[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

Post Reply New Topic

Face_of_Boo, if you see this: Are you and your family and friends OK?

I certainly hope he is alright. Face_Of_Boo is the main influence in how and what I post about this war, specifically perspectives on it. As a Lebanese his posts both with the articles about events and his personal perspective even before the war he was handing out information and perspectives that we were unaware of.

When the war started I was intimidated by the fundamentally different perspectives, specifically, I worried that anything I posted would be seen as me being sheep to Israeli propaganda, and that, that would be correct. As the first weeks went by I noticed what was being posted and opined on was based on American contexts. It apparently stems from the belief of Israel as a Jewish version of America a false belief that I held for most of my life. The answer to my worries was the Face_Of_Boo's approach Israel version knowing it would horrify many including myself at times because I have the background to better "get it", and to know where to look.

I realize the "staying in my lane" approach is by definition limiting. I feel other various anti zionist perspectives posted are filling in a lot of my gaps. I thank everybody for accepting my approach specifically Face_Of_Boo.

The US military said it carried out 15 strikes on Friday against targets linked to Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen, where residents reported blasts at military outposts and even an airport.

Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, said the targets were tied to Houthi offensive military capabilities but did not detail whether that included missile, drone, or radar capabilities.

CENTCOM's announcement comes after Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthi movement controlling much of Yemen, reported strikes in Sanaa and Hodeidah.

Strikes also targeted the south of Dhamar city and the southeast of al-Bayda province, the channel added.

Regional implications
Residents said that the attack on al-Bayda province targeted several Houthi military outposts.

Al Masirah TV reported that the strikes had been carried out by the United States and British forces, but a British government source said Britain was not involved.

Following the airstrikes, a Houthi spokesman called the attack "a desperate attempt," adding that "Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in confronting the enemies."

US President Joe Biden on Friday said Israel has not yet decided how it’s going to respond to Iran’s ballistic missile assault, but suggested it should refrain from attacking Iranian oil facilities.

“If I were in their shoes, I’d be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields,” Biden said during a rare appearance at the White House daily press briefing.

Earlier this week, Biden said he opposed Israel targeting Iranian nuclear sites as well.

Biden’s latest remarks came a day after he said the idea of an Israeli strike on Iranian oil sites was “in discussion,” causing oil prices to shoot up amid fears of a sudden shock to the global supply.

Asked Friday whether he thought Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rejecting diplomatic agreements in Gaza and Lebanon to influence the upcoming presidential election, Biden responded, “No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none, and I think Bibi should remember that.

“As for whether he’s trying to influence the election, or…I don’t know, but I’m not counting on that,” Biden added.

Biden said he assumed he would speak to Netanyahu when Israel decides on how it wants to respond to Iran. The two have not spoken for some six weeks, with the president saying a day earlier that they have not talked “because there’s no action going on right now.”

Another reporter Friday suggested to Biden that he is unable to influence Israel. The president rejected the premise, saying he receives regular briefings and that his team is in constant contact with their Israeli counterparts.

“It’s the High Holidays… They’re not going to make a decision immediately. And so, we’re going to wait to see when they want to talk,” he added.

Asked again whether Israel was heeding his administration’s advice, Biden responded by highlighting his Gaza hostage deal proposal from May, which has failed to advance. US officials have blamed Hamas for refusing to engage on the proposal over the last several weeks, with the New York Times reporting Friday on an American intelligence assessment that the terror group’s leader Yahya Sinwar has become increasingly fatalistic and unreceptive to a deal.

“What I know is the plan that I put together received the support of the UN Security Council, the vast majority of our allies around the world, as a way to bring this to an end,” Biden said.

“The Israelis have every right to respond to the vicious attacks on them — not just from the Iranians but from everyone from Hezbollah to Houthis. But the fact is that they have to be much more careful about dealing with civilian casualties,” Biden added, leaning on a common administration talking point regarding the regional fighting sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Pressed again on how Israel should respond to Iran, Biden declined to offer further details. “That’s between me and them.”

Asked if he was considering imposing sanctions on Iran, the president said the matter was under discussion. In comments Wednesday urging Israel to respond “proportionally,” Biden said G7 leaders had agreed to sanction Iran.

Another reporter asked if there was anything the US can do to prevent an all-out war in the Middle East.

“There’s a lot we are doing. The main thing we can do is try to rally the rest of the world, our allies into participating — like the French are in Lebanon and other places — to tamp this down, but when you have proxies as irrational as Hezbollah and the Houthis… it’s a hard thing to determine,” Biden said.

The Pentagon had concerns over war crimes committed by the IDF during an offensive in Gaza as early as October of last year, according to emails obtained by Reuters.

A mass evacuation would be a humanitarian disaster and could violate international law, leading to war crime charges against Israel, Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, wrote in an October 13 email to senior aides to President Joe Biden. Stroul relayed an assessment by the International Committee of the Red Cross that had left her “chilled to the bone,” she wrote.

As the Israel-Hamas war nears its first anniversary, Stroul’s email and other previously unreported communications show the Biden administration’s struggle to balance internal concerns over rising deaths in Gaza with its public support for Jerusalem following the October 7 massacre.

Reuters reviewed three sets of email exchanges between senior US administration officials, dated October 11 to 14, just days into the crisis. The fighting has led to more than 40,000 deaths in Gaza, reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and spurred many US protests led by Arab-Americans and Muslim activists.

Jeopardized US-Arab ties
The emails revealed alarm early on that the Pentagon and State Department had concerns that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize US ties in the Arab world. The messages also put internal pressure on the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.

A ceasefire deal remains far off despite months of US-brokered negotiations; Hamas has refused to come to the negotiating table for weeks. And still, the risk of a regional war with Iran looms after Israel’s attacks on military targets in Lebanon and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Top Biden administration officials say they believe White House pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in those early days made a difference and prevented an even worse humanitarian situation. In private talks, the White House asked Israel to delay its ground offensive to give more time for aid groups to prepare help for displaced people and to give Israel more time to strike a deal with Hamas, administration officials told reporters in background briefings at the time.

But Washington was slow to address the suffering of Gazan civilians, said three senior US officials involved in the decision-making process. And while the ground invasion was ultimately delayed by about 10 days, the three officials attributed the pause more to operational preparations by the IDF than US pressure.

After the publication of this story, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said the emails show that "unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza was painfully clear from the earliest days of the war, with key experts warning that international standards were being violated" and that "valid concerns" were overridden by the White House.

The emails reviewed by Reuters show a scramble inside the Biden administration to warn the White House of the impending crisis – and the White House’s initial resistance to a ceasefire in the early, chaotic days of the war. The three sets of email exchanges began on October 11, during Israel’s fifth day of air strikes after the Hamas invasion.

'LOSING CREDIBILITY'
Early on, concerns grew inside the administration about America’s image with its Arab allies.

After Israeli airstrikes hit Gazan infrastructure, the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior State officials that Washington was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not directly addressing the humanitarian crisis, according to an October 11 email. Gaza’s health authorities reported that day a death toll of about 1,200.

As Israel defended the strikes, saying Hamas was using civilian buildings for military purposes, Russo wrote that US diplomats in the Middle East were monitoring Arab media reports that accused Israel of waging a “genocide” and Washington of complicity in war crimes.

“The US’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote.

At the time, emergency workers were struggling to save people buried under rubble, and the world’s sympathies were beginning to shift from murdered Israelis to Gazan civilians.

Addressing State Department leaders, Russo urged quick action to shift the administration’s public stance of unqualified support for Israel and its military operation in Gaza. “If this course is not quickly reversed by not only messaging, but action, it risks damaging our stance in the region for years to come,” he wrote. Russo resigned in March, citing personal reasons. He declined to comment.

The State Department’s top Middle East diplomat, Barbara Leaf, forwarded Russo’s email to White House officials including Brett McGurk, Biden’s top adviser for Middle East affairs. She warned that the relationship with Washington’s “otherwise would-be stalwart” Arab partners was at risk due to the kinds of concerns raised by Russo.

McGurk replied that if the question was whether the administration should call for a ceasefire, the answer was “No.” He added, however, that Washington was “100 percent” in favor of supporting humanitarian corridors and protecting civilians.
McGurk and Leaf declined to comment for this story.

Following Russo’s email, the public US stance remained largely unchanged for the next two days, as shown by a review of public comments. US officials continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself and plans to provide Jerusalem with military aid.

'PUMP THE BREAKS'
On October 13, two days after Russo’s email, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over northern Gaza, warning one million residents to leave their homes. Netanyahu gave residents 24 hours to flee as Israeli troops backed by tanks began a ground assault inside the Hamas-run territory of 2.3 million people. He vowed to annihilate Hamas for its attack.

The evacuation order alarmed aid agencies and the United Nations. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva issued a statement saying Israel's order was "not compatible with international humanitarian law" because it would cut off food, water, and other basic needs in Gaza. Privately, in a phone conversation that day with Stroul, ICRC Middle East director Fabrizio Carboni was more pointed, the emails show.

"ICRC is not ready to say this in public, but is raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes," Stroul said in her October 13 email, describing the conversation. Her email was addressed to senior White House officials including McGurk, along with senior State and Pentagon officials. “Their main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast,” Stroul wrote. One US official on the email chain said it would be impossible to carry out such an evacuation without creating a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

Asked about Carboni’s phone call with Stroul, the ICRC said it “constantly works with parties to armed conflicts and those who have influence with them to increase the respect for the laws of war in order to prevent civilian suffering in conflict. We consider such conversations to be strictly confidential.”

Publicly, the White House was expressing measured support for Israel’s plans. A White House spokesperson told reporters that such a huge evacuation was a "tall order" but that Washington would not second-guess Israel. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said US military aid would continue flowing to Israel.

Privately, some senior US officials were concerned there was no safe way out of densely populated Gaza, several senior US officials told Reuters.

In an email replying to Stroul, McGurk said Washington might be able to persuade Israel to extend the deadline for Palestinians to evacuate beyond 24 hours, saying the administration “can buy some time.” But the Red Cross, the UN, and aid agencies should work with Egypt and Israel to prepare for the evacuation, he wrote.

McGurk, a long-time Iraq expert, likened the situation to the US-led military operation against Islamic State terrorists in Mosul from 2016 to 2017, an assault that left the Iraqi city in ruins. He said the military and humanitarian strategy in the Mosul assault had been planned hand in hand. Two officials on the email chain replied that it would be impossible to put in place the necessary infrastructure with so little time. One reminded McGurk that the Mosul operation was the result of much longer planning. Humanitarian groups had months to set up and provide support for displaced civilians.

“Our assessment is that there’s simply no way to have this scale of a displacement without creating a humanitarian catastrophe,” Paula Tufro, a senior White House official in charge of humanitarian response, wrote in the email. It would take “months” to get structures in place to provide “basic services” to more than a million people. She asked that the White House tell Israel to slow its offensive.

“We need GOI (Government of Israel) to pump the brakes in pushing people south,” Tufro wrote.
Andrew Miller, then the deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, urged his colleagues to act fast.

“If we’re inclined to weigh in with the Israelis to dissuade them from seeking mass evacuations, we will have to do it soon, at a high level and at multiple touchpoints,” Miller wrote. He resigned in June, citing family reasons.

Biden’s public comments on Gaza had largely given Netanyahu a free hand against Hamas. At the time, Biden faced only scattered protests from the left wing of the Democratic Party over his support for Israel's counterattack. Israel's likening of the Hamas assault to the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington resonated widely within the US.

The administration’s public stance began to change on October 13. At a news conference in Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for the first time, publicly recognized the “suffering of Palestinian families in Gaza.” Washington was in constant talks with the Israelis and aid groups to help civilians in Gaza, he said.

The next day, October 14, Biden’s rhetoric shifted. He said in a speech that he was urgently prioritizing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and directed his team to help surge relief into the war zone. It is unclear if the emails by Russo and others influenced the statements from Blinken and Biden.

Although Israel began sending infantry into Gaza on October 13, a large-scale ground invasion didn’t start until October 27. Sources familiar with the matter said at the time that Washington advised Israel to hold off, mainly to give time for diplomacy to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

From the early days of the conflict, the US stressed that Israel has a right to defend itself but that how it does so matters, a State Department spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. “Israel has a moral imperative to mitigate the harm of its operations to civilians, something we have emphasized both publicly and privately,” the spokesperson said.

Stroul and Tuffro declined to comment. In a statement, Miller said the administration was “concerned about the humanitarian implications of a mass evacuation.” He added that “Israeli military plans were very inchoate at that stage, and we were trying to develop a better understanding” of Israel’s “strategy and objectives.”

WEAPONS EXPEDITED
As US officials assessed the humanitarian crisis, Israel pressed Washington for more arms.

On October 14, a senior Israeli Embassy official in Washington urged the State Department to accelerate the shipment of 20,000 automatic rifles for the Israeli National Police, according to the emails.

Israeli senior defense advisor Ori Katzav apologized in an October 14 email to his State Department counterpart for disturbing her on the weekend but said the rifle shipment was “very urgent” and needed US approval. Christine Minarich – an official at the State Department division that approves arms sales, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls – told Katzav the rifles would not be approved in the next 24 to 48 hours. Such large weapons shipments can take time, requiring State Department approval and notification to Congress.

Katzav and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.

Jessica Lewis, then the assistant US secretary for political and military affairs, forwarded Minarich’s email and Israel’s request for the rifles to the State Department’s Democracy, Labor and Human Rights (DRL) bureau. DRL reviews potential US weapon sales to ensure they aren’t sent to militaries involved in rights abuses.

Lewis asked the bureau to expedite its review and “urgently” explain any opposition to specific arms packages for Israel, according to the emails. Lewis resigned in July.

Christopher Le Mon, deputy assistant secretary at DRL, recommended denying more than a dozen arms packages, including grenade launchers, gun parts, rifles, and spare rifle parts. In a reply to Lewis, he cited concerns about the “conduct” of specific Israeli National Police units, including the elite Yamam border patrol unit.

Le Mon wrote that there were “numerous reports” of Yamam’s involvement in “gross violations of human rights.” DRL raised objections against 16 separate arms packages for Israel, according to the email and a source familiar with the matter. Nearly all the shipments went ahead despite the bureau’s objections, the source said. Yamam’s missions eventually included a June 8 rescue of four Israeli hostages that Gaza health officials say killed more than 200 Palestinians.

Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, strongly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for exacerbating the conflict and intentionally withholding aid from Gaza in an interview with Spanish radio on Friday.

Borrell shared his concerns with Onda Cero over the intensity of any Israeli response to the Iranian attack on Israel last Tuesday.

He emphasized that Israel is only able to achieve military superiority thanks to the support it receives from the West.

He warned that an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities was sure to lead to a response that could spiral the region into regional or even global war if other actors, such as Russia and China, become involved.

Borrel then accused Netanyahu of wanting to start a war, "Netanyahu wants a conflict, and he wants to start it from a position of strength."

He criticized Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods into Gaza, saying that Israel does not allow humanitarian aid to enter.

He accused Israel of leaving warehouses of food to rot, "I have seen warehouses and warehouses of humanitarian aid piled up, rotting, that cannot enter when on the other side of the fence there are two million people who are dying of hunger or diseases."

Borrel has been a persistent critic of Israel throughout his term, but in particular in the year since the October 7 massacre.

Changing administration
His term has nearly expired, and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas will replace him in December as part of the European Commission's regular leadership change.

Kallas's appointment is mostly due to her strong pro-Ukraine stance, calling for increased support for the country in its war with Russia.

She has cited Israel's successful military maneuvers and air defenses as proof that with Western support, Ukraine can achieve more success on the battlefield.

Kallas has previously supported Israel's right to self-defense and denounced Hamas while also calling for a two-state solution and a ceasefire

The Israeli military carried out heavy overnight strikes on Dahiya, the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs. An NBC News crew described it as by far the heaviest strikes on Lebanon's capital since the start of this conflict.

The Israel Defense Forces has issued evacuation orders for much of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, as it returns to the area in what appears to be a major new offensive.

The region remains on edge as Israel continues to threaten to strike Iran in response to Iran's retaliatory missile attack on Israel last week.

Israeli overnight airstrikes on a mosque and school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza killed at least 26 and injured nearly 100, according to the health ministry.

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, the IDF said it was bolstering security against potential attacks by Hamas on Israel, as pro-Palestinian demonstrations were held in cities around the world, protesting Israel's ensuing war in Gaza.

The US has reportedly offered Israel a "compensation package" if it refrains from attacking certain targets in Iran, according to a report in Kan11 on Sunday.

Amichai Stein told them that he had received reports from US officials that the US had offered Israel a "compensation package" if it refrained from hitting specific targets in Iran.

This package was offered during negotiations between officials of the two countries on the type of response to the attack from Iran.

The package would include a total guarantee of comprehensive diplomatic protection as well as a weapons package and was offered directly in return for holding off on striking certain targets in Iran.

Quid pro Quo
Stein summed it up, saying, "An American official said, 'If you don't hit targets A, B, C, we will provide you with diplomatic protection and an arms package.'"

"Israeli officials responded saying, 'We consider the United States and listen to them. But we will do anything and everything we can to protect the citizens and the security of the State of Israel.'"

US to give Israel 'compensation' if it hits acceptable targets in Iran - report

My take on this is that the Americans are trying to bribe Israel not to hit the oil fields and mess up the economy before the election.

We have to bribe Israel..not to damage our countries economic interests..? Where is the UN, when we need them ..?

If you all so care for my life; it would be much more effective to call for rallies to stop this war.

I am seeing no such rallies anymore; if not mistaken?

For the past year, Israeli soldiers stationed atop a windswept mountain abutting the border with Lebanon have watched the enemy deploy men and missiles.

The members of this female-only army unit, known as field observers, have tracked Hezbollah fighters as they drove through narrow alleyways and green valleys, setting and resetting launchers, approaching the border fence and pulling back. The observers, most between 18 and 20 years old, have been responsible for identifying and reporting many of the 10,000 drones, mortar rounds, rockets and antitank missiles that have streaked across Israel’s northern skies since October.

They are the eyes of the military along Israel’s embattled borders, monitoring multiple screens around-the-clock to supply reconnaissance that guides forces on the ground. They flag changes in routines of the men they observe and investigate intelligence alerts sent from above.
But a year after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack, these young women say Israel is still not doing enough to reckon with the kind of threats that exploded across its southern frontier on that awful morning, when gunmen streamed across the border from Gaza. Field observers near Gaza were among the first to sound the alarm about Hamas’s preparations for a large-scale attack, and among the first to be killed and kidnapped during what turned out to be the deadliest day — and largest intelligence failure — in Israel’s history.

Still, despite Israel’s recent run of military successes, the field observers say they are ignored by their commanders, as they were before Hamas attacked; left vulnerable in the north after being abandoned to die in the south.

Parts of their ordeal on Oct. 7 were captured, indelibly, on Hamas militants’ body cameras. Inside the Nahal Oz base, less than a mile from the border with Gaza, gunmen lined the field observers up against a wall, still in their pajamas, some with faces bloodied, before loading them into trucks and driving back to the enclave. The field observers in the north watching Hezbollah fighters, who Israeli officials say have been formulating similar plans for years, fear the same fate could befall them.

“We are unprotected, which is a problem for us, but it is also dangerous for our work, which is very important,” said an observer near the border with Lebanon, speaking on the condition of anonymity in accordance with Israeli military protocol. Her superiors, she said, “only want to shut us up, to not come to them with complaints, so they’re ignoring us even more.”

The Washington Post spoke to seven current and former field observers and their parents, and to five Israeli military experts and intelligence officials past and present, about the unit’s behind-the-scenes role — and the assertions of its members that they have been silenced and sidelined. Many field observers attribute this partly to ingrained misogyny in the Israel Defense Forces, where men dominate the decision-making ranks. More broadly, the observers point to a top-heavy, unwieldy bureaucracy that prioritized technology over field intelligence in Gaza and that remains resistant to structural change and accountability.

The IDF declined to comment for this article, saying it could not speak to Oct. 7 or its aftermath while investigations are ongoing

’They’ve forgotten already'
Of the about 1,200 people killed that day, 15 were field observers from Nahal Oz. Seven other observers were taken hostage. One was later rescued by Israeli forces; another was killed by her captors in November, the IDF said. Five remain in captivity. Their parents have been informed that they are among the few dozen hostages still believed to be alive, even as hopes of a cease-fire and hostage-release deal continue to fade.

In the weeks after the attack, as a broken country searched for answers, it became clear that the observers in Nahal Oz had been warning of something unprecedented — and were disregarded.
For months they had logged reports about Hamas ramping up its military activities: training several times a week, then several times a day; hoisting Palestinian and Hamas flags as they drove in convoys up and down the length of the Gaza Strip. These were not routine drills, the observers told a civilian commission of inquiry in August, but complex military exercises that would soon be put in motion to devastate more than 20 Israeli communities.

“There are things that I know that you don’t. They will not stop attacking anytime soon,” Roni Eshel, a field observer in Nahal Oz, told her mother in a call recorded two weeks before the attack and shared with The Post. Violent demonstrations by Gazans were mounting, she said, with explosions set at the border fence. “I’m exhausted already,” Eshel confided to her mother. “I don’t have the energy to be here.”

She was killed on the morning of Oct. 7.

The field observers said they were confident that something big was about to happen because they understood their enemies. They knew their names and faces, as well as the intimate rhythm and routine of their days. But when the women tried to send alerts up the almost exclusively male chain of command, they said, they were told they didn’t have access to the full picture. Superiors said that the observers’ posts offered limited visibility and that there was no way they could connect the dots.

“It is a male army, where the ‘girls’ are seen as hysterical, where the commanders say, regularly, ‘If you continue to send these alarms, you will be put in jail,’ ” said Gili Yuval, who served as a field observer in the early 2000s, when Israeli dismantled its settlements in Gaza and pulled its forces.

Since Oct. 7, she has spearheaded a loosely organized network of current and former observers that provided such basics as food and clothes to victims in the immediate aftermath of the attack, when the state was mostly absent, and helped to foster a sense of sisterhood and community.

“It is very hard not to factor in the biases of chauvinism,” said Shira Efron, policy research director at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group. “The men around the table decided to disregard anything coming from this female-only unit.”
The IDF declined to comment on why the field observers’ warnings went unheeded and on claims that gender bias played a role.

Gili Shrvit, 20, was an observer at another post along the Gaza border, in Kissufim. On the morning of Oct. 7, she sat at her workstation, shaking and crying as she reported the unfolding horrors: Hundreds of Hamas gunmen had stormed their fence, then shot out their cameras, then entered their base.

“We were calling our superiors, telling them we are about to die,” she recalled. “They said they have no one for us.”

They crouched under their work stations, Shrvit recalled, without weapons to fight back. She said their commanders, 20 miles away, told them combat soldiers were ensnared in ambushes and could not be spared. As bloodied soldiers were dragged in from outside, the women improvised tourniquets, Shrvit said, but many of the wounded were beyond saving.

When her camera “miraculously” switched back on, Shrvit said, she immediately got back to work, reporting everything she saw: the hundreds of Hamas-led forces becoming thousands, traversing back and forth from Gaza to the surrounding communities. She watched Shlomo Mansour, now 86, being taken from his home in Kissufim into Gaza, where he remains. He is Israel’s oldest hostage in the war.

At the heart of Israel’s failure, Shrvit believes, was its rigid and unresponsive military bureaucracy. The top brass, far from the front lines, instinctually mistrusted the troops on the ground and the female observers who supported them, she said. While her team tried to build intelligence on the militants, shepherds and farmers who crisscrossed their area of surveillance, Shrvit said, their commanders would direct them to divert their focus — in some cases asking them to follow targets they knew from experience were incorrect.

“They would see what I see, and they would always think they knew best,” she said.
Shrvit returned to her position a month after the attack, haunted by nightmares, and slept at her workstation for three months. In August, she was discharged.

“The wasteland of chaos that we experienced, they’ve forgotten already,” she said. “Which means that we are compromising our national security, again.”

’We went to sleep’
The confusion and lack of foresight on such stark display on Oct. 7 was more than two decades in the making, according to current and former officials, who say the work of field observers was deprioritized alongside a steady erosion of Israel’s visual and human intelligence apparatuses in Gaza.

In 2001, the observers were transferred outside the purview of Aman, Israel’s military intelligence agency, to the IDF Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, though they continued to perform the same tasks. Around the same time, the mixed-gender unit was, for reasons still unclear, transformed into an all-female force.

The IDF “takes the girls as cheap labor,” said Uzi Arad, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because “women’s analytical capabilities are greater than men’s.”

When Netanyahu rose to power, eventually becoming the country’s longest-serving leader, he championed a radical reconceptualization of Israel’s approach to Hamas — pursuing a strategy of containment that relied on shoring up the group’s government in Gaza with financial support from intermediaries, while keeping its military capabilities in check with occasional bombing campaigns.

“It was self-delusion,” Arad said. “And there wasn’t anyone who challenged it.”

A broken oath
For 11 months, Israel’s northern front was treated as an afterthought, field observers there said, even as Hezbollah rockets and antitank missiles forced tens of thousands of people from their homes.

In April, when Iran launched an aerial attack on Israel in retaliation for a deadly Israeli strike near an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, observers on the northern base were refused updates as they hunkered down, one of them said, forced to check their phones for news during brief breaks. In September, as Israel began to ramp up operations against Hezbollah, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi visited the post but refused to meet with the observers.

“We are 100 observers,” she said. “But for him, we are like air.”

Israel’s ground invasion of southern Lebanon, its first since 2006, is aimed at dismantling the military capabilities of Hezbollah’s elite units along the border, officials say, ensuring they are unable to carry out an attack in the north similar to the Oct. 7 one.

But observers’ families say that goal still feels far off and, in the meantime, their daughters remain in harm’s way. Marganit Erez, a mother of a field observer at the base near Lebanon, is among a group of parents who have petitioned the Supreme Court of Israel to order the military to move the unit farther south, away from immediate danger.

“The IDF is not taking the steps to ensure that the catastrophe will not repeat itself,” Erez said.
Her daughter and the other observers in the north often sleep four hours a day, she said, working double and triple shifts because so few women are willing to serve there.

The doors of their bomb shelters have no locks — the shelters are designed to repel rockets, not gunmen — and, with protocols varying from base to base, the observers are given weapons only if they file a special request. There are bars over the bathroom windows, one of the few means of escape for observers in Nahal Oz during the Hamas assault. When the women ask about possible infiltrations by militants, they are brushed off, they say, or told such things cannot happen.

“The arrogance and a refusal to take responsibility” that was evident before Oct. 7 “is absolutely still there,” the former Shin Bet official said.

But field observers and their families — echoing the pain across this angry, grieving nation — have lost faith, threatening the social contract that is at the heart of Israel’s national identity.
“We are willing to do a lot for our country,” Erez said. “But the IDF has broken its fundamental oath.”

Israel is not expected to attack Iran's nuclear program but rather to focus on various kinds of military bases and intelligence sites, the Jerusalem Post has learned, following a New York Times report on the issue.

Confronted with the Times report, sources did not deny the thrust of the report, which predicted that Israel's retaliation against Iran for its massive October 1 strike on the Jewish state would fall more in the medium range of attack scenarios.

Further, the Post<understands that Israel's attack on Iran - which virtually all top Israeli officials have publicly promised - will still be much more substantial than its narrower retaliation on April 19, when Iran's S-300 anti-aircraft missile system was damaged.

Despite being presented with the idea that the current context could be a once-in-50-year opportunity to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, sources indicated that attacking Iran's nuclear program would not necessarily be consistent with the "goals of the war" as set by the security cabinet.

For example, while the most stated goal of the war is to defeat Hamas, and returning Israel's northern residents to the Lebanon border in security has also been discussed a lot lately, another formal goal is not to be dragged into a regional war, especially with Iran, the Post understands.

Worries of a regional war with Iran
In other words, getting drawn into a regional war with Iran - something which the security cabinet, the IDF, the US, and most of the West are worried could happen if Israel struck Iran's nuclear facilities - could significantly distract and impair Jerusalem's ability to finish off Hamas and achieve a more secure situation with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Post has learned that some top Israeli officials view Iran's second attack on October 1 (after its first attack over April 13-14) not as an indication of a readiness by Tehran to get into a broader war, but as an attempt to rebalance its own deterrence from Israel after the IDF has managed to a large extent to eliminate its two largest "insurance policies": Hezbollah and Hamas.

Many US and Western officials have said that Israel cannot destroy Iran's nuclear program on its own without US help due to Jerusalem lacking a mega bunker buster bomb to destroy the Islamic Republic's underground nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz.