π️Lonny's War Update- October 348, 2023 - September 18, 2024 π️
π️Day 348 that 101 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
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!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
*4:30am - north -hostile aircraft - Karkum, Almagor, Kfar Nahum, Tabcha, Amnon, Kfar Nahum, Ginosar, Wadi el Haman, Tiberius, Arbel - A drone intercepted by an Israeli fighter jet early this morning near the Sea of Galilee had been launched from Iraq, the IDF says.
Sirens had sounded in Tiberias and several other communities.
Separately, the IDF says a drone launched from Lebanon was shot down by air defenses over the sea near Rosh Hanikra. Sirens this morning in Metula and Upper Galilee were false alarms, the military adds.
*11:15am - north - Rockets - Lev Hahula, Dishon, Yiftach, Malkia, Mevo'ot Hermon, Ramot Naftali
*3:00pm- north - rockets - Ga'aton, Klil, Ein Yaacov, Ya'ara, Avdon, Manot, Neve Ziv, Goren Visitor's Farm
*3:40pm - north- hostile aircraft - Arab al Aramsha
*4:40pm - north - rockets - Kiryat Shemona, Beit Hillel, Hagoshrim, Tel Hai, Misgav Am, Kfar Giladi, Maayan Baruch
*4:45pm - north - rockets - Maayan Baruch, Hagoshrim, Kiryat Shemona, Beit Hillel, Kfar Giladi, Tel Hai
The slain troops are named as:
Cpt. Daniel Mimon Toaff, 23, a deputy company commander in the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Moreshet. Staff Sgt. Agam Naim, 20, a paramedic with the 401st Armored Brigade’s 52nd Battalion, from Mishmarot.
Staff Sgt. Amit Bakri, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Yoshivia.
Staff Sgt. Dotan Shimon, 21, of the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, from Elazar.
In the same incident in which the four soldiers were killed, an officer and two soldiers in the Shaked Battalion were seriously wounded, and another two soldiers of the battalion were moderately wounded.
Their deaths bring Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 348.
Naim is the first female soldier to have been killed during the IDF’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a separate incident, an officer in the Givati Brigade’s Reconnaissance Unit was seriously hurt by RPG fire in Rafah yesterday, the military adds.
Hostage Updates
While tensions are high on our northern border, no one from the government or army is even talking about the hostages. What is interesting is that the northern residents who are dying to return to their homes and have a sense and feeling of security, they are the ones saying that before anything else, we have to get the hostages home. I have heard this in multiple interviews on the radio as all the stations are very focused on the north right now. In just about every interview, they express their utter displeasure with the government and prime minister for keeping the north in this situation with 60,000 refugees in their own country, the major destruction in their communities, the total lack of a sense of security, and how there haven't been any strategic decisions for what will happen in the north and get the residents home. But each interview ends with the need to get the hostages home before they start a full scale war in the north. The only ones who don't say that is our failed government and dangerous prime minister. I would say 'shame on them' but they have no sense of shame whatsoever.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi pledges to step up efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Gaza war during talks visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
During their meeting in Cairo, Sissi “exchanged views on ways to intensify joint efforts between Egypt, the US and Qatar to make progress on ceasefire negotiations and the exchange of hostages and detainees,” says a statement issued by his office.
Launching a harsh critique of the protest movement while addressing representatives of the hostage families in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, chairman Yuli Edelstein claims that some of the demonstrators are coopting the hostages to promote what he says are unrelated goals.
“Nobody can reproach the families but I do not forgive people who turn the hostages into currency to promote goals that have nothing to do with them,” he says.
“No one tells the families what to do and no one preaches morals to them. My late wife also did things that were less widely accepted when I was arrested,” says Edelstein, who was a refusenik and prisoner of Zion in the Soviet Union before being allowed to emigrate to Israel in 1987.
“But when I see the same people near my house for four years — just changing shirts and signs — having picnics, yoga, Pilates, drinking beer and singing in public, I don’t forgive them,” he says.
The lawmaker is apparently referring to the practice by protesters to hold casual gatherings near his home after they were prevented from holding demonstrations by police. Yoga sessions have been held worldwide in honor of murdered hostage Carmel Gat, as part of protests calling for a deal.
Edelstein also appears to backtrack on his initial support for the police over the arrests of three women last week for placing flyers on the seats in his synagogue featuring the images of six hostages held in Gaza as well as an image of him as a young man, with the words “Let my people go” across the top.
“Regarding flyers and actions for the hostages, nobody will be arrested and I am the first to join this struggle,” he says.
The women’s detention is now the subject of an internal police investigation.
The lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday publicly backed the arrests and said he “completely understood” why “the people of my synagogue filed a complaint with police after they discovered the break-in that took place apparently in the evening hours or at night.”
Edelstein referred to the incident as a break-in, despite security footage showing that the synagogue was open when the women entered.
The warden of the synagogue has said that there was no break-in at the synagogue and that the arrests were “insane.” link Edelstein is a hypocrite and another of the soulless Likud Knesset Members. He is doing some word-smithing and appears to be backtracking a bit with regard to the hostage families but we cannot forget the confrontation he had in the Knesset before Passover with a hostage family when he told them to get out of his sight. He is totally undeserving of any forgiveness or even giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Protesters: "Singing in public in the garden, doing Pilates"
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Edelstein criticizes protesters demanding the return of hostages: "They're turning them into a bargaining chip, changing slogans on shirts and doing jokes and yoga in front of my house" • The Hostages' Families Headquarters responded: "If he had invested a hundredth of the energy in returning the hostages as he does in slandering the activists working for their return - the hostages would have been home long ago"
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein criticized protesters demanding the return of hostages during a committee discussion today (Wednesday) in the Knesset. "They've turned the hostages into a bargaining chip. I see the same people for four years, just changing the slogan on their shirt. They have picnics and drink beer in front of my eyes," said the chairman. The Hostages' Families Headquarters responded: "Those who attack people who take to the streets to support the hostages' families and demand a deal now will be remembered for their failure for eternity in the pages of Israeli history."
"Anyone working for the hostages who requested a meeting with me, and I never checked who they were, got a meeting with me more or less the same day or the next day," Edelstein said at the beginning of his remarks and added: "There are things I can forgive. I have the right to forgive the things written about me on Twitter. 15-year-old kids who have never worked a day in their lives write that I'm 'garbage, a zero, and a coward'. Kids who haven't even received their high school diploma yet - but someone has already explained to them that I'm a 'coward'."
According to him, he can forgive "political things," but not cynical use of the hostages: "I have no right to forgive disrespect for the hostages, cynical treatment of the hostages, and turning the hostages into a bargaining chip. I'm not even close to the situation the hostages are in this year - but I understand a little about this subject."
Regarding the protesters who come to demonstrate in front of his house, he said: "When I see the same people, just changing shirts, or coming with the same shirt, slogan and flags, for 4 years outside my house - having picnics, drinking beer, burping, laughing and singing in public." He added: "They see me coming back from the synagogue and shout 'What about the hostages, what about the hostages', and when I pass by they sit back down to yoga, Pilates and public singing - right in front of my eyes."
Shay Dikman, cousin of the late Carmel Gat, who was murdered in captivity, responded to Edelstein in the committee: "We sat there. I admit, you were there to listen and you were there to say sensible things and you were there to tell me that they're doing what needs to be done to get her out of there. The whole time they told me they were guarding them like diamonds. But my diamond was left behind in the hands of the terrorists. And they told me that military pressure would bring her home, but military pressure caused the terrorist to pull the trigger."
The Hostages' Families Headquarters responded to Edelstein's words: "There is nothing sadder, symbolizing the moral and ethical low to which our leadership has sunk, than someone who himself languished in a cell as a prisoner of Zion and has been complicit for a year in abandoning 101 hostages who are languishing in Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza. If Yuli Edelstein had invested a hundredth of the energy in returning the hostages as he does in slandering the activists working for their return, the hostages would have been home long ago." They added: "Anyone who makes cynical use of the hostages as a bargaining chip, like Yuli Edelstein, is in their silence fully complicit in abandoning the hostages to terrorists. Anyone who remained silent in the face of ongoing abandonment, and worse, attacks those who take to the streets to support the hostages' families and demand a deal now, will be remembered for their failure for eternity in the pages of Israeli history." link
Hostage Updates
While tensions are high on our northern border, no one from the government or army is even talking about the hostages. What is interesting is that the northern residents who are dying to return to their homes and have a sense and feeling of security, they are the ones saying that before anything else, we have to get the hostages home. I have heard this in multiple interviews on the radio as all the stations are very focused on the north right now. In just about every interview, they express their utter displeasure with the government and prime minister for keeping the north in this situation with 60,000 refugees in their own country, the major destruction in their communities, the total lack of a sense of security, and how there haven't been any strategic decisions for what will happen in the north and get the residents home. But each interview ends with the need to get the hostages home before they start a full scale war in the north. The only ones who don't say that is our failed government and dangerous prime minister. I would say 'shame on them' but they have no sense of shame whatsoever.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi pledges to step up efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Gaza war during talks visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
During their meeting in Cairo, Sissi “exchanged views on ways to intensify joint efforts between Egypt, the US and Qatar to make progress on ceasefire negotiations and the exchange of hostages and detainees,” says a statement issued by his office.
Launching a harsh critique of the protest movement while addressing representatives of the hostage families in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, chairman Yuli Edelstein claims that some of the demonstrators are coopting the hostages to promote what he says are unrelated goals.
“Nobody can reproach the families but I do not forgive people who turn the hostages into currency to promote goals that have nothing to do with them,” he says.
“No one tells the families what to do and no one preaches morals to them. My late wife also did things that were less widely accepted when I was arrested,” says Edelstein, who was a refusenik and prisoner of Zion in the Soviet Union before being allowed to emigrate to Israel in 1987.
“But when I see the same people near my house for four years — just changing shirts and signs — having picnics, yoga, Pilates, drinking beer and singing in public, I don’t forgive them,” he says.
The lawmaker is apparently referring to the practice by protesters to hold casual gatherings near his home after they were prevented from holding demonstrations by police. Yoga sessions have been held worldwide in honor of murdered hostage Carmel Gat, as part of protests calling for a deal.
Edelstein also appears to backtrack on his initial support for the police over the arrests of three women last week for placing flyers on the seats in his synagogue featuring the images of six hostages held in Gaza as well as an image of him as a young man, with the words “Let my people go” across the top.
“Regarding flyers and actions for the hostages, nobody will be arrested and I am the first to join this struggle,” he says.
The women’s detention is now the subject of an internal police investigation.
The lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday publicly backed the arrests and said he “completely understood” why “the people of my synagogue filed a complaint with police after they discovered the break-in that took place apparently in the evening hours or at night.”
Edelstein referred to the incident as a break-in, despite security footage showing that the synagogue was open when the women entered.
The warden of the synagogue has said that there was no break-in at the synagogue and that the arrests were “insane.” link Edelstein is a hypocrite and another of the soulless Likud Knesset Members. He is doing some word-smithing and appears to be backtracking a bit with regard to the hostage families but we cannot forget the confrontation he had in the Knesset before Passover with a hostage family when he told them to get out of his sight. He is totally undeserving of any forgiveness or even giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Protesters: "Singing in public in the garden, doing Pilates"
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Edelstein criticizes protesters demanding the return of hostages: "They're turning them into a bargaining chip, changing slogans on shirts and doing jokes and yoga in front of my house" • The Hostages' Families Headquarters responded: "If he had invested a hundredth of the energy in returning the hostages as he does in slandering the activists working for their return - the hostages would have been home long ago"
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein criticized protesters demanding the return of hostages during a committee discussion today (Wednesday) in the Knesset. "They've turned the hostages into a bargaining chip. I see the same people for four years, just changing the slogan on their shirt. They have picnics and drink beer in front of my eyes," said the chairman. The Hostages' Families Headquarters responded: "Those who attack people who take to the streets to support the hostages' families and demand a deal now will be remembered for their failure for eternity in the pages of Israeli history."
"Anyone working for the hostages who requested a meeting with me, and I never checked who they were, got a meeting with me more or less the same day or the next day," Edelstein said at the beginning of his remarks and added: "There are things I can forgive. I have the right to forgive the things written about me on Twitter. 15-year-old kids who have never worked a day in their lives write that I'm 'garbage, a zero, and a coward'. Kids who haven't even received their high school diploma yet - but someone has already explained to them that I'm a 'coward'."
According to him, he can forgive "political things," but not cynical use of the hostages: "I have no right to forgive disrespect for the hostages, cynical treatment of the hostages, and turning the hostages into a bargaining chip. I'm not even close to the situation the hostages are in this year - but I understand a little about this subject."
Regarding the protesters who come to demonstrate in front of his house, he said: "When I see the same people, just changing shirts, or coming with the same shirt, slogan and flags, for 4 years outside my house - having picnics, drinking beer, burping, laughing and singing in public." He added: "They see me coming back from the synagogue and shout 'What about the hostages, what about the hostages', and when I pass by they sit back down to yoga, Pilates and public singing - right in front of my eyes."
Shay Dikman, cousin of the late Carmel Gat, who was murdered in captivity, responded to Edelstein in the committee: "We sat there. I admit, you were there to listen and you were there to say sensible things and you were there to tell me that they're doing what needs to be done to get her out of there. The whole time they told me they were guarding them like diamonds. But my diamond was left behind in the hands of the terrorists. And they told me that military pressure would bring her home, but military pressure caused the terrorist to pull the trigger."
The Hostages' Families Headquarters responded to Edelstein's words: "There is nothing sadder, symbolizing the moral and ethical low to which our leadership has sunk, than someone who himself languished in a cell as a prisoner of Zion and has been complicit for a year in abandoning 101 hostages who are languishing in Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza. If Yuli Edelstein had invested a hundredth of the energy in returning the hostages as he does in slandering the activists working for their return, the hostages would have been home long ago." They added: "Anyone who makes cynical use of the hostages as a bargaining chip, like Yuli Edelstein, is in their silence fully complicit in abandoning the hostages to terrorists. Anyone who remained silent in the face of ongoing abandonment, and worse, attacks those who take to the streets to support the hostages' families and demand a deal now, will be remembered for their failure for eternity in the pages of Israeli history." link
Gaza
- Gazans Attack UNRWA: "They Said My Son Deserves to Die"
Residents of the Gaza Strip criticize, on camera, the treatment they received from the organization • "The employee said he hopes Hamas will burn my brother," one of them recounted • Three of the terrorists eliminated in the attack on the school in Nuseirat were UNRWA employees
UNRWA made headlines during the war with the exposure of its connection to Hamas and the involvement of some of its employees in the murderous massacre on October 7. In testimonies that were published, Gaza Strip residents reveal on camera how the organization collaborates with Hamas, suppresses the population that opposes it, and prevents the provision of humanitarian aid.
In a video published on the X account of the "Center for Peace Communications", Gazans with blurred faces complain about the treatment they received from UNRWA. One of them recounted: "My son was kidnapped by Hamas as part of the 'Bidna Naish' protests (wave of protests against Hamas), so I turned to UNRWA for help and asked the employee to protect my son. But he got angry and said my son deserves to die if he participates in such protests." Another resident from the Gaza Strip shared: "My brother wrote a post against Hamas on Facebook and afterwards, Hamas arrested him. We turned to UNRWA for help, but the employee in response claimed that my brother was suspicious and said he hopes Hamas will burn him. Finally, he was released after a month."
Another Gazan said: "I went to the UNRWA school where I studied, and a Hamas policeman was waiting there who beat me because of my haircut. I went to complain to the principal about it and he claimed it's best that I become respectable like Hamas children."
"I went to the UNRWA office to receive unemployment benefits for the three months I didn't work," another Gazan woman recounted. "There was an employee there who told me to go pray in the mosque and dress in an appropriate Islamic manner, and that my request was rejected," she continued. Another Gazan revealed: "I went to a UNRWA distribution center to receive aid, they told me in response to go get a recommendation from my mosque leader and refused my request."
N12 has learned that on Sunday, IDF forces arrested about 10 WFP contractor employees on the Palestinian side of the Erez Crossing on suspicion of terrorism. In response to our inquiry, an IDF spokesperson said that "IDF forces detained for questioning several Palestinian employees and truck drivers of the WFP organization in northern Gaza Strip based on intelligence information. The suspects were questioned in the field, and afterwards some of them were transferred for further investigation by security forces."
Last week, the IDF attacked a Hamas command and control complex in Nuseirat in central Gaza, which previously served as the Al-Jauni school. It turned out that among the nine terrorists eliminated in the attack, three of them served as UNRWA employees:
* Mohammed Adnan Abu Zaid - a terrorist in Hamas's military wing, engaged in mortar launches towards IDF forces and Israeli territory, previously served as an activist in the organization's naval force, and simultaneously served as a UNRWA employee.* Yasser Ibrahim Abu Sharar - a terrorist in Hamas's military wing and an activist in Hamas's emergency committees in Nuseirat, simultaneously served as a UNRWA employee.* Iyad Matar, a terrorist in Hamas's military wing, who simultaneously served as a UNRWA employee. link
The IDF says it carried out an airstrike against a group of Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within a former school in Gaza City a short while ago.
According to the military, Hamas was using the Ibn Al-Haytham School to plan and carry out attacks against IDF troops and against Israel.
The school has been serving as a shelter for displaced Gazans, according to Palestinian media.
The IDF says it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, and accuses Hamas of “systematically” using civilian sites for terror.
After the decisive operation in Rafah Brigade: Where is the IDF operating in the Gaza Strip? | Situation report
The forces are fighting in four main areas in Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah in the south • In the southern city, the IDF is working to complete the buffer zone along the Philadelphi Route and destroy the tunnels underneath it • Activities also continue along the Netzarim axis and in central Gaza: encircling the central camps and conducting targeted raids
After announcing the defeat of Hamas' Rafah Brigade, IDF forces are still operating in the southern city of Gaza, which they entered in May, about four months ago. Simultaneously, IDF forces are operating in three additional areas in the Gaza Strip: along the Netzarim axis, which divides Gaza into two parts, in the central camps, and also limited activity in northern Gaza.
This morning it was reported that Division 98 is completing its current operations in the Gaza Strip, and its forces are being diverted to the northern area of the country. The division's redeployment from Gaza comes in the wake of yesterday's "beeper operation" in Lebanon, in preparation for the possibility of an expanded war against Hezbollah.
**Current IDF activity in Rafah**
Four days ago, the IDF announced the defeat of the Rafah Brigade. Fighters from Division 162 eliminated more than 2,000 terrorists and destroyed 13 kilometers of underground routes. Among the eliminated terrorists was the commander of the Tel Sultan Battalion, Mahmoud Hamdan, along with three company commanders. 80% of the underground routes detected in the city area and beneath the Philadelphi Route were destroyed by the division's engineering forces. Hamas' Rafah Brigade essentially no longer functions as an organic framework, and any remaining terrorists operate in an unorganized manner.
Still, despite the brigade's defeat, IDF forces continue to operate in Rafah. The remaining fighters in the city are working to complete the buffer zone along the Philadelphi Route on the Gaza side and destroying the tunnels that have not yet been dealt with. In other words, the activity in Rafah is currently focused mainly in the southern part of the city near the route, and it is relatively surgical, focusing on the Philadelphi Route and the underground spaces beneath it.
As part of this activity, the IDF spokesperson permitted the publication this morning that 3 IDF fighters from the Shaked Battalion of the Givati Brigade and a paramedic from Battalion 52 fell in a building explosion in the Tel Sultan refugee camp near Rafah. Additionally, an officer and two fighters from the Shaked Battalion were seriously injured in the same incident in southern Gaza.
**IDF activity along the Netzarim axis and in central Gaza**
Along the Netzarim axis, which divides the Strip into two main parts and is designed to prevent terrorists from moving from southern Gaza to the north, IDF forces continue to operate. In addition to maintaining it for its intended purpose, forces launch various operations from it to thwart the enemy. Additionally, the IDF operates in a focused manner in other areas in central Gaza. The forces are encircling the main remaining terror centers - the Nuseirat neighborhood and Deir al-Balah.
**IDF activity in northern Gaza**
The fighters in northern Gaza are currently working mainly to complete the destruction of launch sites and various Hamas compounds, with the main activity of the forces taking place in Beit Hanoun. Yesterday, the IDF updated that Air Force fighter jets carried out a targeted strike on a Hamas command and control compound established in an area that previously served as the "Ghazi al-Shawa" school in Beit Hanoun. "The command and control compound served the terrorists as a hiding place and preparation site for rocket fire towards IDF forces and the State of Israel in recent weeks," the IDF stated. "Before the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of civilian casualties, including the use of precision munitions, aerial observations, and additional intelligence information."
The IDF continues to gather intelligence to identify the areas where Hamas is trying to recover. It should be noted that the vast majority of Hamas battalions have been completely dismantled. When the military identifies attempts at organized reorganization, the forces operate using targeted raid methods to neutralize the threat and prevent the terrorist organization from recovering. ΧΧΧΧ
The IDF says it carried out an airstrike against a group of Hamas operatives at a command room embedded within a former school in Gaza City a short while ago.
According to the military, Hamas was using the Ibn Al-Haytham School to plan and carry out attacks against IDF troops and against Israel.
The school has been serving as a shelter for displaced Gazans, according to Palestinian media.
The IDF says it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, and accuses Hamas of “systematically” using civilian sites for terror.
After the decisive operation in Rafah Brigade: Where is the IDF operating in the Gaza Strip? | Situation report
The forces are fighting in four main areas in Gaza, from Beit Hanoun in the north to Rafah in the south • In the southern city, the IDF is working to complete the buffer zone along the Philadelphi Route and destroy the tunnels underneath it • Activities also continue along the Netzarim axis and in central Gaza: encircling the central camps and conducting targeted raids
After announcing the defeat of Hamas' Rafah Brigade, IDF forces are still operating in the southern city of Gaza, which they entered in May, about four months ago. Simultaneously, IDF forces are operating in three additional areas in the Gaza Strip: along the Netzarim axis, which divides Gaza into two parts, in the central camps, and also limited activity in northern Gaza.
This morning it was reported that Division 98 is completing its current operations in the Gaza Strip, and its forces are being diverted to the northern area of the country. The division's redeployment from Gaza comes in the wake of yesterday's "beeper operation" in Lebanon, in preparation for the possibility of an expanded war against Hezbollah.
**Current IDF activity in Rafah**
Four days ago, the IDF announced the defeat of the Rafah Brigade. Fighters from Division 162 eliminated more than 2,000 terrorists and destroyed 13 kilometers of underground routes. Among the eliminated terrorists was the commander of the Tel Sultan Battalion, Mahmoud Hamdan, along with three company commanders. 80% of the underground routes detected in the city area and beneath the Philadelphi Route were destroyed by the division's engineering forces. Hamas' Rafah Brigade essentially no longer functions as an organic framework, and any remaining terrorists operate in an unorganized manner.
Still, despite the brigade's defeat, IDF forces continue to operate in Rafah. The remaining fighters in the city are working to complete the buffer zone along the Philadelphi Route on the Gaza side and destroying the tunnels that have not yet been dealt with. In other words, the activity in Rafah is currently focused mainly in the southern part of the city near the route, and it is relatively surgical, focusing on the Philadelphi Route and the underground spaces beneath it.
As part of this activity, the IDF spokesperson permitted the publication this morning that 3 IDF fighters from the Shaked Battalion of the Givati Brigade and a paramedic from Battalion 52 fell in a building explosion in the Tel Sultan refugee camp near Rafah. Additionally, an officer and two fighters from the Shaked Battalion were seriously injured in the same incident in southern Gaza.
**IDF activity along the Netzarim axis and in central Gaza**
Along the Netzarim axis, which divides the Strip into two main parts and is designed to prevent terrorists from moving from southern Gaza to the north, IDF forces continue to operate. In addition to maintaining it for its intended purpose, forces launch various operations from it to thwart the enemy. Additionally, the IDF operates in a focused manner in other areas in central Gaza. The forces are encircling the main remaining terror centers - the Nuseirat neighborhood and Deir al-Balah.
**IDF activity in northern Gaza**
The fighters in northern Gaza are currently working mainly to complete the destruction of launch sites and various Hamas compounds, with the main activity of the forces taking place in Beit Hanoun. Yesterday, the IDF updated that Air Force fighter jets carried out a targeted strike on a Hamas command and control compound established in an area that previously served as the "Ghazi al-Shawa" school in Beit Hanoun. "The command and control compound served the terrorists as a hiding place and preparation site for rocket fire towards IDF forces and the State of Israel in recent weeks," the IDF stated. "Before the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of civilian casualties, including the use of precision munitions, aerial observations, and additional intelligence information."
The IDF continues to gather intelligence to identify the areas where Hamas is trying to recover. It should be noted that the vast majority of Hamas battalions have been completely dismantled. When the military identifies attempts at organized reorganization, the forces operate using targeted raid methods to neutralize the threat and prevent the terrorist organization from recovering. ΧΧΧΧ
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria
Hezbollah says it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the coordinated detonation of hundreds of pagers throughout Lebanon. The terror group says it has come to this conclusion after a probe of the facts and the available information.
In a statement, the terror group vows retribution for the “criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” and says its “martyrs and wounded” were sacrificed in the name of its jihad “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term usually applied to operatives targeted in Israeli strikes.
The terror group vows that its response will come “from where the enemy expects it and from where it does not expect it.”
A riddle wrapped in a pager: What we know about the Hezbollah beeper blasts
Devices, apparently produced by Taiwan-based manufacturer, caused damage inconsistent with known cases of lithium battery failure; may have been tampered with electronically
At least 9 people were killed and around 2,800 wounded when pagers used by members of the Hezbollah terror group detonated simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Here’s what we know so far about the pager blasts.
When and where did the blasts take place?
The detonations started around 3:30 p.m. local time in the south of Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh, and the eastern Bekaa valley — all Hezbollah strongholds.
They lasted for around an hour, with Reuters witnesses and residents of Dahiyeh saying they could still hear explosions at 4:30 pm local time.
According to security sources and footage reviewed by Reuters, some of the detonations took place after the pagers rang, causing the fighter to put their hands on them or bring them up to their faces to check the screen.
How big were the explosions?
The blasts were relatively contained, according to footage reviewed by Reuters. In two separate clips from the CCTV footage of supermarkets, the blasts appeared to only wound the person wearing the pager or closest to it.
Footage taken at hospitals and shared on social media appeared to show individuals with injuries of varying degrees, including to the face, missing fingers, and gaping wounds at the hip where the pager was likely worn.
The blasts did not appear to cause major damage or start any fires.
What type of pager exploded? What caused the pagers to explode?
Hezbollah says it holds Israel “fully responsible” for the coordinated detonation of hundreds of pagers throughout Lebanon. The terror group says it has come to this conclusion after a probe of the facts and the available information.
In a statement, the terror group vows retribution for the “criminal aggression that also targeted civilians,” and says its “martyrs and wounded” were sacrificed in the name of its jihad “on the road to Jerusalem,” its term usually applied to operatives targeted in Israeli strikes.
The terror group vows that its response will come “from where the enemy expects it and from where it does not expect it.”
A riddle wrapped in a pager: What we know about the Hezbollah beeper blasts
Devices, apparently produced by Taiwan-based manufacturer, caused damage inconsistent with known cases of lithium battery failure; may have been tampered with electronically
At least 9 people were killed and around 2,800 wounded when pagers used by members of the Hezbollah terror group detonated simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Here’s what we know so far about the pager blasts.
When and where did the blasts take place?
The detonations started around 3:30 p.m. local time in the south of Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut known as Dahiyeh, and the eastern Bekaa valley — all Hezbollah strongholds.
They lasted for around an hour, with Reuters witnesses and residents of Dahiyeh saying they could still hear explosions at 4:30 pm local time.
According to security sources and footage reviewed by Reuters, some of the detonations took place after the pagers rang, causing the fighter to put their hands on them or bring them up to their faces to check the screen.
How big were the explosions?
The blasts were relatively contained, according to footage reviewed by Reuters. In two separate clips from the CCTV footage of supermarkets, the blasts appeared to only wound the person wearing the pager or closest to it.
Footage taken at hospitals and shared on social media appeared to show individuals with injuries of varying degrees, including to the face, missing fingers, and gaping wounds at the hip where the pager was likely worn.
The blasts did not appear to cause major damage or start any fires.
What type of pager exploded? What caused the pagers to explode?
Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo, a Taiwan-based pager manufacturer.
The firm did not immediately reply to questions from Reuters. Hezbollah did not reply to questions from Reuters on the make of the pagers.
Hezbollah fighters had begun using pagers as a low-tech means to try and avoid Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters earlier this year.
Three security sources told Reuters that the pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months.
Hezbollah said it was carrying out a “security and scientific investigation” into the causes of the blasts.
Diplomatic and security sources speculated that the explosions could have been caused by the devices’ batteries detonating, possibly through overheating.
Experts were mystified by the explosions but several who spoke to Reuters said they doubted the battery alone would have been enough to cause the blasts.
Paul Christensen, an expert in lithium-ion battery safety at Newcastle University said the level of damage caused by the pager explosions seemed inconsistent with known cases of such batteries failing in the past.
“What we’re talking about is a relatively small battery bursting into flames. We’re not talking of a fatal explosion here. I’d need to know more about the energy density of the batteries, but my intuition is telling me that it’s highly unlikely,” he said.
SMEX, a Lebanese digital rights organization, told Reuters that Israel could have exploited a weakness in the device to cause it to explode. It said the pagers could also have been intercepted before reaching Hezbollah and either tampered with electronically or implanted with an explosive device.
Israeli intelligence forces have previously placed explosives in personal phones to target enemies, according to prior reporting in the book “Rise and Kill First.” Hackers have also demonstrated the ability to inject malicious code into personal devices, causing them to overheat and explode in some instances.
What have authorities said about the blast?
Lebanon’s foreign ministry called the explosions an “Israeli cyberattack,” but did not provide details on how it had reached that conclusion, while the country’s information minister said that the attack was an assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty.
The Israeli military declined to comment to Reuters questions on the pager blasts, and officials have remained silent on the matter. Link The operation was an amazing one and is the talk of news and governments around the world. But the question is, "was this effective?" "Is it part of a bigger plan?" In and of itself, as a standalone attack, it was definitely a 'stand back and say WOW!' but little more than that other than the amazing behind the scenes work that obviously went into it. Had it been part of a strategic plan and not just a tactical operation, it could have been a great start to a land, sea and air attack, either the opening salvo or a full scale war or the open salvo of a limited but large operation. However, it appears that it was neither. There are former officials who are saying that it was supposed to be the opening blow of an all-out attack but they couldn't wait for fear of the entire operation being discovered in the days before the attack. I hope that was the case and not just someone pulling the trigger of an operation like this for some other stupid reason. With this government, it's all possible.
The death toll from exploding pagers in Lebanon rose to 12 including two children, Lebanese health Minister Firass Abiad says.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government have accused Israel of responsibility for the explosions of thousands of pagers. Israel has not commented on whether it was to blame.The IDF’s 98th Division is being deployed to northern Israel amid heightened tensions with Hezbollah, after months of operations in the Gaza Strip under the Southern Command.
The paratroopers and commando division will now join the 36th Division under the Northern Command.
The 98th Division, with approximately 10,000 to 20,000 troops, was withdrawn from southern Gaza’s Khan Younis in late August.
The move comes amid fears of a wider conflict in Lebanon after Israel allegedly caused thousands of Hezbollah pagers to explode yesterday, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000.
Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before yesterday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source tell Reuters.
The operation was an unprecedented Hezbollah security breach that saw thousands of pagers detonate across Lebanon, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000, including the Hezbollah fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut.
A member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tells the New York Times that the pagers distributed by Hezbollah beeped for a number of seconds before they exploded yesterday.
The IRGC member says the devices beeped for around 10 seconds, so that the users would hold them close to their eyes and face to read the message.
The unidentified member says the pager belonging to the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon had beeped for a few seconds before he raised it. According to the outlet, the envoy has lost one eye and the blast severely injured his second.
Israel activated a plan to explode pagers carried by Hezbollah members amid fears the plot was about to be uncovered by the Iran-backed terror group, three US officials tell Axios.
“It was a use it or lose it moment,” a US official tells the outlet when explaining Israel’s reasoning for carrying out the attack yesterday.
While the widescale, coordinated attack has been attributed to Israel, there has been no comment from Jerusalem.
A former Israeli official tells Axios that Israel had planned to use the exploding pagers as an opening blow in an all-out war with the terror group, but had become concerned in recent days that the booby-trapped devices could be discovered.
Axios says Al Monitor reported that two members of Hezbollah had recently raised concerns about the pagers.
According to Axios, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant updated the US a few minutes prior to the attack that an assault was about to take place, but did not give details.
At least nine people were killed and thousands were injured when pagers held by Hezbollah members across Lebanon exploded yesterday afternoon.
The unprecedented wave of explosions, which also reportedly killed and injured several people in Syria, as well as injuring the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, sparked chaos in a region already on high alert for the outbreak of full-scale hostilities.
- At least three killed, hundreds said wounded by latest explosions in Lebanon
Lebanon’s state news agency says at least three people have
been killed in explosions in the Bekaa area, while security sources tell
Reuters that hundreds of people have been wounded in a series of new explosions
across Lebanon.
Hand-held radios used by the Hezbollah terror group
detonated late this afternoon across the country’s south and in the southern
suburbs of the capital Beirut, a security source and a witness said.
At least one of the blasts took place near a funeral
organized by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when
thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country. “A number of
walkie-talkies exploded in Beirut’s southern suburbs,” the source says, with
Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers confirming devices had exploded inside two cars
in the area.
The initial attack has been blamed on Israel, which has not
commented.
One cannot but think that the Beeper Bombs in Lebanon was a brilliant and out of the box operation. At the same time it was incredibly foolish as a strategy of trying to prevent a full scale war. If the people who were behind the operation thought it would create deterrence, it once again proved how far they are from truly understanding the mind set of Hezbollah. This operation has brought one giant step closer to a much wider war. (Gershon Baskin, Sept 18.2024)
Lebanon’s state news agency says at least three people have
been killed in explosions in the Bekaa area, while security sources tell
Reuters that hundreds of people have been wounded in a series of new explosions
across Lebanon.
Hand-held radios used by the Hezbollah terror group
detonated late this afternoon across the country’s south and in the southern
suburbs of the capital Beirut, a security source and a witness said.
At least one of the blasts took place near a funeral
organized by Iran-backed Hezbollah for those killed the previous day when
thousands of pagers used by the group exploded across the country. “A number of
walkie-talkies exploded in Beirut’s southern suburbs,” the source says, with
Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers confirming devices had exploded inside two cars
in the area.
The initial attack has been blamed on Israel, which has not commented.
One cannot but think that the Beeper Bombs in Lebanon was a brilliant and out of the box operation. At the same time it was incredibly foolish as a strategy of trying to prevent a full scale war. If the people who were behind the operation thought it would create deterrence, it once again proved how far they are from truly understanding the mind set of Hezbollah. This operation has brought one giant step closer to a much wider war. (Gershon Baskin, Sept 18.2024)
West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel
Politics and the War (general news)
IDF surveillance troops testify to glitches, neglect, no
warfare training before Oct. 7
They had no weapons, no directives in case of base being
overrun, says father of Noa Price, killed at Nahal Oz; ex-soldier at base
describes broken cameras, malfunctioning balloons
Former IDF surveillance soldier Margaret Weinstein testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to the October 7 Hamas invasion and slaughter in southern Israel, September 17, 2024. (Screenshot)
IDF servicewomen tasked with monitoring the Gaza border in the weeks and months before the October 7 Hamas invasion had to contend with repeated technical glitches and were never trained on how to respond should their bases be overrun, several former observers, as well as the parents of their fallen comrades, testified on Tuesday.
The father of one slain surveillance soldier specified that the female soldiers had no weapons and were given no training on how to defend themselves, apparently because the possibility of the base being attacked was never considered by their superiors.
“There were many malfunctions, including some that took a very long time to fix. For example, cameras that fell, cameras that already worked less well, so we saw much less well,” Margaret Weinstein, a former soldier in the Border Defense Corps who served at the Kibbutz Nahal Oz military base until shortly before October 7, told an independent Civilian Commission of Inquiry in Tel Aviv.
She also cited malfunctioning surveillance balloons, which were meant to provide views of areas that would otherwise be “dead zones.” Asked how important these balloons were for their work, she replied: “Obviously, it’s critical.”
Weinstein — who was subsequently posted to the Urim IDF base, which was also overrun on October 7 — said that when she complained, “The answer I received was that there wasn’t enough of a budget.”
But despite the equipment glitches, it became increasingly obvious to the surveillance soldiers in the period proceeding October 7 that Hamas was preparing for something, she continued. “We felt that something was happening, it was in the air,” she said.
Memorial candles line the charred desks in the destroyed command center of the Nahal Oz base, February 23, 2024. (Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)This included increased overt training activities and pickup trucks of Hamas fighters moving around in the border area “several times a week.”
Hamas fighters also detonated charges near the fence, she said, arguing that “it was clear that this was intended more to test us than to actually do damage — to test how long it takes for the charge to explode, and how we react to it. It was quite clear to us that this was their intention, to test us.”
Weinstein and her colleagues “forwarded everything” to their superiors, she said. But “we only report; we have nothing more to do with it,” she said. “We pass it on, and the job of everyone above [us] is to interpret… and draw their own conclusions.”
While surveillance soldiers provide real-time intelligence information to soldiers in the field, earning them the name “the eyes of the army,” several members of the all-female force have charged that they weren’t taken seriously due to their gender — a failure that they say led to the deaths of 15 of their number at their base in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7.
For weeks before Hamas’s onslaught — when thousands of terrorists streamed over the border, massacring some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages — the surveillance soldiers reported signs of activity along the restive Gaza border, situated about a kilometer from them.
Former IDF surveillance soldier Roni Lifshitz testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to October 7, on September 17, 2024. (Civilian Commission of Inquiry)Roni Lifshitz, another surveillance soldier who served at the Nahal Oz base until shortly before October 7, described similar conditions to those reported by Weinstein.
“During most of my time in service, more than a year, the observation balloons were down. The cameras broke down with high frequency,” she said. “They said there’s no money” for new cameras, she noted.
Amit Yerushalmi, an observer from the Nahal Oz base who was discharged shortly before the attack, recalled watching Hamas forces increase the pace of their training dramatically ahead of October 7.
“I saw exercises. It used to be training once a month, twice a month. It [then] became once a week, and gradually several times a week, and then several times a day. I also saw a change in where the training took place. There were times that the training did not take place in a [known] training complex, which also heightened suspicions,” she told the commission.
In addition, Yerushalmi recalled watching convoys of up to 30 pickup trucks, sometimes three times a day, driving along the border “with armed terrorists on them, with cameras [as well as] the flags of Hamas and Palestine.”
“We were sure that [their IDF superiors] were listening to us and doing something with our information. In light of the result, I understand that they did nothing with it,” she added.
She also indicated that the soldiers were given no instructions about what to do to defend themselves in the event of an attack on their base. “We were supposed to continue sitting in front of the screen in the command center,” she said.
Erez Price, the father of the late Staff Sgt. Noa Price, testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to October 7, on September 17, 2024. (Civilian Commission of Inquiry)
Erez Price, the father of Staff Sgt. Noa Price, 20, one of the surveillance soldiers killed on October 7 when Hamas terrorists overran the Nahal Oz base, also highlighted the lack of training. He described arriving in Nahal Oz in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas killings there to find “dozens of soldiers outside the base” waiting for members of the elite Shaldag unit to clear it.
Staff Sgt. Noa Price, who was killed in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023. (IDF)“I introduced myself as the father of a soldier and asked the officers why they weren’t going in,” but was threatened with detention by an officer, he said.
“I went back and looked for a weapon, a helmet and vest. I asked one of the soldiers to ‘give me a weapon,'” he continued.
Asked why the surveillance soldiers were unarmed, he told the commission that they had no training and no weapons.
“They knew how to run for cover [from rocket attacks]… they weren’t prepared for a raid,” he said.
Roni Eshel, an IDF soldier who was stationed at a military base near the Gaza border when Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023. She was murdered in the onslaught. (Courtesy of Eyal Eshel via AP)The testimony makes it “obvious that a state commission of inquiry must be established,” declared Eyal Eshel, whose daughter Sgt. Roni Eshel, 19, a soldier in the Border Defense Corps, was killed on October 7.
Eshel was one of the initiators of the grassroots Civilian Commission of Inquiry, which was established this summer in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to establish, as long as the war continues, a state commission of inquiry to investigate the failures that enabled the October 7 attacks.
He has long been critical of the IDF for its role in his daughter’s death, telling lawmakers in January that his daughter “is no more because they didn’t listen to her.”
An external investigative committee is needed “to bring the truth to light because nothing else can give us all rest,” he declared at the time.
Eyal Eshel, the father of the late Staff Sgt. Roni Eshel, testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to October 7, on September 17, 2024. (Civilian Commission of Inquiry)Eshel told the inquiry on Tuesday that his daughter had also told him about some of the problems along the Gaza border, such as non-functioning cameras, but had asked him not to contact the IDF on her behalf so as not to embarrass her.
“I listened but didn’t act. I told her we have the best and strongest army in the world,” he recalled. link Eyal Eshel is a true hero. From the very beginning, he demanded to know everything that happened on and before October 7 and was met with several brick walls. Yet, he wasn't deterred. He knew that his daughter Roni was killed because of major negligence on the part of her commanding officers, but the entire upper and lower echelons of the army, by the government and especially by the prime minister. He and his wife set up a command center in the home to put together the masses of unknowns and were able to put together an excellent and horrifying picture of all that happened. I remember seeing Eyal Eshel on TV news at the beginning of the war, telling of how Roni would come home on weekends totally distraught for weeks on end. Due to the nature of her job as a border observer, she was not allowed to divulge what she knew but shortly before the outbreak of that Black Saturday, she shared some things with her parents because she couldn't hold back any longer. She told of all of what she and her fellow observers were seeing in Gaza, the major increase of Hamas exercises and maneuvers, the Toyota trucks, the types of exercises and the worst of it all was that they were reporting all of it to their commanders and were belittled for not knowing anything. Their warnings went nowhere, or so they felt. Apparently, they did go somewhere but that somewhere was where they were repeatedly and summarily dismissed. There are many, including myself who believe that a large part of the dismissal of all they observed was because they were women, and young women which made it worse because they were doubly dismissed, first as women who 'get hysterical' and because they were young and therefore 'lacked the experience and knowledge' to understand what was going on around them. We learned that all or most of the decision makers were men and most of the warnings, including detailed reports from Army Intelligence, came from women. Two plus two definitely makes four.
The intended target of a Hezbollah bombing attack in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park last year was former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, authorities permit for publication.
The blast on September 15, 2023, caused no injuries. Eight suspects were detained over the bombing, according to police.
Yesterday, the Shin Bet announced that it foiled another attempted bombing attack by the same Hezbollah network.
The attack was intended to have been carried out in the coming days, and target another former senior defense official, according to the Shin Bet.
The official in the latest incident has not yet been named.
IDF surveillance troops testify to glitches, neglect, no
warfare training before Oct. 7
They had no weapons, no directives in case of base being overrun, says father of Noa Price, killed at Nahal Oz; ex-soldier at base describes broken cameras, malfunctioning balloons
Former IDF surveillance soldier Margaret Weinstein testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to the October 7 Hamas invasion and slaughter in southern Israel, September 17, 2024. (Screenshot)
IDF servicewomen tasked with monitoring the Gaza border in the weeks and months before the October 7 Hamas invasion had to contend with repeated technical glitches and were never trained on how to respond should their bases be overrun, several former observers, as well as the parents of their fallen comrades, testified on Tuesday.
The father of one slain surveillance soldier specified that the female soldiers had no weapons and were given no training on how to defend themselves, apparently because the possibility of the base being attacked was never considered by their superiors.
“There were many malfunctions, including some that took a very long time to fix. For example, cameras that fell, cameras that already worked less well, so we saw much less well,” Margaret Weinstein, a former soldier in the Border Defense Corps who served at the Kibbutz Nahal Oz military base until shortly before October 7, told an independent Civilian Commission of Inquiry in Tel Aviv.
She also cited malfunctioning surveillance balloons, which were meant to provide views of areas that would otherwise be “dead zones.” Asked how important these balloons were for their work, she replied: “Obviously, it’s critical.”
Weinstein — who was subsequently posted to the Urim IDF base, which was also overrun on October 7 — said that when she complained, “The answer I received was that there wasn’t enough of a budget.”
But despite the equipment glitches, it became increasingly obvious to the surveillance soldiers in the period proceeding October 7 that Hamas was preparing for something, she continued. “We felt that something was happening, it was in the air,” she said.
Memorial candles line the charred desks in the destroyed command center of the Nahal Oz base, February 23, 2024. (Used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
This included increased overt training activities and pickup trucks of Hamas fighters moving around in the border area “several times a week.”
Hamas fighters also detonated charges near the fence, she said, arguing that “it was clear that this was intended more to test us than to actually do damage — to test how long it takes for the charge to explode, and how we react to it. It was quite clear to us that this was their intention, to test us.”
Weinstein and her colleagues “forwarded everything” to their superiors, she said. But “we only report; we have nothing more to do with it,” she said. “We pass it on, and the job of everyone above [us] is to interpret… and draw their own conclusions.”
While surveillance soldiers provide real-time intelligence information to soldiers in the field, earning them the name “the eyes of the army,” several members of the all-female force have charged that they weren’t taken seriously due to their gender — a failure that they say led to the deaths of 15 of their number at their base in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on October 7.
For weeks before Hamas’s onslaught — when thousands of terrorists streamed over the border, massacring some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages — the surveillance soldiers reported signs of activity along the restive Gaza border, situated about a kilometer from them.
Former IDF surveillance soldier Roni Lifshitz testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to October 7, on September 17, 2024. (Civilian Commission of Inquiry)
Roni Lifshitz, another surveillance soldier who served at the Nahal Oz base until shortly before October 7, described similar conditions to those reported by Weinstein.
“During most of my time in service, more than a year, the observation balloons were down. The cameras broke down with high frequency,” she said. “They said there’s no money” for new cameras, she noted.
Amit Yerushalmi, an observer from the Nahal Oz base who was discharged shortly before the attack, recalled watching Hamas forces increase the pace of their training dramatically ahead of October 7.
“I saw exercises. It used to be training once a month, twice a month. It [then] became once a week, and gradually several times a week, and then several times a day. I also saw a change in where the training took place. There were times that the training did not take place in a [known] training complex, which also heightened suspicions,” she told the commission.
In addition, Yerushalmi recalled watching convoys of up to 30 pickup trucks, sometimes three times a day, driving along the border “with armed terrorists on them, with cameras [as well as] the flags of Hamas and Palestine.”
“We were sure that [their IDF superiors] were listening to us and doing something with our information. In light of the result, I understand that they did nothing with it,” she added.
She also indicated that the soldiers were given no instructions about what to do to defend themselves in the event of an attack on their base. “We were supposed to continue sitting in front of the screen in the command center,” she said.
Erez Price, the father of the late Staff Sgt. Noa Price, testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to October 7, on September 17, 2024. (Civilian Commission of Inquiry)
Erez Price, the father of Staff Sgt. Noa Price, 20, one of the surveillance soldiers killed on October 7 when Hamas terrorists overran the Nahal Oz base, also highlighted the lack of training. He described arriving in Nahal Oz in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas killings there to find “dozens of soldiers outside the base” waiting for members of the elite Shaldag unit to clear it.
Staff Sgt. Noa Price, who was killed in Nahal Oz on October 7, 2023. (IDF)
“I introduced myself as the father of a soldier and asked the officers why they weren’t going in,” but was threatened with detention by an officer, he said.
“I went back and looked for a weapon, a helmet and vest. I asked one of the soldiers to ‘give me a weapon,'” he continued.
Asked why the surveillance soldiers were unarmed, he told the commission that they had no training and no weapons.
“They knew how to run for cover [from rocket attacks]… they weren’t prepared for a raid,” he said.
Roni Eshel, an IDF soldier who was stationed at a military base near the Gaza border when Hamas attacked on October 7, 2023. She was murdered in the onslaught. (Courtesy of Eyal Eshel via AP)
The testimony makes it “obvious that a state commission of inquiry must be established,” declared Eyal Eshel, whose daughter Sgt. Roni Eshel, 19, a soldier in the Border Defense Corps, was killed on October 7.
Eshel was one of the initiators of the grassroots Civilian Commission of Inquiry, which was established this summer in response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to establish, as long as the war continues, a state commission of inquiry to investigate the failures that enabled the October 7 attacks.
He has long been critical of the IDF for its role in his daughter’s death, telling lawmakers in January that his daughter “is no more because they didn’t listen to her.”
An external investigative committee is needed “to bring the truth to light because nothing else can give us all rest,” he declared at the time.
Eyal Eshel, the father of the late Staff Sgt. Roni Eshel, testifying before an independent civilian commission investigating the events leading up to October 7, on September 17, 2024. (Civilian Commission of Inquiry)
Eshel told the inquiry on Tuesday that his daughter had also told him about some of the problems along the Gaza border, such as non-functioning cameras, but had asked him not to contact the IDF on her behalf so as not to embarrass her.
“I listened but didn’t act. I told her we have the best and strongest army in the world,” he recalled. link Eyal Eshel is a true hero. From the very beginning, he demanded to know everything that happened on and before October 7 and was met with several brick walls. Yet, he wasn't deterred. He knew that his daughter Roni was killed because of major negligence on the part of her commanding officers, but the entire upper and lower echelons of the army, by the government and especially by the prime minister. He and his wife set up a command center in the home to put together the masses of unknowns and were able to put together an excellent and horrifying picture of all that happened. I remember seeing Eyal Eshel on TV news at the beginning of the war, telling of how Roni would come home on weekends totally distraught for weeks on end. Due to the nature of her job as a border observer, she was not allowed to divulge what she knew but shortly before the outbreak of that Black Saturday, she shared some things with her parents because she couldn't hold back any longer. She told of all of what she and her fellow observers were seeing in Gaza, the major increase of Hamas exercises and maneuvers, the Toyota trucks, the types of exercises and the worst of it all was that they were reporting all of it to their commanders and were belittled for not knowing anything. Their warnings went nowhere, or so they felt. Apparently, they did go somewhere but that somewhere was where they were repeatedly and summarily dismissed. There are many, including myself who believe that a large part of the dismissal of all they observed was because they were women, and young women which made it worse because they were doubly dismissed, first as women who 'get hysterical' and because they were young and therefore 'lacked the experience and knowledge' to understand what was going on around them. We learned that all or most of the decision makers were men and most of the warnings, including detailed reports from Army Intelligence, came from women. Two plus two definitely makes four.
The intended target of a Hezbollah bombing attack in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park last year was former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, authorities permit for publication.
The blast on September 15, 2023, caused no injuries. Eight suspects were detained over the bombing, according to police.
Yesterday, the Shin Bet announced that it foiled another attempted bombing attack by the same Hezbollah network.
The attack was intended to have been carried out in the coming days, and target another former senior defense official, according to the Shin Bet.
The official in the latest incident has not yet been named.
The Region and the World
-
Personal Stories
From the
Parents of Gili Adar
Hamas murdered our daughter. This is what she’d tell American Jews right
now.
By: Orna and Eldad Adar
At 6:50 a.m. on Oct. 7, Gili messaged us that something was
going on. She told us not to worry. More texts. Gunshots. She was hiding,
warning friends to stay away from the area. At 9:14, she wrote: “Until now I
wasn’t afraid. Now I’m scared.” By 9:35, we later learned, the terrorists found
her. Within five minutes, they murdered Gili and nearly 30 other young people
at point-blank range — a fraction of the 364 people who were killed at the
festival.
The brutality with which Hamas murdered our Good Life Gili,
our radiant, wonderful girl, at just 24 years old, echoes the evil of the
recent execution of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Alexander
Lobanov, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi and Almog Sarusi. Five of these six
beautiful souls were at the Nova music festival, like Gili. All of their
families are processing the worst news of their lives.
It’s the news we received three days after Gili’s last
message, after we frantically headed south to find her, after we pleaded on
Facebook for more information — “OUR GILI IS STILL MISSING” — after each
passing hour drained the possibility that she would stumble through the front
door and into our arms.
We spoke at Gili’s eulogy, like the hostages’ families did
at theirs. And yet there were no words. There are no words. When we now watch
videos of Gili, sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry and most times our joy
and our grief are not oil and water, they do not separate, but blend into a
new, strange taste of life.
As Gili would say: “Why one or the other when you can have
both?”
Gili, for whom 24 hours in a day was never enough, took so
many roles. An adventurer, she worked three jobs to save money for the dream
trip she took to South America. A listener, Gili sat for hours at a time with
each of the lone soldiers — those without family in Israel — which whom she
worked in the Israeli army.
After Gili’s death, we have found new roles ourselves.
We are gardeners, tending to the flowers on her grave and
watering the seeds of her memory.
We are archivists, collecting thousands of photos and videos
of our daughter; compiling hundreds, often unsolicited testimonials about the
ways she shaped people’s lives.
We are messengers, talking about Gili with whomever will
listen: Gili, with a conquering smile and an infectious laugh, “Guppy” to her
campers, who took the coffee kit in her backpack to the mountains, the desert,
the sea, who gave her heart to everyone from children with special needs to the
store cashier.
More than anything, we miss Gili. The faint thrum of our
constant grief can balloon in pitch and intensity when we least expect it.
Waiting at a traffic light. Or at the supermarket, where our tears condense
like the dew on the carton of milk we just removed from the refrigerator. When
we’re awake or asleep, in every activity and every moment, we miss our girl.
There is no life after Gili. Our only path into the future is with Gili.
And so we share Gili with others. They share her with us. We
find her in unexpected places — the group of girls who got a common tattoo in
her honor; the memories of a stranger she met on a Colombian beach. And we make
pilgrimages to the places she loved the most, which brought us 6,000 miles over
the ocean this summer to the United States to visit summer two camps, Tel
Yehudah and Ben Frankel, that Gili called home.
As we walked
through Camp Tel Yehudah, a Young Judaea teen leadership summer camp in
Barryville, New York where she worked in 2019 and 2022, there was Gili in her
old room with the world map and desk she brought. There was Gili on the roof
that she watched the sunset from, even though it was (technically) forbidden.
But more than anything, we felt Gili’s presence in the young people at camp,
who captured the message she’d want to send to American Jews right now.
On
one Saturday night, we saw 400 young Jewish American campers dancing on the
grass to Israeli songs. They jumped. They sang along. Those who knew her there
told us that Gili was always the first to get up and dance. Her confidence
helped others overcome that initial, collective moment of awkwardness.
This
dance session reflected two of the things Gili cared most about: close
relationships between American and Israeli Jews, and the joy of life.
When
she was 17, Gili first came to the U.S. in 2017 to share Israeli culture with
American Jews at Camp Ben Frankel, an overnight summer camp in Illinois. If she
messed up in English, one of her friends told us, she’d laugh and say: “You
know guys, I’m really smart and funny in Hebrew.” Gili channeled that same
passion for cross-cultural connection working with American lone soldiers back
in Israel.
Gili’s
warmth melted barriers of language and distance until young campers felt part
of one community. Gili never believed in a blank-check relationship with
Israel, the kind that says always support and never question. She did, however,
see the bonds between American and Israeli Jews as inviolable and fragile: ties
that cannot be denied yet must be nurtured with joy, music, dance, food and
more.
Today,
as some young American Jews drift away from Israel, we ask them to remember
that Israel is also Gili. It is Gili dancing at the Nova music festival, living
a normal life in her early 20s, trying to figure out what career path she’ll
pursue. Young American Jews should remember that they don’t have to choose
between loving Israel and criticizing it: they can have a complex relationship
that includes both.
Those
kids dancing on the grass that Saturday radiated joy. At her funeral, we made a
promise to Gili and to ourselves: “We will not surrender to sadness, we will
sanctify joy. This is your will, Gili, our beloved.”
Many
times, forward is a bog, and we sink with each small step. Every day when we
visit Gili’s grave, we see our charismatic girl inscribed across a headstone, a
juxtaposition that feels like a contradiction. What does our daughter, always
so full of life, have to do with a grave?
We
try to take care of her, even though she was the one who often took care of us
— staying awake until 3 a.m. when we were out late to make sure we were okay.
We replace her memorial candle. We gather leaves that have fallen. We search
for buds, signs of life, on the trees we planted in her honor.
We
search for life ourselves. We go to the theater and sports events. Months after
an unimaginable rupture, we remain enveloped in an endless stream of love.
Gili’s friends come to light the eighth candle of Hanukkah. Kids at Ben Frankel
approach and ask if they can hug us.
There
will never, ever, be an end to the grief. But there is, there must be, a
continuity to the joy.
Five
years ago, Gili and her friends built a giant Star of David out of wooden
planks as a parting gift to Camp Tel Yehudah. To the right, in one photo,
stands Gili, sporting denim shorts, a black long sleeve, sunglasses, and as
usual, a smile. Pummeled by rain and snow, the structure was expected to remain
intact for less than a year. Half a decade later, the Star of David stands
tall.
Who
would have thought Gili would be gone instead?
The two of us take a photo in front of the Star of David during our visit to Tel Yehudah. We try to smile. One of us wears a T-shirt with that favorite slogan of Gili’s: “Why one or the other when you can have both?” We grasp onto its wooden planks as if we are touching our daughter, and in a way we are, because in her 24 years Gili created so much that outlasted her.
And
she continues to be the catalyst of so much good: A new research center in
Gili’s name at Israel’s Geha Mental Health Center will aim to prevent suicide
and save lives. A new trail in the town of Lapid, full of trees and flowers, is
being built in her name. At her old high school, a new garden with benches and
tables will provide spaces for kids to sit and talk, reflecting Gili’s love of
nature and willingness to listen.
A
few months ago, Gili’s friends created a sticker of her. They asked to bring
our Gili, whom they described not as a ray of light but as the sun itself, to
nature sites in Israel, to guest houses in South America and East Asia, to
inscribe her on their guitar cases, to carry her to all the places she might
have visited.
Like us, Gili’s friends want to share her light with others. We humbly ask, for our daughter, that you search for a sliver of joy wherever you can find it right now and share it with whoever you can. link I posted this for a multitude of reasons. Before I knew who Gili was, I visited the location of the Nova Festival at the national park next to Kibbutz Re'em. I saw there that families and friends of many of the victims of Nova created memorial spaces for their loved ones. I learned on my second visit that these are placed at the locations that their loved ones were killed by the Hamas barbarians. I saw the memorial that her family set up for Gili and it struck me (as I wrote then). The memorial is filled with beautiful yellow sunflowers. My older daughter's name is Gil and her favorite flower is sunflowers and her favorite color is yellow.
Acronyms and Glossary
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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