#2
Still having problems linking to R'burg with a VPN on. It's intermittent and oddly if I turn the VPN off and log in, then turn the VPN back on it often works. The error message is TOO_MANY_REDIECTS
Some 30 protesters from the university’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society occupied Morrill Hall, an organizer with the group says, and a larger group gathered outside the building.
The Monday afternoon protest prompted an alert from school officials: “Protestors have entered Morrill Hall on the East Bank, causing property damage and restricting entrance and exit from the building,” the alert said. “If you are currently in Morrill Hall and able to safely exit the building, please do so immediately. Others are advised to avoid this area until further notice.”
Donations and applications to Harvard drop significantly
[BehindTheBlack] According to Harvard, donations to the university in 2024 dropped more than $151 million from donations the previous year, with other indications that overall donors and students are fleeing the university due to its anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas, racist DEI, pro-plagerism, and anti-free speech policies.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire Harvard alum, said in December that Gay’s “failures have led to billions of dollars of canceled, paused and withdrawn donations to the university. … I am personally aware of more than a billion dollars of terminated donations from a small group of Harvard’s most generous Jewish and non-Jewish alumni,” Ackman said.
More significant however was the 17% decline in student applications as of December 2023. Though the numbers still exceeded application numbers from before the COVID epidemic, the drop now suggests students have reviewed the reality of this college versus its fantasy, and are now beginning to reject it.
‘The introduction of hostile foreign adversaries into domestic political discussion is especially of issue when it is fueling an alarming rise in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment,’ they wrote.
[IsraelTimes] Restaraunt owner had filed a complaint after the incident in March, but police only acted after Amber Matthews, 23, incriminated herself by posting vandalism video that went viral
A woman who posted a viral video of herself at a New Jersey restaurant tearing down Greek flags after mistaking them for Israeli ones has been arrested and charged, the New York Post reported Thursday.
Amber Matthews, known as Ambamelia on social media, was charged with bias and intimidation on Tuesday over the March 11 incident at Efi’s Gyro in Montclair, local police said, and is due in court on December 3, according to the Post.
The paper said restaurant owner Efi Mihalis had complained to police in March, but Matthews was caught only seven months later, after she posted a video of her mistaken vandalism to TikTok.
Montclair police chief Todd Conforti told the local news that the community "strives to treat all individuals with dignity and respect."
"I hope this investigation sends a clear message that our agency will not tolerate any form of harassment or discrimination, and offenders will be held accountable for their actions," he added.
Matthew’s video, first published October 15, quickly went viral. The Post said it has raked up 4.5 million views on TikTok and millions more on other platforms.
In the video, Matthews, 23, tears down a string of blue-and-white flags outside a restaurant.
"Free Paleostine!" she yells, to the bemused looks of restaurant workers.
"What are you looking at? You know damn well there’s a genocide," she says. "I’m taking this shit down."
"I don’t stand for it. There’s genocide, and I don’t stand for Zionism," Matthews says.
"Are you proud of your heritage?" she asks a worker, who explains the flags are Greek, not Israeli.
"My bad," said Matthews. "It looks like Israel. Do you want it back?"
Anti-Israel and antisemitic content has surged on TikTok amid the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , sparked on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... -led bandidosgunnies stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Jewish TikTok employees have reportedly accused the company of an antisemitic office culture and alleged that its online moderators have allowed hatred against Israel and Jews to proliferate on the platform.
[GEO.TV] At least six people including four cops were martyred and several others were injured in a "suicide bombing" in North Waziristan, police said on Saturday.
The law enforcers said that the attack targeted a police post in Eidak area of Mir Ali. Four of the slain individuals were police personnel, they added.
The injured were shifted to hospital after a rescue operation was launched. Meanwhile, the area was cordoned off by the security forces.
Pakistan has experienced a spike in terrorism since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021. Most terror incidents are reported in provinces bordering the neighbouring country — Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Around a dozen militants were eliminated during anti-terrorism operations by the security forces in KP's District North Waziristan this month, as the military strives to deal with the menace of terrorism in the country.
A report published by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) earlier this month stated that the third quarter of 2024 saw a sharp increase in fatalities of terrorist violence and counter-terrorism campaigns with a 90% surge in violence in the country.
The total fatalities from three quarters of this year surpassed the total fatalities recorded for the entire 2023, with 722 deaths including civilians, security personnel, and outlaws.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/27/2024 2024-10-27 00:34 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Campaign in Tubas shows authority’s resolve to disprove its many skeptics, but represents ‘low-hanging fruit’ unlikely to loosen Hamas, PIJ grip on West Bank’s north, says analyst
In the West Bank city of Tubas, the Paleostinian Authority has been rounding up terror operatives who are spoiling for a fight with Israel and challenging its own rule, seeking to show it can help shape the future for Paleostinians after the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... PA President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> has poured forces into Tubas in an avowed push to quash lawlessness and deny Israel pretexts to raid the city.
His adversaries, Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... (PIJ), say the PA is serving Israel’s agenda at a time when Israel is going after their operatives in the West Bank as they battle Israel in Gaza, sharpening old divisions between Abbas and the terror groups.
Residents of Tubas said festivities between the murderous Moslems and the PA this month involved heavy machine guns and bombs in some of the worst violence they can remember.
It highlights the precarious position of the PA, which was established by the 1994 Oslo Accords with Israel, as a stepping stone to a Paleostinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The so-called two-state solution appears as far as ever, though it has come back into international focus of late as a way to bring peace. Israel, however, mistrusts Abbas and the PA, accusing it of incitement to terrorism in its education system and by paying stipends to tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! terror operatives and families of slain terrorists.
Abbas’s secularist Fatah faction also recently issued condolences on the "martyrdom" of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, hailing as "a great national leader" the architect of the assault that sparked the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led murderous Moslems stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Amid the war in Gaza, Israel has also launched several counterterrorism raids across the West Bank, especially in the north. The army says it has arrested 5,250 wanted Paleostinians, including 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the PA health ministry, 716 Paleostinians have been killed in the raids. Israel says the vast majority were button men killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or murderous Moslems carrying out attacks.
The Ramallah-based PA controlled Gaza until 2007, when Hamas routed forces loyal to Abbas, but is now confined to running patches of the West Bank — often in coordination with Israeli security forces, who control the territory.
The United States has said it wants to see the war in Gaza end with the Strip and the West Bank unified under a reformed and revitalized PA.
For Abbas, 88, the Tubas campaign is partly about weakening the grip Hamas and PIJ have gained over the northern West Bank, in what his Fatah sees as an Iran-backed attempt to undermine its position, according to Fatah officials and security sources.
It is also about disproving critics who view the PA as ineffective — a reputation that has overshadowed US-led diplomatic contacts over the role it might eventually play in Gaza, according to a former PA security official and an analyst.
A US State Department spokesperson declined comment on the Tubas operation, but acknowledged that US security cooperation with the PA includes funding, training and equipment.
Tubas Governor Ahmed al-Asaad said the PA had decided to strike with "an iron fist" against what he described as lawlessness and anarchy.
Two PA coppers have been maimed as their forces fought members of the "Tubas Battalion," an gang dominated by PIJ, and detained at least three of its members, including its leader.
STANDOFF
Al-Asaad said the PA was responding to public concern, giving the example of a bomb that had been recently planted near a school — apparently in preparation for an attack on Israeli forces.
"We don’t want — under the slogan of resistance or any other slogan — to destroy our country and to destroy Tubas," he said.
"Our approach is clear and is the approach of the president: the approach of peaceful, popular resistance and safeguarding security and order," he told Rooters in an interview.
The Paleostinian Authority has overhauled its operations in a variety of areas, assuaging some of the concern expressed by countries that provide aid.
On the whole, the revitalization effort had been "pretty well received," a European diplomat said.
On Saturday, dozens of PA coppers surrounded a building near Tubas where two Battalion button men were holed up, with one of them, Obada al-Masri, threatening to blow himself up, a source familiar with the incident said.
"We negotiated with him for almost five hours," said his father, Abdel Majid al-Masri, who was called to the scene to help convince his son to surrender.
He said his son eventually agreed after receiving guarantees he would be held in Tubas rather than at another PA jail where he was previously incarcerated and had suffered mistreatment.
Masri expressed relief that his son had been taken into PA custody rather than killed by Israeli forces, which have also been raiding Tubas in search of terror operatives and had previously tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! his son for three years.
His son had chosen "the route of struggle to liberate Paleostine," he said, rejecting PA accusations that Battalion members were engaged in lawlessness.
PIJ condemned the operation, saying PA forces appeared to be aiming to eliminate resistance to Israel and their methods were no different.
LOW-HANGING FRUIT
PA security forces were heavily deployed, with a checkpoint on a road into the city, when Rooters visited Tubas this week, but the city was calm.
Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on PA affairs at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the Tubas campaign was a much-needed attempt by the PA to assert itself in a part of the West Bank where its control had been "practically absent."
"The PA understands that nobody sees it as being capable of running Gaza and everyone cites the fact that they can’t even run the northern West Bank," said Omari, who has advised both Abbas and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.
But one operation did not make a reputation, Omari said, noting that Tubas represented "low-hanging fruit" and that Hamas and PIJ were weaker there than in Jenin, also in the northern West Bank.
With US support, the 35,000-strong PA security forces were reconstituted after the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza.
Yet, the Washington Institute said in a July policy note, for the PA to assume governance in Gaza it would need extensive recruitment, equipment, vetting and training, a process it said would take years.
Israel, which accuses the PA of support for terrorism, has also rejected the notion of PA governance in Gaza.
While declining to comment on a potential role for PA security forces in post-war Gaza, the US State Department spokesperson reiterated that sustained peace in Gaza "must include Paleostinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Paleostinian Authority."
In the West Bank, the biggest issue was that PA security forces were "really, really unpopular in the north," Omari said.
A September opinion poll showed that 89% of Paleostinians in the West Bank want Abbas to resign, and that Hamas has more support than Fatah there. Polls by the Paleostinian Center for Policy and Survey Research have consistently shown that Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader tossed in the calaboose Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! by Israel for murder, would win any presidential vote.
Omari said: "To do effective security you need both capabilities but also you need credibility and legitimacy."
[IsraelTimes] IDF says Islam Odeh planned ‘major terror attack’ for Oct. 7 anniversary with other members of terror group; troops find bomb parts in his car
A Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... operative planning an "imminent" terror attack was killed by special forces in the West Bank city of Tulkarem on Saturday, the IDF, Shin Bet, and police announced.
Members of the police’s elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit and the Kfir Brigade’s Haruv reconnaissance unit encircled a building in Tulkarem Saturday morning and carried out a tactic known as "pressure cooker," which involves escalating the volume of fire directed at a building to force a suspect to come out.
The IDF said the suspect, Islam Odeh, opened fire from the building and was eventually killed in an exchange of fire.
In the suspect’s car, the IDF said it found weapons, including parts to build a bomb.
According to the military, Odeh was a member of a Hamas network in Tulkarem and was involved in planning a major terror attack on the anniversary of the October 7 massacre with Hamas commander Zahi Oufi, who was killed in an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... earlier this month along with 11 other operatives and six civilians.
"After the liquidation of Oufi, Odeh commanded and led the network and in recent days was planning more attacks," the statement said.
Tulkarem is a major city in the northern West Bank, near the Green Line with Israel. The army says Tulkarem is a hotbed of terror activity, and has carried out numerous operations including airstrikes against operatives in the city over the course of the past year.
Since October 7, 2023, the IDF has carried out more than 70 airstrikes in the West Bank, using drones, attack helicopters, and fighter jets. Israeli troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Paleostinians across the West Bank over the past year, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Paleostinian Authority health ministry, more than 716 West Bank Paleostinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were button men killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or faceless myrmidons carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in festivities with terror operatives in the West Bank.
#4
Note: Interesting how once the the Biden/Deep State coup took over, how the database cease to get up dates since 2020.
But still, its a good history source for 1970+/- to 2020 terrorist attacks worldwide.
The Global Terrorism Database™ (GTD) is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world from 1970 through 2020 (with annual updates planned for the future). Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period and now includes more than 200,000 cases.
They can’t get the big numbers anymore, it appears.
[IsraelTimes] Families and thousands of activists on behalf of the 101 hostages held in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... for over a year rallied around the country Saturday night in favor of a single-phase deal to free the abductees, amid efforts to restart mediated talks with the Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... terror group.
Mossad Director David Barnea was set to travel on Sunday to Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , which is mediating the talks and hosts a number of top Hamas leaders, to restart discussions on a hostage deal after they were largely stalled for over two months.
The weekly rally, organized by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum and held at the so-called Hostages Square, had taken a monthlong hiatus due to Home Front Command restrictions amid the escalation in fighting against the Hezbollah terror group in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , but resumed last week.
It came the night after Israel carried out widespread Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on military sites across Iran, in response to an October 1 ballistic missile attack — underscoring how focus has shifted from Gaza to other fronts in the war.
Also speaking at Hostages Square was Kumar Shrestha, Nepal’s acting ambassador to Israel, who addressed the crowd after a short video about Bipin Joshi, a farming student from Nepal who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Alumim on October 7 and turned 24 on Saturday. Shrestha expressed the Nepalese embassy’s gratitude to the Israeli government for its "continued efforts in finding Bipin," and to the Families Forum for "consistently advocating for all hostages in Gaza."
As the event wrapped up, Lior Ashkenazi, the rally’s MC, struck a combative tone atypical for the Hostages Square rallies.
"Whoever turns their back on the hostages is a traitor!" he yelled. "Anyone who refuses to act now for their return is a fifth column!"
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch shot Ike through the elbow. Take that, Ike! he yelled...... at a separate, anti-government protest on Tel Aviv’s Begin Road, near the Israel Defense Forces headquarters, Danny Elgarat, whose brother Itzik Elgarat is captive in Gaza, addressed Netanyahu, demanding to know why a hostage deal is stalling.
Bolstering the Begin Road protest — which drew some hundreds of participants — were the Movement for Quality Government and anti-government reservist group Brothers in Arms.
Both groups are prominent critics of the government’s proposed judicial overhaul, which brought record numbers of anti-government protesters to the streets in 2023.
Also present were contingents from leftist groups Standing Together and Breaking the Silence.
The fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... Begin Road protest and the more nonpartisan Hostages Square protest were held alongside each other, but did not appear to formally join, as they had begun to do some eleven months into the war, after the execution of six hostages in late August drew fresh outrage.
Both Saturday protests were held under Home Front Command instructions that, while more relaxed than they have been in recent weeks, still place some restrictions on the size of public gatherings in some areas of the country, including Tel Aviv.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch shot Ike through the elbow. Take that, Ike! he yelled...... in Jerusalem, protesters marched from Zion Square to nearby Gay Paree Square, calling for a deal. In Caesarea, anti-government protesters demonstrated near one of Netanyahu’s private residences.
Protests were also held in Kfar Saba, Ness Ziona, Rehovot, Zichron Yaakov, Eilat, and at other locales, including various highway junctions, across the country.
At Karkur Junction, in northern Israel, police forcibly removed demonstrators who were blocking the road.
[GEO.TV] Israeli forces withdrew from a hospital complex in northern Gaza on Saturday, one day after storming it, and the Palestinian enclave's health ministry said the troops had detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients.
Health officials said on Friday Israeli forces had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities struggling to operate in the area.
The military says the airstrike on the former Saleh a-Din School compound was “precise” and intelligence-based, targeting a site used by the Palestinian terror group to “plan and carry out terror actions against IDF forces and the State of Israel.”
It adds that it took many steps to mitigate harm to civilians, including using precise munitions, aerial observation and more.
The army once again accuses Hamas of violating international law by placing its assets in civilian areas and compounds.
They need room for the tens of thousands heading south from Jabaliya.
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it has expanded the designated “humanitarian zone” in southern Gaza, where the vast majority of the Palestinian population in the Strip currently resides.
The zone is where most humanitarian aid is directed, and where several field hospitals were established.
The size of the zone has changed multiple times, amid evolving IDF operations against the Hamas terror group.
“The expanded Humanitarian Area includes field hospitals that have been established since the start of the war, tent compounds, and shelter equipment, as well as food, water, medicine, and medical equipment that has entered Gaza through coordination between COGAT and the international community,” the IDF says in a statement.
“The IDF will continue to operate to achieve the war objectives, including dismantling Hamas and returning all the hostages,” it adds.
[GEO.TV] Two soldiers were killed in Saturday morning's Israeli airstrikes on Iran, the official news agency IRNA reported.
"The army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in defending Iran's security and protecting the people and Iran's interests, sacrificed two of its fighters while countering projectiles from the criminal Zionist regime," the statement said.
[IsraelTimes] ‘They were completely ready for another October 7. It’s not hard to imagine that they would have done it,’ says IDF reservist. ‘We also found Nazi flags and Hitler statues’
"We’ve spent more than 200 days in reserve duty," the soldier shouts over the roar of the wind, turning around in the front passenger seat of the open-air IDF Humvee. The vehicle bumps and rattles its way over a broken road leading from northern Israel into southwestern Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... As dust streams in through the open sides, coating the soldiers and journalists within, the Humvee passes a wall marking the Blue Line separating the two countries, exposing a scene of utter devastation.
Burn pits next to the road give off an acrid smell made worse by numerous small fires among the rolling hills as the Humvee speeds along the road, swaying violent mostly peacefully side to side.
"We’e now on our third mobilization of the year," the soldier adds as he makes the short drive to the southern Lebanese village where his unit, the IDF’s 6th "Etzioni" Brigade, is involved in sweep and clear operations to uncover and destroy Hezbollah weapons caches and other infrastructure.
Hezbollah began attacking northern Israel a day after Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... ’s October 7, 2023 attacks on the country’s south, saying it was doing so in support of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... -based terror group.
But after suffering nearly a year of cross-border attacks, Israel struck back in September, with a combination of strikes against commanders in the field and big shots in Beirut which decimated its leadership and crippled much of its capabilities.
But instead of launching a campaign designed to take apart Hezbollah’s powerful military, Israel opted for a limited ground operation against enemy infrastructure, not fighters — of which the IDF says 2,000 have been killed thus far.
The 6th was the first reserve unit to be sent into Lebanon and The Times of Israel, along with other Israeli news outlets, was invited by the Israel Defense Forces to observe its part of the operation on Monday afternoon.
DODGING DRONES
Waiting on the side of the road is Etzioni Brigade’s commander Col. Sarel Sebag, who leads a contingent of officers and enlisted men, many of them masked against the omnipresent dust, down a steep embankment into a small valley pocked by craters of fresh-turned dark soil.
Standing next to a small copse of trees, Sebag begins explaining his brigade’s mission when a flaming drone, trailing a tail of smoke, crashes down around 100 meters away over the crest of a nearby hill — apparently brought down by Israeli air defenses.
Shrugging off the incident, Sebag says that while his troops have established operational control, "destroying all of the Hezbollah positions and storage facilities and tunnels" they can find in their territory just over the northern border, they will still need to stay on their toes.
Soon "we will move to the clearing phase," he continues, indicating the surrounding area with a sweeping gesture of his arm. "Soon there will be nothing here. There won’t be any trees. There won’t be any bushes in this whole area so that in the future Hezbollah won’t be able to approach the border."
And while his mission is assisted greatly by intelligence, the IDF is still going over the terrain "meter by meter," uncovering "weapons storage sites and underground fighting positions near the border" to ensure the safe return of the tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by the war in the north, he says.
DEFENDING THE NORTH
"We understand the importance of what we are doing. We’ve been guarding the towns behind us since October 7," Sebag emphasized, gesturing behind him toward the nearby Israeli border. "And now we are operating on this side and destroying [Hezbollah]. Only this can bring security to the residents of the north."
Asked in how many homes his men have found weapons, Sebag responds that "in these villages it’s not just one or two houses, it’s all of the village. These are villages that are strongly identified with Hezbollah. In almost every home there are weapons and signs of identification with the organization."
His men agree, with one telling The Times of Israel that they had found rifles on tables in many houses, ready for use, and that weapons were even found in the village’s school and medical clinic.
Driving past a devastated landscape of torn and shattered concrete, one soldier points out sites where there had previously been tunnels, weapons storage depots and other Hezbollah facilities.
The residents of the village, whose name The Times of Israel is not allowed to publish, fled after the beginning of the war, allowing the IDF to pound Hezbollah positions from afar before entering on foot, the soldier notes.
Gesturing toward a lone structure rising like an island from a sea of rubble, the soldier says that this was the site of one of multiple Hezbollah tunnels found in the area.
HEZBOLLAH, IRAN AND HITLER
Descending a set of concrete stairs in a damaged house in the middle of the village, we find the officers of the brigade’s 8103rd Battalion in the middle of a staff meeting.
Seated on comfortable chairs and couches surrounding a low slung coffee table in a basement lined with red and beige wall hangings, the officers give their reports and discuss their units’ dispositions while a group of soldiers lounge in the back of the room.
Dirty and unshaven, they smile and crack jokes as they speak over the repeated booms of outgoing fire, one of which is loud enough to cause battalion commander Lt. Col. Elishama Jacobs to pause in the middle of a sentence.
One of the men sitting in the basement during the briefing is Sergeant First Class Natan, an American immigrant in his twenties.
"We’ve been here for about a week and a half. Before we went in, obviously, there was a lot of air power and artillery that went in. When we came to take the area, we did, obviously, with the help of tanks and combat engineers and a lot of other forces that came to help," he recalls.
"Since we attacked the village we’ve gone house to house looking for ammunition and for weapons. It wasn’t hard to find. We found weapons or other Hezbollah apparel in almost every house that we found. That ranges from mortars to guns, to anti-tank missiles, to everything else in between, [including] intelligence," he describes.
"We found they were ready for another October seventh, and we’re very close to the border, so it’s not hard to imagine that they would have done it."
In addition to the weapons, troops found pictures of the Iranian mullahs and even "Nazi flags and Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like... statues" which were passed on to military intelligence, Natan says, a claim that The Times of Israel is unable to verify.
CLAYMORES AND ANTI-TANK MINES
Making their way through broken bits of concrete and masonry and over downed and inactive power lines laying across the road, the troops of the 8103rd Battalion arrive at a shattered building with the words "thank you, my heroic wife," scrawled in Hebrew across the front wall.
Making their way into the darkened structure, they crowd into a small foyer filled with boxes of weapons, beyond which is another room, full of broken glass, where, across from an old-fashioned CRT television, sit green wooden boxes of anti-tank and directional anti-personnel Claymore-style mines.
"They were so scared that they left all of this behind," says one soldier with night vision glasses attached to his helmet.
UNDER FIRE
Leaving the house to the sounds of distant gunfire, the soldiers make their way down the village’s main road when someone yells to take cover and they launch themselves onto the ground next to a low wall.
They barely begin to rise when the call goes out again and they again drop to the ground.
"Rockets fall all the time," one soldier notes casually. "Last week, a rocket fell really close to us, maybe 15 meters (49 feet). We lay down and it was very close but because we were on the ground with helmets nothing happened. There was shrapnel in the air but everything was okay."
Arriving at another command post on a different hilltop soon after the incident, the soldiers start to chat and drink Ottoman Turkish coffee and wait for the evening’s show: the demolition of a group of houses previously used by Hezbollah fighters on a nearby hilltop.
Suddenly, somebody yells for everybody to come outside and an officer begins a countdown, declaring that "this is for the sake of the residents of the north, who will soon return home."
Suddenly the hillside erupts in fire, a searing light reaching the command post just ahead of the sound of a massive explosion and a pressure wave driving the wind before it like a minor hurricane ...as in blow me down!... But even as the soldiers erupt in cheers as the darkness of night closes in again, none are able to say how long they will be required to remain at war.
[JPost] Sabahi had served as the Imam of Kharameh for ten years before returning to Kazeroun in November 2019.
The Imam of Kazeroun in southern Iran, Mohammad Sabahi, was shot by an attacker who then took his own life after leading the Friday prayers this week, according to Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
The Imam suffered from severe wounds and was transported to the Vali Asr hospital for treatment. Mohammad Ali Bekhrad, the special commander of Kazeroun County, confirmed that Imam Sabahi was targeted after the prayers and was undergoing medical treatment.
Several hours later, in a separate report, Tasnim noted he was transferred to the Namazi Hospital in Shiraz for further treatment. However, despite the efforts of the medical team, Sabahi succumbed to his wounds.
"Despite the efforts of the doctors and medical staff at Namazi Hospital in Shiraz, the Friday Imam has passed away due to the severity of his [wounds]," Iranian State Media IRNA cited Kazeroun’s governor, Mohammad Ali Bekhrad.
THIRD KILLING SINCE 1979 REVOLUTION
According to IRNA's report, Sabahi had served as the Imam of Kharameh for ten years before returning to Kazeroun in November 2019, further noting that his death marks the third killing of a Friday Imam in Kazeroun since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
According to IRNA, initial reports concerning the attacker were conflicting, with Telegram channels claiming he was a war veteran. However, Mehdi Mazarei of Kazeroun’s Martyrs Foundation refuted the claim and warned against spreading false information.
Mizan News clarified that the attacker had a criminal background and had previously attempted to harm a judge.
[JPost] The targets struck were sophisticated equipment that Iran could not produce on its own.
The Israel Air Force struck a dozen targets in Iran that were used to produce solid fuel for long-range ballistic missiles as part of its retaliatory military action against the Islamic Republic, severely harming Tehran's ability to replenish its inventory, Israeli media reported on Saturday night.
The targets struck were sophisticated equipment that Iran could not produce on its own and had to be purchased from China, Walla reported. The targets were a critical component of Iran's ballistic missile program, Walla cited three anonymous Israeli sources as saying.
Israeli sources also stated that four S-300 air defense batteries were attacked that were in strategic locations that protected nuclear and energy facilities in Tehran during the operation. A factory for the production of drones and a facility in the Parchin military complex were also attacked, the latter of which saw in the past research and development activities for nuclear weapons.
The Arabic independent online newspaper Elaph reported Israel targeted a secret ballistic missile factory in Iran,
Secret? As in, nobody knew about it except a few select Iranians and Mossad? Whoops!
destroying a large number of heavy fuel mixers used to power Kheibar and Haj Qasem missiles - both of which were fired by Iran at Israel at the beginning of the month. The report also claimed that the S-300 air defense batteries that were attacked were Russian-made and destroyed radars that feed these systems and others in Syria and Iraq.
The report said that the ballistic missile factory was completely destroyed. One source told Elaph that it was the "backbone of Iran's missile industry" and that Israel had "put it out of service," also reporting that each heavy fuel mixer destroyed was estimated to be at least two million dollars and about twenty mixers of this type were destroyed.
While Walla reported that production to restore such equipment would reportedly take at least one year, informed sources on the Iranian missile industry told Elaph that it would take at least two years to return the destroyed factory to service.
It depends on how much outside interference the site experiences, I suspect. Hey, Yossi — interested in taking another flight into the wild blue yonder?
Overall, more than 100 Israeli aircraft participated in the attack on Iranian targets, Ynet reported, stating that their mission was to hit the most advanced anti-aircraft systems of the Islamic Republic and develop air superiority there for any possible upcoming IAF operations - in such a way that Israeli fighter jets would be able to fly even at a relatively low altitude in the skies of Tehran itself in the future.
Courtesy of Fred:
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
Looks like Israel's 🇮🇱 attack was a “preparation”:
📡 Destroyed air defense en route to Iran in Syria 🇸🇾 & Iraq 🇮🇶
📡 Destroyed radars of S-300 & S-400 air defense in Iran 🇮🇷
Now that Iran's air defense is fully blinded, Israel can freely attack its nuclear facilities. _ pic.twitter.com/1ONgNizZw6
#4
I sure would like to see some post-strike images of those sites, especially Parchin. Parchin produces a large percentage of Iran's explosives. Also Shiraz airfield. Tit for tat? "You hit our airfield, don't do much damage -- we hit yours and put it out of action". I just hope they didn't hit the air museum at Netsarim. I LOVE that place!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/27/2024 16:36 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Queuing that up for you for tomorrow, Old Patriot. Today my job seems to be reposting the same two articles repeatedly in my determination to beat a pair of really determined stray gamma rays.
Yes, but what does that actually mean in this situation?
Courtesy of 3dc:
[X]
1. Israel estimates: Iran will respond to IDF assault; impossible for regime to do nothing after attack in Tehran, with everyone in the region watching. Israel ready for more military action, @MaarivOnline reports. 2. Israeli officials note that circumstances will be different… https://t.co/TJRfqkrqUz
... Israeli officials note that circumstances will be different next time: US election will be over & IDF will be closer to achieving Lebanon war objectives. This will give Israel more flexibility to hit wider scope of Iranian assets, including more sensitive targets. ...
Posted by: Fred ||
10/27/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
A Kilometer-Long Tunnel Complex discovered in Southern Lebanon, which would have been used by Hezbollah’s Elite “Radwan Force” for an Invasion of Northern Israel, was Destroyed this morning by Israeli Combat Engineers using over 400 Tons of Explosives. The Explosion was so… pic.twitter.com/pqZ2ftxOoZ
The rest of the Saturday’s adventures in Hezbollahland.
[IsraelTimes] Footage shows controlled explosion in southern Lebanon that triggered earthquake alerts in northern Israel; Israeli jets strike Hezbollah weapons and command sites in Beirut
Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel while Israel’s air defenses shot down four drones launched from Leb ...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... by the Iran-backed terror group on Saturday. The hostile aircraft triggered air raid sirens in the Upper and Western Galilee as well as the northern border cities and towns of Kiryat Shmona, Metula and Tel Hai, but no injuries were reported.
In a statement, Hezbollah claimed it launched a drone attack against the Tel Nof air force base, south of Tel Aviv.
In addition to the drones, Hezbollah fired some 200 rockets at northern Israel throughout the day. In one of the barrages, 15 rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Western Galilee, with some intercepted while the rest hit open areas, the IDF said. There were no reports of injuries from the rocket fire, which sparked fires at several locations in the north.
The attacks on the north came as the army pressed on with operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Footage posted on social media showed a massive IDF explosion in southern Lebanon Saturday morning, which triggered earthquake alerts across northern Israel. The blast was from the detonation of a Hezbollah tunnel.
The IDF also said Saturday that troops with the 91st Division seized four truck-mounted rocket launchers during operations in southern Lebanon this week. According to the military, the launchers were loaded with some 160 rockets.
Separately, around 130 Hezbollah launchers were struck by the Israeli Air Force in the past week, the IDF says. The launchers included those used to fire rockets at Israel, including in Friday’s attack on Majd al-Krum that killed two residents of the northern Arab town.
Overnight, Israeli fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets in Beirut. According to the IDF, the targets included weapons manufacturing sites, a command room belonging to Hezbollah’s intelligence division, and surveillance equipment. The Hezbollah assets were all located in civilian buildings in Beirut’s southern suburb, according to the IDF. Before the strike, the military issued evacuation warnings to civilians.
Separately, the IDF said a cell of Hezbollah operatives who launched a missile at an IDF drone in southern Lebanon Friday were killed in a dronezap a short while later. The drone flying over Kfar Fila was not hit in the incident, according to the IDF.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported that a Hezbollah-affiliated paramedic was killed in an Israeli strike on a medical center in southern Lebanon, which left five others maimed, three of them also members of the Islamic Health Committee.
The IDF estimates that more than 2,000 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like...
[JPost] Sabahi had served as the Imam of Kharameh for ten years before returning to Kazeroun in November 2019.
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
