The 178th  Day of Israel’s War Against Hamas

The IDF has pulled out of the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza after a two week mop up operation.  During that period they captured 500 terrorists and killed 200 others in an effort to eliminate the hospital as a Hamas operating base.

Terror incidents continue in Israel on a regular basis.  Last night a terrorist stabed three Israelis in a mall in Gan Yavne near Ashdod.

In an escalation from the east, an Israeli naval base building in Eilat, in Israel’s far south. was lightly damaged by a drone attack overnight Sunday.  The UAV was launched from Iraq and entered Israeli territory from Jordan.  “IDF soldiers identified a suspicious aerial target that crossed from the east towards Israeli territory. The target fell in the area of the Gulf of Eilat. No injuries were reported and there was light damage caused to a building,” the IDF said. On Monday afternoon, the IDF confirmed that the Eilat naval base was struck and that the incident is being investigated.  Iraqi’s Islamic Resistance took responsibility for the attack, claiming it struck a “vital target” in Israel.

The Biden administration recently authorized billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel, according to a report in The Washington Post.  The arms packages included more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials. In March, the State Department also authorized the transfer to Israel of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, US officials said.  Delivery of both the bombs and the fighter jets and engines was approved by Congress years ago but had not yet been fulfilled.

“There is no change in U.S. policy. The United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas,” the spokesperson, Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, added.  A White House official reiterated to the Post, “We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself. Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

IDF spokesperson in Arabic exposed close cooperation between terror groups in concealing information and choosing launch areas far from houses of Hamas leadership, not Gazan citizens.

Avichai Adraee, an IDF Arabic speaking spokesperson, revealed on Saturday an official Hamas document recovered by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, which openly refers to Gazan casualties as a result of failed rocket launches, hiding this information from their constituency and blaming the deaths on Israel instead.  The revealed documents date back to 2020 and Operation Breaking Dawn (2022), and they were issued by Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades and signed by high-ranking members of the militia. The findings showcase Hamas attempting to persuade members of other militias in the Gaza Strip, namely the al-Quds Brigades belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), to take responsibility for the disastrous outcomes of failed rocket launches (referred to euphemistically as ‘local rockets’). The PIJ responded by requesting to conceal these failed launches and their repercussions to “support the image of the resistance.”

Another document showed a recommendation by Hamas to deny PIJ launching rockets specifically in the vicinity of houses belonging to the Hamas leadership fearing repetition of such events, yet no mention of preventing firing rockets near other Gazan residents’ houses was mentioned.  Lastly, Hamas reports were exposed featuring names of Gazan casualties as a result of failed launches, which were then recycled by Hamas in their outward reports of casualties, alleging they stemmed from Israeli airstrikes. In other words, Hamas counted casualties from PIJ failed rockets as casualties from Israeli attacks, proving yet again the lack of accuracy of their propaganda reporting.

On Sunday night there were, once again, massive demonstrations in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other locations demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Netanyahu.  While it seems that a majority of people here believe new leadership is needed, there is an internal dispute as to when the government should fall and new elections be called.  Part of the population believes it should be now while others, including this writer, believe it should wait until the hostilities end or turn into a longer war of attrition.  At the time the demonstrations were under way, the prime minister was undergoing hernia repair surgery at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem where he is now recovering from what the doctors termed “a successful operation.”   For or against, we wish him a complete and speedy recovery.