October 380, 2023, "The War"
My 282nd post on The War
Today’s Image
This is the IDF’s first POW captured on Sunday after he was found hiding in an underground bunker in Southern Lebanon. His description of the situation amongst the fighters in Hezbollah is very encouraging. Three other POWs were captured today, detained and are being questioned. It will be interesting to see if the situation they describe matches at all what this guy said. Read more below.
Casualties
There were no casualties reported by the IDF today. But a policeman First Sgt. Adir Kadosh - 33 (Z’’L) was killed when a terrorist opened fire with a hand gun on a road outside the Southern city of Ashdod. Four people were wounded in the attack. The terrorist, Muhammad Dardouna - 28, was killed by an armed civilian. Dardouna was originally from Jabaliya, Gaza but moved into Judea/Samaria several years ago. Kadosh, the victim was engaged to be married.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
No rockets fired from Gaza crossed into Israel the past 3 days.
Roughly 100 rockets and drones were launched by Hezbollah today into Israel. Two barrages targeted the Tel Aviv area this morning. My Home Front Command iPhone application was alerting me, even though I was in Jerusalem, to seek refuge three times this morning. that followed an earlier rocket attack on Kiryat Shmona and two other adjacent towns. Two drones were launched by Hezbollah late this evening and were intercepted by IDF aerial defense systems.
Lebanon Operations
Israeli fighter jets and drones have been active in Lebanon over the past day striking some 200 Hezbollah positions throughout the country. They struck rocket launching positions as anti-tank missile positions. Some 60 Hezbollah operatives were killed in ground operations. Very early this morning IDF fighter jets struck multiple positions in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, not far from the Syrian border, where much of Hezbollah’s arms storage and manufacturing facilities lie. Here you can see a video of a couple of the strikes. And this video broadcast on Lebanese M TV station.
Two days ago I reported on IDF ground forces in Lebanon capturing a Hezbollah operative that was hiding in an underground bunker. Today the IDF captured three members of Hezbollah’s Radwan force, who were found inside a tunnel, hiding, below a building. They were briefly interrogated in the field and then transferred to a detention facility inside Israel. Here is a video from the IDF web site showing a taped interview with one of the detainees. I believe that it was the one captured two days ago. The headline reads “Everyone escaped because they were afraid of the IDF. After the assassination of Nasrallah you didn’t see any of them.” The man being interrogated describes a situation wherein nearly all the Hezbollah Radwan forces were congregating near the border for the purpose of launching a ground attack into Israel. But after the assassination of Nasrallah and the subsequent intensification of the aerial attacks on Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the south, nearly all the Radwan Forces escaped because they were afraid of the IDF. He says that they are people without faith, without religion and are only in it for the money. He emphasized that the assassination of Nasrallah changed everyone’s perspective within Hezbollah. You may recall that I issued a “My View - Dictators & Assassinations” in my October 2, 2024 post. In that post I argued that assassinations, in Dictatorships, can be a very effective strategy. Here you are seeing some proof.
Yesterday I reported on an IDF drone attack in the South Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh assassinating and unidentified target. The IDF announced today that they neutralized Khader Al-Abed Bahja who led the northern Litani aerial unit of Hezbollah. And today it assassinated the top commander of Hezbollah’s aerial unit responsible for most of the drones. His name has not been disclosed at this time.
As I previously reported, prior to the IDF launching its ground operation, special forces units were operating inside Southern Lebanon since October 2023. Among other missions, these forces mapped out the mine fields laid out by Hezbollah. It now appears that the IDF’s Engineering Unit has begun the process of “defining” these fields. The IDF would only do that if they had the intention to stay for awhile. There are also reports coming in that the IDF is now fortifying its positions in the area where Israel, Lebanon and Syrian borders merge.
Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem issued a statement today saying:
Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place in Israel, whether the center, the north or the south. I am telling the Israeli home front: The solution is a ceasefire… the resistance (Hezbollah) will not be defeated because this is its land.
I find it interesting that he claims that this is Hezbollah’s land. Last time I checked the area was called Lebanon not Hezbollanon.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told Al Jazeera today that he received “America Guarantees” that Israeli strikes in Beirut will be reduced. He added that his government wants a ceasefire and the implementation of UN Resolution 1701. All the Lebanese need to do then is convince Hezbollah of this and there would be serious grounds for a negotiated settlement.
Gaza Operations
IDF ground troops in Jabaliya raided a former, vacant UNRWAR clinic used by Hamas terrorists to store weapons. They called in an airstrike that eliminated a squad of the operatives along with the arms being stored there.
Besides Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in the north of Gaza, IDF operations continue in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza as well as Rafah in the south.
Syria/Iran/Jordan/Egypt/Iraq/Turkiye
Another drone was approaching Israel from the east and was neutralized by aerial defense systems before entering Israeli air space. Presumably it was launched by Iranian proxies in Iraq, but it was not made clear in the report.
One of you asked me about an update on the mysterious whereabout of the top commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Esmail Qaani. There were rumors that he was killed in the strike that got Hashem Safiedinne. Then there were rumors that he survived, was called back to Iran for questioning and finally that as a result of the interrogation he suffered a heart attack. Well in this video taken at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp memorial in Iran you can see Mr. Qaani alive… but not well. He seems to be wiping perspiration continually from his face. So I guess that the mystery is solved.
Aid
The World Health Organization reports that they inoculated 92,821 children in Gaza with the second dose of the polio vaccine in the first day of the campaign.
Yesterday 104 trucks bearing aid and goods transferred into Gaza, leaving their loads on the staging area inside Gaza. Aid organizations distributed 12 trucks worth of aid, leaving more than 520 truck loads of aid sitting and waiting for distribution inside Gaza.
The Biden Administration issued a warning to the Israeli Government that unless inbound aid increased sharply to the level of 300 trucks loads of aid a day it would start cutting arms shipments. I honestly do not understand this. As I have been reporting for weeks there is more aid entering Gaza daily than what the Aid NGOs have been able to distribute. Doubling the number of inbound trucks is only going to increase the amount of goods accumulating on the staging areas inside Gaza. But, I see no harm in the IDF accommodating these demands. This warning appears to have been issue for political purposes in order to appease the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. In the event that you can’t get through The Washington Post paywall, here is a report on the Biden Administration warning.
Meantime, James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, issued a statement saying that:
Day after day, the situation for children becomes worse than the day before. August was the lowest amount of humanitarian aid that came into the Gaza Strip of any full month since the war broke out.
He said that Northern Gaza hasn’t had food at all coming in all of October. There does seem to be a real issue in Northern Gaza where the IDF is encouraging the civilians to evacuate to a humanitarian zone where there is ample aid and they are away from active combat areas. Perhaps this is related. However, I will point out that despite one year of non stop warnings of starvation in Gaza coming from the UN, USA and other countries around the globe, not a single Gazan has died of starvation or malnutrition in one year of military operations.
Recognizing that there is an issue with the actual distribution of aid in Gaza, the extreme right wing parties in Israel are demanding that the IDF take responsibility. Hamas regularly commandeers the trucks, steals the aid, stores it and then sells it for a profit in the black market in Gaza. It is a method for enslaving their own population. The IDF insists that having its troops responsible for distributing the aid will place them in direct danger. The US and International Community is insisting that the Palestinian Authority should take responsibility. Instead, it has been decided to look into hiring a private security company to handle it, but I would not bet on that possibility materializing.
Hostages/Ceasefire
Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet, was in Egypt today nominally talking about the ceasefire talks which appear to be in total freeze at the moment. It is my guess that they were actually discussing other subjects.
In a briefing to the press, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that there were no active negotiations for a hostage deal at this time since Yahya Sinwar has shown absolutely no interested in continuing the discussions.
IDF/Government
A couple months back the Minister of Defense issued a challenge to Israeli Defense Contractors, startups and various collaborations to come up with a solution to the drone attacks coming from Hezbollah. They are seeking a solution for detecting them even when flying at low altitudes. Eight companies and combinations of companies responded and showed demonstrations of their ideas in a closed competition yesterday. The Ministry intends to select 3 of the efforts to fund with a goal of arriving at a solution within 2 years. Here is a report on the competition.
In the meantime, Ukraine is claiming that for a long time Israel refused to collaborate on coming up with a defensive system handling the Iranian built drones which are also devastating Ukraine. But now they say that there is some low level of collaboration taking place. This Opinion written in the daily Yediot Ahranot is advocating for closer ties between the two countries on this issue. Israel’s problem in collaborating with Ukraine is two fold. First, at the onset of the war Israel had a fear that it might antagonize Russia. Russia and Israel have a tacit agreement regarding Syria that lets the IAF operate pretty freely in Syria in its operations to prevent Iran from supplying arms to Hezbollah. However, Russia has pulled much of its troops and defensive systems out of Syria so this should be less of an issue. The real issue, in my view, is trusting Ukrainian troops and businesses. Smuggling, theft and selling state secrets has been rampant over the years. Israel could not afford for any of its advanced munitions or defensive systems to fall into the hands of Iran, being sold by some entrepreneurial Ukrainian businessman.
There are reports emerging that Israel is running short on its supply of missile defense systems - Arrow 2 and David’s Sling - that are critical to defending against Iran’s ballistic missiles. This is probably part of the reason that the USA is deploying a battery of the THAAD anti missile defensive system to Israel to assist. Meantime, the business leaders of Israel’s Defense contractors said that they are working 24 hours a day and 7 days a week to address the demand from the Ministry of Defense.
The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reports that Israel’s inflation rate slowed from an annualized rate of 3.6% to 3.5% in the past quarter. Transportation costs were down, as well as clothing and costs of fruit. Real Estate costs, both purchase and rental, continue to increase.
Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi spoke by phone with Italian Chief of Defense Luciano Portolano. They spent much of their time discussing the situation with UNIFIL troops. Italy supplies some of the troops to the UNIFIL mission. Halevi informed Portolano that UNIFIL has not been fulfilling its mission set out back in 2006.
Today the Israeli Supreme Court issued an order to the government requiring it to explain why wounded Gazans are being allowed to be evacuated to third party countries for medical treatment. The IDF has already done this 3 times previously, evacuating about 1,200 patients in all. Mostly they have been relocated to the UAE for hospital treatment. I don’t understand why this is a problem now.
International
French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are exchanging public darts in the press. In a meeting with his cabinet, Macron said today:
Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN. Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN.
To this Netanyahu replied:
A reminder to the president of France: It was not the UN resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors – including from the Vichy regime in France.
Macron only knows how to demand a ceasefire when Israel has the upper hand. during the entire year of Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel he did not once call for a ceasefire.
Well, unlike Macron and Netanyahu Turkiye’s Foreign Minister issued a statement that he and international community have now reached a limit on its use of words to describe the situation. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told delegates of his political party:
We have reached the limit of words, diplomacy and international politics. We must start with sanctions. Israel needs to be boycotted.
Qatar’s Supreme Ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani spoke at the opening of the Qatari Shura Council in Doha today. In his speech he accused Israel of agressively launching the aggression on Hezbollah and Hamas in the West Bank (Judea/Samaria). He said “The easiest and safest way to stop the escalation on the border with Lebanon is to stop the war”. That’s right the mediator responsible for finding a negotiated settlement to resolve The War in Gaza is accusing Israel of aggression.
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
The Wall Street Journal sent one of its correspondents into Lebanon with the IDF troops. This report is truly incredible. There is a video at the end that shows the correspondent exposing tunnels and mines within 100 meters of UNIFIL observation posts. There is no way that the UNIFIL troops could not have seen Hezbollah carving these tunnels. According to their assignment UNIFIL is supposed to report any and all Hezbollah activity to the UN and Israel, neither of which happened.
This report by the European Leadership Network ELNET as writing in this Jerusalem Post article details, with names, the vast network of people and operations by Hamas throughout all of Europe. I wonder what the EU will do with the information. Not holding my breath…
Here is an opinion appearing in the Israeli daily Israel Hayom describing how the current multi-front war can be transformed into a widespread post war set of agreements advancing the Middle East. My view is that it is a bit overly optimistic on what can happen, much of the basic blocks to create alliances and trade from the Mediterranean through the Arabian Gulf are in place. And I do not think that coming to an agreement with Saudi Arabia will be too hard to achieve.