Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
2 Nisan 5784
April 10 2024
IDF soldiers on the ground in Gaza and in the north have indicated that they urgently need more basic supplies and armaments.
The IDF ombudsman reported last month that there has been a 265% increase in the number of incidents in which soldiers are short of combat equipment and basic protective gear.
Members of the Nahal Brigade which remains in Gaza despite the general IDF withdrawal (photo: IDF).
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UPDATE 9:00 AM
The Rafah Mess
Yesterday we had the unseemly spectacle of PM Netanyahu announcing that a date has been set for the “Rafah Maneuver” to tackle the remaining 4 HamISIS brigades, only to have Defense Minister Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Halevi suddenly appear declaring that they are both unaware of any such date.
Then we had our feudal lords in Washington issuing a statement that representatives of vassal-state Israel will come to Washington in two weeks to discuss what Israel can and cannot do in Rafah.
Then came news that the IDF has purchased 40,000 tents to house a few of the 1 million people in Rafah that the IDF intends to evacuate before any operation takes place.
All of this is coupled with the sheer illogic of the general IDF withdrawal from Gaza.
Your humble servant is no military expert; however, there is a very basic question that few seem to be asking.
If there is no IDF in Khan Younis, central Gaza, and northern Gaza anymore, what is to stop those 4 HamISIS brigades from simply moving north out of Rafah into those areas? Indeed, we already had reports yesterday that HamISIS has moved to retake Khan Younis.
Frankly, the IDF strategy makes no sense, and the government appears in disarray.
And the soldiers of the one remaining IDF brigade in Gaza, the Nahal Brigade, are sitting ducks positioned along the road between northern and central Gaza.
An Update on the Hostage Situation
Add to the Rafah mess, the hostage mess.
Consider just a few of the concessions that Israel just offered in a multi-phased deal:
1. Israel will release 900 Palestinian terrorists in the first phase. 100 of these 900 will be terrorists serving life sentences for murder.
2. Israel will facilitate the return of 250,000 Gazans to northern Gaza.
3. Israel will open all of the crossings into Gaza for the entry of “humanitarian” aid.
In return, HamISIS is supposed to release 40 living hostages although HamISIS now claims that it cannot locate 40 living hostages.
Of course HamISIS rejected the deal for reasons that we posted here yesterday.
This was followed by U.S. Secretary of State Blinken issuing this ridiculous announcement:
“Hamas could move forward with this immediately and get a ceasefire that would benefit people throughout Gaza as well as of course get the hostages home. Failure to accept the deal would show its continued disregard for the people of Gaza. The ball is in Hamas’s court; the world is watching to see what it does.”
Your humble servant doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
When did Palestinian HamISIS ever care about the Palestinians of Palestinian Gaza?
The world is watching Hamas?
Only Israel is being watched, castigated, and censured.
As a journalist David Jablinowitz wrote this morning: “. . . The world [is] urging Israel to beg for the hostages back, to negotiate with Hamas as though there was a moral equivalence–as though the hostages held in Gaza who were snatched from their homes and a music festival and the soldiers who had come to try to save them and defend all of us in Israel, were the same as prisoners who are in Israeli jails for involvement in terrorist activity, likely wishing that they too could have carried out an October 7th style attack.”
On the Ground in Gaza
The IDF spokesman this morning:
“The Nahal Brigade’s combat team continues to operate in the center of the Gaza Strip and eliminated a number of terrorists yesterday. During the operation, the fighters eliminated in a face-to-face encounter a terrorist squad that endangered the forces. Fighter jets and aircraft of the Air Force attacked dozens of targets in several areas of Gaza, including military sites, launchers, tunnel shafts and other terrorist infrastructures. In one of the attacks, an Air Force aircraft attacked a terrorist squad from the Hamas terrorist organization that threatened our forces. The air defense fighters intercepted one launch that was fired from the Jabalia area towards Kfar Gaza in Israel. In closing a circle, a fighter jet attacked the building and destroyed the launcher from which the launch was made. In addition, a number of launches were detected towards our forces that were operating in a targeted manner in the area of Shujaiyeh in northern Gaza. In a quick closing circle, a fighter jet attacked the launcher from which the launches were made.”
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.