October 491

My 309th post on The War

Today’s Image - “Wanted: A New Home”

You might find this report somewhere between “ironic” and “sick”. Its title is “70 Palestinian Prisoners Stranded in Egypt Hotel: ‘No Country Wants Them’”. You may recall that in the second week of Phase 1 of “The Deal” (you need to get a program to track the details) Israel was forced to release 70 Palestinian Terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons convicted of murder. Another 130 prisoners in Israeli prisoners were released to Gaza or Judea/Samaria. They were serving terms for lesser crimes such as throwing rocks or assisting during the course of a terrorist attack. These 200 were released in exchange for the four female IDF soldiers kidnapped from their base at Nir Oz on October 7.

Those 70 terrorists were serving one or more life sentences. The conditions Israel set were that they would be released to a third country - not Gaza nor Judea/Samaria (West Bank). Well it now appears that these 70 terrorists are sitting in some hotel in Egypt. Egypt was supposed to be a transit point before going to Qatar, Turkey and/or Iran. But now it appears that no one wants these murdering thugs. Who can hardly blame them. Why would anyone want to bring into their country men charged, tried and convicted of murdering innocent civilians?? If you have a spare room in your home, maybe you can notify the local Egyptian Consulate and let them know?

Casualties

No casualties have been reported by the IDF for the past 15 days.

Rockets & Missiles & Drones

There have been no aerial explosives directed at Israel for the past 17 days. However, at least twice now Hezbollah has attempted to send in drones into Israel. They were eliminated before entering Israel airspace. But both incidents violated the tenuous 2 month ceasefire, now entering its third month.

Hostages/Ceasefire

There have been minor violations of the ceasefire by Hamas, however things have been moving along for the most part. The violations were attempts to send vehicles into Northern Gaza, presumably carrying arms and/or Hamas operatives, in violation of the hostage/ceasefire agreement terms. In both cases the Israeli Air Force neutralized the vehicles and those inside. By agreement, vehicles are permitted to pass but they must go through a border inspection run by a security contracting firm from North Carolina. These two vehicles attempted to bypass the checkpoints.

Since my last posting two more sets of hostages have been released. The first took place last Thursday. On that day Agam Berger, Arbel Yehoud and Gadi Mozes were released. Arbel Yehoud was scheduled to be released the previous Saturday, January 25. But for some, unexplained, reason she wasn’t. This infuriated the Israelis, so Israel held up the opening of the crossing into Northern Gaza for the residents of Gaza until Hamas lived up to its obligations of “The Deal”. Berger was the fifth female IDF soldier kidnapped by the terrorists on October 7 from their base on Nir Oz. She was supposed to have been released the previous Saturday with the other girls who served as “scouts” monitoring the many surveillance cameras pointed at the border with Gaza. They reported suspicious activity to their superiors on Friday October 6, but their warnings were dismissed as nothing unusual. Berger and Mozes were being held by Islamic Jihad. The process of their release also infuriated the Israelis as massive numbers of Gazans (not in uniform) massed the two trucks transferring the hostages. Because of the large crowds created at the invitation of Hamas and/or PIJ threatened the safety of Berger and Mozes. Ultimately they made it to the truck responsible for transporting them across the border to Israel.

On the same day 5 Thai nationals were released. There are several thousand Thai nationals living in Israel that work as foreign workers in many of the agricultural fields inside the country. The arrangement works quite well. The farmers host the workers in dormitories and they get paid an hourly wage while receiving medical benefits. They come and work in Israel for about 3 years. In that time frame they earn enough, that they have saved, to go back to Thailand and build a home in their towns and villages. There are numerous NGO organizations that stand up for the rights of these workers so that they aren’t exploited. So the Thai nationals kidnapped on October 7 were working that day and were kidnapped along with everyone else. The Foreign Minister from Thailand came to Israel to celebrate their released. He and the 5 released hostages all went to the Western Wall yesterday to pray. The names of the five Thai hostages are: Watchara Sriaoun, Surasak Lamnau, Sathian Suwannakham, Pongsak Thenna and Bannawat Seathao

The second release took place this past Saturday, as scheduled. Three men were released - Ofer Calderon, Yarden Bibas and Keith Siegel. Calderon is a dual French-Israeli citizen and Siegel is a dual USA-Israeli citizen. You might recall the name Bibas. Bibas’ wife and his two young boys were taken hostage from their home on Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. While it has not been announced, it is almost certain that Hamas killed Shiri and her two sons - Kfir (9 months old when kidnapped) and Ariel (4 yrs old when kidnapped). Shiri is a dual Argentinian-Israeli citizen. Hamas claims that all three were killed on October 7 while still on their kibbutz. But the IDF has video footage it has released showing Shiri and the two boys alive and being shuffled into a waiting white Toyota pick up truck. Siegel was forced, while in captivity, to write a thank you note to Hamas. That is the ultimate Chutzpah when you are forced to thank a ruthless, murdering terrorist organization for kidnapping you.

In exchange for the three male hostages released, Israel released 90 prisoners. To my knowledge none of them were convicted of murdering anyone. But, in exchange for the previous 3 hostages - Berger, Yahoud and Mozes - 110 security prisoners were released. The reason the number was higher is because Berger was an IDF soldier at the time she was kidnapped. As before, in exchange for IDF soldiers terrorists with “blood on their hands” were also being released in the exchange. Of the 110, 32 were terrorists convicted of murder serving multiple life sentences, 48 were serving extended sentences and others light sentences. For example, one of the released terrorists is Ahmed Barghoutti. Barghoutti was the head of the military wing of Fatah, the party constituting the Palestinian Authority. He was convicted of murdering 12 Israelis in a series of suicide bombings back in 2002-2003. Another one of those being released is Mahmoud Atallah. Atallah was serving a life sentence plus 15 years for murdering a Palestinian woman he accused of being a collaborator. There were even more notorious terrorists released in this cycle. What I do not understand is why they were released into Samaria (West Bank) rather than being sent to Egypt.

Imagine, if you can, how you would feel if a brother or sister of yours was a victim in one those terror attacks. How would you feel to see these murderers set free knowing that 80% of the terrorists released are found to return to their murdering ways??? If you want to read the full “Most Wanted” list of these heinous murdering terrorists and what they did you can check it out here.

Israel also held up the transit across the Netzarim Corridor permitting Gazans to go to Northern Gaza for another Hamas infraction of “The Deal”. Hamas was supposed to provide Israel a list of all 33 hostages being released in Phase 1, including which were alive and which were dead. Finally, last Wednesday Hamas provided the list. The Israeli negotiators announced that among the list, 8 of the 33 are dead. So far, 13 Israeli hostages have been released. So among the remaining, 12 are alive and 8 are dead. The next set of hostages are scheduled to be released this Saturday.

Negotiations are supposed to start later this week on implementation of a second phase of “The Deal”. If you were to take a poll here in Israel you would find a real aura of schizophrenia regarding the next stage. There are many of those protesting, mostly to the left of center politically, that just assume that the government is just going to go ahead and proceed with the second phase. And there are many that presume that the war will resume by the end of the sixth week of “The Deal”. I have no particular insight into which way it will go. However, it is my opinion that going into the Phase 2 will depend on the price that Hamas expects to get in terms of terrorists/prisoners released from Israeli jails. I think that there is a limit to what the public will accept. But that is just my opinion.

Lebanon Front

The two months of the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire deal came to an end and has been extended. Israel insisted that it had to be extended because the Lebanese Army was still far behind in taking over Southern Lebanon. As the IDF continues its presence in Southern Lebanon it continues to uncover underground bunkers with large stashes of arms. Since the IDF entered Lebanon they have recovered enormous quantities of rocket launchers, rockets, anti-tank missiles, mortars, AK-47s, and all the arms to replenish these firing systems. At one point the IDF was talking publicly about creating an entire division that would be armed with all the captured weapons from their operations in Southern Lebanon. But recently I read that they are making their way, under cover of night, to the Ukraine. I just hope that they are being tagged so that the Ukrainians don’t sell them to a third party and we find them right back here in the Middle East.

Besides maintaining its presence in Southern Lebanon the IDF is conducting aerial operations in the Bekaa Valley, along the Lebanese-Syrian border where they are finding ongoing attempts to smuggle arms to Hezbollah. It is my guess that the next deadline will pass, the Lebanese Army will still not asserted control in Southern Lebanon and the IDF will sill be along the border inside Lebanon.

There were reports last week that a senior officer from the Lebanese Army leaked classified information being disclosed in a joint US-French-Lebanon military meeting where they were discussing information disclosed by the IDF. This officer is a collaborator with Hezbollah. Welcome to the Middle East…

Syria Front

There have been a couple of highly publicized claims by the new Syrian Army of confiscating arms that were bound to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The arms that were pictured were simply AK-47s and associated ammo. The new Syrian Army is motivated to stop shipments to Hezbollah for their own reasons, which for the moment overlap Israel’s interests.

The IDF is maintaining their positions across the border into Syria. They are established in a 1-2 km perimeter along the border. There are reports that the IDF is building improvised facilities there as if they intend to stay for some time to come. To the best of our knowledge there is no fighting going on of any substance.

There was one report last week and another report this week of terrorist bombs killing scores of people in Syria. Here is one report from today. Surprisingly this attack was not far from the Turkish border with Syria. Here is a report on the one earlier in the week where 3 people were killed.

IDF/Government

Over the course of the last 10 days the Committee charged with electing the replacement for the recently retired President of the Supreme Court, Uzi Vogelman, finally elected the senior judge Yitzhak Amit to succeed Vogelman. Our Minister of Justice boycotted the committee meeting and the vote. As you may recall he refused to convene the committee for more than 12 months as he demanded that he reconstitute the membership of the committee to his liking. He now refuses to recognize the authority of Amit. I swear, you couldn't make this stuff up. We have a Minister of Justice with the emotional age of a 5 year old. But, at least this is one crisis we can put behind us.

Speaking of crises, today Member of Knesset Yuli Edelstein declared that it was time to institute a serious and across the board draft of the ultra-orthodox into the IDF. Edelstein is the chair of the Knesset Security Committee that is charged with authoring an ultra-orthodox draft bill for both in the Knesset. He is a senior member of the Likud Party. In my opinion he is one of the few members of that party with his head screwed on in place. From the beginning he stated that his committee would come up with a bill that is acceptable across the political aisle. More importantly, he said that it whatever bill comes to a vote would actually satisfy the needs of the IDF now and into the future. But, our Minister of Defense Israel Katz (who replaced former Defense Minister Gallant) submitted a bill that would only draft, at best, ½ of the eligible ultra-orthodox by 2030. If the public actually trusted this government most would accept this bill, which is only a ½ measure. But most don’t trust the government on this issue because similar laws were passed previously with enough loopholes that, in the end, the ultra-orthodox continue to evade the draft. So I do not think the public is going to tolerate any half measures anymore since this government has lost must of their trust… at least on this issue. Meanwhile, the ultra-orthodox political parties threaten to bring down the government over this issue. Edelstein is a highly respected and senior member of Likud. He understands that the electorate responsible for electing the Likud Party to power insists and supports the drafting of the ultra-orthodox. So, this issue continues to fester. It is not clear how/when it will be brought to a head.

And In Your Copious Spare Time…

• If you can afford 30 minutes you might find this interview with John Spencer, Chair of the Urban Warfare Project and faculty member at West Point, on Israel’s urban battles during “The War” in Gaza.

• Here is another great analysis by Yediot Ahranot Commentator, Ron Ben Yishai, on what should be the key points “non negotiable” from Israel’s view when going into the negotiations on Phase 2 of “The Deal”.

• For those technologically savvy readers you might enjoy looking at this article describing the many approaches being funded by the Ministry of Defense on how to intercept inbound drones/UAVs. As you will remember this became one of the IDF’s weaknesses in the aerial attacks coming from Hezbollah in the north.

• And here is a great “feel good” report that appeared in The Jerusalem Post not long ago. First some background…. Back in the 1970s it became recognized that there was a large population of people in Ethiopia that were practicing a form of Judaism and claimed to be descendants of the ancient Hebrews. After some years of equivocating, in 1977 the Israeli Rabbinic Authorities declared the “Beta Jews” halakhicly Jewish making the eligible to become Israeli citizens. This was the start of a massive migration of this community to Israel, over very difficult circumstances documented in many places including this movie - The Red Sea Diving Resort - which you should watch. There are now over 120,000 Ethiopian Jews living as Israeli citizens. It is a very patriarchal society that underwent a very difficult period during their early years. They went from farming with a backhoe and a mule to using iPhones in a single generation. Well, as this article documents their rate of matriculation (graduating form high school which requires the passing of a nationally administered test) is the same as the rest of the population. This is great news.