Israel/Palestine....Middle East, 3 November 2023
Good morning everybody!
…from north towards south…
Israel-Lebanon
In the north, there was an escalation in clashes between Hezbollah/IRGC (constantly reinforced by additional IRGC-formations from Iraq and Syria) and IDF along the border between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah, Hamas and PIJ in Lebanon have actually taken the Israelis by surprise and heavily hit the Kiryat Smona and Rosh Pina areas (where the population was evacuated already two weeks ago) using at least 12 Shahed-like UAVs. Enough for the Israeli media to call everybody to ‘boycott’ Nasrallah’s speech announced – and much expected – for today… Hezbollah also hit the HQ of an IDF armoured battalion in the Shebaa Farms with two UAVs.
(Israel reacted in a fashion usual since at least around 1976: with heavy air strikes and artillery barrages on multiple villages in southern Lebanon – including Aitroun, Helta, and Kfar Shuba ….)
Iraq
In the east, Hezbollah/IRGC in Iraq has announced it’s joining the battle by deploying the same cruise missiles against Israel, as are already deployed by the Ansar Allah/Houthis from northern Yemen. Moreover, they have announced they are going to reinforce their strikes on US bases in the region. For example, the US base in Erbil (northern Iraq) was attacked two times, yesterday. US Air Force (USAF) – which has reinforced its units deployed in the Middle East – has bombed at least one Hezbollah/IRGC convoy underway from Iraq to Syria, and claims to have shot down several UAVs over the last few days.
….and it’s not only Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq that’s joining the war: the IRGC-sponsored Hashd al-Shabi (‘Popular Mobilisation Forces’, created to fight the Daesh, back in 2015) is doing so, too.
West Bank
In the West Bank, clashes between IDF and terrorist settlers on one side, and Palestinians on the other have escalated too. Israelis killed 5 Palestinians, Palestinians blew up a D7 armoured bulldozer of the IDF…
Gaza Strip
Israelis seem to have managed to reach the coast south of Gaza City, severing it from the rest of the Gaza Strip – and the outside world. At least for civilians.
Palestinian resistance inside the strip is not in agreement with this: foremost, they’re certainly remaining well-connected with the south via their tunnels. Plus have extensive stockpiles of arms, food and water in their underground hideouts.
The IASF air strikes remain so highly precise, that they continue massacring 150-200 Palestinian civilians a day – about 40-50% of which are always children (because half the 2.4-population of the Gaza Strip are kids) - while Hamas and PIJ remain capable of launching rocket strikes on Israel. Tel Aviv was showered by at least one big volley yesterday (the area hit stretched from Oranit in the north, via Petah Tikva to Risho Le Tsiyon in the south)… Beersheba was targeted by another volley (which, probably, means that the nearby Hatzerim AB was actually targeted).
Qassam Brigades of Hamas – via its spokesman Abu Ubaida (claimed by the israelis to have been killed almost a week ago) - claim they have launched a ‘counteroffensive’. By using point-blanc attacks with Yassin-105 warheads (instead of firing these), they say they have destroyed 6 Israeli tanks, 2 infantry fighting vehicles, and one armoured bulldozer.
Furthermore, they say that in the last 48 hours they have knocked out ‘an equivalent to a full tank battalion’ (that would be some 30+) of Israeli armoured vehicles. Must say, after seeing some videos – like the one from which these two stills were taken – showing their fighters sneaking from flanks upon Israeli Merkavas in the Zaytioun area (eastern side of the Gaza Strip) to position warheads of their weapons atop the deck, at least a good part of such claim seem to have foundation.
….even more so because over the last 24 hours, the IDF confirmed the loss of at least 19 soldiers, including tankers, combat engineers, and other specialists and officers from:
- 53rd Battalion (188th Armoured Brigade; this battalion lost its CO, Lt Col. Salman Habaka)
- 77th Battalion (7th Armoured Brigade)
- 184th Battalion (14th Armoured Brigade)
- 195th Battalion (460th Armoured Brigade)
- 101st (Para) Battalion
- 679th Brigade (Givati Brigade)
- 7007th Battalion (Jerusalem Brigade).
Mind: these 19 are only those officially confirmed so far….
Of course, official Israel is still talking about ‘hundreds’ of enemy casualties - probably along the line demonstrated by the Israeli TV, mentioned in my last update, along which all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are ‘terrorists’? Well, at least the IDF troops didn’t release another video showing them dragging bodies of dead Palestinians behind their vehicles… (shouldn’t mean they’ve stopped that practice).
Border to Egypt/Sinai/Red Sea
While opening the Rafah border crossing so the foreign nationals can exit the Gaza Strip - and badly wounded Palestinians can be evacuated its hospitals, and at least some relief aid can be brought in to the Gaza Strip - Egypt continues deploying commando- and armoured units on the Sinai, and arraying these along the borders to the strip and to Israel.
Just few kilometres north-east from Rafah, heavy fighting is reported from the area between Umm Kameil and Yesha, in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza…
Ah yes and: IASF claimed its F-35s to have shot down this (Iranian-made) Paveh/Qods cruise missile released by the Houthis:
Now, what can be assessed from such videos is not speaking good about either side. Yes, thanks to such weapons like Yassin-105 (essentially: big warhead for RPG-7 grenade launchers) Qassam Brigades are better-equipped for anti-tank combat at close range than ever before.
However, the fact Palestinians are deploying them ‘per hand’ instead of firing them at the enemy vehicles… hm… ballsy, no doubt, but also ineffective. Still, it’s beyond doubt they’re causing heavier casualties to the IDF than Netanyahu, Gallant & Co KG GesmbH have ever expected, regardless of all the ‘warnings’ they’ve issued over the last few weeks (primarily with the aim of demonstrating how ‘wise’ they are).
Foremost, one should keep in mind that no matter how much the Israeli government ‘warned’ this will be a ‘long and costly’ war, actually: it can’t go on like this forever (especially not with much of northern Israel completely evacuated for weeks).
Atop of this, though as expected, all the possible weaknesses in IDF’s training are exposed:
- they’re not used to countering enemy mini-UAVs (Hamas is also regularly bombing Israeli troops, ‘Ukraine-style’: by mortar bombs released from UAVs);
- while advancing into the Gaza Strip, they’re fighting from ‘under armour’ only, without infantry support and thus greatly restricting their field of view, and making themselves vulnerable to this kind of close-range attacks;
….and no matter how ‘methodical’ and ‘cautious’, the slow IDF advance is only buying plenty of time for Hamas and PIJ to react, to re-deploy their forces and counter-attack at selected points in time…
…while carpet bombing and random shelling of (hundreds and thousands of) ‘terrorist command centres’ in densely populated areas by the IASF and the IDF is exposed as exactly what it is: entirely pointless mass-murder.
***
This is exactly what corrupt opportunists like Netanyahu, and extremists like Gallant and others that are nowadays dominating the political landscape of Israel, were dreaming about for decades. A big, ‘everybody against Israel’ conflict prompting the West to demonstratively reinforce its unconditional military- and political aid to Israel, while masking continuous mass-murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the West Bank (and, now the Gaza Strip too).
Problem: it’s exactly what such corrupt extremists like Khamenei in Iran, Nasrallah in Lebanon, Haniyeh (Hamas-leader living in exile in Qatar), were day-dreaming about for decades, too. It’s playing straight into their hands, because it’s ‘rallying their public around their flag’ - and attracting lots of financial support, too….
Problem: while Israel and the West ‘must’ operate officially (even if, for example, deploying Mossad, CIA and different other intelligence services in clandestine fashion), Iran and Qatar have it easy to deploy all of their proxies - while remaining ‘non-involved’, and well-masked: it’s the ‘Axis of Islamic Resistance’ (see: Hezbollah/IRGC/Hamas/PIJ etc.) that’s fighting Zionist occupation, after all.
But hey: the West – foremost the USA, but much of the EU too – is certain it can solve this situation by ignoring reality.
Good luck with that.