Today’s Images
Today was an overall good day in Israel with the daring and complex rescue operation resulting in the recovery of four of the hostages that were being held in private homes in the Nuseirat area of Gaza. All the homes were heavily fortified and guarded by Hamas combatant forces. That is the reason for the unusually high casualty count of Gazans. The four rescued hostages pictured above include: Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv. The photos were taken long before their capture. You may remember Noa Argamani as she was recorded being taken captive on a motorcycle driven by one of the terrorist attackers on October 7. Her mother, Liora Argamani, is hospitalized with a terminal brain tumor. She was wishing to see her daughter one last time before her imminent death, which happened today.
The soldier pictured is the hero of the day, Arnon Zamora (Z’’L). He was the commander of one of the units responsible for this rescue. He died from wounds inflicted during the rescue from this morning. The operation was named in his honor today, Operation Arnon, posthumously. More about the operation below.
It should be noted that US based Intelligence Units provided assistance in locating the hostages prior to the operation.
Gaza Rockets
This afternoon two rockets were fired from Gaza and crossed the Israeli border. One was intercepted by Iron Dome as it was headed for the Israeli town of Sderot and the other fell in an open field.
Casualties
During the course of the operations to free the four hostages a commander of one of the special forces unit was critically injured and later died of his wounds: Arnon Zamora - 36 (Z’’L). Zamora was a veteran lone soldier and leaves a wife and two children behind. Zamora is the 294th casualty resulting from combat in Gaza.
Gaza Operations
The big news of the day is the daring hostage rescue operation resulting in the release of four of the hostages who were being held captive in the Gaza town of Nuseirat in central Gaza that took place this morning, Saturday. The hostages were being held captive in the homes of two Gaza families within buildings controlled by Hamas, separated by about 200 meters.. The IDF has estimated about 100 Gazan casualties resulting from the operation. It is not known as of yet, how many of these casualties are combatants and how many are civilian. But it is clear that the forces came under intense fire from combatants during the course of the operation. The IDF is saying the operation was more complex than the Entebbe Operation in 1976 that rescued Jewish Hostages from the airport in Uganda. Hamas is claiming over 210 “martyrs”.
The Operation Arnon was planned the previous week and was approved by Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant on Thursday evening. War Minister Gantz is no longer participating in War Cabinet decisions due to his imminent resignation to be announced later this week. It was given final approval this morning at 11:00. The hostages were held in two separate buildings hundreds of meters apart. The buildings were 3-4 stories high. Argamani was held on the first floor of one building and the others were held on the third floor of a different building. Forces to secure all four had to be deployed in parallel and simultaneously since Hamas kept moving the hostages from place to place. It was assumed that if an operation was launched to secure one, then Hamas would move the others before the IDF could act. The key to the operation was reaching the hostages before the Hamas combatants guarding them could shoot to kill the hostages.
The rescue of the three men turned out to be the more challenging as that rescue came under intense fire. During the withdrawal part of the operation the unit came under heavy fire as many dozens of Hamas combatants started streaming out of alleys and arriving Toyota pick up trucks, all armed with anti-tank missiles and machine guns. Because these combatants started firing indiscriminately, many nearby civilians were killed. Then the vehicle carrying the three male hostages became stuck and came under heavy fire. Ultimately the forces and hostages were evacuated by helicopter. Apparently, training for the operation was conducted over the last three weeks. Here you can see the post operation briefing by Read Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the IDF. And here you can read more about details of the operation.
And you can see videos of some of the hostage reunions with their families here.
This is the third successful hostage rescue operation executed by the IDF.
Meantime, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida suggests that other hostages might be killed in a reprisal by Hamas against the rescue operation.
And today, in Rafah, IDF infantry raided the western area of Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood. This suggests that the IDF is now active in most parts of Rafah at this stage. The troops uncovered several tunnels and weapons stores. Dozens of Hamas’s Tel Sultan Brigade combatants were killed in the operation. Operations also continued in the southern part of Rafah with the Hamas Yabna Brigade. Those are two of the four brigades that were previously operating out of Rafah.
And operations continue in central Gaza in the areas of Deir al-Blah and east Bureij as I reported previously.
Lebanon Operations
Israeli fighter jets completed a wave of attacks on Hezbollah facilities throughout southern Lebanon after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets and anti-tank missiles against targets inside northern Israel. In addition to these 10 different attacks from Hezbollah, it launched what it calls Falaq-2 rockets which carry a much heavier payload. These are Iranian built, unguided rockets having a range of 10 km and can carry a payload of 60kg. It was used extensively in the Syrian Civil War. The anti-tank missiles, which have a much shorter range, hit a building in an Israeli settlement right along the Lebanese border causing a fire to ignite nearby. Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire after 4 hours.
Last week Hezbollah claimed that one of its kamikaze drones destroyed an Iron dome battery. Here you can see a video that their news outlet posted, documenting the attack. They always have music accompaniment on their videos. But, according to the IDF, what they attached was in fact a decoy. I had not realized that the IDF had planted decoys like this…
Egypt/Syria/Jordan
Today, in the Syrian city of Deer Ezzor two pro-Iran militants were killed in a car bombing. It is not clear who was behind the attacks as there are still many remnants of the rebels inside Syria from the Civil War.
Aid
Israel’s COGAT, Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, announced the establishment of the 11th field hospital being managed by the RAHMA International aid organization. It is operating in the Humanitarian Corridor in Gaz’s Al-Mawasi. That is where the IDF advised the residents of Rafah to go.
And the USA announced that the floating pier has been repaired and is ready for operation again. The IDF announced that it was bolstering forces deployed to defend the pier against attacks from Hamas combatants.
On Friday 75 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza. Most entered through the Kerem Shalom Crossing and some from the northern Erez Crossing. As you might remember the Kerem Shalom Crossing came under rocket fire from Hamas right before the IDF started its Rafah Operation. But now it is relatively quiet as the IDF is effectively neutralizing the Hamas positions in Rafah. In the meantime the IDF documents that the contents of more than 1,000 trucks is sitting on the Gazan side of the borders waiting to be distributed by the UN aid agencies operating there. Not much sense bringing in more trucks until the aid agencies need more aid I guesss.
International
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, today, accused Israel of a “brutal attack” against “innocent” Palestinians and said that Israel is violating international law and is systematically targeting Palestinian civilians. Also, Egypt slammed “Israel’s attack” on “innocent” Palestinians. Neither country’s Foreign Ministries mentioned in their statements that any hostages were rescued. And The President for Live of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has called for an emergency UN Security Council session for the purpose of issuing another anti-Israel resolution regarding the “bloody massacre that was carried out by the Israeli forces”. And Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh announced that “the resistance will continue”. And later he said that we can capture more hostages.
The EU High Representative Josep Borrell called the rescue operation “another civilian massacre”.
President Biden, during a press conference in Paris with President Emmanuel Macron, said today that:
We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached. That is essential to happen.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the rescue operation is “an important sign of hope”.
On a different subject, today Former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came out publicly to stat this it was wrong to invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address both housed of Congress.
Politics/Protests
As I mentioned in my Thursday post, War Minister Benny Gantz had scheduled a press conference for this evening, Saturday, as he fully anticipated to announce his departure from the government. But, in an effort not to distract from the brief euphoria in the country due to the hostage recovery operations, he decided to postpone his press conference. In the meantime, both the Prime Minister and the head of one of the ultra-orthodox parties appealed to Gantz not to leave the government. If Gantz were to leave, it would not bring down the government immediately as the remaining parties have enough seats in parliament to maintain a majority. But many predict that his departure will trigger larger protests against the government. I am not so sure that I agree. I still do not think that the overall majority in the country want to see new elections with active divisions fighting in Gaza. So I think that it would take some internal issue to the rest of the parties to bring down the government - ultra-orthodox IDF draft exemptions or conduct of the War. But, at some point when the fighting in Gaza becomes more like “Whack A Mole” then the population will get restless to remove this government. This is my opinion.
Protests continue in Tel Aviv as they do every Saturday night combining the public efforts by the families of the hostages with anti-government protests. The number of participants has diminished from previous protests but is likely to increase once again when Gantz finally announced his departure from the government.
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
Here is an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal talking about how all the press blames Israel for everything even before the story is fully documented.
And here is a short speech by Douglas Murray who was invited to speak recently at a French Symposium on anti-semitism. Murray has visited Israel several times since the beginning of the war and has been writing extensively about the conflict and events surrounding it.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/how-hamas-ends-gaza