Israel Update: October 2 (Day 362)
I first want to wish all of our readers who celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a sweet, healthy, and happy holiday. It is truly impossible to think about the range of emotions we have all experienced over the past year. Please continue to pray for the people of Israel; pray for the innocent hostages still held captive; pray and thank our friends and allies who stand with us; and pray for those who bravely defend this mighty, holy country that we call Israel.
Am Israel Chai and Shanah Tova.
*I will not write an update for Sunday, but rather will share a more thorough report on Monday, which sadly will mark the one-year anniversary of the horrific attacks of October 7th.
Situational Update
The Times of Israel reports: Iran fired a massive salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday night, sending almost 10 million people into bomb shelters as projectiles and interceptors exploded in the skies above. Some 181 missiles were launched in the strike, according to Israeli officials. The Israel Defense Forces said that it intercepted “a large number” of them.
Zero Israelis were killed
1 Palestinian was killed from an intercepted missile that fell on him in the West Bank
Almost a dozen Iranians were killed after a failed launch in Iran
Watch as Iranian missiles rain over the Old City in Jerusalem, a holy site for Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retaliation against the Tehran regime for the Iranian ballistic missile salvo of October 1. “Iran made a big mistake this evening, and will pay for it.”
“This was a brazen, unacceptable attack by Iran and every nation in the world must join us in condemning it…our support for Israel’s security is ironclad, we will continue to stand with the people of Israel in this critical moment…what you saw was Iran launching a state on state attack to protect and defend the terrorist groups that it has built, nurtures, and controls…of course there must be consequences for Iran for this attack…Iran has been a destabilizing force going back years…What we will do is to continue to hold them accountable.” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Terror Attack in Tel Aviv
A terror attack in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa quarter occurred this evening. According to Ynet: Tel Aviv District Police Commander Peretz Amar provided further details, confirming that the two attackers boarded the light rail, opened fire inside, and then continued shooting on the street. "The attackers were neutralized by rail security guards, the municipal Special Operations Unit, and police officers," Amar said.
Seven people were murdered and another nine people were injured with varying degrees of severity. Six victims were pronounced dead on-scene while a seventh victim succumbed to their wounds in the hospital. A preliminary investigation revealed that the attackers first opened fire on light rail passengers before targeting pedestrians.
The Numbers
Casualties
1,684 Israelis dead including 715 IDF soldiers (+7 since Sunday due to the terror attack in Tel Aviv)
346 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza: no change since Sunday)
53 Israelis have been killed during the war in Northern Israel (no change since Sunday)
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
2,297 (+4 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 442 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
4,490 (+10 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 680 (+2 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 41,638 (+52 since Sunday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 96,460 (+250 since Sunday) have been injured during the war.
We also encourage you to read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled "Gaza Health Ministry." The analysis found that "9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data" and that "an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates."
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.
Hostages (no change since Sunday)
There are currently 97 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
146 hostages in total have been released or rescued
The bodies of 37 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
This leaves 101 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
31-50 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity (based on reports from today, 9/22)
Thus, at most, 50-70 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Watch
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directly addressed the people of Iran on Monday. I highly encourage you to watch the full two minute video. "The people of Iran should know - Israel stands with you"
Hezbollah’s Hostages: A Drug Mule Tells His Story from The Free Press and the Center for Peace Communications: Hezbollah’s Hostages, the weekly animated video series in which brave opponents of the terror group reveal how it tyrannizes Arab lands.
Today’s episode is told from the point of view of a drug mule, who reveals how the militia’s multibillion-dollar narcotics industry is built around a little pill called Captagon.
Sometimes called “the jihadist drug,” Captagon is an addictive psychostimulant that dulls pain, induces euphoria, and—as today’s subject explains—numbs the human conscience. It was widely used by ISIS fighters and found in the bodies of several perpetrators of Hamas’s October 7 massacre. But mainly it serves as a source of funding for jihadism.
Hezbollah—along with the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad—produces the vast majority of supply, and the terror group is responsible for smuggling and selling it across the globe. Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance”—including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis who act as proxies for Tehran—owes much of its war chest to these profits. This means that stemming the manufacture and supply of Captagon is nearly as consequential as sanctioning Iran itself.
Rocket Alerts
Yesterday, there were 86 red alerts, and a total of 3,758 in the past week
Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel
The North
Israel began targeted operations in Southern Lebanon over the past two days
Rayla Givens, a great follow on X, posts: Today, the IDF revealed that commando units have conducted over 70 raids and spent 200 nights in Lebanon since 10/7. What they discovered there was shocking. Commando units recovered immense stockpiles of advanced weaponry, intricate tunnel networks, and intelligence documents detailing the Radwan's Force plan to invade Israel. These plans included up to 7,000 terrorists (7,000!) breaching the border and pouring into Northern Israel armed to the teeth.
Watch this video with IDF soldiers in a Hezbollah tunnel inside Mis al-Jabel in south Lebanon
Additional details from Open Source Intel
Some operations lasted 2-3 consecutive days within southern Lebanon
Numerous IDF special units were involved in these missions
During the operations, forces entered Hezbollah tunnels, destroyed weapons on-site, rigged explosives, and brought back weapons and intelligence documents to Israel.
In two operations over the past few months, IDF forces sustained casualties—one due to an explosion of their own rigged explosives and another from the detonation of an old, unexploded bomb left in the area. Hezbollah did not detect these operations, and no encounters or battles occurred with terrorists. These missions were carried out within 2-3 kilometers of the Israeli border in the surrounding village zone.
According the IDF: Head of the Lebanon Branch of the PFLP terrorist organization, terrorist Nidal Abdel-Aal and Head of PFLP's Military Office in Lebanon, terrorist Imad Odeh, were eliminated in a joint IDF and ISA intelligence-based strike.
Abdel-Aal took part in planning and carrying out terror attacks against Israel and directed terror activities in Judea and Samaria, operating to establish terror infrastructure to use in attacks on Israeli civilians.
Nidal Abdel-Aal directed the bus bombing attack in Beitar Illit on March 9, 2023, and the shooting attack from a passing vehicle at the Huwara Junction on March 25, 2023, during which two IDF soldiers were injured.
What We Are Reading
Israel Rises by John Podhoretz in Commentary
Israel spent the last year not only fighting a two-front war in real time but learning from its every step and every move how to win the war that had been thrust upon it. And now it is.
The elimination of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah since 1992, brought to a climax a period of daring Israeli actions that included, but are not limited to:
the assassination in the spring of leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Tehran’s most elite military unit, in a building in Syria.
Israel’s use of some kind of science-fictional weapon we normies still don’t have a bead on against an Iranian site after the ineffectual missile attack Iran launched in response to the Syria killing—a clear message to the mullahs that Israel possesses terrifying capabilities Tehran cannot predict
the assassination inside Tehran in an apartment complex owned and run by the mullahs of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh
the trapping of senior Hamas leadership in a corner of the city of Rafah following a months-long halt outside this southernmost point in Gaza
the relentless grinding down of Hamas to the point that in the past week Israel is now openly declaring that Hamas no longer functions as a military
Operation Grim Beeper, in which Israel wounded or took off the fighting map literally thousands of Hezbollah operatives in a single second, followed a day later by the same attack on the secondary communications devices
Operation Northern Arrows, a series of Israeli strikes that did more damage to Hezbollah’s colossal missile stash in six hours than it had done in the 34 days Israel had fought Hezbollah in a conventional war in 2006.
The picking-off of Hezbollah leaders systematically wherever and whenever they have been accessible for such elimination, beginning with military commander Fuad Shukr and reaching its apex on Friday with 83 tons dropped directly on the head of Hamas’s command-and-control superbunker—killing Hassan Nasrallah, the world’s most destructive terrorist over the past 32 years, thus decapitating Hezbollah, an enemy of Israel, the United States, and the Jewish people worldwide for four decades.
the continuing elimination of Hezbollah leaders following Nasrallah’s death, three so far, demonstrating that the decapitation of Hezbollah is not going to be followed any time soon with any kind of regeneration.
The problem wasn’t an Israeli unwillingness to achieve a ceasefire. The Netanyahu government and its negotiators accepted general ceasefire terms at multiple moments over the summer. Rather it was Hamas that would not proffer any kind of hostage return that even the United States, which wanted the ceasefire desperately, could view as minimally acceptable. But Israelis and Jews around the world had, without even knowing it really, been surviving on a kind of desperate optimism that things were really going to work out in a movie-ending sort of way. The loss of that optimism was soul-crushing and once again threatened to turn Israel inside out against itself even as the war was not won.
Which is why September 2024 may go down in the annals of Jewish history as the time our people looked despair in the face and refused to submit to it. Israel said, through the proper democratic vehicle of the Jewish state’s duly elected government, that it would no longer hold itself back in hopes of a deal that would not emerge or tie an arm behind its back to manage a relationship with the United States when the U.S.’s position in all these matters had become all but inexplicable in its inconstancy.
Whatever the divisions and concerns and cautions inside the corridors of power about the astonishing onslaught of Israel against the Iran Axis of Evil, the fact is Israel stared into the abyss and said, “Not today. Not this week. Not this month. Not ever.”
Link: Israel Rises
The threat of all-out Middle East war looms: two scenarios by FDD’s Mark Dubowitz
In one scenario, Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election. This will signal to Tehran that they can expect more sympathetic treatment from the White House.
The Islamic Republic will see a potential negotiating partner in a President Harris – and far-left Democrats like Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will try to push the inexperienced new president into an even more anti-Israel direction.
Israel will view Harris’s impending election as a signal that they have less than 90 days to severely degrade their regional enemies.
Israel may see little choice but to strike at Iran’s nuclear weapons program and take out Tehran’s senior leadership and economic assets. Such a conflagration would make their crippling decapitation strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the destruction of Hamas’s terror and governance capabilities look tame by comparison.
The second scenario for this lame-duck period at the end of Biden’s term is equally fraught.
If Donald Trump wins the election, Iran’s ayatollahs may decide it is now time for them to race towards a nuclear bomb – and, according to U.S. and Israeli intelligence, Tehran is just a turn of the screw from that goal.
The Islamist fundamentalist regime has mastered the production of fissile material and the long-range missiles that are necessary for delivering a nuclear payload.
The only thing holding Khamenei back is an instinct for self-preservation. With memories of crippling Trump-era sanctions that brought Iran’s economy to its knees in 2016, and Trump’s killing of his most trusted and lethal battlefield commander Qasem Suleimani, Khamenei may decide that a Trump administration is too dangerous for him.
Another round of Western economic warfare may tip the population against Khamenei’s regime yet again. Add to that American and Israeli support for Iranian protesters and the regime could be at risk.
In this light, the Iranian dictator may see an A-bomb as his only guarantee of survival.
Link: The threat of all-out Middle East war looms: two scenarios
Israel Acts Alone: A string of startling victories has opened new pathways to freedom in the Middle East by Bernard-Henri Lévy in Tablet
We know Lenin’s quote, apocryphal but so true: “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.”
In short, the free world, the real one, the one that stretches from New York, Paris, and Rome to the crowds that, from Tehran to Ankara and from Moscow to Beijing and Kabul, do not resign themselves to living under imbecilic and bloody dictatorships, can breathe a little easier and see the signs of possible change.
But the Israelis have delivered a lesson in determination and courage.
They did the opposite to what the European and American Munich Agreement cheerleaders were repeating like broken records: “De-escalate! De-escalate!” After all, according to the theories of just war, and after that, according to Clausewitz, there are situations in the world where, alas, escalation is necessary and the only option.
And the Israelis reminded the world that there are moments in history, when your (Israel’s) survival is at stake, when entire peoples (Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraqi and Syrian Kurds) are taken hostage and threatened, when the strategy of compromise is taken by the enemy (formerly Nazi Germany, today the Islamic Republic of Iran) as an invitation to hit even harder—moments, then, where one of those strong acts that the cowards call “escalation” can turn the tide, redraw the power map, and save lives.
The IDF acts alone because that is, today, its situation. But it acts—contrary to what armchair strategists castigating an “Israel now out of control” repeat everywhere—with measure and without hubris.
It breaks the operational capabilities of a state within a state that terrorized the world. And it does this, as always, while trying to do everything it could to spare innocent civilians.
For these reasons, Israel’s allies must urgently regroup to support it, not just in defense, but for victory.
Link: Israel Acts Alone
Israel’s elimination of Nasrallah was just and legal under laws of war by Arsen Ostrovsky and Brian L. Cox for the National Post
There is a famous saying in the Talmud, the Jewish scriptures, that roughly translates to “if someone rises up to kill you, kill him first.” This past weekend, the tiny Jewish state of Israel rose like a phoenix and eliminated Hassan Nasrallah, the arch-terrorist and leader of Hezbollah.
The Law of Armed Conflict, also known as International Humanitarian Law (IHL), is based on three foundational principles which also conform with the guiding U.S. Department of Defense Laws of War Manual and include: military necessity, distinction, and proportionality.
The principle of necessity requires that a party to an armed conflict may only resort to those measures that are necessary to achieve the legitimate purpose of a conflict, and specifically, to weaken the military capacity of the other parties.
The principle of distinction requires that parties to a conflict must “at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives.”
And lastly, there is perhaps no principle in international law that has been as repeatedly abused as that of “proportionality,” to reflexively castigate Israel and charge it with war crimes every time the pesky Jewish state refuses to surrender and allow its citizens to be slaughtered. But what is a “proportionate” response to 10,000 rockets being rained down on you? Should Israel have indiscriminately fired 10,000 rockets on central Beirut? Of course not.
In relation to Israel’s current military operation, the goal vis-à-vis Hezbollah was clear: to stop their rocket fire, force Hezbollah to withdraw from southern Lebanon and allow Israeli citizens in the north to safely return home, essentially in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
In short, Israel’s operation to eliminate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and enter into southern Lebanon has been a textbook display of military precision and self-defensive action, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
However, for some critics, it will just never be enough. There are many who claim Israel has the right to self-defense, but yet the moment the Jewish state lawfully exercises that right against someone like Hassan Nasrallah, a man who is the very embodiment of evil, they immediately object to it. Perhaps their issue is not Israel’s right to self-defense, but its very existence.
Link: Opinion: Israel’s elimination of Nasrallah was just and legal under laws of war
Why the Arab Street Is Celebrating Israel's Killing of Hezbollah Chief Nasrallah by Muhannad Alazzeh, an international human rights and legal expert and a former senator in Jordan's senate, in Newsweek
Hezbollah is an ideological party based on the principle of Wilayat al-Faqih or Guardianship of the Jurist, which is the cornerstone of the Shiite doctrine. It demands the loyalty of its followers to the guardian jurist, who acts on behalf of heaven's command. That person is Iran's Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Hezbollah's fealty to Khomeini is what pushed the party without hesitation to engage in civil wars in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and to intervene in the protests in Bahrain years ago. These interventions by Hezbollah were not against Israel but against the Muslim citizens in those countries, most of whom were engaged in revolts against tyrannical dictatorial regimes, who built their power off the bodies of their opponents.
Hezbollah's support for criminal and corrupt regimes in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Iran has had a much stronger impact on the Arab and Islamic masses than Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, which is why the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah is not an event worth shedding tears for most of these masses.
Hezbollah's involvement in repressive actions in neighboring countries elevated strongman leaders who oppressed their fellow Muslims, which angered enough people that Israel was able to recruit a large base for espionage missions
Even at home in Lebanon, Hezbollah is accused by Lebanese citizens (with the exception of the Shiite community) of being an armed militia that undermines and weakens the Lebanese state.
Without Nasrallah as the leader, many may now reconsider their support and the price they have paid for being and Iranian proxy.
Indeed, Israel no doubt knew before carrying out the assassination of Nasrallah that it would not provoke popular protests in its neighboring countries and thus would not generate pressure on the moderate Muslim countries surrounding it to retaliate.
Link: Why the Arab Street Is Celebrating Israel's Killing of Hezbollah Chief Nasrallah
Benjamin Netanyahu’s Triumphal Week by Walter Russell Mead in the WSJ
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had one of the best weeks in the history of modern politics. Just a few days ago, the streets of Israel were filled with protesters. Obstreperous coalition allies sought to tie his hands. Team Biden rebuked his lack of vision and courage. Diplomats from many countries boycotted Mr. Netanyahu’s United Nations appearance while Iran’s call for moderation and calm was widely praised.
Fortunately for himself and the nation he leads, Mr. Netanyahu had the clarity of mind to ignore Washington’s standard talking points. The result was Israel’s greatest string of triumphs since the Six Day War. It was also a significant boost for American and Western interests at a dangerous time.
Western foreign-policy elites desperately want to believe that we live in a stable, rules-based international order and that successful foreign policy in our enlightened era depends less on military strength and more on diplomacy, respect for international law and scrupulous attention to human rights. The further that reality diverges from this pleasant illusion, the more desperately many in the diplomatic and journalistic establishments cling to their dreams.
Nowhere is the game of Let’s Pretend more assiduously practiced than in the world of Western Middle East policy. In the real world, Iran is a malign and restless power whose fanatical ambition can only be resisted by force. The Palestinian people, whatever the historical rights and wrongs of their predicament, currently lack the leadership, institutions and national consensus that could make a two-state solution work.
The international laws of war, like it or not, have limited relevance in a region in which the U.N. Charter itself is largely a dead letter. Real peace, in the sense that Germany and France have real peace with their security anchored in institutions and their relations primarily governed by law, is not on the table for Israel or indeed for any state in the Middle East anytime soon.
In the West’s view, peace with Iran is just a couple of diplomatic meetings away. A few simple Israeli concessions will usher in a stable two-state solution. That conflict resolved, a rules-based, democratic regional order is just around the corner, and only the blind selfishness and political immaturity of local leaders block the otherwise inexorable march of utopia across the Middle East. And if none of this is actually true now, it will become true if enough of us clap our hands for Tinkerbell.
Rather than blaming themselves for their declining influence over friends and foes alike in the Middle East, Western leaders and the chattering classes around them lay the responsibility on unenlightened locals.
Mr. Netanyahu is no saint, and he is anything but infallible. Israelis have made moral and strategic errors in the past and will no doubt make more in the future. That is the nature of politics. But until the West shakes off the dream that we live on a posthistorical planet, Israelis and Arabs alike will have to disregard Western advice to chart their own courses through our difficult time.
6 consequences of Israel killing Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah by Robert Satloff with The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
First, after wiping out virtually the entire Hezbollah political and military command, from its spectacular exploding pager and walkie-talkie operation to its killing of Nasrallah, Israel is unlikely to suspend its military operations in Lebanon.
Second, some of the third-level leaders who will inherit control of Hezbollah are likely to argue that Nasrallah and his comrades were vulnerable because they lacked an asset that Hamas had in Gaza since Oct. 7 — hostages. This could lead to reckless plots to kidnap foreigners inside Lebanon; efforts to launch cross-border raids into Israel through underground tunnels; and perhaps even activation of Hezbollah terrorist cells around the world, including in America.
Third, Iran — Hezbollah’s patron, funder and supplier — has so far shown that it wants to stay out of this fight, but its inactivity could become an acute embarrassment and difficult to sustain.
Fourth, Lebanon is in shock at the sudden change in Hezbollah’s status. Just days ago, Hezbollah was the unquestioned power in the country, behind the mere facade of a Potemkin government. Now, there is a moment of opportunity for the disparate, often disputatious elements of an anti-Hezbollah coalition to organize itself before the remnants of Hezbollah find their footing and try to reimpose control.
Fifth, as the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack approaches, the heady Israeli success in Lebanon will have its own impact on Gaza.
Sixth, the killing of Nasrallah should be a moment for the U.S. to cheer that justice has been done, given the blood of hundreds of Americans that are on Hezbollah’s hands. But this is also a moment for the Biden administration to shift focus from its Sisyphean pursuit of a Gaza cease-fire to taking advantage of the opportunities presented by Israel’s seismic shock to Hezbollah.
Link: Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah: 6 consequences
Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, and the Times of Israel