This video I post today is of Eden Golan and her crew performing a dress rehearsal of the song they will be performing tomorrow, Thursday, night in the semifinals of the Eurovision song contest being held in Malmo, Sweden. The odds bettors rank her at position eight amongst the total of 37 countries submitting entries. This song contest is sponsored by the European Broadcasting Union each year. The winning country from one year is the host for the subsequent year. You should be able to watch it live starting at 19:00 GMT, which is 2PM Eastern Standard Time, Thursday evening. If you do a search on YouTube you should be able to see the live video feed. If you miss it, I am sure you can find the recorded version. I encourage you to watch at at time of convenience as it is really something different for Americans to see. Last night was one round of semi-finalists and tomorrow night is the second round, in which Israel’s entry will be viewed. Winners from both rounds compete on Saturday night for the finals. Voting for the semi-finals and finals is done by viewers who text in their list of favorites. Voters are not allowed to vote for their home country. Normally the voting is very, very political. But Israel has won the contest four times, the last time 2018. If you are really interested you can read more about it on Wikipedia.
Eight rockets were fired from Rafah by the Palestinian terrorists today towards the Israeli community of Shlomit today. Earlier this week an Israeli Border Police Officer in an elite unit deployed to deal with terrorists in Judea/Samaria (West Bank) was seriously injured during an operation that targeted a Hamas cell. Today, Chief Inspector Yitav Lev Halevi, 28 (Z’’L) succumbed to his injuries. He was a commander in a very high level elite unit deployed during counter-terrorism operations.
During operations in Rafah today, the IDF uncovered several tunnels, which are now being prepared for demolition. The infantry units encountered terrorist cells attempting to defend the tunnel entrances. According to reports, those cells were neutralized. The IDF reports that the infantry is conducting raids on specific locations identified by intelligence as enemy infrastructure. Here you can see several videos of military operations in eastern Rafah, some of them conducted at night. According to the IDF, there were many facilities there being used by Hamas as armories, entrances to tunnels, mortar launch and staging areas.
In other operations in Gaza, infantry troops operating in Gaza City managed to eliminate an high ranking Hamas commander, responsible for their naval units, some of which were part of the attack force on October 7. His name was not released.
At the Kerem Shalom border crossing, which came under deadly rocket attack from Hamas in Rafah earlier this week, IDF medics were deployed to come to the aid of Gazan workers who came under fire. Apparently, some soldiers mistook them for terrorists when they were just daily workers in transit to their places of work. All were treated and none needed hospitalization. The IDF has launched an investigation and, of course, profusely apologized to the victims, all of whom were able to walk away on their own accord after treatment. That border crossing re-opened today, after the massive rocket attack, for transiting aid into Gaza.
Between last night and this morning, the IDF launched a series of aerial attacks into Hezbollah positions in south Lebanon. I urge you to watch these videos and you will see the bombs landing in what appears to be open fields. But in fact they are hitting underground bunkers and tunnels that are often used to store arms by Hezbollah. This afternoon Hezbollah launched a barrage of anti-tank guided missiles and mortars into Israel. It happened late in the day and there have not been reports yet on damage or injuries.
US Centcom forces announced today that they downed two Houthi launched drones off the coast of Yemen, near the Gulf of Aden. It was said that the drones presented “an imminent threat”.
The US Army built pier off the Mediterranean coast, near Gaza City, is now complete. There are reports that the IDF COGAT inspectors are in Cyprus working with aid organizations to inspect the aid on the first ship that should arrive next week as the first trial of the system.
Yesterday, I reported that the Biden Administration had put on hold committed arms shipments to Israel of precision air-borne missiles and that I wasn’t sure if it was politics or bureaucracy. Well, it is now clear that it is politics. On the pretense, that they want to make sure that the bombs would not violate US laws the administration says “We’ve not made a final determination on how to proceed with that shipment.”. The reality is that the Biden Administration is not happy with Israel proceeding with an operation in Rafah and this is the most clear way that they can show Israel that they are unhappy. You can read more here. In the meantime, here in Israel the IDF is playing down this “incident” and is telling the public that these things are best dealt with in discussions held in secret between the two governments. Yet there are reports that some government officials are “annoyed” by the situation. This gesture by the Biden Administration comes right after the Hamas announcement that it agreed to a ceasefire proposal that Israel had never seen or was never briefed about by anyone from the US side involved in the negotiations. This is despite the fact that CIA Director William Burns and others were fully aware that of all the details in advance.
'Despite all this “brouhaha” from the Biden Administration, it is my belief that as the IDF proceeds with its operation in Rafah, which it will do, the Biden Administration will start modifying its stance and realize that the IDF has learned how to fight in urban warfare situations like this, as difficult as it is. While it is impossible to expect that there will be no civilian casualties, I am willing to bet that the casualty rate among REAL civilians will be as low as they have been to date. Again, this is my view that I am expressing and sometimes “stuff happens”.
Yesterday, in Egypt, an Israeli-Canadian was shot dead in Alexandria while on a business trip. The victim, Ziv Kiper (Z’’L), was the CEO of OK Group LLC, an Egyptian company specializing in exporting frozen fruit and vegetables. Egypt is claiming that the murder was criminally motivated. No one in Israel believes that.
The White House announced that discussions and negotiations are ongoing. I am skeptical. Israel does have a delegation in Cairo to respond to anything real, but it is my guess that they are out visiting the incredible Cairo Museum, rather than dealing with any “real” negotiations. Here is a great assessment of “what Hamas agreed to” by the editor of one of the English based newspapers here in Israel. This newspaper editor has been extremely critical of this government in the past. CIA Director William Burns is in the Israel at the moment and has met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. While it might be admirable to say that “one should never give up” when trying to seek a peaceful resolution to a conflict, it seems to me that this route has run its course, as sad as it is to say. Hamas has been quite consistent since the onset. I went through my previous posts and found this, which I wrote on January 29, 2024:
“That is the first principle of negotiation - Understand what are the goals of your opponent and if there is a way to mitigate them. Yahyah Sinwar has spent his entire life building up the armed forces of terrorists he now has at his disposal. He has done this out of the ideological perspective that kicking out the Jews was the first step to an Islamic Revival. You can read the Hamas Charter and it is all spelled out there - https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/attachments/jps-articles/2538093.pdf . The aims of Hamas, as consistent with other elements of the Moslem Brotherhood, extends way beyond its claims on the Jews and Israel. So in their vision liberating Palestine from the Jews and eradicating them is just the first step in a very long struggle. He and his co-leaders have invested billions of dollars in stolen money, taken from naive donor countries (or in the case of Qatar, not so naive) and invested in building a military force. He believed that by initiating the attack on October 7, it would cause Israel to invade and get strangled in the quagmire of the tunnel infrastructure in Gaza. So far this has not happened, but instead they have lost nearly ½ of their armed and trained personnel. There is no way that the IDF could leave Gaza with Hamas in charge. And there is no way that the Hamas leadership could give up the base of operations they established there. What are they going to to, pick up he army and move it to the French Riviera? Or Libya? Or Syria? Or Qatar? No way. In Gaza they have a willing base of people that they have raised from childhood do hate and glorify martyrdom. Where else are they going to have this? So, Sinwar is NOT going to agree to anything that does not leave him in control when the fighting stops. And there is no way that Israel could agree to leave him in control. So Sinwar is going to keep those hostages alive and close to him at all times since this is THE ONLY LEVERAGE he has. And he will hold on to it until the bitter end. This is not something the families of the hostages want to hear. Why would Sinwar give up the only leverage he has, if that means that ultimately he will be removed from power? It would be the end of his raison d’etre, reason for existence.”
Tel Aviv announced today that it would not host its annual Tel Aviv Pride Parade which attracts visitors from all over the world, including Europe. It was just too difficult to deal with security issues this year. However, Jerusalem announced that it would go ahead with its annual Gay Parade. The one in Jerusalem does not attract many visitors from abroad, mostly just the gay community in Israel and its local supporters. And the only real security issue with the parade in Jerusalem is preventing ultra-orthodox radicals from trying to disrupt it.