Today’s photo is of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visiting the troops. He, along with Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, are the true leaders of this period. Gallant confronted Prime Minister Netanyahu during the height of the Judicial Reform demonstrations telling him that they were interfering with the army’s readiness to defend the state. For that he was fired. And he has led the IDF and the country through this very difficult period. Gallant was a former general in the elite unit Shayetet 13, who often train with the US Navy Seals. He is a fellow skipper and loves being on the water. Thank you Minister Gallant for everything you do!
Some of you informed me that you are unable to see the Wall Street Journal posts as they are behind the WSJ paywall. At the bottom of this post I have extracted the contents of the most recent post from the Chief Editor of the WS J .
The IDF launched two limited and focussed operations inside Gaza. One focused operation in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood killing numerous terrorists and destroying sites used for military purposes. One of the facilities was a Hamas training site. The second strike was in central Gaza’s town of Nuseirat. The strike involved not only infantry but also naval forces firing artillery and IAF drones. Tunnels were uncovered when terrorists emerged in an attempt to fire on the infantry. They were immediately killed from the air. This operation began late last night. Most infantry operations take place at night. And the IAF managed to launch a missile taking out Nasser Yaqub Jaber Nasser, the main operative responsible for the funding of the military wing of Hamas. According to the IDF, Nasser was responsible for facilitating the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the terrorist organization. Also, the IAF conducted limited aerial strikes against terror targets in Rafah late last night. No details were released.
Today in southern Lebanon the IAF dispatched fighter jets that conducted strikes against several Hezbollah facilities, including ones actively in the process of launching airborne attacks against Israeli positions.
US Centcom announced today that its forces destroyed three UAVs launched by the Iranian proxies, the Houthis, from Yemen. They destroyed eight yesterday.
There are several news worthy items related to efforts to increase inbound aid to Gaza. First, senior generals from the IDF met yesterday with the ICRC, USAID and UN aid groups to discuss Gaza aid. The IDF used to opportunity to establish a chain of communication as well as detail the actions recently taken by the IDF to increase the aid. In the meantime the Israeli High Court of Justice granted a five day stay, in order to permit the government more time to present its report on the status of aid coming in to Gaza. Due to attempts to block the roads for aid entering Gaza from the new northern border crossing, the IDF said that they will be moving the new crossing to an undisclosed alternative location. The protestors are demanding that no aid should enter Gaza without the release of the hostages. And for the first time I can remember the UN Security Council issued an acknowledgement of Israel’s major steps to improve the aid situation. I do not remember any time that the organization met regarding Israel and it did not result in some condemnation. Admiral Daniel Hagari, from the IDF’s spokespersons office, released this press briefing regarding aid.
On the subject of hostage/ceasefire negotiations the spokesman from the Prime Minister’s Office announced that Hamas continues to “walk away” from agreement proposals and that international pressure on Israel only emboldens Hamas to continue walking away thinking that a better deal is around the corner. At the same time US and Israeli officials are saying privately that they fear that most of the hostages have either been killed in captivity or died as a result of either physical harm or lack of medications. This is what is being reported in the Wall Street Journal’s article entitled “Hamas May Not Have Enough Living Hostages for Cease-Fire Deal”. Here is one quote from the article “Around 130 remaining hostages taken in the attack are still in Gaza. Of those, Israeli officials have publicly confirmed that 34 are dead, but Israeli and American officials estimate privately that the number of deaths could be much higher.” and “Some U.S. estimates indicate that most of the hostages are already dead, U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence said.” These reports are consistent with the fact that Hamas is now saying that they cannot commit to releasing 40 female and elderly hostages, but only 40 hostages. Between their claims of not being able to find the hostages and the fact that there are probably not even 40 female and elderly hostages still alive, it is not clear to me why anyone is bothering to even negotiate with them.
In one interesting turn of events the IDF reports that more and more draft age women are volunteering to serve in combat units. But at the same time, those women being drafted to serve in observation posts along the Gaza border are resisting taking on those roles as part of the time in service. They saw that many of those women were either killed or taken hostage on October 7. In general, all combat based units in the IDF are seeing a major uptick in those choosing to serve in combat roles as compared to previous drafts. The IDF conducts three major draft cycles each year.
US General Michael Krill, the head of the US Central Command, landed in Israel early this afternoon for detailed discussions with Defense Minister Gallant. The main item on their agenda are the anticipated Iranian strikes against Israel and the ongoing Iranian proxy strikes against US forces in the area.
There are two newsworthy items related to the ongoing issue of draft exemption for the ultra-orthodox. First, the main sephardic ultra-orthodox political party, Shas, is distancing itself from one of its senior members and Knesset member, Moshe Arbel, after he publicly stated that ultra-orthodox leaders needed to show “courage” and declare that those eligible for the draft must participate in carrying the national burden. Previously senior rabbis from that organization announced that they would continue to fight against conscription. The second item is a demonstration today by the ultra-orthodox in Jerusalem protesting the proposed draft. Two days ago there was an ultra-orthodox demonstration on a major highway not far from the religious neighborhood of B’nai Braq, about 15 km east of Tel Aviv.
There is a group of Dutch Christians that came to Israel in order to volunteer on an Israel farm picking oranges. They have accumulated more than 13 tons of oranges that are being prepared to be shipped to The Netherlands for sale. They are paying the farmers involved the discounted wholesale price and taking on the responsibility for sales and distribution in The Netherlands. Thank you!!
And what timing…. Indonesia announced its intent to normalize relations with Israel as part of its effort to join the OECD, the economic organization that includes the top 38 performing economies around the world. Israel is included in that organization, thanks to efforts by President Obama during his first term in office.
Late last night US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, conducted a live call with Defense Minister Gallant making it clear that the USA will stand with Israel against any threats by Iran. People here are seriously frightened in expectation of what Iran might do in its threats to retaliate from the killing of its senior IRGC officers two weeks ago in Damascus, Syria. The IDF is on high alert. The Israeli Government announced that any attack launched by a country against the territory of Israel will be met by a retaliatory attack on the territory of the country that launches such an attack. For some reason, I am not worrying as I can’t see how it does any good. Most likely, Iran will attempt an attack against an Israeli facility outside the country. But there are never any guarantees when it comes to a messianic, murderous, jihadi state wishing for martyrdom.
As written in The Wall Street Journal…
Western Democracy’s Future Depends on Israel’s Victory
If the Jewish state can be bullied into letting Hamas survive, how can any free nation defend itself?
by Gerard Baker, WSJ
If Israel is prevented from defeating Hamas, we should be under no illusions about what it will mean for the future of democracy. If, under the pressure of internal Democratic politics and global public opinion, the Biden administration forces a “cease-fire” that leaves our closest ally in the region short of victory over an enemy that seeks to destroy it, sooner or later we shall all pay the price.
This isn’t only because Israel is a democratic nation fighting nihilist savages and theocratic tyrants, though it is that. It is because forcing it to succumb to moral outrage over the violence that invariably comes with waging war would represent the self-imposition of an inescapable restraint on our own ability to defend ourselves.
Of course Israel is battling, above all else, for its own survival. In a hostile region, it is also the sole standard-bearer of individual freedom, tolerant pluralism and self-rule. Contrast the condition of ethnic minorities, women, gays and dissidents in Israel with that of their counterparts anywhere else in the Middle East. We should give thanks every day for the sacrifices Israelis make at the fragile frontier of freedom.
Every Islamist terrorist Israel kills is one fewer threat to the rest of us. Every setback Israel can deal to the Iranian puppet masters of Hamas, Hezbollah and others inflicts a loss on the regime that is sworn to eliminate us, the “Great Satan,” and our allies. There is no historical evidence that appeasing enemies committed to our extinction ever keeps us safe.
But there’s a second sense in which the future of democracy is at stake in the bloody streets of Gaza. If Israel can somehow be bullied into forgoing victory over this enemy, our own capacity to wage wars inflicted on us will be dramatically diminished. We will have allowed a coalition of armchair media critics, far-left agitators and Islamist-sympathizing activists and governments to hold Israel to a standard no nation taking necessary measures to protect itself would ever be able to meet, a standard to which our enemies will certainly never hold themselves.
This reality of asymmetric warfare in the age of an all-seeing media and diminished faith in the virtues of our way of life has been on vivid display in the past week. After near-universal condemnation of Israel for the deaths of seven foreign aid workers in a drone attack, a British army veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, who now serves at a senior level in the British government, put the event in context: “War requires levels of violence and destruction that few truly understand. It requires an acceptance of human suffering among innocents that is unimaginable to most. There is no such thing as a clean war. This one is more visual but not substantially worse than those I fought in,” he told me via text message.
We should be clear about what happened last week on the hazy battlefield of Gaza. The tragic error that resulted in the deaths of those brave and innocent souls was heartbreaking, but it was error. If accidents like this are deemed to discredit and delegitimize Israel’s war effort, then we can forget about our own ability to take the fight to our enemies when we need to. We will have institutionalized an asymmetric form of warfare that we simply can’t win.
Israel has been more scrupulous in its campaign than most armies in history. In World War II the British political and military leadership decided on a strategy they called—in what must rank as one of the most cynical euphemisms in history—“dehousing” German civilians: bombing cities to a level of destruction that would demoralize their inhabitants and make them turn on their Nazi government. The British people tolerated this morally doubtful approach because they had fresh in their minds the memory of the Blitz, when the Nazis successfully “dehoused” many British citizens.
Israel suffered an atrocity on Oct. 7 comparable to the Blitz yet has worked with restraint to limit inevitable civilian losses. If it can’t even be allowed to do that, we are placing impossible shackles on the fighting ability of democratic nations.
Condemning and isolating our only real friend and ally in the Middle East will leave in place the people who perpetrated the Oct. 7 massacre and their sponsors. If this is the way we fight modern wars, our enemies will have freedom to commit acts of bestial savagery on us, knowing that our own scruples will give them an insuperable advantage.
And in demanding that a democratic country conduct war to standards that have never been met by any belligerent in history—and could never be met—we will be signaling the ultimate surrender of our own democracy too.