Israel Update 12.9.24

While the world’s attention is focussed on Gaza, Israel’s North continues to suffer devastating and escalating attacks by Hezbollah and other terrorist groups in Lebanon.

 

ISRAEL’S NORTHERN BORDER

 

 

Hezbollah on Monday launched explosive-laden drones at northern Israel, one of which hit a high-rise residential building in Nahariya, destroying two apartments.  Short video here

A couple and their 6 month old baby, residents of one badly damaged apartment were fortunately not at home.

Dr. Maron Haj a thoracic surgeon who had lived on the floor below said “Everything in our apartment was ruined”.Report here

 

 

Barrages of around 100 rockets from Lebanon pounded the north yesterday and a reservist soldier, a member of Kibbutz Dan’s local security team, was seriously wounded in a Hezbollah anti-tank guided missile attack. Report here

 

 

August was the most intense month so far, with more than 1,300 attacks on Israel by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group, up 20% from July. The August figure marked an increase of 400% compared to January. Hezbollah has attacked the Jewish state nearly every day since Oct. 8, killing more than 40 people and causing widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain internally displaced due to the ongoing attacks.Report here

 

 

 

Dozens of rockets were fired at northern Israel on Saturday, with some reaching areas near Safed.

More than 50 rockets were launched at around 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m Sunday at the Galilee Panhandle and Kiryat Shmona area causing damage. Report hereand here

 

 

TERROR ATTACK FROM JORDAN

 

Three Israeli civilian workers were killed in a shooting attack near the Allenby Crossing in the Jordan Valley on Sunday. The terrorist, a truck driver who arrived from the Jordanian side, opened fire with a Kalashnikov rifle on workers at the crossing before being killed by security guards. Report here

 

WEST BANK TERROR ATTACK

 

An IDF soldier was killed in a ramming attack yesterday by a terrorist driving a petrol tanker.Report here

 

 

COUNTER TERRORISM

 

 

A Palestinian detained Monday in a suspicious vehicle on Route 6 in central Israel was planning an “imminent terror attack” along with two other suspects arrested later in the day in the West Bank. Report here

 

HOSTAGES

 

The IDF reported on the dire conditions in which the 6 murdered hostages had been held. They were confined in an exceedingly narrow and cramped tunnel where standing upright was a struggle, and only two of them could lie down across its width at any given time. The tunnel lacked air vents, making breathing difficult. The captives had no access to toilets or showers, relying on water bottles for both drinking and rudimentary washing. 3 min video here

Several of the six Israeli hostages who were executed by their Hamas captors in Gaza attempted to fight off their killers, the IDF told their families. Reportedly “Several of the six are assessed to have defended themselves and struggled with those who shot them.”

Report hereand here

 

 

Palestinian journalist Abd Al-Bari Fayyad wrote in the Saudi news website Elaph on Sept. 4: “By perpetrating this deed [of murdering six Israeli hostages], Hamas behaved in a barbaric and inhumane manner. This is conduct that the Islamic Shari’a prohibits.”Report here

 

 

EGYPT

 

Exiled Egyptian analyst Dalia Ziada says “Israel has helped Egypt in the past against Islamist militias in Sinai, and co-operation between the two countries has been very successful in the past. Why doesn’t Egypt do the same with Israel now?” At the same time, Ziada noted that the rhetoric around Hamas has become more positive in official Egyptian media since Oct.7. Hamas is no longer referred to as a terror organisation but as a “resistance group” even though its gunmen have killed Egyptian soldiers and civilians in Sinai.

She sees 3 reasons for Egypt’s refusal to co-operate with Israel over the controversial Philadelphi corridor: the opposition of Sinai Bedouin tribes, the embarrassment of the Egyptian leadership over its failure to secure its border with Gaza, and the potential backlash from Egyptian society and the Arab world at large. For at least two decades, Bedouin tribes in Sinai have profited from smuggling all sorts of goods, including weaponry.

“All the official statements coming out of Egypt are insisting that tunnels do not exist, despite the very clear footage that the IDF has shown of the tunnels” Article here

 

 

DEAL?

 

Israeli officials said Saturday that the U.S. should have demanded more pressure on Hamas from the mediators in Qatar and Egypt as ceasefire and hostage release deal negotiations stall. They said Qatar should expel Hamas leaders living there and freeze the terror group’s bank accounts, but instead the Americans are applying their pressure on P.M. Netanyahu.
A senior Israeli official said Hamas has hardened its position and is not really interested in a deal. Hamas increased the number of convicted murderers they demand be freed from Israeli jails in exchange for wounded and sick men held hostage. Report here

 

 

 

President Biden’s senior advisers are reassessing whether it is worthwhile to introduce a new proposal for a hostage deal in the coming days, as the differences between Hamas and Israel seem to be widening. The murder of six hostages and Hamas’s new demand for the release of 100 additional Palestinian prisoners have fuelled pessimism within the White House…The Biden administration believes Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is uninterested in a deal. Article here

 

 

GAZA

 

 

Ziad Abu Haya, a Gazan activist, was seen on the Saudi Al-Arabiya network last month asking the world to “save us from Hamas.” Sources in Gaza told Al Arabiya that Abu Haya was severely beaten and tortured last Friday after armed men affiliated with Hamas stormed his tent in Khan Yunis.
Gaza Palestinian Mahmoud Khallas wrote on X, “Ziad Abu Haya, a citizen from Khan Yunis, lost his son at the beginning of the war and said, ‘Save us from Hamas.’ Two days ago, Hamas attacked him and broke his bones.” “What’s happening in Gaza on a daily basis, far from the eyes of the media, is a crime against humanity. Hamas’s remnants in Gaza are abusing, beating and oppressing the displaced.”       Report here

 

 

When the war forced Nasser al-Zaanin to flee his home in northern Gaza in October, he, along with his adult sons and grandchildren, moved to a school in Deir al Balah that had been turned into a shelter. He helped set up a system of committees that oversaw food, water and medical needs. They had one red line: No armed men were allowed in the compound. Residents wanted to avoid becoming a target for Israeli forces hunting down Hamas militants.
Several other residents of school shelters in central Gaza recounted similar stories. The residents’ testimonies also suggested that Hamas’s grip on the enclave may be weakened by the war and that ad hoc community groups are starting to operate outside its control.                Article here (paywall)

 

 

The IDF reported on Saturday that dozens of terrorists had been killed in Tel Al-Sultan near Rafah as part of ongoing “precise, intelligence-based targeted operations” in southern Gaza.Report here

 

 

A targeted Israeli airstrike on a Hamas command and control centre embedded in the Khan Yunis humanitarian zone killed three senior operatives, the IDF confirmed Tuesday.    All three were directly involved in the Oct. 7 attack and had been planning further operations against Israeli forces. Extensive measures were taken to minimize civilian casualties, including the use of precision munitions and real-time aerial surveillance.
While Hamas claimed the strike resulted in many civilian deaths and injuries, the IDF said, “Hamas’s media office in Gaza has been caught lying before, and their figures do not match our intelligence.”Report here

 

 

 

Amro Abu Rida, a Gazan who claimed to be a journalist, was arrested for his involvement in the October 7 massacre, and during an IDF interrogation he admitted he was an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization.       Campaigns on social media had been calling for Rida’s release from prison, including Al Jazeera which reportedly accused Israel of kidnapping the “journalist”.  Report here

 

DEFENCE

 

Israel devotes a larger proportion of its GDP to arms and security exports than any other country, and more than 80% supports the world’s democracies.
By acting as these democracies’ armoury and their intelligence shield, Israel plays an outsized role in the Western world’s defence.

Almost half of Israel’s arms exports support Asian countries that are threatened by China, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and India.

To date, 21 countries have joined the European Sky Shield Initiative, ESSI, which has at its heart Israel’s Arrow 3 air-defence system.

The late Sen. Daniel Inouye, a former chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “Israel’s contribution to U.S. military intelligence is greater than all NATO countries combined.” Article here

 

 

VOLUNTEERS

 

 

Volunteers saved $50 million of produce. Israeli charity Leket Israel reported that since Oct 7, hundreds of thousands of volunteers, from Israel and around the world, helped rescue over 35,000 tons of Israeli agricultural produce that otherwise would have gone to waste.(TY Michael O)Article here

 

 

THE BBC

 

 

The BBC breached its own editorial guidelines 1,553 times during the height of the Israel-Hamas war, according to an analysis of the first four months of the BBC’s output by a team of 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson.Report here (paywall) Article here

 

 

TECHNOLOGY

 

 

New technology can make air-conditioning less harmful to the planet.                                                                                                                          The Beverly Hilton and the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, two upmarket hotels in suburban Los Angeles, have begun using “IceBricks” designed by Nostromo, an Israeli company. These contain hundreds of capsules of water that can be frozen when electricity demand is low, then used when it is high. Doing so, Nostromo claims, will reduce the hotels’ cooling-electricity costs by 50% and lessen their carbon emissions. Article here (paywall)

 

 

MEDICAL RESEARCH

 

 

In a world first, researchers at the Hebrew University have discovered a distinct cellular pathway in the brain that indicates markers for future onset of Alzheimer’s disease, some 20 years before symptoms would be exhibited. This early detection could eventually lead to a treatment to prevent the degenerative disease. Article here

 

 

MEDICAL CLOWNS

 

 

Researchers have found that children seriously ill in hospital with pneumonia made a faster recovery after a visit from specially-trained medical clowns. Dr Karin Yaacoby-Bianu of the Carmel Medical Centre in Israel, who led the study, said medical clowns helped alleviated stress and anxiety, and improved psychological adjustment to hospitals. The team followed 51 children aged between two and 18, who had been treated in hospital for pneumonia. One group received standard care, while the second received standard care as well as a 15-minute visit from a medical clown twice daily during the first 48 hours of hospitalisation. The researchers found that the group who were visited by a medical clown had a shorter hospital stay, an average of 43.5 hours compared to 70 hours for the group not visited by the clowns.      Article here (paywall)

 

 

SPORT

 

 

Israel won 10 medals at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, including four gold, its best showing at the Games in 20 years. Article here

Swimmer Ami Dadaon,  who won 4 medals including 2 golds,  returned home to a hero’s welcome. Short video here

Israel’s under-17 flag football team won the European Championship.Photo here

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

Gaza War

 

General Sir John McColl, the former deputy supreme allied commander of Nato:

I fought in Iraq – I know that Israel’s doing all it can to save civilians.

Last week I visited Israel with a team of military experts from six Nato countries to see for myself. As a career officer, I served for 38 years in the British Army and have been in combat in Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, and I was deputy supreme allied commander of Nato… Basing my views about the Israel-Hamas on UK media coverage, I arrived in Israel critical and sceptical of their military operations…. Firstly let me say that what we, military observers with decades of combined experience in leading Nato armies, were told and saw was the most complex and demanding operational environment any of us had come across, including in Afghanistan and Iraq… Accompanying troops in Rafah we found that the rules of engagement were being adhered to rigorously and that a significant number of engagements were being aborted because the clearance of civilians could not be verified… The perspectives that we gained were as a result of a relatively short visit…However, they do indicate that there is balance missing in the reporting of events in Gaza…War is terrible, but sometimes necessary. And Israeli soldiers are fighting in conditions of extraordinary complexity and risk. It’s time for the world to have its eyes opened to that. Article here (paywall)

 

 

Other former NATO officers visited Israel recently. They commended the IDF’s operations and believe Israel is nearing its war objectives. Article here

 

 

Lt.-Col. (ret.) Geoffrey Corn and Lt.-Gen. (ret.) George Smith: Beware false moral equivalence between Israel & Hamas… Hamas’s terrorist operations demonstrate a complete and pervasive disregard for even the most basic rules of war, showing the world the bottomless depths of its barbarism… Critics of Israel will no doubt cite the (often inflated and unverified) numbers of civilians killed in Gaza as the result of combat operations to justify their efforts at “equality of condemnation.” But as any prosecutor can readily explain, there is no equivalency between those who deliberately kill and those who cause unavoidable killing even when following the law.Article here

 

 

 

Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Moti Almoz, 57, argues for a buffer zone of about 2.5 to 6 miles west of the Gaza fence under Israeli control. “This depth is critical for protecting our communities. It’s been clear since day one that this is necessary. We need to send a clear message: anyone planning future attacks will lose territory. That’s what victory looks like, not images of surrendering enemies.”
Almoz dismisses the idea of quick peace solutions, arguing that Israel must prioritize security over peace negotiations in the short term. “We’re preoccupied with terms like ‘innocents’ and ‘uninvolved civilians.’ But…it wasn’t just the armed groups; civilians came to loot, assault, and kill. Young people bragged about killing with their bare hands, even elderly people joined in. There are two million Palestinians in Gaza. If we hadn’t stopped them, they would have reached more communities, killing and looting. This calls into question the concept of ‘uninvolved civilians.'”Article here

 

 

Philadelphi Corridor

 

Melanie Phillips:  The only way to save the hostages is through military pressure. That’s one reason why it’s imperative for Israel to retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, the area of Gaza that borders Egypt.

The importance of this corridor cannot be exaggerated. Israel’s capture of it has uncovered deep below its surface an extensive infrastructure of giant tunnels into Egypt — thus revealing the principal route through which Hamas imported its rockets, weapons and ammunition. (author’s emphasis)

Hamas needs to control the Philadelphi corridor in order to resupply itself. Without that, it will be finished. That’s why it’s insisting that there will be no deal while Israel remains in control…..

America itself bears a significant measure of responsibility for the hostages’ fate.

The Biden administration forced Israel to proceed in Gaza far more slowly than the IDF judged necessary to defeat Hamas and thus save the hostages. Worse, for three months, the administration stopped Israel from entering Rafah — below which the six hostages were murdered this month. If Israel had been free to proceed at its own pace, those six captives and many others might have been saved.Full article here

 

 

“Refugee Camps”

 

Dror Eydar: On various fronts the IDF is currently fighting within what are called “refugee camps”, whose continued existence has only perpetuated the conflict and serve to this day as a weapon to criticize Israel.

EXTRACT: The UN has two refugee agencies. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) deals with refugees worldwide, while UNRWA deals exclusively with Palestinian refugees. The 20th century witnessed hundreds of millions of people displaced and resettled elsewhere. But unlike refugees in the rest of the world, for Palestinians, refugee status is inherited, even for those absorbed into other countries. Thus, the number of refugees has grown from around half a million in 1948 to 5-6 million today.
This stems from the desire to fuel hatred against Israel and sustain the Palestinians’ dream of flooding Israel and destroying it through what they call the “right of return.” The UN is responsible for this disgrace. UNRWA has not and will not solve the refugee problem. Were it not for the desire to harm the Jews, after a generation, the Palestinian refugees would have been absorbed into their new homes and forgotten. Full article here