Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[Sixties Fan]

 

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[Sixties Fan]

It is truly a remarkable coincidence that every party fighting Israel and the West in the MIddle East nowadays - Hamas, Hezbollah, Syrian armed groups, Iraqi armed groups, Houthis - are all allied with, funded by, and armed by Iran.

Iran avoids being attacked by using these groups as proxies, knowing that most nations are reluctant to widen the conflict by attacking Iran itself, even though in most or all of the cases, Iran is calling the shots.

Proxies are obviously effective. No one is attacking the head of the snake. And the proxy groups are happy to sacrifice themselves and their people for Iran's Supreme Leader.

Hezbollah, however, is starting to feel some pain. Nearly 200 of its members have been killed in southern Lebanon. Israe lis seriously considering a full scale war if they keep up their aggression.

So, Hezbollah is following the Iranian playbook and creating ...proxies!

Two weeks ago, an armed group of men went o the Shebaa Farms area and shot at IDF troops, who promptly fired back and killed them. The attack was claimed by th "Al-Ezz Brigades."

There is no such thing.

This Is Beirut reports:

According to political circles close to the obstructionist axis (called al-Moumanaa), Kataeb al-Ezz al-Islamiya (Al-Ezz Brigades) is the name given to a fictitious group that is not known to the factions that gravitate in the orbit of this axis.

According to the above-mentioned sources, this group is credited with any operation that has not been validated by these factions, namely Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Islamic Movement, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the Al-Quds Brigades, and others.

In practice, any military operation carried out from the Lebanese front requires the approval of the various parties in the operations chamber, in particular Hezbollah, the same sources explained. Consequently, any operation not approved by the latter is claimed by Kataeb al-Ezz al-Islamiya, with the aim of covering its tracks.

This was the case with Sunday’s operation in the Shebaa Farms, where three armed men had infiltrated. They were killed by the Israeli Army. According to the above-mentioned sources, their bodies were left there to avoid giving Israel any clues about the Kataeb al-Ezz al-Islamiya group, which claimed responsibility for the operation.

Lebanese MP Ashraf Rifi agrees, saying the Al-Ezz Brigades are fictional, and accusing Hezbollah of "inventing organizations with fictitious names to evade responsibility.”

The proxy has a proxy!

According to other Lebanese reports, Hezbollah is recruiting Palestinians to join these proxy groups, going into the camps and mostly getting Palestinians who had fled Syria. But Hezbollah is calling the shots, giving them transportation and weapons, escorting them through Hezbollah's many checkpoints in southern Lebanon. No one goes anywhere without Hezbollah knowing.

So this is how Hezbollah is trying to keep shooting at Israelis and Jews but hoping to keep the heat off itself by using its own proxies.

It's called "plausible deniability" - and it is just as plausible as the "plausible genocide" that the ICJ accused Israel of.

Even Iranian proxies like Hezbollah have proxies

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Always has been one way. Islam against the Jews ]

As reported, the Houthi attacks on worldwide shipping is hitting Egypt's economy very hard, as hundreds of ships are avoiding the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Yet Egypt rejected joining the coalition of nations confronting the Houthi threat to shipping. Indeed, Egypt has not publicly rebuked the Houthi government for its actions and its media is silent on its resulting economic difficulties. According to analysts, Egypt wants to maintain good relations with all Arab countries and groups, allowing it to mediate in conflicts. Egypt is also skittish because of its own disastrous involvement in the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960s.

Instead, the Egyptians quietly initiated communications with the Houthis through security channels asking them to only attack ships heading to Israel or otherwise linked to Israel.

According to a source speaking to Al Araby al Jadeed, "the Egyptian-Houthi communications, in which Iran was a party, included Egyptian demands that the Houthis repeat assurances that these operations only target ships related to Israel and announce guarantees for that, in a way that encourages ships that are not covered by the warning to pass through."

The Houthis refused, but communicated their appreciation that Egypt did not join forces protecting the Red Sea traffic. The Egyptians also asked Iran directly to intervene with the Houthis, and that request was also rejected.

Publicly, however, Egypt has blamed the Houthi actions squarely on Israel.

On Sunday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry spoke at a press conference following a meeting in Cairo with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan, where he held Israel responsible for the tensions in the Red Sea. He stressed that freedom of global navigation and trade are established international rights and principles that everyone must abide by, yet added that "the risks that the Red Sea is witnessing are a direct result of the tension in the region due to Israeli practices in Gaza," accepting Houthi claims that they are somehow protecting Gaza.

Israel, naturally, is upset at Egypt for throwing the Jewish state under the bus. The two nations had signed an agreement in 2022 to increase Israeli gas sent to Egypt where it would be liquified and then sent to Europe suffering energy shortages from the Russian war on Ukraine. This is an important income source for Egypt.

Israel shut down the Tamar gas field after October 7 because of Hamas rocket fire and this reduced the amount of gas exported to Egypt, but it re-opened the field and resumed exports to Egypt a month later. At the moment Israeli natural gas exports to Egypt exceed the amounts before October 7.

Even during wartime, Israel is working hard to help Egypt economically at a time when Cairo in dire need of economic aid.

Egypt's response is to tell jihadists to attack Israeli assets.

It is very much a one-way friendship.

"Peace partner" Egypt asked Houthis to only attack Israeli-linked ships

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Israeli soldiers made an unexpected historical detour while fighting in the Gaza Strip when they ran across a well-kept World War I British military cemetery.

Adding to the surprise was that some of the graves were those of Jewish soldiers, signified by Stars of David, Ynet reported on Wednesday.

The graves, located in the center of the Gaza Strip near the town of Al-Maazi, were discovered by soldiers of the IDF’s 188th Armored Brigade.

“We found about seven gravestones of Jews out of hundreds. We photographed the names with a description of the gist of the battle in which they fell,” Lt. Col. Oren Schindler, commander of the 118th Brigade’s 74th Battalion, told Ynet.

“We returned [to the site] after a few days … and said kaddish [the Jewish prayer for the dead] on the graves,” he said.

“It was an exciting moment. I told myself it wasn’t just our fight—our war is here, because they also fought here at the beginning of the last century,” he added.

Pictures posted to X of the soldiers holding the Israeli flag next to the graves have gone viral, with one tweet gaining more than 3.5 million views.

IDF soldiers stumbled onto a well-kept graveyard of World War I soldiers. Credit: IDF Brigade 188.


Some claimed the well-kept cemetery showed that Hamas also protected Jewish graves, however, as Oren explained, “This is a facility that is maintained by the British through local authorities in the Gaza Strip.”

“It really is a special place. Amid all this destruction, to find a place that is a piece of heaven, green and clean,” he said. “It amazed us to find such a pure place in this cursed area.”


(full article online)

IDF soldiers stumble upon World War I graveyard in Gaza - JNS.org

"It amazed us to find such a pure place in this cursed area," said the IDF commander of the 74th Armor battalion.

www.jns.org

 

[RoccoR]

RE: Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates
SUBTOPIC: Egyptian Alliance
※→ Sixties Fan, et al,

Egypt's response is to tell jihadists to attack Israeli assets.
It is very much a one-way friendship.

(COMMENT)

My Impression:
Egypt is an ally only when it benefits them. An alliance with Egypt

Most Respectfully,
R

 

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[Dismantle UNWRA]

 

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[Ringo]

 

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[ This is how it should have been done from the start ]

The IDF may start distributing humanitarian aid directly to civilians in the Gaza Strip, Israel Hayom reported Wednesday.

In the plan currently under consideration by the Israeli government, the army would work with the international bodies currently in full charge of the aid trucks passing into the coastal enclave after undergoing security inspections at Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Nitzana crossings.

According to the report, two aid centers will be established, one in the northern part of the Strip and one in the center, and the Gazans will have to go there in order to receive food, water, medicine and other basic supplies.

This kind of control over the aid would hopefully prevent Hamas from stealing the supplies, which includes fuel that directly allows it to prolong the war by powering their generators for electricity and a steady air supply in the tunnels in which they hide.

(full article online)

IDF to distribute aid directly to Gazans – report | World Israel News

The idea is to prevent Hamas from stealing the food and fuel, which allows it to prolong the war.

worldisraelnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Warning: The article contains descriptions that are difficult to read, and are not recommended for everyone. This article will revolve around the hundreds of bodies that were piled on top of each other, their desecration to the point that it was difficult to properly prepare them for burial, the systematic way in which Hamas struck without hesitation or mercy, anyone in its path, and the booby-trapped bodies that arrived in the camp where the work to identify the dead was underway.

Hamas terrorists 'purposefully obliterated women's faces'

Reader discretion is advised: Shari Mendes, one of the reservists who handled the bodies of women massacred in the October 7 atrocities described systematic genital mutilation of women, 'it will take time until the victims speak'

www.ynetnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Word of his death was released on Wednesday after the family was informed by the IDF that he was no longer alive. They had held on to hope for a very long time.

According to reports from survivors of the Hamas massacre Gueli fought off the Hamas terrorists, protecting people fleeing the Nova music festival, before moving on to fight at Alumim.

Itzik Gueli, the father of Sergeant major Ran Gueli (24) who fell on October 7 in the battle on Kibbutz Alumim and whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza, said he hoped his son's body would be returned in the hostage release deal being negotiated. Ran, 24, was on sick leave from the military after a motorcycle accident but joined the fight against the terrorists in Kibbutz Alumim.

Word of his death was released on Wednesday after the family was informed by the IDF that he was no longer alive. They had held on to hope for a very long time.

According to reports from survivors of the Hamas massacre Gueli fought off the Hamas terrorists, protecting people fleeing the Nova music festival, before moving on to fight at Alumim.

"What we knew after his fighting in Alumim was that he was injured," said his father Itzik. "He even had time to take a picture of himself and his injury, and to tell his brother that despite being hurt he was fine. That was actually his last conversation. Then we saw a picture of him being transported on a motorcycle into the Shifa Hospital in Gaza. At first we were told that he arrived there alive, and for four months we held on to hope. He was injured in the arm and leg, these are not life-threatening injuries. Yesterday we were given the terrible news that was based on findings."

(full article online)

Ran Gueli saved dozens of lives, then was abducted to Gaza

Father of murdered hero hopes to one day burry his son who fought the invading terrorists despite injured shoulder, leg; after holding on to hope that he was still alive, IDF confirmed his death

www.ynetnews.com

 

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With every attack, there's always a little bit of "the Jews deserved it"​

On October 3, 1980, a PFLP terrorist placed explosives outside a synagogue in Paris. The explosion killed four people outside the synagogue and injured over forty worshipers inside.

The Prime Minister of France at the time, Raymond Barre, was especially outraged - at the deaths of non-Jews. He said to French television station TF1, "This odious attack was aimed at hitting Israelites going to the synagogue but hit innocent French people who crossed the Copernic street."

Barre didn't consider Jews to be "innocent French people."

We're seeing a lot of that kind of thinking. Usually a little more subtle, but when Jews or Israelis are murdered by Arabs, there is always a little bit of "well, Palestinians are understandably upset at Jews" in the reactions and coverage.

If the Houthis would take Egypt's advice and only attack ships that have clear links to Israel, the world would shrug.

Because attacking Jews is normal. It is expected. And, to too many, it is deserved.

There is one epithet that was reflexively associated with Israel by modern antisemites over most of the past fifty years: "occupation." Never mind that Arabs attacked Jews before 1967, the "occupation" had turned into the evil that must be fought. Israel-haters could pretend that they had nothing against a Jewish state, but only the "occupation." Give up the land and there would be peace!

Have you noticed that the word has disappeared in the current anti-Israel discourse? It's been replaced with "genocide." There is no longer a pretense that Israel should exist in any form.

One reason is because the October 7 pogrom was not against "settlers." Previously, the Israel haters could pretend that they are against terror attacks on innocent civilians inside the Green Line, or that such attacks were rare and not supported by Palestinians in general.

But they cannot say that this time. So they have changed their entire discourse from being against "occupation" to being against Israel altogether, just to exonerate Hamas.

And they are emboldened because they were so successful with the "occupation" lie, and then with the "apartheid" libel.

Their success is partially due to the world's thinking that the Jews deserve it.


Think about it:

• Hamas attacks Israel first
• Hezbollah attacks Israel first
• Iranian backed Syrian groups attack Israel first
• The Houthis shoot rockets at Israel first

And Israel is still framed as the aggressor.

The Jews are always presumed guilty, even in the mainstream discourse, even if only a little.

With every attack, there's always a little bit of "the Jews deserved it"

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com