Operation Iron Swords - Day 77 - 22 December 2023
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NEW - Operations NEW - Operations Maps NEW - By-Standers NEW - Axis of Resistance NEW - Allied for Democracy UPDATED - Oasis of Martyrs UPDATED - Hostages |
Following the UN Security Council vote on a resolution to increase humanitarian aid in Gaza, Kate Phillips-Barrasso, Mercy Corps Vice President of Global Policy and Advocacy sstated: "While we are relieved to finally see agreement in the Security Council on the gravity and urgency of the humanitarian situation, the failure of this resolution to address what is most needed by the 2 million people in Gaza facing starvation cannot be called an achievement. Without an immediate and sustainable pause in hostilities, women and children will continue to die in bombardments and aid organizations will not be able to scratch the surface in meeting needs. We cannot deliver aid to 2.3 million people under active bombardment and by trucking it in. Nothing short of a ceasefire and an end to the siege will prevent this catastrophic and preventable loss of life."
Oxfam's Middle East Regional Director, Sally Abi Khalil, said that the Security Council's failure to call for a ceasefire in Gaza is cruel and incomprehensible. Abi Khalil added that an immediate and permanent ceasefire is the way to provide aid with the volume and speed required to help civilians in Gaza.
On the 78th day of the war on the Gaza Strip , the Israeli force continued to bomb various areas, confirming that it is preparing to begin the “third phase” of the war. The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that the army is preparing to begin the "third phase" of the war on the Gaza Strip, in the coming weeks, which includes ending ground maneuvers. The Commission (officially) quoted unnamed sources as saying that the third phase includes ending the ground maneuver in the Gaza Strip, reducing forces, demobilizing reserve forces, resorting to air strikes, and establishing a buffer zone on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The authority claimed that the army took control of most of the areas in the northern Gaza Strip, while facing great difficulties in moving forward in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli Channel 11 reported that the third phase will also include “reducing the number of forces, forming a buffer zone, and continuing focused attacks” in Gaza, noting that the army is preparing to demobilize thousands of reserve soldiers soon. The Israeli Broadcasting Authority claimed that the army “took control of most of the northern Gaza Strip area, while facing great difficulties in moving forward in the southern Gaza Strip area.”
Also in field developments, the Israeli army announced that it had strengthened its forces in Khan Yunis with five new brigades.
While the Israeli army was talking about expanding the scope of its operations to include areas in central Gaza, including Deir al-Balah, the Al Jazeera team monitored southeast of Gaza City, near the Karni-Mintar crossing, the occupation forces bombing a number of Palestinian buildings near the security fence for the second time in days.
Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that the Israeli army deliberately destroyed hundreds of residential buildings and public facilities near the security fence in recent weeks, especially east of Gaza City and Jabalia to the north, as part of a plan to create a buffer zone that gives the Israeli towns on the Gaza Strip a security depth.
The Israeli media revealed a military plan to establish military barracks near all Israeli towns close to the security fence.
Israeli media reported that the army decided to withdraw the Golani Brigade from Gaza after 70 days of fighting in which it suffered “huge losses,” while other Israeli sources reported that the brigade’s soldiers left Gaza “to reorganize their ranks, catch their breath, and visit their families for a few days.”
The decision to withdraw the Golani Brigade from Gaza was followed by the withdrawal of paratroopers and armored forces from the Gaza Strip as well.
The Israeli forces stormed several cities and towns in the occupied West Bank and launched raids and arrests of Palestinians. According to eyewitnesses, the occupation forces stormed the cities of Nablus and Jericho, the towns of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, and Ein Yabrud, east of Ramallah, in addition to the Ain Sultan and Aqabat Jabr camps, and the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
Palestinian media said that Israeli aircraft launched a series of raids targeting several homes in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. It added that the occupation artillery continues its violent shelling of the city and Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Since the morning hours, the IDF carried out several raids on the center of the city of Khan Yunis, where it is trying to expand its incursion. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that the occupation carried out a violent bombardment in front of its Al-Amal Hospital in the city. The bombing included Gaza neighborhoods, most notably Sheikh Radwan, all the way to Nuseirat and Bureij in the center, as well as Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south. The Jabalia area, north of the Gaza Strip, was also subjected to intense bombardment, resulting in a number of martyrs.
The Palestinian resistance announced that on Friday, it killed Israeli soldiers in the south and north of the Gaza Strip , while Israeli bombing left dozens of martyrs dead. The Al-Qassam Brigades announced that its fighters targeted a foot force of 5 Israeli soldiers with an anti-fortified shell, and clashed with them northwest of the city of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, confirming that the soldiers were killed or wounded.
It also announced that its fighters targeted another Israeli foot force with an anti-personnel device, and clashed with what remained of it, killing and wounding them east of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. Also in Khan Yunis, the Al-Qassam Brigades destroyed an occupation troop carrier, according to what was stated in one of its statements via the Telegram application.
In the same axis, fighters of the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) targeted an Israeli bulldozer with an “Al-Yassin 105” shell, according to what was stated in another statement. This comes amid fierce battles in Khan Yunis, the neighborhoods of Gaza City, and the northern region.
For its part, the Al-Quds Brigades said that they were able, in a joint operation with the Al-Qassam Brigades, to kill and wound 4 Israeli soldiers east of Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip. It also announced that it had targeted a Merkava tank in the Al-Qasaib neighborhood in the Jabalia camp, and shot down an Israeli drone that was flying in the airspace of the central Gaza Strip. The Al-Quds Brigades had broadcast images that it said were of rocket and mortar shells targeting Israeli military sites and concentrations in the areas of advance in Gaza City.
Lebanese Hezbollah published a video documenting its targeting of the Shomira Barracks and the Al-Abad site of the Israeli army on the Palestinian-Lebanese border.
Arab military experts and political analysts believe that the Israeli occupation’s insistence on prolonging the war it is waging in the Gaza Strip will not lead to achieving the goals it has set, which is what intellectual and military leaders within Israel itself are warning about. As part of the daily analytical pause on Al Jazeera, “Gaza...what next?” The expert in Israeli affairs, Dr. Muhannad Mustafa, confirmed that there are two parties in Israel that want to continue the war in Gaza at any cost: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who wants the war to continue indefinitely to save himself, and the military establishment, which is trying to compensate for the failure it suffered on the 7th October.
In contrast to the insistence of the right-wing Netanyahu government and the military establishment, some different voices and movements are rising, even within Israeli society, calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. The expert on Israeli affairs revealed that there are three central trends today in Israel, the first represented by Netanyahu, and the second expressed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in his article, as he stressed the importance of a ceasefire and placed the return of Israeli detainees held by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza as a central goal of the war. The third trend relates to the diplomatic option. There are those who focus on the need for a political solution.
Al Jazeeera military and strategic expert Major General Fayez Al-Duwairi confirmed that those who insist on continuing the war in the Gaza Strip are the Israeli War Council and Netanyahu, because they believe that prolonging the war may lead to change that leads to a political solution to the war. Al-Duwairi pointed out that the insistence on continuing the war is unrealistic, and the evidence is that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak , one of the most prominent Israeli chiefs of staff, spoke frankly and said that it is not possible to achieve what Israel says is the goal of eliminating the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ).
After 77 days of the Israeli ground battle, Netanyahu - as Al-Duwairi adds - was unable to rescue a single detainee, and described the Israeli army’s operations as all failures, citing the occupation’s withdrawal of a unit of the Golani Brigade from the Shuja’iya neighborhood. As for the writer and political analyst, Hossam Al-Dajani, he expressed his disappointment with the performance of the UN Security Council, which was unable to adopt a resolution requiring a ceasefire in Gaza. He said that the Council’s adoption of the resolution regarding the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza will ease the burden on Palestinian civilians, but only if Israel is forced to bring it in. To all areas of the sector.
Al-Dajani warned against what he considered to be the issue of the legitimacy of purging the Gaza Strip of the Palestinian resistance, especially the Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad, that is, the legitimacy of military operations. He said that this text is very dangerous, and spoils the joy of the Palestinians and the joy of everyone who expects the international system to have a say, noting that “the idea "Cleansing" Israel will not be able to do because of the strength and ability of the Palestinian resistance.
Maps
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All maps are lies. But it is impossible to comprehend the war in Gaza without reference to maps, otherwise the entire conflict is reduced to an endless series of meaningless acts of random violence and the suffering of civilians. Evidently, different mappers have different ideas of how to depict the war in Gaza, notably those that seek to depict Israeli progress in the ground campaign. Part of the problem is latency. The news that forms the basis of the maps takes time to filter out to mappers, and the cartographers take time in crafting their maps, and it takes time to curate them. Thes processes are uneven among mappers, so their maps may differ in detail. Probably there is some ideological bias, or at least thematic apperception, which is understandable in wartime. It may come as no surprise that al-Jazeera maps depict rather less Israeli territorial progress than other sources. Finally, there remains the epistemological question of just exactly what are the colored in areas depicting. Naively, this might be understood as areas of Israeli control, that are no longer contested by the HAMAS. Or possibly these are areas of Israeli presence, in many of which the possibility of an RPG-wielding HAMAS militant popping out of a tunnel unexpectedly remains a live possibility. With the "zero-range" combat characterized by small unit tactics on both sides, maps may be prey to a fallacy of misplaced concreteness. |
Bystanders
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin that it is not possible to accept or deal with the plans of the Israeli occupation authorities to separate the Gaza Strip or any part of it, stressing that “our people in the Gaza Strip will have priority, and will not be abandoned.”
The Palestinian President stressed the necessity of "stopping the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, and an immediate and complete ceasefire in order to spare civilians the scourge of bombing, and the war of annihilation, murder and destruction carried out by the Israeli killing machine on the Gaza Strip."
He also reaffirmed the speedy provision of humanitarian aid, doubling the entry of relief, medical and food supplies, providing water, electricity and fuel, providing the necessary aid and preventing displacement, stressing also the necessity of releasing Palestinian clearance funds.
Abbas also called for the necessity of Palestine obtaining full membership in the United Nations, holding an international peace conference to implement the political solution within a specific period of time and with international guarantees, and forming a Palestinian government that would assume its duties in the West Bank, including Jerusalem and Gaza, and control its resources and international crossings.
Since the beginning of the war, Israel deliberately targeted the infrastructure of the financial and banking system in the Gaza Strip , which was represented by targeting bank branches operating in the Strip and destroying dozens of exchange offices and automated teller machines. This greatly limited the ability of expatriate Gazans to help their families who live in tragic conditions in the Strip.
Gazan expatriates find in money transfer offices a refuge to send money to their families in the Strip. Because this type of office relies on a network of money changers in the Gaza Strip and outside it, and is not connected to a strict global financial system, and the possibility of delivery in several areas in the Gaza Strip.
Before the war, this work was related to facilitating commercial operations for Gazan merchants who had commercial relations with Turkish suppliers, and personal transfers were a secondary part of the work. Today, the bulk of their work is personal transfers, They have great pressure now, but cannot meet everyone, as the northern and Gaza regions are outside the scope of their work, in addition to the fact that they cannot provide the necessary liquidity for all requests within the Strip, in addition to the great risks of the delivery process and carrying cash inside the Strip due to the continuous bombing.
This method of transfer does not depend on an integrated banking system, but rather a set of standards, some of which are linked to proof of personal identity, and some of which are linked to personal knowledge. But with the displacement of most of the residents of the Strip to the areas of the south, especially the city of Rafah, the process has become more complicated.
One citizen of Gaza residing in the Jordanian capital, Amman, found another way to help his family. In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, he explained that he was able to send money to his family displaced from the northern regions of Rafah by delivering it to his friend in the West Bank, who deposited it in an account he had it at the Bank of Palestine, and then sent it to his brother, who had an account at the same bank, so that his brother, in turn, could withdraw it from the bank’s ATM in the city of Rafah. It was really exhausting, but there is no other way to do it.
Axis of Resistance
The Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) described the threats of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant that his soldiers were about to kill resistance leaders as “empty in substance and an expression of failure to achieve the goals of the war.” The movement said - in a statement - that "war criminal Gallant's threat that his defeated army was about to kill the leaders of the resistance was empty and was intended to market imaginary achievements." It added, "These threats are an expression of his abject failure to achieve any of the goals of his aggression against Gaza other than the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian facilities."
The official Israeli radio recently published, on its Facebook page, statements by Gallant in which he said, “The leader of the Hamas movement in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar , will soon meet the rifles of the (Israeli) Defense Forces.” On December 19, Israeli Channel 13 reported that Israeli army forces “arrived at the place where Sinwar was staying, shortly before he left the place.”
The channel continued - quoting Israeli officials - that the army "is focusing its activity in the south of the Gaza Strip and in Khan Yunis specifically, to reach the Hamas leadership, while there has recently been positive progress in the ongoing pursuit operations," as they claimed.
Allied for Democracy
Under the title “Let us admit defeat,” Hillel Shokin, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University, wrote an article in Haaretz newspaper, in which he reviewed the course and developments of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and the losses incurred by the army in terms of human forces, military equipment and machinery, as well as the bank of targets “which remained without balance.” , according to his expression.
Reading the meanings and connotations of withdrawing elite forces from the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli aspiration to begin the third phase of the war and redeploy the forces, Shokin wrote, “We will not win even if we are together as well. We have already lost the current military campaign on Gaza for the sake of our right to a national homeland in the Land of Israel. The loss became apparent on October 7th.
The lecturer at Tel Aviv University added, "Every additional day of ground maneuver increases failure, and when this military campaign ends, as is expected in a few weeks due to international pressure, Israel will find itself in a more difficult situation than the one it entered into."
Shokin Bank recalled the declared goals of the war on Gaza, saying, “On October 16, the Israeli War Cabinet announced the goals of the war, represented by overthrowing Hamas’ rule and destroying its military capabilities, removing the terrorist threat from the Gaza Strip to Israel, and making every effort to resolve the situation.” The issue of hostages, and protecting the country’s borders and its citizens, and at the end of the campaign we will not achieve any of these goals.”
The same reading was adopted by investigative journalist and specialist in military and intelligence affairs, Ronen Bergman, who, through an assessment of a position published in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, reviewed the failure in not achieving the goals of the war, and the lack of official recognition by the political and military institutions of the impossibility of liberating the kidnapped people and eliminating Hamas.
Bergman adds, "No one says this publicly, but this is the reality. In fact, even if an agreement is not reached on a new exchange deal, it is possible that the Israeli army will be forced to withdraw completely from Gaza before it completes its declared military goals, which have not been achieved." "With the end of the third month of the war approaching."
Bergman's bottom line is: “Israel has harmed Hamas, but it is far from overcoming it. There are those who believe that Israel has suddenly become interested in the deal, because it has become clear to everyone that within two weeks it will be forced to stop maneuvering under American pressure, as the deal will be an optimistic end to the war.” "And much more enjoyable than if the Americans asked Israel to stop and withdraw without even releasing the detainees."
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called for an immediate halt to the war on Gaza, saying that the goals set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not be achieved. Olmert said - in an article in the newspaper "Haaretz" entitled: Stop the war in exchange for the return of the "kidnapped" alive - that the claims of Netanyahu and members of his government that the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ) can be eliminated through military operations are unrealistic.
Olmert stressed that Netanyahu himself does not believe that this goal can be achieved, pointing out that Netanyahu is acting as a showman, and that all he means is escaping the consequences of responsibility for failing to prevent a Hamas attack on October 7th. Olmert added that Netanyahu is driven by internal political considerations, and that he realizes that there is no possibility of achieving the goal of eliminating Hamas, but from the first moment he was not preoccupied with the war on Gaza, but rather with his own personal war of survival.
Olmert stressed that Israel has two options: either it agrees to a ceasefire and returns its prisoners to Hamas through an exchange deal, or it continues fighting so that the war ends without achieving the goal of eliminating Hamas and without recovering the prisoners.
US President Joe Biden said that he was "saddened to hear news about the killing of an American citizen at the hands of Hamas in the attack last October 7." Biden added that he renews the pledge he made to the families of Israeli detainees in the Gaza Strip, which is that his administration will not stop working until it is able to recover them all.
US Senator Bernie Sanders renewed his call for President Joe Biden's administration to withhold $10.1 billion in military aid to Israel. “We should not pay any more money to the far-right government in Israel for a horrific and immoral military campaign, which includes the indiscriminate bombing of civilians,” Sanders said in a speech to Congress.
Butcher's Bill / Oasis of Martyrs
Palestinian armed group Hamas launched thousands of missiles at Israel and deployed its militants to infiltrate Jewish settlements near the country’s border with Gaza on 07 October 2023. The 1,200 Israelis killed on the first day would be the equivalent of 36,000 Americans killed in an attack, as a proportion to Israel’s population of 9.3 million people (compared to 332 million in the USA). Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated: “Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day". PM Netanyahu stated "On October 7th, Hamas murdered 1,400 Israelis. Maybe more. This is in a country of fewer than 10 million people. This would be equivalent to over 50,000 Americans murdered in a single day. That’s twenty 9/11s. That is why October 7th is another day that will live in infamy."
It is the second largest loss inflicted on the Israeli forces after the 1973 war, as the Palestinian resistance killed more than 1,200, wounded more than 5,132 others, and captured more than 250, most of them military personnel, some of whom were high-ranking officers in the army.
The HAMAS Ministry of Health in the besieged sector announced that the number of victims of the Israeli operation its beginning had risen to about 20,570 martyrs. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The number wounded was53,320. The Palestinian Government Media Office in Gaza had said many days earlier that the number of missing people had risen to more than 7,500 [double the 3,750 previously reported], including 1,800 children still under the rubble, including 4,700 children and women.
Palestinian Ministry of Health has announced that the total number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli occupation this year has reached 505 people, including 111 children. The Palestinian Ministry of Health earlier explained that the death toll in the West Bank since the beginning of this year has risen to 465, including 257 martyrs since last October 7.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry released an official casualty numbers in fighting, saying 77 people were killed and 251 wounded since the start of the war on Gaza.
Israel revised down the death toll from the October Hamas attacks in southern Israel from 1,400 to 1,200. IDF had said previously it was holding 1,500 bodies of terrorists, a total that now would increas to about 1,700.
The IDF acknowledged the death toll to 145 between officers and soldiers since the start of the ground incursion, while the number of wounded since the beginning of the ground operation rose to 784, including 146 seriously injured. This brings the total number of dead officers and soldiers whose names the Israeli army allowed to be published to 434 since the Palestinian resistance launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th.
At least 1q,213 Israelis were injured, according to i24 TV. The IDF updated the number of soldiers injured in the war and attacks on October 7 to 1,683.
Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper had reported that 5,000 soldiers had been wounded since the beginning of the war on October 7, and that the Ministry of Defense had recognized 2,000 soldiers as disabled so far.
Hostages
The Israeli media focused on the controversy surrounding Israeli prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance, and the inability of the military and political leadership to achieve the goals declared by Israel for its war on Gaza. Israeli Channel 14 quoted Doron Matza, a specialist in the Arab-Israeli conflict, as saying that if Israel were satisfied with achieving the goal of returning detainees only, it would lose the battle, and would pay a heavy strategic price for that in the coming years. Meanwhile, Avi Shimrez, the father of one of the prisoners killed by the Israeli army, expressed his opposition to returning the prisoners through the use of force.
Israel estimated there were 116 living hostages in Palestinian custody. Israel declared 19 out of 135 people in Gaza captivity dead in absentia, after announcing its forces had recovered the bodies of two hostages. Israel considers those still held by Hamas to be hostages regardless of whether they are dead or alive.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy earlier had told reporters that Hamas still held 137 captives. The resistance released 10 Israeli detainees, 4 Thais and 2 Russian women, who were released outside the agreement. Over the course of 6 days, Israel has received 102 detainees, women and children, including 78 Israelis, in exchange for the release of 234 Palestinian prisoners, women and children.
Eylon Levy, the Israeli government spokesperson, told reporters 01 December 2023:
- Hamas still held 137 hostages from the October attacks, in addition to four others who went missing before the war
- The hostages include two children aged four and 10 months, who, Hamas now claims, are dead
- 117 male hostages are still kept in Gaza, including the two children, as well as 20 females
- 126 hostages are Israelis, and 11 others are foreign nationals
- Foreign nationals are eight Thais, one Nepalese, one Tanzanian and one French Mexican citizen
- Ten of the remaining hostages are 75 and older.
- There are seven missing people since the October 7 attack
- Hamas had released 110 hostages so far – 86 Israelis and 24 foreign nationals.
Some of the rest are soldiers, seized when Hamas raided military bases in Israel. They may end up being held the longest. The Israeli military had not specified how many soldiers were captured, nor their ranks.
According to some estimates, Hamas was initially holding nearly 210 of the 240 hostages, while Palestinian Islamic Jihad was holding the remaining 30. About 40 Israelis remained missing. More than 40 hostages taken from Israel into Gaza on October 7th are not currently in the custody of Hamas, the group responsible for the attack, according to a CNN report based on a diplomatic source briefed on the negotiations, CNN's prior reports had indicated that an estimated 40 to 50 hostages were held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad or other unidentified groups or individuals.
Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said on Hamas’ telegram account that 23 bodies of the 60 missing Israel hostages were trapped under the rubble. “It seems that we will never be able to reach them due to the continued brutal aggression of the occupation against Gaza,” he said.
Palestinian institutions concerned with prisoners’ affairs announced that the Israeli authorities have arrested 4,400 Palestinians in the West Bank and the 1948 territories since last October 7. Some 150 women have been arrested thus far, both from the West Bank and the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948. Additionally, more than 255 children have been arrested. Israel had earliers aid that, since the beginning of the war, about 2,100 wanted persons have been arrested throughout the IOS Division and the Bekaa and Emekim Brigade, about 1,100 of them are affiliated with Hamas.
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