Is Raf OK? -- Installment #80
2024-02-21 -- Zichron Yaakov
2024/02/24: Correction: This entry originally had the Shani Louk video in the Relief Area. That is wrong, because she was killed on October 7. The video has been moved to its own section with an explanation.
Tags: Short Entry
This is entry #80. Holy shit.
Typing in the courtyard of a low end hotel in Zichron Yaakov. We are a group of 23 at an international conference that normally draws 120+. The hotel has long term residents: Ethiopian Jews evacuated from Sderot. (A town near Gaza that has been rocketed by Hamas 100’s of times over the past 18 years. Pop quiz: Which American President has visited Sderot? Answer: Obama.) Their kids are in school just now. In the afternoon a few soldiers from a nearby base run art and sports activities in this courtyard. Buckets of markers are in the corner.
Birds chirp after a session that featured a lot of tunnel like dreams. Tunnels and hostages.
The internet at this hotel is the wonkiest I have seen in this country. By far. If this entry goes live it will be thanks to a hotspot on my phone. Given the wall to wall schedule of this conference ("Adaptive Leadership" by The Tavistock Institute), I expect this to be the only post this week.
Serious Business
Communica-tion
A well used Raf saw: Many things are seen only up close. Have you seen the huge banners, in Hebrew, in Tehran? No? We see them here. In the psych warfare that is social media, the Iranian government put up extra large banners showing their latest long range rockets. Featuring big-print Hebrew slogans threatening Israel. (The text, because you're interested: "Bomb shelters and safe rooms? Forget those. Prepare your coffins.")
Israeli TV is frequently referenced by Palestinian and Arabic language social media, according to the feed I watch. Here is an Israeli broadcast that, I estimate, is directed at Arabic media:
Gantz: Either our hostages will be released or we will enter Rafah, even during Ramadan. 1 Min, in Hebrew
Things U.N. Officials Say
Background: In a public setting, UN Official Martin Griffiths said multiple times "Hamas is not a terror organization." Leading to:
UNRWA
An effect of protracted combat activity: Time to assemble the evidence. To see how the picture fits together. One example: The overlap of "journalists," Al Jazeera television and the Hamas military organization. A recent case: "Journalist" Ismail Abu Omar, a trained Hamas combatant who is also an Al Jazeera "journalist" who was just extracted to Qatar from Gaza due to his "medical condition."
Evidence suggests that some number of well connected Hamas militants have been/are being extracted this way, "silently.' They do not appear on the lists Egypt publishes each day of who is exiting, but they surface when they are far from Gaza.
Another example: As identities surface of who is who, including lists of all UNRWA staff, and this is put together with photo and video evidence from October 7:
איילת סמרנו, אימו של יונתן שגופתו נחטפה לעזה ברשת ב': "החוטף של הבן שלי היה עובד סוציאלי של אונר"א מטעם האו"ם, אגיע עד מזכ"ל האו"ם ואדרוש תשובות"
Ayelet Samrano, the mother of Yonatan whose body was kidnapped to Gaza, speaking on Radio Station 2: "My son's kidnapper was an UNRWA social worker on behalf of the United Nations. I will go all the way to the Secretary General of the United Nations and demand answers."
Map: Israeli Political Parties
I do not represent this as accurate. On first read it looks warm.
On That Topic
It’s not the time to criticize him [Bibi]. It’s time to dismiss him.
What Do Volunteers Do?
Latest war effort project: electricity free phone chargers for soldiers who are out in the field...the brain child of a local engineer...! (These are friends. From FaceBook)
Shani Louk Remembered
This video was initially in the Relief Area section. Readers S.D. and M.T. brought to my attention that the star of the clip is Shani Louk, who was killed on October 7. (I added English subtitles to much of it, click the “cc” button if they aren’t showing.)
Relief Area
Alef
Bet: Down The Rabbit Hole
(Featuring Sinwar)
OK, I am getting zero laptop time at this workshop. The schedule is "an Israeli week:" Starts mid day Sunday and ends mid day Friday. From 9AM to 9PM. I stay awake with a combination of chewing gum, exercise band chair workouts. And music via Shokz (no one else hears the music and I still hear them... they don't even know I'm listening to music).
The war and tunnels appear in much of the work.
Stay well,
Raf
(Thank you A.K.)