Today’s photo was taken on Israeli Independence Day. The young guy in the hospital bed is Yonah Brief. His father David is the guy with little hair and the sunglasses. David is a friend. He, his wife Hazel, and their children lived in Palo Alto, CA for many years where David worked for several semiconductor companies. Those of you from my ‘hood’ in PA may remember them. The guy in the uniform is Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. Yonah, which means dove in Hebrew, was seriously injured when he and his Duvduvan Special Forces unit came to rescue civilians during the October 7 attack. He has been hospitalized since then, more than six months. Nearly all that time he has spent in intensive care. On that day, Yonah lost his best friend and the commander of his unit in battle. His parents sent out a call for help about six weeks ago and raised more than $300,000 to pay for Yona’s rehabilitation and devices that he will need the rest of his life to deal with his injuries. Yonah, and his family, have been out sailing with me on the boat. He asked the hospital staff if they could help him visit the seashore. So they made special arrangements to get him to the beach and notified the army. The Chief of Staff insisted on visiting Yonah personally. This is an incredible army.
Let Me Explain
A new reader sent me a note insisting that the title to my post was a “typo”. So for those of you that recently joined us, let me explain. It is not a typo. We, here in Israel, are stuck emotionally in them month of October, 2023. Reservists serve, go back to work and are called up again. When they are in civilian life they can’t concentrate. If they are at the University, they can’t study. There are more than 100,000 internal refugees mostly from the northern border with Lebanon that are still living in hotels and can’t return home. Rockets, albeit less frequently, are still fired from Gaza. And the death toll continues to mount. So for us, the past six months have just been an extension of events in October.
Hamas Rockets
A single rocket was fired from Gaza towards the Israeli City of Sderot. Iron Dome intercepted the rocket.
Casualties
No IDF casualties were reported today. Yesterdays terrible news was enough…
IDF Operations in Gaza
During its operations earlier this week in Zeitoun the IDF managed to eliminate more than 120 terrorist operatives, found and destroyed three tunnels as well a weapons manufacturing facility, several rocket launchers and a command room. They also found a command and control facility inside a school, which was destroyed. The IDF is reporting that the fighting in Jabaliya is among the most intense combat yet during the Gaza Operation, although battles in Khan Younis were pretty intense as well. I could tell something like this was happening as yesterday and, again, this morning army helicopters landed on the Ichilov Hospital heliport unloading a wounded soldier on to a gurney. I could see it from my apartment in Tel Aviv. While the Jabaliya Operation is still underway, the IDF reports that more than 200 armed terrorist operatives have been killed. The operation started about three days ago. The IDF estimates that several hundred operatives are still in Jabaliya. The town has many narrow streets that make it difficult to bring in tanks. They have, unsuccessfully so far, tried to take out the tanks using RPGs but the tanks use an Israeli developed technology called TROPHY that has been very effective in actively neutralizing RPG fire. The IDF troops also uncovered several tunnels/entrances as well was one large rocket storage facility housing about 50 long range rockets able to strike Tel Aviv and parts used to assemble the rockets. That facility was adjacent to a humanitarian shelter where armed Hamas operatives were found and arrested. They also report the capture of many terrorists, although the number was not disclosed.
And UNRWA announced that by their estimates more than 630,000 non-combatants have left the Rafah area for the humanitarian zones. That is more than half the population there in less than ten days.
Lebanon
Early this morning, Hezbollah launched six kamikaze drones towards Israel. They were either neutralized in the air, fell into the sea or fell in open fields. This afternoon an IDF drone launched a missile that destroyed an Hezbollah aerial defense facility located inside a residential community.In a separate operation the IDF killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Hussein Khader Mahdi, along with two Syrians, while they were in an automobile parked adjacent to an arms factory in southern Lebanon. The commander also apparently owned the factory. Here is a video of the drone attack. This afternoon Hezbollah launched two heavy rocket barrages, more than 75 rockets in all, against Katzrin, the largest town in the Golan Heights, and a few smaller towns nearby. This was the largest rocket attack from Hezbollah since the start of the war. Iron Dome intercepted many of the inbound rockets with the rest falling in open fields. No injuries or damage reported. You can see a short video of the intercepted rockets here. Yesterday I reported that Hezbollah announced that it deployed for the first time a drone capable of firing missiles. They are so proud of their accomplishment that they published a video of the drone in action. You can view it here. There is a music accompaniment.
Yemen
Today the Houthis claim that they downed a US MQ9 drone over the skies of Yemen. No statement was made by US Centcom. You can see and read more details here. It is apparently the fifth such drone shot down by the Houthis.
Aid
After briefly dropping to a daily rate below 25 aid trucks per day, inbound aid trucks have hit 280 trucks yesterday and 365 trucks today. Most entered through Kerem Shalom border crossing in the south.
And the UN World Food Program said today that the opening of the two new land border crossings opened by the IDF in the past two weeks has allowed them to double its aid operations. They also said that four bakeries are fully operational now in northern Gaza.
Politics/Demonstrations
The ramifications of the speech issues by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant two days ago regarding the “day after” planning is still playing out. I believe that it will be seen as a major event in this war. To remind you, he went public to requests that the Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly state that having the IDF/Israel institute military governance of Gaza, including administrative/governance responsibilities, should be eliminated as a consideration. While one can’t be absolutely sure why he put this issue into the public debate, it appears to be a reaction to a growing (but still very small) cadre of government officials and extreme right wing elements pushing for a re-occupation of Gaza and the establishment of settlements there. Previously Netanyahu had publicly ruled out this possibility, saying that it was “preposterous”. But he has not been so vocal more recently and his extremist coalition partners are behaving erratically (trying to be diplomatic here…). Until now, Gallant has made it clear that he is not a politician. To confidants he has made it clear that he sees the end of his career due to the fact that October 7 happened on his watch. Netanyahu cannot afford to demand Gallant’s resignation. If he were to do that there will be more than a million demonstrators hitting the streets, including yours truly. So, this is the only way that Gallant can find to force this issue.
While he has not said anything publicly it is believed that he favors training an internal security force of non-Hamas personnel inside Gaza to provide a police force there. They would be armed with light weapons, hand guns and rifles, trained and then charged with maintaining local order. Should Hamas or other terrorists emerge, it would be the IDF stepping in to eliminate the threat. But, this police force would be charged with maintaining order amongst their own population. Apparently, the issues arms would be electronically monitored so that they could not fall into the hands of Hamas. In fact, there are strong rumors that this is a variant of what the US had proposed two months ago. The head of PA Security seemed prepared to come forward and help select the security team and they were to be trained inside Jordan by US Security Forces. But, it is rumored that Netanyahu nixed the idea because his extremist coalition partners would have thrown a tantrum. EVERYTHING DESCRIBED IN THIS PARAGRAPH IS RUMORED AND NOT PUBLIC. THEREFORE ONE SHOULD NOT TAKE IT AS FACTUAL.
International
Today the Israeli legal team presented its case in front of the ICJ. You can watch the entire Israeli law team here if you like here. It starts about 2 minutes into the video. It is more than an hour long. I summarize the key points here. The defense was led by Tamar Kaplan Tourgeman. She is the Israeli Foreign Ministry legal advisor. Throughout her retort to the South African allegations she pointed out the following:
despite rocket fire from Hamas and the death of several IDF soldiers, the IDF has managed to keep open the Karem Shalom border crossing. Today alone 330 aid trucks passed through the crossing bound for Gaza,
Israel has opened three new land crossing from Israeli territory for the sole purpose of increasing the level of inbound aid. The cost exceeded $52 million to expand the infrastructure,
the IDF has been cooperating with the US Army to deploy and install a floating pier that should enable significant increases in in bound aid.
the IDF has delayed its military operations in Rafah for the sole purpose of enabling non-combatants to move to designated humanitarian zones that the IDF established in cooperation with international aid organizations
She closed by saying “Is this what a hermetic closure looks like?”. She was followed by Gilad Noam who said “A state intent on committing genocide would not make the humanitarian efforts Israel is doing to mitigate harm to civilians… It would not delay a military operation for weeks and sacrifice operational advantage by urging civilians to evacuate.” He continued with, “By exploiting the genocide convention, South Africa is suggesting a convoluted reading of international law, under which any conflict can be brought to this court… There is a tragic war going on, but there is no genocide, … There is a danger that the court will find itself engaged in micromanagement of an armed conflict — which is what South Africa wants it to do.” He went on to say that South Africa has taken these measures solely due to their alliance with Hamas. Noam also said “South Africa presents the court for the fourth time with a picture that is completely divorced from the facts and circumstances,”
Ayelet Samerano, the mother of one of the hostages, spoke at a UN Security Council committee meeting regarding the hostages. She informed the UNSC that it was an UNRWA social worker that kidnapped her son Yonatan (age 21) on October 7. You can see the video here.
In response to the Turkish blockade of trade with Israel, in violation of its free trade agreement, Israel announced today that it would slap 100% tariffs on all goods imported from Türkiye.
Today 13 countries, including UK, Germany, Canada, have issued an appeal to Israel to not launch a large-scale offensive in Rafah.
Spain blocked a ship bearing arms from the USA en route to Israel from coming into a Spanish port. Nothing like getting a little help from our friends, no??
The University of Ghent, in Belgium, issued a statement today that it would sever all ties with Israeli Universities as of today.
The PA has issued a formal request to have Israel booted from FIFA, the international football (soccer) governing body… Excuse the pun…
In Your Copious Spare Time…
Here is a substack post from former Israeli Ambassador to the US (and Lone Soldier) Michael Oren. He provides a very lucid analysis of Israel’s military predicament. Note that he wrote this on May 3 and fast moving events have superseded some of the issues he raised.
And here is, what I regard to be, a fair analysis of the pressures on Prime Minister Netanyahu from the Wall Street Journal.
Al-Arabiya, the major Saudi Arabian newspaper, published a short article about the first aid delivery using the newly built improvised US Army pier. You can see a great aerial shot of the pier in the article.
All the complicated, nuanced news about the War in Israel , explained every day with citations attached . Appreciate the steadfastness of the reporting . Am Yisrael Chai