Karim Khan

 

In the past Israeli has had some unpleasant run-ins with international judicial bodies.

However, Karim Khan’s recent visit was decidedly different! 

Karim Khan is the ICC’s lead prosecutor. Not to be confused with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which settles disputes between states in accordance with international law, the ICC (International Criminal Court) is a court of last resort set up to prosecute war crimes when local courts cannot or will not take action.

In a statement released by the Forum for Hostages and Missing Families, the families thanked Karim Khan “for the extraordinary decision to come and stand by the families in the aftermath of the horrors perpetrated by Hamas in Israel on October 7 and the continued detention of hostages. We expect him to work to bring Hamas terrorists to justice for crimes against humanity and genocide.”

Despite not being a member of the ICC and denying the institution’s jurisdiction over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel decided to respect the hostage families’ request to have Khan make an unofficial visit.

Nevertheless, the trip does not constitute a change in Israel’s policy toward the ICC, possibly due to fears that an investigation of the October 7 atrocities will draw more inquiries into Israeli actions against Palestinians. While Israel is not a member of the ICC, if warrants are issued certain citizens could be subject to arrest while traveling abroad.

“The attacks against innocent Israeli civilians on October 7 represent some of the most serious international crimes that shock the conscience of humanity, crimes which the ICC was established to address,” Karim Khan said in his written statement, adding that he and his prosecutors are working “to hold those responsible to account.”

Khan also visited Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas. He said of the war in Gaza that fighting in “densely populated areas where fighters are alleged to be unlawfully embedded in the civilian population is inherently complex, but international humanitarian law must still apply and the Israeli military knows the law that must be applied.”

He said that Israel “has trained lawyers who advise commanders and a robust system intended to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law. Credible allegations of crimes during the current conflict should be the subject of timely, independent examination and investigation.”

Khan said he would seek to work with “all actors” in the conflict to “ensure that when action is taken by my office it is done on the basis of objective, verifiable evidence which can stand scrutiny in the courtroom and ensure that when we do proceed, we have a realistic prospect of conviction.”

Palestinian human rights groups refused to meet with Khan claiming the prosecutor has favoured Israeli claims of human rights abuses since October 7.

“As Palestinian human rights organisations, we decided not to meet him,” Ammar Dwaik, director general of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), told Reuters.

“I think the way this visit has been handled shows that Mr. Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner,” he added.

In 2019, the ICC announced that it would be launching a probe into alleged war crimes committed by both sides during the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict, Israeli settlement policy and the Israeli response to protests at the Gaza border.

Well, the wheels of justice certainly turn slowly. It took the ICC seven years to officially open its probe and there is no knowing when it will be completed.

The late Henry Kissinger said the ICC’s checks and balances are so weak that the prosecutor "has virtually unlimited discretion in practice.” Kissinger’s opinion was born out by the not-so-friendly attitude towards Israel adopted by the ICC’s previous lead prosecutor, Ms. Fatou Bensouda. 

 The Financial Times provided an interesting op-ed on how Israel is attacking Hamas’s vast tunnel network- “The small Israeli army drone let loose inside an arched concrete corridor kept flying for several minutes, along a 300-metre tunnel large enough for a tall man to walk upright through its entire length. To the left and right were rooms with air-conditioning units, functioning toilets and kitchens with running water as well as electrical and communication cables and a now-demolished blast-proof door that Hamas fighters* could shoot through. The tunnel that the IDF said they filmed last month below Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital was, by any measure, a substantial military capability. But it is also only a small part of Hamas’s vast subterranean domain that officials and analysts have said will define the strategic outcome of Israel’s campaign against Hamas. The drive to root out fighters and weaponry in Hamas’s tunnels and demolish the network itself is one reason why the IDF is pressing on with its punishing offensive after a week-long truce, despite growing international pressure over the bloodiest Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades. “Destroying Hamas’s tunnels is the most difficult aspect of the IDF’s mission and among its most important,” said Daphné Richemond-Barak, a professor at Israel’s Reichman University and author of a book on underground combat. “We have to be patient. It will take time.”

The subterranean labyrinth, estimated to be larger than the London Underground railway network, enables Hamas’s most senior leaders and fighters to take shelter. Most are thought to have survived almost eight weeks of relentless Israeli attack below ground. The tunnels — immune from drone surveillance and many of Israel’s other capabilities including air strikes — are also where Hamas is thought to keep its arsenal of rockets, as well as more than 130 hostages. Tunnels are an ancient war-fighting technique. Jewish rebels used them in the Bar Kochba revolt against Roman rule 2,000 years ago, as did the Viet Cong fighters against US forces in the Vietnam war. But after burrowing through Gaza’s soft sandstone geology since taking control of the enclave 16 years ago, Hamas has taken the concept to a new level. The IDF has made the tunnels’ destruction a priority, but has not fully spelt out how it plans to achieve it. So far it has located more than 800 shafts, destroyed 500 of them and collapsed what it has described as “many kilometres” of tunnels. “On a tactical level, wherever our soldiers manoeuvre we have a high success rate destroying tunnels,” said a commentator familiar with Israeli military planning. “But the network is estimated to be more than 500km long, and many of the shafts emerge in civilian buildings such as hospitals, mosques and schools,” he said.

“The lesson Hamas likely learned from the 2021 air strikes was to dig deeper and to encase the tunnel system with reinforced concrete,” said Yehuda Kfir, an Israeli civil engineer and captain in the IDF reserves who is also an expert in underground warfare. “Hamas has likely built different layers of tunnels,” Kfir reasoned. “An upper ‘defensive’ level with booby-traps, very narrow tunnels and a lower ‘offensive’ level that is deeper and wider and contains logistics centres, living quarters and weapons stores.” Israel has received $320mn of US military aid since 2016 to develop anti-tunnel techniques, although none has so far provided a silver bullet. The IDF also has a dedicated corps of anti-tunnel engineers and underground commandos equipped to probe tunnels and try to collapse them. But to preserve soldiers’ lives, the IDF has relied more on tunnel dogs, robots and drones.

The first step is to locate the tunnels. Ground-penetrating radar and acoustic sensors can work, although Gaza’s dense urban environment and the rubble left by Israel’s aerial bombardment limit their usefulness. A simpler tactic, known as “purple hair”, involves throwing a smoke grenade into a tunnel entrance, which is then sealed with expanding foam to see if smoke emerges elsewhere. The next step is to destroy the tunnels. Localised explosions cause only limited fall-ins, which can be cleared away or bypassed by surviving fighters. To fully demolish a tunnel, engineers and military experts said, required explosives set down along long portions of the underground passageways. Kfir said one method was to use liquid explosives that fill the tunnel space and then detonate them. Another possibility, he said, was thermobaric weapons, which suck in oxygen to generate a high-temperature explosion that flows around obstacles. But these are controversial because of the broader impact of the explosions, especially in populated areas. Pumping in seawater from the Mediterranean at high pressure is a third option, and one that Israel has reportedly already started to use. Richemond-Barak said this technique had the advantage of already being used in the oil and gas industry. But, she added, the problem with flooding is “that you don’t know how much you have achieved”. The amount of water required depends on the size of the tunnels and ground absorption, she said: “In the past, using water has not produced a ‘hard kill’. Another possibility, which would pose less risk to the hostages than flooding or explosions, is for the IDF to dig into Hamas’s tunnel network and burst into its control nodes. “Israel should get to the heart of the Hamas system not from above, but from below,” Kfir said. “You would need something like automated excavating machines that would dig towards the target.” Such science fiction-like approaches highlight the difficulties and time needed to destroy Hamas’s underground realm. They also explain why some officials regret that Israel did not complete the task years earlier.

The Gaza Strip is experiencing an ongoing humanitarian crisis as a result of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. At the start of the war, Israel implemented a complete blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in significant shortages of fuel, food, medication, water, and essential medical supplies. This siege resulted in a 90% drop in electricity availability, impacting hospital power supplies, sewage plants, and shutting down the desalination plants that provide drinking water. Heavy bombardment by Israeli airstrikes caused catastrophic damage to Gaza’s infrastructure, further aggravating the crisis.

Organisations such as Doctors Without Borders, the Red Cross, and a joint statement by UNICEF, the World Health Organisation, the UN Development Programme, United Nations Population Fund, and World Food Programme have warned of a dire humanitarian collapse. On November 8, UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk described the Rafah Crossing as "gates to a living nightmare."

All the above-mentioned noble-minded organisations conveniently ignore the fact that Hamas is the root cause of Gaza’s terrible plight.

“There are reams of commentary on what Israel’s strategy and endgame may be as it seeks to nullify the long-standing threat posed by Hamas and purge the Islamist militant faction from its Gaza redoubts. But looming behind it “and implicit in IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari’s ‘emphasis’ on damage over accuracy is a long-standing Israeli military doctrine that appears to be in play now,” asserts Ishaan Tharoor foreign affairs columnist at the Washington Post.

The so-called “Dahiya Doctrine” took shape in the wake of the bruising 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Dahiya refers to the southern Beirut suburbs where Hezbollah maintained its strongholds and which were pummelled by Israeli jets after hostilities began when Hezbollah fighters abducted two Israeli soldiers. The IDF response surprised Hezbollah leaders. They hadn’t expected to see their headquarters turned into rubble nor had they anticipated such a relentless bombardment.

The doctrine that emerged out of the conflict was most famously articulated by IDF commander Gadi Eisenkot. “We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases,”. “This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised.”

 Noting that Dahiya was the Shia quarter in Beirut that was razed by the Israeli Air Force during the 2006 Lebanon War, Israeli journalist Yaron London wrote in 2008 that the doctrine, "will become entrenched in our security discourse."

 

Hanukkah Sameach,

 

Beni.

7^th of December, 2023

 

The Vigil.

 

The agonising evening vigil watching the tortuous transfer of hostages to the Red Cross ambulances at one of the Gaza border crossings, is an all-consuming experience.

Time and again we ask how Israel with all its cutting-edge technology was hoodwinked so easily.

An exposé published recently told how security personnel, in the military and government echelons dismissed surveillance reports, not bothering to check them thoroughly.

Soldiers in the IDF’s prestigious 8200 signal intelligence unit reportedly warned senior officers before the October 7 ferocious attack that Hamas was preparing a highly organised and meticulously planned mass incursion, but were told their concerns were “delusional.”

The exposé was one of a number of reports aired over the past month claiming the IDF had received advance warnings of a possible Hamas attack, including reports filed by IDF surveillance personnel based on the Gaza border detailing unusual Hamas training exercises carried out before October 7.

According to TV Channel 12 and other news outlets an officer in Unit 8200 compiled a report from an array of raw intelligence data detailing a scenario that essentially predicted the October 7 incursion.

She, together with another officer, also pointed to a Hamas exercise carried out a month before the actual attack, noting that it included preparations for a large incursion with multiple entry points into Israel.

“They were told in real-time. There were so many things that should have alerted them well in advance,” an unnamed source from Unit 8200 told the Kan news network.

Another report claimed that before October 7, the IDF ‘acquired’ a Hamas terror manual that described how to break through the hitherto assumed-to-be impenetrable IDF barrier along the Gaza Strip.

The manual described taking over IDF positions, capturing kibbutzim and towns in the region, killing and kidnapping residents.

It described how pick-up trucks would be used in the attack, along with motorbikes and hang-gliders.

 Understandably, even if they had acknowledged the reports the inner circle of decision makers in the IDF and the government faced a dilemma.  An Israeli preemptive attack would undoubtedly be condemned by the UN, unfriendly nations and friendly nations alike. Even President Biden would be hard put to support such an action. 

That being said, stationing additional forces, particularly   armoured and artillery units along the Gaza Strip border would require mobilising reserve army units, reminiscent of the situation Israel faced at the time of the Yom Kippur War. Perhaps an assertive action short of calling up reserve army forces, telegraphing to Hamas that we are aware of what they were planning, could have warded off the October 7 attack. I hasten to add that this is my unqualified layman’s opinion.

At this juncture I want insert a margin note: -

Unit 8200 is an Israeli Intelligence Corps unit of the IDF responsible for clandestine operations, collecting signal intelligence and code decryption, counterintelligence, cyberwarfare, military intelligence, and surveillance. The unit is a branch of the Military Defence Directorate.

Earlier this week I read a summary of a publication issued by the Begin–Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA Centre) an Israeli think tank affiliated with Bar-Ilan University. BESA conducts policy-relevant research on Middle Eastern and global strategic affairs, specifically related to national security, Israel’s foreign policy and regional peace and stability.

For the sake of brevity, I am ‘cherry-picking’ from the summary and rephrasing some of it.

“Hamas gathered information on Israel, much of it unclassified, and successfully used it to carry out the largest and most devastating terrorist attack in Israel’s history.

At the core of every advanced organisation’s information security and cyber defence lies a mechanism for risk management. This mechanism weighs the likelihood of the realisation of intelligence and technological threats against the potential damage resulting from an information leak. Risk management allows a focus on the protection of significant assets and ensures, as much as possible, that threats against them are eliminated. The less favourable alternative is “protecting everything,” an approach guaranteed to be ineffective due to innumerable “secrets” and limited resources.

The summary attempts to describe a phenomenon termed the “unclassified secret,” namely, information that is not classified by definition but which still holds great value for an adversary seeking to harm a country or organisation. In a democratic and open society, the freedom of information is a fundamental right. The ability of people in society to share information is vital for progress and development. It provides the infrastructure for citizens to be engaged, oversee the authorities, criticise them, and form independent opinions through free and reasoned discussion. In this way, public information, or unclassified security information, is accessible to everyone – including foreign actors and enemies – especially as platforms for its distribution and accessibility continue to evolve.

The events of October 7 will be investigated thoroughly, but it can already be said that Hamas constructed a good intelligence assessment of Israel’s defence components along the Gaza border fence. This enabled Hamas to neutralise some of the sensors and detection capabilities, prevent effective control of events on the Israeli side, and operate effectively inside the military positions and communities it overran. In addition to military information, Hamas had public, private, and administrative information that facilitated its operations inside the communities it attacked. Moreover, Hamas possessed freely available maps and detailed information about specific sites within the Israeli communities, some of which can be found online (such as addresses of senior officials) and information that could be collected through human sources (HUMINT), such as the locations of first response teams, IDF camps and defence perimeters of the communities, and more.

Examining the security information collected by Hamas over the years, reveals that a significant part of its intelligence is based on information that is not classified by definition. For example, most of the human collection elements (HUMINT) recruited by Hamas were instructed to mark locations throughout Israel that are visible to all. In addition, Hamas collected a wealth of information from Israeli media about Israeli society, issues related to the Gaza periphery communities, and Israel’s military capabilities, all of which was discussed openly.

These facts together constitute a particularly challenging phenomenon referred to as the “unclassified secret.” This is information that is defined either as public or unclassified by the authorities, is nevertheless, highly valuable to hostile actors that collect it for their purposes. In the case of a terrorist organisation like Hamas and an attack like the one it carried out, tactical and micro-tactical information defined as unclassified, as well as public information that is openly accessible, become extremely valuable, especially when it provides details that complement information collected from other undisclosed intelligence sources operated by Hamas or other terrorist organisations.

For example, in a scenario in which terrorists plan to attack settlements on the Gaza border, maps of Israel that are available on Google Earth constitute valuable information for the enemy. Obviously, Israel can’t demand that the internet should remove all open-source information.

The other extreme is to say the unclassified secret is the inevitable bane of a democratic and open society, especially in areas of risk and near hostile borders. Consequently, there is nothing that can be done to reduce the risk inherent in the phenomenon.

Therefore, we should delineate a few guiding principles with which to approach situations in which unclassified secrets of a kind highly valuable to the enemy are easily available.

Unclassified information must be addressed systematically in the context of the impact of public knowledge of security components that enable the enemy to exploit it for operational purposes. The “unclassified” domain must be addressed within situational assessments while realising and considering its value to the enemy.

In this context, attention should be given to public sources of information that require protection, monitoring, and control, in particular:

First response teams, public-military relations, settlement defence systems, and reinforcement forces.

Human concentrations that could serve as prime targets for attack, both permanent and occasional (public transportation stations, event halls, parks, etc.).

Residences of senior officials, security personnel, local leaders, etc.

Technological assets (websites, servers, cameras, etc.) in the public domain.

Within this framework, the trend should be towards reducing the ease of obtaining non-essential public information, such as: protecting databases according to privacy protection regulations, defining target groups who are prohibited from keeping a high personal digital footprint, monitoring digital impropriety and issuing warnings for prevention and damage reduction, and even considering tighter censorship. Regarding military information that is published for various reasons by security officials, the balance between their needs and information security must be reevaluated. As in many cases, this information becomes “unclassified secrets”: information approved for publication by the authorities that ends up aiding the enemy.

For example, in the context of the human threat, when Hamas openly trains and declares its intention to attack communities on the Gaza border, this should prompt a reconsideration of work-permit policies so as to prevent the possibility of Gazan workers, or those with potential connections to the powers in the Gaza Strip, working in these communities and gaining access to unclassified secrets. Similarly, increased awareness is needed regarding intelligence-gathering by civilians around security sites and places frequented by large numbers of people.

The interface between the security and the public domain, and between the unclassified and classified areas, poses a significant challenge when trying to provide a fitting and balanced response to the problem of unclassified secrets. The formation of security policies in this context is complex and will require attention, resource allocation, legislation, and broad cooperation. The need to maintain maximum information freedom while recognising security constraints – a challenge that accompanies democracies worldwide, including Israel – will only continue to grow.

Of course, even after the formulation and implementation of policy guidelines, the reasonable working assumption is that the enemy will continue to obtain valuable information. Accordingly, in all defensive arrangements, military or civilian, practical consideration should be given to the information load that the other side has, including unclassified yet useful material. Correspondingly, a complementary defensive or offensive response is required.

The battle over unclassified secrets is here to stay. We must be aware of it and prepare ourselves accordingly.”

The summary was compiled by Dr. Natanel Flamer a senior lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Bar-Ilan University and senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies. Dr. Flamer specialises in intelligence, terrorism, and asymmetrical warfare in the Middle East.

Lieut. Col. (ret.) Erez Magen also contributed to the summary. He is an information security and cybersecurity expert, founder of Magen Cyber, which provides security solutions to security organisations and companies in Israel and around the world.

 Have a good weekend.

Beni

30th of November, 2023

 

 

Bringing them home.

 

If all goes well and according to plan, the first phase of the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners will take place on Friday afternoon. In the meantime, the fighting continues unabated.

Observing the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler of the Israel Democracy Institute said,  ' New-Tech' plays a role in the Gaza war, but not to the level Israel once envisioned.

"When technology replaces humans, it comes at the cost of dulling human intuition and tends to distance the soldier from the battlefield reality"

In 2020, Israel launched a new military doctrine and modernisation programme commonly referred to as the “Momentum” plan. The concept relies on a rapid war of manoeuvre, blending quick strikes and the highest technological capabilities the IDF can bring to the front.

The grinding war in Gaza — four weeks of aerial bombardment followed by the slow taking of territory — resembles nothing like what was laid out in that 2020 document. Instead, Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks has relied heavily on classic military tactics and, in some cases, older military hardware that the developers of the “Momentum” plan expected to send to the scrap metal yards.

The campaign in Gaza illustrates the challenges that militaries continue to confront as they incorporate advanced technology in existing platforms.     For instance, while Israel has used artificial intelligence and big data to identify targets, the automated tools still require a large force on the ground to carry out the campaign. Efficient use of strike cells and closing sensor-to-shooter loops faster, can have an impact, but the pace of the campaign shows that overall, the change may be incremental.

A piece in the Economist under the heading - “The sinews of war” claims that Israel’s declared goal of destroying Hamas for good requires its financial base to be dismantled, too. Very little of this sits in Gaza at all. Instead, it is overseas in friendly countries. Furnished with money-launderers, mining companies and much else, Hamas’s financial empire is reckoned to bring in more than $1bn a year. Having been painstakingly crafted to avoid Western sanctions, it may be out of reach for Israel and its allies.

Let’s leave the money wherever it is deposited, accruing interest.

I’m tempted to hope that once the Hamas military echelon has been eliminated, maybe it will be possible use the money for constructive civilian purposes in Gaza.

“The guns will go quiet; food and medicine will get to those in desperate need and hostages will be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. That may sound like the start of a process to end the brutal six-week-old war between Israel and Hamas, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble. 

It almost certainly is not,” wrote Ethan Bronner, Bloomberg News.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made that clear, shortly before his cabinet agreed early Wednesday to the deal. “We are at war and we will continue the war,” he said. 

His words signal disappointment in store for the many countries — from the Arab world to Europe — that have been urging a short-term cease-fire in the hope it will lead to something more enduring. 

As for the US, Israel’s chief backer, its position is somewhat different. Washington joined the calls for a pause but recognises that fighting is likely to resume. It just wants that Israel will conduct the war with more restraint when that happens.  

Most of the world is simply telling Israel to stop.

“Many people don’t want to believe the Israelis; it seems they would rather believe Hamas. Media outlets often caveat announcements by the IDF, pointedly saying that what they claim cannot be independently verified. Rarely, however, are reports from Gaza questioned in such a way, when every word coming from any part of the Strip that is still dominated by Hamas should be seen as being spoken under duress, whether by journalists, doctors or UN officials. 

Very often casualty figures from the Gaza Health Ministry are treated as if they come from the UK National Health Service (NHS), even though it is well understood that the ministry is ruthlessly controlled by Hamas,” Commented Colonel Richard Kemp in a post on the UK news website The Telegraph.

Kemp is a frequent visitor to Israel, and makes it a point to give interviews to media outlets that tend to adopt a hostile approach to Israel. The way he sees it, Israel isn't just defending itself, but the free world as a whole.

One of those interviews would turn particularly testy, as the interviewer challenged Kemp about how Israel's response is "disproportionate," which really annoyed him. He questioned the entire approach, rhetorically asking the interviewer if he expects Israel to start chopping off babies' heads and committing war crimes while sadistically smiling to the cameras, as that would likely be "proportional."

Kemp said he doubts the interview will be broadcasted. He says the BBC is pathologically anti-Israel. Their idea of a debate is bringing in two experts. One who is anti-Israel, and the other is very anti-Israel.

“The soldiers in the field who are at the pinnacle of a highly accomplished offensive effort will go into static mode,” analyst Yossi Yehoshua wrote in Yediot Aharonot.

The deal struck in recent days is little different from one rejected by Israel weeks ago. But two things have happened since. 

The families of hostages have agitated successfully and now their cause has gained precedence over the military campaign in Gaza.

Since the hostages were victims of Israel’s failure to defend its border and protect its citizens on Oct. 7, there’s been a growing sense that to abandon them again by walking away from a deal would be inexcusable. But then the war will start again.

“It’s very clear to the decision-makers that they cannot stop,” Yaakov Amidror, a former Israeli national security adviser, told reporters. “Israeli sentiment will not let them. If they stop after the four, five or six days of cease-fire, that will be the end of this government.”

Amidror acknowledged that the coming pause might allow Hamas to regroup and replenish some of its armaments. However, that won’t change the balance of power or significantly affect Israeli losses. 

Now that one halt in fighting has been agreed, some diplomats say more can follow.

“I hope that the deal can be the basis for extended pauses and then transition to a cease-fire,” said Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan.

The US has urged pauses for humanitarian aid and hostage releases but not for ending hostilities quickly. The Biden administration’s view has been that in order to destroy Hamas – a goal the US says it shares — Israel needs to fight more carefully, which may mean fighting for longer. 

Israel has agreed to a condition laid out by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to halt Israeli UAVs (drones) in the Gaza airspace for six hours on each day of the ceasefire in exchange for the release of some of the hostages held by Hamas.

The condition's implementation was addressed by an Israeli official who cited statements made by the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), stating that they have intelligence-gathering capabilities even during the ceasefire days. "We will not be blind and we'll know what's happening on the ground," the official said. He was probably referring to the Ofeq series of Israeli reconnaissance satellites   first launched in 1988. The low Earth orbit satellites complete one Earth orbit every 90 minutes.

Ofeq satellites have an effective operational lifespan of 1–3 years and are equipped with ultraviolet and visible imaging sensors. Some reports place the imaging resolution at 80 cm for Ofeq-5. Ofeq-13 was successfully launched in March this year. It’s reasonable to suppose that its imaging resolution is at least as good as its predecessors.

Confident that our ‘eyes in the sky’ are aiding our ‘boots on the ground’ we can all sleep safely at night.

Take care.

 

Beni,

 23^rd of November, 2023.

After the war.

 

In a piece she wrote for Foreign Policy columnist Amy Mackinnon didn’t leave much room for optimism. Under the heading – “What Gaza’s Future Might Look Like After the War,” she said the monumental challenge of reconstruction will likely cost billions of dollars. “Amid periodic outbreaks of hostilities between Israel and Hamas over the past decade, Gaza has been in a nearly constant state of reconstruction. Efforts to rebuild homes and infrastructure destroyed by war have been hamstrung by unfulfilled donor pledges and complicated screening mechanisms put in place to prevent construction materials from falling into the hands of Hamas.”

Israel too is beginning to assess damage caused by the Gaza war and is making budgetary amendments. 

In a press conference held recently, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the 2023-2024 national budget was no longer relevant.

He estimated that the direct cost of the war at about $246 million a day. Smotrich added that he did not yet have an assessment of the indirect costs on an economy partly paralysed by the mass mobilisation of military reservists and civil defence needs.

The finance minister no doubt is consoled by the knowledge that in recent years Israeli arms sales have increased considerably. Furthermore, Israeli air-defence systems are performing exceptionally well, notably the Iron Dome and Arrow 3 systems. Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect an additional increase in export sales of air-defence systems.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post published an analysis of President Biden’s dismissal of the reported Palestinian death toll in the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

“I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war. … I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.”

Biden’s dismissal of the ministry’s statistics — that he had “no confidence” in them — was striking. The State Department has regularly cited ministry statistics without caveats in its annual human rights reports. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which tracks deaths in the conflict, has found the ministry’s numbers to be reliable after conducting its own investigation. “Past experience indicated that death tolls were reported with high accuracy,” an OCHA official told Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s editor and chief writer of ‘The Fact Checker’ since 2011. Kessler is one of the pioneers of political fact-checking. 

My comment- Who checks the fact checker who relies largely on OCHA reports?

UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese

Currently in Australia, heading for New Zealand UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese is bent on gaining support for her insidious mission to demonise Israel.

About the time she received her commission a report by UNwatch titled “Mandate to Discriminate.” (UNwatch is an NGO that analyses and monitors the activities of the United Nations) discovered a serious omission in the conflicts of interest form submitted by Albanese for her UN candidacy. She reportedly failed to declare that her husband, Massimiliano Calì, previously worked for the Palestinian Authority.

 In a stunning exercise in victim blaming, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has denied that Israel has the right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism.

“Israel has a right to defend itself, but can’t claim it when it comes to the people it oppresses [or] whose land it colonises,” she tweeted on April 8.

In other words, Ms. Albanese means Israel has no right to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism, depending on which side of the supposed ‘green line’ its citizens are. Only in the Orwellian world of the United Nations, could a senior official put forward such a warped proposition justifying the murder of Jews.
The Israeli government has demanded her dismissal, labelling her language as hate-filled, that of an anti-Semite, and symptomatic of an anti-Israeli mindset that underplays the country’s legitimate security concerns. It refuses to cooperate with her as it has done so with her predecessors. She was appointed to a six-year term in 2022.

Albanese’s arguments have gained traction and a wide audience in Arab and parts of the western media. She argues that Israel cannot invoke the right to self-defence under the UN charter since the threat comes not from a state, but a military group, in a territory that Israel occupies militarily. Israel rejects the idea that it has occupied Gaza since withdrawing its forces in 2005, but the UN and other global bodies consider the occupation to have continued since then as it has maintained effective control over the small territory by land, sea and air.

Israel argues that controlling access to the Gaza Strip is vitally important to ensure its security. Hamas and other terrorist organisations in Gaza have often voiced their intention to annihilate Israel. The closure on Gaza helps prevent arms being smuggled into the enclave.

However, this is just the latest in Ms. Albanese’s long history of relentless, systematic and visceral bias against Israel.

 

The Israel Air Force has dropped leaflets over Gaza that warn civilians to distant themselves from Hamas operatives making clear Israel’s intention to minimise civilian casualties. Since the operation began, Hamas has repeatedly instructed Palestinians to ignore these warnings.

The IDF has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect innocent bystanders

As early as 2006 the IDF began warning the residents of buildings in Gaza that were about to be attacked because they harboured terrorists and their munitions.

Roof knocking was used during the 2008–2009 Gaza War, Operation Pillar of Defence in 2012, and Operation Protective Edge in 2014. In the six months prior to its use, Israel collected data on Hamas members, which they used to issue warnings. Typically, Israeli intelligence officers and Shin Bet security agents contacted residents of a building in which they suspected storage of military assets and told them that they had 10–15 minutes to flee the attack, although in some cases the delay has been as little as five minutes.

In 2016,the US military adopted the Israeli battlefield tactic(roof knocking) in its war against Islamic State. It was used in an attack against an ISIS storage facility in  Mosul, Iraq.  As women and children lived in the house, a Hellfire missile was initially shot at the roof as a warning.

During the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, CNN reported that many people in Gaza said the IDF had abandoned the "roof knocking" policy. In October 2023, a senior Israeli official stated that the practice would no longer be the norm and would only be used under certain circumstances. An IDF officer told the New York Times that instead of the "roof knocking" policy, Israel is issuing mass evacuation orders  and leaflets stating that people sheltering near Hamas terrorists are risking their lives.

In some cases, residents who were warned about an impending bombing climbed up voluntarily to their roofs to show they would not leave. When faced with similar defiance situations, IDF commanders have either called off the bombing or launched a a low-charge warning missile at empty areas of the roof, in order to frighten the people gathered on the roof into leaving the building.

 The New York Times stated that according to Israeli reports, Hamas asked residents to stand on the roofs of buildings to dissuade Israeli pilots from attacking their homes. 

A NATO  report  confirmed the practice, describing it as an example of lawfare.  However, Amnesty International argued that Hamas' purported call may have been "motivated by a desire to avoid further panic" among civilians because Gaza lacked adequate shelters.

The Israeli Government stated "While these warnings, could not eliminate all harm to civilians, they were frequently effective," and that aerial video surveillance by IDF forces showed civilians leaving targeted areas prior to an attack as a direct result of the warnings. In November 2014, the most senior US military official, General Martin Dempsey, cited "roof knocking" as an example where Israel "did some extraordinary things to limit civilian casualties" during Operation Protective Edge.

Israeli officials have said they will take steps to limit civilian casualties, but it fell to a Pentagon official, Dana Stroul, to provide more detail during a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Israeli-Gaza war.

"They have dropped 1.5 million leaflets in Gaza asking civilians to evacuate," Stroul said. "They have sent over hundreds of thousands of text messages and made phone calls to cell phones.  In our conversations with the Israel Defence Forces they have made clear they assess collateral damage estimates before they take strikes."

I’ll conclude by thanking the many friends concerned about my safety.

 

Take care.

 

Beni,

   

16^th of November, 2023.