the essence of the intelligence battle between the resistance and the occupation, as it is not just collecting information, but rather a race of patience and a struggle of wills. In their opinion, real power lies in whoever has the patience and discipline to choose the timing of revealing his cards, while his opponent remains powerless in the face of whoever possesses the land and knowledge.
Others saw that this process confirms the resistance’s mentality and steadfast will, considering that whoever has patience and discipline writes the rules of the game and determines the timing of every event in the field.
Field signs and open questions
Activists pointed out that the presence of 6 martyrs from Al-Qassam at the Golden recovery site suggests that the place was not just a burial point, but rather an active field site that embraced the operation to protect a very valuable target.
The significance of the presence of 6 Qassam martyrs at the site of the recovery of Hadar Golden:
The presence of this number of martyrs in one point suggests that it was not just a burial point, but rather an active field site, which often involved the protection of a very valuable target.
This target, according to estimates, was the Israeli officer Hadar Goldin, which means that he was on…— Mohammed Haniya (@mohammedhaniya) November 8, 2025
Others suggested that the announcement of the discovery of Golden’s body and the bodies of the six known fighters near it indicates that they were assigned to guard him, and that they were killed recently during the last war, not 11 years ago as Israel claims.
Some tweeters pointed out that the photos of the martyrs who were recovered from the same site could not belong to a group that was guarding a corpse, which opens the door to the possibility that Golden was alive until recently, and may have been killed during the recent aggression or during a specific field operation.
Tweeters also asked: When was Hadar Golden killed? Was it the day he was captured in August 2014, as Israel claims, or was he alive until he was killed with his captors?
Activists linked the handover of Golden’s body to ending the crisis of Al-Qassam fighters stuck in the Rafah tunnels, considering that the event reveals the depth of the resistance’s field control despite the intense Israeli military operations in the region.
Until this moment.
Hamas did not hand over Hadar Goldin’s body to Israel, which suggests that negotiations are currently underway.
The body in exchange for the exit of the resistance fighters from the Rafah tunnels pic.twitter.com/iEnu6P9OpZ
— Hanzala (@Hanzpal2) November 9, 2025
A morale blow to Israel
Activists believed that the timing of the Qassam Brigades’ announcement and the way it was leaked carried profound political and moral messages, as the brigades are known for their strict discipline in managing the prisoner file, which means that leaking information of this kind cannot be random.
Bloggers explained that the message was addressed directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by embarrassing him in front of the family of officer Hadar Golden, who has been demanding for years to know the fate of their son, and exposing the Israeli military establishment, which officially announced his death shortly after his capture.
More than 11 years after his capture at the height of the Battle of “The Eating Storm”#Qassam_Brigades The exhumation of the Israeli officer’s body is announced #Hadar_Golden From a city #Rafah South #Gaza_Strip It carries deep symbolism for Israeli society, as it is the only one remaining from the 2014 war.
To keep #Resistance With a corpse #Golden Eleven years in… pic.twitter.com/3Wc8hVAiBD
— Can_AKH (@K_11_11_10N) November 9, 2025
They pointed out that choosing this particular timing sends a clear signal to Tel Aviv that what is announced in Israel is not the complete truth, and that what Al-Qassam revealed goes beyond being field news to being a complex political and moral slap to the occupation government, carefully timed to open a new pressure front at a time when Israel is experiencing an unprecedented internal crisis.
Bloggers concluded by saying that what happened in Rafah demolished the narrative of complete control that the occupation promoted in the last week, after it boasted of its prior knowledge of the locations of the prisoners and claimed that its lack of field intervention was a “calculated decision.”
But the reality of the field – according to them – exposed the falsity of these allegations, as the enemy who claimed to know everything did not even know what was going on under his feet, while the resistance proved that true knowledge is not in satellites or aerial surveillance, but in belief in truth and accuracy in action.