October 224, 2023, "The War"

My 172nd post on The War

The photo posted above is a huge banner posted at the western entrance to Jerusalem. Its sponsors are a Christian Zionist organization in the USA. We are grateful for groups showing their support for Israel during these difficult times. The hourglass is a depiction of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s flag suggesting a limited time to its reign there. The date at the bottom, October 28, 2028, is shown also in Farsi, the Persian Language. The date carries significance in Iran as on their calendar it marks the 7th of Aban, which is Cyrus the Great day. Cyrus led the Persian Empire during its Zenith. He reigned from 530 to 550 BCE. Cyrus is the Hellenized version of this great King’s name. In the Hebrew Bible he is referred to as Korash and in Persian, something like Koras. Cyrus established the Achaemenid Persian Empire, that succeeded the Median Dynasty and the Babylonian Empire that preceded it. Cyrus was the ruler that enabled the exiled Israelites to return to Israel, Zion, to re-establish the Second Jewish Commonwealth. Many of you may remember the song “By the Rivers of Babylon”? The lyrics refer to this episode of exile for the Jewish Nation. In case you forgot, you can check it out here. For those of you that are opera fans, you might remember Giuseppe Verdi’s most famous piece, “Va Pensiero”. It is from the Opera that established Verdi’s legacy, “Il Nabbuco”, meaning Nebuchadnezzar. He was the King of Babylon that conquered Israel/Judea and exiled the Jews living there. The entire opera recants the history of that event. The end of the first act is the epic destruction of the First Temple. You can hear this beautiful piece of music here. The music depicts the exiled Jews sitting on the Euphrates River, longing to return to their homeland, Israel. When Verdi died, I am told, the streets of Paris were lined with people watching the funeral procession, all singing “Va Pensiero”. It was also sung by Italian partisans fighting the Austro-Hungarians in an effort to unite Italy back in the late 19th century. In 2010, the first year I was here in Israel I was fortunate enough to attend a performance of Nabukko at Massada, of all places. It was an experience of a lifetime. After performing “Va Pensiero” in the second act, the cast was joined by the audience for the encore. In all there were seven encores and by the time of the last two, the case stayed silent while everyone in the audience sang the lyrics. It carries incredible significance to people here and is the “anthem” of the Israeli Opera.

Back to the main subject… Using that date is a way of rubbing the fascist rulers of Iran’s faces in the mud. They prohibit the celebration of this holiday. They do what they can to eliminate any traces or association to ancient Persian History. I took this photo myself when I returned to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon. Apparently, a version of this photo is getting wide circulation, underground of course, in Iran.

Fourteen Hamas rockets crossed into Israeli air space on Friday, in the direction of the Israeli City of Beersheba. Nearly all landed in open areas. One landed in a children’s playground. One woman was lightly injured from shrapnel. Today four rockets were fired at the Kerem Shalom border crossing without injury or damage. All these rockets were fired from Rafah. The IDF reports that five IDF soldiers have died in combat in the past 48 hours: Staff Sgt. Ariel Tsym, 20 (Z’’L), Sgt. Itay Livny, 19 (Z’’L), Sgt. Yosef Dassa, 19 (Z’’L), Sgt. Ermiyas Mekuriyaw, 19 (Z’’L) and Sgt. Daniel Levy, 19 (Z’’L). All died during combat operations in Zeitoun, just outside of Gaza City. This brings the total casualty figure for the IDF due to combat in Gaza to 272.

Operations are continuing throughout much of Gaza. In previously secured areas, Hamas fighters have returned as the IDF has evacuated many of the combat areas starting in early April. As they return and try to re-assemble some form of fighting force the IDF re-enters. The most recent area is the town of Jabaliya in northern Gaza. The IDF issued instructions to those citizens who either remained or returned there to evacuate in advance of their operation. Afterwards IDF infantry entered the area, gearing up for a sustained operation. In Zeitoun the IDF infantry has been active as well, locating weapons including grenades, RPGs, rifles and ammunition in a medical facility there. They located a large tunnel infrastructure while in Zeitoun that was previously not detected. In Rafah the IDF continues its operations to locate tunnels and terrorists. It now estimates than about 300,000 have left eastern and central Rafah for the humanitarian zone I showed graphically earlier this week. This follows additional flyers and automated mobile phone calls encouraging residents of other sections of Rafah to evacuate. As a consequence of its Rafah Operation, the IDF has now secured the main north-south road in Gaza. This will, hopefully, reduce the ability of Hamas to fire on its own people in order to block them from moving to humanitarian zones.

On Friday afternoon a large barrage of rockets, more than 35, launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon landed just outside the Israeli City of Kiryat Shmona in the north. It triggered a rather large fire that took many hours for Israeli firefighters to extinguish. You can see the fire as recorded by a private citizen in the north here. IDF fighter jets struck more than five Hezbollah facilities in southern Lebanon, including those from which the rockets were fired. Today, Saturday, Hezbollah launched a kamikaze drone that landed outside the northern Israeli town of Beit Hillel.

There are reports that Egypt, in protest against the IDF taking over the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing, are blocking inbound aid trucks to Gaza. Their apparent intention is to try and bring International pressure on to Israel… as if we need more. Hopefully, by tomorrow their attitude will change since Hamas’ continual bombardment against Kerem Shalom border crossing makes keeping that facility operation challenging. Also, Hamas has been bombarding the pier constructed by the US Army in order to try and keep that facility from bringing in aid. Their motives are the same as the Egyptians…. bring International pressure to bear on Israel. Meantime, the number of trucks entering Gaza has dropped substantially over the last two days… to about 100 trucks per day. But, a new field hospital has opened within the humanitarian zone with its many, many tents. While on the subject of aid, this interesting article appeared in The Washington Post over the weekend describing various discussions between the Biden Administration and Israel in an effort to avoid the IDF entering Rafah.

The US State Department released a confusing assessment regarding its analysis of Israel’s use of US supplied weapons. To quote from the report “Given the nature of the conflict in Gaza, with Hamas seeking to hide behind civilian populations and infrastructure and expose them to Israeli military action, as well as the lack of USG personnel on the ground in Gaza, it is difficult to assess or reach conclusive findings on individual incidents. Nevertheless, given Israel’s significant reliance on US-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.” So, bottom line is they are unable to determine whether or not Israel used weapons in violation of US regulations, but it is reasonable to assume they did. I guess one is guilty until proven innocent??? The organization was also requested to report on humanitarian aid. In its findings it reported “…did not find that Israel has withheld humanitarian aid to Gaza in violation of US law.” I could not find the actual report online. If someone finds it, I would appreciate getting a link to the report.

Those of you following me from the beginning will recall that I stated I would not be reporting on casualty figures coming out of Gaza because I do not trust them. Evidence since then, in my opinion, substantiates my position. I am not implying that there are not civilian casualties, as there are. But, Hamas inflates and distorts the figures to suit its purposes. And here is a case in point…. UN agencies simply re-quote the statistics publicized by Hamas. At this web site, they (the UN) posts the cumulative casualty figures as of May 8, 2024 coming from Hamas. And here are the figures for May 6, 2024. As of May 6, the casualty figures publicized by Hamas were 34,745. Of those, more than 9,500 were women and 14,500 were children. Just two days later, the cumulative total was placed at 34,844. Of those 4,949 were women and 7,797 were children. So in just two days they “corrected” their figures by about 100%. Certainly, during the midst of war even honest reporting organizations find it difficult to determine the correct statistics. But when you are off by this much it simply points to outright fraud. These numbers are important because world leaders and college students in the USA insist that Israel is committing genocide. Yet, the figures from May 8 suggest that more than half of the casualties are men of fighting age…. or likely terrorist operatives. The IDF places their best estimates, and these are only estimates, that they have eliminated about 15,000 terrorist operatives since ground operations started in Gaza and about 1,000 previously, on Israeli territory. Pre-war estimates by the IDF placed the Hamas fighting forces at about 30,000 although there are suggestions now that it was a low estimate and 35,000 might be a better number.

There are reports that the IDF is retaining prisoners of war in conditions regarded as abusive. These reports were published by CNN. Their report is based on second hand information emerging from Israeli NGOs. I have no basis on which to confirm or deny these reports, so I leave you to read and judge for yourselves. I will point out, however, that several doctors from the Gaza Hospitals were detained by the IDF, and a few are imprisoned as there is proof that they conducted arbitrary amputations of Israeli hostages as a form of torture. The Biden Administration has formally asked Israel to investigate the situation and provide answers as the charges are serious.

Dr. Phil, a major talk show host in the USA, was recently visiting here and had arranged for a 1:1 interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I do not know when the interview is scheduled to broadcast in the USA. But apparently during the interview he asked the Prime Minister about his plans for “the day after”. The Prime Minister mentioned the hope of involving major Arab states in the process, one of which was the UAE. That triggered a strong statement from the UAE Foreign Minister who said that it would only happen as part of a process involving the creation of a Palestinian State. In the aftermath of this, both Qatar and Egypt expressed similar sentiments.

Here are a few articles and videos worth a look when you find the chance:

• I really urge you to watch this short video. Former US Joint Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, is asked his opinion on the War in Gaza and the IDF’s conduct there. In this case, we have an objective view of the situation from an experienced US military leader that is not under political pressure to say what his boss wants him to say… like current Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown Jr. Both appear in the next video, which you should also watch, at rather embarrassing moments trying to defend the decision of their boss.

• Congressional committee meeting with Secretary of Defense and Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding the Biden Administration hold up of arms shipments. Testimony, start at 02:15 into video.

• Here is an article in the Wall Street Journal providing a very good background with maps describing the IDF operations.

• Short article summarizing interview with Haim Ramon a former member of the government and a former prominent figure in Israel’s Labour Party. In the article he insists that the previous Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, insisted on assassinating Yahya Sinwar, but the Chief of Staff at that time refused. I really like Bennett….

https://twitter.com/naftalibennett/status/1788845328596172850