Attacks have intensified with Hezbollah firing around 220 rockets into northern Israel on Wednesday, with continued fire this morning.
- In Kiryat Shmona, a couple in their mid-forties Revital Yehud and Dvir Sharvit, who had refused to be evacuated from their home, were killed by shrapnel while walking their dog.
- Six people were wounded when 40 rockets hit Haifa and the nearby suburbs.
- A building was damaged in Safed, and fires broke out in Hatzor Haglilit and the area surrounding the town.
- Sirens sounded yesterday in Caesarea, Zichron Yaakov and other communities near the coast.
- Six people were wounded in a terrorist stabbing attack in Hadera. Before being shot the assailant attacked people in four different locations across the city, wounding two in the first, a third in the second, two more in the third, and a sixth in the final location. He was later identified as Ahmad Jabarin, a 36-year-old Israeli citizen from Umm al-Fahm.
- Two soldiers were killed, and two soldiers were wounded in the last two days. On Tuesday, Sgt. Noam Israel Abdu, was killed in a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip. In the same operation, a soldier was severely injured. Another soldier was severely injured in southern Lebanon. This morning, Maj. (res) Ronny Gazinate, 36-years-old, was killed in combat in southern Lebanon.
- The IDF continues its operational activity in southern Lebanon. Over the past day, IDF eliminated terrorists during close-quarter encounters and in aerial strikes, located and confiscated numerous weapons including anti-tank missiles. In addition, over 100 Hezbollah terror targets were destroyed.
- Over the past day, the IAF struck approximately 185 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, and in parallel approximately 45 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, including terrorist cells, infrastructure sites, military structures, observation posts, launchers, and weapons storage facilities.
- The IDF announced it had assassinated two Hezbollah operatives, Ahmad Mustafa Al-Hajj Ali and Mohammad Ali Hamdan, who intended to carry out terrorist attacks in northern communities. The pair were responsible for launching hundreds of rockets and anti-tank missile toward the Kiryat Shmona area.
- Last night, IDF intercepted a drone over the Red Sea, which was making its way toward Israel.
- In an undercover operation in the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces opened fire on a car in Nablus, killing four terror suspects.
Context: Despite the IDF offensive, Hezbollah is expanding its range and intensity of strikes against Israeli civilian communities .
- According to the IDF Hezbollah actually fired over 350 rockets on Wednesday, with approximately 220 crossing over into Israel. Israel’s anti-missiles defences were able to intercept most of them, but the Hezbollah tactic is to try and overwhelm the system.
- Wednesday’s attack on Kiryat Shmona was most sustained and heaviest barrage the city has faced since the war began.
- In parallel the IDF appear satisfied with the progress they are making targeting Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. The IDF Chief of Staff struck a confident tone during the situational assessment yesterday saying, “Hezbollah is making efforts to conceal the significant damage we have inflicted…. They are experiencing command and control difficulties, leading to confusion at the decision-making level and challenges in their operational capabilities.”
- The IDF are working off an orderly battle plan targeting hundreds of Hezbollah command centres, weapons storage facilities and military observation posts. In addition, whenever Hezbollah fires rockets the air force aims to destroy the launchers.
- Along with the progress in southern Lebanon, the IDF again emphasised the importance of the attacking the Dahiya neighbourhood in Lebanon which they describe as, “a key terrorist stronghold for Hezbollah.” Adding, “this is where its decisions are made, and it manufactures and hides its strategic weapons – inside and below civilian buildings in Dahiya. Dahiya is not like the rest of Beirut.”
- The latest messages from Hezbollah this week attests to their weakened condition and for first time in a year are no longer conditioning and connecting a ceasefire to the situation to Gaza.
- At the same time reports are emerging of new approach led by the Mossad to try and reach an agreement to release the hostages. In a role reversal where before Hamas encouraged the Iranian proxies to join in attacking Israel and Hezbollah made any ceasefire conditional on the linkage. Now Israel is new reversing the equation and telling Iran if they want a ceasefire to save themselves and what’s left of Hezbollah they need to pressure Hamas to release the captives.
- The three-way call yesterday between Prime Minister Netanyahu, US President Biden and Vice President Harris was their first call since the end of August.
- Netanyahu’s insistence on the call as a perquisite for Gallant’s visit to the Pentagon was designed to ensure that Netanyahu remains personally engaged in the coordination with the US.
- It is understood that the Biden administration has been working in recent days to moderate possible Israeli attacks and proposed a military-diplomatic “compensation package” instead.
- The stabbing attack in Hadera is the third major terror attack in the last eight days, follows the attacks in Tel Aviv last Tuesday and Beer Sheva on Sunday. It was second attack committed by an Israeli-Arab citizen.
- The mayor of Umm al-Fahm condemned the attack carried out by a resident of his city saying, “The fabric of common life must be preserved.”
- There is heightened concern that in the immediate aftermath there is added motivation for copy-cat type attacks.
Looking ahead: IDF Chief of staff has committed to, “continue to strike Hezbollah with intensity, without allowing them any respite or recovery.”
- The security cabinet is expected to meet this evening to discuss and approve the details of Israel’s response to Iran.
- Defence Minister Gallant spoke about the anticipated response saying that, “Our attack will be lethal, precise and mainly surprising. They won’t understand what happened and how it happened; they’ll see the results.”
- Part of the Israeli dilemma will be to calibrate a strike hard enough to end the cycle of attack and counter-attack.