Today’s Image
This is a man that needs little introduction - Douglas Murray. He was honored last night at an event I went to in Binyanei Ha’Uma, the large convention center in Jerusalem. More than 3,500 people were in attendance. He and Ben Shapiro delivered very well received addresses to the audience comprised of mostly conservation thinking people. Murray is a writer, political commentator and correspondent. Originally born in Scotland, he moved to the USA years ago. He is very eloquent and it was an outstanding event. I was lucky that my wife bought tickets when the event was first announced. We saw tickets being scalped online for 3X the original price.
Casualties
Yesterday an IDF reservist was killed: Sgt. First Class (res.) Omer Moshe Gaeldor - 30 (Z’’L). His unit was hit by a kamikaze drone launched by Hezbollah early yesterday. Three other soldiers were injured. And today the IDF announced the death of three others: Sgt. First Class (res.) Roi Sasson - 21 (Z’’L). Zeev Erlich - 71 (Z’’L) and Sgt. First Class (res.) Eitan Ben Ami - 22 (Z’’L). Ben Ami was part of a special forces unit and was killed during a battle in Southern Lebanon when the building collapsed on top of him. Sasson was killed during combat operations in Northern Gaza. Erlich was in Southern Lebanon without IDF authorization. He snuck into the units fighting in the South because he is an archeologist and wanted to visit a site that was off limits. He was killed when the unit he was attached to came under fire from Hezbollah.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
No rockets fired out of Gaza crossed into Israeli air space in the past 4 days.
Yesterday, Hezbollah fired about 80 rockets into Israel. Five people were lightly wounded and there was minor damage.
Late last night the IDF neutral.ized an inbound drone launched from Iraq. It is becoming a routine to see 1-2 of these drones fired each day, all Iranian built. It was neutralized before entering Israeli air space. Later in the day Hezbollah fired two drones that targeted communities in the upper Galilee. They were not intercepted. There was light damage but no injuries. This was preceded, earlier in the day, by two kamikaze drones that were both intercepted by Israeli aerial defense systems.
This morning Hezbollah launched three drones into Israel targeting the area around Haifa. The IDF made multiple attempts to shoot them down but without success. It was not made clear why it was so difficult to down these drones. In this video you can see the drone being tracked for some time not far from the sea. No damage nor injuries were reported from this drone attack.
Today, a rocket barrage launched by Hezbollah struck an empty field in a kindergarten in the coastal city of Acre. The school was not in session due to the regular and daily rocket attacks so no one was injured. But here you can see some of the damage.
Lebanon Operations
It is now becoming a daily issue regarding Hezbollah’s intentional or accidental attacks on UNIFIL troops in Lebanon. It started earlier this week and is continuing on a daily basis. Hezbollah troops are taking cover behind UNIFIL positions and are firing on IDF troops from behind these positions as well as firing rockets. And, of course, once in awhile bullets or rockets stray from their “intended course”. France announced that it is pulling its citizens from UNIFIL. Argentina has done the same yesterday. And the irony of it all is that UNIFIL has a major role in currently discussed ceasefire proposal being shuttled by the USA between Lebanon and Israel. If UNIFIL can’t deal with the level of fire they are seeing now, how does anyone expect them to live up their obligations to keep Hezbollah from sending troops and armaments south of the Litani River??? Just yesterday the Italian Defense Ministry announced that eight rockets hit the headquarters of the Italian contingent. Luckily, there were no injuries. But this is a ticking bomb and one of these days in the near future, a UNIFIL soldier is going to be killed. The IDF posted on its x.com account a map showing how eight rockets landed on the Italian UNIFIL positions. And today, France officially complained to the UN that its UNIFIL troops came under rocket fire.
Yesterday IDF drones assassinated Ali Tawfiq Dweiq near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh. Dweiq was the regional Hezbollah commander in charge of the its medium range rocket arsenal. He is attributed with indirect responsibility for the launch of more than 300 rockets into central Israel.
The IDF issued a statement today saying that it has begun expanding its ground operations into new areas further inside Lebanon. Their entry was preceded by series of aerial attacks on Hezbollah positions.
During the course of the IDF ground operation in Lebanon they are uncovering enormous stashes of arms accumulated by Hezbollah over the years. The IDF is documenting it all and finding that much of it are Russian arms that were supplied to the Syrian Army for use in its civil war years ago. I guess that the Syrians and Russians thought they could make some side money by selling it all to Hezbollah.
A rocket barrage launched by Hezbollah mid afternoon struck the northern city of Kiryat Shmona causing damage to an apartment building but no injuries. The city of 15,000 is largely evacuated.
And the IDF announced that it successfully assassinated two senior Hezbollah commanders on aerial strikes launched on Sunday near the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre. Both were responsible for much of the anti-tank fire that has been hitting the IDF troops hard. You can read more here.
Yemen Operations
The Houthis announced that they were responsible for attacking a commercial ship bearing a Panamanian flag as it entered the Red Sea. Both missiles targeting the ship landed short of their target.
Syria/Iran/Jordan/Egypt/Iraq/Turkiye
President for Life of Turkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly confirmed yesterday that his country blocked Israeli President Herzog’s flight to attend a COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan from flying over Turkish air space. Meanwhile, Turkish fighter jets have started striking positions of the Kurds in northeastern Syria not far from US military positions. Erdogan makes regular attacks against its own Kurdish population in the eastern region of Turkiye and parts of Syria. He has an interesting way of insisting that the Kurds are terrorists, but Hamas are freedom fighters. You can read more here.
And after seeing this pace of drones launched from Iraq pick up, the Iraqi Prime Minister accused Israel yesterday of complaining about the drones as a pretext for attacking Iraq. Why does the world consistently accuse the victims of prosecuting crimes? It is not only in the Middle East but Europe as well. It is a sickening disease and I, for one, am tired of it. Maybe if the Iraqi Government did something about it, Israel might not complain. Today the Biden Administration officially warned the Baghdad Government that an attack from Israel could be imminent unless Iraq is seen as taking an active position to prevent drones from being launched against Israel from its territory.
An opposition NGO in Iran, Iran Human Rights, the Iranian Regime executed more than 166 people just in the month of October. Between January and October of 2024, 651 people were executed.
Aid
In a very unusual operation, today Jordanian Armed Forces transported aid from their country, across Israel and into Gaza via helicopter. Altogether, seven tons of sanitary equipment, medical supplies, baby formula and medication were delivered directly into the humanitarian corridors. You can see the helicopters in this video. It was obviously well coordinated with the IDF and COGAT.
The issue of governance in Gaza is starting to be more publicly debated here in Israel. Today, former Defense Minister Gallant stated publicly that without a solution to protect the aid convoys chaos will reign in Gaza. He is very worried that the government is talking about hiring outside contractors to take responsibility. Gallant believes that ultimately the responsibility for protecting these aid convoys will fall on the IDF and troops will become active targets for criminals and terrorists. The extreme right wing parties in the government are pushing to have the IDF oversee the aid distribution - very bad idea. In the meantime the Biden Administration is also pushing on this front. Their solution is to have the Palestinian Authority take on this role. This government insists that there is no role for the PA in Gaza - borders, aid or governance. And there is logic to their arguments. Even before assuming responsibility for governance the PA is insisting that Hamas have a major role in ruling Gaza. So far, no one has a good solution to this problem. Yesterday UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the open attacks on the aid convoys.
At the insistence of the USA, Israel has agreed to set up a regular bilateral communications channel to discuss aid and set flags when concerns about aid levels hit a flash point. This seems like a constructive idea.
Israel sent 1,000 units of blood to northern Gaza hospitals who are suffering from an acute shortage in the aftermath of the IDF’s recent operations in Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Hostages/Ceasefire
The Israeli government has now upped its reward offer for anyone who turns a hostage over to Israel. The amount now is $5M per hostage along with free and protected passage out of Gaza.
The US mediator between Lebanon and Israel regarding a ceasefire deal seems very optimistic at the moment after he finished his meetings with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. He and the Lebanese think that there is some real deal here with only details to work out. It seems to me a bit overly optimistic. As we can see UNIFIL is showing that it has not, nor will it make any effort to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and keep Hezbollah north of the Litani River. If, after being targeted with a handful of rockets, several nations withhold their troops what hope is there that they will enforce anything when the time comes?? In any case the US envoy is scheduled to arrive in Israel later today. Meanwhile, the French Defense Minister called on Gulf states to help in boosting the Lebanese Army. I am not sure what that means. Are they expected to help defer the costs of training and supplying them, or are they supposed to send some of their own troops. In neither case, do I believe, much will come from it. You can read more about the pathetic and ineffective UNIFIL forces here. The bottom line is that despite all this euphoria, I am not very optimistic that a deal can be reached soon in Lebanon. Israel cannot afford to gloss over the inability of either the Lebanese Army or UNIFIL to prevent Hezbollah from returning to the positions where it can fire on Israel at will.
IDF/Government
The IDF is getting more serious about drafting the ultra-orthodox. Of the 3,000 draft orders issued to eligible ultra-orthodox men, 1,126 of them refused to show up at the designated draft office. Yesterday, arrest warrants were issued for these draft dodgers. I do not think that anyone expects them to be arrested in the short term, but this is the most serious action taken in this regard for many years. Overall, the IDF has set a goal of recruiting a total of 10,000 new IDF recruits. Meanwhile, today one of the Ministers from the ultra-orthodox party announced that there will be no compromise on demanding exemptions for the the ultra-orthodox so they do not have to serve in the IDF.
On Monday I reported on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and how she is coming under attack from many members of the currently serving government. Today the Israel Business Forum representing 200 of the largest companies in Israel took out multiple page advertisements in the leading newspapers in support of the Attorney General.
Opposition leaders submitted a bill in the Knesset today that would enable full scholarships for IDF soldiers as they enter University Programs. Today, IDF soldiers who complete their service in good standing are eligible for near complete scholarships at the Universities if they qualify for admissions. There are even subsidized programs that prepare the soldiers for their University studies. The government voted down the bill, claiming that there are plenty of scholarships available already. I am not an expert but it seems to me that this was a tactic intended to embarrass the government as costs for University studies for IDF veterans is not much of an issue. It so easy to embarrass this government already so I don’t see the reason for this effort. They embarrass themselves on a daily basis.
Protests/Politics
Back in 2001, during the Second Intifada when there were multiple daily terror attacks perpetrated against Israeli civilians, a particularly bad attack took place at the busiest intersection in Jerusalem in what became known as the Sbarro Pizza bombing which killed 16 civilians and wounded more than 130. Today, a Jerusalem District Court ruled that the Palestinian Authority bears a large degree of responsibility and must pay the victims a sum of tens of millions shekels (exchange rate is currently about 3.8 NIS = 1USD).
On Monday a woman was killed by inbound rocket that hit her residence in the Arab village of Shafar’am, nearby Haifa. After conducting inspections it was determined that the Mamad, or safe room, in her home was made with inferior and non qualified materials that did little to protect her from the attack. Today Magan David Adam, the Israeli version of the Red Cross, dismissed one of its paramedics for posting on his x.com account indications of celebration at the woman’s death.
International
Yesterday, US Admiral Sam Paparo who overseas the Indo-Pacific Command publicly stated yesterday that the needs of the Ukraine and Israel have eaten into the stockpiles of advanced armaments in the USA. He expressed these worries as he is responsible should the PRC take any military actions.
UK’s Ambassador to Israel Simon Walters said yesterday that:
The United Kingdom will be a close ally and is prepared to put its own aircraft and its own personnel in harm’s way to defend Israel.
I remain skeptical.
Today, the Biden Administration used its veto at the UN Security Council to derail a resolution that was to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire. They left out the part where they demand that Hamas be reinstated and admitted to the UN. The veto was issued because the resolution made no mention of the return of Israeli and US hostages.