Today’s Image
This is a recent scene from Damascus where various militias affiliated with different ethnic groups appear to be staking out territory within the capital to protect its ethnic groups. In this case these are local militia affiliated with the Alawite minority that were loyal to former Syrian President Bashir Assad.
I am showing this because I believe that there are signs that order within the fragile Syrian Regime is breaking down. And that suggests more chaos for Syria is ahead. For example, NBC News is reporting that at least 400 civilians affiliated with the Alawite community in NorthEastern Syria have been killed as clashes escalate between the Alawite Community and the provisional government of fundamentalist Sunni Muslims. Unverified reports are placing the civilian Alawite casualties closer to 750. Reports are coming in that civilians are being lined up by the forces affiliated with the provisional government and being shot like in a firing squad. The center of fighting seems to be around the port city of Latakia, which until recently hosted an active Russian Naval base. The Alawites are Muslims, but not Sunni Muslims. They are closer to the Shi’ite Muslims in the way they practice their faith. Here you can see coverage of some of the active fighting taking place. And these two videos are showing Syrian Provisional Government forces dropping bombs indiscriminately on civilian locations in the Alawite areas. And for more in-depth coverage you can read through this. Based on this report from Yediot Ahranot, the leading Israeli daily paper, the situation is getting dire with indiscriminate killings taking place over much of the region. Israel’s Defense Minister posted these images of those Alawites killed on his x.com account. Members of the Alawite community have asked for intervention by Israel, but I doubt that Israel will do much. Are the Columbia University students out occupying NYC in protests against these indiscriminate crimes against humanity?? Is the UN Security Council going to meet and condemn the Provisional Syrian Government? I doubt it.
And as reported in this Sky News report, Kurdish forces are actively working to protect the minority Kurdish community in Aleppo. Armed clashes have erupted between the Kurdish forces and the Turkish backed forces there. The Kurds have established a region of their own in the NorthEastern sections of Syria, not far from the Iraqi border. This is adjacent to the Kurdish areas of Iraq, Turkiye and Iran. Turkish President for Life Tayyep Erdogan has threatened over a long, sustained period that he views the Kurds as terrorists, launching attacks on the large community in Eastern Turkiye regularly.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Government has issued warnings aimed at the Syrian Provisional Government that it will not tolerate large military forces anywhere in Southern Syria. It has made this statement because during Assad’s rule, both Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah forces established large military facilities in the area for the purpose of not only attacking Israel but creating instability in nearby Jordan. Moreover, the government has issued warnings that it will not permit harm to come to the Druze Community in Southern Syria. There are reports that the residents there, sensing support from nearby Israeli forces, have hoisted Israeli Flags, which you can see here and here. There are rumors circulating in Israel that there are already IDF reconnaissance forces deployed into some of the Druze villages in the south. I cannot find any reports confirming or denying this, but I believe the reports. Meanwhile the Southern Syria, the Druze Community is mobilizing to defend itself.
It is hard to see how the Syrian Provisional Regime can contain all the internecine violence between communities fighting each other for so long. A sad state of affairs. But, it does illustrate how prescient the IDF was in bombing many of the arms manufacturing and storage facilities of the prior Assad Regime, particularly those chemical weapons facilities that Former President Obama had claimed were his “red lines” back in 2013 when he claimed that should Syria use chemical weapons they would have crossed a red line. But then after doing so, President Obama chose to “punt”.
Hostage/Ceasefire Agreement
Just to remind you of the current status. The term of Phase 1 of the deal has passed. Negotiations on Phase 2, which is intended to involve the temporary end of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, release of all the remaining hostages, IDF evacuation of Gaza and release of some unknown number of terrorists from Israeli prisons, has not actually started. Israel has proposed a continuation of Phase 1, in which each week more hostages are released and terrorist released from prisons. But Hamas has rejected this approach.
Now there are verified reports that the USA has injected itself directly into the mess by holding negotiations directly with Hamas in Qatar. Initially reported by Axios, US presidential envoy Adam Boehler started discussions in Doha with high ranking representatives from Hamas without the presence of any Israeli representative. Israel got wind of this and registered its objections with the Trump Administration, which claimed that it is committed to see the US hostages released. Luckily, tempers did not rise much between the two allies as discussions were held behind closed doors and not in public.
For reasons that are hard to understand, Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar has announced that there has been progress on the hostage/ceasefire deal negotiations. It is not clear what could cause their reason for optimism, but the Israeli Government announced that it would be sending a delegation to Doha for talks. Maybe something happened during the direct discussions with the US delegation??
There are rumors that a truce lasting through the holidays of Ramadan (one month) and Passover (one week) are in the works. For Israel to agree it would have to include the release of hostages. As I was closing up this post I read an unconfirmed report that Hamas is agreeing to extend the ceasefire by two months, releasing more living hostages.
Casualties
There have been no IDF or civilian casualties in the past 35 days.
Rockets & Missiles & Drones
There have been no aerial explosives directed at Israel for the past 6 weeks.
Lebanon Front
The IDF maintains its five strategic positions inside Southern Lebanon along its border. There is little being said anymore by the Lebanese Government about it, although there were vocal protests registered weeks ago. The IDF is maintaining its “freedom of operations” inside Lebanon. In just the last 24 hours the Israeli Air Force conducted multiple drone strikes against identified Hezbollah military sites in Southern Lebanon. Last week Israeli fighter jets struck two Hezbollah positions along the Syrian border used to smuggle weapons into Lebanon. And an IDF drone successfully assassinated a Mohammed Mahdi Ali Shaheen who was a senior Hezbollah official running much of the arms smuggling operations. The Lebanese Government is not issuing public protests. I believe that as long as these attacks do not extend to Beirut this will remain the case. After all, keeping Hezbollah weak serves the interests of the Lebanese Government as least as much as Israel.
Gaza Front
The IDF has maintained its positions along the Philadelphi Corridor and along the periphery of Gaza. The 0.7 to 1.4 km buffer zone is also being maintained. There are occasional drone attacks against Hamas operatives found trying to conduct attacks against Israeli positions. There was a mysterious explosion of significant size in central Gaza earlier today. The IDF denied any involvement so the most likely cause was an inadvertent explosion at either an arms storage or manufacturing facility run by Hamas.
Egypt/Jordan/Qatar/Iraq/Iran
The Arab League met in Cairo last week to endorse an Egyptian Plan for the recovery of Gaza. The plan is the “same old, same old” position which leaves Hamas in power, pours money into the enclave and blocks any resident of Gaza from leaving to another country. This is the same old nonsense that this organization has pushed since 1948. Nothing changes. And both the UN and the EU endorsed the plan since all it does is perpetuate the status quo, forcing the population to live on the dole of others and enabling Hamas to rebuild its Reign of Terror, on its own population and Israel. Saner voices coming from the US and Israel have rejected the plan. There are multiple reports that Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while voting in favor of the plan at the plenum, have left the event furious over the fact that nothing in the discussions pushed forward the elimination of Hamas as the ruling entity of Gaza. But those attitudes are not being made public. You can read about it here. I fail to see what organization in the world will come up with the money to rebuild Gaza under these conditions. Certainly the US won’t. The EU isn’t going to have the money because they are going to have to start spending every eu they have to spare on their own defense budgets. As long as Hamas remains in power I fail to see how either Saudi Arabia or UAE will put up the money. So that will leave Qatar. But pumping money there will require the ascent of Israel, which is unlikely to provide it.
Both directly and through Russian mediators, the Trump Administration has conveyed to the Iranian Regime its interest in entering direct negotiations over the Islamic State’s nuclear program. The Trump Administration has announced that a nuclear armed Iran is an unacceptable outcome, echoing positions held by previous US Administrations. Iran has responded negatively saying that “Iran will not accept America’s Demands”. Meanwhile Iran has announced that it is still retaining its right of retaliation after the successful attack on its missile building facilities by the Israeli Air Force in October 2024. But, the US and Israeli Air Forces have been conducting highly visible joint drills over the Mediterranean involving Israeli fighter jets, both F15s and F35s, as well as US B-2 long range bombers. An aircraft such as the B-2 is capable of dropping significant arms, including those that can destroy deep armored bunkers like those used by Iran to shield its nuclear program. Iran has been conducting many military drills over the past two months. It is totally unclear what they could do to prevent an attack by Israel or joint US-Israel. Israel has already eliminated what poor air defense systems they have. They announced the purchase of Russian built Sukoi Su-35 fighter jets as its own fleet of fighter jets is more than 60 years old. But no one, outside the Tehran Regime, thinks that they could affect any attack by either Israel or others. Firstly, it is not clear when the fighter jets could be delivered. Secondly, it will require years of training in real and simulated operations for Iranian pilots to be affective with such armaments. And finally, it has been shown that those fighter jets are no match for either the F15s nor F35s purchased and then enhanced by the Israeli Air Force. You can read more about these not so secret joint US-Israel drills here. You can see a video here.
Aid
The daily shipment of 600 trucks worth of aid into Gaza have now been formally blocked by Israel. It is estimated that the amount of aid accumulated inside Gaza has now exceeded the needs for the population covering a 6-8 month period. Nonetheless both the UN and EU have registered protests against the blocking of aid. Just so everyone knows there is nothing in the so called rules of war that require a party that was attacked without provocation to supply aid to the attacking party. On a best efforts basis, the party should allow the delivery of aid to innocent civilians caught in the conflict. It is presumed, therefore, that should/when hostilities resume Israel will only permit the delivery of aid to the humanitarian zones carved out inside Gaza. Moreover, it is expected that Israel will cut off electricity and water to Gaza should hostilities begin again. Israel is the main supplier of both to Gaza and has been for many, many years.
IDF/Government
The new IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has now taken full authority over the IDF. He has had a chance to brief with all his direct reports for the purpose of drawing up plans for the possible major military operation in Gaza. He has made several promotions of various staff members that were frozen for the past two months due to disagreements between the outgoing Chief of Staff Herzi HaLevi and the new Defense Minister Israel Katz.
And In Your Copious Spare Time…
Those of you who have been following me since the beginning might recall that I spoke about a small baby boomlet I expected in Israel after the start of the war. I thought that it would happen because this was a way for Israelis to deal with the affirmation of life after such a tragedy. In this report you can read about such a boomlet in new babies reported recently.
Those of you versant in the Torah will recall the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In this passage, Abraham appeals to G-d to spare the two decadent cities from total destruction. And G-d replies that if Abraham can find 10 good men in these cities he would spare them. Ultimately, both cities are destroyed. President Trump asked the hostage survivors who visited the White House last week if there weren’t any people in Gaza who showed them sympathy or efforts to ease their pain. The response he got was “none”, absolutely none. Previously, when interviewed Liri Albag, a recently released hostage, told the press that “all the Gazans are terrorists”. She had four year olds coming up to her and telling her they look forward to killing Jews. You can read more here in this article from one of the editors of Tablet Magazine.
Those of you have been following me since the beginning will recall my regular explanations of the corruption of the Western Media that has been so clearly exposed by the October 7 tragedy. Throughout the war the once esteemed British media outlet, the BBC, has been virulently distorting the news against Israel. But this time they went “over the top”. They produced a “documentary” called “Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone” which deliberately distorted the interviewees statements by changing the translations as documented here. But then it turns out that the subject being interviewed for most of the film was the daughter of a Hamas Leader in Gaza. Ultimately the BBC was forced to pull the film from its web site.