Situational Update
- Ynet reports: The IDF confirmed late on Tuesday that senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine was killed in a targeted strike early in October after reports that his body was found in the destroyed Hezbollah bunker three weeks after the attack. Safieddine, Nasrallah’s cousin was considered to be his successor as Hezbollah’s leader. Alongside Hashem, the terrorist Ali Hussein Hazima, the Commander of Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters, was also eliminated.
- The Times of Israel reports: Seven East Jerusalem Palestinians have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Iran and plotting attacks in Israel on the Islamic Republic’s behalf, the Israel Police and Shin Bet said Tuesday, marking the fifth such case to be revealed in just over a month and the second in as many days. The suspects, all men aged 19 to 23 from the Beit Safafa neighborhood without previous criminal or security-related records, were pursuing the assassination of an Israeli nuclear scientist as well as the mayor of a large city in central Israel, the authorities said in a statement. The Shin Bet in recent months has announced a series of alleged Iranian plots, in which Tehran had tried to trick Israelis online into carrying out missions. In January, authorities uncovered a scheme involving Israelis who were allegedly recruited to gather intelligence on high-profile figures.
- Multiple sources report: Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday in the first big U.S. push for a Middle East ceasefire since Israel killed the leader of Hamas last week – and the last attempt before a presidential election that could upend U.S. policy. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said Netanyahu told Blinken that there was a need for a security and political change in Lebanon that would allow displaced Israelis to return safely to their homes. Additional items discussed include:
- The Prime Minster recognized the “seriousness” of US warnings to increase aid to Palestinians in Gaza, a US official says.
- Blinken also discussed with Netanyahu the mechanisms to be put in place, including “transitional structures” needed for postwar governance in Gaza, the US official says. Israeli leaders told Blinken it is not the country’s policy to isolate northern Gaza (the so-called “General’s Plan” which envisions the IDF laying siege to northern Gaza in order to snuff out remaining Hamas fighters.)
The Numbers
Casualties
- 1,730 Israelis have been killed including 752 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+3 since Wednesday)
- Major (res.) Aviram Hariv, 42, was killed in battle in southern Lebanon. Hariv, who also served as the rabbi of the Dolev Ulpana (an only-girls religious high school), left behind his wife Ayelet and six children: Ahinoam, 18, Ziv, 15, Shahar, 11, Uri, 9, Amit, 7, and Ivri, 4.
- Master Sergeant (res.) Saar Eliad Navarsky, 27, fell in the fighting in the north.
- Staff Sergeant Yishai Mann, 21, was killed in a road accident while on duty near the Gaza Strip.
Shirel Golan, a courageous survivor of the Nova Music Festival, tragically died by suicide on her 22nd birthday.
- 361 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed
- 81 Israelis (50 IDF soldiers: +2 since Sunday) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel
- Additional Information (according to the IDF):
- 2,362 (+6 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 453 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
- 5,043 (+7since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 748 (+3 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
- According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 42,603 (no updates to report) people have been killed in Gaza, and 99,759 (no updates to report) have been injured during the war.
- On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
- The article goes on to say: “In an N12 article that came out this morning, Hemo also pointed out that since the elimination of key leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top echelon has gone underground and fled Iran and Lebanon, with some relocating to Turkey and Qatar – with the hope that Israel will not strike them there.
- We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
- The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
- On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
- The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.
Hostages (no change from Sunday)
‘Left with no underwear or pants’: Mia Schem recounts harrowing moments from Hamas captivity by Eran Itzkovitz in The Jerusalem Post
- After being released from Hamas captivity in Gaza last November, following over 50 days in captivity, Mia Schem has become a prominent figure in the fight for the release of the remaining hostages still held by Hamas. Mia spoke with photographer Ziv Koren, who was the first to photograph her after her release, about the difficulties she had faced.
- Mia also described a particularly distressing moment at her captor’s home. “I had arrived there on the last day of my period and could barely walk, so they had to hold my hand.”
- “His wife followed me into the bathroom. I was crying, in pain, trying to put in a tampon but failing. I was sobbing, and she started screaming at me while he banged on the door. I fainted from the pain, left with no underwear or pants.”
- She further described the sexual harassment she experienced from her captor, who “kept reminding me that he had seen me without underwear.”Reflecting on the trauma, she said, “Throughout my captivity, I didn’t have a period due to the shock and trauma my body went through.”
- Link: Mia Schem describes her sexual assault and trauma
- There are currently 97 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
- 7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
- On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
- During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
- 146 hostages in total have been released or rescued
- The bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
- 8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
- This leaves 101 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
- 30-50 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
- Thus, at most, 50-70 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
- Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Listen
[PODCAST] Call Me Back with Dan Senor: The fate of the hostages, post Sinwar – with Maya Roman and Gil Dickmann
- The extraordinary success of the elimination of Yahya Sinwar has raised a number of questions about what happens next in the war. And among those asking questions is the community of families of Israeli hostages. In today’s episode, we sat down with two of those family members – Maya Roman and Gil Dickmann.
- Link: The fate of the hostages
[PODCAST] The Free Press: How Hezbollah Is Destroying Lebanon
- In the last year, we’ve witnessed a disturbing trend among some on the fringe left, who cheer those they think are resisting Western imperialism. Even when those anti-imperialists are. . . designated terrorist groups. This misguided support was on full display on the anniversary of October 7, when protesters marched through London chanting, “I love Hezbollah”, and in New York, where they flew flags for the Iran-backed militia group flags and carried “New York for Hezbollah” signs.
- It was a remarkable sight, but unsurprising when you consider the distorted lens through which these extremists look at the war in the Middle East. To them, Hezbollah, the group responsible for killing 241 Americans in a 1983 terror attack and for murdering 85 innocents in Argentina in 1994, is simply a resistance group defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression.
- But is that how the Lebanese see Hezbollah? An armed Shia group as the defender of Lebanon, a country of many different religious and cultural communities? Defender of Beirut, a city that one Lebanese journalist recently called “a tolerant and diverse cosmopolitan center”?
- We discuss the history of Hezbollah, its function as an Iranian proxy, its unpopularity in Lebanon and in the broader region, the group’s criminal activities, like drug and sex trafficking, and the path forward for Lebanon now that Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah’s military capabilities.
- Link: How Hezbollah Is Destroying Lebanon
Watch
Hezbollah’s Hostages: The Brave Youth Who Took Hezbollah to Court: The terrorist group brutalizes innocent people with impunity. But finally, some citizens are saying, ‘Enough.’ From The Free Press and its partners at the Center for Peace Communications.
- “A Walk in the Woods,” tells the story of Ali, a young Lebanese Shi’ite who committed a radical act with four friends: They took a walk in the woods to enjoy the beauty and peace of their own country.
- Sitting in a grove listening to birds, the quiet outing of the three young men and two young women was soon interrupted by the force that really controls Lebanon: Hezbollah, the terror organization that does Iran’s bidding.
- Hezbollah fighters began throwing rocks at the group, then set upon Ali with clubs, delivering a bone-shattering beating. Miraculously, the five youths managed to escape.
- Later, as he recovered in his hospital bed, Ali resolved that no one should be above the law. Though loved ones warned him it was too dangerous to challenge the power of Hezbollah, he risked everything to sue his attackers.
- Today, personal acts of resistance like Ali’s carry geopolitical significance. For too long, the millions of people victimized by Hezbollah have been ignored and forgotten. Now the world is watching as Israel—which is hit daily by Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles—fights back against the terror group.
- But a military victory alone will not be enough to destroy its influence. Hezbollah will not go quietly. Determined civilians like Ali, who rise up against the group, also need sustained international support—using all powers the world can bring to bear—to affect true political change. Change that will allow Ali to live in a Lebanon where he can take a simple walk in the woods.
Listen to IDF Spokesman RAdm. Daniel Hagari as he exposes Hezbollah’s finance hub hidden underneath a hospital
- “Tonight, I am going to declassify intelligence on a site that we did not strike—where Hezbollah has millions of dollars in gold and cash—in Hassan Nasrallah’s bunker. Where is the bunker located? Directly under Al-Sahel Hospital in the heart of Beirut.” Watch the entire video here
IDF International Spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani writes:
- To all the journalists in Beirut, including those who participated in the press tour in the Al-Sahel Hospital, these are the entry instructions to Nasrallah’s bunker we exposed yesterday:
- According to intelligence information, one of the entrances to the bunker, containing more than half a billion dollars in gold and dollars, is on the eastern side of the basement of the Al-Ahmedi building, located south of the Al-Sahel hospital.
- The basement is on the second floor down (level -2).
- It is important to note that it is possible the entrance is hidden by various means in order to make it difficult to find.
- We invite you to this site in which Hezbollah is holding money that was taken from the Lebanese people.
Rocket Alerts
Yesterday, there were 473 red alerts, and a total of 1,693 in the past week
Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel
What We Are Reading
October 7 and the Battle for the West, by Arthur Herman in Mosaic Magazine
- After the events of last October 7, most of us assumed—naively as it turned out—that the brutal massacre of 1,200 innocent Israelis would trigger a great outpouring of sympathy and support for Israel. We also hoped it would lead to the definitive repudiation of the kind of hatred of Jews and Judaism that inspired Hamas’s terrible atrocities, and that before October 7 had culminated with the Holocaust.
- We were wrong.
- On the contrary, the reaction to October 7 entailed a frightening surge in anti-Semitism, especially from the political left. We were stunned and appalled to watch violence unleashed not just against Israel and supporters of Israel. There were actual physical attacks on Jews and Jewish students on America’s most prestigious campuses: according to Hillel International, over ten times as many anti-Semitic incidents took place on campuses between July and September 2024 than during the summer of 2023. This surge was accompanied by ostracism of anyone—no matter how liberal—the anti-Israel mob decided to label Zionist. In effect, any Jew who didn’t denounce Israel’s actions as “genocide” or justify the brutality of Israel’s enemies, including Hamas, became persona non grata on the left.
- A year later is a good time to figure out what is going on.
- The entire history of the Jews as a people, and their identification with their history, is immune from ideological revision and intellectual fashion. It’s a history that springs from a single world-shattering event, the Israelites’ covenant with G-d. Out of that covenant flows a nearly 4,000-year-old narrative built around obedience to a divine authority who transcends politics and nature. It’s a historical narrative organized around themes of personal responsibility and redemption, not class or race or gender.
- It is this history that has set Jews apart from other communities for millennia, but it has also made them more resilient, because it is built on the proposition that God’s laws take precedence over the laws instituted by those with whom they live and work.
- That which makes the Jews strong is precisely what drives others to fury and envy. How dare the Jews persist while we rise and fall? That is the burning question enemies of the Jews have asked themselves from the time of the Philistines, Egyptians, Persians, and Romans to the Nazis and the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies. Now it includes a very angry and frustrated “woke” left.
- What is particularly infuriating for them about Jewish history is that it has an overriding moral dimension, expressed through individual action both good and bad. If individuals or a nation suffer success or disaster, responsibility ultimately belongs to human beings, not class or race or gender or intersectionality. Good and evil exist; they are inescapable and crucial dimensions of each individual life, and they reveal the power and justice of God. There is no sidestepping moral decision making, no passage “beyond good and evil” for any of us.
- As it happens, the West is the great inheritor of that Jewish freedom and strength derived from the binding personal relationship with God and God’s laws. It has passed down first through Christianity, and then through the moral foundations of the modern state, including the notions of human rights and individual freedom that the left used to celebrate, and perhaps still does. But paradoxically, the entire thrust of our postmodern Western culture has been to neutralize and then deny that Judeo-Christian inheritance for the sake of a secular ideal based on political expediency and the universal power of self-interest.
- Much of the West deliberately exalted this de-Christianized ideal in order to appear tolerant and open to other cultures and identities, including of course Islam. But it has come at a terrible price. By adopting what the French philosopher Pierre Manent has called a “radical secularism,” we have come to deny our own identities, Jew and non-Jew alike.
- Which brings us back to October 7, and radical Islam.
- The bitter truth is that the Islamists see through our disguise. They know what the West denies, i.e., that we are a Judeo-Christian civilization with deep religious and moral roots. Accepting that fact doesn’t necessarily mean confrontation, let alone unleashing a new spirit of “crusade” (the term from which both radical Islamists and liberals recoil in horror). On the contrary, taking pride in our Judeo-Christian inheritance would make it easier for Muslims and others to come to terms with its living presence in the West, both here in America and particularly in Europe, where the denial of that inheritance has sunk to the level of mass psychosis.
- But doing this requires those of us who are non-Jews to acknowledge who we are, and our eternal debt to Judaism—which, paradoxically, the drama of the Holocaust served to obscure (except for evangelical Christians, who understand very well what Israel and the Jews represent for them and the rest of us). To put it slightly differently, just as we can’t and don’t expect Muslims to shed their core identity, we shouldn’t shed ours. The model for Muslims of how to adapt to the modern West should in fact be the Jews themselves, who live in freedom in our midst and recognize our laws without relinquishing who they are, or who they want to be.
- Link: October 7 and the Battle for the West
Israel begins destruction of Hezbollah’s banking system, by Dean Shmuel Elmas in Globes, Israeli Business News
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has this week launched extensive attacks on Hezbollah’s financing pipeline with an emphasis on Al-Qard Al-Hassan, which helps to finance the Lebanese Shia organization’s terror activities. The Lebanese media has reported attacks over the past day with images of the destroyed Al-Qard Al-Hassan banking branch in the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut. Next to the bombed bank stands the statue of Qasem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s Quds Force, who was assassinated by the US in 2020.
- Although many experts in Israel agree that the attack has been a worthwhile endeavor and perhaps should have been undertaken before, Dr. Udi Levy, the former head of the Mossad’s Economic Warfare Division and today a Senior Researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security insists that there will be no immediate economic damage to Hezbollah.
- Levy explains. “The money hasn’t been there for a long time. Hezbollah withdrew the money and assets and transferred them underground. So the money has probably not been harmed.” However, the damage according to Levy is found among other things in the message that the attack conveys. The message is, “We will damage your softest underbelly – the money.” Without it Hezbollah cannot rehabilitate itself.”
- Levy also points out further damage that has been done. “The critical point from the terrorist organization’s point of view is that the IDF attack is expected to cause panic among the Shia population, whose assets were deposited in Al-Qard Al-Hassan. People can now be expected to demand the withdrawal of their funds, and this may result in severe damage to Hezbollah, which is already in dire straits.” He adds, “The Iranians understand that without money, Hezbollah will lose its grip on Lebanon, which is why Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued a religious ruling two weeks ago, according to which half of donations should go to Lebanon and Hezbollah.”
- Al-Qard Al-Hassan is not a bank in the classic sense of the word. It was founded in 1982 by Hezbollah itself. It provides customers three different types of accounts, and even gives interest-free loans, in exchange for collateral (such as gold). However, for 17 years the bank has been subject to US sanctions, which prevent direct access to the global banking system.
- These sanctions have not prevented the bank from prospering. According to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), the volume of loans extended by Al-Qard Al-Hassan grew from $76.5 million in 2007 to $480 million in 2019. The total activity of the banking association until 2019 is estimated at about $3.5 billion. According to estimates by Israel’s Ministry of Defense, Hezbollah stored hundreds of millions of dollars in some 31 branches of the association.
- How has the terrorist organization managed to do this, despite the sanctions? Al-Qard Al-Hassan operates “private” accounts in full-fledged Lebanese banks. When Iran wants to transfer money to the terrorist organization and its people, it does so through accounts in the various Lebanese banks. There, an Al-Qard Al-Hassan employee working secretly, withdraws the money, and deposits it in the association. The US Treasury Department is aware of this method of operation, and has imposed personal sanctions on six employees of the Hezbollah association, noting that the six transferred over $500,000 within a decade using this method.
- Hezbollah’s annual budget is about $1 billion, with about 70% coming from Iran and about 30% from illegal activities, most of which are worldwide and based on drug trafficking. These activities are undertaken in various places, mainly in Syria, in cooperation with the Assad regime, in Latin America and West Africa.
- An investigation by French newspaper “Le Monde” published last week found that Al-Qard Al-Hassan is used by the Shiite terrorist organization, among other things, to raise funds from Lebanese communities in the Ivory Coast and Guinea – based on money laundering from drug sales. According to Levy, the lion’s share of Hezbollah’s drug industry money in West Africa and Latin America arrives in Beirut through the air and sea ports.
- According to Levy, Israel now has a rare opportunity to create a significant loss of confidence in Hezbollah for the Lebanese population, including the Shiite population. “The terrorist organization felt comfortable after Israeli attacks to send property taxes to Shiite homes that were destroyed, and to provide aid, but the moment a financial problem is created they lose their hold on the population.”
- Link: Israel begins destruction of Hezbollah’s banking system
Inside US-Israel understanding to reward Netanyahu for not targeting Iran’s oil fields, by Ben Caspit in Al-Monitor
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be back on the top of his game, orchestrating fights against all of Iran’s regional proxies, and reversing in public opinion polls the nadir his popularity reached following the Oct. 7 disaster that occurred on his watch.
- The Hezbollah drone that exploded near his home in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea Oct. 19 was the latest in a series of violent incidents he is leveraging to his advantage, vowing that Iran would pay for what he described as its proxy’s attempt to assassinate him and his wife. Netanyahu and his wife were not home and the blast caused damage but no casualties. The question is whether and how it will affect the long-expected Israeli retaliation against Iran for its Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack on Israel.
- “The pictures were very humiliating,” the source said on condition of anonymity. Netanyahu, the source added, was taken to the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, where he ordered the killing of Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Atta — that occurred two months later. The source described the incident to demonstrate that Netanyahu takes attacks on himself personally.
- Several Israeli and American security sources told Al-Monitor in recent days that a quiet US-Israeli understanding has been reached, promising to reward Israel for refraining from targeting Iran’s oil industry and nuclear power infrastructure in order to reduce the risk of all-out war a week or two before the US elections. For the moment, there is nothing in writing, and nothing has been said outright, but the understanding is apparently there.
- According to these sources, the compensation includes lifting the US suspension of certain arms and ammunition shipments to Israel and accelerating their supply, as well as supplying heavy engineering equipment such as D9 bulldozers. The package also includes increased US attacks on Houthi weapons depots and other strategic targets in Yemen — a promise that appears to have been kept with the Oct. 16 US strike on Houthi weapons depots in Yemen. The Pentagon is said to be considering enhanced operational cooperation and deployment of a second THAAD anti-missile battery in Israel, in addition to the one deployed in recent days to enhance Israel’s anti-missile defenses.
- Both Israeli and US officials consider Iran likely to respond to Israel’s expected attack, which will reportedly target military and other sites. “The role of the Americans in the next round — in which it will be Israel’s turn to attack Iran — will be critical,” a senior Israeli security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “They will have to make it clear to Iran in a persuasive and creative way, to break the cycle of reactions so that an all-out war does not break out.”
- “The region has reached a strategic and perhaps even historic crossroads,” a senior Israeli political source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “According to our assessments, Hezbollah wants to end the war, they have been dealt the worst blow in their history, they have exhausted the event. Iran also wants to end it. Hamas has stopped functioning as a governmental or military body; it has no leadership at all. Israel has nowhere else to aspire. From here you can only descend, and we must take advantage of all this to reach an arrangement.”
- “We don’t have to rule Lebanon or determine who will rule Lebanon,” a senior Israeli military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “We need an arrangement that moves Hezbollah north of the Litani [River], strengthens the Lebanese central government and recognizes that if the arrangement is not enforced, Israel will enforce it with all the means at its disposal. It’s as simple as that.”
- Link: Inside US-Israel understanding to reward Netanyahu for not targeting Iran’s oil fields
Biden Puts Israel in an Impossible Position, by Noah Rothman in National Review
- The Biden administration is once again threatening to hold its support for Israel’s defensive operations against Iran’s terrorist proxies hostage unless certain conditions are met. This is quite a conundrum for Israel. It would surely like to comply with the administration’s demands, but, from Jerusalem’s perspective, it already has.
- In an October 13 letter to the Israeli government undersigned by administration officials Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, the United States accused the Jewish state of cutting off humanitarian aid to parts of the Gaza Strip. Israeli actions have “contributed to starvation and widespread suffering, particularly in the enclave’s north where Israel launched a renewed ground operation nearly two weeks ago,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Israel must “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory” within 30 days of the letter, it read, or there will be “implications” for the future disbursement of U.S. ordnance and financial aid.
- State Department spokesman Matthew Miller cast the missive not as an ultimatum but a friendly nudge of the sort that Israel has responded to with alacrity in the past. “We have seen Israel make changes before, and when they make changes, humanitarian assistance can increase,” he told reporters. “We know it can be done, we know that the various logistical, bureaucratic obstacles can be surmounted,” he added.
- According to the U.N.’s World Food Programme, food aid entering Gaza’s northern enclaves cratered in October as the IDF encircled a position near Jabalia where Hamas operatives were reportedly attempting to regroup. The civilian population there — some 400,000 civilians, according to estimates — is under increasing pressure to move southward away from the fighting. “Hunger remains rampant, and the threat of famine persists,” the U.N. organization told CNN. “If the flow of assistance does not resume, one million vulnerable people will be deprived on this lifeline.”
- The mischaracterization of the humanitarian conditions in Gaza of which the IPC initially warned made international headlines and yielded to widespread outrage over Israel’s handling of the war that began on October 7, 2023. The clarification that revealed the extent to which the whole affair was made up didn’t receive nearly the same level of coverage. And, if Israeli denials are any indication, the same sequence of events appears to be unfolding all over again. Certainly, this time could be different, but there is no greater indicator of future results than past performance.
- Indeed, imposing this predicament on Israel seems to suit the Biden administration’s political objectives, even if America’s strategic goals in the region are frustrated in the process. The elusive fact of famine in the Gaza Strip seems immaterial. Rather, the impression that the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe looms forever just over the horizon appears to be an impression the administration wants to cultivate. If the Biden administration hopes to see its Israeli partners emerge from a speedy war against Hamas victorious, it’s doing everything in its power to thwart that objective by impugning its ally’s actions and motives while depriving Jerusalem of the tools it needs to see this war through to a rapid conclusion.
- If you’re confused, so is the Biden administration. When it comes to Israel’s post-10/7 defensive operations, this White House doesn’t know its own mind. It may be incumbent on voters to make it up for them.
- Link: Biden Puts Israel in an Impossible Position
Yahya Sinwar’s killing has left Hamas in disarray, by Kyle Orton in Unherd
- Almost exactly a year after Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel, its leader Yahya Sinwar has been killed. This is not the end of Hamas, but it does offer Israel an opportunity to destabilise and fragment the group, similar to what Israel has done to Hezbollah — to cut the Islamists down to a more manageable size and bring the war to a conclusion on terms reasonably close to victory.
- It was important for Israel’s security that Sinwar died. Beyond any of the tactical considerations about the conduct of Israel’s war in Gaza, the country needed to send a strategic message to the region that there is no profit in 7 October-type attacks on the Jewish State. On this score, Israel has succeeded. Hamas’s military leaders — Saleh al-Aruri, Marwan Issa, Mohammed Deif — have all been eliminated, and Hamas’s “political” chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an audacious MOSSAD operation in Tehran. Now, Sinwar is the latest to go.
- His apparent successor, Rawhi Mushtaha, was confirmed dead two weeks ago, which increases the chances that Sinwar’s brother Mohammed will take over. The question is how long he lasts. Israel killed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah at the end of September, and his relative Hashem Safieddine replaced him, only to (probably) be killed less than a week later.
- These killings are not the same. The decapitation of Hezbollah was a targeted operation enabled by Israel’s infiltration of the group, but Sinwar’s downfall came about “by chance”.
- There are similarities, however. Like Hezbollah, Hamas has lost most of its leadership cadre. The group will now have to cope with the same disarray in its command structure and loss of some of its “resistance” sheen. Sustained Israeli pressure on Hamas at this point could induce fractures, particularly with the group’s newer recruits and other non-core members, whose post-7 October morale is waning. Hamas might still exist in name, but its capacities could be diminished to a point where the threat it poses makes it strategically and politically possible for Israel to wind down the war.
- Whether Israel is able to exploit this opportunity is unclear. It has so far removed the bulk of its troops from Gaza to deal with Hezbollah in the north, which might give Hamas enough breathing space to reconsolidate.
- The easiest way for Hamas to save itself has always been to agree to give back the hostages. This would create an international political situation where it would be difficult for Israel to continue the war in the name of destroying the group. But Sinwar repeatedly blocked this course; his possible successors seem to be in the same mold. And no Israeli government, under any prime minister, will agree to end the war while the group still holds nearly 100 Israeli hostages.
- Link: Yahya Sinwar’s killing has left Hamas in disarray
Antisemitism
The Weaponization of Medical Misinformation and the War in Gaza, by Joel Zivot and Horacio Hojman in Jurist News
- As reported in a recent New York Times article, a group of doctors, nurses, and paramedics reported a cluster of what was claimed to be gunshot wounds to the heads of children in the crowded battle space of Gaza. No reasonable military mission scenario would allow such targeting. Though not explicitly stated, the piece strongly suggests the culprits were soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). In a world where everyone has a camera, live on-the-scene images of injuries and death shock the consciousness. Witness the recent photos of the dead body of Yahya Sinwar; a significant and apparent defect in his skull is visible. Such proof of death and injury, though shocking, is critical when the spread of disinformation has never been easier.
- In criminal law, intent (mens rea) is a person’s mental state when they commit a crime. The proof of intent is complex, and although some actions strongly suggest intent, doubt can remain. War involves the intentional killing of others, but International Humanitarian Law recognizes the right of lawful combat that results in killing. Separate from war, murder is the killing of a human being with malice aforethought. In war, murder is still possible when the killing occurs absent justification or excuse. In every war, the unintentional killing of civilians is the consequence of indirect fire, and the allowable quantity of death by this method distinguishes the point between collateral damage and war crime.
- Included in the New York Times piece are three images purported to be side-view X-rays of children’s skulls and necks. A radiopaque structure resembling a boat tail bullet can be easily seen in these radiographs. A boat tail is a type of rifle bullet tapered at the end, resembling the shape of a sailboat. Upon closer examination, it became quickly apparent to many people with expertise in medicine and ballistics that the X-rays may have been doctored or specifically chosen to claim intentional targeting of civilian children.
- Understanding why these X-rays are so suspicious requires understanding how such images are generated and further understanding ballistics – the scientific study of projectiles and firearms and the motion and impact of bullets. Finally, what compelled healthcare workers, including physicians, to post false or misleading accounts of these injuries? Why would physicians advance the idea that such injuries were the result of strategic intent on the part of the IDF?
- When an image is observed on an X-ray that is not a naturally occurring structure within the body, one is unable in a single image to know if that object is on the body, in the body, or behind the body. We need at least two separate X-ray images offset by 90 degrees to pinpoint the location of that object. The New York Times story produced only single images and when asked for more, the reply was that the images were too gruesome for view. When a bullet passes through the skull, the resulting penetration fractures the skull bone and creates a hydrostatic pressure wave, causing tissue injury easily visible on X-ray images. No fracture or any other injury can be seen in the supplied images.
- If one assumes by an extraordinary circumstance that a fired bullet should lodge within the head of a child, it cannot be known with certainty who fired that bullet and why. The IDF uses the standard NATO rifle that shoots a 5.56-round. Hamas favors an AK rifle, but some variants also fire a 5.56 bullet. Also, on occasion, Hamas has been able to obtain NATO-style weapons. So-called celebratory gunfire is the shooting of a bullet directly into the air in celebration. Such practices are known to occur in parts of the Middle East. In the US, celebratory gunfire is generally illegal because it can be associated with severe injuries, including head injuries from falling bullets.
- For the healthcare worker in Gaza, politics are prevalent. Israel has just barred six medical NGOs from operating in Gaza. One of these groups, the Palestinian American Medical Association, had members in the New York Times report. No one disputes that children are being injured and killed in Gaza. Still, healthcare workers ceased to be effective advocates for health and safety when they speculated or lied about the nature of injuries they claimed to encounter. Medical accounts of injuries and deaths in an active war zone are critically valuable in making sense of the risks to the civilian population in the battle space. Medical personnel risk acting as purveyors of disinformation when departing from impartial accounting.
- One cannot imagine the shooting of innocent children is in the strategic interest of the IDF. Further, the ballistic facts make such targeting impossible. The medical profession must be unbiased. The banning of medical NGOs might be the final straw after a series of pernicious NGO-generated propaganda. In this war, the patients are the losers. The media, with a publish now, retract later approach, has created confusion in the desperate pursuit of a story. Now, more than ever, a calm and impartial appraisal on the part of healthcare and the media is desperately needed. When the war ends, as it indeed will, an accounting of the facts by combatants, including Hamas and its enablers, will seek to identify any crimes committed, and punishment will follow crime accordingly.
- Link: The Weaponization of Medical Misinformation and the War in Gaza
College Officials Must Condemn On-Campus Support for Hamas Violence by Erwin Chemerinsky in The New York Times
- Although college campuses are much quieter this fall than they were last spring, some of the anti-Israel rhetoric at some schools is frightening in its celebration of Hamas’s violence. What feels different is the repeated glorification of the Hamas massacre of more than 1,200 people last year on Oct. 7 in a surprise attack.
- About 1,000 people attended a rally on Oct. 8 commemorating the first anniversary of the Hamas attack at the University of California, Berkeley, where I am the dean of the law school. About half appeared to be students. Many of the protest signs were explicit in their endorsement of the violence on that day a year ago: “Israel deserves 10,000 October 7ths,” one said. “Long Live Al-Aqsa Flood,” another said, using the Hamas name for the Oct. 7 attack.
- Across the country at Columbia University, the group Apartheid Divest posted an essay calling the Hamas attack a “moral, military and political victory.” The group also rescinded its criticism from last spring of Khymani James, a student who had said in a disciplinary hearing that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
- Indeed, in its statement, the group declared, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.” It also said, “Where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
- In Rhode Island, the Brown University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted this on Instagram: “Al-Aqsa Flood was a historic act of resistance against decades of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonial violence.”
- This support of violence is deeply disturbing. But so is the silence of school officials. Does anyone think the officials would be silent if there was a Ku Klux Klan gathering on a college campus celebrating white supremacist violence?
- We should expect — and demand — that campus officials respond to a celebration of Hamas in the same way they would to a Klan rally praising racist violence. The speech of those celebrating Hamas is protected by the First Amendment on public university campuses, and at private universities that choose to adhere to free speech principles, because there is a right to express all ideas, even very offensive ones. But that does not mean universities can or should do nothing.
- Colleges can be in violation of Title VI if they determine that a hostile environment exists but don’t take steps to end the harassment or prevent it from recurring. The Education Department has identified several steps universities can take, including providing counseling and support to students affected by harassment and establishing “a welcoming and respectful school campus.”
- Perhaps more important, university officials can also fulfill their obligation under Title VI by using their own speech to express the values of their community and condemn hateful expression.
- As I listen to my Jewish students and their reaction to celebrations of Hamas, I have no doubt that they perceive a hostile environment. They do not feel comfortable walking across a plaza in the middle of campus where a sign says, “Israel deserves 10,000 October 7ths.” They understandably fear that the celebration of violence can too easily lead to violence.
- I understand the reluctance of university officials to speak out or take other actions. It is easier to do nothing than to say something that will upset some campus constituencies.
- But silence, too, is a message. And it is more. In the eyes of the law, doing nothing can be viewed as deliberate indifference, which violates Title VI and can lead to action by the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education.
- Link: College Officials Must Condemn On-Campus Support for Hamas Violence
Mao-Maoing the News Anchors by Christine Rosen in Commentary
- A character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises explains pithily how he went bankrupt: “Two ways: gradually, and then suddenly.” So, too, with the collapse of integrity at CBS News.
- In October, the decline suddenly accelerated. King’s colleague, CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil asked some pointed questions of Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose new book, The Message, offers his usual recipe of one-sided ahistorical declamations combined with a lot of moral posturing about race and (after a 10-day tour of the Middle East) some thin but entirely anti-Zionist gruel.
- Dokoupil and Coates went back and forth for a few minutes in a lively but largely civil exchange, with Dokoupil noting, correctly, that the potted history Coates promotes would not be out of place in an “extremist’s backpack.” Anyone who watched would have noted the brief look of surprise on Coates’s face. He is clearly unaccustomed to anything other than fawning praise from mainstream-media interviewers and seemed momentarily caught off guard when asked to explain why he hadn’t bothered to mention in his book events such as the first and second intifada or the existence of terrorist groups like Hamas.
- Coates later talked about the interview on a podcast with Trevor Noah, noting airily that Dokoupil’s co-host King had told him before the interview what questions she planned to ask him (she did not end up asking them on-air). And during an interview with one-time MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on Hasan’s new vanity platform, Zeteo, Coates said, “I was a little surprised, and then I realized what was going on, I was in a fight…. So it was right there, you know, as a pop quiz, but I had studied.” Later, when asked what he thought about U.S. policy toward the Palestinians, he said, with typical Coatesian glibness that mysteriously gets passed off as moral seriousness, “It’s kind of soul death for the struggle to just say, ‘Hey, we’re just going to go along with this.’”
- Not going along with this: CBS News employees, who accused Dokoupil of being inappropriately aggressive with Coates and causing “trauma” among the staff. Audio leaked to the Free Press as well as to Puck media columnist Dylan Byers revealed that network executives Adrienne Roark and Wendy McMahon openly expressed their unhappiness with Dokoupil; they claimed his behavior during the interview failed to meet the network’s “editorial standards.”
- Dokoupil was remanded to the custody of HR—namely, CBS News’s Race and Culture Unit—to be reminded (reeducated) about the important principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. That unit, as Byers reported in Puck, “determined that while Dokoupil’s questions and intentions were acceptable, his tone was not.”
- The CBS meltdown is notable for a few reasons. First, we learned that CBS News personnel (with the rare exception of legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who defended Dokoupil’s tough questioning) are more conversant in the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as the popular mental-health tropes of trauma and phobia, than they are in the common standards of professional journalism.
- Second, despite some small signs of sanity in recent years, mainstream media clearly have not yet retreated from “peak woke” madness. It was new but unsurprising information that CBS News employs a Race and Culture Unit, distinct from the network’s traditional Standards and Practices division, with a mission as Orwellian as its name. The unit, created in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd four years ago, boasts that it has a “four-pronged role at CBS News and stations as a reviewer, an incubator, a producer and a library.”
- The Race and Culture Unit is itself part of a broader “Content for Change” program sponsored by CBS News’s corporate parent, Paramount Global. That program is described as “a global companywide, cross-brand initiative that seeks to use the power of the company’s content creation ecosystem to break down the narratives that enable intolerance, hurtful stereotypes, and systemic racism to exist and grow.”
- If the Dokoupil incident is any guide, while CBS News is intent on preventing “systemic racism” from gaining purchase, it has no problem seeing journalistic standards wither. Amid the Dokoupil meltdown, Vice President Kamala Harris sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes. A short social-media clip of the interview featured an answer by Harris to a question about Israel and Gaza. But when the full interview aired, a different answer by Harris was used—prompting questions about whether CBS had edited her remarks to make her response better. According to CBS’s own standards, “Answers to different questions may not be combined to give the impression of one continuous response.”
- The chief of Paramount Global, Shari Redstone, clearly is not with her own company’s program. She told reporters that Dokoupil “did a great job with that interview” and provided “a role model of what civil discourse is,” adding, “I was very proud of the work that he did.”
- She could make changes at CBS News that reflect her views by disbanding the Race and Culture Unit and punishing the chiefs of the division for their surrender to the Maoist DEI regime that was determined to punish Dokoupil…but she just sold the place.
- As for Coates, he told a podcast host that he might well have participated in October 7 himself had he been a resident of Gaza. So who’s to say he might not have murdered Jews and raped Jews and kidnapped Jews and burned Jews alive by the thousands?
- That would seem to warrant a follow-up question, no?
- Link: Mao-Maoing the News Anchors
Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, and the Times of Israel