🎗️Lonny's War Update- October 323, 2023 - August 24, 2024 🎗️

  

🎗️Day 323 that 109 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!!!”

We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.

#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope

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 and Death Announcements

*8:00pm yesterday - north - rockets - Kiryat Shemona, Tel Hai, Misgav Am, Margaliot

*8:05pm yesterday - north - rockets - Kiryat Shemona, Margaliot
*10:30pm yesterday - north - rockets - Misgav Am, Tel Hai
*10:35pm yesterday - north- rockets - Kiryat Shemona, Margaliot
*1:20am - north - rockets - E'ablin, Tamra
*3:45am - north - rockets - Kfar Yuval

*10:15am - rockets - Kfar Giladi
*10:20am - north - rockets = Kfar Giladi, Kiryat Shemona
*6:30pm - north - A barrage of at least eight rockets was fired from Lebanon at the Golan Heights a short while ago, according to the IDF. Some of the rockets were intercepted by air defenses.

There are no injuries. No sirens sounded amid the attack.

Hostage Updates 

• **American compromise: Reduction of forces in Philadelphi and increase in number of hostages**

  
  

  According to the compromise proposal, forces on the corridor will be significantly reduced and the number of hostages released weekly will increase from three to four. This will form the basis for the intelligence chiefs' summit to be held in Cairo on Sunday

  
  

  The American proposal aimed at achieving a breakthrough in talks on the Philadelphi Corridor was revealed today (Friday) on Friday News on Kan 11. According to several sources familiar with the proposal, it was reported that forces on the corridor will be significantly reduced, until only a few outposts remain. Additionally, the Americans proposed to increase the number of hostages released weekly. The original proposal stated that three hostages would be released per week; in the current proposal, this number has increased to four. This is in exchange for a significant reduction in the number of security prisoners to be released, over which Israel will be able to exercise veto power.

  
  

  Thus, the American compromise proposal forms the basis for the regional summit that the U.S. administration is planning for Sunday in Cairo. The summit will be attended by Mossad chief Dadi Barnea, CIA Director Burns, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, and Qatar's Prime Minister Al Thani.

  
  

  Tomorrow, the Egyptians are expected to pass on to Hamas the new proposal regarding the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi Corridor. Consequently, progress has been made in the dynamics between the parties, as until now the proposal had not been passed at all for Hamas's consideration. In addition, Egypt has exerted heavy pressure on Hamas to participate in the summit on Sunday.

  
  

  The website "Axios" reported today that U.S. President Joe Biden asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw Israeli forces from the buffer zone between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on the Philadelphi Corridor. Biden clarified his request to Netanyahu in a conversation held between the two last Wednesday. Link
  
  
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defends his failure to close a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, during a meeting earlier today with four women kidnapped by the terror group on October 7 and released last year. 

In leaked recordings from the meeting broadcast by Channel 12 news, Netanyahu repeatedly asks the former hostages, “What deal? Which deal?” when they push him on why he wasn’t able to secure an agreement before dozens were killed in captivity.

Later, a former hostage exclaims: “And they’re dying and every day you’re killing someone else.”

Netanyahu: “Whoever told you that there was a [hostage-ceasefire] deal on the table and that we didn’t take it for this reason or that reason, for personal reasons, it’s just a lie.”

In between outbursts of dissatisfaction from the group, Netanyahu asks them, “Another important thing… I’m trying to come to a deal that will maximize the number of hostages released, I won’t do it for 12 … because I’d just be leaving people there who are sick, who are elderly, the devil only knows. Would you do a thing like that? I won’t.”

It is believed that 105 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

At another point in the meeting, one of the former hostages, all of whom have relatives who are still held in Gaza, cries, “I don’t want humanitarian aid to get to them, I want the hostages here!”

To which Netanyahu quips, “There are many things we want and they’re hard to get, for example, I’d like to walk to Italy on foot in a straight line… so if that’s what we need to do it means drying up the ocean, so ‘let’s dry up the ocean, what’s the problem'”?

The prime minister’s wife Sara Netanyahu was also present at the meeting and also can be heard verbally sparring with the former hostages in the recordings released by Channel 12. She claims she is constantly misquoted and slandered, and that this never happened before she was married to the prime minister.

Sara Netanyahu: “I was Sara Ben Arzi and no one told lies about me. I lived a normal life.”

A former hostage interrupts, “I also lived a normal live until I was kidnapped with my partner.”

The hostages were kidnapped on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Seven hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 30 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.  Link

• Hostage's family member to Netanyahu: "Sign the deal"; PM's response: "What deal is on the table?"

  Former hostages say to the Prime Minister: "Why didn't you apologize?", his wife Sara: "How is he supposed to know if the army doesn't tell him anything?" • Relative of a hostage: "I want the hostages here", PM: "And I'd like to walk to Italy in a straight line, so should I dry up the sea?" • Exclusive: Recordings from the meeting between former hostages, hostages' relatives, and the Netanyahu couple

  Former hostages and relatives of hostages met yesterday (Friday) with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara in his Jerusalem office. Tonight on "Friday Studio" we revealed exclusive recordings from the difficult conversation, which lasted about 3 hours, during which the participants urged the PM to sign a deal - and were surprised by the answers they received.

  **Hostage's family member to PM:** "You can be remembered as someone who led the country to a good place or as someone who caused destruction here. You are the Prime Minister and you are responsible for the hostages, not Hamas or anyone else. You're supposed to reach a deal that will bring all the hostages back."

  **PM's response:** "What deal? What deal is on the table?"

  **Hostage's family member:** "You tell us. Tell us already if my father will return alive or dead! You can be the savior and rescuer and be written in history books as someone who led this country to a good place or as someone who caused destruction here, and right now there is destruction in the country."

  **PM:** "So what's your suggestion?"

  **Hostage's family member:** "My suggestion is that you sign the deal that will bring the hostages home."

  **PM:** "What deal? What deal?"

  **Hostage's family member:** "There's a deal on the table!"

  **Former captives to PM:** "Why didn't you apologize?"

  **PM:** "I actually did apologize."

  **Former captive:** "I didn't receive an apology."

  **Former captive to Netanyahu:** "And you didn't take responsibility. You didn't take the blame."

  **PM:** "I think the blame will be distributed very nicely later... but I think that... who's responsible and move on, what is this?"

  **Former captive:** "You're from the government, from day one you need to take responsibility."

  **Sara Netanyahu:** "There's also an army."

  **Former captive to Sara:** "Who's the leader? He's responsible for the army, he's responsible. We need to dig to get to reality."

  **Sara Netanyahu:** "When they don't tell him anything, how is he supposed to know?"

  **Former captive to PM:** "Maybe you should say, maybe be honest and tell the truth for once. 20 hostages entered alive, you returned 20 dead hostages. They were 20 hostages and now 20 who were alive are already dead. They're dead and every day you're killing someone else."

  **PM:** "Okay, I won't respond to everything you say. Whoever told you there was a ready deal and we didn't take it for this reason, that reason, personal reasons, is simply lying."

  **Hostage's family:** "You returned the humanitarian aid, you returned everything. I don't want the humanitarian aid to reach them, I want the hostages here! Let the humanitarian aid reach them with love and joy and yes, bring it in, but I want them here!"

  **PM:** "There are also many times, things we want and we insist on. For example, I would like to walk to Italy in a straight line... if what needs to be done is to dry up the sea, then 'let's dry up the sea, what's the problem?'. True, we don't have time and every day is important, but something else is important."

  **Former captive:** "And every day another one is killed"...

  **PM:** "To overcome ideology, you need to use a lot of force or remove it."

  **Former captive:** "20 hostages who entered captivity alive died in captivity."

  **PM:** "But 116 were also released."

  **Former captive:** "And we're sitting here too, talking as if we have time for this."

  **PM:** "That means Hamas is refusing for two reasons I described. The first reason is that they have a goal and it's simply to achieve victory, and simply to throw us out of there and another part of the axis (Philadelphi) and continue fighting, because that's what this crazy man... we basically have a psychopath."

  **Former captive:** "You're also locked into your ideology."

  **Another former captive:** "Ask him if he knows where Nir Oz is on the map? Do you even know where we are? Have you visited us?"

  **PM:** "I know where Nir Oz is."

  **Former captive:** "You know but do you want to come on a tour with me? I'll show you where we were kidnapped from? While all the neighbors were screaming and the whole kibbutz was burning, no one came. Do you want to come on a tour with me, I'll show you the suffering I went through?"

  **PM:** "Another thing is important, you can ignore what I described here, I'm trying to reach a deal that will maximize the number of hostages, I won't do it for 12 hostages, because I'm simply leaving people who are sick, who are elderly, who knows what. Would you do such a thing? I don't do such a thing."

  **Former captive:** "Apparently you didn't do enough because 10 months have passed and they're not here."

  After the meeting, Yocheved Lifshitz and Yelena Trupanov said in a statement to the press: "The Prime Minister looked us in the eyes and said he would do everything to bring our loved ones home. We emphasized that we want them at home - alive." Ela Ben Ami, whose father Ohad is held captive in Gaza, expressed her concern after attending the meeting with her mother Raz, who was released from Hamas captivity in the November hostage deal: "I left with a heavy and difficult feeling that the deal won't happen soon, I fear for my father's life and the lives of the other hostages. Prime Minister, stand by your commitments." link Everyone should read this article. It shows so clearly how the Netanyahu couple act and how their entire state of being is to throw blame on others, not take any responsibility for failures and take all the credit for things that go right. It always comes back to them and how unfortunate they are and no one else suffers. They are the most destructive people imaginable and should never be in a position like this again. They both need to be sent home or exile and never been seen or heard from again.

• Israel is demanding that Hamas release five living hostages per week in the first phase of a potential ceasefire in Gaza instead of three per week, according to an Arab media report, as the terror group said it was sending a delegation to Cairo to meet with negotiators.

  The sources quoted by the Saudi Asharq News network say that there is also a gap in the parties’ demands for Palestinian security prisoners to be released in exchange for hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.

  According to the report, Israel is demanding the right to veto 65 prisoners requested by Hamas for release along with the right to deport 150 other prisoners. The Palestinian terror group has reportedly rejected this demand.

  Meanwhile, the Haaretz daily reports that the Hamas delegation has arrived in Cairo to meet with Egyptian officials on the latest hostage-ceasefire proposal.

• Hamas’s deputy chief in Gaza Khalil al-Hayya will lead the Palestinian delegation heading to Cairo today to meet with Egyptian officials on the latest Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal, according to Arab media reports, though the terror group has said it will not take part in indirect negotiations.

  Based in Doha, Hayya led Hamas’s negotiating team for hostage-ceasefire talks under the supervision of politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh until his assassination in Tehran last month. He has also led reconciliation talks with Hamas’s Palestinian rival Fatah in past years.

  “The delegation will meet with senior Egyptian intelligence officials to be briefed on developments in the ongoing round of Gaza ceasefire talks… but this does not mean it will take part in the negotiations,” a Hamas official tells AFP on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to talk publicly on the issue.

  “Hamas has said from the beginning that it will not participate in this round of negotiations, which began last week in Doha.”

  The official also insists that Israel withdraw its forces from across Gaza, including “from the border area with Egypt” — a zone known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

  Negotiators have been working to find a compromise on the deployment of IDF troops along the Gaza-Egypt border in the event of a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that an Israeli presence on the Philadelphi Corridor — the 14-kilometer (9-mile) buffer strip that separates Egypt from Israel and the Gaza Strip — is vital to preventing the Palestinian terror group from re-arming, while Hamas and Egypt want to see Israeli forces withdraw entirely.  link the sheer fact that someone as senior as al-Hayya will be in Cairo, means that Hamas is part of the negotiation whether they say it publicly or not.

• US President Joe Biden “discussed upcoming talks in Cairo and efforts to remove any remaining obstacles to the deal” during his phone calls earlier today with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, the White House says.

  Hostage talks are slated to be held later this weekend, but Hamas has yet to accept the bridging proposal submitted last week by the US, and potential for a breakthrough appears low.

• Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani is expected to attend Gaza ceasefire talks in Cairo on Saturday, a source familiar with the negotiations tells Reuters.

  A Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo earlier today to meet with negotiators, though it stressed it will not officially participate in the latest round of talks.

  A high-level Israeli delegation was in Cairo this week and Doha last week to discuss the latest offer for a deal with US, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators.

• The mother of hostage Matan Zangauker calls on US mediators to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, accusing the premier of holding up an agreement for personal and political motives.

  
  Families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza demonstrate outside the Kirya IDF Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv, August 3, 2024. Einav Zangauker is second from right in a white shirt. (Oded Engel/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)

  “It appears this is the last chance,” says Einav Zangauker during her weekly press conference outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, referring to the negotiations in Cairo.

  Zangauker decries “the new conditions that Netanyahu has pushed,” particularly regarding the so-called Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.

  “This isn’t the Philadelphi Corridor, it’s the Philadelphi spin,” she says.

  She then addresses her remarks to US President Joe Biden.

  “Netanyahu is systematically thwarting the deal. Don’t believe Netanyahu. He will again lie and deceive you. He will tell you will do one thing and then run to do the opposite,” she says.

Gaza 

• Operation "The Last Bullet": Hamas' "Top" Sniper Eliminated - and the Brigade Commander Who Settled the Score | Exclusive Footage
  
  
  Nuhba officer Mohammed Abu-Hatab, who invaded the Western Negev on 10/7, returned to Gaza and became a skilled sniper. Last month he killed Maglan fighter Tal Lahat. The score with him was settled within 70 hours - in a dramatic decision: "Col. Reut Rettig-Weiss had to decide whether to attack - and in the end we eliminated 20 more operatives there." A rare glimpse into the activities of terrorist organization snipers
  
  
  They disappear for two-three days and go off the radar, hiding in positions behind double walls and using advanced weapons made in Russia and the U.S. - such as Dragunov and Barrett, and even improvising optical sights on Kalashnikovs. In recent weeks, IDF forces have intensified the hunt for Hamas snipers, and new details about the elimination of one of the senior snipers provide a rare glimpse into their covert operations.
  
  
  Mohammed Abu-Hatab invaded the Western Negev on the morning of October 7 as a Nuhba platoon commander in Hamas. He managed to return to the Gaza Strip and change roles. Within a few weeks before the IDF maneuver that began in late October, Abu-Hatab became an experienced and skilled sniper by terrorist standards, ambushing IDF soldiers in the neighborhoods of Gaza City and its northern outskirts.
  
  
  Abu-Hatab, like other snipers in Islamic Jihad or Hamas, underwent sniper training in a month-long course. He gained most of his operational experience in the months of fighting since November. His pattern was consistent: disappearing for two-three days, operating in a position prepared for him in advance or one he prepared himself - usually on a high floor of a building that the IDF had already conquered, but in an area where he continues to operate.
  
  
  He would arrive at the location without weapons, or through tunnels - underground. Then, sometimes through two parallel holes in the room walls, he tried to snipe at IDF soldiers who are exposed for a short time during their operations - usually in attacks, on the front lines of raids.
  
  
  **The Score Was Opened**
  
  
  In early July, using the same method, Abu-Hatab positioned himself on the fourth floor of a building in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. Minutes before he arrived, the Air Force attacked the building as it did several nearby buildings, before Commando Brigade forces raided a nearby UNRWA headquarters, which served as a large and renewed Hamas command center in the neighborhood. Even tank shells that "softened" the building did not completely destroy it, as usually happens to thousands of buildings attacked before infantry and armored troops arrive at their targets.
  
  
  Abu-Hatab positioned himself at noon in his firing position with his Barrett 0.5 rifle, alongside a Hamas operational documenter, and for a few seconds two IDF soldiers from the Maglan unit entered his sights. One of them, Staff Sergeant Tal Lahat z"l, he killed with one fatal bullet. The building was bombed shortly after but it was too late: Abu-Hatab managed to escape northward, to the Shati refugee camp, but in Division 99 they opened the score with him, in an intelligence prevention operation together with the Shin Bet. The operation was named "The Last Bullet".
  
  
  "Abu-Hatab was considered Hamas's 'top' sniper in the northern Gaza Strip. We decided to go after him with full force even before he killed Staff Sergeant Tal Lahat z"l, and we built a personal intelligence file for him," military sources said. Intelligence personnel tracked his behavior patterns through third parties and surveillance, how and when he prays, where he sleeps on days when he's not on operational activity. The surveillance revealed that he usually sleeps next to his young children, so it was decided to wait for a window of opportunity when he would appear in daylight, when he could be caught.
  
  
  Together with the Shin Bet and Air Force personnel, simulations were conducted and armaments suitable for the mission were examined, fighter jets were timed in the air and then - the precise intelligence arrived: he was discovered inside the compound in Shati - and there were less than two minutes to eliminate him.  Link
  
  

• The IDF has issued a new evacuation warning for Palestinians in the east Deir al-Balah and Maghazi area of central Gaza.

  Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, publishes a map of the zones that need to be evacuated. Palestinians in the area are called to move to the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone, which is currently around 42 square kilometers (16 square miles), or 11 percent of the total size of the Gaza Strip.

  According to IDF estimates, some 1.9 million Palestinians of the 2.3 million Gazan population are residing in the zone.
  

• Egypt rejected an Israeli proposal to build eight watchtowers along the Philadelphi Corridor during talks in Cairo this week to close a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, according to an Egyptian report.

  The Al-Ghad outlet reports that Egypt also rejected a US proposal for two such stations to be built along the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been a focus of the latest round of talks.

  Israel has insisted that an IDF presence on the Philadelphi Corridor — the 14-kilometer (9-mile) buffer strip that separates Egypt from Israel and the Gaza Strip — is vital to preventing the Palestinian terror group from re-arming, while Hamas and Egypt want to see Israeli forces withdraw entirely.

  The Axios news site reported yesterday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to US President Joe Biden’s request to pull back from one IDF position, though an official said that the change was only a matter of several hundred meters.

• IDF demolishes 500m long Palestinian Islamic Jihad tunnel near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza
  

  A Palestinian Islamic Jihad tunnel located on the outskirts of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip was demolished by combat engineers, the IDF says.

  The tunnel was some 500 meters long, according to the military.

  It had been located by the 7th Armored Brigade’s 82nd Battalion and later demolished by the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.

  The IDF says the 7th Brigade has killed dozens of gunmen and demolished dozens of sites belonging to terror groups in the east Deir al-Balah area amid an ongoing operation.

  Soldiers of the brigade’s 77th Battalion also located a primed rocket launcher in the area, the IDF adds.

Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria

• Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a military source, says several sites in central Syria were targeted in an Israeli airstrike this evening, causing injuries to seven civilians.

  The report claims that Syrian air defenses shot down some of the Israeli missiles, launched by fighter jets from over northern Lebanon, while others impacted the targets.

  The airstrike caused “material losses,” SANA adds.

  Earlier reports suggested that the airstrikes took place near Hama.

• Fighter jets carried out an airstrike in Gaza overnight that eliminated Hamas operative Taha Abu Nada, the IDF announces, amid ongoing targeted raids across the Strip.

  According to the military, Abu Nada was involved in the production of weapons used in the terror group’s attacks on Israel and in battles with IDF forces operating in Gaza.

  The IDF also says the 252nd Reserve Division began a pinpoint operation on terrorist infrastructure in Gaza City yesterday, during which several terrorists were eliminated.

  In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, meanwhile, the military says troops of the 162nd Division killed dozens of terrorists over the past day in short-range battles and airstrikes in the Tel Sultan neighborhood.

  Troops from the 401st Armored Brigade also located weapons, including explosives, in the area, according to the IDF.

  Nearby, IAF jets in collaboration with the 98th Division carried out strikes on a cell of terrorists and a munitions warehouse.

• At least nine Palestinians, including two children and a woman, were killed at dawn on Saturday by Israeli shelling in and around Gaza’s Khan Younis and in the Al-Nuseirat camp area, the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reports.

West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel

•    An explosive device planted in a cistern near the West Bank settlement of Avnei Hefetz exploded near IDF troops earlier today, the military says.

  The IDF says the troops were scanning the area when the bomb was detonated.

  There are no injuries.

  Troops are now scanning the area for suspects and possible additional bombs.

   

Politics and the War (general news)

•  Channel 12 news reports quotes from a fiery exchange between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar during last night’s security cabinet meeting, over a deadly riot by extremist settlers in the West Bank village of Jit last week.

  “Have we made any arrests?” Netanyahu reportedly asks, to which Bar replies, “Two.”

  “Why only two? Why not more?” the prime minister asks.

  Bar responds, “That’s the role of the police. There’s no police in Israel.”

  The report comes a day after Channel 12 published quotes from a letter in which Bar warned Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other ministers that Jewish terror carried out by violent settlers is doing “indescribable damage” to Israel.

  While four Jewish suspects have been detained in connection with the riot in Jit last week where Palestinian authorities said a man was killed, indictments in such cases are rare and convictions even more so, in what has led the US and other Western countries to begin sanctioning Israeli settler extremists earlier this year.

  
  

• Lapid: Netanyahu was briefed on dangers ahead of Oct. 7, ignored ‘all red flags,’ must go
  In ToI interview, opposition leader says he attended key security briefing with PM which prompted his own Sept. 20 public warning; cites ‘intelligence materials’ both were shown
  

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was briefed on the looming dangers to Israel ahead of Hamas’s October 7 attack, and was told by defense chiefs that national security was at risk, but willfully ignored “all the red flags, all the warnings,” Opposition leader Yair Lapid charged in an interview with The Times of Israel.

  Consequently Netanyahu, who has refused to accept direct overall responsibility as prime minister for the failure to prevent Hamas’s invasion and slaughter, should have resigned on October 8, Lapid said.

  The Yesh Atid leader and former prime minister mentioned a specific security briefing at which Netanyahu was present, and which he himself attended in his capacity as opposition leader, referred to “intelligence materials” that Netanyahu and he were shown, and cited what he said were direct warnings delivered to the prime minister by the heads of the IDF.
  

  At the security briefing in the final weeks before the Hamas invasion and slaughter, noted Lapid, “He heard the same things I heard, from General [Avi] Gil, [the prime minister’s military secretary],” Lapid said. “And then I read the intelligence materials that he saw.”

  “All the signs, all the red flags, all the warnings” were there, Lapid charged, but Netanyahu “ignored them all.”

  So troubled was Lapid by this security briefing, he recalled, that on September 20 he held a press conference at which “I said, something horrible is going to happen. And Gaza was mentioned. And I said, Our parents are going to sit in safe rooms. Our children are going to die.” (Lapid began that press conference — Hebrew link — by declaring, “Ahead of Yom Kippur, I am compelled to warn the citizens of Israel: We are drawing close to a multi-front confrontation…”)
  

  In the previous government, led by him and Naftali Bennett, Lapid added, “We were alert, and there was no way on earth that if the chief of staff and his senior generals, had come into the room — as happened with Netanyahu — and said, ‘You’re risking Israel’s security; your judicial reform is actually undermining our deterrence because our enemy sees this as an opportunity,’ that I or [Bennett] would ignore it.”

  Added Lapid: “This is why it wouldn’t have happened on our shift — and this is why he shouldn’t have been prime minister since October 8.”
  

  Regarding the continuing indirect negotiations with Hamas on a hostage-ceasefire deal, Lapid accused Netanyahu of stalling in order to keep far-right parties from bolting his coalition, and said the prime minister’s recent insistence on an ongoing Israeli presence along the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt was a pretext.

  “The war started on October 7. He, as the prime minister, sent troops to the Philadelphi Corridor in May. That is almost eight months afterwards,” he noted. “For eight months, you didn’t think the Philadelphi Corridor is the most important thing. All of a sudden, this is the only thing that matters. I’m not saying that the Philadelphi Corridor is not important. It is important. [But] it is way more important to finalize the hostage deal.”

  Such a deal “will also calm the north,” argued Lapid. “But more than that, Israeli society will never heal unless the hostages are back. And we can actually use the break [from fighting] to rebuild and reshape Israeli society and the army for the challenges we face — and make sure everybody understands that now we have an ability to be more proactive about what is going on up north — not to mention Iran, which has always been the biggest challenge. And this [hostage deal] is also the only path toward the regional coalition that is essential to [dealing with Iran].”

  Lapid in the interview insisted that Israel, post-Netanyahu, can return to being “what we were supposed always to be. We can be happy, we can be optimistic, we can be hopeful. We can be functional — which we are not right now.”

  But first, he reiterated, Netanyahu has to go. “The thing that matters about Netanyahu is that he’s not working for the country,” said Lapid. “He’s interested in power per se and not the power to do good.”

  “The fact that Netanyahu is saying things about unity or divisiveness doesn’t matter. You have to look at what he’s doing, and what he’s doing right now is not making the hostage deal that he should be, not building the budget for the good of everybody. He doesn’t respect the sacrifices this country is making. He’s flying around in this private jet. He hasn’t been to one kibbutz since October 7. So he cannot tell me that he’s for the country. He’s for himself.” link

The Region and the World

•    Three fires have been spotted on an abandoned oil tanker that was struck earlier this week by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, the UKMTO maritime agency says.

  United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, run by Britain’s Royal Navy, says it “received a report that three fires have been observed” on the Greek-owned tanker Sounion, which was hit by three projectiles on Wednesday.

  The vessel “appears to be drifting,” UKMTO says.

  The ship, owned by Greek shipping company Delta Tankers, had lost engine power and was anchored in the Red Sea between Eritrea and Yemen following Wednesday’s strike by the Houthis, which caused a brief fire onboard and damaged the engine compartment.

  The source of the new fires remains unclear. The vessel, which departed from Iraq and was destined for a port near Athens, was carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil, according to the European Union’s Red Sea naval mission, Aspides.

  The EU naval force, formed in February to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea from attacks by the Houthi rebels, had rescued its 25 crew members on Thursday, leaving the ship abandoned.

  Delta Tankers says “plans are in place to move the vessel to a safer destination where a full assessment (checks and any repairs) can be undertaken,” without specifying where the ship would be taken.

• The top US general begins an unannounced visit to the Middle East today to discuss ways to avoid any new escalation in tensions that could spiral into a broader conflict, as the region braces for a threatened Iranian attack against Israel.

  Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, begins his trip in Jordan and says he will also travel to Egypt and Israel in the coming days to hear the perspectives of military leaders.

  His visit comes as the United States is trying to clinch an elusive Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas, which Brown says would “help bring down the temperature,” if achieved.

  
  In this photo released by the U.S. Navy, the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge sail in formation as part of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group in the Arabian Sea. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Brian M. Wilbur, U.S. Navy via AP, File)

  “At the same time, as I talk to my counterparts, what are the things we can do to deter any type of broader escalation and ensure we’re taking all the appropriate steps to [avoid] … a broader conflict,” Brown tells Reuters before landing in Jordan.

  In recent weeks, the US military has been bolstering its forces in the Middle East to guard against major new attacks by Iran or its allies, sending the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group into the region to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group.  The United States has also sent an Air Force F-22 Raptor squadron into the region and deployed a cruise missile submarine.

  “We brought in additional capability to send a strong message to deter a broader conflict … but also to protect our forces should they be attacked,” Brown says, saying safeguarding American forces was “paramount.”

• The US military says it carried out a strike in Syria on Friday that killed a senior leader of an Al Qaeda aligned group.

  The strike targeted Abu-’Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, a senior leader of the Al Qaeda-aligned Hurras al-Din, the US Central Command tweets.

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Acronyms and Glossary

COGAT - Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories

ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague

IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague

MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp

PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen

PMO- Prime Minister's Office

UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission

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