October 254, 2023, "The War"

My 199th post on The War

Today’s Images

Welcome to the heroes of the IDF’s Oketz Unit (Oketz means ‘sting’). These brave dogs undergo years of training to perform operations in the field that are either too difficult for a human or make use of their incredible sense of smell. They have proven to be absolutely essential to the ongoing operations of the IDF infantry, to the extent that there is at least one member and his trainer embedded within nearly every single infantry unit operating in Gaza. They enter buildings in advance of army units before the humans do. But no one, not even these brave dogs, enters through the front door or window of any apartment or building. The IDF bores a large hole through the concrete in the side of the facility, the Oketz dog enters and is trained to sniff out explosives but not to trigger the explosion. No one enters from the front door or window since most are booby trapped.

So far about 30 canine members of the Oketz unit have been killed in combat. As you might guess each one becomes very attached to their trainer. The image below is taken of the canine cemetery, honoring these canine heroes. In addition, about a dozen of these canines were injured during combat and are on “pension”. The IDF is expanding this unit by 3X over the next five years as they have become an essential function in the IDF.

These canine heroes have also proven themselves in tunnel operations within Gaza. They often enter a tunnel equipped with video cameras that transmit the images back to their trainer. There is two way audio, so the trainer can give commands as well. They sniff out explosives and explore the tunnels. There are other means, in addition to these canines, that the IDF is using to map out the tunnels… as you might guess it is a form of drone. I have seen these drones, but am unable to post a photo as they are classified.

In a recent operation, Hamas combatants hiding in a tunnel somehow managed to attract one of these canines to them, perhaps with some specific food or something. They cut open the dog and embedded explosives inside, hoping the dog would return to its trainer and explode. Instead the poor dog limped his way out of the tunnel, laid down and died. The IDF unit found him later.

You can read more here.

Gaza Rockets

No rockets were fired from Gaza and crossed the Israeli border in the past 48 hours.

Casualties

No IDF casualties were reported in the past 48 hours resulting from operations in either Gaza or Lebanon.

Gaza Operations

The IDF continues its operations in central Gaza, in both Bureij and Deir al Balah. Like the nearby community of Nuserait, from where the hostages were rescued on Saturday, these areas were previously passed over by the IDF in its operations. So they are coming back to take on the Hamas combatants there. During the course of operations there in the past couple of days dozens of Hamas combatants from the '“Nukba” brigade have been killed in combat. Air fired missiles were also directed at several of the tunnel entrances uncovered. Several of those tunnels and associated Hamas operation facilities above ground have also been destroyed.

And operations continue in Rafah without much change from the routine of finding/destroying combatants and their tunnels.

Lebanon Operations

A kamikaze drone launched by Hezbollah exploded in the community of Sha’al, about 10 km from the Lebanese border this morning. A fire broke out after impact and five civilians were hospitalized due to smoke inhalation.

Hezbollah has been consistently changing its tactics on how, when and how many projectiles it launches against Israel in order to probe Israeli Defenses. The IDF is doing the same thing in converse. Below in the “IDF General” section I describe how their kamikaze drones have been very effective against the existing radar and defensive systems Israel has in place. In addition, they are launching drones out to sea and then redirect them to blow up inside coastal Israeli cities. They are doing the same in launching drones over the Golan Heights. Luckily, unlike the hilly terrain along the Lebanese border, Israel has had much more success in identifying and eliminating these drones. Today, two drones were destroyed by Iron Dome when one tried to blow up in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya and one was blown up over the Golan Heights. The IDF announced that its fighter jets attacked those locations from where the rockets and drones were launched in southern Lebanon. Earlier in the day, Hezbollah launched rocket barrages at Acre and a suburb of Haifa. This is the deepest that their rockets have reached to date, about 17 km from the Lebanese border. The rockets were intercepted before they could land in these heavily populated areas.

Yemen Operations

The Houthis claim to have arrested today an “American-Israeli” spy cell inside Yemen. They claimed that the cell was carrying out espionage and sabotage actively in their controlled areas. There has been no response from either Israel or the USA.

Yesterday, I reported that two ships were hit by Houthi missiles in the area of the Gulf of Aden. Here is an update… The Iranian proxies successfully struck the Tavvishi, a Liberian flagged and Swiss owned container ship. It was his with an anti-ship ballistic missile according to US CENTCOM. The ship was damaged, but not of the crew were hurt. Also, two anti-ship ballistic missiles successfully struck the Norderney, an Antigua/Barbados flagged ship owned by a German company. Neither of these commercial ships had any connection to the USA, Israel or the UK. I do not know the current disposition of these two ships and if they are able to continue on their router or must divert to a nearby port.

Aid

Yesterday, Sunday 167 humanitarian aid trucks entered Gaza through the two main operating border crossing at Kerem Shalom in the south and at the Erez Crossing in the north. From the north, the aid enters through the Port of Ashdod, nearby. As of this morning, Monday, aid unloaded from 900 aid trucks is waiting on the Gaza side of the border for the UN agencies to pick it up and distribute to the population in Gaza.

Claiming concerns for safety of their staff, the UN World Food Program said that it would not assist the distribution of aid inbound from the US floating pier. Although, the rescue operation was more than 5 km away from the pier’s location, she cited concerns resulting from that operation. I don’t get the connection between the two, but what do I know?

So, the USA dropped 10 metric ons of aid from the air using a US Air Force cargo plane.

So here is another example of some of the idiots running our country at the moment. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the leader of the extreme right wing party in this coalition, issued a statement last night that said in light of the departure of former War Minister Gantz from the War Cabinet that a new opportunity arises. He argues that Israel should restrict aid going in to Gaza, and most specifically fuel. He is also demanding a seat in the War Cabinet. This is a guy who cannot keep his mouth shut and we are supposed to trust him with confidential discussions on the conduct of the war? This guy was rejected by the IDF on the grounds of his mental instability and did not serve. And how does he think that the International Courts will respond to his comments regarding aid??? Netanyahu is sitting in the mess that he created.

Hostages/Ceasefire

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced today that they are sticking to their demands that any hostage deal must include a full and permanent IDF withdrawal from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire.

The four hostages rescued on Saturday, along with all those rescued or released earlier are being treated at The Sheba Medical Center outside of Tel Aviv. There they are given both medical, emotional and psychological treatment by professionals trained in such specialties. The chief doctor, Dr. Pessach, described the conditions that the hostages endured during their captivity as harsh. According to him, many were beaten on the verge of torture. There were days they went without food or water. They were punished if they had not read certain assigned verses from the Koran. They were denied the ability to walk outside or see the sunlight. Many suffered from muscle atrophy.

A story broke inside Israel claiming that the hostage deal prepared by Israel, endorsed by President Biden and other world leaders, includes a clause saying that Israel would permanently end the Gaza War before all the hostages were returned. The Prime Minister’s Office is adamantly denying this claim, saying that Israel never agreed to permanently cease its attack on Hamas. What the PMO is claiming is that the wording used is “a sustainable calm”. But, the PMO is not sharing the details of the deal beyond the War Cabinet. This is causing a raucous, politically, here in Israel. It is my view, that Netanyahu has little choice. He has totally unqualified and childish coalition partners who are leading major Ministries in this government. They have proven over and over that they are incapable of keeping anything secret and expose anything that promotes their position politically. The Prime Minister’s own poor choices for coalition partners is haunting him over and over again in this War.

And just to add confusion to the situation, this report from NBC News claims that the Biden Administration is engaging in unilateral talks with Hamas regarding the five US hostages still being held captive in Gaza, without any involvement from Israel. Somehow, I am skeptical of this. I fail to see what the USA could offer Hamas that it wants, other than a full arms embargo on Israel.

Secretary of State Blinken left Egypt early today after conferring with President Sisi and his staff. Today he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Israel Katz. Katz needs to take some kind of course in Public Diplomacy, in my opinion, because he understands very little about it. As an example of his childish approach to diplomacy, today Katz posted on his X account a message mocking Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his deputy Yolanda Diaz for their major loss in the recent European Union Election. What does he expect to accomplish by making such a stupid statement?? Look what our Foreign Minister did here. While I think that the Spanish Government is currently run by idiots, I fail to see what statements and photos like these hope to accomplish. And Katz is one of the more experienced Ministers in this current Government.

IDF General

I guess that today is the day for statistics. The IDF announced today that, excluding the projectiles sent to attack Israel by Iran, more than 19,000 rockets fired from both Gaza and Lebanon have landed in Israel since the start of the Gaza War. Thousands were neutralized by Iron Dome. Moreover, the Israeli Air Force, not to be outdone, announced that more than 150 drones were launched by Hezbollah to attack Israel since the start of the War. Most are kamikaze drones intended to blow up people and facilities. Israel is still struggling to figure out a way to destroy these drones before causing damage. The problem is that Hezbollah launches them at low altitudes so they are below the radar systems. Then they climb only in the last couple of minutes before they attack. At a low altitude it is hard for Iron Dome to destroy them. Just today, two such kamikaze drones evaded detection and interception in the Golan Heights. Luckily, in those cases no damage was done. While I am not an Aeronautical Engineer, I believe that once the IDF gets Iron Beam operational in the field, this is the laser based anti missile system, it can help… particularly if it can be made airborne on a large drone. But even if this was feasible, it does not help the current situation.

International

While in Egypt this morning, Secretary of State Blinken stressed with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi the need to re-open the Rafah border to inbound aid trucks. So far, Egypt has refused to cooperate with Israel in passing aid across that border crossing.

Slovenia has joined the rush to recognize some kind of Palestinian State.

Politics/Protests

Today, the Israeli Supreme Court was petitioned by a group of “Humanitarian Aid NGOs” regarding the role of the IDF and Israel in Gaza. In response the court has asked the Government to explain why they should not allow unfettered access to humanitarian aid, equipment and staff into Gaza. Based on the accusations of these NGOs, the court went a step further in asking the Government to explain why it should not be considered an “occupying power” and take responsibility for the provision of essential humanitarian aid to the local population. I believe that the IDF can show fairly easily its defense in both cases. It should not be too hard to show how much aid is getting into Gaza, how the IDF went to lengths to ensure borders were open for the aid, etc. But we will see.

I actually think that this is a good thing. One of the issues raised by the Prosecutor to the International Criminal Court when he requested the arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant was the lack of action by the Israeli Supreme Court.

Previously, you read my reports on the Government’s ultra-orthodox draft exemption bill. This is not what they call it, but what I and most Israeli’s call it. This is because it does little to really force conscription of eligible members of this community. Well this bill is moving through committee hearings and appears to be coming up for a vote in the next two weeks. Defense Minister Gallant, who I view as the hero of the hour, has announced that he will oppose the bill even though he is a member of this government. If three more members of the coalition join him in opposing this bill, then it will not pass and it could lead to the fall of the government. I suspect that there are three members of Netanyahu’s own party that are likely to oppose the bill as well. We will have to watch this over the coming days…

I reported about three weeks ago on an investigative report coming from one of the top three TV networks in Israel documenting political payoffs and bribes coming from the office of Transportation Minister Miri Regev. In response, today the national crime unit of the Israeli Police has launched an official investigation into the alleged corruption in the ministry. Regev has been accused of abusing her office by paying off and offering preferential treatment to officials in local communities who are from her political party, The Likud. According to the press investigation, she granted projects and preferences based upon the assistance she received in the last election.

And In Your Copious Spare Time…

• In the aftermath of the incredible hostage rescue operation, Operation Arnon, here is a type of post-mortem on the operation, analyzing what it took to extract the hostages and what future prospects might look like. It is unusual that I find a worthwhile article in The New York Times to recommend, but here is one that is well written and thought through.

• As I reported yesterday and has since been reported elsewhere, the patriarch of the family that was holding the three male hostages, Abdallah Al-jamal, was also a journalist reporting for Al-Jazeera and The Palestine Chronicle. Al-Jazeera denied it at first. But then it said that it had once employed him under contract but has not recently. Then CNN accused the IDF of not providing proof of its claim. Well, you should look at and read this.

• And here is an article authored by Alan Dershowitz talking about the long history of the association of Arab leaders in pre-state Israel, when it was a British Colony, with the Nazis.