October 376, 2023, "The War"
My 279th post on The War
Today’s Image
I received this image from a friend. The image on the pager reads “Sorry if I hurt you”. We just finished Yom Kippur. Before that day we are supposed to approach any and all people we hurt or offended during the year, asking for forgiveness. So I guess this is someone’s was of expressing “regret” for “The Grim Beeper Operation”.
Casualties
The IDF reports one casualty in the past day: Staff Sgt. Itay Fogel - 22 (Z’’L) who was killed during operations in Southern Gaza. And a 27 year old foreign worker from Thailand was killed by Hezbollah anti-tank missile fire on a kibbutz in the Upper Galilee. His name has not been released. Since the attack the Home Front Command has modified its orders relating to agricultural workers so they are better protected when sirens go off.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
Two rockets were fired from Gaza towards the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. Both fell in open fields.
Hezbollah fired more than 300 aerial projectiles (rockets , missiles and drones) into Israel over the past 24 hours. In one barrage there was a direct hit on a home in the city of Herzliya that borders Tel Aviv to the north. No one was hurt, but the strike triggered a minor fire. In this video you can actually see the drone flying overhead in Herzliya. Most of the other barrages targeted communities further north, but as far south as Haifa, Acre, Nazareth and Tzfat. Two civilians with minor injuries from shrapnel were hospitalized. Most of the rockets were intercepted.
Lebanon Operations
During ground operations in Southern Lebanon, theIDF neutralized more than 50 Hezbollah combatants in the past day. Together with the IAF the ground troops also blew up more than 250 independent sites mostly in South Lebanon, including various tunnels used for storing missiles and arms no far from the Syrian border.
A member of the UNIFIL forces in Southern Lebanon was shot today. It was not clear as to the source of the fire - Hezbollah or IDF - but fighting is very active in the areas around the UNIFIL forces numbering almost 10,000. Previously, Israel asked the UNIFIL to evacuate to an area about 8 km north of their current positions. But they have refused.
Last Thursday the IAF struck a facility in the Dahiyeh neighborhood of Beirut in an attempted assassination on Wafiq Safa, a senior Hezbollah security official who used to report directly to Nasrallah. According to reports coming from Sky News, Safa is alive but hospitalized remaining in critical condition. Safa was in charge of Liaisons and Coordinations. I think that means that he was responsibly for working with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp in smuggling arms into Lebanon.
Yesterday the IAF found and killed Hezbollah’s Radwan Force Commander in charge of their anti-tank missile corp, Araeb el Shoga. There is a video on this site that shows the strike along with the destruction of an anti-tank missile battery.
Gaza Operations
In Gaza, the operation in Jabaliya continues. Today more than 20 Hamas terrorists were killed in close quarters fighting. Fighting also continues outside Deir al-Balah as well as the area near Rafah in the south.
A report appeared in The New York Times claiming that it was briefed by unnamed Israeli security sources regarding intelligence reports captured by the IDF during its combat in Gaza. According to this report Hamas originally had scheduled the October 6 attack a year prior, but was forced to postpone in order to give time to try and enlist Iran and Hezbollah in its strike. But, in the end it chose the date, in part, because it believed that the Judicial Reform protests were splitting and weakening the country.
Syria/Iran/Jordan/Egypt/Iraq/Turkiye
The IDF reports that a drone over the Red Sea was approaching Israel but never entered Israeli air space. At the same time an Iranian proxy claimed that a drone of theirs struck a major structure in Eilat. To date, the IDF has been pretty clear when a facility was hit there so I tend to believe its account.
Politics/Protests
Just as the day of Yom Kippur was coming to a close and highways began to open to traffic some of the families (the more extreme ones) led by Einav Zangauker started fires on the main thoroughfare outside Tel Aviv. Police arrested 5 of the protestors.
Aid
Yesterday 86 humanitarian aid trucks unloaded their cargo on the Gaza staging areas. Only 9 trucks worth of goods were picked up by humanitarian aid agencies.
International
In an interview on Lebanese TV, US Special Envoy to Lebanon Amos Hochstein said that he has been working non stop towards a ceasefire for Lebanon. He said that the IAF attacks on Beirut are totally unacceptable. He, of course, said nothing about the daily missile and rockets attacks on Haifa, Acre, Nazareth, Tiberias and Kiryat Shmona. Hochstein no longer shuttles between Israel and Lebanon seeking a ceasefire since Israel no long trusts him. He was found providing Israeli plans to the Lebanese in advance of operations.
They held a circus yesterday at the UN Security Council. During discussions related to the situation in Lebanon, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Air Saled Iravani delevered a statement in which he eulogized form Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a critical figure promoting peace and stability in Lebanon. He claimed that the assassinations of Nasrallah and Hama’s Haniyeh were done to sabotage any chance of a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza. That’s right, you could not make this stuff up. It is a real circus with a bunch of clowns.
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
Former Prime Minister gave this interview with British Sky News talking about how should Israel respond to the huge ballistic missile attack. The strategy he expresses is very similar to what I have been suggesting in these posts. It is about 5 ½ minutes.
Here is a report from one of my favorite military analysts, Ron Ben Yishai, from Yediot Ahranot. You should read it as he gives a full “in person” account of what is going on in Southern Lebanon, along with an assessment of the morale amongst the troops.