Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
25 Tishrei 5784
October 10 2023
UPDATE 5:30 PM
There are no words.
In the last two hours, IDF troops have recovered the bodies of 40 infants and children at Kfar Aza.
Soldiers report that “we found babies with their heads cut off, entire families gunned down in their beds.”
According to one reporter: “The atrocities that were committed with guns, grenades, knives, all targeting innocent civilians in their homes.”
The search for bodies in Kfar Aza is not over because virtually every home is booby trapped.
UPDATE 4:00 PM
Ashdod along with cities to the north were hit with missile volleys at 3:30 pm. From our location in our bomb shelter, we heard 3 intercepts directly overhead. No one to our knowledge was physically wounded.
This missile like each of the more than 5,250 before was a war crime.
This one like each of the 5,250 before was not condemned by the hideous United Nations.
But guess what?
The abominable U.S. Secretary General Antonio Guterres came to the podium a few hours ago to castigate Israel and to warn us that “military operations must follow international law.”
Just unbelievable. We are trying to rid the world of an ISIS-type Hamas evil, and Guterres is focusing on Israel.
**Hamas has told all the residents of Ashkelon that they have until 5:00 pm to leave the city.
**30 missing persons, 16 Israelis and 14 foreign workers, who were feared dead or kidnapped, were found alive and well last night in hiding at Kibbutz Ein HaShlosha.
**4 Hamas terrorists were killed on the beach in Zikim two hours ago as they attempted to infiltrate Israel.
**Tension between Egypt and Israel. Israel has told Egypt that if it attempts to bring in aid to Gaza, we will bomb the trucks.
At the same time, Israel has encouraged Gazans to evacuate Gaza through the Rafah Crossing, but Egypt is determined to stem the tide. First, they announced this morning that the Rafah Crossing was closed; later they relented and said that it would take 2000 a day.
UPDATE 12:30 AM
***The Israel Police have released the names of 4 more policemen who died on Saturday–bringing to 41 the number that were lost.
***For the first time since the war began, the number of wounded in Israeli hospitals has begun to decrease (544 currently). This, of course, is not necessarily a good thing: many of the wounded have died.
***More information is now available about the horrific death of Shani Lok. Lok was the woman who was kidnapped at the “Forest Party”, stripped naked, raped, killed and tied still naked to the top of a terrorist vehicle and taken to Gaza and paraded through Gaza to the shouts of “Allahu Akbar” by crowds lining the streets. The terrorist perpetrator of the rape and murder has been identified via the video that he had his friend make of the entire gruesome slaughter.
Afterwards, Hamas claimed that Shani was an Israeli soldier. In fact, Lok avoided military service because of her dual Israel-German citizenship.
***The last two days have seen a run on food at Israeli supermarkets as the Home Front Command has recommended that everyone have 72 hours of food and water on hand in the coming days. Shelves everywhere have been cleaned out of milk, meat, and pretty much everything else:
Panicked shoppers have denuded Israeli supermarkets in the last two days.
UPDATE 9:00 AM
On the Gaza border:
The IDF announced the names of 38 more IDF soldiers who have died in the fighting in Gaza bringing to 123 the number of soldier deaths the IDF has announced.,
The bodies of 1,500 terrorists have been found in a sweep of the areas of fighting in the Gaza communities. Obviously, the original estimate of 800-1000 terrorists who carried out the Saturday massacres is grossly inaccurate; a more accurate number appears to be between 3,000 and 3,500.
The Gaza border remains wide open, two more truckloads of terrorists entered overnight near the Saad Junction (beside Kfar Aza). A firefight took place–results are unknown at this hour. The IDF Yamam unit is working to seal the fence under cover of aircraft, artillery, and ground forces.
The IAF has moved from massively bombing northern and southern Gaza to hitting the center of the Palestinian state. Our house here in Ashdod has just been rocked by bombs hitting the terrorists.
On the northern border:
The IDF has announced the death of an IDF officer in the fighting yesterday on the border.
Hezbollah says that 5 of its members were killed in an IDF retaliatory strike yesterday.
On the dark side:
The European Union has decided not to freeze funds to the Palestinians after all.
White House Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council John Kirby declared last night that “there is no evidence that Iran is connected to the Hamas attack.”
And so it goes at this hour.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.