The Gaza War: Day 82 . . . The War in the North

Yom Reva’ee

Wednesday

15 Tevet 5784

December 27 2023

UPDATE 9:00 PM

The IDF has announced that 3 more soldiers have fallen in defense of Israel. May all of their memories be for a blessing:

Lt. Yaron Eliezer Chitiz, 23, of Ra’anana, deputy company commander in the Shaked Battalion of the Givati Brigade, was killed in the northern Gaza.

Staff Sgt. Itay Buton, 20, of Petach Tikva, fighter in the Shaked Battalion of Givati was killed in northern Gaza.

Staff Sgt. Efraim Yachman, 21, from Neve Daniel, fighter in the Shaked Battalion of Givati was killed in northern Gaza.

As you can see all three soldiers were members of the Givati Brigade and all were killed in the same battle in northern Gaza.

Nothing New on the Hostages

In what can only be an ominous portent, there has been no new news about the hostages in almost a week. Various possible hostage release deals continue floating around, but none of them hold any water.

Imagine being held deep underground for 82 days with little food or water and subject to continual abuse.

On the Ground in the South

Very few specifics have been given about IDF movement today except to say that “the war is intensifying” and “the army is deepening its achievements.” For the time being, those achievements are now being measured more in terms of tunnel and tunnel shafts destroyed than elimination of HamISIS terrorists.

On the Ground in the North

Kiryat Shmona has been under fire this afternoon with Hezbollah missile attacks at 16:30 and again at 16:35. 11 missiles were launched against the city; 3 were intercepted; 4 exploded in the city causing damage to building. Fortunately, no Israelis were wounded.

As reported earlier today, more missiles were launched at Rosh HaNikra.

In the last month Hezbollah has fired more than 100 rockets including “Burkan” rockets with up to 500 kg explosive warheads, numerous anti tank missiles and dozens of mortars towards the Mt. Dov area.

At some point, Israel is going to have to confront Hezbollah or northern Israel will have to be permanently evacuated.

UPDATE  12:30 PM

Official announcement of the US Military Central Command

“American assets including the destroyer USS Laboon, and F/A-18s from the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, intercepted 12 suicide drones, 3 anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two cruise missiles this morning. All of them were shot by the Houthis from South Yemen, in an attack that spread over 10 hours, from 6:30 in the morning. There was no damage to the ships in the area.”

According to the evidence, the cruise missiles, and the unmanned aerial vehicles – were launched towards Israel.

Utter, Total, Complete Insanity

It was announced this morning:

1. Israel has issued 10,000 entrance permits for Palestinians to work in construction.

2. The permits go into effect on January 6.

3. The permits allow the Palestinians to come into Israel from 5 am until 5 pm.

4. It is the responsibility of the Israeli contractor to collect workers at 5 am from a checkpoint, and return them at 5 pm to the same checkpoint.

It is downright sickening how Israel is unable to divorce itself from the Palestinians. You can be sure that 10,000 will quickly become 15,000 will quickly become 20,000 and will quickly become . . .

What is the government thinking about? Whatever happened to all the foreign workers who were supposed to enter our work force? 

Did we learn nothing from the events of October 7?

Apparently not. 

One final thought: Israeli construction contractors (known as “cablanim”) are notoriously corrupt. There is no way that they will even remotely enforce the restrictions. Terrorists will be running amok in Israel in short order.

UPDATE 10:15 AM

On the Ground and In the Air This Morning

Over the Mediterranean:

A suicide drone from Iraq was intercepted near Israel’s Karish natural gas platform in the Mediterranean this morning.

In the South:

Mortars were fired at Nahal Oz (08:44).

The Morning Update from the IDF Spokesman: As part of the ground activity of the combat team fighters of the Yeftah Brigade (11) in the area of Shejaiya, the fighters identified terrorists passing between buildings within a combat zone of the terrorist organization Hamas, from which shots were fired at our forces. In cooperation with the fire and intelligence complex, the forces directed Air Force aircraft that attacked and eliminated the terrorists. The attack resulted in additional secondary explosions.

In the North:

*Hezbollah fired 12 rockets into the IDF base on Mt. Dov. No casualties are reported at present.

*Missiles were fired at Rosh HaNikra (10:02).

*The IDF has been hitting the towns of Hayam and Ita al-Sha’ab with artillery fire.

*The IAF carried out an attack on Bint J’beil killing 3 terrorists including Ibrahim Bazzi, a key financier for Hezbollah, Bazzi’s wife, and Bazzi’s brother who was also prominent in Hezbollah.

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The IDF Publishes Its Casualty List: 

334 fell on October 7: 268 IDF soldiers, 58 police, 8 first responders.

164 IDF soldiers have fallen in the Gaza ground operation which began on October 27.

[In total: 432 IDF soldiers have died].

___

1,192 Soldiers Wounded On October 7

874 Soldiers Wounded Since October 27 (329 “serious”, 576 “moderate”, 1,161 “mild”)

405 Soldiers Currently Hospitalized (47 “serious”, 262 “moderate”, 133 “mild”).

Taking a look at these numbers, you can see the absolute disaster that befell our soldiers on one day, on October 7th, when 268 were killed and 1,192 were wounded.