First Time Here? Readers suggest starting with the expanded Gaza Explainer in #133 and #120.
Tags: 5 Min Read
I'm just back from a great two day tour through Jerusalem's Old City and Masada. Hire a guide, it's worth it!
Find of the week: Trauma recovery project in India. Israeli NGOs have been running various kinds of trauma groups for decades. The war has scared (and is scarring) individuals and their families.
An escape valve, for decades, is to go to The East (India). "The Place" is an offshoot of a family of therapists. Read more or donate (I did).
Mail
"Why does Israel need to release 10 or 20 or more prisoners for every hostage? Isn't ending the war enough to release the hostages?"
Hamas and Hezbollah take hostages for one reason: It works.
Early in the war there was discussion of IDF protocols in the event of suspected capture. It is said, by some, that the protocols allow lethal force in the direction of the, still alive, IDF soldier.
In all the various negotiations between Hamas and Israel, since the beginning of the war, there has never been a reported deal that would release all the hostages. Hamas has no interest in ending the conflict. We can all see, after a year+ of ongoing negotiations, that Hamas has never offered terms that include release of all the hostages. (Similarly, it is not clear that Israel has even asked “What do we offer to secure the release of everyone?”)
About Those Lebanese Weapons (#159, #158, et al)
The Committee to Supervise the Ceasefire in Lebanon:
The weapons that the Lebanese army confiscated in southern Lebanon from the "armed organizations" will be destroyed and will not be used by the Lebanese army.
Maybe they haven't read this blog yet?
Hate Mail
A reader emailed a Gaza War question as a sanity check. I answered: That is misinformation, ignore it.
Which made me look up something else.
An aspect of recent politics has been the rise of what I call "domestic hate." That is, hate directed at one's own country or institutions. In the 1990's it was "shock jock" radio hosts in the U.S. Nowadays it is everywhere. (Thanks FaceBook!)
The machinery of Israeli Right-Wing domestic hate is broad and deep (the Prime Minister and his son being two of its architects and main agitators). Anyway, a result of this machinery is a lecture given to me at a shabbat table a couple months ago. I was lectured, at length, at how horrible Presidents Obama and Biden were for Israel, because Obama had restricted Israeli use of U.S. weapons to the point that Israel, contravening its agreement with the U.S. had to use domestically built bombs to attack Nasrallah in Beirut.
This was not delivered as a possibility or likelihood. It was a black and white verdict that every non-Red U.S. President was out to get Israel.
There was so much bigotry and falsehood at that table, I didn't give this particular aspect further thought. Until that emailed reality check.
So, as I think it was the only thing said that afternoon that I didn't already know to be false, I looked into it just now.
Yup. Total fiction. Probably from the same people who call the judicial system a Hamas collaborator (yup, they do that, in Hebrew).
Turns out, on September 28, the IDF released footage of the planes taking off and returning from the September 27 attack on Nasrallah. The footage clearly shows what bombs are on the planes. Numerous experts, including folks at the U.S. Navy, have weighed in in detail. All the bombs are Made in the USA.
And Biden was congratulatory, calling Nasrallah's death a "measure of justice."
I can't help people who have gone down hate-filled rabbit holes.
No matter how many degrees they have.
Dept of The Invisible
Items invisible in the Western media. (Now combined with the Postmark concept, to help consolidate topics by locale.)
Iran: Tehran Airport
A Shia cleric reprimanded a young Iranian woman at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran for not wearing the hijab properly.
Without much hesitation, she approached him, confidently removed his turban, and used it as her own head covering. [I had to watch it twice to see the action, as it is in the background of the frame. —Raf]
Syria
Ordnance
Ammunition dumps continue to explode... but without reports (from any side) of Israeli involvement. Reports from the Latakia area and the village of Tzahya, south of Damascus. Rockets flying in the air, the whole production.
Perhaps it’s the new Syrian government?
Above: Daraa region in southern Syria: Engineering forces of the Syrian rebels detonate Assad army’s ammunition in a controlled manner. [Those are Soviet 85mm rockets.]
Destruction
Swaths of Syria, including big chunks of Damascus itself, look like Gaza: Levelled and destroyed housing, block after block. Kilometer after kilometer.
The question: If Syria hasn't rebuilt, with 5+ years of lead time already, will Gaza?
Resurrection
Syrians are celebrating the resumption of operations at Damascus International Airport today: International civilian commercial flights landed in and took off from Damascus, for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime.
Lebanon
A mobile rocket launcher belonging to Hezbollah was seized in one of the villages in southern Lebanon by Battalion 75 of Brigade 7.
The issue is... the Lebanese Army, so far, seems to ignore calls from Israel to dispose of Hezbollah weapons. So Israel keeps doing it.
Then, a few days later, the U.S. military showed its support of the Lebanese Army by releasing a photo of Hezbollah rockets confiscated by the Lebanese army - about to be destroyed. This comes from a visit by Major General Jasper Jeffers, chairman of the ceasefire supervision committee in Lebanon.
The U.S. and Europe do not want an armed Hezbollah in Lebanon. The collapse of Hezbollah and its disarmament are important milestones for the West.
Lebanese Cease Fire Status
The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar: The U.S. confirms that Israel will not withdraw from three points in southern Lebanon
According to the newspaper—affiliated with Hezbollah—American envoy Hochstein and the chairman of the ceasefire supervision committee, Major General Jasper Jeffers, confirmed that Israel will maintain forces at three strategic points:
1. The Hamames area south of al-Khiam in the eastern sector.
2. The Jabal Balat area in the central sector.
3. The Labbouneh area in the western sector.
According to the article, Israel will establish permanent military bases at these control points.
West Bank
A couple of weeks ago, the Palestinian Authority kicked Al Jazeera out of the West Bank, because they encourage extremism (which the P.A. is in combat with). Now, one of the main Palestinian internet providers (Mada) has blocked the Al Jazeera channels from its television service (Israeli channels are still available).
Simple... it ain't.
Above: Fatah (read: P.A.) channels are publishing pictures of trash cans with the logo of al-Jazeera taped on them.
Gaza
Fun facts from the past few days...
Hamas continues to launch rockets at Israel from within humanitarian areas of Gaza. (Their weapons supply, and their willingness to fight "until the death of the last Palestinian child" is formidable.)
Israel's Police announced that there have been a number of smuggling attempts from Israel into Gaza. The ones I am aware of have used drones (or tried to). What is being smuggled?
Money?
Cigarettes?
Food?
Nope. It's drugs. Perhaps the one thing that Hamas has run out of is Captagon to sell?
Above: IDF spokesman provides first-hand insight into terrorist activity inside hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
The video shows Anas al-Sharif (not the journalist), a terrorist from the military wing of Hamas who was employed as a "cleaning supervisor" inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip - where he was arrested.
He is practically an official employee of the hospital.
He tells from personal testimony that military branch operatives find shelter in the hospital based on the basic assumption that Israel will not dare to attack the hospital.
He adds that the hospital serves as a transit station for distributing weapons for ambushes and operations against IDF forces.
Relief Area
Alef
Bet: Transformers, Part n
Gimmel: Business Idea of the Day
Hezbollah logo'd trash bags.
I don't remember being able to major in Life Under Extreme Conditions.
Maybe this blog is a senior project for exactly that?
At the beach, however...
And at the shuk... baklava.... in Pistachio, Almond and Peanut (and halva…).
To Peace,
Raf
(Thank you A.K., M.T., S.D.)