October 232, 2023, "The War"

My 180th post on The War

This photo is of a female tank unit commander. She is facing away so her face won’t appear in the press. There is a specific tank unit “manned” by women. They claim that they did not see the same level of deployment as the male units. They complain and insist that they will raise the issue in court. I have no idea whether their complaints have merit or not, but I doubt that the Supreme Court is going to interfere in IDF decisions like this. But it is great to see their dedication and energy to serve!!!

Hamas Rockets

One rocket was fired from northern Gaza towards the city of Sderot this morning. It was intercepted en route. Another rocket was fired at another community near the Gaza border this evening but landed in an empty field.

Casualties

The IDF announced that two soldiers died during operations in and around Rafah yesterday: Staff Sgt. Nachman Meir Haim Vaknin 20 (Z’’L) and Staff Sgt. Noam Bittan 20 (Z’’L). Three other soldiers were wounded in the same operation when they encountered a booby trapped tunnel entrance. A third IDF soldier succumbed to wounds he suffered in a battle in Jabaliya on May 15: Maj. Gal Shabbat 24 (Z’’L). To date 283 IDF soldiers have died in combat during operations in Gaza.

IDF Operations in Gaza

The UN issued a statement today saying that 800,000 non-combatants have left the Rafah area for the humanitarian zone. If true that would mean about ⅔ of the population have evacuated in less than two weeks. You can see satellite images of the area from a few days ago compared to now, here. In a targeted air strike the IDF eliminated the commander of the Hamas police force responsible for intimidating its civilian population. Another senior Hamas combatant was assassinated today in Gaza. Azmi Abu Daqqa was commanding part of the operations smuggling weapons and funds into Gaza. You can see a video here. And in a similar operation, Zahid Hamid al-Holi, the commander of Hamas police in the central district of Gaza was killed in an IDF drone attack along with his assistant. During operations in Jabaliya, IDF troops uncovered many weapons stored en masse in armories and in many homes they entered. My guess is that they will finish up their operations there by next week some time.

Lebanon

Early this morning a kamikaze drone exploded near Kibbutz Yiftah, about 2 km from the Lebanese border. No injuries or damage. This evening IDF fighter jets attacked several buildings in south Lebanon used by Hezbollah combatants for launching and staging missile attacks. Earlier in the day, more than 10 rockets were fired from the positions targeted by the IDF. And later in the evening, a kamikaze drone fired by Hezbollah was neutralized by an IDF fighter jet.

Iran

Of course the major news in the region is the helicopter crash in northern Iran near the Azerbaijan border carrying Iranian President Raisi and his Foreign Minister. Despite attempts with rescue helicopters they have yet to find the helicopter. It appears that the rescue crews located the helicopter crash site and radioed that they found at least two survivors. I am sure we will learn more by tomorrow morning.

Aid

Yesterday 300 pallets of aid were unloaded from a ship delivering aid on the US Army built pier off Gaza City. One truck hauling about ⅓ of the aid was commandeered by a local clan and driven off before the aid could be distributed. When fully operational it can potentially handle 150 truckloads of inbound aid. So, at best, it will be only a fraction of what can come in through the land crossings. It is also vulnerable to rocket attacks from Hamas. You can read more here. Overall the rate of aid trucks entering Gaza has been restored to pre-Rafah Operation levels, hitting about 260-280 average trucks per day.

Our National Security Minister (police) Itamar Ben Gvir, from the most extreme right wing party around, said today that the Israeli cabinet should be stopping aid trucks and not the protestors attempting to block them from transiting to Gaza. I reported about a week ago that one aid truck was set on fire by right wing demonstrators. These days they attempt to block the trucks traversing Israel, but are quickly scattered by the IDF. These protestors call their organization”Tsav 9”. This is the group that the Biden Administration is intending to sanction. If we had a normal government, these protestors would sit a few days in prison…

Aid shipped in over the border crossings is finding its way into the black market like before.

Politics/Demonstrations

US National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, arrived in Israel today after spending a day in meetings in Saudi Arabia. He met with both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Herzog. At this point Netanyahu is keeping a tight lid on who speaks and meets with US officials as there is clear distrust between him and his subordinates in the IDF and Security leadership in Israel at this point. He is trying to control the dialogue between the Biden Administration and Israel. I do not recall this having been done before to this extent. In a way it has become a bit dysfunctional. On one hand he has a bunch of incompetent subordinates in his own government and party, not just the extreme right wing ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who publicly say whatever they think will gain them more votes in an upcoming election. And because most intelligent politically elected figures no longer want to work with him, the depth of his cabinet is very shallow. The dialogue he is controlling is between those unelected professionals and the US Administration. This can’t last.

Speaking of Smotrich, he surely does not want to be in Ben Gvir’s shadow. Today, our Finance Minister, said during a meeting of his political party that if Hezbollah does not withdraw from the border the IDF must take over southern Lebanon. He continued by demanding that Prime Minister Netanyahu make a clear announcement to this effect immediately. Why not? Everyone else is demanding the Prime Minister make public commitments, why shouldn’t he?

Last night at the large protest in Tel Aviv in support of the hostage families, a father who lost six family members on October 7 was attacked by a couple right wing activists who were carrying a sing “leftist traitors”. The victim intends to file a complaint. Hopefully, the perpetrators will serve time in prison soon.

And if the atmosphere is not toxic enough, the Chairman of the Executive Council at Tel Aviv University publicly stated that “it was a shame that Netanyahu wan’t on the helicopter that crashed in Iran”. This is really sick.

International

Today Congresswoman Elise Stefanick delivered a short speech in the Israeli Parliament in front of one of the committees. Not sure about the timing on all this. Of course, she criticized the Biden Administration for withholding an arms shipment to Israel. I guess that she is working on improving her credentials so she is a possible VP nominee for President Trump??

Jordan’s Foreign Minister demanded today that an international investigation into Israeli War Crimes must be launched. He will need to take a number and stand in line as there are many other countries that are in front of him.

In Your Copious Spare Time…

• I put this article in CNN in the MUST READ category. It is a written interview with John Spencer, a retired US Army Officer who served in combat overseas. He lays out the good, bad and ugly about just what is going on.

• Michael Oren, former Israeli Ambassador to the USA, published an Op-Ed today in one of the English speaking online news outlets today. It is well worth reading and presents one possible way forward.

• And here is a very good opinion piece appearing at CNN online. The author frames the antisemitic tropes being spawned and propagated on US college campuses today.