October 296, 2023, "The War"

My 221st post on The War

Today’s Image

This is an image of an Iranian arms shipping vessel. This one, or one like it, seems to have disappeared on its way to deliver arms to the Houthis and no one seems to know where it went. See below.

Gaza Rockets

No rockets launched from Gaza crossed into Israel in the last 8 days. But I expect a flurry of rockets to be launched over the coming week. See below.

Casualties

IDF reports that Captain Mordechai Kadmon (Z’’L) was killed today due to an operational accident at his base inside Gaza.

Gaza Operations

As I had predicted three weeks ago, the IDF has now initiated a major operation in Gaza by sending in tanks and infantry back into Khan Younis. Many of the Hamas combatants, about ⅔ of the brigades that were in Rafah, moved to Khan Younis as the IDF was entering Rafah. They merged with some spurious remaining fighters from disbanded Hamas brigades elsewhere. They have been attempting to reconstruct some of their fighting units in the hopes of continuing the fight. Moreover, it is widely believed that the hostages are being held in tunnels underneath Khan Younis along with Yahya Sinwar, his brother and their families. I do not think that the IDF foresees a major rescue attempt of some remaining hostages, but perhaps I am wrong and they have some real leads on their whereabouts. Right now it is believed that Sinwar has surrounded himself with many of the remaining, living hostages.

No, the real intention of this operation is to take on much of what remains of the Hamas fighting force. The IDF estimates that of the roughly 30,000 initial size of the Hamas forces, they have killed or taken prisoner about 16,000-18,000. It is not known how many of the remaining 12-14,000 are seriously injured and unable to engage in any meaningful fighting. But it would be reasonable to assume that 6-9,000 remain. And a significant number of them are likely to be found in Khan Younis. Moreover, the IDF intentionally did not destroy all the tunnels they found in Khan Younis. And there are likely to be some tunnels that went undetected. There are some rumors that Sinwar is hiding in a tunnel some 100 meters deep. Think about that a second… That is about the equivalent of a 25 story building.

The IDF caught footage, which you can view here, of Hamas operatives climbing onto trucks delivering aid for the purpose of stealing the contents. The IDF has started operations targeting at preventing this from happening. Last week, an IDF brigade raided an UNRWA school that was along the humanitarian aid corridor. It was being used by gunmen to stage their hijacking operations. The IDF killed the gunmen and found a tunnel, which they later destroyed, that was being used by the Hamas combatants.

Operations are ongoing in Rafah. Today the IDF posted a video of a tunnel they found in one of the neighborhoods that was several hundred meters long. Here you can see the video showing them blowing it up. In addition, the IDF reports that it has killed dozens of Hamas combatants in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah in the past two days.

The reason I expect there to be a flurry of rockets launched from Gaza to Israel over the next week is that Hamas will want to fire what it can from Khan Younis before they are found and destroyed by the IDF. Moreover, many of the rocket attacks in the past few weeks were coming from within the IDF designated humanitarian zones. Here you can see a video showing rocket launching sites inside the humanitarian zone. The IDF is informing civilians there to move as they intend to enter the area to find and destroy tunnel entrances from where the rockets are being fired.

Lebanon Operations

This morning Hezbollah launched seven kamikaze drones against targets in northern Israel. All seven were neutralized by IDF air defensive systems. (I wonder if they are doing something different since this is much more impressive than previous attacks?). Then this afternoon IDF fighter jets destroyed several active Hezbollah military facilities in southern Lebanon.

Yemen Operations

Early this morning US CENTCOM forces operating near the Red Sea announced that they destroyed four Houthi Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) that were targeting commercial shipping vessels.

And here is a very interesting report on an Iranian vessel transporting arms and ammunition to the Houthis that apparently “disappeared” while at sea. The boat, its crew and its military cargo “just vanished into thin air”. Rumors are that the vessel may have been captured by US forces.

And here is a report claiming that a former high ranking Houthi official criticizing the Houthis for miscalculating by attacking Tel Aviv. But no name is provided or role, so it is hard to be sure just what was said.

Hostages/Ceasefire

The IDF announced today that it is certain that two additional hostages have been killed in Hamas captivity - Alex Dancyg - 75 (Z’’L) and Yagev Buchstav - 35 (Z’’L). The IDF has confirmed the death of 44 of the remaining 116 hostages, leaving 72 presumably still alive. Buchstav’s wife was also abducted, both from their home. But she was released in the November 28 hostage deal.

The Council of Rabbis that forms the guiding principals behind the extreme right wing party led by Bezalel Smotrich met and announced that the ceasefire proposal as currently envisioned “would endanger all Israelis”. What this means is that it is unlikely that Smotrich’s Party, which is part of the current government, will support a hostage/ceasefire deal. This is not surprising to those of us here in Israel. It is highly likely that most any deal that gets struck will fall outside what is acceptable to either Smotrich’s Party or that of the even more extreme right wing party of Itamar Ben Gvir. As a consequence, in all likelihood any deal that gets signed is likely to result in the fall of this government. Opposition parties have announced, many times in the past as well as now, that they will step in to get a deal passed through the Cabinet if necessary. But, for Netanyahu it is likely that any deal will result in the fall of his government.

While it is possible that further military accomplishments by the IDF could improve Israel’s negotiation position, it is hard to imagine that it would be enough to satisfy these extreme right wing parties. This is why those people demonstrating in the streets of Tel Aviv regularly accuse Prime Minister Netanyahu of putting his political future ahead of bringing back their loved ones.

It is hard, as of this moment, to predict how this is going to play out.

Aid

Today, the General Director of UNRWA claims that one of their vehicles in Gaza came under fire by IDF forces near a checkpoint. No was injured or killed, but the vehicle was severely damaged. The IDF is investigating. My guess is that the vehicle was serving dual purposes - Hamas and UNRWA. But that is pure speculation on my part.

COGAT daily stats show that 236 aid trucks entered Gaza from Israel on Sunday. More than 550 truckloads are sitting in the staging areas inside Gaza still waiting to be distributed by the UN based aid organizations. Since there have been no reports of any Gazan deaths due to starvation or malnutrition since the start of The War I think that it is safe to say that sufficient aid is getting to the people in need, but most is still being stolen by Hamas. COGAT announced that there is no limit to the amount of aid that can enter Gaza and that international aid organization are failing to properly distribute the aid. While I have little respect for the UN Aid organizations I am not sure that this is an entirely fair accusation. Distributing the aid is still not simple since Hamas does what it can to commandeer the trucks inside Gaza.

Politics/Protests

There has been a flurry of legislation passed by the Knesset that I think is worth my time to brief you on. First, let me remind you that our Parliament, known as The Knesset, consists of 120 members. When we vote in our, too frequent, elections we vote for a political party not specific individuals. Within each party, they create a “list” of members, rank ordered, that would sit in the Knesset. When the votes are tallied each party gets a number of seats in The Knesset based on the percentage of votes the party received from the voting public. Voting here is very clean, with minimal fraud. Each citizen carries a photo ID card issued by the government. They present it at the voting booth and they are checked off a list, twice so there is a double check. No one here has an issue getting and presenting an ID card when voting takes place. (The same is true for Europe, by the way.) If a party does not clear a minimum of 3.5% of the voting public then none of their members can enter the Knesset. So in order to form a government, a coalition of parties is formed (with great difficulty by the way) in order to surpass the minimum of 60 Knesset members. Often the coalition is formed with binding contracts signed between the parties regarding specific legislation they demand. So now on to the specifics….

Last week, on Wednesday, the government presented a bill in the Knesset basically rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian State. I am guessing that the timing is related to either Netenayhu’s visit to the USA or to the recent spurt of European States announcing their recognition of a Palestinian State. But I do not know for sure. In any case, what is significant about this vote is that the resolution passed by a majority of 68 to 9. Out of those 9 opposing votes, 8 were cast by Israeli Moslem Arabs. So what does this mean? First of all, along with the government, Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party voted in favor of the resolution. The opposition parties - Yesh Atid and Labour - representing the “center-left” and “left” parties exited the plenum prior to the vote so they wouldn’t appear to be voting in favor of the resolution. So basically, at this point in time after what happened on October 7th you will not find any mainstream elected representative in Israel supporting a Palestinian State… that will be quickly overthrown by an Islamist Group such as Hamas.

And now this week there is a flurry of bills being debated and voted in the Knesset relating to UNRWA - United Nations Relief Works Agency. It is the organization that operates the schools and overall aid operations in Gaza and Judea/Samaria (West Bank). They also run operations in Palestinian Camps in Lebanon. It is inside their schools and offices where the IDF is finding much of the rocket launchers, rockets, tunnels and armories. In their school curriculum they teach such subjects as how to lace a knife with rat poison and the optimal places to stab a human being in order to kill them. They also teach regular courses on Jew hatred. Israel is quite serious doubt doing what it can to shut down this corrupt organization. Besides preaching violence in their schools, actively assisting the terrorists in their operations and enabling their staff to moonlight as Hamas operatives, they perpetuate the refugee status of the Palestinians for more than 75 years, while every other group of refugees in the world has been dealt with by finding places to take in the refugees. So, as you might expect, we are not too happy with this organization here in Israel. Yet, their international staff (not Palestinian paid staff) largely live a rather comfortable, well paid life here in Israel. So the government is motivated to change that.

The first bill which passed this week, by a vote of 58 to 9, bans the organization from operating on Israeli territory. The second bill strips UNRWA staff of any diplomatic immunity or privileges. This resolution passed 63 to 9. The third bill brands the organization as a terrorist organization which kicks in a whole new level of restrictions on the organization. It passed by a vote of 50 to 10. Now, none of these votes causes the bills to become law yet. Laws, such as these, require a set of three readings and votes before they become enforceable. But you can catch the jest of the intent here…. What is interesting is that the voting patterns on all these bills are quite similar. They are endorsed by quite a large cross section of Israeli voters. You can read more here.

International

China, for the third time, was hosting joint bilateral meetings in China between Fatah and Hamas in the hopes that they could bring peach and cooperation between the two groups. Fatah is the largest party constituting the Palestinian Authority. It was the main fighting force when it was called the PLO Palestine Liberation Organization. But the meeting never even started as Hamas refused to participate. Russia also tried, and failed, to bring the two groups to reconciliation.

And Prime Minister Netanyahu took off for Washington DC this morning along with a rather large entourage. I believe that he is scheduled to meet with President Biden on Wednesday as well as Vice President Kamala Harris. He is scheduled to speak in front of a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. He is trying to meet with Former President Donald Trump during his trip. It should be a rather “hot” time both outside the Capital Building as well as inside, as some Congressmen (and possibly Senators) are expected to walk out either before or during his speech. I have no idea what he intends to say…

And here is something to report and I wasn’t sure where to place it. An earthquake of magnitude 3.9 was reported today in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. While this is nothing to worry about, I thought that many of you might be interested to know that the Jordan Valley (River) lies along a major African-Asian Rift line. Geologists predict that we are due for a major earthquake in the area. Over the millennia there have been several major earthquakes in Israel/Judea.

And In Your Copious Spare Time…

• Here is a biting editorial from the Wall Street Journal describing how the USA promised Israel it would take care of the Houthi threat…. and failed. Here are some choice quotes:

“The Biden Administration told Israel nine months ago that the U.S. would handle the Houthi threat and it should stick to playing defense. But the attack on Tel Aviv shows that the U.S. effort is a bust.”

“The Houthis have all but shut down Western shipping in the Red Sea, at enormous cost to global businesses and consumers. They continue to attack U.S. naval vessels, which have been forced to play a high-stakes game of catch the drones and missiles. That one or more haven’t killed sailors and damaged ships is a tribute to U.S. naval training and technology. But sooner or later one might get through and result in American casualties.”

“The White House is hoping a cease-fire in Gaza will cause the Houthis to cease and desist. But the Houthis and Iran have learned they can terrorize and kill Israelis and Americans at little cost. Even if they stop for a time, they can resume the shooting any time they wish.”

• And here is a long, academic level publication on a different view of Israel’s future military options. This is long and only recommended for those of you looking for a deep understanding on how to deal with urban warfare.

• And if you have an hour to spare, this is a very interesting podcast interview with Amit Segal by Dan Senor. Amit Segal is a well known military analyst taking a rather conservative view on Israel’s political structure. He often appears on Channel 12, one of the most popular TV stations here in Israel. I think you will find his views insightful for understanding how the bulk of the Israeli public is viewing things now. Here on Apple Podcast. And here on Spotify.