Today’s Image
These are a collection of senior members of the Israeli Druze community attending a state event some years ago. I have spoken about the Druze community in several of my posts. As you will recall, back in late July, 2024, Hezbollah launched a rocket that landed in The Druze town of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights killing 12 children that were just playing European football (soccer). The Druze comprise about 1.2% of the population in Israel. They serve in the IDF and tend to be very loyal to the state. There are two larger Druze communities in Lebanon and Syria. The Druze are well represented in the senior ranks of the IDF, there is one Knesset member from their community.
Last night, Friday, we went to Erev Shabbat services at a nearby synagogue housed inside the Midreshet Lindenbaum. A Midreshet is a seminary where young girls come after high school to study talmud/torah and Hebrew. The students there live and study in a dormitory style environment. It is a mix of girls from abroad and Israel. This weekend Jews around the world read the torah portion Sh’mot - Yitro. This is the section from the Book of Exodus 3:1 that starts with Moshe (Moses) meeting his Father-In-Law Jethro just as the Hebrews have crossed the Red Sea. In the previous chapter the Hebrews have crossed the Red Sea, the Pharaoh along with his army have drowned and Joshua with the Hebrews defeat Amalek. This chapter, Yitro, starts with Moshe receiving advice from Yitro (Jethro) and ends with the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai hearing G-d and receiving the Ten Commandments. The advice that Moshe receives relates to how he should construct an entire Judiciary system so disputes amongst the Hebrews could be heard and justice rendered without involving Moshe in each and every case. I mention all this so you understand the context of this special evening last night.
The Druze Community believes in a religion very distinct from Judaism or Islam. They view Jethro as their main prophet and believe that they all descended from him. They call him Nabi Shu’ayb (Nabi is the Arabic word for prophet, it is Navi in Hebrew). Each year around April 25th, the Druze community gathers for a special holiday at Jethro’s tomb, near the town of Kfar Hittim. It is located just east of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) near the Israeli city of Tiberias. At these gatherings the community commemorates Yitro’s death and the community discusses issues pertaining to the community. The Druze believe that Yitro was the main, revealed, prophet who communicated directly with G-d, providing him the revelation who then provided it to Moshe. According to their tradition the Jews and Druze are connected via marriage since Yitro’s daughter Zipporah was Moshe’s wife.
So last night a delegation of about 30 members of The Druze community came to Midreshet Lindenbom to attend prayers with the Jewish Community. This morning, Saturday, they were the guests at The Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. This weekend is significant because of the reading of the passage from the Torah about Yitro took place today, with its strong connections to The Druze Community.
Among the members of The Druze Community were all the mothers and half of the fathers of those children killed this past July by the Hezbollah rocket. In addition there were mothers of Druze IDF soldiers who were killed in action that came. Between the Minchah and Ma’ariv services time was made for the leader of the Synagogue Community to speak about the deep connection between the Jewish and Druze Community, and the connections made in this week’s Torah reading. Then a leader from The Druze Community got up to speak. He described how the two communities share a fate and destiny. Then the Druze member of the Knesset, Afif Abed, got up to speak about how there is a strong partnership of brotherhood between the two communities. Then a father of one of the children got up to speak about the children who were killed that day. Finally, students from the Midreshet Lindenbom read the names of each Druze child killed that day, what they liked and then invited their mothers to come to the front and stand. They did the same for the mothers of the slain Druze IDF soldiers. Then the parochet was opened (where the torahs are stored) and a member of the community chanted El Malei Rachamim, the Jewish prayer for the soul of a person who died. Normally, it is chanted or sung at grave side but not always. It is said each year on Yom Hazikaron, our Memorial Day, and Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, as well as other occasions.
Overall, the evening was very emotional for all involved, bringing many disparate people together in a common memorial to those who needlessly died. Not many dry eyes in the community. Mine weren’t.
IDF/Government
Those of you who have been following me for some time know that I hold former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in very high regard for his integrity, values, abilities and leadership. I am not the only one since every poll taken since the beginning of the war ranked him highest amongst all government officials in terms of trust. He was fired from his post by Prime Minister Netanyahu on November 5, 2024. It has now been three months and he is now granting interviews. The first interview was with Nadav Eyal of the widely read Yediot Ahranot newspaper in Hebrew. I read them late last week when they first appeared - here and here. But late this week they were released to the English part of the site so you can read them: here and here. And he just granted his first, in what is expected to be a series of, interview in English with Dan Senor. You can watch that interview here on YouTube, listen to it on Spotify here or listen to it on Apple Podcast here.
I found these interviews incredible and encourage you to read, view or listen. But they are long. So I will provide a short summary of some of the items I found most interesting. First, Eyal tried on numerous occasions to try and push Gallant to provide his view on the Prime Minister’s role since early on October 7. Gallant resisted each time in a very professional manner. Gallant insisted throughout that it was imperative that the nation enable a state led investigation be conducted into what happened before, during and after the October 7 attack. Such investigations, in the past, have been led by independent individuals that the public holds in high respect and are appointed by the Israeli Supreme Court. This government has been resisting this for some time claiming that we are still fighting the war. A commission would take much time from senior IDF officials as well as government officials which, according to this government, cannot take place now.
In one interesting points Gallant recounts a request made by Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas (dead now), about four months prior to the attack. His request was that he be permitted to leave Gaza and return after about a month of travel. In return he offered to hand over two hostages being held by Hamas at the time and the bodies of two Israelis that were being held by Hamas. The senior IDF officers at the time, along with Gallant, rejected the request. From the disk drives and computers confiscated during the many IDF raids into the Hamas tunnels during the war they gleaned a great deal of intelligence. The IDF learned that the purpose of Sinwar’s trip abroad was to brief Hezbollah leader Nasrallah (also now dead), meet with the other Hamas leadership and with the leadership in Iran about his plans to attack Israel during the period of the High Holidays in 2023. Because Sinwar was not permitted to leave, he dispatched one of his chief lieutenants. When that chief arrived in Beirut, according to the reports the IDF confiscated, Nasrallah refused to meet with him as he was not senior enough. So Nasrallah and Hezbollah were surprised that Sinwar launched the attack when he did. Had the IDF permitted Sinwar to travel that meeting would have taken place and it is possible that Hezbollah would have attacked on the same day as Hamas. Wait, but it gets more interesting. Because the IDF penetration of Hezbollah was so thorough, had Nasrallah met with the Chief it is highly likely that the IDF would have known in advance of Sinwar’s plan. Irony of ironies.
In another part of the interview Gallant stresses the significance of his insistence that the IDF be permitted to attack Hezbollah on October 11, 2023. Hamas attacked in the South on October 7 and Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel on October 8. The IDF had been preparing for years in the expected war with Hezbollah. They had a full step by step plan on what to do there. Gallant argues that all military doctrine says that you attack your most difficult enemy first. All of us saw what the Mossad did with the Pagers. But the real plan was the walkie-talkies. The Mossad had very qualified intelligence that Nasrallah, senior members of his military staff and several ranking officials from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard were holding a meeting in Beirut above ground on October 11, 2023. They had details on the time and location. The plan which the IDF general staff promoted along with Gallant was for the IAF to strike the officials attending this meeting, killing them all. In a single attack Israel would have taken out Hezbollah leadership. Then, knowing that all of the Hezbollah fighting force would have been alerted at least 15,000 could be expected to gear up for battle. A part of that gear included kevlar vests with pockets for walkie-talkies, which was the primary mode of communication within the chain of command. According to Gallant, when this would have happened the IDF could have triggered all the explosives planted in the walkie talkies, killing nearly 15,000 Hezbollah fighters. All without a single IDF casualty. The pagers were the secondary point of attack, not the main one. They would have been triggered soon after the walkie-talkies. Gallant went on to say that on October 11 nearly all of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal were in a few locations, stored for future use. He says that the IDF knew exactly where they were located and could have eliminated 90% of Hezbollah’s arsenal immediately after taking out Hezbollah’s leadership. Without its leadership, half its fighting force and only 10% of its arsenal, according to Gallant, Hezbollah would have been eliminated as a fighting force. He argues that then the IDF could have shifted about ½ of its forces in the north to aid in the fighting in Gaza. And that the Israeli towns along the border would not have had to have been evacuated. In his description of events he clearly paints Netanyahu as the main opponent of this initiative. He recalls, in the interview, how the Prime Minister pointed out to him all the high rises outside the Kirya (Tel Aviv located “pentagon”) would be demolished by Hezbollah. My apartment is in one of those high rises. Netanyahu argued that the Biden Administration would oppose such a move. While Gallant did not say it directly, it is obvious that he planned on only telling the Biden Administration after the fact, because he knew they would veto the operation.
Gallant, during the interviews, also describes the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah in late September, 2024. The Mossad had clear intelligence that Nasrallah would be in his underground bunker on the day of the attack. The date was around the same time as Prime Minister Netanyahu was scheduled for his annual address to the United Nations, along with other leaders around the world. Netanyahu equivocated over the assassination and stalled for more time to give it consideration. Knowing that the window would close, Gallant informed Netanyahu that a decision had to be made by the 29th. The Air Force was insisting that the attack take place in daylight so they could have better visibility of the target and so that the probability of all the jets returning to base would be the highest. When Gallant asked the Israeli Air Force leadership the probability that they would succeed they placed it at 90%. He then asked them how much tonnage they intended to drop. He then told them to double the tonnage and raise the probability to 99%. They launched the attack ½ hour after Netanyahu’s UN speech. The decision came about an hour before the speech. They dropped something like 30-40,000 tons of bombs in the attack, all within a window of 10 seconds.
Hostage/Ceasefire Agreement
Despite all its earlier threats, today Hamas released three of the male hostages per the Phase 1 of the hostage/ceasefire agreement.
In this photo you can see them along with Hamas members performing in their ridiculous farewell ceremony. From left to right they are: Yair Horn (dual Argentinian-Israeli), Sagi Dekel-Chen (dual American-Israeli) and Sasha Trufanov (dual Russian-Israeli). As you can see, at the time of their release they do not look as starved as the last group of hostages. It is believed that Hamas received a great deal of pushback from the Egyptian and Qatari mediators about the hostage conditions. So weeks before release they are making an effort to feed them and improve their physical condition.
In what I views as a childish response to these ridiculous stage performances pulled together by Hamas, such as the one shown in the photo, someone in the Israeli prison system had the smart idea (NOT) of having the released Arab prisoners wear t-shirts.
On the T-Shirts is the Star of David and the Hebrew (and Arabic) version of “We will not forget or forgive”. A really stupid “tit for tat” in my view. These are a portion of the prisoners being released in exchange for the three hostages. Needless to say, as soon as these prisoners reached Ramallah they took off the t-shirts and had a ceremony burning them… which you can see here. Equally childish.
Altogether 369 Arab prisoners in Israeli jails are being released today by Israel. Among them are 333 Gazans arrested during the conduct of the war from Gaza. They are being bused back to Gaza. Among the other 36, 13 are serving life sentences and are supposed to be deported via Egypt to another country. The other 23 are being released to Ramallah. Among the 13 serving life sentences is an Ahmed Barghoutti serving 13 life sentences. He was responsible for carrying out a terror attack killing 12 Israelis back in 2002. He is supposed to be sent to Egypt.
It is not appearing in the Western Press but many reports from the hostages released so far documents many cases of deliberate starvation and actual torture conducted by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The reports are sporadic and not being widely circulated due to concerns of jeopardizing the ongoing hostage release process. I will report more on this in the future.
Reports are appearing that Prime Minister Netanyahu is instructing the Israeli negotiating team to press the negotiations to extend the Phase 1 under the existing terms. However, according to the agreement discussions regarding Phase 2 were supposed to start last week. The Prime Minister is in a bind now. Last week he could argue that negotiations didn’t start because Hamas was threatening to stall the release of hostages in violation of the agreement. But in the end they released them as scheduled. So he will not have any excuses for not starting Phase 2 negotiations this week. But his coalition partner, Bezalel Smotrich, leader of one of the far right parties, is threatening to leave the coalition unless the war resumes at the end of Phase 1. Netanyahu will place Israel in violation of the agreement if discussions on Phase 2 don’t start, but if they do Smotrich might leave the coalition and bring the government down. It is not clear how this story will end. It is MY VIEW that the Prime Minister will have to start Phase 2 negotiations and risk the exit of Smotrich. The prevailing opinion in the country is that the population wants to see all the hostages back. Cabinet meetings are scheduled for today and tomorrow to resolve how next to proceed in the hostage/ceasefire negotiations.
Casualties
There have been no IDF or civilian casualties in the past 14 days.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
There have been no aerial explosives directed at Israel for the past 24 days. However, Hamas launched a rocket on Thursday heading towards Israel but landed inside Gaza, killing two people. You can see a video here. This violated the hostage/ceasefire agreement.
Lebanon Front
This evening, the IDF conducted an air strike in Southern Lebanon in an assassination attempt against Hezbollah’s drone commander. According to Lebanese sources two people were killed but did not publicly disclosed if the commander was one of the victims or not. Israel’s Defense Minister said today that Abbas Ahmad Hamoud, commander of Hezbollah’s drone unit, was killed today in the assassination.
Yesterday morning Israel advised Lebanon that a commercial flight arriving from Iran was carrying large amounts of cash intended for Hezbollah and that it would not allow the jet to land in Beirut. The Lebanese requested that the flight return to Iran, which it did. But this sparked a series of riots by Lebanese Shi’ites near and around the Beirut airport. When this kind of thing happens you know that there was something significant on the flight. This will be a test of the Lebanese Army to see if they can address the riots.
Despite my reports to the contrary, it now appears that the Lebanese Government will NOT agree to permit IDF forces to remain in Southern Lebanon until the end of Ramadan. So now Israel is insisting on leaving troops in five well defined and contained positions in order to continue monitoring the situation and prevent Hezbollah from returning to its previous positions.
A UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) convoy came under attack this morning not far from the rioters. Hezbollah blocked the road on which the convoy was traveling and then opened fire at the trucks bearing the UN troops. Several UN troops were wounded. The Lebanese Government said that this was not acceptable, but there is little they will or do about it.
Gaza Front
Hamas vehicles attempted to bypass the inspection facilities on their way to northern Gaza today in violation of the hostage/ceasefire agreement. The IDF conducted a warning strike using a drone against the vehicles as they tried to travel to the northern par of Gaza.