Mission Brief: Dispatch #2

Urban Warfare and Immoral Enemies

Last night, three weeks after over 1,400 Israelis were murdered and 239 were abducted, the IDF announced that we’ve intensified ground operations in Gaza.

We deployed additional infantry, combat engineering and armored forces corps, together with the artillery corps, Navy, and Israeli Air Force to neutralize Hamas threats.

This is a war against an enemy that - rather than investing in its civilians - has invested in digging down. Massive tunnels under mosques, universities, schools, UN facilities…you name it. We encountered this back in 2014 and it’s clear to everyone that since then, Hamas urban buildup has only intensified.

Hamas attacked Israeli civilians and promptly hid under its own. And as we aim to ensure that they can’t do it again, I expect the IDF will face intense combat in areas under their control. 

Speaking of urban fighting..

Urban fighting has always been different from large scale maneuver warfare. Operating in a densely populated city is a slow, painstaking task, complicated by the presence of civilians. 

As in prior operations, we are fighting terrorist groups, not conventional armies. These groups aim to magnify civilian suffering in urban combat (and, of course, lie or falsify claims), without regard for international norms or agreements.  

There’s no place for the Geneva conventions in Hamas’ jihad and there is no place for international lawyers in their ranks.

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Here are a few examples of how Hamas abuses Gaza’s residents and misuses civilian infrastructure: 

Hamas prevents civilians from evacuating

For weeks, we have been urging residents of the north Gaza Strip to evacuate south.  Our war is not with the people of Gaza so we’ve used pamphlets, social media, traditional media and literal phone calls, placed by the IDF to Gaza residents to urge them to move towards southern Gaza. 

Unfortunately, we know Hamas has been preventing civilians from evacuating, hoping to keep them in harm’s way. As one Gazan we spoke to said, “they are simply sending everyone home’.

Building Attack Tunnels Beneath Schools, Mosques, and Hospitals

Last week IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari presented evidence that Hamas was operating the main command center from underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. This was not exactly the scoop of the century. In 2014, the Washington Post referred to Shifa as the ‘de facto headquarters’ of Hamas. We also know that over 100 terrorists returning from the October 7th massacre immediately ran to the hospital to avoid being targeted. 

We’ve also released images of rocket launch sites next to schools and mosques. The use of schools and places of worship for war is part and parcel of Hamas’ cynical exploitation of international norms, a transparent attempt to draw fire towards these sites and exploit the ensuing outrage. 

Using Ambulances to Transport Fighters

Since the 19th century, medics and ambulances have been afforded special protections under international law. Hamas has been documented in the past using ambulances to transport their fighters, taking cover behind the laws of war and human decency. 

Footage from Protective Edge (2014) showing two terrorists entering an ambulance

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Operational Updates

An expanded version of this is available on the IDF website. 

The IDF has expanded ground operations in Gaza as part of our mission to dismantle Hamas’ military and administrative capabilities in Gaza, bring the hostages home and restore security to the people of Israel. We are assessing the situation and progressing according to our operational plans. Specifically, we’re leveraging combined operations with real-time collaboration between troops on the ground, the air force, navy and intelligence in order to target Hamas. We have targeted some 600 targets in the past few days, killing dozens of terrorists. These activities included:

• Last night IDF forces identified a building with over a dozen Hamas terrorists and called in an airstrike, destroying the building. 

• A tunnel with Hamas’ Nukhba terrorists was struck by the air force.  Some of the terrorists were spotted by ground troops while trying to escape from the tunnel, and were eliminated in another air strike.

• Our forces in Gaza have killed dozens of terrorists and are encountering them in mosques and universities.

• On the northern border, we continue to respond to any attack along the fence. Yesterday there were anti-tank and mortars fired from Lebanon. We responded to the source of the fire and targeted Hezbollah infrastructure. 

• The IDF struck military infrastructure in Syria in response to missiles fired at Israel 

• 108 trucks carrying aid have entered GAzain the past 8 days, with 24 coming in yesterday. 

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Quote of the Day

“This war will be long, weeks or months…Because it’s going to be a long war, the daily routine must slowly return. The economy must open.”

Major General Rafi Milo, Head of the Home Front Command

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What I’m Reading

These are interesting articles I’ve recently come across. By sharing them I am not endorsing them, their points of view, or the veracity of information therein. They’re just interesting articles I came across.

Why Israel Showed Searing Images of the Hamas Attack - CNN

A word on this. We made the decision recently to share some of the graphic, barbaric Hamas atrocities with the press. This was not a simple decision, and required us to balance sensitivity towards the victims and their families with the need for the world to know what really happened. It’s a horrible decision to make, especially when we get accused of falsifying the images. 

Israël-Hamas : plus de 7 Français sur 10 craignent qu’une attaque terroriste similaire se produise dans l’Hexagone - Le Figaro

72% of people in France are concerned that an attack like the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th can happen in France too.

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Food for Thought

Always nice when someone comes back from the UK with delicacies. Some days you just need a good chocolate orange breakfast….