Lonny's War Update- October 218, 2023 - May 11, 2024
Day 218 that 132 of our hostages are 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
Hostage Updates
- Today is Oded Liishitz 84th birthday - On October 7, 2023, during the Nir Oz massacre, Lifshitz and his wife, Yocheved were kidnapped from their home to the Gaza Strip by members of Hamas, and their home was set on fire and totally destroyed. Their daughter, Sharon spoke to news outlets stating that her parents were in danger, as they needed medication and that her mother used an oxygen mask when she slept.The National Union of Journalists called for their release. On October 23, Yocheved was released.
- Report: Efforts being made to renew hostage, truce talks within days in Doha
Diplomats are working to resume indirect talks on a potential truce and hostage deal within a few days in Doha, the London-based New Arab daily reports, citing Egyptian and Western sources.
Sources tell the news outlet that Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani has invited Egypt’s Intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and CIA Director William Burns to revive the talks, but it is unclear if they will attend.
Negotiations appeared to break down this week when Hamas on Monday claimed to have accepted a truce agreement with Israel, though it later emerged that the proposal it said had come from Egyptian and Qatari mediators included several elements fundamentally different to those Israel had agreed to.
Jerusalem swiftly rejected the proposal for falling short of its “vital demands,” but okayed dispatching a working-level delegation to the indirect talks in Cairo. After gaps could not be closed, both Israeli and Hamas teams departed Egypt on Friday.
- My brother’s interview on UK Times Radio on the hostages, Rafah operation and negotiations— https://youtu.be/XMNZntrcugI?si=wdjw3JZ9Qqagyz7o.
- **Hamas' Psychological Terror:** The terror organization published today (Saturday) a video and the first sign of life from the captured Nadav Popplewell, 51, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Narim in the massacre on October 7th. In the video, Popplewell is seen suffering from an injury to his face. **At this stage, the family has not yet confirmed the publication of the video and the statements made in it.** After his kidnapping, Nadav's family spoke of a beloved uncle, a computer man who loves science fiction literature and is a bridge player. This is the third time in the last month that Hamas has released psychological terror videos of captives being held in the Strip since October 7, in the shadow of negotiations for a deal that have been going on for many long months - and the large gaps between Hamas' offer and the one Israel has agreed to. At the end of April, just days after releasing a sign of life from the captive Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Hamas released a video of the captives Keith Seigel and Omri Miran.
Gaza Fighting
IDF tanks advance on main road dividing eastern, western sides of Rafah::Israeli tanks advanced on a main road dividing the eastern and western halves of southern Gaza’s Rafah today, Reuters reports.
The IDF had said that it captured part of the Salah a-Din road when it launched its operation on eastern Rafah late Monday.
It appears that tanks have pushed further along the road, although still within a zone that the IDF ordered to be evacuated. Residents described almost constant explosions and gunfire east and northeast of the city, with intense fighting between Israeli forces and operatives of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups.
Hamas claimed to have ambushed Israeli tanks near a mosque in the east of the city, a sign the IDF had penetrated several kilometers from the east to the outskirts of the built-up area of the city.
Israel ordered civilians out of the eastern outskirts of Rafah earlier this week. The military has estimated that around 150,000 Palestinians in the east Rafah area have evacuated already.
Around a million more Palestinians, who fled other parts of the enclave during the war, remain in the city itself, and they have not been called to evacuate yet. link
- Sinwar not hiding in Rafah, officials tell ToI, as PM publicly prioritizes IDF op there:: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is not hiding in Rafah, two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Friday, as the Israel Defense Forces moves to expand its operations in Gaza’s southernmost city.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has elevated a potential IDF operation in Rafah to the top of his public agenda, with the targeting of Hamas’s leadership believed to still be a major Israeli war aim as well.
The IDF has had some success on this front, killing Hamas military wing deputy commander Marwan Issa — considered the terror group’s No. 3 leader in Gaza — along with other senior commanders in recent months. But Sinwar and his deputy — military wing chief Mohammed Deif — have remained elusive, despite repeated claims by Israeli officials that the IDF was closing in on them. The two officials speaking to The Times of Israel were unable to say with certainty where Sinwar is currently located, but they cited recent intelligence assessments that placed the Hamas leader in underground tunnels in the Khan Younis area, some five miles north of Rafah.
A third official — an Israeli one — asserted that Sinwar is still in Gaza. Israel has made eliminating Sinwar a key element of its goal to destroy Hamas. In February, the IDF released footage of what it said was Sinwar walking through a tunnel with several family members, the first time he was apparently spotted since going into hiding before the devastating October 7 onslaught he’s accused of orchestrating, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza. link The Israeli military is calling on Palestinians in additional neighborhoods of Rafah to evacuate the area, as it presses on with its operation against Hamas in the city in the southern Gaza Strip.
Lt. Col. Avichay Edri, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, publishes a list of the new zones that need to be evacuated alongside the announcement. Edri also warns Palestinians against moving toward the Israeli border. A separate evacuation order is given for northern Gaza, in the Jabaliya area. In this case, civilians are told to move to shelters west of Gaza City.
“You are in a dangerous combat zone. Hamas is trying to rebuild its capabilities in the area, and therefore the IDF will work with great force against the terror organizations in the area in which you are located,” Edri says.
Map of safe and battle areasUnited Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed tears into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for suggesting that Abu Dhabi might assist local Palestinians in the management of Gaza after the war.
Netanyahu was asked in a Thursday interview with Dr. Phil who he’d like to see run Gaza after Hamas. “We’ll probably have to have some kind of civilian administration by Gazans who are not committed to our destruction, possibly with the aid of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries that I think want to see stability and peace,” Netanyahu responded, while clarifying that Israel would maintain the right to enter Gaza as necessary to root out remnant terror elements.
Bin Zayed tweets the UAE’s denunciation of Netanyahu’s comments “calling on the state to participate in civil administration of the Gaza Strip, which is under Israeli occupation.” “The UAE stresses that the Israeli prime minister does not have any legal capacity to take this step, and the state refuses to be drawn into any plan aimed at providing cover for the Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip,” he adds. “The UAE affirms that when a Palestinian government is formed that meets the hopes and aspirations of the brotherly Palestinian people and enjoys integrity, competence and independence, the state will be fully prepared to provide all forms of support to that government,” Bin Zayed says.
Emirati leaders have repeatedly asserted that they will not take part in the post-war management of Gaza absent Israel commitment to create a pathway to a future two-state solution — a framework Netanyahu opposes.
Some officials have suggested that Abu Dhabi has privately shown more flexibility.
US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that five Arab countries “are prepared to help rebuild Gaza, prepared to help transition to a two-state solution… to maintain the security and peace while they’re working out a Palestinian Authority that’s real and not corrupt.” Biden said he didn’t want to name. the five countries “because I don’t want to get them in trouble,” but he clearly appeared to be referring to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Qatar. Those five countries have established a forum in coordination with the US to craft a post-war vision for Gaza aimed at an eventual end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. link**"Need an Alternative to Hamas": IDF Forced to Return to Jabaliya as Well | The Meaning of Indecisiveness**
**The forces are required to return again to areas in the northern Gaza Strip where we have already maneuvered, due to Hamas' attempts to renew its terrorist activity in Jabaliya, Zeitoun and other hotspots. In the shadow of the limited operation on the outskirts of Rafah, the IDF clarifies: "Even if we finish operating in the entire city, Hamas will remain there without a decision on the 'day after'. There are no magic solutions."**
The IDF began today (Saturday) a widespread evacuation of residents from the Jabaliya area in the northern Gaza Strip in preparation for a renewed raid there, following Hamas' attempts to resume operations from the area. Between 100,000 and 150,000 residents currently live in Jabaliya. In parallel, the raid in the Zeitoun neighborhood in southern Gaza City continues, which the IDF has also returned to - already for the third time. The raid there focuses on locating large amounts of ammunition, mainly in schools, and finding additional combat tunnels that have not yet been destroyed.
The decision to return and raid Jabaliya, Zeitoun and other places in the northern Strip where the IDF has already maneuvered in recent months, comes in parallel to the focused operation east of Rafah that is continuing. The expanded evacuation from the additional neighborhoods announced earlier by the IDF's Arabic spokesman stems from intelligence about Hamas' infrastructure in the area.
However, the IDF now explains that as the operation in Rafah is still defined as "limited" despite the Cabinet's decision to deepen it, there is a critical significance to making a decision on the "day after" issue - and they detail the meaning of the deadlock created by the political leadership around this issue.
"Even when we finish in all of Rafah, if there is an operation there, and after this raid, Hamas will remain there, including with infrastructures," the IDF says.
"In the Gaza Strip there is a huge area and 2.2 million residents. To influence Hamas, you need an alternative to it, whether it's a military rule with huge economic implications or someone else to replace it. There are no magic solutions. The most important thing is to decide - and indecisiveness leads to the current reality."
So far, about 300,000 Palestinians have already left Rafah since the evacuation of the population from the city began a few days ago, according to IDF data. A day after the evacuation of the population from Rafah began, as part of what was defined as a "limited operation" in the city, IDF forces took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
The IDF spokesman updated today that following the IDF's activity in the eastern Rafah area, and in accordance with the political leadership's approval, and in light of Hamas' terrorist activity and firing from the area, the IDF called on the population in additional areas in the eastern neighborhoods of Rafah to temporarily evacuate to the expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi. According to the IDF spokesman, the evacuation operations are carried out by dropping leaflets, SMS messages, phone calls and Arabic media broadcasts. Yesterday, on a day of intense fighting in Rafah, Israeli tanks conquered the main road separating the eastern and western halves of the city, effectively encircling the entire eastern side of the city in southern Gaza Strip. Tanks had already flanked eastern Rafah from the south at the start of the operation, taking control of the Rafah crossing between the city and Egypt. Link
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah
West Bank
Politics and the Region
Who are Israel’s key weapons suppliers, and who has halted exports since Oct. 7? Billions of dollars of munitions still coming from US despite partial halt; since beginning of year, German weapon exports have slowed, while Italy has stopped fresh approvals
Washington has suspended a shipment of heavy, bunker-busting bombs to Israel, weapons Israeli forces have used in their war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
US President Joe Biden also publicly warned Israel for the first time, in a CNN interview on May 8 that the United States would withhold arms supplies if Israeli forces carried out a threatened assault on the Gaza city of Rafah, given this could endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians there.
The war erupted on October 7 when the terror group launched its devastating onslaught on southern communities, murdering 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 252 hostages back to the enclave.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says nearly 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 15,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Two hundred and seventy-one soldiers have been killed during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza border.
The US has long been by far the largest arms supplier to its closest Middle East ally, followed by Germany — whose strong support for Israel reflects in part atonement for the Nazi Holocaust — and Italy.
Two countries, Canada and the Netherlands, have halted arms shipments to Israel this year over concerns they could be used in ways violating international humanitarian law — causing civilian casualties and destruction of residential areas — in Gaza.
Israel says it does not target civilians and that the operation is focused on eliminating Hamas. It has provided overwhelming evidence that Hamas embeds itself among the civilian population and uses civilian infrastructure to store its weapons.Following are some details of Israel’s weapons suppliers.
United States
The suspended arms delivery to Israel consisted of 1,800 2,000-pound (907-kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs worth tens of millions of dollars, according to US officials. The decision arose from concerns about the “end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings (like Rafah)…,” one US official said.
However, billions of dollars worth of US arms remain in the pipeline for Israel, including tank rounds and kits that convert dumb bombs into precision weapons, although the approval process has slowed, Senator Jim Risch, top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on May 9.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stopped short of concluding in a pending, highly critical report to Congress on Israel’s conduct in Gaza that it has violated the terms for its use of US weapons, Axios reported on May 9.
In 2016, the US and Israel signed a third 10-year Memorandum of Understanding covering the 2018-2028 period providing $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment, and $5 billion for missile defense systems. Israel received 69 percent of its military aid from the US in the 2019-2023 period, according to a March fact sheet issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Israel is the first international operator of the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, deemed the most technologically advanced fighter jet ever made, and had taken delivery of 36 of 75 F-35s on order as of last year, paying for them with US assistance.
The US has also helped Israel develop its Iron Dome short-range rocket defense system, developed after the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanon-based Iranian proxy Hezbollah. The US has repeatedly sent Israel hundreds of millions of dollars to help replenish the system’s interceptor missiles. Washington has helped fund the development of Israel’s “David’s Sling” system, designed to shoot down rockets fired from distances of 100 km to 200 km (62 miles to 124 miles) away.Germany
German defense export approvals for Israel rose nearly tenfold to 326.5 million euros ($351 million) in 2023 compared with 2022 as Berlin treated permit requests as a priority after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
However, since the start of this year, as international criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza mounted, the German government appears to have approved considerably fewer exports of war weapons to Israel. Deliveries worth just 32,449 euros have so far been allowed, the economics ministry said on April 10 in response to a query in parliament from a left-wing lawmaker.
Germany primarily supplies Israel with components for air defense systems and communications equipment, according to the German press agency dpa, which first reported the 2023 figures.
Weapons exported included 3,000 portable anti-tank weapons and 500,000 rounds of ammunition for automatic or semi-automatic firearms. Germany provided about 30% of Israel’s military aid in 2019-23, according to SIPRI figures.Italy
A Foreign Ministry source confirmed on May 9 that Italy had halted new export approvals since the start of the Gaza war. “Everything stopped. And the last orders were delivered in November,” the source told Reuters.
Under Italian law, arms exports are banned to countries that are waging war and those deemed to be violating international human rights.
In March, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto had said Italy has continued to export arms to Israel but that only previously signed orders were being honored after checks had been made to ensure the weaponry would not be used against Gaza civilians.
In December alone, Italy sent 1.3 million euros worth of arms to Israel, triple the level of the same month in 2022.
Italy provided 0.9% of Israel’s imported arms in 2019-23, according to SIPRI’s report, reportedly including helicopters and naval artillery.Britain
Britain is not one of Israel’s biggest suppliers. Unlike the US, Britain’s government does not give arms directly to Israel but rather licenses companies to sell – often components into US supply chains, such as for F-35 jets.
Last year, Britain granted export licenses to sell at least 42 million pounds ($52.5 million) of defense equipment to Israel — mainly munitions, unmanned air vehicles, small arms ammunition, and components for aircraft, helicopters and assault rifles.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told parliament on Thursday that Britain ran one of the world’s strictest licensing control regimes in which it periodically reviewed advice on Israel’s commitment to humanitarian law. “With regard to export licenses, following the most recent assessment, it is unchanged,” he said.
Some left-wing opposition parties have called on the government to revoke the export licenses in the face of Gaza’s soaring death toll and to publish the legal advice used to reach the assessment that arms exports could continue. link- Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong says the country’s support for a Palestinian bid to become a full United Nations member is part of building momentum to secure peace in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Australia voted on Friday with the overwhelming majority of the U.N. General Assembly in backing a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.”
Last month, the United States vetoed a recommendation that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership” in a Security Council vote.
The question of Palestinian membership is one of the few diplomatic issues where close allies Washington and Canberra differ.
“Much of our region and many of our partners also voted yes,” Wong tells a press conference in Adelaide. “We all know one vote on its own won’t end this conflict – it has spanned our entire lifetimes – but we all have to do what we can to build momentum towards peace.”
Foreign Minister Israel Katz labelled the UN decision a “prize for Hamas,” in a statement released by his office. -- Yes, the position of the Netanyahu government is that anything that looks good for the Palestinians is a 'prize for Hamas' which is incredibly near sighted, which is what Netanyahu tries to do with anything and everything that would mean negotiating with Palestinians towards a Palestinian State, something that he has built his career on stopping. And his methods for preventing that: weakening the Palestinian Authority and strengthening Hamas, brought us October 7. A 2 State Solution is the worst possible concept for Hamas. They are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, not a solution that will bring a Palestinian state along side of Israel. This is one of the main reasons that Fatah and Hamas have not been able to reach conciliation in 20 years. Fatah, with the Oslo agreements recognized the State of Israel and its right to live in peace with security. Hamas cannot reconcile with that agreement. International recognition of Palestine takes the unrealistic veto out of Israel's hands and moves up the standing for the Palestinians and helps to level the negotiating ground when we, eventually will sit down for peace talks (with the Palestinian Authority, not with Hamas). link - Progressive Democrats are fuming following the release of the State Department’s report accepting Israel’s assurances that it is using US weapons in accordance with international humanitarian law.
The report did find it “reasonable to assess that Israel has at times used US-supplied weapons in ways that were inconsistent with its obligations, but determined that the administration didn’t have enough information to verify those alleged breaches.
“This report contradicts itself,” Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland says in a briefing with reporters following the release of the report. Van Hollen has been one of the leading critics of Israel’s military campaign on Capitol Hill. Pressure applied by him and other Democrats is seen to have played a major role in US President Joe Biden’s decision to adopt a memo in February requiring all US security aid recipients to provide a written assurance that they’re using American weapons in accordance with international law.
That National Security Memo — known as NSM-20 — required the Biden administration to issue a report to Congress determining whether it accepts assurances from aid recipients that they are complying with international law, which the State Department did Friday right before the start of the weekend in an indication that it wanted the determination to be buried.
The memo ultimately was not used in the way Van Hollen and other progressives had hoped.
“It provides a useful accountability structure, but it will be most useful if judgments can be made based on the facts and the law and not driven by what we wish the facts and the law were,” Van Hollen continues. “They’re ducking a determination on the hard… politically inconvenient cases.”
“The report might create an atmosphere where people will push for more limitations on offensive weapons to Israel,” Van Hollen warns.
But given that Congress is split and a sizeable number of Democrats aren’t as critical of Israel’s military campaign as he is, it is less likely that such limitations will get very far on the Hill. link - Israel will pay for the price of indecisiveness, prompting decision-making in Gaza - opinion:: Israel is stuck. The lofty words of our leadership – “total victory” – once again do not convince the Israelis. According to a public opinion survey by Mano Geva at Midgam Research & Consulting, nearly two-thirds (62%) of Israelis do not believe that a total victory is possible. A new Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) survey has also found that confidence in victory among Israeli Jews has dropped by half, from 74% in October to 38% in May. Who is responsible for the loss of faith in victory?
After a massive and successful opening military gambit, Israel became paralyzed. The White House announced that Israel had transitioned to “low intensity” fighting already at the end of November, and within a few weeks this became a fact in the eyes of the Israelis as well. For about half the war, Israel has exerted diminished military pressure on its enemies. During this period, not only have there been no significant achievements – no movement on the ground; no release of hostages; no return of residents to their homes in the North; the humiliating pounding of Israel’s “security belt” in the Upper Galilee continues – but we have retreated. While we are operating at “low intensity,” the war waged against us by our enemy is at a high and escalating intensity: a political tsunami that tars us as pariahs, and a dangerous deterioration on the front lines of international law that could make every Israeli soldier vulnerable to the whim of political interests in most countries of the world. Israeli internal tensions are increasing dangerously: a senior writer at Haaretz recently abandoned restraint: “I call on the silent majority, the gatekeepers and senior security establishment... to stop Netanyahu. By any means.”
And passing time has awakened the dormant demon: unbridled antisemitismeven in the United States – the city on a hill. It is directed not only at Israel but also toward Diaspora Jewry, whose home is beginning to rattle. Israel’s leadership – the existing one, or the one that will replace it – must make brave decisions, and quickly, on two fronts. First, the international arena: The time has come to decide whether to acquiesce to foreign dictates, especially from the Biden administration, whose full support for Israel is not in doubt, or to stand against them. The current attempt to walk the tightrope is an utter failure. Had Israel decided to fully align with the American administration, as it did, for example, in the coordinated response to the Iranian attack, significant achievements could have been realized.
Ending the war would have brought the hostages back and returned the residents of the North to their homes. Were Israel prepared at least to declare its willingness to recognize a Palestinian administration in Gaza, with full military demobilization, it may have been possible to reach a tremendous strategic gain through normalization with Saudi Arabia. All of these could have had a positive effect on Israel’s standing in the world.
Conversely, had Israel decided not to comply with American demands, the saga of occupying Rafah could have ended long ago, with a victory declared through the dissolution of Hamas as a functioning organizational framework. Israel could have ended the war several months ago and dialed back the flames scorching us in the international arena. True, it is impossible to know whether such a move would have improved or worsened the chances of returning the hostages, and this is an important consideration, but the lack of decision certainly harms the hostages, who languish and die in continued captivity.
Israel has yet to decide key decisions in the war
But Israel did not decide, and thus did not receive the benefits of either option and absorbed the high price of both.
The second front, the domestic arena: The prime minister has refrained from deciding the composition of the government that will steer Israel through one of its most difficult hours. He wants to maintain a coalition whose members are characterized by their converse reading of reality. Like Gulliver, he is ensnared in a tangle of conflicting interests. Thus, in order to maintain the coalition’s stability, he dodged the decision regarding Rafah for several months.
But and this is the main point: there is a price for indecisiveness, both externally and internally: Israel is not being led, and it is losing key assets that are vital to the future of all of us. What could be seen as “caution” in navigating a sea of complicated circumstances is actually a paralysis of decision-making that has only worsened our situation. The prime minister’s lofty words, even when delivered with a fierce gaze and a loud voice, cannot change reality. Israelis see this clearly and their faith in victory is waning.
Israel has yet to decide key decisions in the war
But Israel did not decide, and thus did not receive the benefits of either option and absorbed the high price of both.
The second front, the domestic arena: The prime minister has refrained from deciding the composition of the government that will steer Israel through one of its most difficult hours. He wants to maintain a coalition whose members are characterized by their converse reading of reality. Like Gulliver, he is ensnared in a tangle of conflicting interests. Thus, in order to maintain the coalition’s stability, he dodged the decision regarding Rafah for several months.
But and this is the main point: there is a price for indecisiveness, both externally and internally: Israel is not being led, and it is losing key assets that are vital to the future of all of us. What could be seen as “caution” in navigating a sea of complicated circumstances is actually a paralysis of decision-making that has only worsened our situation. The prime minister’s lofty words, even when delivered with a fierce gaze and a loud voice, cannot change reality. Israelis see this clearly and their faith in victory is waning.
Israel has yet to decide key decisions in the war
But Israel did not decide, and thus did not receive the benefits of either option and absorbed the high price of both.
The second front, the domestic arena: The prime minister has refrained from deciding the composition of the government that will steer Israel through one of its most difficult hours. He wants to maintain a coalition whose members are characterized by their converse reading of reality. Like Gulliver, he is ensnared in a tangle of conflicting interests. Thus, in order to maintain the coalition’s stability, he dodged the decision regarding Rafah for several months.
But and this is the main point: there is a price for indecisiveness, both externally and internally: Israel is not being led, and it is losing key assets that are vital to the future of all of us. What could be seen as “caution” in navigating a sea of complicated circumstances is actually a paralysis of decision-making that has only worsened our situation. The prime minister’s lofty words, even when delivered with a fierce gaze and a loud voice, cannot change reality. Israelis see this clearly and their faith in victory is waning. This is not a decree of fate. The leadership must come to its senses and make decisions. As time passes and it becomes clear that it is unwilling or unable to decide, the demand for “elections now” intensifies. Too much is at stake. Link
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