Lonny's War Update- October 216, 2023

Day 216 of 132 of our hostages in Hamas captivity- There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!

“I’ve never met them,
But I miss them.
I’ve never met them,
but I think of them every second.
I’ve never met them,
but they are my family.
BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”

There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!
‎אין נצחון עד שכל החטופים בבית

Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks

*10:30pm last night - north - hostile aircraft intrusion Yonatan, Keshet and Golan Heights

*2:20pm- north- rockets Netua

*3:05pm- north- rockets Netua

*The army announced the death of First Sergeant Haim Sabach, 20 from Holon. He was killed by a mortar shell hitting in the Galilee area of Malachia. May his memory be a blessing

Since October 7, a total of 1594 people have died or been killed - 834 civilians and 760 people from the security services (IDF, Shin Bet, Police, Border Police, town, kibbutz and moshav emergency squads). Of the fallen security deaths, they have left behind 1219 bereaved parents, 520 children who lost one or both parents, 248 widows and widowers, 2174 bereaved siblings. Of the 834 civilians killed, 99% died on October 7 with 40 being children and teenagers and 68 foreign visitors. - May their memories be a blessing.

Of the 132 hostages, 65 are civilians and 67 are from the security services

Hostage Updates

Netanyahu and Hamas are playing politics over a Gaza truce::  While Palestinians and Israelis suffer, their leaders cannot agree on a ceasefire deal :: On the night of Saturday 4th May, one Israeli journalist broke a taboo. Yaron Avraham, a correspondent for Israel’s Channel 12, revealed that an anonymous “senior diplomatic source” who had been briefing the press about the Gaza truce negotiations taking place in Cairo—and seemingly trying to scupper the chances of a deal—was none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself. Avraham refused, he said, to play “this game”.
In recent weeks the US, Egypt and Qatar have been frantically mediating between Israel and Hamas to secure an agreement to end the crisis. Israel and Hamas have not managed to negotiate a hostage and prisoner exchange, now in its seventh month, since November. Under that deal, Hamas released 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and a week-long truce. In the meantime, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 34,000 Palestinians, according to figures from the Hamas-run Health Ministry, and more than 130 hostages are believed to still be held in the Strip. Many are thought to be dead.
At the end of April, Egyptian intelligence officials were in Israel for talks, which resulted in a proposal for a truce going to Hamas. But mediators have been unable to bridge significant gaps, including one central bone of contention: the deal including an end to the war. This is something Hamas wants and that Israel has, so far, refused. In recent weeks, neither side had displayed great willingness to compromise. Over the weekend, Hamas said that Israel’s decision to evacuate Palestinians from Rafah in southern Gaza ahead of an incursion there would torpedo the deal. An attack on Sunday by Hamas on Gaza’s Kerem Shalom crossing (recently opened by Israel to allow in more aid following international pressure) which killed four Israeli soldiers, was destroying chances of an agreement, according to one Egyptian official.
Then over the weekend as talks continued in Cairo—and, unusually for Israel, during the Sabbath, when observant Jews do not consume any news media—the prime minister, in the guise of the unnamed official, insisted that Israel wouldn’t agree to end the war. Further, Netanyahu insisted that the Israeli military would plough ahead with its plans to invade Rafah, a site the government has long argued is key to one of its main (and arguably unachievable) aims for this war: total defeat of Hamas. And rather than send a delegation to the Egyptian capital for the ceasefire talks, Israel said it would await Hamas’s response.
A response came on Monday evening: Hamas would accept the proposal presented to the group by Egypt and Qatar. In the meantime, Israel had embarked upon its long-discussed incursion into Rafah, where Israel claims four of Hamas’s remaining battalions are located. Along the southern border, the Philadelphi Corridor, a buffer zone established with Egypt’s agreement following Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, is seen as crucial to stopping Hamas smuggling in weapons. Israel officials, apparently caught off-guard by Hamas’s announcement, said the latest version of the agreement contained elements that Israel had not agreed to. According to a report on Axios, Israeli officials were also claiming that the US knew about this new version of the truce deal, but had kept Israel in the dark. On Tuesday, Israel sent a delegation to Cairo to discuss the latest proposal, but this was “a technical team who don’t have a mandate to do anything. That’s just buying time,” Gershon Baskin, a veteran negotiator who was involved in the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006, tells me. Indeed, in a video statement that day, Netanyahu accused Hamas of trying to “sabotage” the Rafah operation by accepting the deal, insisting that the operation would “bring back the hostages and eliminate Hamas.”
The following day, on Wednesday 8th May, US State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller clarified that Hamas did not, in fact, accept the deal that Israel had agreed to previously, but had instead responded “with amendments or a counter-proposal, and we’re working through the details of that now.”
The constant briefing and will-they-won’t-they reporting is agony for Palestinians under fire in Gaza and the families of the hostages. While people rallied across Israel on Tuesday to demand that Netanyahu accept the deal, video footage showed Palestinians in Gaza jubilant at the prospect of an end to the fighting. But it’s in the “personal interest of Netanyahu to prolong the war,” says Baskin. For analysts and observers—including, reportedly, Israeli negotiators—Netanyahu’s named and anonymous statements show that he is trying to scupper the agreement.
An end to this war, after all, could shatter Netanyahu’s governing coalition, leaving him open to the public reckoning over the 7th October that will inevitably follow, as well as the resumption of his trial on criminal charges of fraud, bribery and breach of trust. The threat of the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Israeli political and military leaders over war crimes in Gaza is of concern, too. In the US And while the families of Israeli hostages are desperate to bring their loved ones home—and more Israelis, according to polling from last week, think a hostage deal should be prioritised over a Rafah operation—the more extreme right-wing elements of Netanyahu’s coalition are opposed to a deal and want the incursion. On 1st May, Orit Strock, a government minister, told Army Radio that if the government accepted the deal it would be “throwing the [war effort] into the trash to save 22 or 33” of the more than 130 hostages still in Gaza. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionist party, reportedly refused to meet Netanyahu to discuss measures to address the cost of living, saying: “First go into Rafah and then deal with the price of petrol.”
“The gaps between the two sides are not bridgeable,” Baskin says. The current proposal includes an implicit end to the fighting, he explains, with assurances from the US that a temporary ceasefire would turn permanent. But Israel can’t agree, as that would “leave Hamas in place”, and Israel has so far prevented any serious discussion of a “political end game” for when the war ends.
Netanyahu’s insistence on Rafah could be a sign, however, that the end is in sight. Netanyahu is putting on a show perhaps, a domestic display for his extreme coalition partners and part of his voter base, that Israel has indeed exhausted all military options, that it hasn’t given in to Hamas. Maybe then, when an end to this terrible war does come, Netanyahu can blame the US, the Egyptians, anyone but himself, as he faces a public so let down by its leadership. link

Visiting CIA chief William Burns told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders during talks Wednesday that he still sees an opportunity for a deal with Hamas, Israeli television reported.
According to Channel 12 news, Burns told his hosts that Israel should not regard the “end of war” as a “full stop,” but rather as a “comma” — to be followed by a process that could still culminate in normalization for Israel with Saudi Arabia.
In talks attended by Netanyahu, Defense Minister Gallant, Mossad chief David Barnea and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, Israel responded that Hamas’s proposal, received Monday night, “crosses all red lines in every parameter and is unacceptable,” the network said. The Israelis also reportedly told Burns that Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar was pleased to see the US withholding weaponry from Israel and that this move further complicated the prospects for a deal. The report said Israel’s leaders consider the gaps between the sides on a possible hostage deal to be extremely wide, and therefore believe their focus needs to be on the continuing IDF operation in Rafah.
However, the report added, war cabinet Minister Benny Gantz, and his National Unity party colleague and war cabinet observer Gadi Eisenkot, were demanding that the cabinet take “strategic decisions” for the day after in Gaza before any widening of IDF operations in Rafah or elsewhere in the Strip. Meanwhile, a member of Hamas’s political bureau said late Wednesday that the terror group would not agree to change its terms for a deal, although talks were still under way in Cairo aimed at pausing Israel’s offensive in exchange for some of the hostages abducted during Hamas’s October 7 invasion and slaughter in southern Israel that started the war. In a statement, Izzat al-Rishq said the terror group remained steadfast to its position toward a hostages-for-truce proposal and stuck to its terms for it.
“Israel isn’t serious about reaching an agreement and it is using the negotiation as a cover to invade Rafah and occupy the crossing,” he claimed. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which on Monday declared that the three-phase proposal presented by Hamas was unacceptable.
Just a few hours before Hamas’ latest statement, Washington continued to say the two sides were not far apart.
“We believe there is a pathway to a deal … The two sides are close enough they should do what they can to get to a deal,” US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
The terms that Hamas said Monday it had accepted differ in numerous key aspects from a proposal that Israel approved and the US described as “extremely generous,” with officials in the terror group claiming the deal would yield an end to the war. Israel, however has said repeatedly that it will not accept a deal that involves ending the war and that it fully intends to resume its campaign to destroy Hamas once any deal has been carried out.
Among the differences: The Hamas proposal would see the release of 33 Israeli hostages, alive or dead, whereas the Israeli text requires the release of 33 living hostages; the Hamas proposal removes the veto Israel demanded on the release of certain Palestinian security prisoners, and raises the number of Palestinian security prisoners to be freed; the Hamas proposal provides for the free movement of Gazans back to the north of the Strip, without security checks as required by Israel to prevent Hamas gunmen returning. The Hamas proposal also changes the timing of hostage releases within the phases, and some of the specifics on Israeli troop withdrawals. It also demands the release of all Palestinian security who were freed in the 2011 Shalit prisoner deal and have since been re-arrested. Significantly, Hamas said on Monday night that it regards itself as having accepted terms for an end to the war, whereas both the Israeli-backed text and the Hamas response refer to restoring “sustainable calm.” In an introductory paragraph, the Hamas text says the “framework agreement aims for … a return to sustainable calm in a way that achieves a permanent ceasefire.” link
A senior Egyptian source announced a short time ago about the resumption of talks in Cairo in the presence of all the delegations participating in the talks. He added that the Egyptian delegation is intensifying its efforts to reach agreements on the points of contention.
Families of hostages held in Gaza have urged the United States and other governments with citizens among the captives to pressure Israel to strike a deal with Hamas for their return.
Following Hamas’s announcement on Monday that it had accepted a truce and hostage release deal proposed by Egyptian and Qatari mediators, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Tuesday that it had appealed to a number of countries to “exert your influence on the Israeli government” and push for an agreement.
“At this crucial moment, while a tangible opportunity for the release of the hostages is on the table, it is of the utmost importance that your government manifest its strong support for such an agreement,” the group said in a message sent to the ambassadors of all countries with citizens among the hostages seized by Hamas and other terror groups during the October 7 massacre. “This is the time to exert your influence on the Israeli government and all other parties concerned to ensure that the agreement comes through which will finally bring all our loved ones home,” it said. link

Gaza Fighting

Hamas militants today fired mortars several times towards the area where the Americans are building the seaport. In the morning hours and afternoon hours, mortars were fired toward the area where the Americans are building the seaport these days. There were no casualties or damage, but like in Kerem Shalom, also in the northern Gaza Strip, the terror organization is by trying to harm those who are trying to assist the population in Gaza.

Family members of hostages, bereaved families, residents of Eilat, and dozens of activists from the "Order 9" movement blocked humanitarian aid trucks overnight in the Eilat area and delayed them for several hours. This was reported by the movement, where they claimed that about 500 people participated in the blockades. Order 9 also claimed that its activists are prepared to block the trucks in the Mitzpe Ramon area as well. Naomi, the mother of the abducted Orel Baruch whose body is being held in Gaza, who participated in the blockade, said: "I came to identify with all these champions and we came to block the trucks. No food will enter for the Hamas people."

After a massive overnight attack in the Gaza Strip, the fighting of the forces in the heart of Gaza continues this morning (Thursday) as well. IDF forces began an operation in the Zeitoun area, led by the forces of the 99th Division. As part of the operation, about 25 terror targets have already been destroyed from the air. The IDF emphasizes that the fighters continue to operate in the area even now to clear the area. Last night during the night hours, the IDF Spokesperson issued an unusual night statement and announced that our forces are "striking Hamas terror targets in the central Gaza Strip." In a statement from the IDF Spokesperson, it was reported that the army struck many targets of the Hamas terror organization in central Gaza during the night. It appears that this operation is a direct continuation of the night activity, as IDF and Shin Bet fighters continue to work this morning to dismantle terror infrastructures and eliminate terrorists in the center of the Strip. This is with operational intelligence guidance that began with an airstrike by Air Force fighter jets. Among the targets attacked were military buildings, offensive tunnels, observation posts, firing positions, and additional terror infrastructures. In parallel, according to reports, the IDF continues to operate on the northern front as well. The Syrian Defense Ministry claimed this morning that the air defense system intercepted missiles fired from the Golan Heights toward Damascus. This comes after unofficial reports of an Israeli air strike in the area were also heard during the night.

Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah

The Syrian Center for Monitoring Human Rights, an opposition organization to the Assad regime operating from London, reported that Israel downed an Iranian drone in the skies over the Daraa governorate in southwestern Syria. According to the report, the drone "was apparently not launched from Syrian territory and was on its way to the Golan Heights."

Hezbollah's Lebanese channel "Al-Manar" reported that a UAV attacked a vehicle in the town of Aablieh in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese newspaper "Al-Akhbar", also affiliated with Hezbollah, reported that the UAV fired more than one missile at the vehicle until it hit it. According to the report, at least two people were traveling in the vehicle.
Four members of the Hezbollah terror group were killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanese security sources told the Reuters news agency. Lebanese media reported that the strike on a car took place in the village of Bafliyeh, some 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the Israeli border. Lebanon’s civil defense rescue force said it pulled four bodies out of a car that had been scorched by an Israeli strike. Two security sources told Reuters that the four killed were members of Hezbollah. Hezbollah following the strike announced the death of two members killed “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term for operatives slain in Israeli strikes. There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the strike. The alleged strike came a day after an Israeli soldier was killed in a Hezbollah-claimed mortar and missile attack on an army position in the area of the northern community of Malkia. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-strike-on-car-in-south-lebanon-said-to-kill-four-hezbollah-members/

West Bank

Politics

A threat by US President Joe Biden that some arms shipments will be frozen if the Israel launches a planned offensive in Rafah was met with swift denunciation from government figures in Jerusalem on Thursday, who indicated that the military would push ahead regardless.
The comments from Biden also sparked harsh criticism against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by chief opposition rival Yair Lapid for what he said was the government’s “failed management” of ties with Washington.
In the US, some American Jewish groups and US lawmakers spoke out against the move and others indicated it was unlikely to go beyond words. Former president Donald Trump accused Biden of siding with terrorists. In an apparent initial reaction from the Israeli government, Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote on social media platform X that “Israel will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction.”
“There is no war more just than this,” he added, without directly referencing Biden’s remarks. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated bluntly that the strong American opposition would only reinvigorate Israel’s drive to eliminate Hamas.
“We must continue this war until victory, despite, and to a certain extent precisely because of, the opposition of the administration Biden and the stopping of arms shipments,” he said in a statement. “We simply have no other choice that does not endanger our existence and security.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a firebrand who leads the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, tweeted simply that “Hamas [loves] Biden.” In New York, UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan called Biden’s remarks “difficult and very disappointing,” and expressed concern that they would be interpreted by Israel’s foes Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah as “something that gives them hope to succeed.”
On CNN Wednesday night, Biden announced that his administration would stop providing Israel with offensive weapons if it launches a ground invasion into populated parts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah as part of its campaign to topple the Hamas terror group.
“I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet: They’re not going to get our support if they go [into] these population centers,” Biden said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
The interview marked Biden’s toughest public comments yet on the matter, and came shortly on the heels of his decision to put a transfer of 2,000- and 500-pound bombs on hold over concerns that that the IDF could use them in densely populated Rafah, as is has in other parts of Gaza. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah… I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem,” Biden said.
Concern has grown in the administration that Israel is not planning to heed US warnings against a major offensive that the White House feels wouldn’t take into account the million-plus Palestinians sheltering in Gaza’s southernmost city.
The issue has become a major point of contention between Biden and Netanyahu, who insists a ground offensive into Rafah is necessary to fulfill the war goal of removing Hamas from power following the October 7massacre. Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition partners have demanded that the offensive go ahead, threatening to bolt the government should it instead prioritize a truce agreement freeing hostages and halting the fighting.
“If Israel is restricted from entering an area as important and central as Rafah where there are thousands of terrorists, hostages and leaders of Hamas, how exactly are we supposed to achieve our goals?” Erdan asked, speaking to the Kan public broadcaster.
He also warned the move could hurt the president at the ballot box come November.
“There are many Jewish Americans who voted for the president and for the Democratic Party, and now they are hesitant,” Erdan said. Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, from the hardline Otzma Yehudit party, accused Biden of following the path of former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who attempted to appease Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler in 1938.
“Joe Biden can be [Winston] Churchill but he is choosing to be Chamberlain, he chooses dishonour and will get both dishonour and war,” he tweeted in Hebrew and English. Lapid, who has repeatedly pointed to the frayed ties with Israel’s most important ally as a reason for Netanyahu to be ousted from power, said the Israeli leadership was at fault for allowing friction to reach this point.
“The failure of this becoming a public disagreement during wartime is entirely on the government,” he told Radio 103FM. Shortly before Biden spoke to CNN, US House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell penned a joint letter to the president blasting his decision last week to hold up the arms transfer to Israel.
The move “flies in the face of assurances provided regarding the timely delivery of security assistance to Israel” and “call[s] into question your pledge that your commitment to Israel’s security will remain ironclad,” the two wrote. Biden signed off on the pause in an order conveyed last week to the Pentagon, according to US officials who were not authorized to comment on the matter. The White House National Security Council kept the decision out of the public eye for several days until it had a better understanding of the scope of Israel’s intensified military operations in Rafah and until Biden could deliver a long-planned speech on Tuesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Across the aisle, progressive Democrats who have called for months for arms shipments to Israel to be halted or have more strings attached hailed the move as long overdue.
“Netanyahu should not have gotten a nickel so long as he continued this incredibly destructive war. I’m glad to see that the president is beginning to move in that direction,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told CNN. But some in Biden’s party openly rejected the idea of halting arms supplies for Israel, including US Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who commented, “Hard disagree and deeply disappointing.”
Representative Ritchie Torres of New York told Axios he suspects Biden was “pandering to the far left.”
“It looks like election year politics was driving it. That’s my impression,” he added. “I’d like the president to do right by Israel and recognize that the far left is not representative of the rest of the country.”
Ted Deutch, a longtime Democratic congressman who now heads the American Jewish Committee, expressed dismay that Biden was taking action against Israel as it fights the Hamas terror group.
“President Biden should not take steps that could impair Israel’s ability to prevent Hamas from attacking it again and again — as its leaders have promised,” he wrote on social media. “The U.S. knows that defeating Hamas is critical to Israel’s long-term security and to defeating the global threat posed by the Iranian regime and its proxies.” Pro-Israel lobby AIPAC said Biden’s comments were “dangerous and counter to American interest.”
Experts noted that the hold on the weapons transfer and Biden comments would likely wind up being mostly symbolic.
“[Biden] came to this Congress and he said pass legislation… you can’t come to members and get them to vote for your bill, your package, and then throw away part of the package,” Democratic Representative Brad Sherman of California told Jewish Insider, referring to the $14 billion aid package. “Biden seems to be communicating his displeasure, and I regard these statements as a communicative act, rather than a strategic act,” he added.
Itamar Yaar, former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council, said even if symbolic, the US move was a sign of trouble and could become more of a problem if it is sustained.
“It’s not some kind of American embargo on American munitions support, but I think its some kind of diplomatic message to Mr. Netanyahu that he needs to take into consideration American interests more than he has over the last few months,” he said. “At least for now it will not impact Israeli capability but it’s some kind of a signal, a ‘Be careful.’” The US has said for months that it could not support a major Rafah offensive without a credible plan in place to ensure that civilians there would be protected. To date, Jerusalem has yet to present such a full-fledged plan to Washington, which contributed to the shift in Biden’s approach on Wednesday, according to a US official.
In the CNN interview, Biden clarified that the US will continue supplying Iron Dome missile interceptors and other defensive weapons to ensure that Israel can respond to attacks from adversaries across the region, such as last month’s massive missile and drone barrage from Iran.
“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” he said. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in [populated] areas.” —-all of the calls, statements and slogans like that if the extremist Ben Gvir are out of place and wrong there has never been presidential support for Israel like Biden’s: immediately supporting us in the world stage, sending an almost endless supply of weapons, presidential visit during wartime, pushing a massive aid and defensive bill through congress, putting more effort into a hostage deal than our own leaders, creating and acting in a coalition to defend us from the Iranian attack, stationing naval ships in the gulf and Mediterranean area to deter both Hizbollah and Iran, and the list goes on. And after 7 months of arrogance, lies, deception, lack of strategic planning and totally ignoring the wishes and requests of the US administration, Biden took the step that he could have a long time ago and out his foot down. He and his administration are extremely concerned of massive death tolls of Gazan non combatants that could be much higher than the casualty count until now due to the extreme congestion of Rafah by a million refugees. They are concerned about damage to our relationship with Egypt, they are greatly concerned about a deal to get our hostages home, concern for the rebuilding and rehabilitation of Gaza, and of course, they have their political concerns of the upcoming elections. Until now, Biden, as opposed to Netanyahu, has put political concerns far behind his amazing support of Israel. Under the present situation, Netanyahu will continue making decisions based on his political well being first and only then consider the country and hostages. It is entirely possible and probable that he will not allow a hostage deal that will cost him politically unless he has no other choice. Biden’s holding back of bombs and bomb mechanisms can be the push that is needed I hope so link
Explaining arms hold up, US defense chief says Israel must account for Rafah civilians. Austin indicates messaging to Israel regarding US concerns over offensive hasn’t sunk in, but adds decision on transfer of high payload munitions not final. link

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