🎗️Lonny's War Update- October 369, 2023 - October 9, 2024 🎗️

 

🎗️Day 369  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

 The two sections at the end, personal stories and Dark Legacy - The Abandonment of October 7th Hostages are very important to read, as important or more than the news of the day.

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

*8:40pm yesterday - north - hostile aircraft - Sde Eliezer, Hotel Ahuzat Yarden, Tzahar Industrial Zone, Rosh Pina, Hatzor Haglilit, Machanaim, Ayelet Hashahar

*9:35pm yesterday - north - rockets/missiles
*11:35pm yesterday-north - rockets/missiles
*2:30am - Isouth - DF says it intercepted drone ‘from the east’ as Iraqi militia claims attack on southern Israel. The IDF says that it intercepted a drone “launched from the east,” a term used to refer to Iraq. 

No air raid sirens were activated before the interception, which an IDF statement says was “in accordance with protocol.”

The statement from the military comes shortly after the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iran-backed militia network, claimed an attack on southern Israel.
*4:55am - north - rockets/missiles

*5:55am - north - rockets/missiles
*7:35am- north - rockets/missiles
*8:20am- north - rockets/missiles
*8:25am - north - rockets/missiles - Two missiles launched from Lebanon were successfully intercepted by air defenses over the Carmel region in northern Israel a short while ago, the IDF says.

Sirens had sounded in Israel’s northern coastal plain, including Caesarea and Zichron Yaakov and nearby towns south of Haifa amid the attack. There are no reports of injuries or damage.

*9:00am -north - rockets/missiles
*11:20am -north - rockets/missiles 
*11:40am - Hadera - terror attack - terrorist stabbing of 6 people, 2 in life threatening condition, 4 in moderate to light injuries
*12:55pm - north - rockets/missiles
*1:10pm - north - rockets/missiles- The IDF says some 40 rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Haifa area in the Hezbollah attack a short while ago.

Some of the rockets were intercepted, but several impacts were identified in the area, the IDF adds. At least two people were injured by shrapnel in one of the impacts. The Ynet news site reports that an impact in Kiryat Bialik has caused power outages.

*2:00pm - Haifa and all around- Hezbollah takes responsibility for the rocket fire that killed a man and a woman in Kiryat Shmona, with the terror group claiming to have targeted a “gathering of Israeli enemy forces” in the mostly evacuated border city.

However, Hebrew media reports indicate that those killed were a couple out on a walk with their dogs. The Fire and Rescue Service says the impacts have started fires in several buildings in the city, with five teams working to put them out.

*2:15pm - north - rockets/missiles 
*3:15pm - north - rockets/missiles
*3:25pm - north - rockets/missiles
*3:40pm - south - rockets/missiles - Netiv Haasara, Yad Mordecai
*4:05pm -north - rockets/missiles

*4:20pm -north - rockets/missiles
*4:40pm - north - rockets/missiles
*4:45pm - north - rockets/missiles -A heavy rocket barrage from Lebanon not long ago reportedly caused a direct hit on a home in Safed, according to initial reports.

The Israel Police say in a statement that its officers are responding to reports of several impact sites in Safed, with no reports so far of any injuries. Rockets sounded in a wide swath of towns about 20 minutes ago, and heavy booms were heard with a number of interceptions seen in the skies over the northern city. video

*5:30pm -north - rockets/missiles -A barrage of some 90 rockets was fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Upper Galilee an hour ago, the IDF says.

According to the military, some of the rockets were intercepted. Impacts were reported in Safed and nearby towns, causing damage. There are no immediate reports of injuries. Fires were also sparked by impacts in open areas. Meanwhile, the IDF says it struck the launchers used to fire a barrage of rockets at Kiryat Shmona earlier today, in an attack that killed two Israeli civilians. It releases footage of the strikes. video

Hostage Updates 

• Government point man for hostages Gal Hirsch met with his US counterpart, special envoy Roger Carstens, several times this week, the Prime Minister’s Office says.

  It adds that the pair discussed “efforts to bring back the hostages.”

  They also visited the Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center to view items captured by the IDF in Gaza, and viewed footage of the October 7 kidnappings. link As Gal Hirsch is distinctly unqualified for this job, has little understanding of all that is going on and his appointment was strictly a political thing (he isn't even formally in the position of Laiason or coordinator of activities for hostages and missing Israelis because because the office that handles government appointments would not approve him), theses meetings have little importance other than press reports, unfortunately.
  Unbelievably, this is the only news report today and for the last few days having anything to do with the hostages other than the memorial accounts of October 7. I, unfortunately have written about this too many times in the past when the hostage issue is not even 'on page 6'. There needs to be news of it every single day and it needs to be on the front page, including actions and inactions of the failed government, and the families fights to be heard and convince the government, specifically the prime minister to make a deal and get them home. It is despicable that the government and prime minister need to be convinced and the press allows them to get away with it and not cover that on the front pages. I expected more from the press.

Gaza  

•  Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has recently sent a message to the Qatari mediators of a potential hostage-ceasefire deal seeking a guarantee that Israel will not try to kill him in the course of the negotiations, Channel 12 says in an unsourced report.

  Sinwar wants “immunity” from a potential targeted strike during the talks, the report says.

  It further says that the Qataris responded by telling him that his personal wellbeing is not the issue, and that a deal must be done and the hostages returned. It also claims Qatar is threatening to freeze Hamas bank assets and warning that it will not help fund rebuilding in Gaza after the war unless there is progress in the currently deadlocked talks.

  The TV station was one of several media outlets that reported yesterday that Sinwar has reestablished contact with the Qatari mediators after weeks of silence. These reports have not been confirmed and the Ynet news site quoted an Israeli source earlier today denying them. Link there are a number of questionable statements made here. Number one is his demand not to be assassinated. Sinwar recognizes his weakened military of terrorist but he, I’m sure still feels that he has the stronger hand, he is holding the hostages. He is also the most extreme of the extremists and has always been ready to die for the cause. He is certain that, as a supreme martyr, he will enjoy all that heaven has to give him. Does he want to die now? Of course not. He wants to continue the armed struggle until he brings about the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews, but he is prepared to die and take as many Israelis with him as possible and that includes the hostages. If Israel succeeds in assassinating him, it will almost surely mean that all of the guards holding hostages will kill them all. Assassinating Sinwar is absolutely the worst thing that Israel can do at this time. He is definitely a dead man walking, but we must be patient and get all the hostages home first.

• Leaflets dropped in the Gaza Strip: "Sinwar, no tunnel is too deep. Ask Nasrallah"

  Leaflets were dropped in the Al-Mawasi area of the Gaza Strip, with a message for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. "No tunnel is too deep, Sinwar. Ask the Sayyed Hassan (Hassan Nasrallah)," they read. The leaflet featured an image with an hourglass, in the lower part of which were Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif, and Saleh al-Arouri, senior Hamas officials who were eliminated during the war.

  

  Other leaflets dropped in the same area contained a message for "the people of the Gaza Strip." "Hamas's actions, and the fact that it lured your children to join its ranks, have caused many of you to lose what is most precious to you, especially in the last year. Now the movement is trying to lure your children to join its ranks again, in exchange for money. Don't you want a better future for your children?"

  

  
  

• Violent ‘Megalomaniac’ Sinwar Takes Hamas on Even More Radical Path
  Architect of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel has revived the practice of suicide bombings to achieve the group’s goals

  

  After Yahya Sinwar, the man responsible for launching the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, took full control of Hamas over the summer, Arab intelligence officials say he sent a directive to a senior operative: Now is the time to revive suicide bombings. 

  A few days later, a bespectacled Palestinian entered Tel Aviv with a blue backpack loaded with explosives. Although the bomb exploded before the man reached his target, killing only him, the attack sent an unmistakable message.

  “What a blessing it is that my bones become shrapnel that blow apart the usurping Zionist Jews,” said the attacker, Ja’far Sa’d Saeed Muna, a member of Hamas’s armed wing, in a video released later by Hamas. 

  The U.S.-designated terrorist organization has long embraced militancy, but the group largely discontinued suicide attacks two decades ago. At the time, a spate of them had spread terror in Israel’s streets but failed to extract concessions from its government, and some Hamas leaders feared such attacks would make the group a political pariah.

  Despite misgivings within Hamas, no one was willing to speak out against the practice once Sinwar was at the helm of the group, according to the Arab intelligence officials, who said they communicate regularly with Hamas leaders, including Sinwar.
  

  In the past week, Hamas has claimed two separate shooting attacks in Israel—one in Tel Aviv that killed seven and a second in Beersheba that killed a female Israeli soldier.

  
  Seven people were killed in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv last week. Photo: jack guez/AFP/Getty

  Sinwar, who has been Hamas’s top leader in Gaza for years, took control of the politburo in August after Israel killed the previous leader, Ismail Haniyeh, the preceding month. His ascension was the culmination of a yearslong internal struggle over how to balance two competing visions for the group.

  For years, Hamas had been split between hard-liners such as Sinwar, who view the deaths of civilians as necessary to destabilize Israel, and militants who countenance violence but want the group to preserve some political legitimacy as a route to achieving its aims of a Palestinian state. Sinwar is now imposing his more violent vision on Hamas as the Israeli military squeezes the group in Gaza.
  

  Hamas didn’t respond to requests for comment.

  As Israel’s focus shifts toward a ground offensive in Lebanon, having killed Hezbollah’s leader there, talks for a cease-fire in Gaza appear to be going nowhere. Internally, Sinwar has disparaged more-mainstream Hamas officials living relatively comfortable lives in Qatar, where the group interfaces with the rest of the world, people familiar with the matter say.  

  “Under Sinwar, Hamas can be expected to be a much clearer-cut, hard-line fundamentalist organization,” said Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank, who wrote a book on the group.
  

  Sinwar vs. the ‘hotel guys’

  Sinwar and Haniyeh rose to power after the previous Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, stepped down as head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017. Haniyeh replaced him as head of the politburo and Sinwar became the leader in Gaza.

  Haniyeh and Sinwar steered Hamas toward closer relations with Iran. But tensions mounted between Sinwar and Haniyeh, who began to believe his counterpart in Gaza had spent too much time in Israeli prison and was failing to understand that Hamas needed to portray an image of a legitimate political organization to engage with Arab states, according to the intelligence officials involved in mediation between the two men.
  

  Egypt organized a meeting in July 2023 to unite Hamas with rival Palestinian factions. Sinwar declined to attend, telling interlocutors he was worried a Haniyeh-led faction would unseat him while he was outside the strip, these officials said.

  A few months later, Sinwar mounted the Oct. 7 attacks, in which Hamas and other militants killed 1,200 people, including women and children, and kidnapped around 250 others. The attack led to the conflict in Gaza, where Palestinian health authorities say almost 42,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians. The figures don’t tally the number of combatants killed.
  

  While Hamas’s political leadership in Doha, led by Haniyeh, was aware of a potential attack, the timing caught them off guard, according to current and former Arab and Israeli officials. Iran and Hezbollah offered only limited help in the aftermath.

  Hamas officials in Doha, while publicly praising the Oct. 7 attack, began privately criticizing Sinwar as a “megalomaniac,” according to Arab and Hamas officials.

  Haniyeh, Meshaal and others were talking about Sinwar in “no uncertain terms,” said Ehud Yaari, a veteran Israeli columnist who interviewed Sinwar in prison and says he maintains a communication channel with him. “That he made a mistake, that he’s a political amateur.”
  

  Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza dismantled Hamas’s military structures. Hamas’s political leadership began meeting other Palestinian factions in early December to discuss reconciliation and a postwar plan without consulting Sinwar. 

  

  
  

  Haniyeh was open to demilitarizing and pressuring Sinwar and Hamas’s military wing to acquiesce to a cease-fire deal in Gaza. Sinwar, in a message to the political leaders, blasted the bypass as “shameful and outrageous” and began privately criticizing Haniyeh and Meshaal. 

  “He calls them the ‘hotels guys,’” because they stay in opulent residences in Doha, said Yaari, the Israeli columnist. 

  As Israel’s army got bogged down, Sinwar became more confident that international criticism of Israel would force its military into a cease-fire, leaving Hamas intact. Then, on July 31, Haniyeh was killed by a bomb placed in his room at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in Iran. 

  

  The funeral in Tehran for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in August

  For six days in August, Hamas officials in Gaza, the West Bank and those outside the Palestinian territories relayed messages seeking a consensus candidate to succeed Haniyeh, according to Arab and Hamas officials familiar with the deliberations. 
  

  Members first suggested Meshaal. Sinwar interrupted with a message that the new leader must be someone close to Iran. Then members of Hamas’s armed wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, sent a message: The leader must be Sinwar.

  A past steeped in violence

  From Hamas’s inception in the 1980s, Sinwar was one of the group’s more zealous members. 

  In a book he wrote years later, Sinwar described how an internal security police force he started called Al-Majd, or “Glory,” kidnapped and executed informants for Israel, at times publicly displaying their bodies as a deterrent. After Israel arrested him in 1988, he confessed to strangling a suspected Palestinian collaborator with Israel. He buried another alive, according to an Israeli interrogator.

  The unit made some mistakes and innocent people died, he wrote later in his book, describing killing as necessary to combat Israel. 
  

  In the 1990s, Qassam members began using suicide bombings to disrupt peace accords between Israelis and Palestinians. The attacks accelerated during the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of the early 2000s, killing hundreds of Israelis, and were controversial even among Hamas members.

  

  During the second intifada of the early 2000s, suicide bombings by Hamas picked up, including at a restaurant in the port city of Haifa in 2002 that killed 16 Israelis.

  Many in the movement believed the tactic diminished support internationally for the Palestinian cause and that killing Israeli civilians caused Palestinians to lose the moral high ground that came with life under Israeli military occupation. The bombings also were contentious in Islam, which prohibits suicide.

  Still, some Hamas members argued the bombers were sacrificing their lives for a larger cause, terming the attacks “martyrdom operations.” Israeli citizens were legitimate targets, Sinwar wrote in his book, with the attacks creating “confusion, paralysis, and psychological impact on Israeli society.”
  

  Hamas largely ended its suicide attacks in the 2000s. The exact reasons are debated, but experts on the group say the bombings didn’t achieve the concessions Hamas wanted. Israel began building a security fence around Palestinian territories that made attacks more difficult.

  

  Hamas members celebrated in Gaza City in 2007 after the group effectively took over the strip. Photo: Abid Katib/Getty Images

  After the second intifada ended in 2005, Hamas began to pursue a more politically focused agenda under then-leader Meshaal, winning legislative elections for the Palestinian Authority, which was governing the West Bank and Gaza. Israel, the U.S. and much of the international community boycotted the result. 

  In 2007, Hamas wrested control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority. Four years later, Sinwar was released in a prisoner swap. He soon became a member of Hamas’s political leadership and its liaison with the armed wing.

  ‘Jihad, victory or martyrdom’

  When Sinwar became Hamas’s top leader in August, he had the backing of its armed wing. His elevation reflected a view among some members that more conciliatory figures within Hamas had failed to achieve much, according to people who study the group.
  

  Sinwar’s plan appears to be to try to survive Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza and emerge from hiding to claim leadership of the Palestinian cause, with an ultimate goal of eliminating Israel. Arab mediators involved in trying to negotiate a cease-fire in Gaza describe Sinwar discussing the war, and his role in it, in increasingly grandiose terms. 

  Following the 40-day Islamic period of mourning for Haniyeh, Sinwar sent letters in his name to Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and others who have supported Hamas. Hamas is prepared for a long war of attrition to break Israel’s will, he wrote in one letter viewed by the Journal. 

  

  Yahya Sinwar appeared on a Tehran billboard shortly after he took full control of Hamas in August. Photo: majid asgaripour/WANA/Reuters

  The efforts will pave the way for Israel’s demise, he wrote, before quoting the Quran: “And they ask, ‘When will that be?’ Say, ‘Perhaps it will be soon.’”

  Although some have speculated recently about the possibility of Sinwar’s demise, Arab officials mediating a cease-fire say they received messages in his name in the past week. His discipline in using rudimentary communications may be helping keep him alive, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

  Soon after he took control of Hamas, Sinwar gave the directive to relaunch suicide bombings to Zaher Jabarin, a Hamas fundraiser who recently took over responsibility for the West Bank from another Hamas leader killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to Arab intelligence officials.

  In his final video message, Muna, the suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, summed up Sinwar’s zero-sum approach to fighting Israel using the motto of Hamas’s armed wing.

  “It is Jihad, victory, or martyrdom,” he said.  link

• In Gaza, the 162nd Division continues a new offensive in Jabaliya, while the 252nd Division continues to operate in the Netzarim Corridor and in a fresh raid in Bureij.

  During the operations in Gaza, the IDF says troops killed gunmen and located weapons.

  
  
  

Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria

• IDF says it destroyed Hezbollah tunnel that crossed into Israel but had no exit point

  
  An image released by the IDF on October 8, 2024, showing the location of a Hezbollah tunnel that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon and has been demolished. (Israel Defense Forces)

  
  
  

  Israeli forces have demolished a small Hezbollah tunnel that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon by several meters, the military announces.

  According to the IDF, the 20-meter-long tunnel had no exit in Israeli territory, and its path crossed the UN-recognized Blue Line by about 10 meters, in the western sector of the border, near the Lebanese village of Marwahin, just across from the Israeli community of Zar’it.

  No towns were ever under any threat by the tunnel, the military says.

  According to Israeli military assessments, Hezbollah began the construction of the tunnel about two years ago, and it was quickly identified by the IDF. The military says it wanted to keep tabs on the tunnel as it was being built, rather than reveal to Hezbollah that it had intelligence of the underground route.

  The tunnel was then physically located by commandos during raids in southern Lebanon several months ago, though the military stresses that it was previously known to the IDF and it had full control over the area.

  The military says troops searched the tunnel and found weapons inside, including explosives and anti-tank missiles.

  Now that the IDF is operating in southern Lebanon with larger forces, it says it took the opportunity to demolish the tunnel.

  According to the IDF, there are no other known tunnels that cross into Israel from Lebanon.
  
  

• Hezbollah’s call for a ceasefire today shows the terror group is on the back foot and “getting battered,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller tells a regular briefing.

  Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem said in a televised address the Iran-backed group’s capabilities are intact and its fighters are pushing back Israeli ground incursions, despite the “painful blows” inflicted by Israel in recent weeks.

  Qassem said the group supports the efforts of Lebanon’s Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, to secure a ceasefire, without providing further details on any conditions demanded by Hezbollah.

  “For a year, you had the world calling for this ceasefire, you had Hezbollah refusing to agree to one, and now that Hezbollah is on the back foot and is getting battered, suddenly they’ve changed their tune and want a ceasefire,” Miller says.

  “We continue to ultimately want a diplomatic solution to this conflict,” Miller says.

• Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a military source, claims that seven civilians were killed and 11 others were wounded in tonight’s alleged Israeli airstrike on Damascus.

  SANA says Israeli warplanes launched three missiles from over the Golan Heights, targeting a residential and commercial building in the Mezzeh district of the capital.

  In addition to the casualties, the strike caused “significant material damage,” it says.

  It adds that rescue forces are still working to extract people from under the rubble.

  The Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath reported earlier that the target was a top Hezbollah official in the terror group’s Unit 4400, which is tasked with delivering weapons from Iran and its proxies to Lebanon.

  
  

• The IDF is calling on Lebanese civilians near two buildings in the southern suburb of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh, to evacuate immediately ahead of airstrikes.

  Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, publishes maps alongside the announcement, which call on civilians to distance themselves at least 500 meters from the sites, which the military says belong to Hezbollah.

  In recent days, the IDF has issued several evacuation orders for specific sites in Dahiyeh ahead of airstrikes on Hezbollah infrastructure.

• After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah’s projected successor has been killed, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military is still looking into the results of the strike.

  Asked at a press conference about the alleged assassination on Thursday of top Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, Hagari says: “We struck Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut… this is the headquarters of the head of the intelligence division, Abu Abdullah Mortada. We know that Hashem Safieddine was there with him. The results of this strike are still being looked into, Hezbollah is trying to hide the details. When we know, we will update the public.”

  IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says 50 operatives and at least six top commanders in Hezbollah’s so-called Southern Front were killed in a wide wave of airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Monday.

  “We can confirm that in the strike, more than 50 terrorists, among them six senior commanders, were killed. This is a heavy blow to Hezbollah. We can see this now during the fighting in the south [of Lebanon],” he says in a press conference.

  “The terrorists we killed yesterday are the commanders and terrorists who were set, on the day that the order would be given, to infiltrate Israel, into towns in the north, to murder, and kidnap Israeli civilians,” Hagari says.

  The Southern Front, responsible for the terror group’s military activity in south Lebanon, was commanded by Ali Karaki, who was killed alongside Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah last month.

  Yesterday, the IDF said that some 100 Israeli fighter jets carried out a large wave of airstrikes against more than 120 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

  The strikes, which lasted an hour, hit Hezbollah sites belonging to the terror group’s Southern Front, elite Radwan Force, rocket and missile division, and intelligence division, according to the military.

  
  

• Israeli troops have razed the so-called “Garden of Iran” on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese village of Maroun al-Ras, and raised an Israeli flag over the area.

  The park, located less than a kilometer from the Israeli border, used to feature a statue of assassinated IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani pointing at Israel and a replica of Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock.

  Footage shared on social media yesterday shows the heavily damaged park following Israeli operations in the area, and troops placing an Israeli flag there, where an Iranian one once flew. Video raising the Israeli flag

• Several Hezbollah drone storage sites were destroyed in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon yesterday, the military says.

  According to the IDF, the drone caches were located both above and below ground. Additionally, drone launchers that were to be used by Hezbollah were struck.

  In a separate strike overnight, the IDF says fighter jets struck a Hezbollah weapons manufacturing plant in Beirut, and a command center belonging to the terror group’s intelligence division.

  Before the strike, the IDF issued a warning to civilians in the area. video

• Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a police source, says a member of the country’s security forces has been killed and another wounded in an Israeli strike near the southern city of Quneitra, close to the Israeli border.

• Hezbollah operatives who killed a paratrooper officer last week in southern Lebanon were eliminated in an airstrike, the IDF says, releasing footage of the incident without specifying when the airstrike took place.

  Cpt. Ben Zion Falach, 21, of the Paratroopers Brigade’s 202nd Battalion, was killed during an exchange of fire with Hezbollah gunmen in a village in southern Lebanon on October 2.

  The military says that the Hezbollah operatives were spotted by the paratroopers using a small drone, and they directed the Israeli Air Force to carry out a drone strike against them. Another operative was killed in an exchange of fire in a building, the IDF adds.

  Separately, the IDF says the paratroopers have located hundreds of weapons, including in a 7-meter-deep bunker in a village where they are operating. video of the drone attack on Hizbollah terrorists

• The Israeli Air Force struck over 230 targets in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon over the past day, the military says.

  According to the IDF, the targets included 185 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, and some 45 Hamas sites in Gaza, including sites where cells of operatives were gathered, observation posts, rocket launchers and weapon depots.

  The IDF says troops continue to battle Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon, and several gunmen were killed during the past day in close-quarters combat and in airstrikes.

  Weapons and rocket launchers were also found by the troops in southern Lebanon.

• The IDF releases footage of drone strikes on Hezbollah operatives in southern Lebanon, directed by troops of the 636th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit.

  
  

  The unit is operating alongside the 36th Division in southern Lebanon, and using drones to identify Hezbollah members.

  
  

  One of the recent strikes killed a Hezbollah company commander, the IDF adds. video
  
  

• Russia’s foreign ministry says Hezbollah is still organized and has not lost its chain of command despite Israeli strikes.

  “According to our assessments, Hezbollah, including the military wing, has not lost its chain of command and is demonstrating organization,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova tells reporters.

  Zakharova blames the West, in particular the United States and Britain, for stoking the conflict in the Middle East and showing hypocrisy by its support for Israel.

  Russia also scolds Israel for a strike on Syria attributed to but not claimed by the Jewish state.

  “Once again, Israel has grossly violated the sovereignty of Syria by launching a missile attack on a multi-story apartment building in a densely populated area of Damascus,” Zakharova says.

  “It is outrageous that such actions have literally turned into a routine practice applied to Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip,” Zakharova says, adding that it shows Israel’s “desire to further expand the geography of armed escalation in the region.”

West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel

• Police say Hadera stabbing was a terror attack, suspect ‘neutralized’ after fleeing on moped
  

  Ending the widespread speculation, the Israel Police says the Hadera stabbing in which six people were wounded, two of them critically, was a terror attack.

  Police say a suspect has been located and “neutralized,” without elaborating.

  They say he stabbed people in four different locations and fled on a moped.

  Security sources name the assailant as Ahmad Jabareen, 36, an Israeli citizen from the nearby Arab city of Umm al-Fahm.

• The IDF says a Palestinian suspect was shot yesterday after resisting arrest at the Tarqumiyah crossing from the West Bank into Israel, and that while being treated, he tried to grab a firearm from a soldier.

  According to the army, IDF forces spotted a suspect at the Tarqumiyah crossing, in the South Hebron hills, and tried to detain him. The man resisted arrest and was shot in the leg as a result.

  “While receiving medical treatment due to the shooting, the terrorist tried to grab a gun from the military force that was accompanying him,” but was prevented from so doing, the IDF says.

   

Politics and the War (general news)

• Netanyahu to Gallant: Washington visit – only after Cabinet approval and my call with Biden
  The Prime Minister and Defense Minister are in yet another direct confrontation. Just hours before Gallant's planned departure, Netanyahu informed him that his visit to Washington is contingent upon the Cabinet approving Israel's actions regarding Iran and will only occur after the Prime Minister speaks with U.S. President Biden.
  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this evening (Tuesday) and clarified that he does not approve Gallant's visit to Washington at this time. During their conversation, Netanyahu said that Gallant must first wait for his own call with Biden and for the Security Cabinet's approval of Israel's actions regarding Iran. The Defense Minister was supposed to go on a short one-day visit to the U.S. He had planned to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, having received an official invitation from the Pentagon. Gallant was also scheduled to meet with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan for coordination talks on the Iranian issue, meetings that will now be canceled in the absence of approval for the trip.
  The conversation between Netanyahu and Gallant took place just hours before Gallant’s scheduled departure to Washington. The Prime Minister's office explained that this is a normal sequence of actions, stating there is no point in the Defense Minister's trip as long as an official and clear Israeli decision on the upcoming security actions hasn’t been made, which needs to be communicated to the Americans.  link This meeting was based on a request from The US Defense Secretary to Galant to come to an emergency meeting in Washington. This is an emergency meeting and Galant, of course responded in the affirmative. However, Netanyahu has his own personal considerations that always come first. He said he would approve the trip in the future as long as certain conditions are met. These conditions are not on Galant but on the White House. Netanyahu is demanding the President Biden calls him as was promised and then he will approve the trip after the cabinet also approves the trip. Netanyahu's pride has been hurt by Biden and he is trying to show that the tail wags the dog. Unbelievable that he is treating the war as his personal game and if he doesn't get what he wants, he won't allow the US to play. article stating Netanyahu's demandsTwitter post about Netanyahu's blackmail of Biden by Lieutenant Colonel (reserves) Avi Benyahu, member of Kibbutz Lehavot Haviva, owner and CEO of a consulting and crisis management company, a farmer, 57 years old with a resume of 96 years experience.
  "This is no less than: 

A. Damage to Israel's security at a critical point in time for us. 

B. An attempt to extort threats from the President of the USA while taking the security of the country hostage. 

C. Bringing relations with our ally to a low during a war."

The Region and the World

•    Tehran has told Gulf states it would be “unacceptable” if they allow their airspace to be used against Iran and any such move will draw a response, a senior Iranian official says, as Tehran braces for Israeli retaliation for last week’s missile attack on the country.

  “Iran made it clear that any action by a Persian Gulf country against Tehran, whether through the use of airspace or military bases, will be regarded by Tehran as an action taken by the entire group, and Tehran will respond accordingly,” the senior Iranian official tells Reuters.

  “The message emphasized the need for regional unity against Israel and the importance of securing stability. It also made clear that any assistance to Israel, such as allowing the use of a regional country’s airspace for actions against Iran, is unacceptable,” he says.

  
  

• The Wall Street Journal reports that US President Joe Biden’s administration is frustrated that the Israeli government is refusing to tell it anything about its planned retaliation to Iran’s missile attack last week, adding details from a previous time this recently happened.

  Citing unnamed US officials, the American news site says that after Jerusalem surprised Washington by assassinating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah late last month without coordination with the White House, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was blunt in a subsequent phone call with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

  “Excuse me, what did you say?” Austin reportedly asked Gallant when the latter told him about the operation.

  Later that day, during a second phone call between the two, Austin asked Gallant if Jerusalem was ready to defend itself on its own, since the US hadn’t had time to deploy its forces to deflect a potential immediate reprisal by Hezbollah, according to the report.

• The Foreign Ministry holds a ceremony to remember foreigners who were killed and kidnapped on October 7 of last year.

  About 100 foreign diplomats attend the event, which begins with a minute of silence.

  US envoy Jack Lew, representing the diplomatic corps in Israel, pledges that the US will not give up until every hostage is brought home.

  Thailand’s ambassador lights a memorial candle. Hamas and other Palestinian groups killed 41 Thai citizens and kidnapped 30 during their attack.

  Memorial wreaths were laid by the ambassadors of Tanzania and Nepal, both of whom have countrymen still held hostage in Gaza.

  Pro-Israel Iranians also participate in the event.

• According to several Hebrew media language reports, an Israeli reporter named Joshua Tartakovsky has been arrested in Beirut after entering on a foreign passport.

  The reports, citing Lebanese news outlets, say that Tartakovsky entered Lebanon on a British passport around two weeks ago but aroused suspicions, and was arrested by Lebanese authorities after he was found to also be holding an Israeli ID. It is illegal for Israelis to enter Lebanon under both Israeli and Lebanese law.

Personal Stories

  

Modi Amir, 67: ‘Quick thinking’ dad sacrificed himself to save family
Murdered by Hamas terrorists in his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7

Mordechai “Modi” Amir, 67, was murdered by Hamas terrorists in his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7.

When he realized that terrorists had invaded the kibbutz, he instructed his two daughters and granddaughter to hide in the shower that he had built in their reinforced room. He decided to stay in the main section of the room, knowing he was unable to lock the door, and hoping that the terrorists would believe he was there alone.

When the terrorists entered the home, they killed Modi in his safe room, his body blocking the bathroom entrance, saving the lives of the rest of his family. His daughters and granddaughter were rescued and evacuated from the kibbutz almost 24 hours later.

Modi was buried on October 18 in Tel Aviv. He is survived by his wife, Batya, their children Alon, Anat, Limor and Zohar, several grandchildren and two sisters.

His son-in-law, Yony Kozo, told Makor Rishon that Modi’s actions on October 7 “were a deliberate decision, for what was best. It cost him his life, and this is how he saved his daughters and granddaughter. Modi was a computer guy in hi-tech companies, an amateur electrician, plumber and carpenter, a man who was quick thinking and who always knew how to find the most practical solution. And that’s what he did in those moments.”

An online eulogy noted that Modi was born in Givatayim and moved to Kfar Aza with a youth settlement group at age 18. He got a degree in biology at Ben Gurion University, where he met his wife, Batya. The couple settled in Kfar Aza where they raised their family. At first he worked as an electrician in the kibbutz, later moving into the world of computers, and eventually going to work for IBM for 20 years, the eulogy said. In 2015 he started working for a startup called Resonai, where he remained until he was killed.

His daughter, Anat, wrote online that her father “loved to laugh, and was very funny. He wouldn’t tell jokes, but he would tell his stories and his struggles. He had a natural talent for it and a charisma that made him and his stories the center of every conversation.”

Anat said that her father “believed in work, and he did everything himself. Both because he was hardworking and enjoyed it, and also because he didn’t trust other professionals — who didn’t meet his high standards,” and he built most of the family home himself. “He was very smart, which was another reason he did everything himself — he had no problems researching, reading and learning what was necessary.”

Anat asked the artist Zeev (Shoshke) Engelmayer to design a plaque for his grave, which read: “Here lies Modi, the love of our lives, a man of work, smart and resourceful, a lover of people who laughed and made us laugh.”

“Modi was an optimist, loved to tell stories, and also loved ice cream. He was the national champion of incredible hugs, and he loved his children most of all.”

Dark Legacy - The Abandonment of October 7th Hostages

That Man

Eyal Megged

Author.

That man, whom I once considered a friend, has become - to my horror - our nemesis. That man, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is now our greatest enemy.

I asked him at the beginning of the war - a war which started under circumstances he is chiefly responsible for - to beat his chest, to apologize to the people of Israel, to beg our collective forgiveness and to vacate his seat. I had not realized that his plans were far more grandiose, that he was determined to destroy the state itself. I could not fathom the fact that his mind was made up to go down in history as the one who turned off the lights, leaving the shadow of death in his wake.

Make no mistakes. Every step he takes, every decision he makes, is based on lies and falsehood. But his deceptions are not meant to keep him in charge of our common homeland. That, too, is a feint. His true purpose is to demolish our home.

His fiendish plan is quickly coming to fruition. What we are witnessing during these horrible days is a campaign of revenge. He is exacting his revenge upon a people which he despises and which he does not deserve.

And upon a country which he loves only conditionally, just as long as it is an asset to his name, handing him the only things he truly cherishes - power and control. When suddenly the ground begins to shake under his feet, there is nothing and no one he would not abandon. Shameless, lacking a conscience, he will sacrifice in cold blood the lives of young soldiers merely to postpone facing his comeuppance. And if we cannot stop him, what we have seen so far is merely a promo to his sacrificing the entire country to protect himself.

When I watched him gleefully laughing in parliament on the very same day that four families lost their sons - and their entire world - in Gaza, I was stunned. It was a gloating laugh, a chortle of his total victory over us. It was the laughter of Nero watching Rome go up in flames. I know now that the lunatic is running the asylum. That he is determined.

That he is acting on a plan, a plan to leave nothing behind except his legacy as the greatest nemesis we have ever known. One who stands in line with each one of our oppressors, no exceptions.

His laughter echoes through the homes of the grieving and the bereaved; the homes of the families of the hostages he has forsaken, their blood on his hands. It echoes between the charred walls of the burning towns and villages in the north, and in the ruins of the south. We can all hear the echoes of his laughter, we who grieve those already dead and the impending demise of our homeland, condemned to death under this man.

If we want to avert the nightmare hurtling towards us, it is our sacred duty to replace That Man.

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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