October 405, 2023, "The War"
My 292nd post on The War
Today’s Image
Today the IDF released a 45 minute video detailing the torture conducted on a daily basis by Hamas officials against members of the Gaza population. In this photo you see an image of a man being tortured as his perpetrator hits the bottom of his feet with a long pipe. You can read more below, if you can stomach it.
Casualties
No casualties were reported by the IDF in the past day.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
No rockets fired from Gaza crossed into Israel the past 3 days.
About 35 rockets, in all, were fired into Israel today. All were either intercepted or landed in open areas. In the case of one rocket strike, 3 residents of Sheikh Danun were lightly wounded. The Arab village is just a couple km outside of the northern Israeli city of Nahariya. In case you hadn’t noticed the intensity of rocket fire by Hezbollah has been declining from its peak of 200-250 per day. Either their inventory is disappearing and/or there is a sense of a ceasefire discussion in the air. My guess is that it is both.
Then late this afternoon an anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah hit a building in the very northern town of Metula, injuring one person.
Three drones launched from Iraq were neutralized today in Israel’s Golan Heights before reaching Israeli air space. Later in the day a drone launched by Hezbollah entered the vicinity of the coastal city of Haifa, but caused no damage or injuries.
As I was writing this post I could hear Israeli fighter jets flying over the skies of Jerusalem Is was reported that another two drones launched from Iraq approached Israel in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, not far away. Both were intercepted outside Israeli airspace.
Lebanon Operations
This afternoon, Israeli fighter jets struck a village north of Beirut. There was no indication from the IDF yet as to the nature of the target. Later in the day an IDF airborne drone struck a facility in Southern Lebanon assassinating the Hezbollah Commander of artillery forces in the region. You can read more here.
IDF ground forces uncovered a major tunnel facility found under a cemetery in Southern Lebanon. Not that it matters, but this violates international codes of conduct in war time. The tunnel was 0.8 km long and located about 1.5 km from the blue line with Israel. Inside the tunnel IDF troops found sleeping quarters, command and control rooms and large caches of weapons. It was destroyed by pumping about 4,500 cubic meters of concrete into the tunnel. The operation took several days as it required hundreds of trucks and cement mixers. When tunnels are dug into rock, simple explosives are not as effective in destroying them. You see a video of the underground facilities and read more about it here.
In a summary of its ground operations in Lebanon to date the IDF released some statistics today. The IDF estimates that it has destroyed about 80% of Hezbollah’s short range rocket arsenal leaving about 10,000 still available to the terror group. The IDF also believes that it also destroyed about 80% of its mid range rockets like those being fired towards Haifa, leaving about 1,000 still in its arsenal. Most rockets being launched now are from vehicles which are not as accurate and difficult to synchronize, but easier to deploy. The IDF believes that a year ago Hezbollah had 100s of precision guided missiles that could be launched from the Bekaa Valley in Eastern Lebanon and capable of striking most anywhere in Israel. But now the IDF estimates that it has fewer than 100 left. A year ago it was estimated that there were about 40-50,000 active Hezbollah combatants. The IDF estimates that about 2,600 of them have been killed and another 5,000 wounded and unable to participate in any combat operations. Hezbollah attacks in Israel have killed 110 IDF soldiers and civilians.
Gaza Operations
Very early this morning the IDF struck a building in Jabaliya in which several Hamas combatants were found and killed. So far the IDF has been silent on details.
Yesterday, an IDF airstrike assassinated Muhammad Abu Saheel, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s operations chief in northern Gaza. Saheel was hiding with his staff inside a formerly used school. You can read more here.
During one of its many explorations of tunnels in Gaza, the IDF came up with a large array of CCTV recordings found on hard drives of computers confiscated during the raids on the many tunnels. It has taken the IDF many, many weeks to go through the video footage and determine what was significant and what was not. Today they released footage to the press of footage covering a two year period, between 2018 to 2020. These videos and images show the brutality of Hamas torturing its own population for crimes such as being a homosexual, opposing Hamas, being a human rights activist, collaborating with Israel, etc. Victims were chained to ceilings, whipped with pipes, deprived of food/water and much worse. Yahya Sinwar was arrested by Israel back in 1989 for brutally torturing and murdering Palestinian Arabs, not Israelis. He was known as “The Butcher of Khan Younis”. I am not saying that none of this existed without Sinwar’s approval, as it did, but he institutionalized the practice. According to the statement issued by the IDF as the footage was released:
Hamas’s brutal methods for interrogating civilians, violating human rights and systematically oppressing residents suspected of opposing the organization’s rule. The videos, which were in the possession of Hamas’s security apparatus, document Hamas activities at Outpost 17 in the Gaza Strip, where brutal interrogations of civilians suspected of opposing Hamas are conducted.
You can see images from some of these videos posted here. If you are a glutton for punishment you can watch the posted video here.
Yemen Operations
US CENTCOM and UK Maritime Authority report strikes on targets in the capital of Yemen, Sana’a, held by the Houthis. The Pentagon announced that they struck advanced weapons storage facilities. You can read more about here, in this report from Al-Arabiya.
Syria/Iran/Jordan/Egypt/Iraq/Turkiye
Back on October 24th I reported that Syrian officials reported a fighter jet air strike near the city of Homs, Syria. Well today, Saudi Arabia’s government media outlet Al-Arabiya reports that Hezbollah commander Salim Jamil Ayyash was assassinated in that Israeli fighter jet assassination. The USA had a bounty of $10million dollars on his head. He was the senior ranking member of Hezbollah’s assassination squad and is largely believed to be responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. You can read more here.
Reports from Syria this afternoon claim that missiles fired from a fighter jet struck an apartment in a building in a suburb of Damascus which is a known Iranian neighborhood. According to the British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the facilities that were hit were actively used by Hezbollah members. That group estimated that 9 people were killed in the attack. According to reports in Saudi Arabia media, the target of the strike was Ali Moussa Dakdouk, the commander of Hezbollah’s operations in Southern Syria. He was an adviser to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp operating in Iraq and Yemen. He was also on the the US government’s wanted listed. You can read more here.
Saudi Arabia announced today that it was dispatching its army’s General Chief of Staff to Tehran for the purpose of conducting discussion on defense related ties between the two countries.
IDF/Government
In addition to the individuals in the Prime Minister’s Office that are accused of leaking classified information to the Western Press for the purposes of interfering with the hostage/ceasefire negotiations there are now accusations emerging in the media that the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff had personally sensitive videos taken of senior defense officials with the intention of using them for blackmail purposes. Honestly, I cannot tell with any confidence that any of these reports are true or factual. The media in Israel is on a witch hunt. It is possible that there is some truth to some of this but it feels too much like we are back in the era of the Ottoman Empire with conspiracies rampant and out of control. It is unfortunate. The Prime Minister and his staff have denied all the accusations and insist that this is intended to distract the government from doing its job. From my view, these reports are hurting the credibility of the media here as much as the government.
A recent image appeared on twitter posted by an IDF soldier showing one of his squad members burning a Lebanese Flag. Yesterday, the IDF Arabic Spokesperson posted a condemnation of the post saying that it violates the IDF’s Code of Conduct. He clarified that the fight is with Hezbollah and not Lebanon.
Protests/Politics
Chairman of the National Unity Party Benny Gantz (who was also a member of the War Cabinet until July) issued a statement today insisting that the IDF should ignore international pressure for a ceasefire and continue striking Hezbollah. He called for an agreement that would neutralize Hezbollah and guarantee the freedom of IDF operations should Hezbollah violate any ceasefire or the ceasefire agreement in the future. None of this is really news and follows the basic outline of the principles that are apparently being pursued by the government in its backdoor negotiations.
A new issue is now being investigated regarding our National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir from the extreme right wing party, Otzma Yehudit. Apparently, during 2023’s nearly daily protests against the government’s judicial reforms Ben Gvir authorized, in contradiction to Israeli Law, the use of stun grenades against the crowds. The investigation is being led by reporters from TV Channel 13 which is regarded as the conservative/right wing channel by most. So the report is getting serious attention. Ben Gvir attempted to have the report blocked from being broadcast on the channel but failed. What is a fact is that a police officer was indicted for using the illegal measures. And subsequent to the indictment, Ben Gvir promoted the police officer in question until the Attorney General blocked the promotion. That Attorney General is verbally attacked on a daily basis by Ben Gvir and his party hacks. You can read more here.
Hostages/Ceasefire
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Netanyahu, travelled to Russia last week for the purpose of holding discussions with the Russian Foreign Ministry regarding ceasefire negotiations in Lebanon. Until today the trip was held in secret. After that meeting Dermer flew off to Washington to hold similar discussions with senior Biden staff members. This follows a secret (obviously no longer a secret) visit on October 24 by a Russian delegation to Israel. All this suggests that ceasefire negotiations in the north are intensifying. Russia needs to be involved since they have something at stake in Syria and could disrupt any agreements that might come about. They also might have some strong influence over Iran who has the ability to disrupt any agreement that is reached. You can read more here.
International
Our newly appointed Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar delivered a speech to the press today stressing the importance for Israel to improve its ties with the Kurdish Communities in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey as well as the Druze communities in Syria and Lebanon. During the Syrian civil war the IDF issued threats to ISIS and Hezbollah when they attempted to launch attacks against the Druze community in southern Syria. The IDF also treated many injured Syrians from southern Syria during the civil war. There were rumors, that were never confirmed, that Israel has been working with the Kurds for quite a few years as relations between the two peoples has always been cordial even during the Iraq War and the War against ISIS. The point our Foreign Minister was making was that the minorities in the Middle East should extend support to one another. Who knows if this approach will work or not. During his press briefing he also said that the Foreign Ministry bears some blame for failing in the response to the recent attacks against Israelis in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
It was reported today that despite Israel already paying for the equipment, the Biden Administration appears to be deliberately holding up shipments of armored bulldozers that are used by the IDF in some of its ground operations in Gaza. So far there has been no confirmation or denial from the USA. You can read the report here.
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
Apparently, Israel’s Air Force used a newly developed air launched ballistic missile during its recent operation in Iran, in which it destroyed much of Iran’s air defenses along with its missile production facilities. According to this article, many western government are now expressing interest in potentially purchasing this Israeli developed systems.
And in this timely analysis the author details how the three key terror leaders - Hamas’s Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamemei - each made a series of miscalculations that either directly led to their demise or a serious setback in their strategy to destroy Israel. In summary, their hubris and egos exceeded their capabilities and they underestimated the capabilities and determination of Israel.