Today’s Image
Where there fire is burning, once stood a pick up truck with four terrorists that were waiting to cross the border from Syria into Lebanon. None of them survived the attack. You can read more of the details below.
Gaza Rockets
No rockets fired from Gaza crossed into Israel in the past three days.
Casualties
Today Master Sgt. (res.) Yohay Hay Glam - 32 (Z’’L) was killed in action in the central area of Gaza. And earlier in the day, Staff Sgt. Amit Friedman - 19 (Z’’L) died from wounds sustained in a ground operation in Rafah. This brings the total IDF casualties resulting from Gaza operations to 342.
Gaza Operations
Today, the IDF recovered the body of an IDF soldier that was killed on October 7 in combat operations. It was known that he was dead previously. It is my belief that we are going to start seeing more of this type of thing as well as possibly more live hostages emerging over the coming weeks. This is because the IDF has encircled the last two remaining strongholds of Hamas in Gaza (other than those who have blended in with the civilian population in the humanitarian zone). These are also the areas where it is believed that the hostages are being held. Part of these operations involves the discovery and then blowing up of tunnels leading into and out of these areas. This is so that they can isolate the terrorists into these confined areas as much as possible. At least this is my thinking.
Today the IDF announced the destruction of a 3 km long tunnel uncovered in operations earlier in the month. You can see a video and read more here.
Lebanon Operations
Late this afternoon Israeli fighter jets carried out a set of strikes in two areas of south Lebanon where Hezbollah has operational centers. During the strikes they observed combatants going into the facilities.
Mid day two rockets were fired by Hezbollah at the northern community of Kiryat Shmona. A rather light day in comparison to the those days prior to the “Hezbollah Retaliation Attack” when we were seeing a hundred or more rockets fired in a single day. I guess that the Israeli Air Force took out many of those rocket firing tubes in southern Lebanon. Clearly Hezbollah has many more so it is probably just a matter of time before they are redeployed into southern Lebanon. Assuming that the numbers from the IDF are correct, on Sunday they destroyed the equivalent of 5-7,000 rockets, some of which were equipped with smart guidance systems. That represents about 5% of Hezbollah’s arsenal.
Last night, Israeli drones attacked two Hezbollah trucks transporting missiles within Lebanon as observers could see secondary explosions coming from the trucks. Also, last night Israeli fighter jets destroyed Hezbollah infrastructure in two villages about 20 km north of the border with Israel.
Yemen Operations
It has been 42 days since the IDF struck Yemen’s port of Al-Hodeidah, and without any missiles fired from Yemen towards Israel.
The Greek oil tanker Sounion continues to burn and there are concerns it might leak oil. The Houthis insist that the oil was being transported to Israel, but the Iraqi government says it is not true. Iraq and Israel have no commercial ties nor diplomatic relations. The tanker was moving oil from Iraq to Greece. You can read more details here. In that article, a Yemeni journalist is quoted saying that the international community has done nothing to prevent the Houthis from smuggling weapons that are being used to wreak havoc on Yemen.
Syria/Iran/Jordan/Egypt/Iraq
In what is a rarity, the IDF confirmed carrying out a drone strike in Syria today. They rarely acknowledge any actions in Syria so as to provide the government “plausible deniability” so they don’t feel compelled to react. But today they say that an Israeli drone struck the moving vehicle of a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander, Firas Qasem, on the Syrian part of the Beirut-Damascus highway. Qasem along with Hezbollah operatives were in the moving vehicle along with weapons they were transporting from Syria to Lebanon. Around the same time, Hezbollah announced the death of one of its senior operatives, Muhammad Taha, who was in the struck vehicle. You can see a video of the operation here and here.
IDF General
As you might recall I reported on a deadly attack by extremist settlers in the Arab village of Jit that resulted in one dead Arab civilian and several destroyed vehicles. This was on August 16. Since then about 8 of the extremists have been arrested and we expect more arrests as the investigation proceeds. In the meantime the IDF launched an internal investigation of its actions on that day. This is a summary of what their investigation has shown.
Prior to the attack, on the same evening, the IDF received an alert from the Shin Bet notifying them that they believe a nationalistic type crime was going to ensue. The IDF dispatched a large number of IDF troops and Border Control Officers in order to prevent the attack. Then at about 20:00 in the evening, about 100 extremists entered the village, set fire to three cars and two buildings. Some threw stones. Within five minutes the local commander called his superior informing him of the situation and asking from more troops to be dispatched. That commander and his troops did not act quickly enough to quell the unrest and separate the attackers from the village. They are being reprimanded for not acting quicker to prevent the altercation from getting out of hand. Within five minutes of the commander’s call additional troops arrived and together they succeeded in pushing the extremists out of the village and bringing the violence to an end. These additional troops also assisted the Arab villagers in escaping from their burning homes and administered first aid. During the course of the violence, security officers from a nearby Israeli village arrived on site. It is not clear what they did, but they are being dismissed and their weapons confiscated. Most likely they arrived and did nothing to reduce the hostilities. At the time of the hostilities, no arrests were made. But, the investigation is ongoing and the IDF expects more arrests beyond the 8 made so far. The report has been issued along with recommended corrective actions on how IDF troops should respond in these circumstances.
As part of the auxiliary budgeting process the Finance Ministry allocated another $109M in budgeting to cover the extra costs of calling up IDF reservists in the recent fighting.
Aid
COGAT announced today that 127 trucks with humanitarian aid unloaded their cargo into the staging areas of Gaza. And aid organizations picked up 147 trucks worth of aid for distribution to civilians in need.
Hostages/Ceasefire
Today CIA Deputy Director David Cohen commented on the current round of negotiations saying that:
The fate of a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is largely a question that is going to be answered by the leader of Hamas.
Politics/Protests
Members of the Hostage and Missing Families Forum launched a vehicular convoy today intended to slow down traffic and bring attention to their cause. They are driving from central Israel to the border with Gaza.
As it happens every year, it seems, the National Teachers Union announced a nationwide strike as classes are about to resume next week. This happens nearly every year and for most Israeli parents they are surprised when this doesn’t happen. Usually, after a few days of haggling the government and the union reach some form of agreement.
International
The Biden Administration has issued another set of sanctions against those Israeli individuals and organizations they view as contributing to the violence in Judea/Samaria (West Bank). This time they sanctioned an organization called Hashomer Yosh (Guardians of Judea and Samaria) and one of its leaders, Yitzhak Levy Filant. The organization arranges support to 26 illegal outposts in Judea/Samaria (West Bank). The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement slamming the US sanctions against this move, saying it views the action with severity. Personally, I fail to see why the Prime Minister’s Office reacted this way. The organization in question is assisting communities that were set up outside the legal processes. Moreover, they receive some modest contributions from the government’s budget. Given their support of illegal activities, the government should either be fining this organization or detaining those in question, not providing money…
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
I strongly urge you to read this report in the Jewish Chronicle. The Chronicle is the main Jewish newspaper of the British Jewish community. It claims that based on unnamed intelligence reports that only 20 of the hostages remain. According to this report they are restrained and remain in close proximity to Yahya Sinwar for his protection. That fact has prevents the IDF from killing Sinwar multiple times. Moreover, many of the other hostages were being held by splinter groups not directly affiliated with Hamas. And those groups do not abide by Sinwar’s needs.
You don’t see me writing a great deal about what is going on with the IDF operations in Judea/Samaria (West Bank). This is because operations there are ongoing and preceded The War. But if you want to catch up I recommend that you read this article written by one of my favorite analysts, Khaled Abu Toameh, about what is going on and Iran’s involvement. Toameh is an Israeli Arab and an expert on Arab affairs in the West Bank (Judea/Samaria).
Many of you who have been following me for some time might recall when I said “Everything you view and read coming out of Gaza, you view and read because this is what Hamas wants you to view and read.” I have explained it once and can explain it again for my newer readers if requested. But Bassam Tawil does a great job explaining here.