Yom Shabbat
Saturday
20 Av 5784
August 24 2024
May His Memory Be For A Blessing
Maj. Evyatar Atuar
Maj. (res.) Evyatar Atuar, 24 years old, from Rosh Ha-Ein , a fighter in GDSSR 6310, the Jerusalem Brigade, fell in battle in central Gaza yesterday. Three other soldiers were seriously wounded in the same incident.
325 IDF soldiers have now been killed in Gaza since the Gaza Operation began on October 27th last year.
On the Ground in Gaza
Sderot, hit again last night. By now, regular readers will recognize the target pattern.
The Hamas attack on Sderot was at 6:02 pm about an hour before the beginning of Shabbat. We heard the missile intercept explosions here in Ashdod. No one was physically wounded in the attack.
The IDF continues to expand the three corridors (Philadelphi, Kissufim, and Netzer) that now have divided Gaza. Yesterday, the focus was the Netzer Corridor which the IDF expanded south of the Gaza River.
Essentially, the plan (at least temporarily and hopefully permanently is to divide Gaza into 3 “cantons”:
—in the north from the Israeli border to the Netzer Corridor
—in the center from the Netzer Corridor to the Kissufim Corridor
—in the south from the Kissufim Corridor to the Philadelphi Corridor
When your humble servant uses the word “cantons”, he recalls Mordechai Kedar’s plan for dealing with the Palestinians–especially as it applied to Judea and Samaria.
On the Ground in the North
Hezbollah pulverized the Border and Galilee regions yesterday with 14 separate barrages totally more than 100 missiles.
At 5:53 pm late yesterday afternoon, Hezbollah targeted Tzfat (Safed) with more than 20 missiles:
Northern Israel all the way down to the Kineret was pummeled by Hezbollah missiles and drones again last night. The large red area above is Tzfat (Safed) which was hit by a major barrage.
Later in the evening Hezbollah hit Kiryat Shmona with 6 separate barrages. No Israelis were physically wounded but the resulting fires continued to lay waste to the city:
Homes burning in Kiryat Shmona after having been hit by Hezbollah missiles.
*According to the latest reports from various sources, the IAF eliminated at least 7 Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon yesterday–but as you can see, the eliminations are doing nothing to stem the attacks on northern Israel.
One Lie After Another
Several days ago, renowned television reporter and broadcaster Judy Woodruff of PBS (the liberal Public Broadcast System in the U.S.) breathlessly reported that former President Trump had telephoned PM Netanyahu and had asked him not to agree to a ceasefire because it would help the Harris campaign.
The report was obviously meant to demean Trump for asking and Netanyahu for considering.
Of course, it turned out that Woodruff’s report was absolutely false.
And she apologized later on Twitter–after the damage had been done.
However, in her apology, she said that she had received the false information from the Reuters and Axios websites.
That was also a lie.
Nowhere on the web was it reported that Trump had made such a request of Netanyahu.
One lie after another.
On that note, we again wish our soldiers and you dear readers:
Shabbat Shalom!
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.