Today’s Image
Under the summary of Gaza Operations below I provide details about the tragic incident late Sunday night resulting in Gazan civilian casualties. As usual I provide links where more details can be found. This aerial image shows the precise location of the IDF missile strike, which is more than 200 meters away from the civilians hurt in the incident. There is no way that the 17 kg payload missiles could have been the direct cause of those fires. Without doubt it was a secondary blast triggered by the missile attack, probably shrapnel. The real question is whether the secondary blast resulted from a major Hamas ammunition storage facility or a fuel reservoir.
Hamas Gaza Rockets
No rockets launched from Gaza crossed over into Israeli territory in the past 24 hours.
Casualties
No casualties reported by the IDF in the past 48 hours.
Gaza Operations
Hamas tried to claim the IDF conducted a missile strike on the IDF designated Humanitarian Area in al-Mawasi today. But this is an outright lie. They tried to claim that the Sunday night strike was also in the Humanitarian Area but that was also a lie.
So here are some more details on that Sunday night strike. As I predicted yesterday, the missile strike was precisely carried out to assassinate two senior Hamas commanders. The two missiles struck a building in which they were meeting. They were fired from a fighter jet that had precise missile guidance systems on them. Within 40 meters of the building were major rocket launchers which were in active use. The IDF has been monitoring the building and its surroundings for some time, noting that it was an active command center for Hamas. The missiles carried 17 kg (37 pounds) of explosives which is the smallest payload of any missiles in the IDF arsenal. As you may recall from my comments yesterday before any details were released that I thought that there was either large amounts of ammunition stored in the Hamas facility or that there was fuel stored nearby. I said this because no previous missile attack resulted in such fires spreading so quickly. They typically leave craters whose size would depend on the mass of the payload.
Here is a description of what happened, or at least what the IDF investigation has shown so far. Unfortunately it is in Hebrew so I will try to provide some description here. At the top yo will see the photos of the two terrorist commanders targeted and killed in the strike, along with a description of the crimes they committed. The second figure shows the different geographic areas in and around the targeted area. At the top of this photo, maroon color, is the Mediterranean coast (West is “up”). The nearly vertical white line to the left is the border between Egypt and Gaza, often called the Philadelphi Corridor. The curved solid line at the bottom of the figure is the border with Israel. To give you perspective, the entire length of the Philadelphi Corridor is 14 km (8.7 miles). The dot marked in red is the site on which the missiles landed on Sunday night. The large grey area, whose top border follows the beach with the sea, is the Humanitarian Zone carved out by the IDF. The three white dots demarc population centers. The one in the lower left is Rafah. In the next figure down you will see a blown up view of the area around the missile attack. It is also shown as “Today’s Image” above. The point shown with the red arrow in the middle of the aerial photo is the building that was attacked. As you can see, there aren’t many builds around it. The area indicated with the big white banner is the location that Hamas claimed was attacked by the IDF, which is a civilian encampment. That dotted white line indicates 180 meters (590 feet) showing the distance between the two. The next image down is a scaled up view of the previous image. Near the center of the aerial photo you will see a rectangle with a translucent red interior with red borders. That is the build that was attacked. There is a dotted line connecting that facility to another red rectangle, marked with the number 43. That distance is 43 meters, between the targets building and a large rocket firing complex that has been used to fire rockets recently into Tel Aviv. Finally, the video at the bottom is a recording of a conversation between two Gazan residents at the scene of the fires. The conversation is in Arabic, of course, and the subtitles are in Hebrew. Here is a translation of what is being said:
Yes, this is an ammunition warehouse. I tell you it exploded. The Jewish bombing wasn’t strong, it was a small missile, because it didn’t create a large hole. And afterward a lot of secondary explosions.
And finally, at the bottom is a video of Rear Admiral Daniel Haggard describing what happened. It is in English. YOU SHOULD TAKE THE TIME TO WATCH/LISTEN TO HIS BRIEFING.
So far, the IDF investigation team has not determined whether it was Hamas munitions causing the deadly fire or a nearby fuel storage tank. Nonetheless, a full investigation is still underway. The IDF investigates these incidents mostly so they learn from them and make operational changes so they are not repeated in the future. The operators of the drone in question waited for civilians to leave the facility before they launched the attack. But, they either did not see the fuel reserve or it was hidden from the air. Hamas insists that 20 people were killed in the Sunday night strike. It is not clear now how many were civilians and how many combatants. You can read, hear more details here.
In the meantime the IDF has deployed another brigade to Rafah as the area of combat expands. These troops are moving to take control of the entire length of the Gaza border with Egypt. They have already found many, many tunnels and armories. It is going to take some time for them to map out all these tunnels before they destroy them. I expect that we will start seeing real images of them in 2-3 weeks as it will take that long for the IDF to take control of Rafah and the surrounding area. Reports from within Rafah are indicating that IDF tanks are starting to be seen in central neighborhoods of the city. Here you can see some video footage from our “great admirers (not)” at Al-Jazeera showing tanks operating inside Rafah. But, as you will see they are still in the periphery of a city with a pre-war population of 350,000. At this point UNRWA announced that more than 1 million civilians from Rafah have evacuated. That is 90% in less than three weeks.
Lebanon Operations
Early this morning, Hezbollah fired three anti-tank missiles into northern Israel. No damage or injuries reported. Last night IDF fighter jets targets several arms warehouses, observation posts and command centers of Hezbollah in its missile attacks.
Lebanese press are reporting on the discussions that came out of the meetings that took place in Tehran last week between leaders all the “resistance” forces, or perhaps better described as Iranian proxies engaging in attacks on Israel. They met while visiting to attend the funeral of the late Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi. In those publications and the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida, Hezbollah has recently come under possession of long-range precision missiles and Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles, both supplied by Iran. Al-Jarida reports that Hamas will be strict in its negotiating position, will not make concessions to Israel and will not release the hostages until Jerusalem stops the war and withdraws its troops from the Gaza Strip. I have been saying this all along. The reports also say that the parties in Tehran agreed that all the proxies will continue their attacks up through the US presidential elections, thinking that this will bring huge pressure on Israel to capitulate.
Yemen Operations
British security firm Ambrey reports that a merchant vessel off the Yemeni coast has taken on water and tilted to one side after being hit by three Houthi missiles. Details of the ship have not been released to the public yet, but the crew issued an SOS call saying that it has sustained serious damage in the cargo hold and was taking on water. Just yesterday, in my post, I was pondering how the world would react when the Houthis are finally successful in sinking a ship. I guess we are about to find out.
Syria/Iraq/Jordan/Egypt
There are conflicting reports coming out Egypt and the IDF as to whether or not a second Egyptian soldier was killed today. I guess we will learn more in the coming days.
Two drones dispatched by Iranian proxies in Iraq heading towards the southern city of Eilat were intercepted by air defenses today over Jordanian airspace. Eilat sits within 3 km of the Jordanian border so it is not possible to allow these kamikaze drones into Israeli air space.
Aid
The US Army announced that the temporary pier is inoperable again causing them to suspend aid transfers from inbound ships. High winds resulted in high swells near shore causing several anchored pieces of the pier to break away, floating as far north as the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Repairs, they say, will take another week. It is my opinion that this mission was not well conceived. The weather we are experiencing is not unusual. So it seems to me that the entire operation may need to be aborted…. But we will know more in a couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, trucks crossing the southern Kerem Shalom and northern Erez border crossings are averaging deliveries of between 250 and 300 trucks daily now. Nearly all these containers are arriving on the Israeli port city of Ashdod and transported via trucks to these border crossings. Aid transiting through Egypt has still not kicked in yet.
Hostages
Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a video of one of the hostages they are holding prisoner this afternoon. The hostage in the video is Alexander (Sasha) Trufanov who was kidnapped on October 7. He and his family immigrated from Russia 25 years ago. They were living on Kibbutz Nir Oz when the attack happened. His father was killed by the terrorists. His mother, girlfriend and grandmother were kidnapped, but released in the November negotiated ceasefire deal.
Egypt announced that it is working with the USA and Qatar in an effort to revive the hostages/ceasefire talks.
I wasn’t sure where to categorize this report so I am integrating it here. There have been reports from NGOs in Israel claiming that the IDF is mistreating (CNN says abusing) captive combatants from the Gaza War. The IDF has now launched a full investigation. Like many other things the IDF had not planned or anticipated this war. Prison facilities take time to plan and construct. There is no space for the large number of captured combatants so everything is makeshift. We will see how this unfolds.
International
Our “good friend” French President Emmanuel Macron says that he is busy working on a joint UN Security Council resolution regarding the demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. They are collaborating with Algeria, their former North African colony, on this initiative.
The US State Department spokesperson announced that they were in touch with Israel regarding the incident on Sunday night on the western outskirts of Rafah resulting in multiple deaths, including civilians, resulting from an IDF missile attack on senior Hamas commanders. I reported in detail on this yesterday and provided updated - see above. British Foreign Minister David Cameron said today that he expects a “swift, comprehensive and transparent” investigation into the incident.
Today, Ireland, Spain and Norway have all formally recognized Palestine as a state with borders comprising the 1948 armistice lines with East Jerusalem as its capital. They also insist that this capital will be along side the Israeli capital in West Jerusalem. That is kind of strange since none of these three countries have their embassies today in West Jerusalem.
Politics/Protests
Leaders of two smaller right wing parties run by responsible people, Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Saar, have met to discuss how to collaborate in potential upcoming elections, should that happen. Both are meeting with the leader of the opposition party, Yair Lapid, apparently tomorrow.
The leader of the extreme right political party Otzma Yehudit and current National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, has been trying to fire his Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai since Ben Gvir took office. Ben Gvir is now trying to force him out of office by accusing him of intentionally avoiding attending Department events and meetings. Our Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, has stepped in saying that Ben Gvir does not possess the authority to take this unilateral action. My opinion… at least there are signs of responsibility and intelligence trying to reign in this manic, Ben Gvir.
Anti-Government protests were conducted today on major thoroughfares throughout the country today designed to slow down or bring traffic to a halt. Personally, I fail to see how these protestors expect to gain sympathy from the public by blocking their ability to arrive at home or get to the hospital or get to school or get to work. But I guess I also don’t understand why protestors would block the Golden Gate Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge. I guess that it shows that I have little understanding of how these protestors think…. I consider that an asset, not a liability.
In Your Copious Spare Time…
Here is a report, in English, from one of the leading newspapers in Israel. It describes the changes in the school curriculum in Saudi Arabia regarding how it talks about Israel. Those of you following my posts will remember that I discussed on at least three occasions previously. That is, the hope for the future is the de-radicalization of the populations in the Middle East through teaching the truth about Israel and what has been going on.
Here is a summary of an interview by one of the English newspapers in Israel with the former Canadian Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler. He was an early and longtime supporter of the International Criminal Court. It is a short and worthwhile read to better understand the jurisdictional and long term repercussions of the decision by the ICC Prosecutor to pursue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant. The photo of Cotler was taken in a courtyard of the YMCA located near the center of Jerusalem. I work out at their gym daily.
Here is a video trailer of a documentary being produced about what happened on October 7 at the outdoor Nova Music Festival in Israel. It is short, moving and should be viewed by everyone.
And here is a short read from Honest Reporting on that story about the uncovering of that bogus story reported a month ago about “mass graves” outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza. It was a totally fabricated story with no basis… just another Hamas lie and smokescreen.