The Gaza War: Day 10

Yom Shnee

Monday

1 Cheshvan 5784

October 16 2023

UPDATE 9:30 PM

The end of sovereign Israel?

In what has to be one of the most outrageous decisions ever made in this country, PM Netanyahu has just allowed U.S. Secretary Tony Blinken to participate in a meeting of our war cabinet which consists of  PM Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, and Yoav Galant.

It is breathtakingly unbelievable that Blinken would be made privy to our war strategy and plans–and even participate in determining them.

**Over the last few hours there have been another series of incidents on the northern border. At the moment, the residents of Metula are ordered to remain in fortified places due to a possible infiltration from Lebanon.

**Another massive volley of missiles has just been fired out of Gaza. One of them hit within 100 meters of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Maybe they can hit it next time. 

UPDATE 5:00 PM

A massive Hamas-ISIS missile attack on Israel at 4:45 pm with hits as far north Petah Tikva and Savion. Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were targeted. We had strikes here in Ashdod with no alarms and no interceptions.

The Unimaginably Tragic Numbers

From the Saturday Massacre:

1,400: murdered and identified

455: murdered and unidentified

3000+ wounded

Realizing that some of the murdered–especially at the “Nature Peace Party”–were from outside the Gaza border communities, it still means that about 10% of the residents of the border communities were murdered.

The Fog of War

It was reported this morning that there was a humanitarian ceasefire between 9 am-2 pm today. 

Here’s what happened between 12 pm-2 pm alone:

Hamas fired missiles and mortars at Saad (12:05), Nahal Oz (12:12), Eshkol (12:29), Ashdod (1:32), Nahal Oz (1:48), and Ashkelon (1:59).

At the same time, the IDF continued bombing northern Gaza.

Other Information

The USS Gerald Ford strike group as of 2:00 pm was 400 km off the Lebanese coast as of 3:00 pm this afternoon. The USS Eisenhower strike group left Norfolk yesterday and is just starting across the Atlantic.

The Chancellor of German Olaf Scholz is arriving in Israel tomorrow.

President Joe Biden is supposedly arriving in Israel on Wednesday or Thursday.

UPDATE 1:00 PM

What price American help?

There is no doubt that Israel cannot go it alone with a war with Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north. So, we thank the United States for its important support at this dire moment.

And yet, there is the ever-increasing sense that the Biden Administration is dictating the course of the war.

Why haven’t we invaded Gaza yet? For the last two days the excuse was the weather. Now that the skies have cleared what’s stopping us seems to be the intervention of Washington at every turn.

Suddenly, we have spokesmen in Washington telling us that we must follow “the humanitarian rules of war.”

We must provide water, food, and medical supplies to the terrorist Palestinian state. 

We must have humanitarian ceasefires. Plural. The talk is now that there may be a humanitarian ceasefire everyday.

We must, we must . . . the Biden Administration tells us . . . we must be humanitarian.

This morning, security forces released information that 80% of the 1400-1800 Israelis slaughtered on Saturday were tortured before being massacred.

And we have no idea what condition the hostages are in being held in the underground tunnels–except that we know that before they were dragged into the tunnels they were beaten, raped, and subjected to other unspeakable horrors.

We have no idea because the monstrous Hamas will not allow the Red Cross to see the hostages–many of whom are probably dead.

Former Mossad Director Yossi Cohen issued a statement today that giving Hamas water is our first post-massacre mistake. 

Certainly, it will not be our last.

Meanwhile, Hamas continues firing mortars at our soldiers who are sitting ducks in staging areas along the Gaza border, and missiles at the rest of us–Ashdod was just hit again 15 minutes ago.

UPDATE 8:00 AM

Beginning in 1 hour  at 9 am, there will be a “humanitarian” ceasefire for 5 hours to allow “humanitarian” aid to the residents of Gaza and the exit of foreigners from Gaza.

Your humble servants wants to scream at our government and the world. Israel agrees to a “humanitarian” ceasefire while Hamas agrees to nothing–and nauseatingly continues to inhumanely hold our hostages that it got during its brutal massacres of children, women, and men.

The reason we put “humanitarian” in quotation marks is because everyone knows that weapons and ammunition will be smuggled into Gaza inside “humanitarian aid.” 

2 more soldiers have fallen in battle: one in the Gaza area, the other in the north.

For the first time, Palestinian Hamas terrorists launched a suicide drone out of Gaza–of the type that Iran sells to Russia to use in the Ukraine. It exploded in Sha’are Hanegev; fortunately no one was wounded or killed.

At the same time, Israel’s laser intercept system was utilized on the Gaza border for the first time. That system was supposed to be deployed for the first time in two years.

Overnight in Gaza: the IAF struck Hamas targets in the Zeitun and Nusirat neighborhoods and in Khan Younis.

Overnight in the north: the IDF continued to hit Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon in response to the shooting that was carried out at Israel yesterday.

Egyptian President Sisi has convened an “international conference on Gaza” in Egypt on Saturday and invited President Biden to attend. At the same time, PM Netanyahu issued an invitation to Biden to come to Israel. 

The government has revealed its goals for the war: “the overthrow of Hamas’ rule and the destruction of its military capability, the removal of the threat of terrorism from the Gaza Strip to Israel, a maximum effort to resolve the hostage issue, the protection of the Israel’s borders and our citizens.”

As our troops remain stalled on the border, it would appear that we are making no progress whatsoever on overthrowing Hamas, destroying Hamas’ military capability (we were in our bomb shelter at 10:30 pm last night during another missile launch against Ashdod), eliminating the threat of terrorism from barbaric Gaza, resolving the hostage issue, or protecting Israel’s border and citizens.