π️Lonny's War Update- October 401, 2023 - November 10, 2024 π️
π️Day 401 that 101 of our hostages in Hamas captivity
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
We’re waiting for you, all of you.
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
A deal is the only way to bring
all the hostages home- the murdered for burial and the living for rehabilitation.
#BringThemHomeNow #TurnTheHorrorIntoHope
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
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
*12:45am - north - hostile aircraft - Sha'ar Yeshuv, Dafna, Beit Hillel, Kiryat Shemona, Manara*9:15am - north - rockets/missiles - Hebrew media reported that a dining hall in the northern town of Tel Hai sustained serious damage in an earlier barrage. There was no report from the military of an impact in the area, though sirens sounded in the border community on Sunday morning. video
*11:05am - north - rockets/missiles
*11:15am - north - rockets/missiles
*12:40pm - north -rockets/missiles
*2:15pm - north - rockets/missiles
*2:45pm - north -rockets/missiles
*4:20pm - north - rockets/missiles
*4:45pm - north - rockets/missiles
*5:20pm - north - hostile aircraft - Haifa
*5:45pm - north -hostile aircraft - Goren Guest Ranch, Manot
*6:05pm - north - rockets/missiles
*11:05am - north - rockets/missiles
*11:15am - north - rockets/missiles
*12:40pm - north -rockets/missiles
*2:15pm - north - rockets/missiles
*2:45pm - north -rockets/missiles
*4:20pm - north - rockets/missiles
*4:45pm - north - rockets/missiles
*5:20pm - north - hostile aircraft - Haifa
*5:45pm - north -hostile aircraft - Goren Guest Ranch, Manot
*6:05pm - north - rockets/missiles
Hostage Updates
Hostage Updates
Former hostage Noa Argami appears to blast the government’s inaction in bringing about the release of the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza.
“I don’t even know how to describe to you the feeling of frustration I experienced while I was still in Hama captivity. Day after day would pass, and I’d remain in a state of complete uncertainty wrapped in despair,” she writes in an Instagram post.
“‘When will it be my turn to return home?’ ‘Have they forgotten me? Left me behind?'” she recalls having wondered until she was freed in an IDF rescue operation in June.
“You can’t ignore the fact that for 400 days, there have been 101 abductees just waiting for someone to come rescue them, and the abandonment continues, for 400 days too long,” she adds.
A senior official involved in the hostage negotiations has issued a concerning forecast about the hostages.
Prof. Hagai Levine, head of the health division of the Hostage Headquarters, warns that this winter, unlike last winter, the hostages do not have time, and there is severe deterioration in their health, which could be fatal. He stated, "This winter, the hostages have no physiological reserves left. They have depleted their fat tissue, their muscle mass has diminished, and their ability to cope with the cold is weak to the extent of posing a severe risk of frostbite and death. Their essential vitamins and minerals are significantly lacking, raising their risk for dangerous heart rhythm disturbances."
Additionally, a few days ago, Micha Kobi, a former senior official in the Shin Bet and former interrogator of Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli prison, discussed in an interview with *Maariv* the state of Hamas after Sinwar's elimination, offering a troubling perspective on the hostage negotiation efforts. "Hamas's main headquarters are no longer operational, but guerrilla fighters from the organization are still fighting across the region under local and even neighborhood-based Hamas commands. Currently, no one in Hamas knows exactly where all the hostages are being held," claims Kobi. He added, "Someone may know the location of one or two hostages, but I don’t think there is anyone who knows the location of them all. There is no such thing as a deal; this is extortion. They are mercilessly extorting the state."
Kobi’s proposed solution for locating the hostages is to approach their captors directly: "We need to pay money to the hostage captors. After Sinwar was eliminated, this idea was discussed but not implemented. We should consider intelligence operations and approach certain knowledgeable families who can provide information about the hostages—in exchange for money." He also noted that Hamas is unwilling to cooperate or reveal any details about the hostages' condition.
As for the future, Kobi suggests that "the IDF and Shin Bet should establish units to oversee local governance and appoint Gazan health and education officials unaffiliated with Hamas. We have killed 90% of Hamas members, but we must ensure that nothing remains except their idea as a political party, with no operational capability." He added, "They will do everything to continue smuggling, so we must maintain control over the routes and monitor their movement. Otherwise, they will rebuild significant power and armament against us."
Kobi concludes with an assessment: "If we work properly, within one to two years, we can eliminate all of Hamas."link It is true that no one person or group knows where all the hostages are located but the one group who has the best possible way to find most of them remains Hamas. My brother was told that they need about a week to reach and communicate with the various bodies that have been holding the hostages. These are Hamas, Islamic Jihad, some smaller terrorist organization, criminal groups and individual Gazans/Gazan families. Hamas wanted to reach a deal that would give them a number of days to get this information together in order to present it to the negotiating partners (Qatar and Egypt) and they demanded that Israel not conduct flyovers, primarily of drones during this period. There are hostages' bodies that will never be found under the rubble of the destruction of Gaza. We can only hope that these numbers will be minimal. This Micha Kobi has made certain statements that are nothing more than speculation by a former operative who is speculating based on partial information available, mostly provided publicly by the IDF. HIs assessment that 90% of Hamas members have been killed is totally ridiculous and not based on anything but his own speculation. It would be great if it was true, but it is far from reality. The army's best estimates have been that about 14000 have been killed, several thousand taken as prisoners which would still leave 10,000-20,000 still in Gaza and they are fighting a guerilla war right now which is not to our advantage. And Kobi's suggestion to pay Gazans holding the hostages or for information leading to the hostages has been attempted a few times, including the last 2 weeks with absolutely zero success. As far as I'm concerned, all of his statements should be disregarded.
‘Why are they still in Gaza?’: Protesters in Tel Aviv mark 400 days since October 7
At first weekend rally since Gallant’s ouster, German ambassador to Israel, speaking in Hebrew, laments that freeing hostages is not primary aim for some in the government
Israelis demanding the government do more to enable the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since its October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre in southern Israel, attend a rally in Tel Aviv on November 9, 2024, marking 400 days since the Hamas attack and the abduction of the hostages. The placard on the right reads "400 days too many." (JACK GUEZ / AFP)Hundreds gathered outside the IDF’s Tel Aviv headquarters on Saturday evening for the weekly protest demanding a hostage deal, as many of the captives’ families leading the demonstration marked 400 days since their loved ones were abducted.
The crowd appeared slightly larger than in recent weeks. This weekend’s rally on Begin Road was the first since the major one that spontaneously unfolded on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was a proponent of a hostage-ceasefire deal.
While weekly protests earlier on in the war attracted tens and even hundreds of thousands, Home Front Command restrictions put in place in September cap such gatherings at 2,000 people.
A massive sign reading “Why are they still in Gaza? 400 days” hung from the pedestrian overpass down to street level, while big white cardboard letters on the street spelled out: “400 days — the shame of Netanyahu.” 
Demonstrators call for release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas, outside the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, November 9, 2024. (Tal Gal/Flash90)
Though overtly partisan politics are usually absent from the Begin Street protest, the youth wing of the opposition Yesh Atid party set up an informational stand by the demonstration.
A block away, some 500 people assembled at Hostages Square for the main weekly rally organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
With a band of mothers clad in white, Niva Wenkert, the mother of hostage Omer Wenkert, kicked off the rally with a call to join “Shift 101,” a silent protest group.
Demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip protest in Tel Aviv, November 9, 2024. (Itai Ron/Flash90)
After Wenkert, actor Lior Ashkenazi, the regular MC at the forum’s rallies, spoke against the government’s politicking at home while the captives have languished in Gaza. He noted that Saturday’s rally fell on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, drawing a direct line between the Nazi pogrom and Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023.
Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, also spoke at the rally, saying in Hebrew that for some Israeli politicians, “the fate of the hostages is just one of the [war’s] aims, and certainly not the primary one” — a not so subtle shot at members of Netanyahu’s hardline government.
Steffen Seibert, German ambassador to Israel, speaks at a protest in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square urging the release of Hamas-held hostages and marking 400 days since the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught and the abduction of hostages, November 9, 2024. (Paulina Patimer / Hostages Families Forum)
Seibert added that he was speaking “as the representative of Germany and out of responsibility” to hostages with German citizenship. “I must admit that until now, we have failed to bring everyone home. All the talks with those who have influence on Hamas” have failed to materialize.
Naming hostages who have German citizenship or are related to German citizens, Seibert said: “These are Germans, or family members of Germans, and we want them back.”
Saturday’s rally featured a wide spectrum of speakers representing the various factions supporting a hostage deal.
Following Seibert was Dolan Abu Salah, the mayor of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights where 12 children were killed in a July Hezbollah rocket attack; Rabbi Avidan Friedman, a settler from Efrat who led a hunger strike in front of the Knesset to demand a hostage deal; and journalist Shai Golden, whose departure from the right-wing Channel 14 drew rebukes from Netanyahu loyalists.
Demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip outside protest in Tel Aviv, November 9, 2024. (Itai Ron/Flash90)
“I consider myself right-wing, but I don’t come here as a right-winger — I come as an Israeli,” Golden said, arguing that the IDF will continue fighting “the Nazis of Hamas” for generations to come but that the government must sign a hostage deal immediately even if that means ending the war.
“What has gone wrong with your Jewish conscience, Mr. Prime Minister?” he asked. “Send your negotiating team wherever is necessary and say to them a single sentence: don’t you dare come back without a hostage deal.”
Friedman noted that in the past week’s Torah portion, the patriarch Abraham goes to war to save his hostage nephew Lot. “Then, as now, the foremost fight of our existential struggle is to rescue all of the hostages,” he said.
Protests calling for the release of hostages were also held Saturday evening in Jerusalem and Beersheba, with hundreds in attendance at both.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014. link- The Qataris froze their mediation efforts because they saw that the two sides were not prepared to reach an agreement. Egypt is continuing to mediate. Now is the time to open a direct secret back channel between Israel and Hamas. Direct contact can be freer to explore new possibilities, with built in deniability. Each of the sides blamed the other for blocking an agreement. Both sides are responsible. Hamas wants the war in Gaza to end. Netanyahu does not. Hamas wants to free Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu does not want to release Palestinian prisoners. Israel wants the hostages home. Hamas is not willing to release any hostages without a guarantee that the war will end and Israel will withdraw from Gaza. Israel does not agree that Hamas will continue to control Gaza after the war. Hamas seems ready not to control Gaza, but in the Hamas-Fatah negotiations, Fatah is not willing not to control Gaza either. There must be a non-partisan Palestinian civilian government in Gaza which is not Hamas and not Fatah and has control over everything - including the security forces, without that there is no possible agreement in sight. There is room for negotiations and possibilities for reaching agreements, but the negotiations must be ongoing without stop and they must be conducted as directly as possible. That is my experience in reaching breakthroughs. (Gershon Baskin, November 10, 2024)
Gaza and the South
Former hostage Noa Argami appears to blast the government’s inaction in bringing about the release of the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza.
“I don’t even know how to describe to you the feeling of frustration I experienced while I was still in Hama captivity. Day after day would pass, and I’d remain in a state of complete uncertainty wrapped in despair,” she writes in an Instagram post.
“‘When will it be my turn to return home?’ ‘Have they forgotten me? Left me behind?'” she recalls having wondered until she was freed in an IDF rescue operation in June.
“You can’t ignore the fact that for 400 days, there have been 101 abductees just waiting for someone to come rescue them, and the abandonment continues, for 400 days too long,” she adds.
A senior official involved in the hostage negotiations has issued a concerning forecast about the hostages.
Prof. Hagai Levine, head of the health division of the Hostage Headquarters, warns that this winter, unlike last winter, the hostages do not have time, and there is severe deterioration in their health, which could be fatal. He stated, "This winter, the hostages have no physiological reserves left. They have depleted their fat tissue, their muscle mass has diminished, and their ability to cope with the cold is weak to the extent of posing a severe risk of frostbite and death. Their essential vitamins and minerals are significantly lacking, raising their risk for dangerous heart rhythm disturbances."
Additionally, a few days ago, Micha Kobi, a former senior official in the Shin Bet and former interrogator of Yahya Sinwar in an Israeli prison, discussed in an interview with *Maariv* the state of Hamas after Sinwar's elimination, offering a troubling perspective on the hostage negotiation efforts. "Hamas's main headquarters are no longer operational, but guerrilla fighters from the organization are still fighting across the region under local and even neighborhood-based Hamas commands. Currently, no one in Hamas knows exactly where all the hostages are being held," claims Kobi. He added, "Someone may know the location of one or two hostages, but I don’t think there is anyone who knows the location of them all. There is no such thing as a deal; this is extortion. They are mercilessly extorting the state."
Kobi’s proposed solution for locating the hostages is to approach their captors directly: "We need to pay money to the hostage captors. After Sinwar was eliminated, this idea was discussed but not implemented. We should consider intelligence operations and approach certain knowledgeable families who can provide information about the hostages—in exchange for money." He also noted that Hamas is unwilling to cooperate or reveal any details about the hostages' condition.
As for the future, Kobi suggests that "the IDF and Shin Bet should establish units to oversee local governance and appoint Gazan health and education officials unaffiliated with Hamas. We have killed 90% of Hamas members, but we must ensure that nothing remains except their idea as a political party, with no operational capability." He added, "They will do everything to continue smuggling, so we must maintain control over the routes and monitor their movement. Otherwise, they will rebuild significant power and armament against us."
Kobi concludes with an assessment: "If we work properly, within one to two years, we can eliminate all of Hamas."link It is true that no one person or group knows where all the hostages are located but the one group who has the best possible way to find most of them remains Hamas. My brother was told that they need about a week to reach and communicate with the various bodies that have been holding the hostages. These are Hamas, Islamic Jihad, some smaller terrorist organization, criminal groups and individual Gazans/Gazan families. Hamas wanted to reach a deal that would give them a number of days to get this information together in order to present it to the negotiating partners (Qatar and Egypt) and they demanded that Israel not conduct flyovers, primarily of drones during this period. There are hostages' bodies that will never be found under the rubble of the destruction of Gaza. We can only hope that these numbers will be minimal. This Micha Kobi has made certain statements that are nothing more than speculation by a former operative who is speculating based on partial information available, mostly provided publicly by the IDF. HIs assessment that 90% of Hamas members have been killed is totally ridiculous and not based on anything but his own speculation. It would be great if it was true, but it is far from reality. The army's best estimates have been that about 14000 have been killed, several thousand taken as prisoners which would still leave 10,000-20,000 still in Gaza and they are fighting a guerilla war right now which is not to our advantage. And Kobi's suggestion to pay Gazans holding the hostages or for information leading to the hostages has been attempted a few times, including the last 2 weeks with absolutely zero success. As far as I'm concerned, all of his statements should be disregarded.
‘Why are they still in Gaza?’: Protesters in Tel Aviv mark 400 days since October 7
At first weekend rally since Gallant’s ouster, German ambassador to Israel, speaking in Hebrew, laments that freeing hostages is not primary aim for some in the government
Israelis demanding the government do more to enable the return of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since its October 7, 2023 invasion and massacre in southern Israel, attend a rally in Tel Aviv on November 9, 2024, marking 400 days since the Hamas attack and the abduction of the hostages. The placard on the right reads "400 days too many." (JACK GUEZ / AFP)
The crowd appeared slightly larger than in recent weeks. This weekend’s rally on Begin Road was the first since the major one that spontaneously unfolded on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was a proponent of a hostage-ceasefire deal.
While weekly protests earlier on in the war attracted tens and even hundreds of thousands, Home Front Command restrictions put in place in September cap such gatherings at 2,000 people.
A massive sign reading “Why are they still in Gaza? 400 days” hung from the pedestrian overpass down to street level, while big white cardboard letters on the street spelled out: “400 days — the shame of Netanyahu.”
Demonstrators call for release of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas, outside the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, November 9, 2024. (Tal Gal/Flash90)
Though overtly partisan politics are usually absent from the Begin Street protest, the youth wing of the opposition Yesh Atid party set up an informational stand by the demonstration.
A block away, some 500 people assembled at Hostages Square for the main weekly rally organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
With a band of mothers clad in white, Niva Wenkert, the mother of hostage Omer Wenkert, kicked off the rally with a call to join “Shift 101,” a silent protest group.
After Wenkert, actor Lior Ashkenazi, the regular MC at the forum’s rallies, spoke against the government’s politicking at home while the captives have languished in Gaza. He noted that Saturday’s rally fell on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, drawing a direct line between the Nazi pogrom and Hamas’s actions on October 7, 2023.
Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, also spoke at the rally, saying in Hebrew that for some Israeli politicians, “the fate of the hostages is just one of the [war’s] aims, and certainly not the primary one” — a not so subtle shot at members of Netanyahu’s hardline government.
Seibert added that he was speaking “as the representative of Germany and out of responsibility” to hostages with German citizenship. “I must admit that until now, we have failed to bring everyone home. All the talks with those who have influence on Hamas” have failed to materialize.
Naming hostages who have German citizenship or are related to German citizens, Seibert said: “These are Germans, or family members of Germans, and we want them back.”
Saturday’s rally featured a wide spectrum of speakers representing the various factions supporting a hostage deal.
Following Seibert was Dolan Abu Salah, the mayor of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights where 12 children were killed in a July Hezbollah rocket attack; Rabbi Avidan Friedman, a settler from Efrat who led a hunger strike in front of the Knesset to demand a hostage deal; and journalist Shai Golden, whose departure from the right-wing Channel 14 drew rebukes from Netanyahu loyalists.
“I consider myself right-wing, but I don’t come here as a right-winger — I come as an Israeli,” Golden said, arguing that the IDF will continue fighting “the Nazis of Hamas” for generations to come but that the government must sign a hostage deal immediately even if that means ending the war.
“What has gone wrong with your Jewish conscience, Mr. Prime Minister?” he asked. “Send your negotiating team wherever is necessary and say to them a single sentence: don’t you dare come back without a hostage deal.”
Friedman noted that in the past week’s Torah portion, the patriarch Abraham goes to war to save his hostage nephew Lot. “Then, as now, the foremost fight of our existential struggle is to rescue all of the hostages,” he said.
Protests calling for the release of hostages were also held Saturday evening in Jerusalem and Beersheba, with hundreds in attendance at both.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014. link
- IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi visited troops in northern Gaza’s Jabalia yesterday, telling them that “with the strength you are displaying here, we are ensuring the safety of our civilians and will bring back the hostages.”
“We are sending Hamas a very clear message: the IDF does not tire. The more we fight, the stronger we become, gaining more experience, capabilities, professionalism, values, and determination. We are progressing with great intensity. The fact that you are concluding three weeks here with approximately 1,000 terrorists killed and 1,000 terrorists captured is a significant achievement that deals Hamas a severe blow,” Halevi says in a video distributed by the IDF.“
We are providing the residents near the northern Gaza border with greater security and creating conditions for this security to endure, to not to be fleeting. Reaching an agreement is complex, but with the strength you are displaying here and the powerful way in which the IDF is fighting on seven fronts, in seven arenas, Israel is telling the entire Middle East — there is immense strength here, and incredible capability,” he continues.
“From this position of power, we are supporting our civilians and soldiers who are held hostage and are prepared to fight with tremendous determination, as well as pay a price to bring them home. We are not stopping or slowing down; this is to bring back the hostages, to ensure security for the surrounding communities.” Halevi adds. Link Halevi's statement “with the strength you are displaying here, we are ensuring the safety of our civilians and will bring back the hostages.” is the stupidest statement I have heard coming from his mouth. He knows very well that military pressure is not helping the hostages; it is killing them. We have seen that too many times and the last horrific time was the killing of the 6 hostages (Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubnov, and Ori Danino) by their barbarous Hamas terrorist guards who received orders to kill the hostages if the IDF troops were coming close. This was not the first instance of military pressure killing the hostages, but it was the most recent and the harshest. The only thing, I repeat, the only thing that will bring the hostages home is a deal. Nothing less and Halevi knows this and has acknowledged it in the past. I'm hoping that his statement is not a way to endear himself to the new and unqualified Defense Minister Katz who is just another of Netanyahu's yes men.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin conveyed a “sharp” message to his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz during their first phone conversation on Friday, to the effect that Israel risks jeopardizing the ongoing provision of US weaponry for the Gaza war if it does not credibly show that it has improved the supply and distribution of aid to Gazan noncombatants, Channel 12 reports.
The report notes that, in mid-October, Austin and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel in a letter that it had 30 days to implement significant improvements to the humanitarian situation in Gaza or jeopardize the continued supply of US weapons.
The fall in aid supplies, they warned at the time, called into question Israel’s commitment to not restrict the entry of aid into Gaza and that it is using US weapons in line with international law. That written commitment was provided last March in order to ensure Israel’s compliance with a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by Biden in February. The memo applies to all recipients of US security assistance.
With the 30-day period expiring this coming week, Austin, according to tonight’s report, urged Katz on Friday to raise the issue before the Israeli cabinet, said Israel needed to maintain what Katz told him was a recent increase in aid, and stressed the need to ensure there is no harm to noncombatants in Gaza war.
Katz reportedly responded that Israel is trying to cooperate on the aid issue, but Hamas keeps stealing aid and selling it for high prices, while Israel wants to be sure it reaches the populace, and that Israel is working with Arab states to help ensure this.
The TV report says Israel believes the US intends to go “all the way” in pressing Israel on this issue, rather than letting it slide because it will be out of office in two months. In practice, the report says, this means that if the US administration is not convinced there has been a dramatic change for the better as regards aid delivery and distribution, there could be a “direct collision” on the issue of arms supplies.
In its broadly warm readout of the Austin-Katz call, the US Defense Department noted that the secretary emphasized “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”
IDF shifts tactics in Gaza offensive, causing higher Hamas casualties with fewer munitions
Military says 1,000 Hamas terrorists killed in Jabaliya, with around 500 remaining alongside thousands of civilians; elite Ghost Unit using low-cost tech to target terrorists; 'Hamas booby-trapped 200 buildings, but only detonated two,' officials say
Footage of Hamas torturing Palestinian detainees in Gaza obtained by UK newspaper
The UK’s Daily Mail tabloid newspaper says that it has obtained CCTV footage of Hamas operatives torturing Palestinian civilians that was discovered by IDF troops operating in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
According to the Mail, the IDF uncovered “thousands of hours'” worth of CCTV footage on a computer in an abandoned Hamas military compound in March of this year.
In one clip, the Mail reports, male detainees were seen chained to the ceiling by their feet with sacks over their heads as a Hamas operative beats the soles of their feet with a stick.
A still image taken from CCTV footage and released by the IDF on November 10, 2024 shows a Palestinian detainee chained by his feet to the ceiling by a Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip. The footage is said by the IDF to document the widespread use of torture by Hamas against its opponents.The footage was captured over a two-year period in 2018-2020, based on the timestamps in the corner of the screen.
It was unclear why the men had been detained by Hamas, the Mail reports, but the terror group has long been accused of detaining and torturing civilians in the Gaza Strip, often accusing them of collaborating with Israel.
In 2022, the UN Watch Lobby found that human rights activists, women, LGBTQ people and political opponents were regularly subjected to brutal punishment.
Hamza Howidy, who was arrested and tortured by Hamas before later fleeing Gaza, told the Mail that the terror operatives “would torture you until you broke and say whatever it is they wanted.” link
Palestinian woman said hospitalized as rock-wielding settlers raid village
Dozens of settlers have raided the Palestinian village of Yasuf in the northern West Bank, hurling stones at residents and property, footage from the scene shows. Video of the settler attacks on Palestinian property
A woman was struck by a rock, requiring hospitalization, Palestinian media reports. link Since the criminal Ben Gvir became Minister of Interior 'Insecurity', the amount of settler attacks on Palestinians has increased exponentially and since the beginning of the war, that number has had huge increases. These barbaric settlers have no restraint and are even encouraged by the criminal minister and by the other extreme messianic minister, Smotrich who has not hidden his intentions and plans to force Palestinians from their lands and get them to 'voluntarily' leave for anywhere but the West Bank and Israel. These settler crimes are against International Law as well as Israeli law but our legal system under these extremist in the government with Netanayahu as their prime enabler, is totally and purposely impotent which is the precise reason that the international community is picking up the gauntlet of sanctions.
“We are sending Hamas a very clear message: the IDF does not tire. The more we fight, the stronger we become, gaining more experience, capabilities, professionalism, values, and determination. We are progressing with great intensity. The fact that you are concluding three weeks here with approximately 1,000 terrorists killed and 1,000 terrorists captured is a significant achievement that deals Hamas a severe blow,” Halevi says in a video distributed by the IDF.“
We are providing the residents near the northern Gaza border with greater security and creating conditions for this security to endure, to not to be fleeting. Reaching an agreement is complex, but with the strength you are displaying here and the powerful way in which the IDF is fighting on seven fronts, in seven arenas, Israel is telling the entire Middle East — there is immense strength here, and incredible capability,” he continues.
“From this position of power, we are supporting our civilians and soldiers who are held hostage and are prepared to fight with tremendous determination, as well as pay a price to bring them home. We are not stopping or slowing down; this is to bring back the hostages, to ensure security for the surrounding communities.” Halevi adds. Link Halevi's statement “with the strength you are displaying here, we are ensuring the safety of our civilians and will bring back the hostages.” is the stupidest statement I have heard coming from his mouth. He knows very well that military pressure is not helping the hostages; it is killing them. We have seen that too many times and the last horrific time was the killing of the 6 hostages (Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubnov, and Ori Danino) by their barbarous Hamas terrorist guards who received orders to kill the hostages if the IDF troops were coming close. This was not the first instance of military pressure killing the hostages, but it was the most recent and the harshest. The only thing, I repeat, the only thing that will bring the hostages home is a deal. Nothing less and Halevi knows this and has acknowledged it in the past. I'm hoping that his statement is not a way to endear himself to the new and unqualified Defense Minister Katz who is just another of Netanyahu's yes men.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin conveyed a “sharp” message to his new Israeli counterpart Israel Katz during their first phone conversation on Friday, to the effect that Israel risks jeopardizing the ongoing provision of US weaponry for the Gaza war if it does not credibly show that it has improved the supply and distribution of aid to Gazan noncombatants, Channel 12 reports.
The report notes that, in mid-October, Austin and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Israel in a letter that it had 30 days to implement significant improvements to the humanitarian situation in Gaza or jeopardize the continued supply of US weapons.
The fall in aid supplies, they warned at the time, called into question Israel’s commitment to not restrict the entry of aid into Gaza and that it is using US weapons in line with international law. That written commitment was provided last March in order to ensure Israel’s compliance with a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by Biden in February. The memo applies to all recipients of US security assistance.
With the 30-day period expiring this coming week, Austin, according to tonight’s report, urged Katz on Friday to raise the issue before the Israeli cabinet, said Israel needed to maintain what Katz told him was a recent increase in aid, and stressed the need to ensure there is no harm to noncombatants in Gaza war.
Katz reportedly responded that Israel is trying to cooperate on the aid issue, but Hamas keeps stealing aid and selling it for high prices, while Israel wants to be sure it reaches the populace, and that Israel is working with Arab states to help ensure this.
The TV report says Israel believes the US intends to go “all the way” in pressing Israel on this issue, rather than letting it slide because it will be out of office in two months. In practice, the report says, this means that if the US administration is not convinced there has been a dramatic change for the better as regards aid delivery and distribution, there could be a “direct collision” on the issue of arms supplies.
In its broadly warm readout of the Austin-Katz call, the US Defense Department noted that the secretary emphasized “the need to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”
IDF shifts tactics in Gaza offensive, causing higher Hamas casualties with fewer munitions
Military says 1,000 Hamas terrorists killed in Jabaliya, with around 500 remaining alongside thousands of civilians; elite Ghost Unit using low-cost tech to target terrorists; 'Hamas booby-trapped 200 buildings, but only detonated two,' officials say
Footage of Hamas torturing Palestinian detainees in Gaza obtained by UK newspaper
The UK’s Daily Mail tabloid newspaper says that it has obtained CCTV footage of Hamas operatives torturing Palestinian civilians that was discovered by IDF troops operating in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
According to the Mail, the IDF uncovered “thousands of hours'” worth of CCTV footage on a computer in an abandoned Hamas military compound in March of this year.
In one clip, the Mail reports, male detainees were seen chained to the ceiling by their feet with sacks over their heads as a Hamas operative beats the soles of their feet with a stick.
A still image taken from CCTV footage and released by the IDF on November 10, 2024 shows a Palestinian detainee chained by his feet to the ceiling by a Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip. The footage is said by the IDF to document the widespread use of torture by Hamas against its opponents.
The footage was captured over a two-year period in 2018-2020, based on the timestamps in the corner of the screen.
It was unclear why the men had been detained by Hamas, the Mail reports, but the terror group has long been accused of detaining and torturing civilians in the Gaza Strip, often accusing them of collaborating with Israel.
In 2022, the UN Watch Lobby found that human rights activists, women, LGBTQ people and political opponents were regularly subjected to brutal punishment.
Hamza Howidy, who was arrested and tortured by Hamas before later fleeing Gaza, told the Mail that the terror operatives “would torture you until you broke and say whatever it is they wanted.” link
Palestinian woman said hospitalized as rock-wielding settlers raid village
Dozens of settlers have raided the Palestinian village of Yasuf in the northern West Bank, hurling stones at residents and property, footage from the scene shows. Video of the settler attacks on Palestinian property
A woman was struck by a rock, requiring hospitalization, Palestinian media reports. link Since the criminal Ben Gvir became Minister of Interior 'Insecurity', the amount of settler attacks on Palestinians has increased exponentially and since the beginning of the war, that number has had huge increases. These barbaric settlers have no restraint and are even encouraged by the criminal minister and by the other extreme messianic minister, Smotrich who has not hidden his intentions and plans to force Palestinians from their lands and get them to 'voluntarily' leave for anywhere but the West Bank and Israel. These settler crimes are against International Law as well as Israeli law but our legal system under these extremist in the government with Netanayahu as their prime enabler, is totally and purposely impotent which is the precise reason that the international community is picking up the gauntlet of sanctions.
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria
Israeli fighter jets struck several Hezbollah targets in the coastal city of Tyre and northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek earlier today, the IDF says.
The targets included members of the terror group, apartments used by Hezbollah, and weapon depots, according to the military.
Over the weekend, the IDF says over 100 Hezbollah sites were struck, and dozens of operatives were killed. Video
- Israeli strike reported to kill top Hezbollah assassin Ayyash, wanted by US, UN
The Saudi Al-Arabiya outlet reports that Hezbollah commander Salim Jamil Ayyash was killed in a recent Israeli airstrike.
Unconfirmed reports on social media claim that Ayyash was killed in a strike near the Syrian city of al-Qusayr.
Ayyash, who had a $10 million reward from Washington on his head, was a senior member of Hezbollah’s Unit 151 assassination squad, according to the US State Department.
In 2020, Ayyash was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a UN-backed tribunal over the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a suicide bombing in Beirut in 2005.
Airstrikes reported near Beirut, Damascus; 6 hurt in rocket attacks on northern Israel
Lebanese media says at least 23 killed in airstrikes in Almat, north Beirut; new defense minister says IDF has defeated Hezbollah on the battlefield; IAF downs drone from Iraq
At least six people were wounded on Sunday in a series of attacks from Lebanon on northern Israel, as Lebanese and Syrian media outlets reported at least 29 people dead in two separate strikes attributed to Israel and the incoming defense minister said the military had defeated Hezbollah on the battlefield.
In the latest attack from Lebanon, on which the IDF had yet to comment, three people were reported wounded in an apparent anti-tank missile strike in the northern border town of Metula.
First responders said that one person was moderately hurt and two others were in good condition.
Earlier on Sunday afternoon, three men who were injured in a barrage on northern Israel arrived at the hospital independently, Nahariya’s Galilee Medical Center said. The three, all residents of Sheikh Danun, were wounded by the blast of a rocket impact in the Kibbutz Kabri area as they were working in a field.
Two of them, aged 37 and 20, were in moderate condition, while the third, aged 47, was lightly wounded, according to the hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces said that at least 35 rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel by early evening on Sunday. Some were intercepted, while others landed in open areas, according to the military.
The Israeli Air Force also shot down a drone launched at Israel “from the east,” which is generally taken to mean Iraq, on Sunday morning, the IDF said, adding that parts of the drone landed in an open area in the Golan Heights after the interception.
The attacks came as the IDF continued its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which aims to allow some 60,000 northern residents to return safely to their homes after being displaced by near-daily cross-border attacks since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.
Speaking Monday at a ceremony marking the handover to Gideon Sa’ar, his replacement as foreign minister, amid the rocket fire on northern communities, new Defense Minister Israel Katz asserted, “The blows we inflicted defeated Hezbollah and the elimination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah is the crowning jewel.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s health ministry said that at least 23 people, including seven children, were killed and six others injured in an Israeli strike on Almat, north of the capital Beirut on Sunday, adding that the death toll was likely to climb.
Rescuers use an excavator to search for survivors at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Almat north of Beirut on November 10, 2024. (Etienne Torbey/AFP)There was no immediate comment from the IDF on the airstrike.
In Syria, medical officials at a local hospital told the Syrian Sham FM radio that six people were killed and 15 others wounded in an alleged Israeli airstrike on the Sayyidah Zaynab suburb of Damascus, a Shiite stronghold.
The strike targeted a residential building, according to Sham FM and the official SANA news agency.
There was also no immediate comment on that strike from Israel, which rarely acknowledges individual operations in Syria.
Also Sunday, the IDF said the commander of Hezbollah’s artillery forces in southern Lebanon’s Blida was killed in a recent airstrike after he was spotted by troops of the 869th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit as he was launching an anti-tank missile at Israel.
A short while later, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike against one of Hezbollah’s main command centers in Blida, killing the commander. video of the damage from the attack
The 869th has directed numerous strikes on Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure during operations in southern Lebanon with the 91st Division in recent weeks.
Amid the ongoing fighting, Hebrew media reported that Biden administration officials were continuing to push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, even as the region shifted its focus to the incoming US administration following last week’s presidential election.
The Ynet news site reported that US President-elect Donald Trump has informed the Biden administration that he expects to see progress in efforts to reach a ceasefire.
Citing anonymous US officials, the report added that US special envoy Amos Hochstein was confident that the two sides would be able to reach an agreement and bring an end to more than a year of Hezbollah attacks and Israel’s reprisals and recently begun ground operation in southern Lebanon.
In October, ahead of the November 5 presidential elections, Trump pledged to end the “suffering and destruction in Lebanon.”
“I want to see the Middle East return to real peace, a lasting peace, and we will get it done properly so it doesn’t repeat itself every five or 10 years,” he said.
US officials have said they will make a final push to reach deals on the conflicts, although it is unclear how much leverage they have over Israel and other regional actors now gearing up for the incoming administration.
Army Radio reported that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer secretly visited Russia last week, apparently as part of Israel’s efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Russia is a major player in Syria, and its cooperation in a diplomatic arrangement to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could be an important piece of a deal that keeps the Iran-backed group from rearming.
Asked by The Times of Israel, Dermer’s office had no comment on the report.
A Russian delegation visited Israel on October 24. A source in Netanyahu’s office told The Times of Israel that the Russian delegation’s visit was not connected to hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli fighter jets struck several Hezbollah targets in the coastal city of Tyre and northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek earlier today, the IDF says.
The targets included members of the terror group, apartments used by Hezbollah, and weapon depots, according to the military.
Over the weekend, the IDF says over 100 Hezbollah sites were struck, and dozens of operatives were killed. Video
- Israeli strike reported to kill top Hezbollah assassin Ayyash, wanted by US, UN
The Saudi Al-Arabiya outlet reports that Hezbollah commander Salim Jamil Ayyash was killed in a recent Israeli airstrike.
Unconfirmed reports on social media claim that Ayyash was killed in a strike near the Syrian city of al-Qusayr.
Ayyash, who had a $10 million reward from Washington on his head, was a senior member of Hezbollah’s Unit 151 assassination squad, according to the US State Department.
In 2020, Ayyash was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment by a UN-backed tribunal over the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in a suicide bombing in Beirut in 2005.
Airstrikes reported near Beirut, Damascus; 6 hurt in rocket attacks on northern Israel
Lebanese media says at least 23 killed in airstrikes in Almat, north Beirut; new defense minister says IDF has defeated Hezbollah on the battlefield; IAF downs drone from Iraq
At least six people were wounded on Sunday in a series of attacks from Lebanon on northern Israel, as Lebanese and Syrian media outlets reported at least 29 people dead in two separate strikes attributed to Israel and the incoming defense minister said the military had defeated Hezbollah on the battlefield.
In the latest attack from Lebanon, on which the IDF had yet to comment, three people were reported wounded in an apparent anti-tank missile strike in the northern border town of Metula.
First responders said that one person was moderately hurt and two others were in good condition.
Earlier on Sunday afternoon, three men who were injured in a barrage on northern Israel arrived at the hospital independently, Nahariya’s Galilee Medical Center said. The three, all residents of Sheikh Danun, were wounded by the blast of a rocket impact in the Kibbutz Kabri area as they were working in a field.
Two of them, aged 37 and 20, were in moderate condition, while the third, aged 47, was lightly wounded, according to the hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces said that at least 35 rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel by early evening on Sunday. Some were intercepted, while others landed in open areas, according to the military.
The Israeli Air Force also shot down a drone launched at Israel “from the east,” which is generally taken to mean Iraq, on Sunday morning, the IDF said, adding that parts of the drone landed in an open area in the Golan Heights after the interception.
The attacks came as the IDF continued its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which aims to allow some 60,000 northern residents to return safely to their homes after being displaced by near-daily cross-border attacks since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror onslaught.
Speaking Monday at a ceremony marking the handover to Gideon Sa’ar, his replacement as foreign minister, amid the rocket fire on northern communities, new Defense Minister Israel Katz asserted, “The blows we inflicted defeated Hezbollah and the elimination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah is the crowning jewel.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s health ministry said that at least 23 people, including seven children, were killed and six others injured in an Israeli strike on Almat, north of the capital Beirut on Sunday, adding that the death toll was likely to climb.
Rescuers use an excavator to search for survivors at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Almat north of Beirut on November 10, 2024. (Etienne Torbey/AFP)There was no immediate comment from the IDF on the airstrike.
In Syria, medical officials at a local hospital told the Syrian Sham FM radio that six people were killed and 15 others wounded in an alleged Israeli airstrike on the Sayyidah Zaynab suburb of Damascus, a Shiite stronghold.
The strike targeted a residential building, according to Sham FM and the official SANA news agency.
There was also no immediate comment on that strike from Israel, which rarely acknowledges individual operations in Syria.
Also Sunday, the IDF said the commander of Hezbollah’s artillery forces in southern Lebanon’s Blida was killed in a recent airstrike after he was spotted by troops of the 869th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit as he was launching an anti-tank missile at Israel.
A short while later, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike against one of Hezbollah’s main command centers in Blida, killing the commander. video of the damage from the attack
The 869th has directed numerous strikes on Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure during operations in southern Lebanon with the 91st Division in recent weeks.
Amid the ongoing fighting, Hebrew media reported that Biden administration officials were continuing to push for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, even as the region shifted its focus to the incoming US administration following last week’s presidential election.
The Ynet news site reported that US President-elect Donald Trump has informed the Biden administration that he expects to see progress in efforts to reach a ceasefire.
Citing anonymous US officials, the report added that US special envoy Amos Hochstein was confident that the two sides would be able to reach an agreement and bring an end to more than a year of Hezbollah attacks and Israel’s reprisals and recently begun ground operation in southern Lebanon.
In October, ahead of the November 5 presidential elections, Trump pledged to end the “suffering and destruction in Lebanon.”
“I want to see the Middle East return to real peace, a lasting peace, and we will get it done properly so it doesn’t repeat itself every five or 10 years,” he said.
US officials have said they will make a final push to reach deals on the conflicts, although it is unclear how much leverage they have over Israel and other regional actors now gearing up for the incoming administration.
Army Radio reported that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer secretly visited Russia last week, apparently as part of Israel’s efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon.
Russia is a major player in Syria, and its cooperation in a diplomatic arrangement to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah could be an important piece of a deal that keeps the Iran-backed group from rearming.
Asked by The Times of Israel, Dermer’s office had no comment on the report.
A Russian delegation visited Israel on October 24. A source in Netanyahu’s office told The Times of Israel that the Russian delegation’s visit was not connected to hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
West Bank and Jerusalem and Terror attacks within Israel
Politics and the War (general news)
- Netanyahu’s chief of staff named as official suspected of blackmailing IDF officer
Tzachi Braverman says claim he used sensitive video to pressure official into changing records of meetings is ‘a lie from start to finish’ aimed at harming Prime Minister’s Office
Tzachi Braverman, who serves as chief of staff to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was revealed on Sunday to reportedly be the official suspected of blackmailing an IDF officer to allegedly alter minutes from wartime meetings by threatening him with a sensitive video recording.
Braverman’s name was first reported by the Kan public broadcaster, which also stated that the video in question had been gathered from security cameras in the Prime Minister’s Office and that other PMO employees had been allowed to watch the recording.
In a statement, Braverman denied any such activity, calling the report “false” and “defamatory,” and claiming he had neither collected any such video nor attempted to use it for blackmail purposes: “This is a lie from start to finish, whose aim is to harm me and the Prime Minister’s Office in the middle of a war.”
According to reports, a complaint was filed several months ago with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi claiming that the PMO was holding, and making inappropriate use of, sensitive footage of an IDF officer.
An official in Netanyahu’s circle reportedly told Halevi that the officer was in an inappropriate relationship with a female worker in the PMO, though an army probe determined the relationship was not an abuse of power.
According to Channel 13 news, officials in the PMO demanded the woman in question hand over her phone on suspicion of leaking information, but actually used it to extract her private conversations with the IDF officer.
The TV network reported on Saturday evening that police officials have questioned a number of PMO employees in connection with multiple allegations tied to the office, and gathered testimony from workers during a visit to the office in Jerusalem.
The claims against Braverman come amid more than a week of allegations of scandals tied to the PMO over leaks of sensitive information and the alleged theft of top-secret intelligence documents.
Netanyahu’s office has denied all such allegations and slammed the police investigations as a witch hunt. Netanyahu himself has not been accused in any of the investigations.
Last week, the courts made public the existence of an investigation into “events related to the beginning of the war.” Hebrew media indicated the probe was related to a July report on the Ynet news site that Netanyahu’s former military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, had some months before warned the attorney general of efforts to change protocols of security discussions.
In the incident that appeared to be related to the fresh reports on Sunday, Netanyahu’s aides are thought to have used “sensitive footage” of a military secretariat officer in order to coax him into changing protocols from the night of October 6-7, 2023 — hours before the devastating Hamas attack on southern Israel.
According to Ynet, an attempt was also made to edit minutes of discussions related to Israel’s preparations to appear before the International Court of Justice.
There have reportedly not been any arrests made in connection with the attempt to change the official minutes of such discussions nor over allegations relating to attempted blackmail in order to alter the protocols.
However, four IDF servicemembers and a spokesman for Netanyahu have been detained as part of an investigation into the theft of top-secret army intelligence documents, at least one of which was leaked to the foreign press, possibly for political gain. The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court said the leak harmed attempts to secure a deal to bring home hostages held by Hamas.
The suspects remain in custody and are slated to appear before a court on Sunday for a hearing into extending their remand.
The court last week cleared for publication the identity of Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman for Netanyahu who has been arrested in the case. The identities of the IDF officials also arrested in the case remain under a gag order. According to Hebrew media outlets, the four soldiers all serve in an intelligence unit tasked with preventing leaks.
The growing scandal is not the first instance of allegations of misconduct over records relating to the war. Weeks after the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught that started the war, the Haaretz daily reported that Braverman — who has previously admitted to shredding documents at the Prime Minister’s Office — seized classified documents concerning the months leading up to the war, leading Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara to order National Security Council chief Tzachi Hanegbi to return the documents. LINK We have learned over many years that the PMO is not beyond lying and conspiracies all for the protection and benefit of the autocrat Netanyahu, so any denials coming from this office should be taken with huge grains of salt. The way that the office is run reminds us of the Nixon White House but the big difference is that this has been going on for a much longer period of time and he has built up a very well oiled machine that acts on autodrive in many cases, but we should rest assured that whatever goes on in the PMO, both Netanyahu and his wife know all about it but will claim 'plausible deniability' as has been the case for everything that has happened from October 7 till today.
- ‘Near-criminal behavior’: Eisenkot claims disarray, indecision, politics in PM’s war conductMK who was in war cabinet says Netanyahu ‘lost balance’ after Oct. 7, but quickly began working to hide protocols, leak lies to media, sway war goals to appease far-right
A senior opposition lawmaker who was a key member of the wartime government at the start of the Gaza conflict issued a damning indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making in an interview on Friday, arguing that the country’s leadership has been acting primarily based on political considerations in the management of the multi-front conflict, and has engaged in “near-criminal behavior” to try to conceal this from the public.
National Unity Party MK Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff who served for the first eight months of the war as an observer in the high-level war cabinet, told Channel 12 news that this week’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was a continuation of a trend in which narrow partisan considerations guide Netanyahu’s moves.
He also accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war due to the desire of some elements in his government to lead to martial law in Gaza and eventually rebuild settlements there, and the prime minister’s fear his government will collapse if he does not appease them.
National Unity bolted the coalition five months ago over the prime minister’s failure to draw a clear plan for the conflict, bashing Netanyahu’s handling of the war and warning politics was constantly influencing decisions.
In a Friday interview, Eisenkot argued that when he and his party leader Benny Gantz joined the emergency government in the late afternoon of October 11, 2023 — four days after the shock October 7 Hamas onslaught shattered years of successive governments’ strategy of tolerating the Palestinian terror group in the Gaza Strip — they observed a leadership in deep disarray that was struggling to keep the situation under control.
According to the opposition lawmaker’s account, after a few weeks, during which he said he and Gantz persuaded Netanyahu to launch a ground operation in Gaza, the premier returned to his usual self and started systematically sidelining Gantz and Eisenkot, while pandering to far-right parties’ demands to avoid working toward ending the fighting in the Strip — to the point that the National Unity ministers felt like a “fig leaf” and decided to leave the government in June.
Netanyahu’s office commented that Eisenkot’s accusations were “lies” but did not go into more detail.
‘Someone didn’t want us to know’
Eisenkot was asked about the multiple criminal probes that have been opened into alleged wrongdoing within the Prime Minister’s Office, including one aide’s alleged theft of classified documents from the army and another’s possible alteration of official protocols of wartime meetings.
Noting his past as military chief and as military secretary to prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon in 1999-2001, Eisenkot said: “I have seen how the Prime Minister’s Office works. So beyond the built-in weakness of the team surrounding the prime minister, in my eyes this is near-criminal behavior that can be observed between the lines.
“I am not surprised that there are such cases — this is an environment and these are people who act in an inappropriate, manipulative way,” he added, accusing Netanyahu’s team of leaking false information to the press.
“I would sit in a meeting and know exactly what I, Gallant, Gantz and Netanyahu had said, and the next day we would hear the complete opposite in some media outlets.”
Eisenkot said that during a crucial discussion on October 11, 2023, during which a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon was almost declared before being called off at the last minute, Netanyahu’s people avoided having a stenographer record what was said for the first hour of the meeting.
“I have taken part in hundreds of discussions at the Prime Minister’s Office and I can’t remember a discussion of this level of importance where the first hour is without a recording and without a stenographer. This testifies to something,” he said, adding that this was purposeful and that “someone didn’t want us to know” what was said.
The war’s ‘hidden goals’
Asked by the interviewer what his first thought was when Netanyahu fired Gallant on Tuesday evening, Eisenkot said: “Befuddlement.”
Rejecting Netanyahu’s explanation that the dismissal was due to lack of trust between him and Gallant, Eisenkot argued that it was for “purely political” reasons linked, among other things, to the defense minister’s work to implement a High Court decision to start drafting larger swaths of the ultra-Orthodox public to the military, and to Gallant’s objection to any law regulating the matter that isn’t coordinated with opposition factions.
“This is a flawed order of priorities due to political pressure,” he said.
“We saw deep problems in [Netanyahu’s] decision-making and ulterior motives that have caused a complete and deep failure, in that tonight there are [still] 101 hostages in the Gaza Strip — a terrible abandonment with his name on it as prime minister.”
While avoiding the assertion — made by many Israelis, according to recent polls — that Netanyahu is endangering national security, Eisenkot said: “What I can say is that the decisions I saw throughout the time [I served in the government] didn’t stem from fulfilling Israel’s national interests. The heavy weight of the personal and political considerations was a central component in his decision making, within several weeks of the start of the war.”
Eisenkot said he and Gantz had worked since February to wrap up the first stage of the war in Gaza and focus the main effort on fighting Hezbollah in the north (the government only eventually shifted to focus on Hezbollah in September, months after National Unity departed). He criticized the leadership, including Gallant, for limiting the IDF’s response there for months and not employing “maximum force for minimum time.”
He said the war effort on both fronts had been stretched out far longer than it should have due to such policies, and “we’ve been dragged into a reality where after 13 months, while we’ve had some notable cumulative achievements, it’s alongside a completely crazy reality that has been normalized, in which 200-300 projectiles are fired [daily] at the north and center of the country, and some feel this is reasonable.”
Beyond the stated war goals — eliminating Hamas’s military and governance capabilities in Gaza, returning the hostages, and enabling tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to safely return to their homes in the south and the north — Eisenkot accused central figures in the coalition of working to fulfill “hidden goals” — establishing Israeli military rule in Gaza and rebuilding settlements in the territory.
Asked if this has been preventing an agreement to halt the fighting in Gaza, Eisenkot said: “Definitely. The political consideration and [Netanyahu’s] understanding that if he releases terrorists in exchange for the hostages, and if the IDF withdraws [from Gaza]… this would cause his coalition and his partnership with [far-right ministers] Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to crumble.”
Asked about his recommended action plan, Eisenkot said he supported reaching a ceasefire, but only for a few months, to return the hostages.
“I assume we will be fighting Hamas and terror for decades,” he said, arguing that Gaza should be treated after the war like the West Bank’s Area A, where there is Palestinian civilian and security control but where Israel launches periodical military incursions to clear out terror cells.
A frightened, unstable leadership’
Going back to the October 11, 2023, meeting immediately after he and Gantz joined the government, Eisenkot asserted that “this was the first time I saw up close what it means when a leadership loses its balance.”
Describing a leadership in deep disarray following the surprise of Hamas’s massacre, Eisenkot said: “I saw unsteadiness in people I had worked with and had seen as stable, rational people. It was very concerning, and that’s why we entered [the government] — not for Netanyahu, but for the State of Israel.”
He argued that while Netanyahu has pushed a narrative in the media by which Gantz and Eisenkot fought against and curbed his desire for more aggressive action, the opposite was true.
“Without our pressure there would have been no [ground] offensive — the prime minister was very afraid of an offensive. All sorts of experts came to him and frightened him.
“When the protocols are published and people hear what some people said about this issue… I saw a frightened, unstable leadership that could have made irresponsible decisions, and I think we made a contribution… that was reflected in the first months [of the war].”
However, he added, “I admit that after matters became somewhat stabilized, I started to feel like a fig leaf, like we weren’t having an influence. We made major efforts to have influence and not leave mid-war because we understand what that means.”
However, “at a certain point we realized we were serving as a fig leaf to a prime minister who makes decisions alone, as Yoav Gallant has said.”
In one meeting, Eisenkot said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu confidant, lost patience and said: “Why are we wasting time here, in the end, we’re three people who make the decisions.”
Eisenkot recalled: “‘We asked him, ‘We know who the first is, we know who the second is, but who is the third?’ This was left unanswered.”
Asked who the “third man” was — presumably in addition to Netanyahu and Dermer — Eisenkot answered wryly: “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a third woman” — a possible reference to the premier’s wife, Sara, who has been said for years to have key influence over his husband’s decisions.
Netanyahu’s office commented in response to the interview: “Near-criminality is to tell the public lies and hide behind [parliamentary] immunity. We call on Eisenkot to give up his immunity,” apparently so he could be sued for defamation.
Eisenkot issued his own response: “When there is nothing to be said to the point, nonsense responses are issued. I am willing to give up my immunity at any time and on any matter.” link Gadi Eisenkot is one of the most respected Knesset Members and was a very highly respected Chief of General Staff. He is known for his honesty and patriotic motives and actions. When it comes to a question of who to believe, Eisenkot or Netanyahu and his cronies, the scale is always tipped very strongly to Eisenkot.
- Israel continues to enact racist laws... and the pretext is terrorismIsrael continues to enact racist laws, which constitute a serious violation of the rights of the Palestinians and a flagrant breach of the constitution and international law, as they are enacted based on racist principles and motives.
The culmination of the Knesset decisions yesterday morning resulted in a bill to deport the families of those who carry out national operations, as Israel considers them terrorists. Accordingly, the authority is granted to the Minister of the Interior to impose a decision to deport a close family member, who was aware of the intentions to carry out an operation and did not take the necessary steps to prevent it, to the Gaza Strip from within Palestine or from Jerusalem for a period ranging between seven and twenty years.
In addition to the law that allows for long prison sentences for children under 14 years of age, and its transformation into an emergency law for a period of five years, meaning that according to Israeli emergency laws it may be extended later, Israel has imposed several laws, most notably a law that obliges the Israeli government to spend a portion of Palestinian tax money monthly equivalent to the damages resulting from Palestinian operations in favor of what Israel calls the victims, and a law to dismiss employees in the education sector without prior notice, which deprives hundreds of employees and teachers of their financial rights and compensation, in addition to destroying their lives, in addition to two laws that prohibit and prevent the work of UNRWA and contact with it in areas that Israel claims are under its sovereignty. These laws, which are added to a previous law considering Jerusalem the capital of the occupied entity, come within the framework of the tense political atmosphere, and the exploitation of Israel and its most extreme right-wing government of the current security situation, in order to impose a policy of racist discourse against Palestinians and Arabs.
These laws, which extremist ministers are rushing to propose and prepare, greatly affect Palestinians and Arabs, target their public freedoms, gag them, and smell of revenge far from real legal justifications, especially the law to deport families in the section related to solidarity with the martyr or wounded, as the Knesset left the door wide open for the military and security services to arrest and punish anyone who offers condolences or expresses admiration or solidarity or publishes a picture or news, which gives the occupation’s interior minister greater leeway to implement unjust punitive campaigns against citizens, based on political and ideological orientations only.
In short, Israel has been resorting to a policy of collective punishment for many years, and now it is intensifying and tightening the measures related to this policy. The argument it always makes is that the Palestinians are terrorists, and they must be suppressed and their activities and movements must be limited, by enacting more racist laws that have no basis in truth. link. my comments......
Tzachi Braverman says claim he used sensitive video to pressure official into changing records of meetings is ‘a lie from start to finish’ aimed at harming Prime Minister’s Office
Tzachi Braverman, who serves as chief of staff to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was revealed on Sunday to reportedly be the official suspected of blackmailing an IDF officer to allegedly alter minutes from wartime meetings by threatening him with a sensitive video recording.
Braverman’s name was first reported by the Kan public broadcaster, which also stated that the video in question had been gathered from security cameras in the Prime Minister’s Office and that other PMO employees had been allowed to watch the recording.
In a statement, Braverman denied any such activity, calling the report “false” and “defamatory,” and claiming he had neither collected any such video nor attempted to use it for blackmail purposes: “This is a lie from start to finish, whose aim is to harm me and the Prime Minister’s Office in the middle of a war.”
According to reports, a complaint was filed several months ago with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi claiming that the PMO was holding, and making inappropriate use of, sensitive footage of an IDF officer.
An official in Netanyahu’s circle reportedly told Halevi that the officer was in an inappropriate relationship with a female worker in the PMO, though an army probe determined the relationship was not an abuse of power.
According to Channel 13 news, officials in the PMO demanded the woman in question hand over her phone on suspicion of leaking information, but actually used it to extract her private conversations with the IDF officer.
The TV network reported on Saturday evening that police officials have questioned a number of PMO employees in connection with multiple allegations tied to the office, and gathered testimony from workers during a visit to the office in Jerusalem.
The claims against Braverman come amid more than a week of allegations of scandals tied to the PMO over leaks of sensitive information and the alleged theft of top-secret intelligence documents.
Netanyahu’s office has denied all such allegations and slammed the police investigations as a witch hunt. Netanyahu himself has not been accused in any of the investigations.
Last week, the courts made public the existence of an investigation into “events related to the beginning of the war.” Hebrew media indicated the probe was related to a July report on the Ynet news site that Netanyahu’s former military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, had some months before warned the attorney general of efforts to change protocols of security discussions.
In the incident that appeared to be related to the fresh reports on Sunday, Netanyahu’s aides are thought to have used “sensitive footage” of a military secretariat officer in order to coax him into changing protocols from the night of October 6-7, 2023 — hours before the devastating Hamas attack on southern Israel.
According to Ynet, an attempt was also made to edit minutes of discussions related to Israel’s preparations to appear before the International Court of Justice.
There have reportedly not been any arrests made in connection with the attempt to change the official minutes of such discussions nor over allegations relating to attempted blackmail in order to alter the protocols.
However, four IDF servicemembers and a spokesman for Netanyahu have been detained as part of an investigation into the theft of top-secret army intelligence documents, at least one of which was leaked to the foreign press, possibly for political gain. The Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court said the leak harmed attempts to secure a deal to bring home hostages held by Hamas.
The suspects remain in custody and are slated to appear before a court on Sunday for a hearing into extending their remand.
The court last week cleared for publication the identity of Eli Feldstein, a former spokesman for Netanyahu who has been arrested in the case. The identities of the IDF officials also arrested in the case remain under a gag order. According to Hebrew media outlets, the four soldiers all serve in an intelligence unit tasked with preventing leaks.
The growing scandal is not the first instance of allegations of misconduct over records relating to the war. Weeks after the Hamas-led October 7 terror onslaught that started the war, the Haaretz daily reported that Braverman — who has previously admitted to shredding documents at the Prime Minister’s Office — seized classified documents concerning the months leading up to the war, leading Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara to order National Security Council chief Tzachi Hanegbi to return the documents. LINK We have learned over many years that the PMO is not beyond lying and conspiracies all for the protection and benefit of the autocrat Netanyahu, so any denials coming from this office should be taken with huge grains of salt. The way that the office is run reminds us of the Nixon White House but the big difference is that this has been going on for a much longer period of time and he has built up a very well oiled machine that acts on autodrive in many cases, but we should rest assured that whatever goes on in the PMO, both Netanyahu and his wife know all about it but will claim 'plausible deniability' as has been the case for everything that has happened from October 7 till today.
A senior opposition lawmaker who was a key member of the wartime government at the start of the Gaza conflict issued a damning indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making in an interview on Friday, arguing that the country’s leadership has been acting primarily based on political considerations in the management of the multi-front conflict, and has engaged in “near-criminal behavior” to try to conceal this from the public.
National Unity Party MK Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff who served for the first eight months of the war as an observer in the high-level war cabinet, told Channel 12 news that this week’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was a continuation of a trend in which narrow partisan considerations guide Netanyahu’s moves.
He also accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war due to the desire of some elements in his government to lead to martial law in Gaza and eventually rebuild settlements there, and the prime minister’s fear his government will collapse if he does not appease them.
National Unity bolted the coalition five months ago over the prime minister’s failure to draw a clear plan for the conflict, bashing Netanyahu’s handling of the war and warning politics was constantly influencing decisions.
In a Friday interview, Eisenkot argued that when he and his party leader Benny Gantz joined the emergency government in the late afternoon of October 11, 2023 — four days after the shock October 7 Hamas onslaught shattered years of successive governments’ strategy of tolerating the Palestinian terror group in the Gaza Strip — they observed a leadership in deep disarray that was struggling to keep the situation under control.
According to the opposition lawmaker’s account, after a few weeks, during which he said he and Gantz persuaded Netanyahu to launch a ground operation in Gaza, the premier returned to his usual self and started systematically sidelining Gantz and Eisenkot, while pandering to far-right parties’ demands to avoid working toward ending the fighting in the Strip — to the point that the National Unity ministers felt like a “fig leaf” and decided to leave the government in June.
Netanyahu’s office commented that Eisenkot’s accusations were “lies” but did not go into more detail.
‘Someone didn’t want us to know’
Eisenkot was asked about the multiple criminal probes that have been opened into alleged wrongdoing within the Prime Minister’s Office, including one aide’s alleged theft of classified documents from the army and another’s possible alteration of official protocols of wartime meetings.
Noting his past as military chief and as military secretary to prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon in 1999-2001, Eisenkot said: “I have seen how the Prime Minister’s Office works. So beyond the built-in weakness of the team surrounding the prime minister, in my eyes this is near-criminal behavior that can be observed between the lines.
“I am not surprised that there are such cases — this is an environment and these are people who act in an inappropriate, manipulative way,” he added, accusing Netanyahu’s team of leaking false information to the press.
“I would sit in a meeting and know exactly what I, Gallant, Gantz and Netanyahu had said, and the next day we would hear the complete opposite in some media outlets.”
Eisenkot said that during a crucial discussion on October 11, 2023, during which a major attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon was almost declared before being called off at the last minute, Netanyahu’s people avoided having a stenographer record what was said for the first hour of the meeting.
“I have taken part in hundreds of discussions at the Prime Minister’s Office and I can’t remember a discussion of this level of importance where the first hour is without a recording and without a stenographer. This testifies to something,” he said, adding that this was purposeful and that “someone didn’t want us to know” what was said.
The war’s ‘hidden goals’
Asked by the interviewer what his first thought was when Netanyahu fired Gallant on Tuesday evening, Eisenkot said: “Befuddlement.”
Rejecting Netanyahu’s explanation that the dismissal was due to lack of trust between him and Gallant, Eisenkot argued that it was for “purely political” reasons linked, among other things, to the defense minister’s work to implement a High Court decision to start drafting larger swaths of the ultra-Orthodox public to the military, and to Gallant’s objection to any law regulating the matter that isn’t coordinated with opposition factions.
“This is a flawed order of priorities due to political pressure,” he said.
“We saw deep problems in [Netanyahu’s] decision-making and ulterior motives that have caused a complete and deep failure, in that tonight there are [still] 101 hostages in the Gaza Strip — a terrible abandonment with his name on it as prime minister.”
While avoiding the assertion — made by many Israelis, according to recent polls — that Netanyahu is endangering national security, Eisenkot said: “What I can say is that the decisions I saw throughout the time [I served in the government] didn’t stem from fulfilling Israel’s national interests. The heavy weight of the personal and political considerations was a central component in his decision making, within several weeks of the start of the war.”
Eisenkot said he and Gantz had worked since February to wrap up the first stage of the war in Gaza and focus the main effort on fighting Hezbollah in the north (the government only eventually shifted to focus on Hezbollah in September, months after National Unity departed). He criticized the leadership, including Gallant, for limiting the IDF’s response there for months and not employing “maximum force for minimum time.”
He said the war effort on both fronts had been stretched out far longer than it should have due to such policies, and “we’ve been dragged into a reality where after 13 months, while we’ve had some notable cumulative achievements, it’s alongside a completely crazy reality that has been normalized, in which 200-300 projectiles are fired [daily] at the north and center of the country, and some feel this is reasonable.”
Beyond the stated war goals — eliminating Hamas’s military and governance capabilities in Gaza, returning the hostages, and enabling tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to safely return to their homes in the south and the north — Eisenkot accused central figures in the coalition of working to fulfill “hidden goals” — establishing Israeli military rule in Gaza and rebuilding settlements in the territory.
Asked if this has been preventing an agreement to halt the fighting in Gaza, Eisenkot said: “Definitely. The political consideration and [Netanyahu’s] understanding that if he releases terrorists in exchange for the hostages, and if the IDF withdraws [from Gaza]… this would cause his coalition and his partnership with [far-right ministers] Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to crumble.”
Asked about his recommended action plan, Eisenkot said he supported reaching a ceasefire, but only for a few months, to return the hostages.
“I assume we will be fighting Hamas and terror for decades,” he said, arguing that Gaza should be treated after the war like the West Bank’s Area A, where there is Palestinian civilian and security control but where Israel launches periodical military incursions to clear out terror cells.
A frightened, unstable leadership’
Going back to the October 11, 2023, meeting immediately after he and Gantz joined the government, Eisenkot asserted that “this was the first time I saw up close what it means when a leadership loses its balance.”
Describing a leadership in deep disarray following the surprise of Hamas’s massacre, Eisenkot said: “I saw unsteadiness in people I had worked with and had seen as stable, rational people. It was very concerning, and that’s why we entered [the government] — not for Netanyahu, but for the State of Israel.”
He argued that while Netanyahu has pushed a narrative in the media by which Gantz and Eisenkot fought against and curbed his desire for more aggressive action, the opposite was true.
“Without our pressure there would have been no [ground] offensive — the prime minister was very afraid of an offensive. All sorts of experts came to him and frightened him.
“When the protocols are published and people hear what some people said about this issue… I saw a frightened, unstable leadership that could have made irresponsible decisions, and I think we made a contribution… that was reflected in the first months [of the war].”
However, he added, “I admit that after matters became somewhat stabilized, I started to feel like a fig leaf, like we weren’t having an influence. We made major efforts to have influence and not leave mid-war because we understand what that means.”
However, “at a certain point we realized we were serving as a fig leaf to a prime minister who makes decisions alone, as Yoav Gallant has said.”
In one meeting, Eisenkot said Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, a close Netanyahu confidant, lost patience and said: “Why are we wasting time here, in the end, we’re three people who make the decisions.”
Eisenkot recalled: “‘We asked him, ‘We know who the first is, we know who the second is, but who is the third?’ This was left unanswered.”
Asked who the “third man” was — presumably in addition to Netanyahu and Dermer — Eisenkot answered wryly: “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a third woman” — a possible reference to the premier’s wife, Sara, who has been said for years to have key influence over his husband’s decisions.
Netanyahu’s office commented in response to the interview: “Near-criminality is to tell the public lies and hide behind [parliamentary] immunity. We call on Eisenkot to give up his immunity,” apparently so he could be sued for defamation.
Eisenkot issued his own response: “When there is nothing to be said to the point, nonsense responses are issued. I am willing to give up my immunity at any time and on any matter.” link Gadi Eisenkot is one of the most respected Knesset Members and was a very highly respected Chief of General Staff. He is known for his honesty and patriotic motives and actions. When it comes to a question of who to believe, Eisenkot or Netanyahu and his cronies, the scale is always tipped very strongly to Eisenkot.
The Region and the World- US warplanes staged multiple strikes Saturday night against Iran-backed Houthi advanced weapons storage facilities in Yemen, the Pentagon confirms.
The weapons were being used to attack military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a US defense official tells AFP. Pentagon: US warplanes attacked Iran-backed Houthi targets in Yemen
Survivors
Personal Stories Taken captive: Segev Kalfon, last seen running across Highway 23225-year-old was abducted from the Supernova desert rave on October 7
Segev Kalfon, 25, tried to run away from the October 7 Supernova desert rave when Hamas terrorists attacked, killing 360 people and assaulting and kidnapping dozens more.
When Kalfon crossed Highway 232, the main highway leading out of the area, the terrorists spotted him and abducted him.
He was last in touch with his family at 8:04 a.m. that morning.
Kalfon loves music festivals and often goes to nature raves.
He’s from Dimona, where he worked in the family bakery until he decided recently to learn about and work in the stock market.
He’s the middle child of the family, with an older brother and younger sister. He is known as a brother and friend with a big heart who loves to entertain others. link
For ten months, he stayed silent. Now he is recounting the moments of his best friend's abduction.
Assaf Haroush and Segev Kalfon grew up together in Dimona and escaped together from the Nova Festival, until they were separated in an instant. "I saw them capture him in the middle of the road. I lay down, recited the Shema prayer, and waited for them to come for me too," he recalls. Despite the time that has passed, he is certain: "Segev will return."
Assaf Haroush and Segev Kalfon attended the Nova Festival together. Hours after the close friends from Dimona arrived in Re'im, the Hamas attack began, and they tried to escape – by car and on foot, through open fields, until Segev was kidnapped before Assaf's eyes. Now, ten months later, he recalls those moments for the first time in an interview with Walla.
Assaf is 24 years old, and Segev is 26. They met about a decade ago as teenagers in their hometown and their friendship deepened as they worked together in a restaurant. That night, Assaf remembers, they joined the party around 3:30 a.m. "It was a wild day. We settled in, danced, and everything was fun and normal," he says. "At 6:30 a.m., Segev pointed at the sky and said, 'Look, there are rockets.' I told him it would probably end soon, that rockets are fired all the time, and it stops. But we saw that the barrage didn’t stop."
At that point, he says, "They stopped the music, took the microphone, and shouted that the party was over and to run away. They still hadn’t announced that terrorists had infiltrated."
"I want to tell him that we know he is alive and will be released"
Segev and Assaf realized it was time to start moving, though they didn’t yet understand the magnitude of the event. "We started heading to the car, drove, and got stuck in a traffic jam on the exit road to Route 232. We reached the junction, with Re’im to the right and the road to Be’eri blocked by traffic on the left. So, we wanted to turn right, towards home. Just as we were about to do that, a car did a U-turn after encountering terrorists, with everyone inside wounded by gunfire, and the car was riddled with bullets."
Then, the friends decided to turn in the opposite direction, towards the jam. "We were there maybe a minute or two when a woman ran by with a bullet wound in her leg. We understood the terrorists were already there, so we abandoned the car and started running towards the police officers at the beginning of the traffic jam, and asked them what to do. They didn’t know either," he recalls. "So, we ran with everyone into the open fields. Then we started hearing gunfire getting closer. We ran for about half an hour to forty minutes until we decided to head back to the road, afraid we might be running towards Gaza. The gunfire kept getting closer."
They continued running through the open area until bullets started flying their way. "We heard bullets whizzing by and started running like crazy. They were shooting at us, and we didn’t stop," he says. "We still couldn’t see where they were shooting from. Segev was a bit ahead of me and crossed the road. I went to cross after him, looked to the right, and saw three or four trucks, each with 10-12 terrorists and motorcycles, about a hundred meters from us. I took two or three steps and lay down on the ground."
At that moment, Assaf heard the terrorists stop near them. "I lifted my head slightly to see if Segev managed to hide, and I saw they caught him in the middle of the road. As soon as they captured him, I recited the Shema prayer, lowered my head, closed my eyes, and waited for them to come for me. I was sure they spotted me. I thought there was no way they’d miss me. I couldn’t understand how this was happening, how terrorists entered the country with trucks. It was a fear that’s impossible to describe," he shares. Then he was left alone. "A minute or two passed; they kidnapped Segev and drove off."
"I stayed in place, motionless, for about 40 minutes. I pretended to be dead. When it got a little quiet, I crawled into a small bush and hid there for eight hours until the army came to rescue me," he says. "My father called me while we were running, and he probably heard gunfire. I hung up so he wouldn’t hear more. He drove towards me until he reached a gas station where they told him he couldn’t go further. He saw a special forces unit there and told them his son was inside. He said, 'Either you go in, or I’m going in.' From the moment they called me, it took an hour because they encountered resistance on the way. Ten minutes before they arrived, two trucks with terrorists passed by, and a helicopter blew them up."
Even though the months without him keep passing, Assaf is sure: "Segev will return. He was kidnapped without a scratch. No gunshot wounds or anything. I want to tell him we know he’s alive and will be freed, that everyone misses him, and no one has forgotten him for a second. We pray all the time." He adds, "I believe our side is doing enough; the other side is doing everything to prevent it from happening. They want it to look like we’re seeking a deal. They’re doing it on purpose. It’s part of their psychological warfare."
Ahead of the negotiation summit in Doha, Segev’s family is filled with hope that he will finally come home. "We go through emotional turmoil with every development towards a deal," says his sister-in-law, Rotem. "We’ve been disappointed so many times, feeling the deal was close, only for it to fall apart. We hope the summit will go ahead and are praying it finally happens. Time is our biggest enemy right now. As time goes on, we manage to achieve more military successes, and now is the time. We need to leverage the strong cards we have."
"I think everyone wants them here, from the top down to the most junior officials," she adds. "The moment a genuine deal is on the table, no one will object. And if one or two people do, it won’t derail the deal. Phrases like 'the price isn’t worth it' are a knife in the stomach for all the captives’ families. The government is responsible for its citizens’ security, and bringing them back is its duty. There is no price on human life. Now is the critical moment."
She continues, "The headline is about the captives, but such a deal has implications beyond that. We’re under threat from Iran, and it could prevent attacks from there. There are so many people who are displaced from their homes who could return once there’s a ceasefire, and perhaps it could even lead to a political deal with Hezbollah."
"We don’t really know what’s happening with him there. We only know that Segev is alive, and that’s our strongest hope. From the testimonies we’ve heard from people who returned, captivity isn’t easy, to say the least. We try not to dwell on those things or fall into despair that we wouldn’t know how to get out of. From what I know of Segev and how he carries himself, I know he knows how to make the best of little. He has a survivor’s spirit. He’s strong and will get through this. I hope soon we’ll be able to hug him and start mending the broken pieces from this cruel rollercoaster we’ve been thrown into." link
The weapons were being used to attack military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a US defense official tells AFP. Pentagon: US warplanes attacked Iran-backed Houthi targets in Yemen
Segev Kalfon, 25, tried to run away from the October 7 Supernova desert rave when Hamas terrorists attacked, killing 360 people and assaulting and kidnapping dozens more.
When Kalfon crossed Highway 232, the main highway leading out of the area, the terrorists spotted him and abducted him.
He was last in touch with his family at 8:04 a.m. that morning.
Kalfon loves music festivals and often goes to nature raves.
He’s from Dimona, where he worked in the family bakery until he decided recently to learn about and work in the stock market.
He’s the middle child of the family, with an older brother and younger sister. He is known as a brother and friend with a big heart who loves to entertain others. link
At that point, he says, "They stopped the music, took the microphone, and shouted that the party was over and to run away. They still hadn’t announced that terrorists had infiltrated."
"I stayed in place, motionless, for about 40 minutes. I pretended to be dead. When it got a little quiet, I crawled into a small bush and hid there for eight hours until the army came to rescue me," he says. "My father called me while we were running, and he probably heard gunfire. I hung up so he wouldn’t hear more. He drove towards me until he reached a gas station where they told him he couldn’t go further. He saw a special forces unit there and told them his son was inside. He said, 'Either you go in, or I’m going in.' From the moment they called me, it took an hour because they encountered resistance on the way. Ten minutes before they arrived, two trucks with terrorists passed by, and a helicopter blew them up."
Dark Legacy - The Abandonment of October 7th Hostages
Netanyahu’s Legacy
Guy Zur
Major General (Reserves).
The 1996 elections. Before opening fire during a practice maneuver on the
Golan Heights, we turned on the radio and heard that Shimon Peres was
about to become prime minister. We concluded practice at dawn. Bibi
was elected. I remember both the hope, promises, and good intentions;
and also the sense of discomfort towards the man who seemed to me,
even then, after Rabin’s assassination, as Mr. Hypocrite. This feeling
grew stronger over the years.
And since then, Bibi has been here! At first, he exhibited both true
patriotism on the one hand, and narcissism, greediness and a bloated
aspiration for power, on the other. It is hard to determine with any
degree of certainty when he grasped the contradiction between his love
for this country, and his inability to lead it. There is no question that this
understanding, which began with minor deliberations about what would
be preferable, when his personal interest clashed with the national interest,
has currently reached this horrific situation in which Netanyahu acts on
all fronts against the State of Israel, facilitating its destruction. His sins
against Israel are abundant, beginning with his repeal of the positive economic steps which he himself initiated as Minister of Finance in 2003,
but then revoked as prime minister, the result of political considerations.
In my role as head of the Israel Defense Forces Planning Directorate and
Chief of the Ground Forces Command, I often witnessed Netanyahu’s
decisions and discussions. I perceived his corruption mainly when
I was Chief of the Ground Forces Command after the 2014 Operation
Protective Edge, when he admitted to me that he had preferred political
considerations over providing budgets for the IDF for armament and
munition that had been needed for several years, and which he had
promised. We concluded Operation Protective Edge with our backs to
the wall.
This was the moment when I understood that Bibi had lost his way. Later
it became clear to me that he no longer deliberated about what was right
and what was wrong. He always preferred what was best for him rather
than what was best for Israel. These choices led him to commit egregious
crimes. The most outrageous among them are:
-
- Cultivating an atmosphere of conflict and fracture within the
country, while employing the tactics of divide and conquer, thus
legitimizing hostilities within the country.
-
- Reinforcing Hamas and turning it into a significant threat in order to “maintain his base,” while ignoring Israel’s strategic needs, which
were crystal clear to Netanyahu.
-
- Promoting serious moral corruption, which stemmed from his
and his family’s miserliness and extreme hedonism, and altering
the attitude of whole sectors to the law enforcement systems.
-
- Harming the control mechanisms essential to a democracy,
and in particular attempting to undermine Israel’s judicial system.
-
- Evading responsibility: first in the Mount Meron disaster, in which
45 people were killed, after which the inquiry committee found
him responsible. In addition, harming the state, as allegedly
determined by the National Committee of Inquiry surrounding his alleged actions in the purchase of submarines.
-
- The worst crime continues to this day. It begins with his failure to
take responsibility for the October 7th disaster and continues with
his making political decisions for the continuation of the war with
no horizon in sight. Even if he still makes a few positive decisions,
his crime of abandoning the hostages who are still in Gaza after
270 days, at the time these words were written, will tarnish his
entire legacy,
Netanyahu’s Legacy
Guy Zur
Major General (Reserves).
The 1996 elections. Before opening fire during a practice maneuver on the Golan Heights, we turned on the radio and heard that Shimon Peres was about to become prime minister. We concluded practice at dawn. Bibi was elected. I remember both the hope, promises, and good intentions; and also the sense of discomfort towards the man who seemed to me, even then, after Rabin’s assassination, as Mr. Hypocrite. This feeling grew stronger over the years.
And since then, Bibi has been here! At first, he exhibited both true patriotism on the one hand, and narcissism, greediness and a bloated aspiration for power, on the other. It is hard to determine with any degree of certainty when he grasped the contradiction between his love for this country, and his inability to lead it. There is no question that this understanding, which began with minor deliberations about what would be preferable, when his personal interest clashed with the national interest, has currently reached this horrific situation in which Netanyahu acts on all fronts against the State of Israel, facilitating its destruction. His sins against Israel are abundant, beginning with his repeal of the positive economic steps which he himself initiated as Minister of Finance in 2003, but then revoked as prime minister, the result of political considerations.
In my role as head of the Israel Defense Forces Planning Directorate and Chief of the Ground Forces Command, I often witnessed Netanyahu’s decisions and discussions. I perceived his corruption mainly when I was Chief of the Ground Forces Command after the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, when he admitted to me that he had preferred political considerations over providing budgets for the IDF for armament and munition that had been needed for several years, and which he had promised. We concluded Operation Protective Edge with our backs to the wall.
This was the moment when I understood that Bibi had lost his way. Later it became clear to me that he no longer deliberated about what was right and what was wrong. He always preferred what was best for him rather than what was best for Israel. These choices led him to commit egregious crimes. The most outrageous among them are:
-
- Cultivating an atmosphere of conflict and fracture within the country, while employing the tactics of divide and conquer, thus legitimizing hostilities within the country.
-
- Reinforcing Hamas and turning it into a significant threat in order to “maintain his base,” while ignoring Israel’s strategic needs, which were crystal clear to Netanyahu.
-
- Promoting serious moral corruption, which stemmed from his and his family’s miserliness and extreme hedonism, and altering the attitude of whole sectors to the law enforcement systems.
-
- Harming the control mechanisms essential to a democracy,
and in particular attempting to undermine Israel’s judicial system. -
- Evading responsibility: first in the Mount Meron disaster, in which 45 people were killed, after which the inquiry committee found him responsible. In addition, harming the state, as allegedly determined by the National Committee of Inquiry surrounding his alleged actions in the purchase of submarines.
-
- The worst crime continues to this day. It begins with his failure to take responsibility for the October 7th disaster and continues with his making political decisions for the continuation of the war with no horizon in sight. Even if he still makes a few positive decisions, his crime of abandoning the hostages who are still in Gaza after 270 days, at the time these words were written, will tarnish his entire legacy,
Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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