One rocket was fired today from a humanitarian designated no combat zone and landed in an open area near Re’im. That was the site of the Nova Music Festival on October 7. No IDF casualties were reported in the past 24 hours.
This morning the IDF sent alerts to the humanitarian no combat zone informing the civilians to immediately leave the premises. Then, after waiting for the civilians to evacuate, the IAF attacked and eliminated the rocket launchers responsible for the Re’im attack. I recommend watching the short video in this article where you can also read more about it.
Last night, IAF fighter jets conducted a raid on a Hezbollah military facility. The strike successfully eliminated a very senior commander of the Hezbollah Radwan Force, Ali Ahmed Hassin, along with two of his lieutenants. Such a strike is significant as the Radwan Forces were active participants in the Syrian Civil War and fought on behalf of Iran and the current Syrian Regime. They are battle hardened and experienced in urban combat. The later today, IAF fighter jets conducted a strike against several Hezbollah military facilities in southern Lebanon this afternoon. Earlier in the day sirens went off in northern Israel as a drone was detected infiltrating from Lebanon. That one was eliminated in the air, but a “kamikaze” drone launched earlier in the day landed in Rosh Hanikra without causing any injuries. As of now Hezbollah has publicly stated that about 250 of its operatives have been killed by Israeli forces. From my discussions with IDF soldiers previously stationed in the north, the IDF believes the numbers are actually higher, but not by a lot. This means that more Hezbollah terrorists have been killed since October 7 than in the Second Lebanese War of 2006.
Still assessing ramifications of the mysterious fighter jet attack last week in Damascus that took out much of the Iranian IRGC leadership. It turns out that one of those killed was a GENERAL who was also a member of the Hezbollah Shura Council which is their leadership command.
Iranian proxies in Iraq announced that they launched two fresh drone attacks against Israel late last night. But as of yet, there is no sign of any landing in or near Israel. Maybe they attacked Jordan by mistake??
One of the Hebrew Newspapers reports today that tensions are rising between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is apparently targeting some of the PA officials in Gaza (I didn’t know that there were still any there.) as they are being accused of cooperating with Israel. You can read more in this English translation . I wish to emphasize that this is one of the main reasons why Israel cannot propose, at least publicly, any plan for “the day after”. Any plan suggested by Israel will be immediately rejected out of hand by the PA, the Palestinians and even neighboring friendly Arab countries. Any plan that emerges will have to originate with either the USA, the moderate Arab states or some combination. Then Israel will have to choose the “least bad” plan.
I saw a short blurb in the Hebrew Press today saying that Israel agreed to permit an independent audit of what caused the tragic strike against the World Central Kitchen aid workers. But I have not seen it repeated elsewhere, so I am not sure it is real.
These are the two big issues of the day:
the evacuation of two active IDF brigades from central and southern Gaza, leaving one left patrolling the central East-West corridor carved out by the IDF,
hostage/ceasefire negotiations.
The first, which I mentioned yesterday, had many Israelis confused, angry, worried and in some cases, in shock. Nominally it was announced by the IDF as a means for giving soldiers in those two brigades much needed rest and relaxation. They are not reservists and have been fighting nearly non stop since the second week of October. Yet, everyone in Israel is anticipating an upcoming Rafah Operation so it made no sense. Several pundits, who I do not respect, started trashing the government presuming that it was going to declare an end to the war. One was a well known publisher of one of the English online newspapers. But he really doesn’t know what is going on as he has no insiders in the government on which to rely for information.
I had two theories. The least likely one was that this was a trap being set for Hamas. The Shifa Hospital Operation was so successful that perhaps the IDF wanted Hamas to think that it was leaving the area, let them start to reform a unit like they tried at the hospital, then wait and attack. It seemed far fetched, but not much else was making sense.
But then beginning this morning I started to develop another theory that I think is bearing to be the real situation. It is my belief that the evacuation of these two brigades is directly related to the hostage/ceasefire negotiations being conducted in Cairo. I believe that it is some kind of gesture intended to be a prelude to finalizing an agreement. Qatar, Egypt and US negotiators are all saying publicly now that the parties are very close. I believe that during the Biden-Netanyahu conversation late last week, the Biden Administration applied pressure on the government to try and make concessions to get across the finish line. And the evacuation was one of them. Let me be clear that this is my opinion and not something I read nor heard from anyone with any authority.
Both Israeli government officials and Hamas leaders are still saying that we are far away from any deal, despite comments from the third party negotiators. Yet, today Defense Minister Gantz announced that the government is prepared to make “painful” decisions to try and recover the hostages. Then in the Hebrew Press I caught this blurb in the afternoon, today - “Senior Egyptians to the ‘Al-Akhbar’ newspaper: ‘There has been a major breakthrough and there is optimism.’ The Egyptian officials also confirmed that ‘the withdrawal of the IDF from the southern Gaza Strip in the hours before the talks in Cairo came as part of an advance to the agreement that is being worked on.’ However, it was reported that the Israeli side insists on a six-week temporary ceasefire, which will not be extended without significant compensation.”
Bear in mind that there are several US citizens among the hostages still in captivity. So President Biden has some “skin in the game”. It is my opinion that pressure was applied by President Biden on Netanyahu to make gestures to enable some form of agreement so that some of the hostages can be recovered, there can be a ceasefire for a period of time to enable aid to get to a higher level and allow some of the Gazan citizens to return to their “homes” in Khan Younis and Gaza City. Incidentally, allowing people to return to their “homes” helps Israel as at some point the people living temporarily in Rafah need to be evacuated so the IDF can go in with infantry.
Now, late in the day there are rumors circulating in the press regarding some of the details of the proposed agreement:
the period under discussion is six weeks,
the truce would start over Eid-al-Fitr which occurs later this week. This three day muslim holiday concludes the Ramadan period,
after this initial 3 day period, 40 of the female, young and elderly hostages will be released over the six week period… in regular intervals,
no estimates have been released regarding how many terrorist murderers in Israeli prisons will have to be released. I would not be surprised if the number ranged between 500-1,000
And in some weird parallel universe, Iran seems to have communicated with the USA that they would refrain from taking revenge for the assassinations that took place in Damascus last week, if there is a ceasefire. Firstly, you can’t trust the Iranians and secondly I really don’t know what that means. Also, Hezbollah says that if there is a ceasefire in Gaza they will honor a ceasefire along the Lebanese border.
Speaking of Iran, it was announced today that the Iranian Rial (their currency) dropped by 30% in value yesterday, apparently all in 24 hours. This has resulted in some small sporadic demonstrations in part of the country. Also it was reported today that there were mysterious widespread internet outages across parts of Iran.
Our economy is struggling due to the war. Our government budget deficit reached 6.2% of GDP for the 12 months ending on March 31, 2024. This is a bit better than the war budget projected last November, but still a problem. Income from taxes were down from the period of October 1 through February 29, but started to pick up in March. On a related topic, McDonalds announced that it was buying al 225 Israeli franchises. Near the onset of the war the local franchisees announced that IDF soldiers would get free meals. This made the rounds on social media leading to boycotts of McDonalds in the USA and elsewhere. McDonalds reported that it had an impact on their sales. But they also said that they do not intend to close any of the fast food outlets in Israel. Personally, I couldn’t care less.
Israeli police arrested a resident of central Israel today on suspicion of incitement to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The suspect posted on Telegram threats of terrorism including personal threats against Netanyahu.