Is Raf OK? -- Installment #75
2024-02-07 -- Tel Aviv
Tags: 10 Min Read; Great UNRWA History Video; No tunnels!
The sun remains out. Fruit at the shuk screams "Eat me!" I bought some. Ate a passion fruit for the first time in my life. Got to say a shehecheyanu.
Saw the film May/December. Thought the whole time, "Wait, I know this story, it was in the news in Seattle." Turns out, I was right.
Feb 5 Remarks by Defense Minister Galant: Highlights:
18 Hamas battalions out of 24 have been disbanded and do not function as military frameworks.
3 out of 4 Hamas battalions in Khan Yunis were disbanded. The additional battalion will be disbanded soon.
Half of the Hamas terrorists were killed or seriously wounded.
We found the Hamas databases that were on hundreds of computers and drives.
The ground maneuver is one of the most complex and complicated in the history of warfare.
We will reach the places where we have not yet fought both in the south of the Gaza Strip and in the center of it.
Every terrorist hiding in Rafah should know his fate will be like that of his comrades: surrender or death.
The Hamas leadership is on the run.
Sinwar moves from hiding to hiding. He is unable to communicate.
Yahya Sinwar will be eliminated. Hamas will be eliminated as the organization that controls Gaza.
There are coordination difficulties between Hamas representatives in the Gaza Strip and outside.
Sinwar is not leading the campaign. He is preoccupied with survival.
Situation Summary by the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
You may have missed it amid the media defeatism, but Israel is winning its war in Gaza. Hamas’s losses are mounting, and support for the Israeli war effort has endured around the world longer than Hamas expected. ...
Biden Administration restrictions and Israeli caution have slowed the war, but consider that the 2016-17 battle of Mosul against ISIS took nine months. “Mosul,” writes John Spencer, chief of urban warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, “was one battle, in one city against 3 to 5k militants with limited defenses. Israel is fighting multiple battles in 7 cities against 30k militants with military grade underground cities built under civilian areas.”
Israel needs time to achieve victory, and Hamas is counting on Western powers to deny it that time. The 2009 Gaza war was brought to an end after three weeks, the 2014 war after six weeks. The “CNN strategy” of using human shields to gain media sympathy has worked every time for Hamas.
So far not this time. Oct. 7 was too brutal. This war has passed 120 days, and the U.S. and Europe refuse to call for a cease-fire.
Israel says it has killed, incapacitated or arrested some 20,000 of Hamas’s 30,000 men and dismantled 17 of Hamas’s 24 Gaza combat battalions. The losses have prevented Hamas from mounting military maneuvers and quieted its rocket fire, down more than 95% from the war’s early days.
From Released Reservist Roi Yanovsky: Recently released after 100 days in Gaza
From the Jerusalem Post (while I would not normally quote this publication, this essay is consistent with other sources).
We all were lied to: Gaza was a modern, developed city before October 7
The Gaza Strip has been compared to an open-air prison for years by anti-Israel activists and media outlets. Now, IDF Reservist Roi Yanovsky shares what he saw in reality:
I was recently released from reserve duty in Gaza, after serving 100 days in the IDF. Since the world can’t see firsthand the things I saw there, I feel I have to share.
For years, well before October 7th, we’ve heard about how terrible life is for the poor, oppressed Gazans. How anti-Israel activists and media outlets claim the Gaza Strip can be compared to an open-air prison. This became the standard, accepted narrative about life in Gaza, promulgated by Al Jazeera and international human rights groups. But now, having experienced it myself, I can confidently tell you that we were lied to.
Gaza City was modern and developed: Gaza has been depicted as a backwards, "densely populated" area that’s been under Israeli "siege" for years. There's no bigger lie than this. Pre-war Gaza was a modern, beautiful, developed city – with large, furnished houses, wide avenues, public areas, a promenade, and parks. It looked much better than any other Arab city “from the river to the sea.” Gaza City reminds me more of Tel Aviv than the awful slums that some people try to make it out to be.
And, of course, Gaza is far from being the "most densely populated area in the world."
If this is how a city looks after two decades of "siege," then I want to be sieged. The houses in Gaza were full of goods and food from across the Middle East, the houses had modern furniture, appliances, and pretty much any up-to-date consumer product and electronics you can imagine.
There are also high-end mansions that could easily have been in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills. There was no lack of wealth in Gaza.
I realize now that the optimistic notion that "if only Gazans had the chance for a better life, they would not be fighting Israel," is irrelevant for Gaza. Many of them had everything a normal person in the West strives for, yet Hamas still executed their October 7th massacre.
The most common thing I saw inside the houses was a map of the State of Israel, with the heading "Map of Palestine." There is no mention of the internationally recognized borders of Israel, or any Israeli city or kibbutz. The goal of eradicating the only Jewish State was not hidden or played down, it was everywhere.
Despite the prosperity we saw in Gaza city, it was hiding something you won't see in any Western city. Every neighborhood we visited had staged and ready-to-operate Hamas combat zones – weapons, tunneling, explosives, rocket launch zones, all inside normal family homes, some already built with openings in the walls to enable moving easily between buildings.
Gazans knew about Hamas’ hidden combat infrastructure and received many warnings from the IDF to leave ahead of our arrival. We saw the IDF's pamphlets that were dropped by the Israeli Air Force everywhere we went. Those who decided to stay in the fighting zones are either Hamas terrorists, or people who knowingly decided to stay in areas that are used by Hamas for battle.
We also saw that Hamas terrorists rarely moved around armed or in uniform. They are terrorists but even they believe the IDF is a moral army. They know IDF soldiers will not shoot them if they walk around as "civilians." They butchered Israeli civilians on October 7, but we came into Gaza looking only for terrorists and they take advantage of it. They prepare their weapons in advance, typically near building entries, and pick them up just before attacking. This is one reason why fighting in Gaza is significantly more complex than other arenas. This is why, when they say civilians die, you'll never know if they were Hamas members attempting to kill soldiers before they died.
Like any terror group Hamas' strategic weapons are lies and propaganda. That's how they were able to promote their lie about a "siege" in the world's leading media outlets. That's how the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, is able to publish ridiculous, unverified numbers of casualties every day, which are used by the US State Department and other Western governments.
The Gaza I saw was different than the lies we've been fed by Hamas. As they cling to their control of Gaza, we shouldn't fall for the other lies they propagate. Like any other terror group, they must be dismantled.
Yoni's Journal, Feb 1, 2024, 9:24PM: All things…
Just as we arrived in the middle of the night more than a hundred days ago, so too our unit left Gaza overnight under cover of darkness.
We did not emerge to a parade, flowers thrown at us and whoops of victory or relief. Instead we traveled in relative silence. Perhaps it was the late hour, half of us exhausted from a long shift and the other half just awake from a partial night’s sleep.
Perhaps the events of our last day weighed on us, during which a coordinated attack on our unit exacted a heavy price. An officer, whose regular job kept him at our operations center, but who stepped back into a frontline role when prior attacks left one of our platoons short on commanders. One more fallen soldier. One more widow.
The war is not over yet - not even for us. We have another week of wrapping up, of summarizing, of debriefing. Of processing. And we don’t know what the future holds - what decisions may be made, whether by the IDF or by our enemies in the south - or north - that could bring us back into service. If we are called, we stand ready to return to the unassailable goal of protecting our land and our country and our families.
A heavy feeling lies on me today. I am proud - exceptionally proud - of our work, and clear on our tactics. And I do not see that there was any other way. But I am also keenly aware that while wars can be started with violence, they rarely can be concluded just through violence. And I am also aware of the soldiers who won’t be coming home with us, the hostages that haven’t yet been returned, my fellow Israelis whose homes haven’t been safe for 17 years.
And yet. And yet we have not been idle. We have operated as a combat brigade on the frontline of a war against unimaginably evil morally bankrupt enemies, 24/7, since October 7. We uncovered and dismantled an unbelievable amount of terrorist infrastructure. We took major steps to make life safer for those who live near Gaza. And for each of us, our lives were put on hold, our companies and careers suffered, our spouses and children and parents learned to carry on without us.
Soon we return to them. Physically at first, emotionally over time. And even though we do not return whole, even though we bring with us fallen and injured, we return with our heads held high and our eyes lifted to the horizon.
I have no better words with which to conclude this post than a quote from the prophet Yechezkel that is recited on Pesach, when we commemorate the exodus from Egypt more than 3300 years ago. Then, too, we emerged proud - not unscathed, but with eyes towards a better life and a better future.
ואמר לך בדמייך חיי, ואמר לך בדמייך חיי
And I will say to you, though you have bled: Live! And I say again: though you have bled, Live.
UNRWA
Dr. Einat Wilf about UNRWA - A Palestinian organization that aims to perpetuate the conflict
The best history and context of UNRWA I have seen. If you care about the UN and/or UNRWA and/or Palestinians, this clip is worth the time.
Dr. Einat Wilf has been a member of Knesset for left and centrist parties in Israel (Labor and Ehud Barak's Independence party). Her book. 17 Min, Hebrew w/English Subs
Indigenous Rights: Nova Peris
Australian Sports Hall of Famer, former Australian Senator, & Aboriginal activist Nova Peris: How the anti-Israel Left abuses Aboriginal symbols. 2 min, in English.
Relief Area
Alef
Graffiti in a street in Amsterdam
Bet
The "Pasta Nazi" clip yesterday -- Yes, I have eaten there. No, I was not verbally harassed. Yes, it was super tasty. The "joke" is that the guy built a brand out of the attitude you see in the clip. A Facebook page with a few celebrity followers, where he would intermittently post "we are open."
One evening, months ago, I was walking through Florentine with a friend and she said, "Look! It's open!" So we went. (For reference, it is in the pedestrian square in Florentine.)
A restaurateur friend says, "Look, he got the space cheap cheap cheap. Makes a single simple menu with cheap ingredients. And built a brand on his don't-care attitude. Not bad!"
Gimmel
The sticker on the dumpster says:
Hey Ibex! You got this far... Why not climb in?
Dalet
Reddit:
I can't get over how this member of Hezbollah looks just like a random Ashkenazi guy from New York
Yeah, we are all Semites.... I remember 30 odd years ago seeing a picture of a big Islamic militant leader who looked just like my Kollel Rabbi cousin.
This poster is what Hezbollah publishes every time one of their members is killed in action. There have been about 175 of them since October 7.
Thanks for the mail! A note yesterday: “Why did you say no video, when there was?” Well, because the post was built with no videos… one was added, but the tag was not updated.
Happens.
That is it for the day. I am going to bed.
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K.)
Thanks for sharing your experience and context. May you always stay safe and witty!