🎗️Lonny's War Update- October 351, 2023 - September 21, 2024 🎗️

  

🎗️Day 351 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

There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!

‎אין נצחון עד שכל החטופים בבית

Starting today, there is a new section at the end -Dark Legacy - The Abandonment of October 7th Hostages - A collection of short essays by influential people in Israel today - by the Forum for Life - Saving Israeli Hostages

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

*2:00pm - north - rockets - Zra'it,Tel hai, Beit Hillel, Kiryat Shemona, Hagoshrim, Kfar Giladi, Misgav Am, Oor Haganoz, Safsufa, Zva'om, Ramt Dalton, Dalton, Kerem Ben Zimra, Ramot Naftali , Dishon 

A barrage of some 25 rockets was fired from Lebanon at northern Israel a short while ago, according to the IDF. Police say they have received reports of rocket impacts that caused damage and sparked fires. There are no reports of injuries in the attack. Video posted to social media appeared to show several attempted missile interceptions. The barrage came moments after the IDF said it was carrying out a wave of air strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.  video

*2:45pm - north - rockets - Ortal, Alonei Habashan
*2:55pm - north -rockets - Arab al Aramsha, Eilon, Goren, Admit
*3:05pm - north - rockets - Dalton, Kaditha, Baram, Gush Halav, Kerem Ben Zimra
*5:45pm - north - hostile aircraft - Lev Hahula, Dishon, Yiftach, Malkia, Mevo'ot Hermon, Ramot Naftali - Nearly 100 rockets were launched from Lebanon at northern Israel in the past few hours, according to the IDF.

The first barrage at around 2 p.m., toward Safed and Kiryat Shmona, included some 25 rockets. Over the following hour, a barrage of 10 rockets was fired at the Arab al-Aramshe area, and another 25 were launched toward the Golan Heights, the IDF says. Shortly after 3 p.m., a barrage of 10 rockets was fired at the Upper Galilee, and at 3:19 p.m., another 20 rockets were launched at the same area, according to the military. There are no reports of injuries in the attacks, claimed by Hezbollah.

Hostage Updates 

• • Demonstrators calling for a hostage deal rally outside President Isaac Herzog’s home in Tel Aviv, urging him to declare the return of the captives held by Hamas as the top priority in the ongoing Gaza war.

    

    Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan Zangauker is held hostage by the Hamas terror group in Gaza, speaks at a press conference with other hostages' loved ones in Tel Aviv on September 14, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

    Meanwhile, the families of hostages rally outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, delivering their weekly statements to the press.

    “[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu does not have a mandate to abandon the hostages under the cover of a war in the north,” declares Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan has been held captive in Gaza since October 7.

    She also accuses Netanyahu of “collaborating” with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by “giving him what he wants: A multi-front war.”
    
    

• Commander of Shayetet 13 in a rare interview: "Locating the bodies of the hostages - one of the hardest moments I've experienced"

  After 11 months of intense fighting by the naval commandos, the commander of Shayetet 13, Colonel A., speaks in his first interview about the sad rescue of hostage bodies from the tunnel, his big dilemma on that terrible Saturday, the combined fighting at sea and underground - and the goal he can't get out of his head: Yahya Sinwar. "We must respect Hamas' fighting ability, they are an organized and orderly enemy. We are shaping reality for years to come."

  The feeling every Israeli had when seeing the horrific video from the tunnel where six hostages were held in inhumane conditions, Colonel A. - commander of the naval commandos, who has seen quite a lot in his 22 years as a fighter - felt intensely. He was there, in the Tel al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah district, and will never forget that day.

  Very thin and neglected, with signs of previous injuries and gunshot wounds inflicted about a day earlier that ended their lives. This is how, according to an IDF investigation reported to their families, the bodies of six hostages rescued from Hamas' death tunnel were found: Hirsh Goldberg-Polin, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Uri Danino, may their memory be blessed.

  In a video released last week by IDF spokesman Brigadier General Daniel Hagari, the horrific and heartbreaking conditions in which the hostages were held were shown: unbearable heat, almost no air, with cesspools and urine bottles and without the ability to stand upright. Kalashnikov bullet casings and large bloodstains were terrible evidence of the cruel murder.

  Lieutenant Colonel A. (40), commander of Shayetet 13 who was on site together with the commander of Brigade 401 and senior officers from the Yahalom unit, describes that terrible day as "an unbearable feeling. One of the hardest moments I've experienced. I felt such a feeling only when I lost fighters, and at that moment. We are fighting against the face of evil, no less than that."

  A tough officer, Colonel A. Throughout his years of service, he participated in countless operations, most of which will never be allowed for publication. But even he struggles, and almost falls silent, when trying to describe that terrible moment when the bodies were discovered. "It's difficult. Very difficult," he bites his lips.

  Two days earlier, the feeling was different. In an operation in a nearby tunnel, the forces located the hostage Farhan al-Qadi alive and rescued him from the tunnel. "A moment of exaltation," recalls Colonel A. "Suddenly you feel the full significance of the extraordinary achievement of bringing a hostage alive. But it's a short moment. An hour after he was rescued and evacuated, we were already fighting above ground. Even after such a happy moment, the war continues. There's no Hollywood ending."

  This is his first interview with the media. "It's not natural for me," he admits, as someone who for the last 22 years has been accustomed to operating in the shadows, as a man of silence. "But I think there's value in such an interview for the public, for the fighters and commanders in the Shayetet, and for the maneuvering forces working with us shoulder to shoulder for 11 months." This joint maneuver serves, among other things, the effort to bring hostages to Israel.

  **When you arrived at Tel al-Sultan, did you know there would be hostages there?**

  "We went there with the understanding that this is Hamas' last stronghold that hasn't been systematically dismantled. We understand that there's potential for hostages to be present, but we don't have pinpoint focus. That's why we operated there with techniques and drills of gradual and surgical advancement, which on one hand wouldn't endanger the hostages, but would be able to defeat the Tel al-Sultan battalion. That's how we advanced along the underground, until we reached Farhan. We were there - Shayetet, Yahalom, Shin Bet."

  **In what condition did you find him?**

  "He looked like someone who had been through a complex and challenging period. He was quite in shock from the situation. He expressed a lot of gratitude and appreciation. It's hard to describe our feeling at that moment. Even after we rescued him from the tunnel and held him outside, we were still very alert and worried. It's a threatened space that you still don't fully control. The whole encounter with him was an almost imaginary situation. You identify a figure, from afar, of course we didn't know he was there. And this is actually the peak of operational complexity, because it's a complex space, in the heart of a refugee camp, underground, you know there's enemy presence there, there's danger of explosives and traps. It's not a natural place for operation. Within this chaos you need to create something else, with thought, direction, stop, make sure who it is and identify that it's a hostage."

  **Did you have an encounter there, underground?**

  "We had encounters underground, but not in the event of rescuing Farhan. Fighting underground is very complex, because it's a space where the enemy is prepared for you. Unlike above ground, here you can't do preparatory actions, like blocking routes for example. Your senses are also limited. It's hard to see what's ahead, sometimes it's hard to hear too. You're basically channeled into the enemy's fighting space, and you don't know how to analyze this space and prepare for it - because you don't know it. It's a bit similar to fortification fighting, in a trench, when one goes forward and the rest of the force behind him, without seeing what's ahead. This requires developing appropriate fighting techniques. The Yahalom unit leads this. The IDF is looking at this whole issue of underground fighting very seriously now."

  Besides rescuing al-Qadi and locating the bodies of six hostages murdered in the tunnel, the Shayetet fighters were also involved in rescuing hostages Fernando Marman and Louis Har. "It was a Yamam operation, and we, under Brigade 7, were there in the role of envelope forces to get them out to the evacuation point. In Operation Arnon of the Yamam, we, under the Paratroopers Brigade, were the rescue force. In the first ceasefire, we were also involved in returning the bodies of Ofir Tsarfati and David Tahar."
  

  Colonel A. took command of Shayetet 13 in July 2023, just three months before October 7th. "The role of my life," he defines it. "That's what I thought when I entered the position, and certainly now, after the past year."

  He grew in the unit as a fighter and then as an officer, including as deputy commander of the fighters' division in Shayetet: "Lots of unique activity that doesn't rise above the secrecy threshold and can't be detailed," and after three years of studies at Tel Aviv University, he was appointed commander of the Shayetet's fighters' division. "A lot of operational activity, especially in the second half of the role, with the start of the naval campaign of the 'war between wars'," he describes. "This role is the ultimate fulfillment of a commander-fighter."

  Colonel A. spent the next three and a half years in a senior staff position in the Kirya (IDF headquarters).

  **What did you discover in this role that you didn't know from Shayetet?**

  "It's a completely different dimension. I discovered the weight of responsibility that the General Staff has. The IDF's responsibility for the national security of the state, in the broad sense. The work spaces, the partners, the full capabilities. It's a completely different perspective from that of the commander or fighter in the field."

  **And after October 7th, after you were in this role for three and a half years, isn't there a feeling of missed opportunity of "how didn't we see"?**

  "On October 7th, we failed. I too, as a senior commander, am part of that. Now these are exactly the learning and attempt to improve. To acquire more equipment, to buy new weapons. To learn to do everything so that it doesn't happen again. We have had two main duties since then: to meet the war's objectives, and to ensure the security of Israeli citizens."

  **Alongside returning the hostages, the war's goal is also to topple Hamas. For that, Sinwar needs to be eliminated.**

  "I dream of bringing him in, and I believe we will bring him in. Just as we reached all the other senior officials, I hope we'll reach him too."

  **× × ×**

  On October 7th, Colonel A. was on vacation with his family in Moshav Ya'ara in the Western Galilee. "October 7th caught us by great surprise," he admits. "We were on holiday, and at the Shayetet base in Atlit were the regular alert forces. At 6:30 in the morning, when the pushes on the phone started, we conducted a quick phone situation assessment, and without anyone even telling us, our understanding was: a war has started. We immediately gave an order that all forces come to the base. My deputy picked me up to the base and already from the road we started organizing transport of our forces to the south - the Air Force's 124 helicopter squadron, and more advancement of naval forces that would gather fighters. At 8:45 we already ordered to call up all the unit's reserve personnel. We doubled the unit's order of battle. Everyone immediately understood the situation. There was a reserve division commander who at 9:00 in the morning, together with his team members, all reservists, was just at Ben Gurion Airport, about to board a plane for a joint vacation abroad, when the call-up was received. They immediately turned around and left the airport. At 14:00 they were already on the helicopter to Be'eri. From zero to a hundred. The reservists were a guiding light for the regular forces."

  During those hours, chaos reigned in the IDF. Almost no one knew what was happening around them. The invasion of thousands of Hamas terrorists caught the senior command stunned and unprepared for such a situation.

  "Alongside the challenge that was clearly in the south, at that moment there was also fear that this would happen simultaneously in the north," explains Colonel A. "We had to prepare also for the possibility of immediate fighting there. At the same time, we sent two naval task forces southward - one to reach the center of the Strip via the sea, and the second as a defensive force at sea to prevent infiltration attempts from it. We also sent four ground forces by helicopters to assist in the fighting in the settlements. Each such force numbered 30-50 fighters, commanded by a division commander with the rank of lieutenant colonel."

  **How do you know where to send them?**

  "Neither I nor any of the forces that went out know what the mission is. We land, see what's happening, and then update and get updated via WhatsApp. Our forces arrived at Sufa outpost, Be'eri, Kfar Aza, Mefalsim and Nir Oz. At Sufa outpost, our team conducted face-to-face battles. They joined Mor Ben Yehuda, the Caracal Battalion commander, and together with her rescued trapped people and captured terrorists. The force that arrived in Be'eri also conducted significant fighting. In Kfar Aza and Mefalsim, the force joined the Commando Brigade and operated under the Commando Brigade commander. In Nir Oz, unfortunately, the force arrived after the terrorists had left. There they mainly provided assistance to those who remained. In Sufa and Be'eri, the forces stayed for several days."

  **And did you also go south immediately?**

  Colonel A.'s face darkens. "This was a very big dilemma," he says. "To this day I'm struggling with it, where I should have been. I stayed here at the base - I prepared work forces to go south and organized forces for readiness in the north. In terms of management and control, in such a dispersed situation, when nothing is clear in terms of the situation picture, I think this was the right thing to do. But there's always this tension, between the fighter in you who wants to be in the fighting, and the commander responsible for ensuring optimal functioning. I can assure you that this changed with the start of the maneuver."

  Since then he's been there, in the Strip. Almost all the time. Barely gets home. "My wife is the real hero," he compliments. "She and the children are the source of strength. She tells me: 'Do what needs to be done - win. Meet all your missions.'"

  "After the first days of fighting after October 7th, we brought back the forces and started initial debriefings and preparation for the maneuver," he describes. "Until the start of the maneuver, there was room for action for special forces. To stabilize the line before the maneuver, to initiate actions that would make it easier, that it would start well. On the eve of the maneuver's start, for example, we conducted a raid operation on a Hamas outpost on the coastline, in the southern sector. A storm raid, with fire from the air and land, which led to hitting and destroying the outpost. This is already creating awareness of action. It has great military, professional, and moral value. Until the maneuver, we constantly thought about what was the best way to contribute and influence, whether in unique actions only by us, as a unit, or shoulder to shoulder, in the maneuver. We decided that the combination is the right way. We created task forces composed of a special force and a maneuvering force, from Division 162, 36 and later also 98. I spoke with Itzik Cohen (Brigadier General, commander of Division 162) about the right way for this combination. We decided that for complex targets, operationally or in terms of international sensitivity, it's right for such combined teams to operate. This is what happened in our entry into the Qatari hospital."
  

  **Why did you enter it?**  

  "We had concrete indications that terrorists were stationed inside the hospital. Forces from the 401st Brigade (armor) and Givati were taking fire from there. On the other hand, in terms of international legitimacy, it's a sensitive location to operate in. We assembled a special task force from the 401st Brigade, Shayetet (naval commando), Yahalom (special combat engineering), Matkal (General Staff Reconnaissance Unit), and other special forces to enter the hospital in a surgical manner and find evidence of enemy presence. We created a blockade of tanks and armored vehicles that isolated the specific area we wanted to enter. We went in, quickly scanned and checked, and then disengaged."

  **Did you find terrorists there?**  

  "We discovered that there was indeed enemy presence, and we gathered evidence of that, but not to the extent we had expected. It was a partial success but marked the beginning of our close cooperation with the 162nd Division and the 401st Brigade in particular."

  Another operation involved capturing the Gaza marina, the largest port in the Strip where Hamas' naval forces were stationed. "Over the years, we had various plans in Shayetet for capturing the marina if necessary, but I never thought we would capture it by land," he laughs. "Our force joined the 188th Brigade (armor) and captured the marina at night."

  Another sensitive international point where Shayetet operated was the Al-Rantisi Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, in Gaza City. "We understood that it served as a command and control center, a storage site for weapons, and a shelter for terrorists," he describes. "The decision to raid it was made in the afternoon, and the raid was executed that night. The battle for Al-Rantisi was one of the significant operations in the maneuver. We found undeniable evidence there—suicide belts, large amounts of weapons, and hints that there may have been hostages in the hospital. Additionally, we discovered underground spaces near the hospital. This marked the beginning of our underground operations in that area."

  Despite all the complex ground and underground operations during the maneuver, Shayetet continued to operate in parallel in the maritime domain, both off the coast of Gaza and in special and covert operations in other sectors and waters.

  **Who manages such operations when the commander of Shayetet is fighting inside the Strip?**  

  "There is a deputy commander of Shayetet, a combat unit commander, and of course, the Navy's operational staff. It functions flawlessly. For example, off the coast of Gaza, we provided naval fire support, attacks on terrorists, and strikes on weapons stockpiles. In one instance, a land-based force encountered an ambush on the coastal road in the Strip. The force requested assistance and received direct support from the naval unit."

  In the operation at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the Strip's main hospital, Shayetet, under Colonel A, played a central role. "It was a tactical-operational idea that was translated into a special divisional operation," explained Colonel A. "In the planning discussions for the operation, each of the forces involved had its own perspective. It was like yin and yang—opposites that together create a whole. The operation was based on intelligence from the Shin Bet, divisional intelligence, and Southern Command intelligence, and we created a plan that surprised the enemy. There was a very strong intelligence foundation. Shayetet and Nahal Reconnaissance led the breach, we built an armored combat team, and within 15-20 minutes, we were inside. We entered from a location the enemy didn't expect us to come from. We captured hundreds of terrorists there, over 500. We neutralized anyone who tried to fight us, at all levels, including Raed Thabat, one of Hamas' senior commanders. We had a combined task force in the area with Duvdevan, Yahalom, intelligence units, Matkal, the Shin Bet, and Unit 504. Each unit took the lead at different times, according to its relative advantage. The division commander was on the ground, as was the Southern Command general and the Chief of Staff."

  **× × ×**  

  On the morning of October 7th, one of the main challenges for the Shayetet fighters was transportation to the south. Shayetet’s base is located in Atlit, and Colonel A, along with the entire Navy, had to organize helicopters and ships to bring the fighters to the Gaza envelope. Reserve fighters were immediately called up in the morning and arrived in large numbers at the base. They geared up and were in the field within a few hours. Briefings and updates were given to them quickly in the helicopter en route, and they landed straight into the battle.

  Navy fighters, including Shayetet, were also the ones who blocked and destroyed waves of terrorists trying to continue arriving by sea after the first wave broke through. For three days, without rest, the fighters prevented Hamas terrorists from re-entering by sea. According to IDF data, in 11 months of combat, the Navy sailed the equivalent of three years' worth and fired the equivalent of three years' worth of munitions.

  Shayetet conducted debriefings during the fighting and drew lessons that have already led to changes, especially in the combat unit, including new underground warfare tactics. These lessons will later be integrated into the training course for future fighters.

  **Many units, due to manpower shortages, shortened training and deployed fighters to the Strip faster. Did you do that too?**  

  "There were fighters in training that we deployed to the Shifa combat zone to 'get a taste' of war," says Colonel A, "but alongside that, we had to maintain balance. While there was an immediate need for fighters in combat, I must remain committed to training for the required capabilities. Any area I skip in training today, we will pay the price for it in the years to come. Therefore, we didn’t compromise on training."

  Officially, Shayetet 13 lost two of its fighters in the war: Lieutenant Colonel Eli Ginsberg (42), who was on discharge leave and immediately jumped into combat in Be'eri; and Staff Sergeant Ofek Russo (21), a fighter and medic in Shayetet, who was on standby at the Shayetet base in Atlit on October 7th and was deployed with the reserve team and fighters to the battles in Be'eri.
  

  "Eli grew up as a fighter and commander in the Shayetet (Naval Commandos)," says Col. A. "In his last role in the IDF, he was the commander of the Counter-Terrorism School. A few weeks before October 7th, we held a farewell event for him in the unit as he was about to be discharged. Eli and the commander of the force that fought in Be'eri were part of the same team during their training. Eli, who was already on leave ahead of his discharge, joined them there, and that's where he fell."

  According to Col. A, the Shayetet, from his perspective, lost five of its fighters. "Besides Eli and Ofek," he says, "Amichai Wax (48), a reservist fighter from Shayetet 13 and part of the rapid response team of Netiv HaAsara, also fell. His brother, Yigal (53), also fell in the battle for the settlement. Yossi Tahar (39), a Shin Bet officer who was killed on October 7th in the battle for Mefalsim, was also a former fighter and officer in the Shayetet. Additionally, Master Sergeant (res.) Yosef Avner Doran (26) had served as a designated intelligence collection fighter in the Shayetet. He fought in the reserves as part of the operational mobility unit and fell in December in the northern Gaza Strip."

  × × ×  

  Col. A was born in the U.S. while his parents were on a security mission there, and when he was five, the family returned to Israel. He grew up in Rosh HaAyin and completed high school in Tel Aviv in a science-focused program. "Most of my classmates went to Unit 8200 or the communications corps. I went through the selection process for elite units, got accepted to Shayetet, but eventually started the pilot's course. I was there for over a year. It was the first pilot academy class to finish with a bachelor’s degree, just like today."

  Before enlisting, he had considered a different career. "I played professional basketball, made it to the senior team, and then chose to enlist in significant service. I thought I’d return to basketball afterward. The one I looked up to was Barak Peleg, who served as a fighter in the Sayeret Matkal and then returned to play for Hapoel Galil Elyon."

  He was dismissed from the pilot course after just over a year. "I wasn’t burning with desire to be a pilot, but I did want to succeed. It was hard for me to be dismissed," he admits, "It was the first time I experienced failure. It definitely shaped me going forward."

  Following the selection process he underwent for the Shayetet, he arrived at the unit's tryouts and, after receiving the necessary recommendations, began his fighter training in March 2003, later advancing to officer training. In August 2006, he became a team commander in the training program, a role he held for two and a half years. During that time, he lost one of his fighters, Sgt. David Elhanan Rubin (21), who was murdered in December 2007 during a terrorist attack alongside his friend, Pvt. Achikam Amihai (20), while they were hiking in Wadi Telem. "I became very close to Rubin's family," Col. A recalls. "His father, Rabbi Mishael, was the one who officiated the wedding of Roni and me." He met his wife, Roni, in 12th grade, and they are parents to two daughters and a son (ages 13, 10, and 7).

  During his IDF service, Col. A took a brief departure from the sea for a role with the "green forces." "I took command of a company in a Nahal Brigade battalion. I was a company commander in advanced training for a year at the Nahal Brigade training base, and later a company commander in Kisufim and the Harasinah post in Hebron. I had experiences there that shaped me significantly in the rest of my service." In 2010, he returned to the Shayetet, this time as the commander of the Raid Unit, where he led highly classified operations for two years. Among other things, during this time, he was one of the leaders in seizing the German arms ship "Victoria," which was transporting weapons from Syria to terrorist organizations in Gaza.

  "A is a very special officer. Without exaggeration, he's one of the best I’ve ever met," says a very senior officer in the defense establishment, under whom Col. A served before becoming commander of Shayetet. "He is in the category of ‘I wanted to be like you’: mature, with one of the highest analytical abilities in the General Staff, values-driven, modest, practical, brave, and sharp-minded. He always says what he truly thinks, not just 'what needs to be said.' In my opinion, he has the qualities of a future Chief of Staff."

  In the meantime, Col. A continues to lead the Shayetet fighters in Gaza, fighting shoulder to shoulder with them and with the maneuvering ground forces. Underestimating Hamas is not part of his operational mindset.

  "This is an enemy we must respect for its combat abilities. They have very significant weaponry and combat techniques they have prepared. They are not disorganized. This is an organized and methodical enemy. But we are stronger than them and can defeat them. We are dismantling framework after framework. In every battle, despite the heavy costs, we come out on top. We are dismantling and winning in every encounter, shaping the reality for years to come."

  But it seems like it's taking too long.  

  "This battlefield is the most complex I’ve ever encountered. I also never learned about such a battlefield. The fortifications there are insane. An enormous underground system was built there. Something very significant was constructed. While fighting, we must respond to this challenge, learning and adapting as we go. It’s true that there are difficult moments, doubts, and thoughts, but there are also moments of immense strength. For example, when I look into the eyes of my junior commanders and fighters, and they ask me for more missions, wanting to move forward. This generation is phenomenal—professional, mentally strong, with an impressive ability to learn. It’s not easy to maintain such mental resilience after 11 consecutive months of fighting. And I believe this strength comes from what they have behind them, on the home front—family, spouses, children. A lot of it is thanks to them."

  "My interpretation of 'Together We Will Win' is about joint action," he says. "In my small military world, ‘Together We Will Win’ means building the best team from all the forces and units, and with them, decisively defeating the enemy. I see this as both a personal and national challenge. This is our watch, and we have no other choice. We are privileged to fulfill this duty." link

Gaza 

•  The Israeli military releases footage showing gunmen climbing onto trucks carrying humanitarian aid in the Rafah area of the southern Gaza Strip.

  The IDF says the gunmen were trying to loot the truck while it was driving along a designated route.
  

  Troops of the Givati Brigade’s Tzabar Battalion, who had spotted the gunmen, directed a drone strike against them after they tried to flee in a car. Another gunman was killed while trying to flee the scene.

  According to the IDF, Hamas operatives frequently try to hijack aid deliveries before they can be distributed to civilians.

• A prominent Hamas intelligence officer was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, the IDF says.

  The military says Muhammad Mansour was a “significant source of technological knowledge in Hamas’s military intelligence.”

  Over the past day, some 20 targets were struck by the Israeli Air Force across Gaza, including buildings used by the terror group and operatives, the IDF says.

  Meanwhile, the IDF’s 162nd Division continues to operate in southern Gaza’s Rafah, where in the past day the military says troops located weapons, killed gunmen, and destroyed sites used by Hamas.

  In the Netzarim Corridor of central Gaza, the IDF’s 5th and 14th reserve brigades were recently deployed there to operate under the 252nd Division, swapping out the Jerusalem and Harel reserve brigades.

• The Palestinian terror group Hamas mourns Hezbollah’s top commander, Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese capital Beirut on Friday, describing it as a “crime” and “folly” that Israel will pay the price for.

• An Israeli strike on a school in northern Gaza on Saturday killed at least 22 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health Ministry, while the Israel Defense Forces says it targeted a Hamas command center in what used to be a school.

  The IDF said earlier today that it struck Hamas’s “command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served” as a school. It said steps were taken to limit harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.

  “The Hamas terrorist organization systematically violates international law by operating from inside civilian infrastructure,” the army said.

Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria

• After blasts, Lebanon bans walkie-talkies and pagers from flights leaving Beirut

  Devices also banned from air shipping after two-day attack on Hezbollah, allegedly carried out by Israel

  Lebanese authorities on Thursday banned walkie-talkies and pagers from being taken on flights from Beirut airport, the National News Agency reported after thousands of such devices exploded during deadly attacks on Hezbollah this week.

  The Lebanese civilian aviation directorate asked airlines operating from Beirut to tell passengers that walkie-talkies and pagers were banned until further notice. Such devices were also banned from being shipped by air, the Lebanese state news agency reported.

  At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded when pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded in two waves of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Lebanese officials. An Israeli report Wednesday said Jerusalem believes the death toll to be higher than reported, with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit hit hard by the attacks.

  BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese authorities on Thursday banned walkie-talkies and pagers from being taken on flights from Beirut airport, the National News Agency reported after thousands of such devices exploded during deadly attacks on Hezbollah this week.

  The Lebanese civilian aviation directorate asked airlines operating from Beirut to tell passengers that walkie-talkies and pagers were banned until further notice. Such devices were also banned from being shipped by air, the Lebanese state news agency reported.

  At least 37 people were killed and more than 3,000 wounded when pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah members exploded in two waves of attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Lebanese officials. An Israeli report Wednesday said Jerusalem believes the death toll to be higher than reported, with Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit hit hard by the attacks.6:33

  Lebanon and Hezbollah, a heavily armed terror group backed by Iran, say Israel carried out the attack.

  Israel has not claimed responsibility.

  The Lebanese army said on Thursday it was destroying pagers and suspicious telecom devices in controlled blasts in various areas. It called on citizens to report any suspicious devices.

  Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

  So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 20 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

  Hezbollah has named 478 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon, but some also in Syria. Another 79 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed. link

  
  

• IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil and the top leadership of the terror group’s operations array and elite Radwan Force were gathered underground when they were targeted and killed in an Israeli airstrike.

  “They gathered underground, under a residential building, in the heart of the Dahiyeh, while using civilians as a human shield. They met to coordinate terror activities against Israeli civilians,” Hagari says in a press conference.

  Hagari says that at least 10 Hezbollah commanders were killed in the airstrike in Beirut, alongside Aqil.

• IDF kills Hezbollah’s top commander, says he was overseeing plan for invasion of Galilee 
  Ibrahim Aqil was wanted by US for attacks that killed dozens; 10 more of terror group’s military leadership also killed in the rare Beirut strike, as they met underground, IDF says
  

The IDF said the most prominent target of its airstrike, Ibrahim Aqil, was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, the acting commander of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, and was leading a planned operation to invade the Galilee.

Aqil was also the most senior military member of the Jihad Council, Hezbollah’s top military body, after Israel’s assassination of Fuad Shukrin a strike in Beirut in July. He had been wanted by the United States for his role in the 1983 bombings of the American Embassy in Lebanon and the US Marines barracks in Beirut.

“Aqil and the Radwan Force commanders who we attacked are the commanders who drew up and led the Hezbollah terror group’s plan, to be carried out on the day the order was given, to attack into the northern territory of the State of Israel — what they called ‘The plan to conquer the Galilee,’” Hagari said at a press conference on Friday evening.

In this planned invasion, “Hezbollah intended to raid Israeli territory, occupy the communities of the Galilee, and murder and kidnap Israeli citizens — similar to what Hamas did on October 7,” Hagari continued. “The commanders who we eliminated today” had been overseeing attacks on Israeli citizens since October 8, and planned to carry out more such attacks,” he added, calling Aqil “a terrorist with a great deal of blood on his hands, responsible for the deaths of many civilians and innocents.”

Hagari said that at least 10 members of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force and operations array were killed in the strike, which Lebanese media reported was carried out by an Israeli F-35 fighter jet using two missiles. 

Wanted by the US

Aqil joined Hezbollah in the 1980s, and was also responsible for the terror group’s attacks outside of Lebanon, according to the IDF. The military said he participated in many attacks in other countries, including targeting civilians.

Since 2004, Aqil has been serving as the head of Hezbollah operations, responsible for the terror group’s bombing and anti-tank attacks on Israel, air defenses, and other aspects of the organization, the military said. The IDF said Aqil was involved in an anti-tank guided missile attack against an army post near Avivim in 2019, a bombing attack at the Megiddo Junction last year, and several attempts by Hezbollah operatives to infiltrate into Israel amid the war.

The US had accused Aqil of a role in the Beirut truck bombings at the American embassy in April 1983, which killed 63 people, and a US Marine barracks six months later that killed 241 people. He was also wanted for directing the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon in the 1980s.

The US had placed a $7 million bounty on Aqil’s head.

• At least 31 people were killed, including three children and seven women, in an Israeli strike on a meeting of Hezbollah commanders in Beirut’s suburbs on Friday, the Lebanese health ministry tells a televised news conference.

  Hezbollah has said at least 16 of its operatives, including two of its most senior commanders, were killed in the strike.

  Israel says the commanders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force were meeting in an underground room in the residential building.

  Firass Abiad tells reporters that 68 people were also wounded in the strike, of whom 15 remain in hospital. 
  
  

• The IDF names the top leadership of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force who were killed alongside senior commander Ibrahim Aqil in yesterday’s airstrike in Beirut.

  
  An IDF infographic shows senior commanders in Hezbollah's Radwan Force killed in a September 20, 2024 strike in Beirut (IDF)

  Aqil was the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, the acting commander of the Radwan Force, and the head of a long-gestating plan to invade the Galilee.

  Aqil had been meeting with the senior commanders of the Radwan Force under a residential building in Beirut when the IDF carried out its strike. The top commander and 15 other Hezbollah officers were killed in the strike.

  Among the dead was Ahmed Wahbi, identified by Hezbollah and the IDF as the head of the terror group’s training unit and a former commander of the Radwan Force. The IDF says Wahbi was among those involved in the planning of a Hezbollah invasion of the Galilee, and was also involved in “advancing Hezbollah’s entrenchment in southern Lebanon, while attempting to improve the organization’s ground combat capabilities.”

  Over the years and during the first months of the war, the military says Wahabi was involved in planning and carrying out rocket fire and infiltration attacks.

  Other top Radwan Force commanders killed in the strike are identified by the IDF as: Samer Halawi, commander of the coastal region; Abbas Muslimani, commander of the Qana region; Abdullah Hijazi, commander of the Ramim Ridge region; Muhammad Reda, commander of the Khiam region; Hassan Madi, commander of the Mount Dov region; Hassan Abd al-Satar, head of operations; and Hussein Hadraj, chief of staff.

  “These commanders had been leading and planning the Radwan Force’s attack and infiltration plan into Israeli territory for years, to be executed when given the order,” the military says.

  “Aqil and the commanders eliminated in the strike were responsible for planning, advancing, and executing hundreds of terrorist operations against Israel, including the planning of Hezbollah’s murderous scheme to raid the communities of the Galilee,” the IDF adds.

• Israeli fighter jets struck some 180 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in the past few hours, taking out thousands of rocket launcher barrels, the IDF says.

  The military says the rocket launchers were primed for imminent attacks on Israel.

  It publishes footage of the strikes. video

West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel

•     

Politics and the War (general news)

•  Hezbollah pager explosions put spotlight on Israel’s cyber warfare Unit 8200

  Elite IDF intelligence unit is said to have been involved in the technical side of testing how to implant explosive material during the manufacturing process of the pagers

  The mass attack that saw pagers held by Hezbollah members across Lebanon explode has turned the spotlight on the secretive Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence unit, which a Western security source said was involved in planning the operation.

  Israeli officials have remained silent on the audacious intelligence operation that killed 12 people on Tuesday and wounded thousands of Hezbollah operatives. Dozens more people were killed on Wednesday when handheld radios used by Hezbollah members detonated.

  A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that Israel’s Mossad spy agency was responsible for a sophisticated operation to plant a small quantity of explosives inside 5,000 pagers ordered by Hezbollah.

  One Western security source told Reuters that Unit 8200, a military unit that is not part of the spy agency, was involved in the development stage of the operation against Hezbollah, which was over a year in the making.

  The source said Unit 8200 was involved in the technical side of testing how they could insert explosive material within the manufacturing process.

  The Israeli military declined to comment. The Prime Minister’s Office, which has oversight of Mossad, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

  Hezbollah began launching near-daily attacks on the north of Israel on October 8, but claims it is not interested in all-out war and has said it will halt the attacks, meant to support the Hamas terror group in Gaza, when the war there ends.

  Both Iranian-backed terror groups avowedly seek to destroy Israel.

  Yossi Kuperwasser, a former military intelligence official and now research director at the Israel Defense and Security Forum, said there was no confirmation that the 8200 signals intelligence unit was involved in the mass pager explosions.

  But he said its members were some of the best and brightest personnel in the Israeli military, serving in a unit at the center of Israel’s defense capabilities.

  “The challenges they are facing are immense, very demanding, and we need the best people to get involved in that,” he said.

  The unit, and its legion of young, handpicked soldiers, develops and operates intelligence gathering tools and is often likened to the US National Security Agency.

  In a rare public statement about the unit’s activities, the IDF said in 2018 that it had helped to thwart an air attack by Islamic State on a Western country. At the time, it said the unit’s operations ran from intelligence gathering and cyber defense to “technological attacks and strikes.”

  While Israel has never confirmed its involvement, Unit 8200 was reported to have been involved in the Stuxnet attack uncovered in 2010 that disabled Iranian nuclear centrifuges as well as a series of other high-profile operations outside Israel.
  
  Young recruits

The unit is effectively Israel’s early warning system, and like much of the rest of the defense and security establishment, shouldered some of the blame for failing to anticipate Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel, in which thousands of terrorists breached Israel’s borders and killed around 1,200 people and took 251 captive to Gaza.

The commander of 8200 last week said he was stepping down. In his resignation letter carried by Israeli media he said he hadn’t fulfilled his mission.

The unit is famous for a work culture that emphasizes out-of-the-box thinking to tackle issues previously not encountered or imagined. This helped some graduates build Israel’s tech sector and some of its biggest companies.

“Whether it’s a problem with software weakness, math, encryption, a problem hacking into something… you must be capable to do it on your own,” said Avi Shua, a graduate of 8200, who went on to co-found Orca Security, a cloud security unicorn.

The unit has a high turnover rate of young recruits replacing veterans, said Kobi Samboursky, another former 8200 member and managing partner at Glilot Capital Partners, an early-stage fund investing in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

“The most significant thing here is the ‘can-do’ culture, where everything is possible,” Samboursky said.  link 

• "A Minister in All But Name: The De Facto Role of the Prime Minister's Wife"

  The fact that Sara Netanyahu's stance is a consideration in appointing and replacing a Defense Minister - a move that will determine the fate of citizens, soldiers, and hostages - is a reality that a normal country should not tolerate. On the other hand, the fact that this no longer causes an uproar shows that we are in need of a psychologist's treatment.

  October 11, 2023, was quite a dramatic day. In retrospect, it will be mainly remembered for the decision not to attack Hezbollah, which was made by bringing MKs Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot into the cabinet as a counterweight to Yoav Gallant and the military chiefs. "This is a matter of life and death, come quickly," said Shas chairman Aryeh Deri.

  However, by noon that day, it seemed that the delay in forming an emergency government was coming from a completely different direction: the Prime Minister's wife. Yair Sharki from Keshet News appeared almost embarrassed and apologetic about having to deal with "gossip" and reported that "two sources who spoke to me claim that Mrs. Netanyahu is exerting pressure against forming a coalition." He then said that even if the government is eventually formed, "we need to remember the path to get there."

  Of course, no one adopted this directive, and two and a half weeks later, the country was in an uproar over the Prime Minister's midnight tweet against the IDF and Shin Bet regarding responsibility for the failure. Publications on the matter stated that the fingerprints led to a child psychologist in public service. Even Yinon Magal, a figure who defined himself as "a vessel through which (Netanyahu) conveys things to the public," lost it: "I hear she's interfering, I hear she's too much in the Kirya," he said. "Sara is not the first to do this. She exhausts the staff, she disturbs, she causes damage, thank you very much, we chose the Prime Minister who manages things."

  Well, from the events of the last week, it appears that the policy has not changed even after 11 months: throughout the reports on the intention to dismiss Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with MK Gideon Sa'ar, Sara Netanyahu's position was discussed without even a milligram of ambiguity: she imposed a veto, removed a veto, agreed and then regretted, regretted and then agreed, etc.

  One source in the Prime Minister's Office claims she still refuses to release. Another source said that "Sara is pushing very hard for Yoav Gallant's replacement... and also agrees to Gideon Sa'ar's appointment to the position." The reasoning, it seems, is not related to the gaps between Gallant and Sa'ar in security strategy, in the perception of the IDF's force building in the coming years, and not even in the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription: everything starts with personal loyalty and cost/benefit calculations of political survival. Sa'ar is perceived by the Netanyahu family's board of directors as a hostile and treacherous element and therefore received the entire repertoire of the poison machine. Now the question is whether Sara thinks he's small enough to contain him.

  The problem and hesitation stem from the fact that it simply doesn't matter: the very fact, which is no longer denied and if so, then in a blatantly unconvincing manner, that Sara Netanyahu's position is embodied in the considerations behind a move that cannot be exaggerated in its impact on the lives and deaths of many people, is a reality that a normal and even semi-normal country should not bear. While there is no doubt and it's not a bad thing that elected leaders around the world consult with the few people they really trust and look up to, the case of the Netanyahu couple has turned before our eyes and ears into a new system of government.

  **Understanding the Mood**

  Anyone who knows Israel for more than two hours knows that Sara Netanyahu's involvement in her husband's and the state's affairs was not born in the Iron Swords war. In fact, it seems that the leap forward occurred towards the end of Netanyahu's second term. In 2013, for example, as Brigadier General (Res.) Guy Tzur testified, she was the one who "interviewed" him for the position of military secretary. Much has been written about the appointment of Yossi Cohen to head the Mossad in 2015, and all words lead to the same conclusion: at noon on December 7, the next Mossad chief after Tamir Pardo was his deputy N. In the evening, Netanyahu announced live, as in a reality show finale, that the replacement was actually Cohen. In between, a blatant intervention by Netanyahu was described, but not the one elected as Prime Minister.

  If it seemed that Netanyahu was showing intensive involvement in sensitive appointments, it has been heard for some time that she is interested in promotion. In 2018, for example, she went on a "diplomatic mission" to Guatemala on behalf of the Foreign Ministry. In our days, Netanyahu carries out her diplomatic mission in not-quite-diplomatic meetings with families of hostages: sometimes together with the Prime Minister and sometimes without him. From these meetings, it appears that not only does Netanyahu fail to alleviate the tension between the political echelon and the families, which only intensifies as the hostages fade in captivity - she actually serves as an almost institutionalized arm of the hope extinguishing apparatus and responsibility rolling.

  In one meeting, whose transcript was published last week in "Yedioth Ahronoth," she echoed a claim that evacuating the Philadelphia Corridor would lead to the smuggling of hostages to Iran. The defense establishment rushed to refute this, and the British-Jewish newspaper "Jewish Chronicle" is in the midst of an unprecedented storm due to its reckless publication. By the way, already in November, Netanyahu sent a letter to Jill Biden, the wife of the U.S. President, in which she claimed based on some publications that relied on "assessments in the defense system," that "one of the women was kidnapped by Hamas while pregnant. She gave birth to her baby in Hamas captivity." The information was unsubstantiated and remains so to this day.

  But on one fact Netanyahu continues to insist, even without seeming to contribute anything to the conversation. In a recording revealed this week by Yulan Cohen on Keshet News, she tells one of the family members about "a big plan that would have destroyed us within a few hours" and also that the "government didn't know" about the Nova party (it is to be hoped that she remembered the suitcases of money to Hamas at least vaguely) and adds: "Maybe it's not related, I'm a psychologist and I also work. I've been a child psychologist for many years." The mention of her work is indeed not related to the topic of conversation, but it is certainly relevant to understanding the mood of a very influential person in the Prime Minister's environment.

  **You Didn't Say Anything About Paula**

  After countless scandals of various types (including a criminal conviction in the Residences Affair), it's understandable why publications about Sara Netanyahu's involvement in sensitive issues evoke a very limited range of responses: somewhere between a yawn and "you didn't say anything about Paula Ben-Gurion." It's also no wonder that in most parts of the media they no longer pay attention to what comes out of their mouths, as demonstrated in the indifferent updates regarding the state of the Prime Minister's wife's veto on the identity of Israel's next Defense Minister during wartime. If so, why should Netanyahu settle for deciding who will be the Defense Minister? Let her take the role herself. If she wants, she can also continue to say that she's a child psychologist in public service.  link  It is truly not known or understood how Sara wields so much power over her husband, but it is true and widely known that she is the decision maker. There are many substantiated events of her insisting on sitting in on meetings that were top secret in nature and about the security of the country where the officials presenting and reporting in those meeting didn't understand why she was there and Netanyahu, the husband told them to continue with their reports, meaning she was staying in the meeting. Most of her decisions and influence are based on her and her husbands personal needs and not of the country and are strongly based on who she likes and doesn't like for various reasons. She has directed that women be fired or replaced because she didn't want them to be around her husband. It is widely known that she is not a nice person to all of the staff around her and even verbally abuses them regularly. They are afraid of her. Her and her husbands first interest and concern are all about staying in power. That is the bottom line of all their decisions, separately and jointly.

The Region and the World

•    Iran unveiled a new ballistic missile and an upgraded one-way attack drone at a military parade on Saturday, state media said, amid soaring regional tensions and allegations of arming Russia.

  New Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attended the annual parade in Tehran, commemorating the 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

  “Today, our defensive and deterrent capabilities have grown so much that no demon even thinks about any aggression towards our dear Iran,” he says.

  “With unity and cohesion among Islamic countries… we can put in its place the bloodthirsty, genocidal usurper Israel, which shows no mercy to anyone, women or children, old or young.”

  The comments come as Israel has stepped up its fight against Iran’s main proxy, the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon.

  Iran stands accused by Western governments of supplying both drones and missiles to Russia for use in its war with Ukraine, a charge it has repeatedly denied.

  The solid-fuel Jihad missile was designed and manufactured by the aerospace arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and has an operational range of 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles), state news agency IRNA said.

  The Shahed-136B drone is an upgraded version of the Shahed-136, with new features and an operational range of more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles), it adds.

Personal Stories

"He was like an angel": What happened to the party boy who disappeared at Nova

Keshet Kasruti became one of the symbols of the Nova party. The beautiful boy was photographed at the party - and then disappeared. His mother Natalia embarked on a detective journey to understand what exactly happened to her son and how he was murdered. Ilan Lukatch brings the story of Keshet, who became after his death the poster boy of the documentary film "We Will Not Stop Dancing".

"Keshet didn't want to be a model, but the whole world needs to see his beauty, and know that this happened," his mother says painfully. Keshet Kasruti's angelic face cannot be forgotten, and it became the face of Nova. Keshet, 21, older brother to Shemesh and Anan, grew up in Kibbutz Samar at the end of the Arava. A child who chased after floods, who in 12th grade moved to an ashram in the desert, and there got into music and parties.

Keshet became the poster boy for the new documentary film "We Will Dance Again" by director Yariv Mozer. The film is largely composed of videos shot by party participants. "He was always beautiful," says Keshet's mother, Natalia Kasruti. "He knew he was beautiful and he didn't like the attention he got because he was beautiful. But fate gave him a title - the beautiful child of Nova."

On Saturday morning, October 7, when Natalia couldn't reach him and realized he might have been at Nova, she went on Facebook, and then she didn't yet know how long the journey would be, that the post she would write is just its first step. "Ten minutes after I posted the post, his friend Peleg called me," she recalls. "He DJ'd there the night before and told me: 'Keshet wrote to me at five in the morning that he arrived at the party.' And then some kind of marathon began to try to find Keshet."

"We arrived around four thirty. We start meeting all kinds of friends, and we also saw Keshet there. You couldn't miss him anywhere. A kind-hearted person. His joy, it can't be described in words," says Ziv, 26, who saw Keshet at the Nova festival.

"I meet Keshet, with his smile, immediately such a hug," says Elazar, 25, a friend of Keshet who was at the party. "We're walking around, meeting friends. Shani, I think I also saw on the dance floor," says Yaakov, another young man who was at the party.

"There's no party without seeing Keshet and Shani," says Ziv. "What they have in common is that they are free spirits, naturally happy people. He looked like an angel." "I felt completely lost"

No one told her what happened to her child. Natalia Kasruti

During the editing of the film, it was not yet known what happened to Keshet at Nova, where and how his life ended. His mother only discovered it many months later. Natalia: "We arrived at Soroka, and I don't even understand what I'm supposed to say to who's at reception, like how do I even start looking for my child. And then she tells me, there's an email here, send identifying photos. I'm completely lost, I start to feel like I'm falling apart any moment. I understood that I need to go to the police and give a DNA sample. We drove, came back, John Doe at Yoseftal had already narrowed down to ten people - and no Keshet. It was really clear to me that Keshet was kidnapped, he's not in the hospital, I didn't get a phone call, he's not dead, so what are the options? Kidnapped."

Hi joy. It was impossible to describe it in words. Keshet Kasruti z"l

There's no way that there's a party without seeing Keshet and Shani. Shani Lok z"l

The film "We Will Dance Again" produced by Sipur and Slutzky Productions will be broadcast on Hot 8 next Wednesday and will be screened worldwide on the anniversary of the massacre.

A mother is looking for her child and no one in the country could help her in the chaos we were thrown into. Natalia started putting the puzzle together herself.

"On Tuesday afternoon, Nissim Lok, Shani's father, called me and then I started to understand a bit of the picture, that they were together, that she was wounded, that she was kidnapped to Gaza. Probably Keshet too. I tried to locate the phone and it was the Mefalsim area and that's it, I have no more information. On Wednesday afternoon, my sister tells me 'There's police outside' and then they say 'We have a positive identification of your son, we participate in your sorrow,'" she says and her voice breaks. "There are no answers and they don't know anything. Murdered, that's it I have no idea about anything."

**Where, what?**

"I know nothing."

**They didn't even tell you where they found him?**

"No, nothing."

Yaakov, Keshet's friend, recounts: "Everyone stood and like laid down the body. Like the realization fell that this is happening. Everyone burst into tears, I couldn't stop I just fell apart."

"Insane panic"

Keshet was buried the next day at noon behind the kibbutz. Natalia begins that day her second journey to find an answer to the question of what happened in the last hour of her child's life.

Everyone joined in crying. Keshet's grave

"We received Keshet's phone," she recalls. "And there I saw that Keshet sent MDA a location at seven in the morning on the phone he made at the bend of Mefalsim. That's where the first step of the journey to understand what happened to Keshet actually began."

Yaakov: "Keshet calls him," he points to Elazar. 

Elazar: "He tells me 'Uzi I'm wounded'. I tell him wait a moment Keshet, coming, something like that. I hang up the call. I remember I'm running, cars almost run me over and I start hearing bursts of gunfire. Insane panic."

Yaakov: "Think that this whole thing and we were under the influence of psychedelic drugs, which can really intensify it."

Elazar: "It amplifies. I return to the car. I have some complete faith, I tell them 'Keshet will live, there are no games here'. Keshet is the most survivalist person in the world." "You must send me an ambulance"

From the recording of Keshet's call to MDA: "I'm here on the Gaza envelope. My girlfriend is wounded all over her leg. You must send me an ambulance here. You don't understand what happened here."

"Where?", asks the MDA dispatcher.

"I don't really know where I am, we're in the Gaza envelope, we were here at a party," he answers.

Natalia: "Shani was very badly wounded in the leg, to the extent that she can't get out of the car."

"I need to know where to send, what happened?", the dispatcher asks Keshet in the recording. "What happened?", Keshet answers her. "I'm dying of fear, I can't answer so much, I'm also in pain. Please come here."

"I'm on my way sweetie, I'm on my way. Is your girlfriend conscious?", she tells him.

Keshet: "She's conscious, yes, she's conscious, but please the ambulance here."

Four months pass until Natalia receives the next detail in the picture.

"I received a phone call from the investigator of Lahav 433 who told me: 'Keshet was found shot under the bridge at Sha'ar HaNegev junction, in a Honda Civic, with a person named Moti,'" Natalia recounts.

On the list of 400 Nova murder victims there were only two Motis and it quickly became clear that the man murdered in the car together with Keshet is Moti Zwarmen.

"I immediately find his profile on Facebook, a man between 74, one meter ninety, who goes to parties," she recalls.

"My father always loved going out and entertainment, really loved to dance," recounts Moti's daughter, Tal Zwarmen when she meets with Natalia Kasruti. "And slowly entered the world of trance, dancing. Also made a spiritual journey, was in India. Was then in the last decade also dividing his life between India and Israel."

Moti Zwarmen z"l

"They shot all four of them on the spot"

Moti Zwarmen's children also went through a similar journey, to find the clues and understand how he was murdered, and what he went through until then.

Tal: "They called from the police that there's footage from a car camera that passed at Sha'ar HaNegev junction. You can see the body identified as my father, lying next to the driver, and next to him you can see someone with long hair."

Natalia: "He's as beautiful as a girl, clearly it's Keshet. It was really a feeling of bingo, we have a breakthrough within an hour."

What were they doing together in the car? Natalia deduces that Moti tried to evacuate the wounded Keshet towards Soroka. But the picture is not yet complete.

Natalia: "On the last Memorial Day I received a phone call from someone who introduced herself as Daisy Moshe. Her brother, Oz Moshe was also murdered. And then she told me another detail, that Oz Moshe and his girlfriend Naomi Becher were also in the car with Keshet and Moti. They know this because Oz was in a video call with them. Oz was in video from the chin down at 7:16, I knew that at seven thirty in the morning Keshet was already gone. Now I received more precise information. At 7:16 they were stopped by a cell of terrorists under the bridge, who asked them 'Do you have weapons' and when they answered no, shot all four of them on the spot."

**Now you have an hour.**

"Now I have an hour and I have the whole story. All the questions I asked myself got an answer in a certain way."

**When do you realize he became a symbol?**

"I think three weeks later. Suddenly they sent me a story of Noa Kirel on Instagram 'We never forget' with a picture of Keshet. Also various celebrities shared the picture of Keshet. Then I really understood: Mami he's not yours anymore, you can't stop this light." An evening of smiles and memory of the horror

It's impossible to stop his light - Kesher Kasruti z"l

At this stage Natalia begins her third journey in the footsteps of Keshet. After understanding how his hardest moments looked like she now tries to experience his happiest moments.

"And then it crossed my mind 'I want to DJ'," she recounts. "And in the end I played a sunset set at a party. To DJ for Keshet was such a great happiness. It was a purified moment of we're here despite everything."

"I had a good life before," says Natalia. "They were very simple before, I cooked, lived in a kibbutz in the Arava, everything predictable and known, more or less. Big things don't happen in my life, and I was very good in my previous life. Now I understand that something there was to live beside life, and that life begins now."

As part of her new life she arrives at the screening of "We Will Dance Again". "I haven't seen the film yet," she says. "I'm excited and terrified. I said earlier to the production that if it's hard, I'm cutting. Because the minute and a half trailer was very difficult for me and now it's a long film."

For the premiere screening the production invited the Nova survivors, those who returned from Hamas captivity, the families of the murdered. "We Will Dance Again" is not an easy documentary. Every frame in it is a possible trigger for them, but they came and they saw. The evening was a mixture of flashes and tears, smiles and memory of the horror, mental wounds and heroism. The film after which no one will be able to deny

"On October 7 I very quickly understood that I want to do something," says the film's director Yariv Mozer. "I understood that I can't sit at home and continue to look at the news. I'm a documentary director and the basic instinct is to be in the field." He started filming two days after the massacre, when everything was still there. The mission he took upon himself is to make the film after which no one will be able to deny anymore.

"The amazing thing is that they mostly also filmed themselves and the terrorists also filmed themselves," says Yariv Mozer. "For me as a documentarian it's to tell the truth and bring it from as many points of view as possible, so that in general it will be impossible to raise a gram of denial and to bring it out to the world."

The film "We Will Dance Again" is airing on Hot 8 and in parallel, and probably more importantly, on BBC in England and Paramount Plus in the United States. It didn't happen easily, but even at the BBC which is careful not to call Hamas a terrorist organization, there are people who think it's important for the world to see exactly what happened.

From these materials and interviews he conducted with some of the survivors he built the story of Nova minute by minute, through their points of view. From the joyous moments of sunrise to the first rocket barrage, footage from the most nightmarish moments, from the long hours of the survival war and in the escape from the place.

Everyone was taking pictures and videos

The result is a document that you can't take your eyes off. A document that takes the viewer as close as possible to Nova. And even after 11 months, when it seems we've already heard everything about what happened there, it's still hard to digest that such a thing is even possible to happen.

How much to blur difficult sights was not an easy question. Mozer as a documentarian believed that his role is to document to show not to blur reality. This is the true point of view of those who went through it. This is what his cell phone captured. This is what needs to be passed on so that in every generation a person can see himself as if he fled there for his life.

After the return of six bodies of hostages who were executed, Yariv Mozer returned to the editing room. He had to correct the text on Hirsh Goldberg Polin, from kidnapped to murdered, and cut out one sentence that can no longer be said.

"We're removing the sentence 'So hoping he'll return safely'. He won't return safely anymore," he says. "We hoped we're entering the editing room to fix in the summer when we see everyone coming out of Gaza. An ending like Hirsh's, it's not something I could even imagine."

What happened there, minute after minute. Documentation on the view from the terrorists cameras

There are no answers in this film. It becomes clearer with every minute you watch it. Where was the army? Where was the police? Where was the state? The feeling that we were all abandoned to our fate doesn't let go. "The whole world needs to see this beauty"

Despite being very afraid, Natalia managed to watch the film to its end, sometimes through tears. After the screening Natalia tells us what she feels when she sees Keshet on the poster: "I know that in the same breath he wouldn't have wanted, because it's the model he didn't want to be, he became in his death. But there's nothing to do, his beauty, his so perfect, it puts him on the film's image. The whole world needs to see this beauty, when people in the world don't believe us.

And at the end of the film everyone went up on stage the survivors and the bereaved parents and the audience received them like heroes. And then they returned to their war which is far from over, because for them this film continues to run in their heads.

*The film "We Will Dance Again" will be broadcast on Hot 8 next Wednesday*  link

Dark Legacy - The Abandonment of October 7th Hostages

On the black Sabbath, the citizens of Israel were not only kidnapped by Hamas; they were also betrayed by their own prime minister. The man who led his country to its worst disaster refuses to step down and be held accountable.

The self-proclaimed “Mr. Security” single-handedly enabled the funding and strengthening of the murderous organization Hamas but refuses to take responsibility as a true leader should. Sadly, Netanyahu is not a real leader. He cynically places his political survival over the lives of the people he swore to protect. Rather than making bold decisions to save his people, Netanyahu keeps choosing to save himself. Mr. Security has turned into Mr. Abandonment.

Nine months have passed since Hamas' cruel abduction of innocent civilians, including infants and the elderly. Imagine the terror in the eyes of a mother as Hamas militants snatch her infant from her arms. Picture the elderly grandparents, their lives reduced to captivity. These are not mere statistics; they are our neighbors, our friends, our family. While the world watches with growing despair, Netanyahu, our nation's leader, has consistently failed to secure their release. His actions, or rather inactions, constitute a grave betrayal of the trust placed in him.

This collection of essays was penned by hostages and grieving families, hostage survivors, leading statesmen, IDF and intelligence agencies’ leaders, academics, and other prominent figures in Israel and the diaspora.

“Dark Legacy” lays bare the devastating consequences of Netanyahu's leadership. His prioritization of political expediency over the lives of our citizens is a stain on our nation's conscience.

History will judge Netanyahu harshly. His legacy will be one of broken promises and a callous disregard for human life, as he ruthlessly pursued personal gain at the expense of his people. The son of a historian will go down in the annals of history as the one who abandoned Israeli citizens in captivity, in violation of the Israeli ethos.

With every ticking second, the lives of our loved ones hang in the balance. We, the families who continue to fight to bring our loved ones home, will not rest or be silenced until this book has reached every home in Israel and many communities around the world. We will not rest or be

silenced until every hostage is HOME!

A Message to

Mr. Abandonment,

Benjamin Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who led our country to the greatest disaster in its history, continues to add insult to injury as he insists on neglecting the citizens of his country hour by hour.

The citizens who are now held hostage were abandoned years earlier when Netanyahu, the man entrusted with national security and leadership, funded and strengthened a murderous organization, refused

to promote a political route out of the conflict, and repeatedly left the unstable security situation in the Negev unattended.

The hostages, citizens of the State of Israel, were abandoned on the morning of October 7th - left to protect themselves and fend off the terrorist gangs funded by Netanyahu's direct orders. They are still being abandoned more than 9 months into this unfolding disaster due to Netanyahu's decision to prioritise his political survival, to avoid taking responsibility and making the difficult choices that need to be made to save the lives of his people.

Time and again, the Prime Minister sabotages any chance of reaching a life-saving deal to release the kidnapped, sends our soldiers to die without a clear long-term military strategy and promotes his personal goals to be paid for with the blood of our sons and daughters. In doing so, he betrays all of his citizens, and especially those held in captivity, he betrays the nation's values, and deep commitment to its citizens; he abandons us all, betraying our body and soul.

This continuous abandonment is driven by cynical considerations and unending cruelty. Benjamin Netanyahu is the sacrificer of Israel.

The blood of our hostages is on his hands.

He will be remembered in infamy, as a despicable leader who abandoned, betrayed and sacrificed the lives of his citizens for his own political survival. Cursed is the man and cursed is his legacy.

Families for the rescue of hostages

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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