War
Soldiers in Khan Younis Gaza
Gaza
On Tuesday, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed by Hamas terrorists while fighting in Gaza. This was the largest number of Israelis killed in a single day since the Oct 7th massacre by Hamas terrorists.
On that day, Hamas broke through the Gaza border in over twenty places in a well-planned and executed invasion, killing 1200 Israelis in Jewish settlements along the border and even those at a music festival near Kibbutz Re’em. 242 Israelis were kidnapped. 136 are still held hostage in Gaza.
The tragedy occurred as a detachment from Israel’s demolition battalion was setting explosive charges in two buildings just 600 meters from the Israeli/Gaza border. This was done in order to demolish the buildings that the IDF feared could be used as observation posts and attack positions against nearby Israeli settlements.
According to Ynet news, Hamas terrorists fired an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) at the building, detonating the charges the IDF was laying, causing the buildings to collapse on the soldiers inside.
Another Hamas terrorist fired a second RPG at an IDF tank guarding the demolition team. Two soldiers inside the tank were killed. The IDF has launched what they called an ‘in-depth investigation’ into the events.
Ynetnews veteran military correspondent Ron Ben Yishai asked if the explosion was perhaps a work accident by the IDF soldiers. He also questioned why there were so many soldiers in the building. Other analysts questioned if tracking the demolition teams was a new Hamas tactic?
IDF D9 clearing buffer zone
According to the Wall Street Journal, the demolition of the building “… is part of plan to clear a 1-kilometer-wide area along the border, as part of an Israeli plan to construct a security zone just inside Gaza—to which Palestinians would be barred entry.
“It would create a clear field of fire so Israeli troops can see and stop anyone approaching the frontier.” The WSJ added that the Palestinians are worried that this buffer zone is preparation for Israel occupying the Gaza strip.
According to Ynetnews, A move by Tourism Minister Haim Katz and Sports and Culture Minister Miki Zohar seemed to support those suspicions. The two MKS are promoting an upcoming conference that calls for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip as a way to boost security for Israel after the war against the Hamas terror group ends.
Ministers and lawmakers from the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties will also take part in the conference.
Most analysts agree that Hamas has not been neutered. Squads of terrorists still roam around north Gaza, an area that the IDF says is now under their control, with Hamas’ military command and communications destroyed.
However, Ynetnews reports that Hamas is using couriers to hand-deliver notes to and from Hamas leaders.
The recent tragedy brings the number of soldiers killed since the Oct 27 IDF ground incursion into Gaza to 219.
David Horowitz, editor of the Times of Israel, calls this tragedy “a test of Israel’s unity and determination.”
Ehud Yaari, Arab affairs correspondent for Channel 12TV, told a news panel that he’d been in talks with sources in Gaza. Yaari said that Hamas realizes they will not be able to go back and resume governing Gaza. That the US and the world won’t allow that. So, said Yaari, the Hamas leadership wants to join with the Palestinian Authority.
Yaari said that there are talks now going on between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. By allowing the PA to be involved, said Yaari, Hamas will still be in power but share it with the PA. So far, said Yaari, Abu Mazen, the 87-year-old leader of the PA, hasn’t agreed.
Yaari also said that the US is exerting heavy pressure on the PA to strengthen its military. To set up more brigades. Again, Abu Mazen hasn’t agreed, yet.
North
IDF soldiers serving in the north advise friends and family not to approach the area, claiming the danger is palpable. According to one soldier, Hezbollah has ways to spot and track a car driving on roads in the north and target them with precision guided missiles.
A channel 11KanTV report showed correspondent Ruby Hammershlag visiting a moshav in the north. Viewers watched as Hammershlag was told to run from place to place so as not to make himself a target. This while over 60,000 residents of the north have been evacuated to hotels, hostels, friends and families.
Israel’s north has been hit on nearly a daily basis since the start of the war on Oct 7th. Hezbollah has so far refused to honor UN resolution 1701 that calls for them to pull back from the border.
Former Kyriat Shmona mayor Prosper Azran told Israel Radio’s Reshet Bet that no one would return to the north until Hezbollah’s 2500 crack fighters from the Radwan unit were moved back from the border.
Also, Israel’s Chief of Staff Herzi HaLevi has told the media that war in Lebanon is becoming much more likely.
Hostages
Hostage families protesting at Knesset committee meeting
Families of hostages have kept up their promise to become more aggressive. According to the Times of Israel, relatives of the 136 Israelis being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip burst into a session of the Knesset Finance Committee on Monday to demand that the government do more to secure their family members’ release.“You will not sit here while our children die,” one of the protesters screamed.”
Hostage Sgt. Matan Angrest’s sister Adi told the committee, “Is it reasonable that 260 trucks of flour are entering Gaza now and my brother is eating nothing?…It doesn’t make any sense that my brother isn’t eating anything when they bring them 260 trucks of flour.”
Hostage Families camped outside Prime Minister’s Jerusalem Residence
Other hostage families have camped out in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence The protest was organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Protesters blocking aid shipment at Kerem Shalom crossing
On Wednesday, protesters, blocked aid trucks into Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing severely limiting the amount of aid allowed into Gaza.
Activists said that Israel should not facilitate its entry until the hostages are freed.
Only nine out of the 60 trucks that arrived at the Kerem Shalom border crossing made it through, according to Ynet. The remaining 51 returned to Egypt after a six-hour wait at the crossing because hundreds of protesters from the Tsav 9 and Combatants’ Mothers groups, among others,
According to the Times of Israel, Reut Ben Haim, a mother of eight from Netivot, said,“It’s always insane to aid the enemy, especially one day after they killed 24 of our soldiers and as they’re preparing to continue firing into our cities — even as they’re holding more than 130 of our hostages.”
Women protesting for release of hostages
Other protesters blocked intersections and main roads across Israel. Over 5,000 women protested around the country demanding a solution to the hostage crises.
Meanwhile, quiet negotiations for a ceasefire are also reportedly ongoing. Talks are being held in Qatar between Israel and Hamas to hammer out an agreement for a one-month ceasefire that would see the release of all the hostages. Israel also agreed to allow Hamas leaders to leave Gaza.
Hamas, however, has said that they would only release hostages in stages and that each stage would come with a different demand. And that Hamas leaders have no intention of leaving Gaza.
The US and some European states have demanded that the Israelis permit a two-state solution, in other words the establishment of a Palestinian state. This Palestinian entity would then help administer Gaza without Hamas.
Gen (ret.) Tomer Hyman told Channel 12TV that, “Whoever is involved in the negotiations need to also include Iran in the talks. To get them to tell Hezbollah and the Houthis to stop shooting. And free the hostages.”
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has urged an “immediate pause” in the Gaza fighting. Cameron said he would push for a “sustainable” ceasefire when he visits Israel soon.
According to Ynetnews, PM Netanyahu has contradicted US President Biden in what was called an ‘extraordinary’ statement. The Prime Minister’s office issued a statement saying that Israel needed to have full control over Gaza and the West Bank.
Ultra-nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotritch has said that there are “big, dangerous question marks” raised in the proposed hostage deal. And the Times of Israel reported that Smotritch was exacerbating the situation by claiming that Qatar was hamstringing the hostage talks in order to help Hamas.
Former Defense Minister Moshe ‘Bougie’ Ayalon told Israel Radio that “Netanyahu is under the thumb of ‘Messianists’ and can’t make a deal to free the hostages.”
However, one Hamas leader is firmly against the US proposition of a two-state solution. The Times of Israel reported on Wednesday that “senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal has dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution and said that his terror group’s devastating October 7 assault on Israel proved that liberating Palestine ‘from the river to the sea’ is a realistic idea.
In an interview with Kuwaiti podcaster Ammar Taki last week, Mashaal, a former top leader of the terror group now living in luxury in Qatar, said that there is “nearly a consensus among Palestinians that they will not give up their rights to the land stretching ‘from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea’ — that is, the West Bank, Gaza and all of Israel.”
Mashaal said in the interview that being in power in Gaza over the past 17 years had provided Hamas with “political and administrative cover” to build its terror infrastructure undisturbed by the PA or Israel, and manufacture weapons, dig tunnels, and train its members.
Pundits point out that Mashal did not mention what would happen to the nearly 10 million Israelis living on the land he wants to claim. But that the massacre Hamas committed on Oct 7th certainly provides a chilling example.
On Wednesday, IDF Arabic Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee posted footage of a rare protest against Hamas near the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip.
Gaza protesters calling for end to the war and hostage release
The Times of Israel also reported that a new poll of US voters has found that 67% agree that Israel should not agree to a ceasefire unless all of the hostages are freed.
West Bank
IDF at Nur al Shams refugee camp
According to NPR, “After more than three months into Israel's war in Gaza, the economy of the West Bank is reeling. Many fear the economic pain could lead to even more violence in the territory, which is a bit smaller than Delaware and home to some 3 million Palestinians.”
Israeli media also reports on the IDF’s concern that the West Bank could turn into a battle front should another ‘Intifada’ (uprising) break out, as Israel’s enemies are prompting.
Ynet News, reported that as the IDF keeps on raiding West Bank towns searching for radical Palestinians who have aligned themselves with terrorist groups. Sources say that the possibility of another Intifada increases without a government plan. Last week Israel conducted raids that lasted from 24-70 hours.
In a raid on the West Bank town of Tulkarem, wanted terrorists Abu Shilal was killed during an operation that included over 1,000 IDF soldiers.
Israel’s security officials are now warning that these raids have changed the reality on the ground and without a concomitant government move dealing with the Palestinian Authority all of these gains would be useless.
An unnamed security official made waves when he stated that there were those in the government who were preventing the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority, weakening the Palestinian authority. And, by not allowing Palestinian workers back into Israel, where they could make a living to support their families, Israel was laying the groundwork for a third Intifada.
Gen (ret.) Israel Ziv told Channel 12TV that Israel has to keep the West Bank from exploding. He said that the government needed to provide support to the Palestinian authority.
Israel has so far arrested over 2500 Palestinians claiming that half were Hamas terrorists.
Rockets
According to Saudi Al Khadath TV on Saturday, Mohamed Amin Samadi, a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, was killed in an airstrike in Damascus, Syria.
He was the 5th IRGC member killed so far. Iran said it would respond when the time is right. Iran’s deputy chief of intelligence and his deputy were killed in an earlier attack.
Khaybar Shekan missile on parade in Iran
Also, according to a New York Times report, Iran says it has become a “missile” power having developed the highly accurate Khaybar Shekan missile with a range of nearly 1500 kilometers (@900 miles).
Iran reportedly used this missile to strike at an ISIS base in Syria. The NYTimes says this was a “message to Israel of Iran’s capabilities.” Iran reportedly has 30,000 ballistic missiles in her arsenal.
Politics
A channel 13TV poll released on Sunday showed that if elections were held today, some three and a half months into the war against Hamas in Gaza, Minister Benny Gantz’s National Unity party would be well-placed to form a coalition, ousting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition.
The poll found that Gantz’s National Unity would be the largest party in the Knesset with 37 seats, up from its current 12. It gave the Likud party under the leadership of Netanyahu only 16 seats, half its current 32, while the third biggest party in the Knesset would be Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, with 14 seats, down from its current 24.
The poll also showed that 53% in the Channel 13 survey said they believe Prime Minister Netanyahu is primarily motivated by personal interest, and only 33% said he is acting for the good of the country.
This week, a no-confidence motion in the government was brought by opposition leader Yair Lapid. The motion only received 18 votes and was handily defeated. Likud party members criticized the vote saying that in wartime the country should stress unity not division.
According to Yosi Ovadia, political reporter for Channel 13TV, “Bibi (Netanyahu) doesn’t want new elections. He wants to stick with his 64 seats.” (from the last election)
Red Sea
Houthi youth holding mock missile at protest over US/UK strikes
US and Britain have been hitting Houthi bases, destroying launchers and missiles and eliminating Houthi rebels.
AP on Wednesday, quoting the British Military, reported that an explosive device struck near a ship traveling through the crucial Bab-el-Mandeb strait near Yemen, though no damage or injuries have been reported.
In an effort to keep the waterway open, the US and the UK have launched rounds of airstrikes targeting suspected missile storage and launch sites used by the Houthis.
Ship loading natural gas at Qatar port
According to the Times of Israel, Qatar has warned that gas exports are being impacted by the Houthi rebels assaults on US flagged vessels. Also, US Naval ships escorting the 'Maersk lines’ ships reportedly intercepted projectiles off the Yemen coast.
The British Financial Times reports that no progress has been made by top US officials imploring counterparts in Beijing to intercede with Iran in order to restrain Houthis. However, other sources say that some progress has been made to get the Chinese to intercede.
Public Opinion
Israel legal defense team at the ICJ trial
According to Ynetnews, famous attorney Alan Dershowitz has said Israel erred in submitting to ICJ jurisdiction. Dershowitz said that the ruling on South Africa's petition against Israel as a perpetrator of genocide should be ignored 'It is not a real court' and 'reflects foreign policy, not rule of law.”
A ruling on Friday did not grant South Africa’s demand for an immediate unilateral ceasefire in Israel’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza. The court said that Israel must “take all measures in its power” to prevent the commission of genocidal acts against the Palestinians as laid out in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention.”
Anti Semitism
Pro-Palestinian rally in Britain
According to the Times of Israel, a recent survey in Britain showed that over half of those polled aged 18-24 believed Israel was treating the Palestinians the way the Nazis had treated the Jews. And 10% thought that the Jews were less loyal to Britain than other citizens.
Reportedly, anti-Semitism has skyrocketed in Britain from Oct 7th through Dec 7 with 1500 events, the highest number ever recorded in a month.
France’s Jewish Council reported that anti-Semitic incidents have quadrupled in 2023 compared to the previous year.
In Germany, 250,000 pro-Palestinian protesters turned out at a rally.
In the USA reportedly, some Jewish home owners have consulted with their rabbis to find out if it is permissible to remove the mezuza from their doorposts. Some cover their mezuzas with fake panels resembling push button locks. Others report that Orthodox Jews wear baseball caps to hide their skullcaps, or don’t wear skullcaps at all. Swastikas have been painted on doors and windows around the USA.
In Skokie, Illinois, Jewish residents have reported that pro-Israeli posters have been torn down from their lawns and ripped apart. There are also reports of Swastikas painted on doors.
One Skokie resident reported that a female Amazon driver tore pro-Israel signs down on the way to their door. Tossed the Amazon package on the ground, spit at the door and gave the video camera watching the entrance the middle finger salute.
And, a new term is reportedly being added to on-line dictionaries. According to the Urban Dictionary, “Israelied” is defined as The act of taking something that is not yours and then kicking out the rightful owner.
Or when a person tells you that your property is theirs (when it obviously isn’t), and demands you just give this property to them, and if you refuse they take it by force and the law will somehow be on the their side.
Critics say this is a distortion of facts, since Israel hasn’t seized another country. Palestine was never recognized as a country. More to the point, many Palestinians have yet to recognize Israel.
Pro-Jewish protest in Britain
Since the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) has recorded a significant spike in antisemitic incidents across the United States.
Preliminary data from the ADL Center on Extremism indicates that reported incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault increased by 388 percent over the same period last year.
According to the ADL report, quoted on CNN, the ADL has received more than 3,200 incidents of anti-Semitism since the outbreak of the Oct 7th war. More than 400 Jewish facilities in the US received false bomb threats over email in December.
At a protest at Columbia University hundreds of students called for a new Intifada (uprising) and hailed the Houthi actions against shipping in the Red Sea.
Bret Stevens, writing in the New York Times, asks, where were these protesters when the US destroyed Mosul, Iraq? Why weren’t there protests then over the destruction.
Stevens writes that Israeli hospitals treat Gazans for disease and cancer. Provide jobs. Supply electricity. He writes, “Hamas could have averted this tragedy if it had turned Gaza into an enclave for peace rather than terror. It could have averted it if it had not started four previous rounds of war against Israel. It could have averted it if it had honored the cease-fire that held on Oct. 6. It could have lessened the blow against Gazans by fighting in the open, not behind civilians. It could have eased it by releasing all of its hostages. It could end it now by surrendering its leaders and sending its fighters into exile.”
He adds that something he “…wrote in October holds true now: Hamas bears the blame for every death in this war.”
Health and Tech
Example of lab-grown beef
Israel has become the first country in the world to legalize lab-grown beef.
On Wednesday, according to AP, Aleph Farms, of Rehovot, Israel, was granted the initial go-ahead by the Israeli Health Ministry in December, the company said in a news release.
The firm said it planned to introduce a cultivated “petite steak” to diners in Israel. The beef will be grown from cells derived from a fertilized egg from a Black Angus cow named Lucy living on a California farm.
According to Ynetnews, “Scientists presented a cultured hamburger back in 2013 at a press conference in London, but it was only a demonstration of what's to come. Only in recent years has cultured meat begun to leave the laboratory and reach consumers.”
Hi-Tech entrepreneur Adam Bismut
Adam Bismut, 35, founded a start-up called Sightbit. This technology combines image recognition technology and machine learning to monitor swimmers. It uses cameras to visually monitor the beach and processes real-time data. It provides accurate and up-to-date images of potential dangers to assist rescue services.
The system also tracks the locations of swimmers, detects possible drowning risks, monitors changes in sea conditions, and helps manage the movements of beachgoers, especially children.
Bismut was on the faculty at Ben-Gurion University's Faculty of Management, and was an entrepreneur at the university's entrepreneurship center. He died in Gaza on Tuesday when a building collapsed on him and 20 of his fellow soldiers.
This is only one tragic example of the talented people Israel was losing in this war, said one pundit.
Wounded soldier Shilo Segev with knee reconstructed with help of a 3-D printer
On a positive note, according to the Jerusalem Post, Shilo Segev, a 21-year-old soldier in the Givati Brigade and a cadet in the IDF’s officers’ school, was rushed to the Gaza border to help fight terrorists who infiltrated the southern Israeli communities on October 7.
Segev was shot in the leg as terrorists surrounded him on the ground and shot at him shattering his knee.
His knee was reconstructed by a team of surgeons at Hadassah Hospital using a 3D-printed model in combination with taking bone from his pelvis to complete the shattered bone. He is expected to make a full recovery.
Let it be
To say that this was a week overwhelmed by tragedy would be accurate.
The tragic event of over IDF soldiers killed in Gaza deeply upset Israel.
Talk on the streets and in elevators, in casual meetings, at coffee shops, was about the tragedy. Some called for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops, but most swallowed the loss and accepted it as yet another sad occurrence that was a by-product of the Hamas invasion on Oct 7th. The blame was neither laid at the feet of the Israeli government nor the army, but at the dusty feet of Hamas who started the war.
Britain’s Foreign Minister David Cameron has called for an immediate ceasefire, as have other European leaders. As well as António Guterres, the Secretary General of the UN.
But Israelis have a huge problem with the ceasefire: The 136 hostages, alive or dead, held in Gaza by Hamas. Until there is some way to bring the hostages home, Israel will not agree to a ceasefire.
Rage is still rampant in Israel, says one observer. Rage at Hamas’ massacre of 1200 people on Oct 7th. Rage at the beheadings rapes and mutilations of the Israelis by Hamas. Rage at the children massacred. Rage at the tales told by the 102 hostages released through the negotiated prisoner exchange in the only-pause in the fighting so far. Freed hostages who told of torture, starvation, abuse, and rape.
All of these horrors, experts believe, are still being inflicted upon those hostages yet alive.
That rage is what the world doesn’t feel. Or understand. Most just don’t get it. Not the US. Not the UN. Not Britain. Israelis get it. According to a Tel Aviv University poll 72% of Israelis believe the IDF is using the right amount of force in Gaza to obtain the objective of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages. A common refrain: they elected Hamas, so they’re getting what they deserve.
Israel has been violently violated.
As a people, Israelis are still furious. Like Pharaoh, they have hardened their hearts to the suffering of the Gazans. ‘The Gazans deserve what they’re getting,’ said one Israeli, speaking for, one feels, the vast majority of the country.
What will it take for this rage to be assuaged? Getting all the hostages back alive would be a good first step.
That’s where the Beatles come in, said one observer. Let it be, let it be. There will be an answer, let it be.
But what will the answer be?