The Gaza War: Day 81 . . . The War in the North

Yom Shleeshee

Tuesday

14 Tevet 5784

December 26 2023

UPDATE 9:00 PM

5 more IDF soldiers’ deaths have been announced during the day bringing to 165 the number who have fallen in defense of Israel in the Gaza War:

Maj. (res.) Maor Lavi, 33, from Susiya, a fighter in the 450th Battalion, Bislah Brigade, was killed in battle in the center of Gaza .

Maj. Shay Shamriz, 26, from Merkaz Shapira, a company commander in the 931st Battalion, the Nahal Brigade, was killed in battle in northern Gaza. He is the 14th soldier from the Ba’ali Training Course who has died in the war.

Capt. Shaul Greenglick, 26, from Ra’anana, an officer in the 931st Battalion, the Nahal Brigade, was killed in battle in northern Gaza. Capt. Greenglick just participated in the “Next Star In Israel” and competed for the right to represent Israel in Eurovision. At his audition, the judges said: “You were born with an amazing voice.”

Maj. Molokan Tshuma, a reserve soldier, was killed. His funeral was just held 12/26/23, at 19:00, at the military cemetery in Ashdod.

Sgt. Daniel Nachmani, 21, from Kfar Saba, a fighter in Battalion 71, Barak formation (188), died of his wounds after being injured during an operational activity in the northern Israel on 12.22.2023

May all of their memories be for a blessing.

Two Important Facts

For the last year, we have heard constantly from the Left in Israel the fraud that the religious in this country are parasites and leeches sucking the blood from the country.

At least 40% of the soldiers who have been killed in the Gaza War were “religious” Jews–meaning that they wore kipas and tzizit. 

We have also heard from the Left in Israel the fraud about how our brave community members in Judea and Samaria are a hideous violent group of right-wing extremists who don’t care anything about Israel.

Nearly 35% of all the combat deaths in Gaza have been community members from Judea and Samaria.

None of this matters to the Leftists–wrapped up as they are in their hideous mantras which are focused on ripping apart the fabric of Israeli society.

Another Horror Story

Golani soldier, 19-year-old Adir Tahar from Jerusalem, was killed at the Erez Checkpoint on 10/7. Today, we discovered that the HamISIS Palestinian monsters beheaded him and took his head to Gaza, and that soldiers from the IDF found his head several days ago and brought it back to Israel . . .

Incomprehensible

For reasons that are impossible to understand, Israel returned the bodies of 80 dead terrorists to Gaza today for burial. 

In return for nothing.

None of our hostages. None of the bodies of our hostages. None of anything. 

What kind of idiocy produced this decision?

On the Ground During The Day

In the South:

A lengthy statement from the IDF Spokesman this evening which we have abbreviated:

“The forces of Division 36 launched an attack on terrorist infrastructures in the al-Bureij neighborhood in the center of Palestinian Gaza. This is in order to bring about the end of the battalions of the Central Brigade of Hamas. This area has dense civilian neighborhoods, saturated with infrastructure that constitute an established terrorist nest of Hamas . . .

Until now, the forces of the 36th Division operated in the northern area of the Gaza Strip, fought and reached an operational hold in the neighborhoods of Zaytun, Shejaiya, Rimal and Shatti. These neighborhoods are central centers of control for Hamas in Gaza. The fighters fought fierce battles, killed hundreds of terrorists, destroyed terrorist infrastructures and inflicted severe damage on Hamas, which lost its ability to control these areas.”

In the North:

There have been heavy exchanges of fire on the Lebanese border all day with Hezbollah using “heavy missiles” and ambush attacks.

In one ambush attack today, an 80-year-old Israeli Christian was praying inside the famous church near Ikrit in the Galilee when it was hit by an anti-tank missile. He was badly wounded by shrapnel. When an IDF force came to his rescue, it was also hit by an anti-tank missile. 9 soldiers were wounded–one critically.

Update 2:00 PM

Two Remarkably Correct Quotes Today:

Quote 1:

“We are in a multi-arena war; we are being attacked from seven different sectors – Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. We have already responded and acted in six of these areas, and I say here in the most explicit way – anyone who acts against us is a potential target, there is no immunity for anyone . . . ”

I want to tell you that this is a long, hard war; it has prices, heavy prices, but its justification is the highest it can be. We were brutally and barbarically attacked to discourage us from living here. We must make it clear that whoever makes a move of this kind will be punished. Whether it takes months or whether it takes years, this matter must be finished.

Without meeting the goals of the war, we are in a situation where the problem will not be who lives around Gaza or who lives in the north, the problem will be that people will not want to live in a place where we do not know how to protect them.”

Defense Minister Galant this morning speaking in front of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Galant has it exactly correct. Unless we finish HamISIS, no Israeli will want to live on the southern or northern border again. In fact, many Israelis might want to leave Israel.

Quote 2:

“I have not yet heard of a single war in the history of the human race where during a war one of the sides helped the “uninvolved civilians” on the other side. This is an Israeli invention.

Think of the Americans helping “uninvolved” Japanese citizens or England dropping supplies on Dresden after the bombing because the Dresdeners might not have anything to eat. Or maybe Putin will send some roast chicken to citizens in Kiev. Come on, so stupid. 

We feed them so that their spirit will not be broken and they can continue to fight. As long as aid enters Gaza, the fighting will never stop. For every terrorist that is killed, another one rises up to pick up his weapon. Why would Hamas ever surrender when its stomach is full of pleasure and its tunnels are overflowing with oxygen supplied by diesel trucks passing through “Kerem Shalom”?…

I don’t understand the leadership. Leadership without courage, without tricks. Not wanting to end the fight. A leadership that sacrifices the good of our children by being impotent.”

Assaf Natan, on Twitter

Nathan is exactly correct. What possible motivation does HamISIS have to surrender? In the previous ceasefire, they received tons of “humanitarian” aid in return–not to mention the release of scores of terrorists. Now those terrorists are on the loose, and hundreds of “aid” trucks are pouring in every day.

Two Nauseating Quotes of the Day

Quote 1

“If I had been Prime Minister on October 7, I would have resigned.”

Former PM Yair Lapid in another moment of flatulence.

Lapid suggesting that he has more integrity than PM Netanyahu is like Vladimir Putin suggesting that he has more integrity than Russian dissident Alexei Navalny who was just discovered in a Siberian prison camp where he was chucked by Putin.

This is the same Lapid who shamelessly and undemocratically gave away Israeli maritime territory to the Lebanese–and the same Lapid who still cannot remember what he did during his military service.

Quote 2

“We have lost the war; the image of victory will be the removal of Netanyahu. At the end of the war there may be a fratricidal war with bloodshed in the streets . . .”

Disgraced former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz speaking to members of the anti-government movement yesterday.

We have lost the war? Talk about throwing our soldiers under the bus–but this is nothing new for Halutz who did exactly that when he headed the IDF during the 2006 war with Hezbollah.

A fratricidal war with blood in the streets? This is an almost verbatim quote from former PM Ehud Barak who said that such a war would result in his returning to power in Israel.

Just nauseating . . . Halutz is an absolutely disgusting human being. 

 UPDATE 9:00 AM

On the Ground in Gaza

*All night long and continuing at present, the IAF has been striking HamIsis targets in northern Gaza, Gaza City, Khan Younis, and Rafah. The Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah neighborhoods have been particularly targeted.

In Judea and Samaria:

As you know, the Biden Administration likes to rant on and on about “settler violence” in Judea and Samaria, even to the point several weeks ago of declaring that it will deny visas to the U.S. to all those “settlers suspected” of violence against Palestinians.

Every time one of these rants spews forth, your humble servant scratches his head and wonders “What violence?”. There are cases where Jewish community members have acted in self-defense against Palestinian attackers, but where and when exactly did the violence occur that so outrages Bidenites?

Now comes news from the infamous IDF COGAT unit which was apparently responsible for collecting data on such cases, that the data they have disseminated is simply “wrong”, and that most of the complaints submitted by Palestinians are simply “false”.

More than this, COGAT now admits that most of the reported “violence” was actually action taken by community standby security teams since October 7 to counter threats to their communities. Most of these standby teams have since been recruited into the IDF reserves and are fighting and dying in Gaza.

A Shortage of Combat Helicopters and Pilots

It turns out that the IDF has only 2 combat helicopter squadrons–Squadron 190 and Squadron 113. They have been in continuous action since 10/7.

More specifically, the IAF has 48 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and 48 AH-64 Apache Helicopters.  When you think about the necessity of having such combat aircraft on both our southern and northern borders, 96 combat helicopters seems inadequate.

In this context, the IDF requested more Apache helicopters from the Biden Administration this week, but was turned down. It would appear that this, however, is not the last word and more discussions will be held in the coming weeks.

If the shortage of helicopters is not bad enough, there is also a dire shortage of helicopter pilots here so much so that the IDF has now authorized a change in the maximum age of those able to fly from 51 to 55. Even former pilots in the 55-60 age range are being brought back in to help in ground operational activities. The IDF has even reached out to pilots who have long since left the IDF for careers in business.