THE COLONEL

 

THE COLONEL

 

I really wanted to write about the demise of Colonel Hassan Sayad Khodayari.

He was one of the commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary Quds Force. Over the past decade, Khodayari was involved in planning attacks against Israeli targets in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.

The Guardian quoting an AP report from Tehran said, “Two unidentified gunmen on a motorbike shot Col Hassan Sayad Khodayari five times in his unarmoured Iranian-made vehicle.” The attack took place in a high-security area close to Iran’s parliament.”  The assassination bore the hallmarks of previous deadly shooting attacks Iran blamed on Israel, such as those targeting the country's nuclear scientists, though no one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Times (London) said the latest assassination illustrates Iran’s hollow threats, and the regime has so far shown it has few ways to directly respond. Reports of Israel’s penetration have also grown, giving Israel more of a spotlight than in the past. That can humiliate Tehran – which can cause it to be more chaotic and risky in its response.

The Tehran Times said in a press release eulogising Colonel Sayad Khodaei -

 “The necessary action to identify and arrest the assailant or assailants is anticipated and underway.” Don’t bank on it. Known Iranian regime dissidents will probably be hanged for the assassination regardless of whether they were actually involved in it,

The Israel government press office GPO neither denied nor confirmed allegations that Israel was responsible for Colonel Khodaei’s death   

 

At this juncture let’s return to where I left off a few days ago concerning the shooting of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh. I quoted Israeli ambassador to the U.S Mike Herzog’s claim. “That IDF troops would never intentionally target members of the press.” Notwithstanding that, an investigation by CNN offered what it termed “new evidence” — including two videos of the scene of the shooting — claiming that there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death. Videos obtained by CNN, corroborated by testimony from eight eyewitnesses, an audio forensic analyst as well as an explosive weapons expert, suggest that Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces.

Footnote: The eight eyewitnesses are all local residents. The other unnamed “experts” state their findings unequivocally without supporting forensic evidence,

Nonetheless, a statement issued after an initial autopsy conducted by Ryan al-Ali of the Pathological Institute at the a-Najah University in Nablus said that they could not determine who had shot Ms. Abu Akleh.

Speaking at the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference in Eilat on Monday, The IDF’s Military Advocate-General, Brig.-Gen. Yifat Tomer -Yerushalmi said that the IDF is “making every effort” to investigate the circumstances that led to Ms. Abu-Akleh’s death in order to understand how she was killed.

But, the Palestinians' refusal to allow Israel access to the bullet ‘leaves doubt’ as to the circumstances of her death,” she said.

“The fog of war does not relieve us of the duty to strive for the truth and act to clarify any doubt,” Tomer-Yerushalmi concluded.

The fog of war is often described as the uncertainty in situational awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding one's own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign.

Yifat Tomer Yerushalmi is the second woman to hold the rank of major general in Israel's history.

Back to the main text: 

If you recall Rep. Ilhan Omar complained that the US provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid annually with no restrictions. The other members of the “Squad” joined her in demanding accountability for these payments.

Israel is seen by the US as a crucial ally in the Middle East - with shared goals and a mutual commitment to democratic values.

The US Congressional Research Service says: "US foreign aid has been a major component in cementing and reinforcing these ties.

The US government's foreign assistance agency says: "US assistance helps ensure that Israel maintains its Qualitative Military Edge (QME) over potential regional threats."

U.S. military aid to Israel is money well spent. The F-35 multi-role fighter planes supplied to Israel have clocked more combat hours than any other Lockheed-Martin customer. The accrued battle experience, performance, and general know-how are shared with Israel’s benefactor.

Furthermore, components of Israel’s military industries such as the Iron Dome interceptors are manufactured by sub-contractors in the U.S.

Israel also bought eight KC-46A Boeing 'Pegasus' aircraft for an estimated $2.4bn. The KC-46A aircraft were purchased in the framework of the U.S. military aid agreement. They are capable of refuelling planes such as the F-35 in mid-air.

Need I say more?

Egypt is also a major recipient of U.S. foreign aid. coming in third place after Israel and Jordan

Egypt and Jordan benefit from the foreign aid programme which helps to ensure economic and political stability in both countries.

  

The IDF is currently conducting the largest military drill in its history The exercise simulates strikes on targets far from Israel’s borders with a large number of planes while simultaneously acquiring new targets on various fronts.

The drill is unique and unprecedented in scope and will enable the IDF to maintain a high level of readiness in an ever-changing region. It also aims to improve the military’s capabilities in an intense, multifront, and prolonged war on all its borders.

The IDF is planning several military options against Iran should the nuclear talks between the West and the Islamic Republic fail, and it will practice one of the possible options during the exercise.

 

Another margin note: Israel was ranked the 10th-largest international weapons exporter in the past five years by an independent global security think tank.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s latest report, measuring weapons trade from 2017 to 2021, said arms trade to Europe surged, the Gulf states were leading importers and Israel remains a major player.

Back to the main text:

Iran presents the greatest existential threat to Israel’s security.

The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has denied Israeli media reports claiming U.S. Air Force refuelling planes participated in an Israeli military exercise simulating a strike on Iran.

According to a report by The War Zone online magazine dated May 18, CENTCOM spokesman Col. Joe Buccino said a U.S. Air Force refuelling tanker had conducted a “dry refuelling mission” with American and Israeli jets, but that it was “not tied to” Israel’s ongoing “Chariots of Fire” exercise, which began earlier this month. 

According to Buccino, the fuel tankers simulated refuelling two U.S. F-15s and four Israeli F-16s, but the timing of the refuelling exercise was coincidental.

“There is no direct U.S. military involvement in that exercise,” Buccino said, referring to “Chariots of Fire.”

Pentagon spokesman Maj. Rob Lodewick also denied that the Department of Defense was “directly participating” in the exercise, 

“Some personnel from across U.S. Central Command are observing portions of the exercise,” Lodewick added.

On May 17, Channel 13 reported that as part of the month-long “Chariots of Fire” drill, Israeli fighter jets would simulate a strike on Iran together with U.S. mid-air refuelling planes.

On May 18, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi led an honour guard at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to receive the new commander of CENTCOM, Maj. Gen. Michael Kurilla, on his first official visit to Israel.

On May 19, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, who was on an official state visit to Washington.

According to the Pentagon’s readout of the meeting, Austin “reiterated the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge.”

The two also discussed ways to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and addressed Iran’s destabilising actions throughout the region.

What more can I say.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,                                                   26^th of May, 2022.

 

 

THE SQUAD AND OTHERS

The sequel to the post I wrote on Friday relates to the “Squad.”                                                                An unofficial group of Democratic politicians, namely Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Representatives Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.                                                            I refer to their knee-jerk reaction to the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.                   The opportunity was too good to miss, they didn’t need proof, they had made up their minds.

Ocasio-Cortez was particularly vociferous ranting against the shooting of Abu Akleh for over an hour in an Instagram video she posted on Friday.                                                                                                 Not to be outdone, the others followed suit. Ilhan Omar was more concise but just as vitriolic. “We provide Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid annually with no restrictions. What will it take for accountability for these human rights violations?"

The outraged members of the “Squad” weren’t alone in demanding accountability for the journalist’s death.                                                                                                                                                             A group of 57 House Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Chris Wray “requesting” that the State Department and the FBI launch an investigation into Ms. Abu Akleh’s death. The members, predominantly left-leaning Democrats, noted that Abu Akleh held US citizenship and pointed to divergent Israeli and Palestinian versions of the circumstances of her death.

Israel Ambassador to the US Mike Herzog wrote in a statement that he was “disheartened” to read the letter.

“This letter does not offer a fair representation of the case, ignores important context of the events leading to Ms. Abu Akleh’s tragic death, and reaches the wrong conclusion,” Herzog wrote.

“On May 11, 2022, Israeli security forces operated in Jenin to thwart yet another impending terror attack and were confronted by heavily armed Palestinian militants, most of them affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – a US-designated terrorist organization,” the ambassador wrote. “Shireen Abu Akleh died in the exchange of fire in this charged environment.”

“The letter ignores the fact that Israel has from the outset, called for an impartial joint Israeli-Palestinian investigation with the US in an observer role. Our call was flatly rejected by the PA [Palestinian Authority], which is cynically using Ms. Abu Akleh’s death to instigate an anti-Israel propaganda campaign.

“To this day, the PA has refused to give Israel access to the bullet that killed Ms. Abu Akleh, making it impossible to conduct a ballistic examination that would determine whether the bullet was shot by an IDF weapon – only the IDF can carry out such an investigation,” Herzog added.

“No journalist should die in the line of duty,” the ambassador continued. “Israel holds freedom of the press in the highest regard and sees the protection of journalists as a fundamental part of our democracy.” The ambassador added a significant concluding point “IDF troops would never intentionally target members of the press.”

Beni                                                            23rd of May, 2022

 

 

THE RASHOMON EFFECT

I don’t remember when and where I saw Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. It was probably long after the first screening of the film in 1950. Its plot concerns a murder described in four contradictory ways by four witnesses.  The Rashomon effect, a byproduct of the film is a concept that has been further expanded to explain human behavior in other areas.

By now you have probably guessed why I chose an old black and white Japanese movie to serve as the preamble for this post.

Emily Schrader, CEO of Social Lite Creative LLC wrote in an op-ed for the Jerusalem Post “No matter who shot and killed Shireen Abu Akleh, Palestinian terrorists or the IDF, it was not a murder nor was it an assassination. Nonetheless, that didn’t stop Al Jazeera from accusing Israel, or Palestinians on social media from reporting that Israel assassinated a journalist.

It’s been a terrible week on social media for Israel and Israel’s institutions, and the police certainly aren’t helping themselves. Incorrect information has taken over the narrative on social media, especially on Twitter, and subsequent events have only intensified the problem. If you ever wanted a case study on how quickly misinformation can spread, the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is a pristine example.

Approximately 75 percent of journalists killed around the world in the last two decades did not step on a landmine, or were shot in the crossfire, or were killed in a suicide bombing attack. They were murdered outright, killed by an assassin escaping on a motorcycle, shot or stabbed to death near their home or office, or found dead after having been abducted and tortured. Few of them received a passing mention in the newsmedia.

The shooting of American journalist Marie Colvin was one notable exception Considered one of the world’s leading war correspondents, she reported from war zones on three continents over the course of her career. Famous for her bravery, she was blinded in one eye by a Sri Lankan army rocket-propelled grenade in 2001 and wore a trademark black eyepatch for the rest of her life. She was killed covering the siege of Homs during the Syrian Civil War in 2012. Her family believes that she was specifically targeted by the Assad regime for her criticism of the Syrian government. Assad has denied any wrongdoing.

The usually reliable German news outlet Deutsche Welle, reported that 22 journalists have been killed in various conflicts so far in 2022. None of them received anything like the newsmedia coverage that Shireen Abu Akleh received.

In the age of digital journalism, most news items have a limited shelf life. There’s every reason to believe that the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh will be cited time and again by newsmedia Israel bashers.

“Brevity is the soul of wit.” Someone told me quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

A good neighbour and friend also advised me to shorten my posts. So, I’ll add

“To be continued.”

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,                                                               20^th of May, 2022

 THE INTERVIEW

 The conflicting accounts of the shooting of Al-Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh during an IDF incursion in Jenin on May 11 brought to mind another Jenin-related incident that occurred 20 years ago. I mention it because I played a very small part in the incident’s public relations (PR) aspect.

The film Jenin, Jenin directed by Mohammed Bakri a well-known Israeli Arab actor was screened long after ‘the dust had settled’ in the Jenin refugee camp. Bakri made the film in order to tell what he called “the Palestinian truth” about the "Battle of Jenin”, a clash between the IDF and Palestinians in April 2002. Often translated as “The Massacre in Jenin”

A month after 18 Israelis were killed in two separate attacks, and a few days after a suicide bombing in Netanya killed 30 people and injured 140 others, the IDF launched “Operation Defensive Shield.” It was a large-scale incursion by IDF units in the Jenin refugee camp, where Palestinian terrorist groups operated from.  

The IDF refused to allow journalists and human rights organisations into the camp for "safety reasons" during the fighting. The closure led to a rapid cycle of rumours that a  massacre had occurred. Jenin remained sealed for days after the raid. Stories of civilians being buried alive in their homes as they were demolished, and of smouldering buildings covering crushed bodies, spread throughout the Arab world. Various casualty figures circulated; a senior Palestinian official accused Israel of massacring more than 500 people in the camp. The closure remained in force and knowing that its finding were a foregone conclusion,  Israel wouldn't allow a UN fact-finding mission into the refugee camp.

In retrospect, some Israeli commentators argued that the press should have been allowed to report from inside the refugee camp. Other  newsmedia analysts justified the decision to keep the press and human rights organisations beyond the line of fire.

Notwithstanding the closure, Mohammed Bakri managed to slip past the barrier after the fighting and film interviews with residents of the Jenin refugee camp. The result Jenin Jenin, featuring a range of testimonies that suggested a massacre had indeed occurred. Bakri gave voice to the perspective of Palestinians which would not reach the media due to the sealing of the city; as a result, he chose not to interview Israeli officials for the film.

Later, Human Rights Watch investigations found "no evidence to sustain claims of massacres or large-scale extrajudicial executions by the IDF in the Jenin refugee camp."

Nevertheless, various spokesmen, human rights organisations, and foreign journalists accused Israel of conducting a civilian massacre.

After a few screenings, the film was banned by the Israeli Film Ratings Board on the premise that it was libellous and might offend the public The Tel Aviv and Jerusalem Cinematheques in Israel showed Bakri's film despite the ban.

Bakri took the ban to court and the Supreme Court of Israel overturned the decision. According to Supreme Court Judge Dalia Dorner: "The fact that the film includes lies is not enough to justify a ban," she implied that it is up to viewers to interpret what they see, citing a ruling by Maimonides: "And with intellect shall distinguish the man, between the truth and the false." On appeal, the Supreme Court's ruling was upheld and in August 2004 the Supreme Court reaffirmed the overturning of the ban, stating that the film board does not have "a monopoly over truth". Although the Supreme Court described the film as a "propagandistic lie," the ruling affirmed that choosing not to show both sides of a story is not grounds for censorship.

While Mohammed Bakri was filming Jenin, Jenin, BBC TV and radio crews waiting for permission to enter the Jenin refugee camp were staying at Ein Harod’s “Country Guest House.” (About 8km as the crow flies from Jenin). Frustrated by the press lockout and reluctant to go home empty-handed, they tried to interview the manager of the guesthouse, who in turn called me to help him. By the time I arrived at the guesthouse the TV camera crew had left, but the radio crew greeted me warmly, set up their recording equipment and began the interview.

 I described the landscape, the historical background, and the reclamation of the Jezreel Valley by Jewish pioneers in the early 1920s. I also emphasised the warm reciprocal relations that existed between the kibbutzim, Moshavim, and the neighbouring Arab villages. The interview was concise and to the point. I compared the amicable relations in the valley with the terrorist attacks emanating from the Jenin area.

After the interview, I went back to work. Half an hour later I received a telephone call from the BBC anchorman who told me that one of his technicians had accidentally deleted the recording of the interview. He apologised profusely and asked me if I would be willing to repeat the recording. Mindful of the importance of the interview, I drove back to the guest house once again.

The following day I had a phone call from an old friend who begins his day with the BBC World News. “I heard you this morning.” He said. “You did a better job than the government spokesman.” He was exaggerating of course. Anyway, I have retired from public broadcasting.

 

Have a good day,

 

Beni,                                                                                       16^th of May, 2022

 ELEVEN DAYS IN MAY

The late Robert Fisk (journalist and author) coined the phrase “hotel journalism" referring to news media correspondents who wrote reports from their hotel rooms relying solely on press releases, without personal interviews or first-hand experience of events. Fisk was very much the on-the-spot journalist writing from Beirut, Bagdad, Israel the West Bank, and Gaza. Of course, his hands-on approach didn’t necessarily make him more objective.

He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East and Israel’s position regarding the Palestinians. His stance earned him praise from many commentators but was condemned by others.  The Economist referred to him as "one of the most influential correspondents in the Middle East since the second world war."

On the other hand, The Times in its November 2020 obituary of Fisk, said that he had developed a "visceral dislike of the Israeli government and its allies" following his coverage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, alleging that this had made Fisk biased and "unable to provide a dispassionate account of events and their context. Earlier, journalist-author David Pryce-Jones, writing in The Spectator in 2003, said that Fisk was guilty of "hysteria and distortion" in his coverage of Middle Eastern topics.

Let’s leave Robert Fisk to rest in peace and move on to  examples of ‘misleading’ news media reporting

On the front page of its May 26, 2021 edition, the New York Times ran a powerful, moving spread titled “They Were Only Children,” featuring thumbnail photos of children it says were among the 69 youths under 18 years old—67 Palestinians and two Israelis, one Arab and one Jewish—killed in the 11 days of conflict between Israel and Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

On May 28, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman tweeted: “I am cancelling my subscription to the NYTimes. I grew up in America on the NYT—I delivered the NYT to my classmates—I learned civics- democracy and all the news 'fit to print' for 65 years but no more. Today’s blood libel of Israel and the Jewish people on the front page is enough.”

Further to that, “Eleven Days in May” a documentary directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mohammed Sawwaf, and narrated by Kate Winslet omits key facts in its account of the conflict. The film is being shown in select Picture House cinemas across the UK,

David Rose Jewish Chronicle wrote that the documentary fails to include criticism made of Hamas for launching rockets from heavily populated areas of Gaza - effectively turning the civilian population into a human shield.

It also omits reports that seven children in Gaza were killed by Hamas rockets that had fallen short of the intended targets in Israel.

Like “They Were Only Children,” it depicts last year’s Gaza war completely out of context and without bothering to verify the facts. A review of the film in The Guardian described it as,” incendiary material and furiously anti-Israel.”

For the purpose of presenting a more comprehensive account of last year’s war in Gaza, I’ll include the following preamble: Gaza is one of the most carefully scrutinized pieces of land in the world, not only surrounded by cameras on the border fence but also constantly patrolled in the skies above. Every suspicious movement is carefully tracked. It is also one of the world’s most densely populated territories. Urban warfare invariably involves innocent bystanders, but in the Gaza Strip non-combatants have never been targeted by the IDF.    

Israel’s military intelligence knew that Hamas was building an extensive network of underground tunnels.

The tunnels were dug by hand and with jackhammers, as heavy machinery would have attracted too much attention from the Israeli drones constantly hovering in the skies above.

Every Hamas battalion had its assignment and was responsible for the burrowing in its area of operations. Budgets were allocated according to a detailed plan, and deadlines were set for each stage of the project.

Supervising it all was Mohammed Deif, the elusive Hamas commander who had survived numerous Israeli assassination attempts spanning more than two decades. According to some estimates, the entire project cost 290 million USD. A sum that could have been put to better use, benefitting the Gaza civilian population.

Excavated beneath a large part of the Gaza Strip the 100 km tunnel network consisted of three different kinds of spaces: passageways to get from one point to the other; places to sleep, eat, and even shower; and spaces for launching rockets. The entire network was designed to quickly and covertly move gunmen so they could surprise and attack invading Israeli infantry troops and armoured forces.

But 2014 the year the tunnel project began was also a turning point for the IDF in its battle against these underground systems.

The IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) invested unprecedented resources in gleaning as much information as they could about the tunnel network. One Military Intelligence officer appropriately dubbed it the “Metro”

Aerial surveillance was helpful but could not provide information on the routes underground. Tracking mobile phone conversations underground wasn’t a viable option.

This left the Shin Bet to focus on old-school intelligence-gathering tactics, recruiting agents, and spies in Gaza who could reveal details about the routes of the tunnels and what exactly they contained.

But time was running out. Continuous Israeli Intelligence surveillance indicated that Hamas battalions were already training in preparation for an attack. The terrorist operatives stored their weapons below ground and were sufficiently familiar with the network’s layout.

The IDF plan was in place by 2018, a joint operation planned within the IDF Southern Command – responsible for the Gaza Strip – and the Israeli air force headquarters in Tel Aviv. Due to the size of the network and the need to surprise the enemy, the initial operational requirement spoke of the need for more than 100 aircraft that would drop more than 500 bombs in less than 30 minutes. The operation was given the code name “Lighting Strike.”

Timing was of the essence for its success. The IDF high command preferred a later date. It was in the final stages of preparing a manoeuvre to destroy a series of cross-border tunnels that Hezbollah had dug along Israel’s border with Lebanon. Within Military Intelligence, there were concerns that launching “Lightning Strike” now could lead to a longer and larger conflict with Gaza, which would force the IDF to postpone the operation against Hezbollah’s tunnels – and the longer it waited, the greater the chance that something would leak out.

The cabinet sided with the IDF, and “Lightning Strike” was put on hold.

IDF Southern Command continued honing the operation with new intelligence constantly provided by the Shin Bet. When “Operation Guardian of the Walls” broke out in May, “Lightning Strike” was put back on the table. Some generals were still hesitant, feeling that such a large-scale bombing needed to be saved for an operation whose objective was to topple Hamas. However, that was not the objective of “Operation Guardian of the Walls.”

OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Eliezer Toledano believed it needed to be launched now. If not, he warned, it might not be relevant in a future operation. Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi agreed.

“Even if we don’t kill hundreds of terrorists, it is still worth setting back Hamas by 10 years,” Toledano was later quoted as saying.

That is how just after midnight on May 14, last year, 160 IAF fighter jets took off and headed out to the Mediterranean Sea. The planes – F-15s and F-16s – were loaded with GPS-guided bombs, many of them GBU-39s, also known as the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), a weapon made by Boeing that is small, accurate, and has the ability to penetrate steel-reinforced concrete. Since they are relatively small, Israel’s F-15Is –can carry 20 SDBs on their wings and fuselage.

It was the largest and most complicated IAF sortie since the Six-Day War when almost all of Israel’s fleet took off to destroy Egypt and Syria’s air forces in the opening salvo of that conflict.

But on this night Israel wasn’t going after an enemy air force. It was looking to take out Hamas’s prized possession – the secret weapon it had skilfully and secretly built up over a period of almost a decade.

The challenge was unprecedented. Not only was it a painstaking effort to discover the exact route, but the IAF also had to find a way to destroy the tunnels without toppling entire neighbourhoods: the tunnels were not under empty fields but under apartment buildings and peoples’ homes.

Israel needed to attack in a way that would on the one hand destroy the tunnels, but also be so accurate that it would leave the least amount of collateral damage and not undermine the greater war effort of weakening and delegitimising Hamas.

Attacking such a small space in such a short period of time requires a level of precision and synchronisation rarely seen on the modern battlefield, especially when considering that 160 fighter jets were involved.

In many of the cases, the idea was to hit parts of the tunnels that were not adjacent to buildings, and if there was no choice, then to try to hit it at an angle.

The planes, which took off from different bases across Israel, gathered over the Mediterranean and waited there for the green light. Once they got it, the attack began. Every group of planes had preinstalled the GPS coordinates of their targets. The planes didn’t even have to fly over Gaza. They were able to drop their bombs while they were still over the sea.

The mission took just 23 minutes. The challenge wasn’t the attack, but synchronising the different sorties.

Five hundred bombs were dropped that night over the so-called Metro. While the attacks were carried out by fighter jets, drones that flew high above Gaza transmitted images back to IAF headquarters in Tel Aviv so officers there could immediately assess the extent of the damage caused.

Palestinians reported that at least 42 people were killed, some inside the tunnels and others in a couple of buildings that collapsed because of the destruction. How many of the dead were affiliated with terrorist organisations – Hamas or Islamic Jihad – was not immediately clear.

Weeks later, research conducted by the Terrorism and Information Centre in Israel – a think tank closely affiliated with security agencies – showed that out of the 236 Palestinians killed during the operation in Israeli attacks, at least 114 of them belonged to foreign terrorist organisations. The IDF put that number even higher, claiming that close to 200 of the dead were known, terrorists.

At this juncture, it’s important to add that every civilian life lost in war is a tragedy, but there is a question of responsibility that needs to be addressed.

Palestinians argue that Israel is the side attacking and dropping the bombs. As a result, they say, it is Israel that is responsible.

Israel argues that Hamas intentionally stores its weapons and builds its command centres inside civilian infrastructures; and while Israel goes to great lengths to minimize collateral damage, it cannot ensure that there will not be civilian casualties.

The Metro is a case in point. That 500 bombs were dropped on a small space in such a short amount of time and “only” 42 people were killed – at least half of them terrorists according to Israel – is unprecedented in the history of war.

Instead, what Israel did was astounding. It knew exactly how to hit the corner of a tunnel at a street intersection, having analysed precisely how many bombs and pounds of explosives would be needed so the explosion would have a greater effect underground and not above. When buildings did fall, it was because the collapse of the tunnel led to a collapse of the building. The structures themselves were not attacked.

One commentator summed up “Operation Guardian of the Walls” as follows:

“Considering the entire operation, what it accomplished was is even more impressive. Israel attacked over 1,500 targets throughout 11 days of fighting. That is at least 1,500 bombs that were dropped on targets – and in many cases, more than one bomb was used on a target – to ensure they were destroyed.

Considering that Gaza, with its mere 365 square kilometres, is one of the most densely populated places in the world, the operation was an impressive achievement – and a testament to the way Israel operates and the measures it has in place to minimize civilian casualties.

While the world tends to look at this conflict through the dry and simple numbers of a scorecard – how many are dead in Gaza (more) compared with how many are dead in Israel (less) – this is a distorted perspective.

It should instead evaluate what exactly happened during the operation – the most accurate and precise military operation of this scale in modern military history.

Think about it: more than 1,500 bombs were dropped in Gaza, on 1,500 targets – and maybe 60 civilians were killed. That is something that has never been done before.

This does not mean the IDF did not make mistakes. Just as all wars include collateral damage, all wars include mistakes. But when looking at dry numbers, as the international community likes to do, what the IDF did in May last year is an unprecedented military accomplishment.

A number of factors contributed to the success of the eleven-day Gaza war; extremely good military intelligence, the exclusive use of satellite-guided munitions, innovative tactics, and, finally, a set of values and military ethics to which IDF officers diligently adhere.

When it comes to munitions, for example, all the bombs dropped by the IDF on Gaza in “Guardian of the Walls” were smart weapons that in most cases accurately hit their targets.

On May 10, Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and later attacked other civilian centres in Israel. The Israeli response (“Operation Guardian of the Walls.”) although preconceived was essentially a defensive operation.

What Israel also did was use its unique “roof knocking” tactic before attacking buildings where terrorist groups stored weapons or built operation centres alongside civilians. In 208 cases, the Shin Bet called up the owners of the homes and warned them to leave. That is 208 times that Israel purposely gave away the element of surprise so it could strike a legitimate target without harming civilians.   

 

Last week I mentioned remarks made by Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar urging West Bank Palestinians and Israeli Arabs to carry out terror attacks.

The two Palestinians who carried out the horrific terrorist attack in Elad, a Haredi town near Petah Tikva last week apparently took Sinwar’s advice.

The two were caught after an intensive manhunt, both come from Rummaneh, a village northwest of Jenin.

In the past, they worked as electricians at construction sites in Israel.

This week politicians and run-of-the-mill citizens have been calling for the IDF to “take out” Yahya Sinwar, but assassinating Sinwar right now would be counter-productive.

In due course and with a “helping hand” he will meet his maker. 

Have a good weekend.

Beni                                                             12th of May,     2022