Yom Shishee
Friday
12 Av 5784
August 16 2024
The Literal Hazy View from Ashdod Last Night
A gas burnoff last night at the Tamar gas platform just off the coast in front of your humble servant’s home in Ashdod. It was not announced, and we thought the platform had been hit by a missile.
UPDATE 9:30 AM ISRAEL TIME
The Talks in Doha
There is much speculation this morning that “there is movement” on the ceasefire/hostage talks in Doha.
Is there reason for those who support a ceasefire to be optimistic? Not really, we have seen movement like this many times before. But with the war winding down in Gaza . . . who knows?
By the way, you might ask who the “negotiators” are. Yesterday, U.S. CIA Director Bill Burns and President Biden’s senior adviser for the Middle East, Brett McGurk met with the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdel Rahman Al Thani, the head of the Mossad, Dedi Barnea, and the head of Egyptian intelligence. Abbas Kamal.
In short, 2 Americans, 1 Qatari, 1 Israeli, and 1 Egyptian. Do you see who is missing? If you said “Hamas or any other Palestinian representative”, you are correct. As we wrote yesterday, the Biden Administration along with Qatar are mouthpieces for HamISIS.
On the Ground in the North
The last 24 hours have seen 9 barrages of missiles and drones targeting northern Israel:
10:51 am yesterday: Malkia
11:11: Idmit, Goren, Hanita, Ya’ara, Arab Al-Aramshe
11:52: Alkosh
14:09: Kila, Sha’al, Neot Mordechai
14:29: Shamir, Manara, Kiryat Shmona, Kfar Blum, Amir, Beit Hillel
17:43: Misgav Am
18:20: Dishon, Iftach, Malkia, Mt. Hermon, Ramot Naftali, Gonen, Kfar Blum, Kfar Szold, Lehavot HaBashan, Neot Mordechai, Amir, Sdeh Nechemia, Shamir
00:26 am (this morning): Neve Ativ, Nimrod, Ein Quiniyye, Mas’ade
00:30: Odem
A Statistical Update Courtesy Doron Kadosh
In Gaza, the IDF reports that since the beginning of the war about 15,000 terrorists have definitely been killed (that is, terrorists whose bodies the forces saw with their own eyes, and counted them one by one). The IDF estimates that in addition to those terrorists whose bodies were counted, there are several thousand more whose bodies could not be seen and counted – such as terrorists who were killed in airstrikes on buildings, who were buried among the rubble, as well as terrorists who were killed in underground tunnels.
In Lebanon and Syria, according to the data of the security system, we have eliminated 583 terrorists, of whom 413 were Hezbollah, 110 Palestinians from various terror groups, 70 more from other Iranian proxies.
In Judea and Samaria, 590 Palestinian terrorists have been eliminated since the beginning of the war.
On the Ground in Judea and Samaria
During the evening a group of Jewish community members entered the Palestinian settlement of Kfar Jit near Shechem throwing rocks and Molotovs in response to repeated rock and Molotov attacks by Palestinians against Israelis on the nearby Gilad Farm Road . They set 6 cars and 4 houses on fire before being dispersed by IDF soldiers who arrived on the scene.
Roundly condemned by government official , the “riot” still has unanswered questions this morning:
1. Who were the community members and where were they from?
2. One Palestinian was killed. Was he shot by IDF soldiers on scene or by someone else? What was his involvement in the melee (HamISIS has puiblished a photograph of him holding an automatic rifle today)?
Samaria Council Head Yossi Dagan issued this statement this morning:
“We want to say in a clear way that despite repeated ‘rock’ attacks no one has the right to take the law into their own hands. The responsibility to enforce the law is in the hands of the IDF.”
Finally in Non-War News
The disastrous financial situation here in which prices rise repeatedly is illustrated from this self-explanatory graph released yesterday which covers the month of July:
You don’t need to know Hebrew to understand the situation.
As you can see, the inflation rate for July was 0.6%. Whereas the cost of clothing went down, the cost of everything else went up led by transportation (3.9%), hospitality services (9.5%) and food (3.7%).
Yesterday, your humble servant went to the local supermarket. Last week, tomatoes cost 4 shekels a kilo. This week the cost is 10 shekels a kilo.
And so it goes in the land of Israel this morning . . .
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.