This evening, Sunday, at sundown starts the observance of Yom HaShoah here in Israel. This day is not celebrated but observed in remembrance of the victims of the holocaust in World War II. Night clubs, bars, most restaurants, places of entertainment are closed for the next 24 hours. On TV it is non stop documentaries on the holocaust, interviews with the remaining survivors (about 1,500 still living here), movies, etc. No cartoons for the kids, no reality TV shows. It is a solemn 24 hours. Starting in about one hour there will be a special ceremony at Yad Vashem, the large museum in Jerusalem dedicated to document, honor and remember what happened during this tragedy of the 20th century. Tomorrow, at 10:00 Israel Time, sirens will go off around the whole country for one minute, people will stand in place remaining silent, those driving automobiles will pull over get out and stand. The whole country will come to a solemn halt as we remember the tragedy that befell the Jewish People as well as many other innocent people at the whim of the Nazis. The photo I post above is the famous photo of a young boy in the Warsaw Ghetto taken in 1943. Below it is an image of graffiti captured on a wall in Israel showing a Palestinian terrorist (or maybe it is a Columbia student?) holding a young Israeli hostage at gun point.
No IDF casualties reported on either the northern or southern fronts in the past 5 days.
Barrages of rockets, more than ten, were fired today from Rafah by Hamas (who gladly took credit) landing at the Kerem Shalem border crossing that bridges between Egypt, Israel and Gaza. This is the border where most of the aid enter Gaza. The rocket launchers were only about 300 meters from the border crossing. There was significant damage and 14 people had to be rushed to the hospital. Three of the injured are in serious condition. The injured had to be evacuated by helicopter because of the distance from any nearby hospital. Since the attack, the IDF stopped aid from transiting the border crossing. Repairs to infrastructure need to be made and replacements for those injured need to be found. Most likely they will need to do a post mortem and perhaps consider deploying an Iron Dome battery there, should they have one to spare.
The IDF’s satellite data showed the rockets being launched and their locations. When they are launched 300 meters away, you have about 2 seconds to respond… which is obviously impossible. The IAF responded by firing missiles at the locations from where the rockets were launched in order to destroy them and prevent them from firing in the future. Obviously, until the IDF enters Rafah it will be nearly impossible to effectively eliminate (reduce?) the possibility of other rocket barrages. Another reason the IDF will need to go into Rafah.
Attacking sites from where either aid or infrastructure flows into Gaza is standard practice for the Palestinian terrorists. Previously they fired on and damaged water pipes feeding water from Israel to Gaza as well as power plants in Ashkelon from where Israel provides much of the power entering Gaza. At least it did before October 7. In several cases emergency utility workers had to be deployed “under fire” to make the repairs. They work to destroy such infrastructure and then they prompt their allies at UNRWA to publicly complain that Israel does not provide enough water, power and aid. This is so all the Western Media can show how much the poor Gazans are starving or lacking water or lacking power… all blamed on Israel.
The IDF made a couple of announcements regarding ongoing fighting in central Gaza. An high ranking officer in Hamas, Salih Jamil Muhammed Amad, was assassinated yesterday during an air strike. During the same operation, but in an adjacent location in Gaza several Palestinian terrorists that were identified to have participated in the October 7 massacre were also killed. It was reported that Amaad was responsible for combat support within Hamas’ Bureij Battalion. And yesterday, after I finished my post, the IDF reported the elimination of Ayman Zareb, a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander who led Hamas’ Nukhba forces’ attack on the Israeli community of Sufa on October 7. According to military intelligence Zareb was responsible for several attacks in Israeli territory in the past few years. Along with these two announcements the IDF reported that two of its brigades still operating in Gaza managed to locate and destroy many terrorist infrastructure sites along with operatives attempting to defend them that include tunnels, armories and sniper nests.
Not to be out done by Hamas, Hezbollah launched 40 rockets across the Lebanese border. That followed an earlier barrage of 20 rockets this morning. There was damage to homes and parked automobiles and one slight injury to a 65 year old man not requiring hospitalization. Earlier in the morning a barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah did not make it across the border and landed in Lebanese territory. Statistics were posted today regarding rocket fire. From the north, some 334 rockets were fired into Israel by Hezbollah in January, 534 in February, 746 in March and 744 in April. This is a dramatic increase. Statistics for drones and anti-tank missiles were not posted. From Gaza, 357 rockets were fired in January, 165 in February, 104 in March and 113 in April. The slope is in a good direction.
A formal response has yet to be received from Hamas via Egypt but all the public posturing is pointing to their rejection of the most recent Egyptian sponsored proposal that was labelled by the Biden Administration as being very generous from the Israelis. Today Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announced that they insist on an agreement that will guarantee the IDF withdrawal from Gaza and a complete, guaranteed cessation of any fighting from Israel. Sensing a near collapse of the talks, CIA Chief William Burns, who was in Cairo over the weekend, was dispatched to Doha, Qatar for an emergency meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani. Nominally, they are talking about the situation of the negotiations and what might be done. The description being made of the situation is “the talks are near collapse”. The Hamas delegation has also left Cairo and is flying to Doha. Maybe they are on the same flight?? Meantime, French President Emanuel Macron called Prime Minister Netanyahu to urge him not to launch an operation into Rafah.
One item I neglected to mention in previous posts is that while Israel refuses to stop until Hamas’ military capabilities are nearly eliminated and its ability to govern stopped, it has offered all the leaders safe passage out of Gaza as part of any deal. So the policy is not one of having to kill the leaders, but that they must leave Gaza, permanently, with their families.
By unanimous decision, the Israeli full cabinet agreed to close the Al-Jazeera news network’s offices in Jerusalem. This appears to be a temporary order. Next the government needs to present the action and its reasons for taking the action to the Jerusalem District Court where it needs to defend its action and Al-Jazeeera has the ability to contest the decision. I believe the arguments used by the government is that the network has consistently filmed and photographed military sensitive sites and distributed them, on occasion, without going through the military censor. The military censor reviews everything including items posted in the Israeli Press. The censors are authorized to either blur out faces, signs, documents and in rare cases block distribution entirely. They do not have the authorization to editorialize the content. They also have the ability to demand that actual names be withheld in an article. But, in reality I am not certain of the pretext and arguments the government is using to justify closing down their office.
Like most Saturday nights, protests ran in parallel last night - one in Jerusalem and two in Tel Aviv. One in Tel Aviv was in support of the hostage families, but most demonstrators moved on to the second demonstration once theirs was over. That one and the one in Jerusalem were demanding the government step down. Today a smaller protest was held by families of soldiers KIA during operations in Gaza. They are demanding that the government enter Rafah and finish the mission they set out for themselves. By the way, some hostage families participating in last night’s protest were also demanding that the government continue the war in Gaza.
This being Erev Yom HaShoah, I thought that this article in The Atlantic might be worth a quick read. The author, David From, provides advise to President Biden on what he should and should not talk about when he makes his address on Tuesday May 7. You can also find it here, but it might be behind a paywall. Two days ago you read, in my post, about the Eurovision contest and had the chance to listen to the incredible woman representing Israel at the competition. Here is an article about the Swedish town of Malmo, the host for the competition. You might wish to read it as I am pretty certain that you will here a lot more about it in the near future.