Important Takeaways:
- How do we know that the coming days, weeks, and month or two before winter are potentially explosive?
- It is not just Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who told US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday, that the possibility for a diplomatic solution with Hezbollah in the North is running out.
- It is not just the rumors that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to replace Gallant with Gideon Sa’ar as defense minister in order to have greater support for a major operation against Hezbollah.
- Throughout, the main reason not to enter into war with Hezbollah was to avoid distractions that might handicap the IDF from its goal of taking apart all 24 of Hamas’s battalions in Gaza.
- Gallant declared Hamas’s last battalion in Rafah defeated on August 21, nearly a month ago.
- Despite Netanyahu’s publicly threatening words and tone, another major reason that war has not broken out is that the prime minister was privately terrified of how many Israelis might die from an estimated Hezbollah onslaught of 6,000-8,000 rockets per day.
- August 25 is when all of that changed – radically.
- On that day, Hezbollah planned to launch several hundred, possibly up to 1,000 rockets on Israel, including on critical intelligence headquarters bases north of Tel Aviv.
- Yet, on August 25, the IDF did not just beat Hezbollah – it cleaned house.
- The military blew up the vast majority of the rockets and drones with which Hezbollah had intended to attack Israel before these threats could even be launched.
- Suddenly, Netanyahu has a newfound confidence: that he actually can afford a major operation against Hezbollah – with much fewer losses to the home front than he had expected.
- So, what if – instead of 5,000-10,000 dead Israelis from tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets over several weeks – he could hit Hezbollah harder than it’s ever been hit before and destroy so many of its rocket launchers on the ground that Israeli casualties might not be just smaller but exponentially smaller?
- Finally, the winter factor comes into play.
- Sources have told the Post that if more than 4-6 weeks pass without an operation, it may be impossible – or much harder – to carry out such an operation until Spring 2025.
- This would mean condemning the northern residents to another 6 months outside of their homes, something becoming increasingly untenable domestically in Israel.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was as clear as he has ever been that he does not believe a ceasefire and hostage deal is likely in Gaza in a sharp rebuke to the Biden administration’s insistence it’s close at hand.
- On Sunday, President Joe Biden claimed that the parties were on the verge of a deal, and on Wednesday, a senior administration official claimed 90% of the agreement had been completed.
- “It’s exactly inaccurate. There’s a story, a narrative out there, that there’s a deal out there,” the Israeli Prime Minister said of the statement
- US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby doubled down on those assessments in comments to the press Thursday, saying, “90% – verge of a deal. You call that optimistic, I call that accurate.”
- “What Hamas has been demanding here, the Israelis have come forward to meet the terms as best they can,” the official said. “And Hamas, frankly, on this issue, we’ve had a pretty frustrating process.”
- The official said Hamas’s recent killing of six hostages had “colored” the ongoing negotiations and thrown into question Hamas’s willingness to reach a deal.
- Netanyahu has held two news conferences this week to argue that maintaining permanent control of the Philadelphi Corridor is vital to Israeli security.
- On Thursday, Netanyahu claimed Hamas “don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor, not to the keys of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything. So that’s just a false narrative.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel Defense Forces Chief Spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stated on Sunday, “A few hours ago, we informed the families that the bodies of their loved ones had been located by IDF troops in an underground tunnel in Rafah. According to our initial assessment, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them.”
- The nation is mourning as six hostages, including American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were found murdered in Gaza. Just a few days before this grim discovery, Hersh’s mother Rachel stood at the Gaza border, shouting a blessing to her son: “May God bless you and keep you. May God shine His face upon you and be gracious to you. May God lift up His face toward you and may God give you peace and may God bring you home now.”
- Some Israelis blame Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not being willing to approve a ceasefire deal. However, Netanyahu insisted a deal must have acceptable terms – and Israel must be able to stop Hamas from attacking Israel again.
- “The fact that Hamas is continuing to perpetrate atrocities like those it carried out on October 7 requires us to do everything so that it will be unable to perpetrate these atrocities again,” Netanyahu declared.
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Important Takeaways:
- Agreeing to the world’s demands to leave Gaza prematurely, even to have the IDF leave the Egyptian border area temporarily, would be a serious and strategic error that would embolden and resupply Hamas and put Israelis in grave danger.
- That’s the case that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made last night in a nationally televised press conference in Hebrew.
- A visibly emotional Netanyahu apologized to the hostage families and nation for not being able to get the six recently murdered hostages out in time. He called the six “pure souls” and vowed Hamas would pay a heavy price for this “horrible massacre.”
- However, the prime minister insisted that the only way to get back the remaining 101 hostages and protect all Israelis from future attacks by Hamas was not to surrender the vital gains the IDF has made so far.
- His top priority right now?
- The IDF absolutely must maintain control of the border between Gaza and Egypt called the Philadelphi Corridor, Netanyahu said.
- He called it “the oxygen tube for Hamas” because through the smuggling tunnels on that border has come most of the weapons, ammunition, rockets, explosives, and other supplies that the terror group needs to fight Israel.
- Cutting off those supply lines will suffocate Hamas and persuade them to make a deal, the prime minister insisted.
- “They thought that Iran will save them. Or Hezbollah will come save them. They are hoping that international pressure — or internal Israeli pressure — will affect it. But the first change for a possible [hostage deal] came because we took control of the Philadelphi Line.”
- “Once we get out of it we will not be able to go back in,” Netanyahu said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel’s military reported an airstrike hitting a weapons warehouse near a Hamas military site in Gaza City, as well as strikes that killed militants in central Gaza.
- Another round of airstrikes targeted more than 10 areas in southern Lebanon overnight, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday. Those attacks were aimed at locations used by the Hezbollah militant group, the IDF said.
- U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Wednesday about efforts by the United States to support Israel “against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, to include ongoing defensive U.S. military deployments,” according to a White House statement.
- Negotiators from the United States, Egypt, Qatar and Israel are expected to meet in the coming days in Cairo to try to push forward the process of achieving a cease-fire that would include a halt in fighting and the release of hostages still held by Hamas.
- Netanyahu’s office said Wednesday that Israel insists on achieving all of its goals for the war, including ensuring that Hamas cannot pose a security threat to Israel.
- Hamas on Wednesday reiterated its core demands, which include Israel fully withdrawing from Gaza.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas representatives told various media outlets that the provisions U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that day were a “coup against” a previous Hamas-friendly proposal Israel rejected.
- Blinken was in Israel on Monday to discuss what he called the “last opportunity” for an end to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ongoing self-defense operations in Gaza, Hamas’s stronghold territory used to launch the unprecedented October 7 attack on the Israeli homeland. Reaching a ceasefire agreement this week would grant President Joe Biden and his political party a major diplomatic victory to tout during the ongoing Democratic National Convention (DNC)
- Blinken did not specify why the current talks are the “last opportunity” for a deal. Pressed by reporters on Monday, he offered only that “intervening events come along that may make things even more difficult if not impossible” if the parties wait longer to hash out an agreement.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli troops launched a new assault Friday into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, targeting Hamas fighters who the military claims still operate there despite repeated offensives, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a cease-fire deal.
- Officials from Israel and the United States have said they believe Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ newly named top leader and one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, could be hiding in tunnels under Khan Younis.
- The military said Friday its warplanes struck 30 Hamas targets in the city, including fighters and weapons storage sites. It said troops were searching for Hamas tunnels and other infrastructure while engaging in combat “above and below ground.”
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed Thursday that it would send negotiators to talks that mediators have called for on Aug. 15, to be held in either Qatar’s capital of Doha or Egypt’s capital of Cairo.
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Important Takeaways:
- Netanyahu warns of preemptive attack as Tehran speaks of Israel’s annihilation
- “We are prepared both defensively and offensively,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated during a visit Wednesday to the IDF induction base at Tel Hashomer.
- “I know that the citizens of Israel are concerned, and I ask one thing of you: Be patient and level-headed,” he said. “We are striking our enemies and are determined to defend ourselves.”
- Egypt instructed all of its airlines to avoid Iranian airspace for a three-hour period in the early morning on Thursday.
- An Egyptian official was quoted by the state-affiliated Al Qahera News TV as saying that the Iranian authorities said to avoid flying in Iranian airspace because of “military exercises.”
- Many airlines are revising their schedules to avoid Iranian and Lebanese airspace while also calling off flights to Israel and Lebanon
- On Sunday, Jordanian authorities asked all airlines landing at its airports to carry 45 minutes’ worth of extra fuel.
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Important Takeaways:
- President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with his national security team in the Situation Room later on Monday amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel.
- The Islamic Republic could attack Israel in the next 24 to 48 hours following a major attack by Hezbollah that left two IDF soldiers injured, top western diplomats have warned.
- Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the G7 yesterday that an attack in response to Israel killing Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Fuad Shukr in Beirut, was imminent, as reported by Axios.
- It would be the second time during the growing crisis in the Middle East that Iran has directly attacked Israel, the first being in April when it sent a salvo of missiles and drones overnight.
- But unlike the April attack, the US admitted in a private call with G7 members that it doesn’t know what the expected retaliatory strike will look like.
- Nevertheless, Iran has clearly signaled that it intends to attack its foe, claiming it has the ‘legal right’ to respond to Haniyeh’s assassination, with foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani telling a news conference: ‘No one has the right to doubt Iran’s legal right to punish the Zionist regime.’
- The threats from Iran comes just hours after Hezbollah, backed by the Iranian regime, launched a silo of 30 missiles from Lebanon towards upper Galilee.
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Important Takeaways:
- Sources said Blinken indicated that while the U.S. does not know the exact time of the attacks, they could begin as early as the next 24-48 hours.
- Blinken coordinated the call with U.S. allies in an effort to put as much last-minute diplomatic pressure as possible on Iran and Hezbollah to temper any potential retaliation against Israel, according to Axios. Sources say Blinken emphasized the importance of preventing an all-out war.
- Blinken allegedly indicated that the United States is prepared for retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah in response to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and military commander Fuad Shukr. But, he said, it is unclear what form the relation will take.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a meeting late Sunday with heads of the military and intelligence services, said Israel is determined to stand up to Iran “on every front and in every arena — near and far.”
- “Iran and its minions are looking to surround us in a stranglehold of terrorism … Whoever seeks to harm us will pay a very heavy price,” Netanyahu said ahead of the meeting.
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