Originally Posted By BM1455:

The Israel Defense Force has now Confirmed what was reported earlier today, which is that Abdallah Aljamal, a Photojournalist as well as Writer/Editor for Al-Jazeera and several other Palestinian New’s Organizations was a Member of Hamas and was holding several of the Hostages… pic.twitter.com/luf0a5ppub

OSINTdefender  (@sentdefender) June 9, 2024

The military releases new footage showing the moments when rescued hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv, were being extracted from the Gaza Strip in a helicopter.

The clip shows the three boarding the chopper and being flown to Tel Hashomer Hospital in central Israel.

The fourth hostage rescued in Saturday's operation in Nuseirat, Noa Argamani, was taken in a separate helicopter after being freed by special forces from another building.

The Israeli Air Force’s Aerial Defense Array has intercepted more than 150 drones using ground-based systems, such as the Iron Dome, amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and fighting along the Lebanon border, according to new data published by the military.

Many more drones were downed by fighter jets, according to the IAF.

Drone attacks have largely been carried out from Lebanon. Several have been launched from Gaza, and there have also been numerous drones launched by Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Hezbollah’s near-daily explosive-laden drone attacks from Lebanon have been one of the Aerial Defense Array’s most significant challenges amid the war. In numerous cases, the IAF has been challenged to detect the threat in time in order to intercept it, leading to casualties.

The terror group in recent months has increasingly been using explosive-laden drones, alongside anti-tank guided missiles and barrages of rockets.

Hezbollah’s drones have largely been launched at army positions or Israeli communities on the border, with a handful of incidents of drones being launched much further, even up to 40 kilometers deep into Israel.

With drones, being able to detect them accurately is the most important, but most complicated part of thwarting the threat, IAF officials say.

The Aerial Defense Array uses a wide-range of sensors to detect what it calls “suspicious aerial targets,” heading into Israeli airspace. Though repeatedly, with Israeli radars set to a high sensitivity, many such targets have later been determined to have been “false identifications,” often birds.

At times, Israeli drones that failed to identify themselves correctly were also shot down.

Still, Hezbollah’s drones are not always identified by the IAF at all until it is far too late to intercept them.

The topography on the Lebanon border, with many ridges and hills, can potentially be a challenge to Israeli radars. This, combined with the often very short flight paths, makes it difficult for the IAF to respond in time to the attack when it does detect the drone.

Unlike during Iran’s attack on Israel on April 14, the IAF and its allies were able to detect hundreds of Iranian drones heading toward Israel hours in advance, preventing any of them from entering Israeli airspace.
The IAF says that nothing in the Aerial Defense Array is automatic, and every identification and launch of an interceptor is carried out manually by its soldiers.

According to recent IAF assessments, Hezbollah is attempting to harm Israel’s air defenses amid the fighting, and would especially work to target the Aerial Defense Array’s systems in an all-out war. Last week, Hezbollah published a video showing it striking with a guided missile what it claimed was an Iron Dome launcher in northern Israel.

In a war, Hezbollah is likely to launch swarms of drones, rather than two or three at a time as it currently does, in what could become a major challenge, according to the IAF assessments.

The IAF also says that more than 19,000 unguided rockets have also been launched at Israel amid the war, mostly from the Gaza Strip although the portion of rocket attacks from Lebanon has been steadily growing in recent months. Thousands of those rockets have been intercepted by air defenses.

Two explosive-laden drones launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon a few hours ago impacted in the northern Golan Heights, the military says.

One of the drone impacts sparked a fire near the northern community of Sha'al, which was extinguished a short while later.

The IDF says several interceptor missiles were launched at the drones, although it failed to down the two devices.

As a result of the interception attempts, a fire was sparked in the Safed area. Firefighters are working to extinguish the blaze.

The IDF says the incident is under further investigation.

Also today, two rockets launched from Lebanon at the Mount Hermon area hit open areas, the military says.

Meanwhile, sirens that sounded in Kiryat Shmona at 17:45, and in the Upper Galilee at 17:20 and 15:11, were determined to be false alarms, the IDF adds.

The IDF also says it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher and a building used by the terror group in Aitaroun, and another building in Ayta ash-Shab.

Originally Posted By Cypher15:

You thought Fauda was badass, this is the real deal! \uD83D\uDCAA\uD83C\uDFFB\uD83C\uDDEE\uD83C\uDDF1

Watch the Yamam unit's thrilling rescue of Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov, their evacuation by helicopter and their approach to Tel Hashomer hospital. pic.twitter.com/S19QnQaL8t

— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) June 10, 2024

Key Takeaways

Gaza Strip
Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar is likely hiding in a “vast” tunnel system beneath Khan Younis, according to unspecified US officials.

Palestinian fighters conducted at least five mortar and rocket attacks targeting Israeli “supply lines” and headquarters along the Netzarim Corridor.  The 99th Division is currently operating along the corridor, which the Israelis use to launch raids against Hamas fighters and infrastructure in the northern and central Gaza Strip.

98th Division continued clearing operations in eastern Deir al Balah and eastern Bureij in the central Gaza Strip.  98th Division and Southern Command directed strikes targeting Hamas Nukhba fighters and underground infrastructure in Deir al Balah.

7th Brigade and the Yahalom combat engineering unit destroyed underground militia infrastructure as well as a training facility in eastern Bureij.  Kfir Brigade detained Palestinian fighters and located weapons caches in central Gaza.  A unit of the 35th Paratroopers Brigade killed a Palestinian fighter emerging from a tunnel shaft carrying a rocket-propelled grenade.

162nd Division continued clearing operations in Rafah.  Hamas fighters detonated a five-story building rigged to explode and collapse on an IDF Givati Brigade unit in Shaboura refugee camp, central Rafah.  Hamas repeatedly mortared the explosion site after the attack to prevent the Israeli quick reaction force from responding to the situation.  

Palestinian reports claimed that the house-borne IED attack injured as many as 10 Israeli soldiers.  Hamas has inflicted high casualties on Israeli units through house-borne IED attacks, either by rigging the houses themselves or prematurely detonating buildings that Israeli forces rigged with explosives. The highest IDF single casualty event of the war, which killed 21 Israeli soldiers, occurred in January 2024 when Hamas detonated a building that the IDF had prepared to demolish with explosives in the central Gaza Strip.  

Hamas leaders have given standing orders to Hamas fighters to shoot hostages if the fighters believe that Israeli forces are closing in, according to Israeli officials speaking to the New York Times.  Hamas claimed on June 9 that the IDF operation to rescue four hostages in the central Gaza Strip on June 8 lead to the deaths of three other Israeli hostages, one an American citizen.

The World Food Program (WFP) paused humanitarian aid provision through the US-built pier after recent rocket attacks near the pier. The organization’s director said that two of the WFP’s warehouses were struck by rocket fire, injuring one individual on June 8.

PIJ launched mortars and rockets at an IDF site near Kerem Shalom.

West Bank
Israeli forces have engaged Palestinian fighters in at least four locations across the West Bank.  Unspecified fighters fired small arms and detonated improvised explosive devices (IED) at Israeli forces in Burqa, east of Ramallah.

The IDF and Israeli Shin Bet launched an operation targeting Palestinian fighters near Tubas, the operation is ongoing.

The IDF has detained three wanted individuals.  The al Aqsa Martyrs‘ Brigades attacked Israeli forces operating in the camp.  Palestinian Authority-affiliated media reported that the IDF killed one Palestinian and wounded four others.

Lebanon
Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted at least 16 attacks into northern Israel in the last 24 hours.

An Israeli Army Radio correspondent highlighted some of the challenges that Israeli forces face intercepting drones targeting northern Israel in an X (Twitter) post on June 10. These challenges are particularly salient given the increased risk of a major war between Israel and Hezbollah in northern Israel. Hezbollah would likely use the lessons it is learning in its attacks on Israel to penetrate Israeli air defenses and strike critical infrastructure and civilian areas, including Haifa port.

Yemen
US Central Command destroyed two Houthi land attack cruise missiles and one missile launcher in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen on June 9 as well as a suicide drone over the Gulf of Aden.  Houthi media claimed that the United States and the United Kingdom conducted three airstrikes targeting al Jabaneh, west of Hudaydah, Yemen.

Iranian Presidential Elections
The Iranian Guardian Council approved six candidates including one reformist and five hardliners for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. The participation of five hardliners risks splitting the hardline vote, though some hardliners will probably withdraw from the election to prevent splitting the vote. The Guardian Council did not approve some top politicians, including former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani.

Iran
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s advisers have spoken to Western diplomats in recent weeks, possibly to set conditions for the resumption of nuclear negotiations if he becomes president.

Iraq
An Iranian-backed Iraqi militia warned on June 8 that it will resume attacks targeting US forces if US forces do not leave Iraq. Unspecified Iranian-backed militias in Iraq reportedly plan to renew attacks if the Iraqi prime minister does not set a deadline for a full US military withdrawal by May 15.

Ceasefire Negotiations
The United States is reportedly considering bilateral hostage talks with Hamas to free Americans from the Gaza Strip.

Four Givati Brigade soldiers were killed in combat in Gaza's south on Monday. Their names are Tal Pshebilski Shaulov, 24-years-old from Gedera; Eitan Karlsbrun, 20-years-old from Modi'in; Almog Shalom, 19-years-old from Kibbutz Hamadia; and Yair Levin, 19-years old from Givat Harel.

■ The United Nations human rights office said on Tuesday that the civilian deaths in Gaza during the Israeli operation to secure the release of four hostages and their holding by armed groups in densely populated areas could amount to war crimes.

■ Hamas accepts a UN Security Council cease-fire resolution and is ready to negotiate over the details, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters on Tuesday.

■ U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday a Hamas statement of support for a UN resolution backing a proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza was a 'hopeful sign', while word coming from the Palestinian militant group's leadership in Gaza is what counts.

■ Fifty rockets were detected crossing over from Lebanon into the Golan Heights, the IDF said, with some intercepted and the rest falling in open areas with no casualties. Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for dozens of rockets launched.

■ Air force fighter jets have attacked overnight into Tuesday a military compound of Hezbollah's Unit 4400, a logistical unit in charge of transferring weapons within Lebanon, the IDF said. The strike happened near Baalbek, deep into the country.

■ Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has referred to the tens of thousands of Gazans who were killed in the Strip since October 7 as "necessary sacrifices" in messages he sent to the Hamas officials in charge of the hostage negotiations, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

■ The Israeli army continues to operate in Gaza's southern Rafah, the IDF said, adding that over the past day, Givati brigade combat soldiers raided several parts of the city and killed groups of armed men in close-range encounters. At the same time, Air Force fighter jets and aerial vehicles attacked 35 targets across the Strip, including military buildings, weapon warehouses and launch sites.

■ A fire broke out Tuesday in the Nahal Zavitan area in the Golan region after rocket sirens were heard in the area, said the local council head. According to him, it remains unclear if the fire broke out as a result of a missile falling or shrapnel from an intercepting missile.

[M]ore fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage.

"We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials.

Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas units in the Gaza Strip’s south has disrupted humanitarian-aid shipments, caused mounting civilian casualties and intensified international criticism of Israel’s efforts to eradicate the Islamist extremist group.

For much of Sinwar’s political life, shaped by bloody conflict with an Israeli state that he says has no right to exist, he has stuck to a simple playbook. Backed into a corner, he looks to violence for a way out. The current fight in Gaza is no exception.

In dozens of messages...he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas.

Sinwar has...micromanaged Hamas’s war effort, drafting letters, sending messages to cease-fire negotiators and deciding when the U.S.-designated terrorist group ramps up or dials back its attacks.

His ultimate goal appears to be to win a permanent cease-fire that allows Hamas to declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel and claim leadership of the Palestinian national cause.

Sinwar believes Netanyahu has few options other than occupying Gaza and getting bogged down fighting a Hamas-led insurgency for months or years. “For Netanyahu, a victory would be even worse than a defeat,” Sinwar told an Italian journalist writing in 2018.

...early messages to cease-fire negotiators show [Sinwar] seemed surprised by the brutality of Hamas’s armed wing and other Palestinians, and how easily they committed civilian atrocities.

“Things went out of control,” Sinwar said in one of his messages, referring to gangs taking civilian women and children as hostages. “People got caught up in this, and that should not have happened.

This became a talking point for Hamas to explain away the Oct. 7 civilian toll.
(I'm calling BS on this--he could have freed women and children that day if it was a mistake.  Some Palestinians did just that, sending children.back into Israel)

Exclusive | Gaza Chief’s Brutal Calculation: Civilian Bloodshed Will Help Hamas

For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in Gaza has sent to mediators show, is a calculation that more fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage.

“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Sinwar said in a recent message to Hamas officials seeking to broker an agreement with Qatari and Egyptian officials.

Fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas units in the Gaza Strip’s south has disrupted humanitarian-aid shipments, caused mounting civilian casualties and intensified international criticism of Israel’s efforts to eradicate the Islamist extremist group.

For much of Sinwar’s political life, shaped by bloody conflict with an Israeli state that he says has no right to exist, he has stuck to a simple playbook. Backed into a corner, he looks to violence for a way out. The current fight in Gaza is no exception.

In dozens of messages—reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar.

More than 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, most of them civilians, Palestinian officials say. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants. Health authorities said almost 300 Palestinians were killed Saturday in an Israeli raid that rescued four hostages kept in captivity in homes surrounded by civilians—driving home for some Palestinians their role as pawns for Hamas.

In one message to Hamas leaders in Doha, Sinwar cited civilian losses in national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France, saying, “these are necessary sacrifices.”

In an April 11 letter to Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh after three of Haniyeh’s adult sons were killed by an Israeli airstrike, Sinwar wrote that their deaths and those of other Palestinians would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

Sinwar isn’t the first Palestinian leader to embrace bloodshed as a means to pressure Israel. But the scale of the collateral damage in this war—civilians killed and destruction wrought—is unprecedented between Israelis and Palestinians.

Despite Israel’s ferocious effort to kill him, Sinwar has survived and micromanaged Hamas’s war effort, drafting letters, sending messages to cease-fire negotiators and deciding when the U.S.-designated terrorist group ramps up or dials back its attacks.

His ultimate goal appears to be to win a permanent cease-fire that allows Hamas to declare a historic victory by outlasting Israel and claim leadership of the Palestinian national cause.

President Biden is trying to force Israel and Hamas to halt the war. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is opposed to permanently ending the fight before what he calls “total victory” over Hamas.

Even without a lasting truce, Sinwar believes Netanyahu has few options other than occupying Gaza and getting bogged down fighting a Hamas-led insurgency for months or years.

It is an outcome that Sinwar foreshadowed six years ago when he first became leader in the Gaza Strip. Hamas might lose a war with Israel, but it would cause an Israeli occupation of more than two million Palestinians.

“For Netanyahu, a victory would be even worse than a defeat,” Sinwar told an Italian journalist writing in 2018 in an Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth.

The 1967 war, which took place when Sinwar was a child, reordered the Middle East.

Sinwar, now in his early 60s, was roughly 5 years old when the 1967 war brought him his first experience of significant violence between Israelis and Arabs. That brief fight reordered the Middle East. Israel took control of the Golan Heights from Syria and the West Bank from Jordan. It also captured the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, as well as the Gaza Strip, where Sinwar grew up in a United Nations-run refugee camp.

The conflict was a constant presence. Sinwar published a novel in 2004 while in Israeli prison and wrote in the preface that it was based on his own experiences. In the book, a father digs a deep hole in the yard of the refugee camp during the 1967 war, covering it with wood and metal to make a shelter.  

A young son waits in the hole with his family, crying and hearing the sounds of explosions grow louder as the Israeli army approaches. The boy tries to climb out, only for his mother to yell: “It’s war out there! Don’t you know what war means?”

Sinwar joined the movement that eventually became Hamas in the 1980s, becoming close to founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and setting up an internal-security police that hunted and killed suspected informants, according to the transcript of his confession to Israeli interrogators in 1988.

He received multiple life sentences for murder and spent 22 years in prison before being freed in a swap along with a thousand other Palestinians in 2011 for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

During the negotiations between Israel and Hamas over the Shalit swap, Sinwar was influential in pushing for the freedom of Palestinians who were jailed for murdering Israelis.

He wanted to release even those who were involved in bombings that had killed large numbers of Israelis and was so maximalist in his demands that Israel put him in solitary confinement so he wouldn’t disrupt progress.

When he became leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2017, violence was a constant in his repertoire. Hamas had wrested control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in a bloody conflict a decade earlier, and while Sinwar moved early in his tenure to reconcile Hamas with other Palestinian factions, he warned that he would “break the neck” of anyone who stood in the way.

In 2018, Sinwar supported weekly protests at the fence between Gaza and Israeli territory. Fearful of a breach in the barrier, the Israeli military fired on Palestinians and agitators who came too close. It was all part of the plan.

“We make the headlines only with blood,” Sinwar said in the interview at the time with an Italian journalist. “No blood, no news.”

In 2021, reconciliation talks between Hamas and Palestinian factions appeared to be progressing toward legislative and presidential elections for the Palestinian Authority, the first in 15 years. But at the last moment, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled polls. With the political track closed, Sinwar days later turned to bloodshed to change the status quo, firing rockets on Jerusalem amid tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the city. The ensuing 11-day conflict killed 242 Palestinians and 12 people in Israel.

Israeli airstrikes caused such damage that Israeli officials believed Sinwar would be deterred from again attacking Israelis.

But the opposite happened: Israeli officials now believe Sinwar then began planning the Oct. 7 attacks. One aim was to end the paralysis in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and revive its global diplomatic importance, said Arab and Hamas officials familiar with Sinwar’s thinking.

Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories had lasted more than half a century, and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners were talking about annexing land in the West Bank that Palestinians wanted for a future state. Saudi Arabia, once a champion of the Palestinian cause, was in talks to normalize relations with Israel.

Though Sinwar planned and greenlighted the Oct. 7 attacks, early messages to cease-fire negotiators show he seemed surprised by the brutality of Hamas’s armed wing and other Palestinians, and how easily they committed civilian atrocities.

“Things went out of control,” Sinwar said in one of his messages, referring to gangs taking civilian women and children as hostages. “People got caught up in this, and that should not have happened.

This became a talking point for Hamas to explain away the Oct. 7 civilian toll.

Early in the war, Sinwar focused on using the hostages as a bargaining chip to delay an Israeli ground operation in Gaza. A day after Israeli soldiers entered the strip, Sinwar said Hamas was ready for an immediate deal to exchange its hostages for the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

But Sinwar had misread how Israel would react to Oct. 7. Netanyahu declared Israel was going to destroy Hamas and said the only way to force the group to release hostages was through military pressure.  

Sinwar appears to have also misinterpreted the support that Iran and Lebanese militia Hezbollah were willing to offer.

When Hamas political chief Haniyeh and deputy Saleh al-Arouri traveled to Tehran in November for a meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they were told that Tehran backed Hamas but wouldn’t be entering the conflict

“He was partly misled by them and partly misled himself,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israeli commentator who has known Sinwar since his days in prison. “He was extremely disappointed.”

By November, Hamas’s political leadership privately began distancing themselves from Sinwar, saying he launched the Oct. 7 attacks without telling them, Arab officials who spoke to Hamas said.

At the end of November, Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire and the release of some hostages held by the militants. But the deal collapsed after a week.

As Israel’s army quickly dismantled Hamas’s military structures, the group’s political leadership began meeting other Palestinian factions in early December to discuss reconciliation and a postwar plan. Sinwar wasn’t consulted.

Sinwar in a message sent to the political leaders blasted the end-around as “shameful and outrageous.”

“As long as fighters are still standing and we have not lost the war, such contacts should be immediately terminated,” he said. “We have the capabilities to continue fighting for months.”

On Jan. 2, Arouri was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut, and Sinwar began to change the way he communicated, said Arab officials. He used aliases and relayed notes only through a handful of trusted aides and via codes, switching between audio, messages spoken to intermediaries and written messages, they said.

Still, his communications indicate he began to feel things were turning Hamas’s way.

By the end of that month, Israel’s military advance had slowed to a grueling battle in the city of Khan Younis, Sinwar’s hometown. Israel began to lose more troops. On Jan. 23, about two dozen Israeli troops were killed in central and southern Gaza, the invasion’s deadliest day for the military.

Arab mediators hastened to speed up talks about a cease-fire, and on Feb. 19, Israel set a deadline of Ramadan—a month later—for Hamas to return the hostages or face a ground offensive in Rafah, what Israeli officials described as the militant group’s last stronghold.

Sinwar in a message urged his comrades in Hamas’s political leadership outside Gaza not to make concessions and instead to push for a permanent end to the war. High civilian casualties would create worldwide pressure on Israel, Sinwar said. The group’s armed wing was ready for the onslaught, Sinwar’s messages said.

“Israel’s journey in Rafah won’t be a walk in the park,” Sinwar told Hamas leaders in Doha in a message.

At the end of February, an aid delivery in Gaza turned deadly as Israeli forces fired on Palestinian civilians crowding trucks, adding U.S. pressure on Israel to limit casualties.

Disagreements among Israel’s wartime leaders erupted into public view, as Netanyahu failed to articulate a postwar governance plan for Gaza and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, privately warned against reoccupying the strip. Israelis grew concerned the country was losing the war.

In May, Israel again threatened to attack Rafah if cease-fire talks remained deadlocked, a move Hamas viewed as purely a negotiating tactic.

Netanyahu said Israel needed to expand into Rafah to destroy Hamas’s military structure there and disrupt smuggling from Egypt.

Sinwar’s response: Hamas fired on Kerem Shalom crossing May 5, killing four soldiers. Hamas officials outside Gaza began to echo Sinwar’s confident posture.

Israel has since launched its Rafah operation. But as Sinwar predicted, it has come at a humanitarian and diplomatic cost.

Sinwar’s messages, meanwhile, indicate he’s willing to die in the fighting.

In a recent message to allies, the Hamas leader likened the war to a 7th-century battle in Karbala, Iraq, where the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad was controversially slain.

“We have to move forward on the same path we started,” Sinwar wrote. “Or let it be a new Karbala.”

Four Israeli soldiers killed in explosion of booby-trapped house in Rafah, southern Gaza
Tal Pshebilski Shaulov, Eitan Karlsbrun, Almog Shalom, and Yair Levin were killed when a booby trapped building exploded in the Shabura neighborhood in Rafah's east

Four Israeli soldiers were killed Monday and six wounded in combat in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

The army named the Givati Brigade soldiers killed as Tal Pshebilski Shaulov, 24-years-old from Gedera; Eitan Karlsbrun, 20-years-old from Modi'in; Almog Shalom, 19-years-old from Kibbutz Hamadia; and Yair Levin, 19-years old from Givat Harel.

The soldiers' group was made up of soldiers in training, and was hit when a booby trapped building exploded in the Shabura neighborhood in Rafah's east.

Pshebilski was the head of the group, and when he and three others entered the house of a Hamas militant, an explosive device went off and caused the building to collapse. After the explosion, a tunnel was found underneath the house.

The IDF believes that the militant who lived there was involved in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

A Givati officer and four soldiers in training were severely wounded, and another combat soldier was moderately wounded in the incident.

According to IDF data, 650 soldiers have been killed since the October 7 attack. Of these, 298 were killed in the ground operation in the Gaza Strip that began at the end of last October.

Pshebilski Shaulov grew up in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, and studied at the Yitzhak Rabin School and Makif T High School. He played in the Ashdod sports club and was a classmate of the couple Sivan Elkavatz and Naor Hassidim, who were murdered on October 7 in Kibbutz Kfar Azza.

Pshebilski Shaulov is survived by his parents, Shaul and Yuli. His funeral will be held at 2 P.M. on Tuesday at the Gedera Cemetery.

Karlsbrun was a graduate of the Maccabim-Reut High School. He is survived by his parents and three sisters. His funeral was held at 12 P.M. Tuesday at the military cemetery in Modi'in.

Karlsbrun's fellow soldiers wrote, "Eitan began the war on the path of a combat soldier. After a long period of ongoing combat, he finished the path together with his military company inside the Gaza Strip, and moved to the role of an advanced training officer. With the company's ascension to this path, Eitan was promoted to the position of sergeant, and served in the last week as the company commander.

"Eitan was dedicated, opinionated, a role model, and someone to look up to who stuck to his beliefs and always sacrificed for the common good."

Levin studied at the Ahavas Chaim high school in the West Bank settlement of Kokhav HaShahar, and later at a pre-army preparatory school in Jaffa. He is survived by his parents, Yohai and Na'ama, and his brothers Elroy and Eitan.

Levin's maternal grandfather is former MK Moshe Feiglin. Levin's funeral was held at 11:30 A.M. on Tuesday at the military cemetery in Karnei Shomron.

Israeli special forces are carrying out a raid in the West Bank town of Kafr Dan, near Jenin, according to the military and Palestinian media.

As troops entered the town they came under fire by Palestinian gunmen.

The troops returned fire, fired shoulder-launched missiles at a target, and an attack helicopter also carried out a strike in the area. Footage shows a military chopper opening fire over the town.

At least three Palestinians are reported killed in the raid, military sources say.

The IDF says at least 15 rockets were launched in the attack.

Some of the rockets were intercepted by air defenses, while other hit open areas.

There are no reports of injuries in the attack.

The IDF also says it  carried out a strike on a building used by Hezbollah, a rocket launching site, and other infrastructure in  southern Lebanon's Aitaroun.

At the same time, a Hezbollah rocket-launching cell was targeted in a drone strike in Deir Aames, the military adds.

The military says it has wrapped up an 18 hour counter-terrorism raid in the West Bank's Far'a camp, during which troops killed a gunman and located a bomb-making lab.

At the bomb manufacturing site, the IDF says troops located more than 80 improvised explosive devices, along with barrels packed with explosive material. The bomb lab was later demolished.

Other weapons located inside a car were also seized, the IDF says.

Troops clashed with gunmen amid the raid, killing at least one on Monday morning. A drone strike was also carried out against two armed Palestinians, the army says.

Eight wanted Palestinians were detained amid the raid. The IDF says they were wanted over suspected involved in terror activities.

No soldiers were hurt in the operation.

Lessons, 10 years after ISIS took over Mosul - analysis

This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the extremist group ISIS taking over Mosul.

ISIS swept into Mosul and took over the large Iraqi city on June 10, 2014. The conquest of Mosul followed the dramatic rise of ISIS in the spring of 2014. The group had its roots in extremists in Iraq and Syria who had grown out of the Sunni Arab insurgent groups that were fighting the US, and had been boosted by the chaos of the Syrian civil war.

ISIS was able to build upon the framework that existed in Iraq and Syria to construct itself as a war machine. It wasn’t just a terrorist group or a bunch of terrorist cells like Al Qaeda. It wasn’t an insurgency, either. ISIS thrived because of the breakdown of the state in Syria and Iraq.

Hard loan
In Syria, the Syrian civil war had been growing since 2011. Syria truly began to break apart in 2012 and 2013, such that many local groups assumed control of certain areas. The Syrian regime likely had an interest in fueling the disintegration and factionalism within the Syrian rebel groups by encouraging extremists to grow.

It's important to understand that the Syrian regime had long tolerated extremists, such as jihadist types, flowing into Iraq via the Euphrates river valley during the period of the US conquest of Iraq after 2003. When the US left Iraq in 2011 these groups were able to consolidate their influence in marginal desert regions. The era of the Sunni “awakening” in Iraq had been pushed aside by the authoritarian Shi’ite prime minister Nour al-Malaki. This created a toxic vacuum in Syria and Iraq in 2013-2014 because both the Syrian regime and the Iraqi regime were letting groups seep into the periphery.

ISIS burst onto the scene due to its brutality and zealous cohesion. It promised a new Islamic era, free from the infighting of Syrian rebel groups in Syria and free from what many Sunni Arabs in Iraq saw as oppression by the Iranian-backed Malaki regime. ISIS also benefited from the fact that Kurdish groups were creating a form of autonomy in eastern Syria, and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq had no love for Malaki either.

ISIS entered a vacuum
ISIS moved into the vacuum in June 2014. Mosul was a logical objective. A city of two million, it sits on two banks of the Tigris river. The western half of the city is anchored in the historic old city of Mosul. The eastern half is more modern and has larger boulevards built in Saddam’s era. Mosul was a city that deeply supported Saddam’s regime, and Moslawis were known to flock to Saddam’s army during the 1980s and the war against Iran. Thus, it was no surprise that the city might fall to ISIS, it had a large number of veterans who looked fondly on the old era and had military training. ISIS promised them a new era, but one under the black Islamic flag.

ISIS may have promised something to locals in Syria and Iraq, but its policies were genocidal against minorities. It was foremost a group that wanted to ethnically cleanse and massacre Shi’ites, Christians, and other minorities such as Yazidis.

ISIS set its plans in motion much like the Nazi regime in the 1930s, legislating the expulsion and mass murder of first one group and then another. It expelled Christians from Mosul and the Nineveh plains. It rounded up Shi’ite cadets at Camp Speicher and murdered more than 1,000 of them on June 12, 2014. It’s worth recalling that this mass murder of Shi’ites is similar in number to what Hamas did on October 7, 2023.

However, ISIS wasn’t done with its horrific crimes. When it saw that it faced almost no opposition in Iraq, it decided to massacre and enslave Yazidis, a minority group that lives in northern Iraq. In August 2014, it put its plan in motion, overrunning numerous Yazidi villages, forcing a half million people to flee, and capturing thousands of Yazidis. It then divided the men and women, murdering many of the older people and selling the women and children, and some of the men, into slavery.

Thousands of women were sold in markets in Mosul and northern Iraq and the ISIS capital in Syria. They were sold to be raped. ISIS used the same term for women it was selling, as Hamas did when it also captured women on October 7. They use the term “sabaya,” which means female slave. Western progressives and pro-Hamas voices deny this, but the facts are clear. ISIS was a movement devoted to mass rape and genocide. Hamas has similarities to ISIS in its methods and mentality.

The city of Mosul was devastated by ISIS occupation. More than half the residents of the 2 million-strong city had to flee the extremists. It occupied Mosul from June 2014 to June 2017, when the Iraqi army, backed by the US-led Coalition against ISIS, defeated ISIS in Mosul. The campaign to defeat ISIS began in October 2016.

I witnessed many of the crimes of ISIS. I saw the mass graves of Yazidis in northern Iraq after the graves were uncovered in the fall of 2015. These killing fields were similar to what the Nazis had done in Eastern Europe under the Einsatzgruppen. ISIS lined up the Yazidis, shot them, and pushed the bodies into mass graves. Dozens of these graves were found. The same fate awaited Beduin tribes who didn’t accept ISIS rule, Christians, Shi’ites, and any other group or local dissidents.

The defeat of ISIS took years. However, Iraq was able to mobilize against the extremists. Kurdish Peshmerga pushed ISIS back from Mosul and Sinjar. Other Kurdish groups linked to the YPG in Syria helped liberate parts of Mosul and save hundreds of thousands of Yazidis. In central Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani put out a fatwa that called to arms young men, who flocked to the banners of various militias to fight ISIS. By 2016, the Iraqi army, supported by the seventy countries that backed the US-led coalition, was able to help Iraq prepare to retake Mosul.

Mosul has now recovered over the last seven years since it was liberated. Churches have been revived, but the scars will not all heal.  The Christian community barely exists today in Mosul. Yazidis have not received support to rebuild Sinjar. The Kurdish community sought more freedom and independence in 2017, only to be attacked by the Iraqi federal government, backed by Shi’ite militias. Iran has decided to use the militias to attack US forces and also threaten Israel. As such, Iraq has not had peace since the defeat of ISIS.

The ISIS conquest of Mosul shook the region from its slumber. ISIS crimes were so shocking that many countries decided to confront this extremism. This had a profound effect in the Gulf and in Jordan. It also hardened the Syrian regime and led some Lebanese to believe Hezbollah was necessary to defend Lebanon from groups like ISIS.

ISIS crimes and its methods also likely inspired Hamas. ISIS used tunnels and drones, which adapted to the environment. It also learned how to operate against the sophisticated US technology that empowers drones and other assets in the region. As such, Hamas was likely inspired by ISIS crimes to believe it could one day do the same. Tragically for Israel, Hamas was able to do what ISIS did, and Jews on the border on October 7 found themselves as vulnerable as Christians, Yazidis, and Shi’ites in Iraq.

The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad response to Israel’s latest hostage-ceasefire proposal includes amendments to the offer, Al Jazeera reports.

Quoting unnamed sources, the Qatari outlet says that the terror groups’ proposed amendments include Israel’s withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip, including the Rafah Border Crossing and so-called Philadelphi Corridor — which runs for a total of 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) all along the Gaza-Egypt border.

According to the report, the Palestinian response was sent to Qatari and Egyptian negotiators by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Palestinian Islamic Jihad secretary-general Ziad al-Nakhaleh.

Reuters quotes an official briefed on the talks as saying that the Hamas response also includes a new timeline for a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Channel 12 reported yesterday that Israel’s proposed hostage and ceasefire deal, announced by US President Joe Biden in late May, includes a commitment to end the war in Gaza even before all hostages are released.

The military says it has wrapped up a counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank town of Kafr Dan, near Jenin.

In a statement, the IDF says troops of the Duvdevan commando unit encircled a building used by terror operatives and carried out a tactic known as “pressure cooker” that involves escalating the volume of fire directed at a building to force suspects to come out.

The IDF says an attack helicopter was also used to strike the building amid the operation.

The troops killed six gunmen in ensuing clashes and wounded others, the military says.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry confirms that six Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops during the raid.

The IDF says the commandos seized two assault rifles and a handgun that belonged to the gunmen, as well as a car with several explosive devices.

No soldiers were hurt in the raid.

At least five people have been killed in an alleged Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, according to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper.

A house near the southern Lebanon city of Tyre was targeted in the strikes, according to the report.

There is no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the report, which comes amid near-daily attacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon since October 8, after war erupted in Gaza.

The Iran-backed terror group says its campaign is in support of Palestinians in Gaza amid the ongoing fighting.

Translation:  The number of casualties in an air strike rose to at least five, including a child

Hamas and Islamic Jihad issued a joint statement in response to the ceasefire offer they received. They say that Israel needs to stop the war and withdraw from Gaza, but they do not explicitly say if it's a precondition to Hamas accepting a ceasefire.

Nonetheless, the statement is framed in a way that makes it appear that the groups' interest lie with the Palestinian people, but that's far from the truth. Hamas and its allies want to ensure that Israel will not restart the war if the armed groups drag out the negotiations or other unexpected events occur.

Rescued Israeli Hostages Endured Punishments, Fear and Isolation
TEL AVIV—For six months, the three men lived in a single dark room, sleeping on small mattresses on the ground.

Their sole contact with the outside world came from the guards who brought them food and at times abused them. They could hear the Gazan family that lived downstairs, including children, but never met them. One day, when the family went out, they were allowed downstairs to use the kitchen.

Their captors doled out punishments if the captives didn’t follow their strict rules, including locking them in the bathroom and piling blankets on them during hot weather. They repeatedly threatened to kill them.

The hostages played cards, studied Arabic, taught each other Hebrew or Russian and kept time in journals. The three became close friends, and it was that bond that helped them through the ordeal.

Their guards at times told them that no one cared about them or was coming for them.

But one day, they were allowed to watch Al Jazeera’s Arabic broadcast and saw a rally in Tel Aviv by the families of the hostages. One of them spotted his own face among those whose freedom was being demanded. It also happened to be his birthday, which he knew because the captives had a notebook and were able to keep track of the date.

“It made him feel he hadn’t been forgotten,” said Aviram Meir, the uncle of one of the hostages.

When Israeli special forces burst into a building in central Gaza on Saturday in a high-risk daylight operation, they got to the room where Almog Meir Jan, 22 years old, Andrei Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 41, had spent most of their time since they were taken captive from a music festival in Israel in the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7.

The account of their time as captives in Gaza is based on interviews with relatives of the hostages, and Israeli security and medical officials. Some of the details are being reported for the first time.

Almog Meir Jan, before his abduction by Hamas, in an undated photo.Photo: Hostages Families Forum Headquarter/Associated Press
Much remains to be revealed about what the three men and Noa Argamani, 26, who was also taken captive at the music festival and rescued in the same operation from a building about 200 yards away, went through as captives. Relatives of the hostages said they were advised to not probe for details, and expect to learn more about their loved ones’ ordeals as time passes.

Israeli security officials have asked the hostages and their relatives to keep details of their captivity a secret.

A full account of the abuses suffered by other hostages who were released earlier only emerged more than a month after their release. They have described being kept in tunnels underground, as well as psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

The four hostages who were rescued on Saturday smiled in videos released from their return to Israel and their recovery in an Israeli hospital. None looked emaciated as they were greeted by family and friends.

But a doctor who has been treating groups of rescued or released hostages since Oct. 7 said that despite the initial positive assessments based on their cheerful demeanor on TV, they had endured “physical and mental torture.”

Dr. Itai Pessach, who is part of a team at Sheba Medical Center in central Israel and treated the hostages rescued on Saturday, said their initial appearances had a lot to do with the adrenaline running through their bodies, and jubilation on being released.

Israeli security forces and the hostages identified Palestinian journalist Abdullah Aljamal, who lived in the apartment, as one of their captors. Abdullah and his father Ahmad Aljamal—a doctor and imam at a local mosque that is run by Hamas—were both killed during the operation. Their neighbors said they always knew that Abdullah Aljamal was affiliated with Hamas.

The rescue operation sparked heavy fighting in the crowded streets of Nuseirat in central Gaza. Palestinian health authorities said 274 Gazans were killed and almost 700 injured from airstrikes, shelling and gunfire. The Israeli military said about 100 Palestinians were killed or wounded, including Hamas militants and civilians caught in the crossfire.

Debris in the area of Nuseirat, in central Gaza, where the Israeli military rescued four hostages on Saturday. Photo: abed khaled/Reuters
The Biden administration is pushing Hamas and Israel to accept a deal that would see the war come to a halt and the release of hostages being held in Gaza. Many of the relatives of those being held captive support such a deal, as do relatives of the four hostages recently rescued.

Pessach said it is likely that the captives’ weight fluctuated during their captivity due to fear, stress and maltreatment. He said they showed signs of having suffered muscle atrophy and malnutrition and have lost the ability to perform certain activities.

“We’ve heard stories that are beyond anything you can imagine,” Pessach said.

When the three male hostages arrived in Israel they looked freshly shorn—well groomed, with buzzed heads and clean beards.

Aviram Meir, the uncle of Meir Jan, said the three were able to groom themselves while in captivity. He described his nephew’s skin as pale.

Almog Meir Jan at his return to Israel on Saturday after eight months in captivity. Photo: marko djurica/Reuters
“They hadn’t seen the sun for eight months,” he said.

The successful rescue operation will force Hamas to change how it hides hostages, but won’t necessarily increase the harshness of conditions in which they are held, said Younis Al-Zuraie, a Palestinian political analyst.

“They will likely ensure that no more than one hostage is in the same location and will move hostages frequently to avoid detection. Their security apparatus will manage these arrangements,” Al-Zuraie said.

It isn’t clear yet where the three male hostages were held before moving to the home where they were rescued. Argamani had been held in homes with other hostages before arriving at her final place of captivity. Other released hostages said they were held underground in tunnels.

U.S. intelligence officials in Israel have been helping to locate hostages, according to people familiar with the matter.

The fact that the three male hostages were kept together for such a long period without a rescue mission shows the high level of intelligence necessary to pull one off, said Avi Kalo, a former hostage-affairs commander in the Israeli military.

“They need to be verified with high standards of intelligence,” he said.

Key Takeaways

Gaza Strip
The IDF continued to operate along the Netzarim Corridor south of Gaza City on June 11.  The  Air Force struck a Palestinian cell that posed a threat to ground forces in the area.

On June 11 the 98th Division withdrew from the Gaza Strip.  The IDF launched raids with two brigades targeting eastern Deir al Balah and eastern Bureij on June 8th; the operations were timed with the hostage rescue mission.

Israeli forces in the Central Governorate killed about 100 Palestinian fighters and destroyed several kilometers of tunnels there, including one near the border with Israel in eastern Bureij.

The IDF continued clearing operations in Rafah.  Three Palestinian militias claimed attacks on the Israeli forces conducting the clearing operation.

The IDF that Palestinian fighters detonated a house-borne improvised explosive device (HBIED) killing four soldiers in the Givati Brigade in eastern Rafah.  Israeli forces entered a house and triggered the booby trap.  The house collapsed onto them. IDF discovered a tunnel in the house which was the home of a Hamas operative.

PIJ fighters fired a rocket salvo at an IDF site near Kissufim in southern Israel.

West Bank
Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in at least five locations across the West Bank in the last 24 hours.

Israeli forces located and destroyed an explosives production facility along with 80 explosive charges and pipe bombs they found at the site. and engaged Palestinian fighters during an 18-hour raid in the al Farah refugee camp, north of the Jordan Valley.  

An IDF helicopter killed four Palestinians who attacked Israeli forces in Kfar Dan.  Israeli forces conducted a raid in Kfar Nima targeting Palestinian fighters who carried out an arson attack on an Israeli settler farm in Sde Efraim.  One of dead militants was a Hamas leader who spent 20 years in an Israeli prison.

Southern Lebanon--Iraqi Resistance
Israeli forces conducted strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure across Lebanon.  The Israeli Air Force (IAF) attacked Hezbollah Unit 4400 compound in the Beqaa Valley overnight.  Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 is responsible for transferring weapons from Iran to Hezbollah media.  The IAF also attacked a Hezbollah military site in Aitaroun, southern Lebanon.

Syrian media reported the IDF attacked a truck repair garage and warehouse in Hawsh al Sayyid Ali, Syria; Hawsh al Sayyid Ali is along a main Hezbollah supply route from Syria into Lebanon.  The IDF also attacked a weapons shipment in transit from Syria to Lebanon.  

Lebanese Hezbollah carried out at least eight attacks into northern Israel in the last 24 hours.  Hezbollah launched about 50 Katyusha rockets from southern Lebanon into the Golan Heights on June 10 in retaliation for the IDF airstrikes on Hezbollah sites in the Beqaa Valley.

The IDF intercepted ”several” of the rockets and the remaining rockets landed in open areas.  The IDF intercepted one Hezbollah drone launched from Lebanon at western Galilee.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq conducted drone attacks targeting a “military target” in the Golan Heights, Eilat, and Haifa.

Yemen
US intelligence learned that Houthis are in talks to provide weapons to Somalia-based Sunni militant group al Shabaab.  

CENTCOM intercepted a Houthi one-way attack drone over the Gulf of Aden.

Originally Posted By BM1455:

The Israel Defense Force has now Confirmed what was reported earlier today, which is that Abdallah Aljamal, a Photojournalist as well as Writer/Editor for Al-Jazeera and several other Palestinian New’s Organizations was a Member of Hamas and was holding several of the Hostages… pic.twitter.com/luf0a5ppub

OSINTdefender  (@sentdefender) June 9, 2024

Originally Posted By cyclone:
Terminate with extreme prejudice

Hezbollah launched more than 170 rockets and several more missiles and drones at northern Israel on Wednesday, in what it said was a response to the killing of a senior commander in the terror group by an Israeli airstrike a night earlier.

The barrages marked the largest attack carried out by Hezbollah during ongoing fighting on the Lebanon border amid the war in the Gaza Strip.

And the terror group vowed to ramp up its attacks in retaliation for Israel’s elimination of top commander Taleb Abdullah. At a funeral procession in Beirut, senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said the group would increase the intensity, force and quantity of its operations against Israel.

“If the enemy is screaming and moaning about what happened to it in northern Palestine, let him prepare himself to cry and wail,” Safieddine said.

The successive Hezbollah attacks began on Wednesday morning with a barrage of at least 90 rockets fired at several areas in northern Israel, including Tiberias — for the first time amid the war — Safed and Rosh Pina, sending tens of thousands of people to shelters, as Jewish Israelis celebrated the Shavuot holiday.

The Israel Defense Forces said another 70 rockets were then launched at the Mount Meron area, home to a sensitive air traffic control base. Ten more rockets were fired at Kibbutz Zar’it, and an anti-tank guided missile struck a factory of the Plasan armored vehicle manufacturer in Kibbutz Sasa, causing damage.

Later in the morning, a drone launched from Lebanon detonated in an open area near the northern community of Zivon, local authorities said.

There were no injuries in the attacks, but several rocket impacts sparked fires in northern Israel.

Some 25 firefighting teams and eight planes were working to extinguish fires near Amiad, in the Ein Zeitim forest, and near Beit Jann, the Fire and Rescue Service said.

Hezbollah took responsibility for the rocket and missile fire, claiming to have targeted several Israeli military sites, including the Meron air traffic control base and the Amiad camp — located some 20 kilometers from the border — as well as the Plasan factory.

Hezbollah said the attacks were a response to Tuesday night’s Israeli strike in southern Lebanon’s Jouaiyya — some 15 kilometers (9 miles) north of the border with Israel — which killed Abdullah and three other operatives.

The IDF on Wednesday confirmed it had carried out the strike.

Abdullah had commanded Hezbollah’s Nasr unit, one of three regional divisions in south Lebanon. The unit is responsible for the region between Mount Dov and the Bint Jbeil area in south Lebanon, and is considered to be the terror group’s first line of attack and defense against Israel.

According to the IDF, Abdullah was the “most senior” Hezbollah commander it had killed amid the ongoing fighting.

Hezbollah referred to Abdullah as a commander in a statement announcing his death. The terror group rarely refers to its senior operatives slain in Israeli strikes as commanders. The only other operative referred to as a commander was Wissam al-Tawil, the deputy head of the terror group’s elite Radwan force, killed by Israel in January. Abdullah was considered to be senior to al-Tawil.

Abdullah was behind numerous attacks on northern Israel in the past eight months, mostly against the city of Kiryat Shmona, and other towns and army positions in the Galilee Panhandle, Upper Galilee, and the Golan Heights area, the IDF said.

On Tuesday night, hours before being killed, Abdullah commanded a rocket barrage on the Kiryat Shmona area as Israelis gathered to celebrate Shavuot.

The military published footage of the Jouaiyya strike, as the commander and the three operatives had been gathered in a building for a meeting. All four were killed.

Abdullah was also considered by the IDF to be a “source of knowledge” with many years of experience in the terror group. Abdullah was involved in the 2005 attempted kidnapping in Ghajar, and in the 2006 Lebanon war, was the commander of the Bint Jbeil area, according to the military.

The IDF said it was prepared for the terror group’s response to the strike, and was bracing for additional attacks throughout the day.

Following the rocket barrages, the IDF said it struck four sites belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon’s Yater, used to carry out the attack. Rocket launchers in Hanine and Yaroun, used in the barrages, were also hit, the military said.

Since the day after Hamas’s October 7 attack, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.

So far, the skirmishes on the border have resulted in 10 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 15 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 342 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 62 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.

Israel has expressed openness to a diplomatic solution to the conflict, but has threatened to go to war against Hezbollah to restore security to the north of Israel, where tens of thousands of civilians are currently displaced.

While Israel’s political echelon has not yet made a decision on launching an offensive in Lebanon, and turning the Gaza Strip into the secondary front, the IDF said it continues to target Hezbollah commanders behind attacks on Israel.

The IDF and Hezbollah report that the commander of Hezbollah's Nasr Division was killed in an airstrike yesterday.

The Nasr Unit (circled in black) is responsible for the area between the Israeli border and the Litani. 2 of its 4 sector (brigade) commanders, the Coastal and Ramim Ridge sectors, were already eliminated previously.

The Nasr Unit is the first line of defense for Hezbollah against Israel in the case of an invasion.

During the last night (June 11), according to local reports, a number of trucks were attacked in the area of  Hawsh AL-Sayyid Ali, the #Syria-#Lebanon border, northeast of the city of Al Harmel in the Bekaa (Eastern Lebanon). According to the #IDF announcement, a compound belonging to #Hezbollah's Unit 4400 was attacked. Unit 4400 is responsible for the transfer of weapons into and within Lebanon. It works in cooperation with Unit 190 of the #Quds Force, which is responsible for transporting weapons within the Iranian weapons corridor. The area of  Hawsh AL-Sayyid Ali is a central area through which weapons are transferred to Lebanon. To this area, weapons are transferred to Lebanon through the corridor routes that pass through Syria through the city of Homs and from there to the town of Al-Qusayr, which is close to  Hawsh AL-Sayyid Ali. There are two central vehicle crossings in Hawsh AL-Sayyid Ali and 8 more optional ones (see map).

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has told Rolling Stone magazine that a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip would be the first step toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a wide-ranging interview, Harris said that "far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed [in Gaza]. We are looking at famine conditions. Aid must get in. And hostages must be freed. And we need a two-state solution. And we need to have a cease-fire to get to a place where we can start building toward a two-state solution."

"Palestinians are entitled to security and dignity and self-determination," the vice president added. "And Israelis are entitled to security and safety."

Likewise, she said that "we must fight what we have seen as a rise of antisemitism around the world. And we must fight Islamophobia."

Speaking about the recent protests against Israel in American cities, Harris said that "protest has been a part of every movement for the expansion of rights and freedoms in our country. It's part of what makes us a democracy that we support that approach. We are not an autocracy that shuts down protest. And we expect peaceful protest."

Originally Posted By GBTX01:
I'm not sure what Hamas is smoking but it is strong!

New details about the Hamas counteroffer are emerging. It is actually far more different than we believed. Here are all the changes Hamas demanded. It is quite the list:

1) On the first day Israel has to withdraw from all the populated areas in Gaza.
2) On the third day Israel…

— Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (@academic_la) June 12, 2024

Israeli sources have called this proposal "a non-starter." I would add that this offer insults the intelligence and attempts to torpedo any further negotiations. An agreement is clearly impossible. Hamas is daring Israel to win this war militarily.

Originally Posted By michigan66:
… snip

Many Israelis across the political spectrum are wondering, out loud, if staying in Israel is even worth it, given all that has happened in the last 8 months.  Asking themselves if living within sight of a population who hates them even makes sense.  Now you want them to compromise and give Palestinians a state.

Snip …

Key Takeaways

Gaza Strip Detailed, in depth ISW discussion on ceasefire demands in spoiler below quote box
Hamas issued new demands in the ceasefire negotiations with Israel. Hamas portrayed its new demands as technical iteration rather than an outright rejection of the proposal likely to frame Israel as the party that is obstructing ceasefire talks.

99th Division continued to operate along the Netzarim Corridor, south of Gaza City.  Militants continued to attack them with mortars and rockets.

162nd Division continued to operate in several sectors of Rafah.  Givati Brigade has operated in Shaboura neighborhood in Rafah in recent days.

Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters, directed airstrikes, and destroyed explosively rigged structures. Palestinian militias conducted several attacks on sraeli forces in Rafah using mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Rafah said on June 12 that Israel informed it that fighting will continue in western Rafah.  CNN obtained footage of civilians leaving al Alam in western Rafah.  A Palestinian activist reported that the IDF issued warnings to people in al Alam of a military operation in the next 24 hours.

Three Palestinian militias inside Gaza lauched rocets at an IDF site in Nahal Oz.

West Bank
Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in at least five locations in the West Bank in the last 24 hours.  The al Aqsa Martyrs‘ Brigades fired small arms and detonated IEDs targeting Israeli forces in two areas near Jenin.

Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed a senior Lebanese Hezbollah commander and three other Hezbollah fighters in an airstrike in southern Lebanon on June 11.  The commander, Taleb Sami Abdullah, was one of the seniormost Hezbollah commanders in southern Lebanon and responsible for attacks into northern Israel.  Abdullah commanded Hezbollah’s Nasr unit, which is one of three regional commands in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel. Pictures of Abdullah alongside IRGC Quds Force commanders Qassem Soleimani and Esmail Ghaani appeared after his death.

Hezbollah launched over 200 mortars and rockets into northern Israel on June 12 in response to the killing of Abdullah.  The attack are the largest that Hezbollah has conducted into Israel since the war began.  The attack caused fires but no casualties.  Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine threatened to increase the rate and scale of attacks into northern Israel in response to the killing of Abdullah.

Hezbollah has continued almost daily attacks into northern Israel since October 2023.  Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the IDF has killed around half of Hezbollah’s field commanders in southern Lebanon. The IDF killed the senior officer in Hezbollah’s Radwan special forces in January 2024.

Iran
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is framing his candidacy in the presidential election around improving the Iranian economy.

Yemen
The Houthis attacked and disabled a commercial vessel in the Red Sea on June 12.  The Houthis struck the vessel with an unmanned surface vehicle and again with an “unknown airborne projectile.”  The crew lost control of the vessel. Maritime security firms identified the vessel as the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned Tutor, which was sailing to India.

US CENTCOM destroyed two Houthi anti-ship cruise missile launchers in Yemen.  Houthi-affiliated media reported that the strikes occurred in al Salif in the Hudaydah Governorate.

Iraq
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed a drone attack targeting Eilat.

Originally Posted By GBTX01:

?? ??? ???? ?????????? \uD83E\uDD14 pic.twitter.com/MxazuUHZuN

sagi_nahor  (@ABAGANOOV13) June 12, 2024

Originally Posted By cash50:

Does anyone have any context on this?

Originally Posted By cash50:

Does anyone have any context on this?