One rocket was fired from Gaza and landed in an open field near Kibbutz Be’eri this morning. No IDF casualties reported on either the Gaza nor Lebanon conflict zones in the past 5 days.
Operations continue in Gaza with the two reserve divisions conducting patrols and calling in air fire when tunnel entrances, terrorists or infrastructure are found. The overall feeling is one of a war effort put into idle mode while waiting for a response from Hamas to the most recent hostage/ceasefire negotiations.
This “feeling” also pervades the government and the stories in the Hebrew press. Some government ministers on the far right are threatening to bring down the government if it fulfills the commitments it presumably made in the current round of negotiations. They are convinced that it is likely to lead to an end of the war without achieving its key goals. And then the demonstrators in the street are applying pressure on the government to “cave” in to all the Hamas demands, regardless of their consequences. And finally amongst the reservists who are being called up, released and then called up again it is getting frustrating to “hurry and wait”. My guess is that we will start seeing some movement by the end of this week. Either Hamas will come back with small changes or they will still insist on a full IDF withdrawal.
Last night IDF fighter jets struck Hezbollah facilities in southern Lebanon last night. And this morning Hezbollah launched more than 25 rockets in the central part of the Galil, a region in northern Israel. The attack resulted in no injuries or damage as all of them struck open areas.
Those of you following my posts regularly will remember that on April 13 I reported on the murder of a young Israeli teenager and the aftermath of vigilante Israelis attacking Arabs. Most of the “revenge” actions were property destruction. Soon after 2 of the vigilantes were arrested and remain in prison. Today, Israeli police arrested 5 more of the vigilantes after a preliminary investigation into the aftermath.
On April 21 I posted responses to a request from one of my readers that among other things I described why it was essential for the IDF to complete its key mission of the war - “elimination of Hamas’ ability to perpetrate future attacks against Israel like October 7” - in order to secure the future potential of an agreement with Saudi Arabia. Most westerners have a hard time understanding this concept. So here is an article written by a friend of mine (and fellow skipper), Seth Franzman, on this subject. I highly recommend you read it.
Many of you following my posts from my “old hood” in Palo Alto might enjoy reading this article translated from the Hebrew press. It describes the technology that was developed by a special unit in the Israeli Air Force that was instrumental in handling the wide range of inbound missiles that Iran launched against Israel early morning on April 14.