Israel Update 11.7.24

 

HEZBOLLAH’S WAR AGAINST ISRAEL

 

 

 

 

Four people were wounded, including two seriously, in a series of Hezbollah rocket and missile attacks on northern Israel on Sunday when Hezbollah launched a  barrage of some 20 rockets to target the Lower Galilee, some of the deepest strikes yet into northern Israel. Rocket sirens sounded as far as Sde Ilan, a community located some 35 kilometres (21 miles) from the Lebanon border. Report here

 

 

A prominent member of the Hezbollah terror group’s air defence unit was killed in an Israeli drone strike in north eastern Lebanon on Saturday, around 100 km from the Israeli border. Report here

 

 

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the Lebanon border on a near-daily basis, so far resulting in 12 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 15 IDF soldiers and reservists. Israel’s government evacuated a 4 km strip early in the war, leaving only soldiers and emergency personnel. Some 60,000 people in Israel have been displaced for nine months. There is an increasingly real possibility of a full-scale war — one that would likely have catastrophic consequences for people on both sides of the border. Some fear the fires sparked by a larger conflict would also cause irreversible damage to the land. Since the war began, the IDF has tracked 5,450 missile launches from Lebanon toward northern Israel. Report here

 

 

GAZA WAR

 

 

The IDF is intensifying its offensive operations in northern Gaza to increase pressure on Hamas to become more flexible in negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages. Both the defence and political establishments in Israel clearly understand that the intensified offensive operations, particularly in Rafah and northern Gaza, are Israel’s main leverage regarding the hostages. Report here

 

In recent internal communications seen by AP, messages signed by several senior Hamas figures in Gaza urged the group’s exiled political leadership to accept the ceasefire proposal pitched by President Biden. The messages described the heavy losses Hamas has suffered and the dire conditions in the war-ravaged territory.  Report here Report here (paywall)

 

 

 

The IDF on Saturday struck a Hamas hideout and operational base at an UNRWA-run school in Nuseirat in central Gaza and said “Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.” Report here

 

 

The IDF reinvaded Gaza City on Monday, accompanied by tanks and air strikes. In Shajaia, near Gaza City, troops eliminated dozens of Hamas terrorists, found long-range rockets and demolished tunnels.Report hereReport here

 

 

The IDF has uncovered an extensive network of multi-level tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border. Recent operations have exposed dozens of tunnels crossing from Gaza into Egypt. Several were found to have up to three underground levels. Report here

 

 

 

Open criticism of Hamas has been growing in Gaza, both on the streets and online…Fear of criticizing Gaza’s leaders might have lessened, but it hasn’t gone. One well-placed source told the BBC that dozens of people had been killed by Hamas in bloody score-settling with other local groups, after Israeli troops withdrew from one area. Report here

 

 

 

Five Gazans who had been agricultural workers in Kibbutz Nir Am and who had entered Israel legally, were killed by Hamas terrorists along with their Bedouin Israeli driver during the Oct. 7 massacre, while two others who were in the same van remain unaccounted for. Report here

 

 

 

IDF soldiers are finding (probably stolen/looted) Judaica, including a Seder plate and Hanukkah menorahs, in Gaza and are trying to locate the items’ owners.Report here

UNWRA (United Nations Relief & Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees)

 

On Monday, the IDF said that UNRWA headquarters was among the sites targeted in its new operation in Gaza City.
Hamas has systematically used UN facilities throughout the war in Gaza. Its forces have hidden in them and used tunnels underneath them.
Its armed terrorists have been present at schools, shelters, warehouses, and other UN sites.
Hamas has always exploited international organizations and the UN in Gaza. It knows that UN compounds and schools are sites that would normally be protected during a war. Therefore, it views these areas as a priority to use as command and control nodes.
Hamas also knows that when it hides at UN-run schools, any airstrike on the site can be used for propaganda, with most reports stating that the IDF struck a school rather than a Hamas site. Article here

 

 

 

GAZA AID

 

 

A backlog of 1,150 truckloads of humanitarian aid is waiting to be collected from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza, Israel said Wednesday. Another 50 aid trucks are awaiting collecting from the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing in northern Gaza.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said UN trucks that manage to pick up aid “are doing it often at great cost, because they are being either looted or attacked by criminal elements. Some aid is getting through, but very little.”Report here

EASTERN FRONT

 

 

 

The IED threat: Terrorism in the West Bank is fast becoming more deadly. The IDF recently lost two soldiers when explosive devices buried deep underneath roads exploded. Data on IED manufacture shows a fast-growing threat. The fear is that civilians will be targeted next. Article here/

 

 

As part of Iran’s strategic objective to surround Israel with active fronts supported by Islamist client militias, the regime is seeking to add an eastern component through Jordan to the West Bank and has succeeded in establishing an arms route to bring military materiel from Iran into Lebanon, and then into Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank, intending over time, to flood the area with weaponry, including C4, TNT, anti-tank mines, RPG launchers, and anti-armour and anti-personnel missiles.
Once in the West Bank, the weaponry and materiel are made available to any armed group willing to carry out attacks on Israel. Report here

 

 

 

On May 29, a terrorist struck and killed two Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint outside Nablus. After the IDF launched a manhunt, he turned himself in to the Palestinian police. Under the Oslo Accords, the PA Security Forces, which receive training and funding from the U.S., should have handed  him over to Israel to stand trial. But, like hundreds of terrorists before him over the past 30 years, he remained in PA custody for only a few hours.
In March, the Israeli think tank Regavim identified nearly 80 officers of the PA Security Forces who have been killed or arrested while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis in the past three years alone. Article here (paywall)    

 

 

THE USA

 

 

The U.S. will soon begin shipping to Israel the 500-pound bombs that the Biden administration had previously suspended, ending a two-month pause, according to U.S. officials. Report here (paywall)

 

IRAN

 

 

That Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s newly elected president and No 2 official, was allowed to run indicated that the Iranian establishment considered him to be a safe choice. The supreme leader Khomeini can block him, as can Parliament, leaving the president with little influence on security and military matters.
Pezeshkian has made it clear he has no intention to change Iran’s refusal to recognize Israel.Article here (paywall)

 

The Iranian government is covertly encouraging American protests over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Tuesday. Using social media platforms popular in the U.S., groups linked to Tehran have posed as online activists, encouraged protests, and have provided financial support to some protest groups.  Press release here

Recent satellite imagery shows major expansions at two key Iranian ballistic missile facilities for boosting missile production, following an October 2022 deal in which Iran agreed to provide missiles to Russia for its war against Ukraine. Tehran also supplies missiles to Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the Lebanese terrorist group Hizbullah.
Report here

 

 

On several occasions, Iranian officials have revealed that the Iranian regime was involved in the planning and execution of Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion and massacres in Israel – what they call the “Al-Aqsa Flood.”  Report here

TURKEY

 

 

On June 30, an El Al flight from Warsaw en route to Tel Aviv was not allowed to refuel in Antalya, Turkey, after making an emergency landing to evacuate a passenger in need of urgent medical attention when airport workers refused to refuel the flight.
This action involved several substantive violations by Turkey of its international legal and aviation obligations.
The 1944 Chicago International Convention on Civil Aviation, to which Turkey is party, obligates all states to “provide such measures of assistance to aircraft in distress in its territory”. In the still-valid 1953 bilateral aviation agreement between Israel and Turkey, the two parties undertook to “ensure that neutral and non-discriminatory access to airport facilities and all related services is granted to the airlines of the other party”  The plane was delayed for several hours, during which time the passengers were not allowed to exit, and eventually took off for Rhodes (Greece) where it was refuelled. Report here Article here

 

 

UKRAINE

 

 

Israel has informed Ukraine that it is prepared to receive Ukrainian children with cancer after the Okhmatdyt Hospital in Kyiv, where they were being treated, was bombed on Tuesday by Russia. Israel is now awaiting a response. Report here

 

 

 

GERMANY

 

 

People applying for German naturalization  will now be required to affirm Israel’s right to exist, under changes to the country’s citizenship law. Report here

 

 

 

WEST NILE FEVER

 

 

According to Health Ministry data,299 people in Israel have contracted the West Nile fever  virus resulting in 15 deaths. The virus is also affecting birds. However only mosquitos can transmit the disease. Report here

 

 

BRIDGE

 

 

Israel’s bridge team of Adi Asulin, Ilan Bareket, Ronnie Benin-Barr, Ron Pachtman, Nathalie Saada, Yaniv Zack are the European Mixed Team Champions.Results here

 

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

Maria Munoz (Native American & a practising Christian): When I went back to Kfar Aza, the bright, flourishing community I once knew was now in ruins. Seeing the burned rubble of family homes was the first time I fully understood the fate of the kibbutz residents. Their voices had been stolen by the self-proclaimed activists of social media who were telling the world that the stories of Israeli victims did not deserve to be heard because their deaths were “justified.” I knew this sentiment was wrong. People who were anti-war were now openly celebrating the deaths of innocent civilians.
It made me realize people were not using this movement to stand up for human rights. They were using it to ignite hate against Jews – again. If my former friends had seen the atrocious evidence of the attacks like I did, they would also be shouting to the world that Hamas is a genocidal regime, not a revolutionary “freedom fighting” group. I consider Israel the most successful decolonization project of all time. I unapologetically support Israel and the Jewish people. People have tried to call me a Zionist as an insult, but I wear the badge proudly. Article here

 

 

 

Robert Williams: It apparently never occurred to either the heads of the UN or the EU to consider that if you are a terrorist organization that commits war crimes, you do not get to choose how a war that you started is waged against you.

If you do not want a “bloodbath,” do not take hostages, hide them among civilians, try to prevent a rescue, then if they are rescued, profess shock at the fallout that you yourself have teed up.

To this day, there seems little-to-no interest in the fate or condition of the hostages still in Gaza. Instead, there is denial that the October 7 atrocities even took place, compared to an almost obsessive regard for the safety of, and humanitarian aid for Gazans. When the UN is unable to deliver the aid, Israel, not the UN, is blamed.

The Hamas murders, rapes, burning alive of babies and abductions – all the reasons why Israel was forced to go to war with Hamas to begin with — have retreated into the background.

What seems to matter instead to those who set the political and media agendas is to use the Hamas war once again to demonize the Jews as the world’s most inhuman people for wanting to live peacefully on their historical land without daily massacres from Iran and its proxies — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Houthis — which apparently plan to encircle them in a “Ring of Fire” — “six fronts of aggression against Israel” — as part of Iran’s attempt at hegemony in the Middle East.

Western elites seem happy to assist them in that fight. Article here

 

 

Nadav Shragai: For nearly 20 years, Hamas has smuggled enormous quantities of weapons and building materials through and under the Philadelphi Corridor.
Anyone who still believes the Egyptians were unaware of this is deluding themselves.
The Egyptians not only knew, but for years they were complicit – knowingly ignoring the situation, turning a blind eye, and even actively facilitating it. Egyptian officials and officers pocketed bribes that allowed the weapons highway to continue.
Proposing to involve them now in any arrangement concerning the Philadelphi Corridor and trusting them is self-deception.
Israel must, therefore, remain in Philadelphi. Neither Egypt, nor other foreign forces, nor cameras will do the job for us there as needed.
EU monitoring forces failed at the Rafah crossing and fled from there in 2007. Article here

 

 

Melanie Phillips: The Biden administration has made Israel slow down its attempt to destroy Hamas in Gaza, repeatedly forcing the Israelis into paralyzing ceasefire negotiations that have given Hamas the upper hand, and insisting on humanitarian aid supplies, most of which were stolen by Hamas to strengthen itself.

In addition, the U.S. forced Israel not to take early preemptive action against Hizbullah in Lebanon, which has launched hundreds of missile and rocket strikes on northern Israel, displacing more than 60,000 Israelis from their homes while burning large swathes of the Galilee.

Even when Iran fired a barrage of rockets and drones at Israel in April and America and others scrambled to help knock them out, the U.S. stopped Israel from responding robustly.

Against this dire backdrop, P.M. Netanyahu is going to America in three weeks to address Congress…

He rarely airs his grievances with the U.S. in public. When he does so, it’s because he feels he has no other option. That’s why he addressed Congress in 2015 in an attempt to head off President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. It’s why he outed the Biden administration for holding up the delivery of weapons essential to the war effort.

His intended audience isn’t just U.S. lawmakers and the American people. It’s also the Arab and Muslim world. For what inspires aggression and war in the Middle East is above all the perception of weakness.Article here