October 234, 2023, "The War"

My 182nd post on The War

This image is an unflattering photo of Minister of Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who serves in this government. He is the leader of an extreme right wing party that Prime Minister Netanyahu enabled to enter the government. While there are a few who admire him, I find his statements and positions repulsive. Everyday he is in the press saying something more provocative than the day before. Today he told reporters that he would be happy to live in Gaza. I think that we might be able to find a vacant tunnel or two where he can live out the rest of his days…. away from Israeli politics….

Hamas Gaza Rockets

Two rockets from Gaza were fired in the direction of the Israeli city of Ashkelon. One was intercepted by Iron Dome and the second never made it out of Gaza, falling inside Gaza. It is not known how many injuries were caused to Gazans.

Casualties

No casualties were reported by the IDF in the past 48 hours.

Gaza Operations

IDF troops operating in Jabaliya uncovered a large cache of rockets and launchers stored in a mosque today. Here you can see images of what they found in the mosque along with more details about the operation.

Search and destroy missions are still being conducted in Rafah. IDF soldiers are finding tunnels with large warehouses of weapons including short range anti-tank missiles like those being fired by Hezbollah, grenades and explosives. Both the tunnel and underground facilities were destroyed. In the past two days the IDF reports that more than 50 combatants were eliminated and an undisclosed number taken prisoner.

It is feeling a lot like a major Rafah Operation is being intentionally delayed once again. The IDF launched its operations in eastern Rafah after giving the non-combatants time to evacuate. They estimate that the neutralized more than 300 combatants and uncovered many, many tunnels that are being mapped to get ready for destruction. Then they massed two brigades in eastern Rafah, while dropping more leaflets informing non combatants on where to go. We all expected them to start expanding the operation to other parts of Rafah. But there is an eery feeling that once again, like in mid March, IDF operations are being deliberately paused. One of the main complaints of the protestors in the streets demonstrating against the government is that they are deliberately slowing down the war effort. No one has gotten a logical explanation as to why IDF operations came to a sudden halt in March. Everyone assumes that Netanyahu was buckling under US pressure. But that is not how a leader should lead. Below, in the “In Your Copious Spare Time…” section I link to an article in the Washington Post you should read.

Lebanon Operations

The IDF announced this morning that a UAV based strike from the air successfully assassinated Qassem Saqlawi while driving in a car. Saqwali is the commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit for its coastal division. Here are more details on the operation and a mug shot. The IDF claims that he was responsible for planning and carrying out many rocket and anti-tank guided missile attacks. Earlier this morning Hezbollah claims that they launched rockets into northern Israel. They landed in open fields but triggered a rather large fire in northern Israel.

Yemen

Houthis claim to have downed another US drone operating over Yemeni air space today. It was an MQ9. You can see a description of this rather large UAV here. The Houthis have managed to take down more than five of these so far. The US needs to investigate what is enabling this.

Iraq/Jordan

Very early this morning IDF fighter jets downed, outside of Israeli airspace, three drones heading towards Israel. One came from Iraq across Syrian airspace heading towards the Golan Heights. The other two came from Iraq across Jordanian airspace in the direction of the Israeli southern city of Eilat. One of these was downed by a missile launched from an Israeli built marine based missile ship and the other by the fighter jets. One of the drones was captured in this video.

Gaza Aid

The pier is back up and operational. The US announced that more than 25 truck loads were delivered via the temporary pier operation since the start of its operations. Altogether more than 400 truck loads of aid made their way into Gaza in the past 24 hours showing that the newly opened northern border crossings are effectively bringing in inspected aid. There does seem to be a restriction on fuel entering Gaza. This is probably because Hamas needs the fuel to operate generators ventilating their massive array of tunnels and the IDF wants to limit that. But that is just a guess on my part.

UNRWA announced that it is refraining from distributing aid in Rafah due to difficulties for trucks to traverse the two southern border crossings - Rafah and Kerem Shalom. Both are active combat zones at the moment. This should probably accelerate the evacuation of the remaining non-combatants in Rafah. Here you can see the massive buildup of acres of aid sitting on pallets on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to transit into Gaza.

IDF - General

Back on May 1 I reported that the IDF was retiring its batteries of Patriot missiles it purchased from the US based Raytheon Corporation. Israel’s own Arrow 3 system performed much better in neutralizing inbound ballistic missiles. The unit of the IAF that managed those surface to air missiles has now been re-assigned in order to create another battery of Iron Dome systems which are sorely needed.

International

Secretary of State Blinken, during testimony in front of US Congress today, stated during that

The Saudis demand a ceasefire in Gaza and a pathway to a Palestinian state, and it may well be that Israel isn’t able, willing to proceed down this pathway

I am not privy to these discussions but from what I can read, the Biden Administration is insisting that Israel implement a complete ceasefire now, leaving Hamas in power, in order to pursue a negotiated end to the fighting, a return of hostages and a guaranteed pathway to a Palestinian State. As a part of this deal, Israel would have to release many, if not all, of the convicted terrorists. And it is not clear how many hostages would be returned. I cannot see how Israel could agree to this.

The Dutch Parliament passed a motion defining “From the River to the Sea” as criminal incitement today. It is my understanding is that this does NOT mean that it will become law and those adopting those words will be imprisoned. Rather it was just an expression of sentiment. In the last election, a more conservative set of parties were elected to the Dutch Parliament, in part a reaction to the large influx of muslim immigrants to the country.

Today this article critical of the inherent bias against Israel at the BBC was documented and published in the Telegraph. This has been documented by other media monitoring organizations like Honest Reporting. It is my assumption that the bias is so rampant that it is nearly impossible to remove at this point. They are certainly not doing anything about it.

International Courts

This is an interesting follow up to the South African initiated case in the International Court of Justice ICJ claiming that Israeli is perpetrating genocide. The media, worldwide, has reported on the proceedings claiming that it concluded “The ICJ has found it is ‘plausible’ that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention.” But during an interview on BBC’s HardTalk program Judge Joan Donoghue, the retiring President of the ICJ had the opportunity to clarify what the court really decided. Watch the two minute video posted on that page. As she stated on the show:

Our decision was only that South Africa had a right to bring its case against Israel and that Palestinians had plausible rights to protection from genocide.

So, unlike what everyone is claiming… that the court decided that there is a plausible case claiming that Israel committed genocide, what the court really decided was that it is plausible that they should hear the case. It sounds like “splitting hairs” but it is important.

Continuing on with the aftermath of the major announcement from the ICC yesterday in which the Prosecutor’s Office made a request to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant, other international bodies are expressing their views. France, in particular. Today the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement supporting the position of the ICC Prosecutor stating that it had warned Israel this might happen. As this article explains, the French Army has been engaged in multiple wars across Africa supporting ruthless dictators that serve the colonial aspirations of France including as recent as 2021. And in this article actual civilian casualties at the hand of the French Military are documented. This is for brutal, jihadi wars on territory more than 2,500 km from France, purely to assist former colonies. Many civilians, as well as combatants, were killed in these multiple wars. Perhaps France, in the interest of fairness, should also submit its leaders to the ICC so arrest warrants can be issued? Gaza is 0.5 km from Israel. So as always, deaths only count if Jews are involved. No one is asking for arrest warrants for Syrian President Bashir Assad for gassing his own citizens nor President for Life of Turkiye Tayyep Erdogan for brutally bombing and killing civilians in northern Syria, eastern Turkiye and western Iraq??

But there are some sane minds out there. A bipartisan group of US Senators have pledged to take action against the ICC. The sentiment is appreciated, but it is not at all sure what they could do. And here is the opinion of the Editorial Staff at the Wall Street Journal. Despite some public spats between the Polish and Israeli governments late last year, the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk said today

An attempt to show that the prime minister of Israel and the leaders of a terrorist organization are the same, and the involvement of international institutions in this, is unacceptable

And a spokesman for the German Government issued this most reasonable and logical statement:

The accusations of the chief prosecutor are serious and must be substantiated … Germany assumes Israel’s democratic system and rule of law with a strong, independent judiciary will be taken into account by judges deciding whether to issue the warrants.

And Italy’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, had this to say during an interview in the large circulation Corriere della Sera:

It is completely unacceptable that Hamas and Israel are put on the same level … Be careful not to legitimize anti-Israeli positions that can fuel antisemitic phenomena.

Politics/Demonstrations

One of the major complaints against this government being expressed through the current demonstrations is that many of the ministers filling senior positions in the government lack the necessary experience and maturity demanded by their roles. I agree with these sentiments. And here is an example…. Two weeks ago, the government enacted a law that permitted the Communications Ministry to shut down the operations of a foreign press office. They implemented this and shut down Al-Jazeera’s office, the mouthpiece of the Qatari government. They had been found filming sensitive military facilities. That did not get too many people upset. It is a foreign, not domestic press, so freedom of the press is not being harmed. However, now the dumb Minister of Communications, Shlomo Karhi (member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party) moved to officially warn the Associated Press that they were not allowed to provide material to Al Jazeera. They also seized equipment from AP. The AP is a subscription based service provided to many international news agencies around the world and has contracts with many, including Al Jazeera. This is just plain stupid, in my opinion. Then just before posting this, after enormous uproar within Israel, the idiot ordered the return of equipment to AP.

While we are on the subject of stupidity… right wing extremist leader Itamar Ben Gvir today announced that he expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to give him a seat in the War Cabinet. This guys never knows when to shut up. Should that happen, it is my opinion that there will be a full revolution in the streets of Israel that will make the “storming of the Bastille” look like a walk in the park. Today he also said that he would be happy to live in Gaza. Actually, that could solve many problems. I hear that there are many vacancies in the underground tunnels these days.

There is a lot of talk, particularly from the Biden Administration, about a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority. In an effort, to accommodate this President for Life Mahmoud Abbas announced, about two months ago, a newly appointed government comprised of “revitalized” technocrats and ministers. It is interesting to learn about what these future leaders say. Here is one report from an organization called Palestinian Media Watch on the new PA Minister of Religious Affairs and the new Minister of Women’s Affairs, and what they have to say. And here is the new Supreme Shari’ah Judge in that government being interviewed. He talks about a repeat of October 7 a hundred times. So they not only do not condemn what happened that talk about repeating it.

In Your Copious Spare Time…

• This article from The Washington Post might provide some insight to just what is going on behind the scenes in Gaza. Much of it makes sense, logically. I highly recommend you read it.

• Here is a great article written by Jonathan Spyer, a very knowledgable military correspondent reporting on the Middle East for years. He talks about Prime Minister’s “day after” plan, or the lack of one.

• While speaking at a literary festival in Berlin, the author Salman Rushdie described what a Palestinian State would look like if it was established now. Not a pretty picture. Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie first rose to prominence after the publication of his book, The Satanic Verses. The book is a fictional novel, but based on verses from the Quran. For that the Islamic Republic of Iran issued a Fatwa (an edict) labelling him as a heretic that should be assassinated. There have been several attempts on his life since.