Once again, the sounds of missile intercepts filled the air today. The war resumed yesterday morning, and by late yesterday afternoon, there was a barrage of rockets fired towards Ben Gurion Airport. Sitting in our apartment in Tel Aviv, we could once again hear the repeated reverberations from the explosions in the air. I cannot imagine what the relatives of those hostages who have not yet returned feel.
For one tense week, we all watched the daily hostage release ritual. The process was frustrating, tense, and anger-inducing. However, in the end, we were able to see and partake in the joy of the families vicariously. We would see video clips of reunited mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers hugging for the first time in six weeks, and we all felt good.
Sadly, that has now ended. For the moment, we are back to worrying about soldiers in Gaza, and keeping track of where the nearest bomb shelter or underground garage is located whenever we walk about.
The truce ended when Hamas failed to provide a list of women or children scheduled to be released on Friday. The final nail in the coffin of the truce came at 6:45 AM when Hamas fired rockets at Israel into the area surrounding Gaza. A few moments later, Israel announced that if Hamas decided to end the ceasefire, so would Israel, and the IDF began bombing. By nightfall, the Air Force had attacked 200 targets inside Gaza.
Israel was surprised Hamas failed to provide the anticipated list of Israelis to be released. The question is, why?
Gershon Baskin
Gershon Baskin, who helped negotiate the Gilad Shalit release from Hamas captivity — and has had significant contact with Hamas over the years — believes that most (if not all) of the 18 women and children that Israel believes to be still held by Hamas are dead. Another theory suggests that what Hamas might have done to the remaining women hostages could be horrific, that Hamas wants to prevent the woman’s testimony coming out. Moreover, Baskin does not believe that a comprehensive deal for the release of soldiers and other men is likely to happen. Baskin maintains that the IDF must step up its efforts to rescue the hostages.
This afternoon, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that the team of Mossad negotiators was ordered home from Qatar. Currently, negotiations between Israel and Hamas are over.
In a statement tonight, Hamas reiterated that they are no longer holding any women or children captive. Furthermore, Hamas announced that negotiations over the remaining captives must wait until after the war, and then, only in exchange for all of the Palestinian prisoners held in Israel’s jails.
The war has now resumed in full force. The Air Force launched strikes on 400 targets in Gaza, particularly focusing on the city of Khan Yunis, where the IDF has advised residents to relocate further south. IDF ground forces have not begun any major action but have started to finish the work they were in the middle of in northern Gaza before the ceasefire went into effect
For most of Saturday, Hamas only fired rockets toward the area immediately surrounding Gaza. Then at 10 PM, the sirens went off as I entered our apartment building. Hamas fired eleven rockets at the Tel Aviv Metropolitan area— most were intercepted and three fell in open fields. One person was lightly wounded from fragments of an intercept.
Hezbollah attacked a number of locations along Israel’s northern border. and Israel responded with air attacks on Hezbollah targets.
There are thought to be 137 remaining hostages left in Hamas’s hands — assuming all are still alive.
Over the course of the last few weeks, people close to Netanyahu have been quietly spreading a conspiracy theory that the army knew about the time of the attack and did nothing to prevent the massacre, purportedly as a means to embarrass Netanyahu. At a press conference tonight, one of the reporters quoted a poll which indicated 30% of voters — most of whom he said were Netanyahu supporters — believed there was such a conspiracy. The reporter asked if Netanyahu would state that the story was false. Netanyahu replied that there was no conspiracy.
On Friday, Kibbutz Nir Oz announced they had lost four additional members murdered by Hamas. It has been discovered that Maya Goren (57), was killed in the attack on October 7th. In addition, it was learned that Aryeh Zalmanovich (85), a founder of the Kibbutz, was killed while in captivity.
Ofra Kider, (70), also died at the hands of Hamas in Gaza. Ofra’s husband was killed on October 7th. In addition, Ronen Engel (54), who was kidnapped on October 7th, was murdered in Gaza.
Eliyahu Margalit (75), who had worked at the Nova Music Festival, was also reported to have been killed on October 7th.
Some additional sad news announced today was that Colonel Assaf Hamami, the commander of the southern brigade in the Gaza division, was killed on October 7th, and his body was kidnapped to Gaza.
A small bit of good news, today it was announced that Ron Benjamin (53), who was considered missing, was confirmed today to be a hostage of Hamas.
Also, the body of Ofir Tzarfati (27) was found and returned to Israel.
A massive rally was held in Tel Aviv tonight, as a show of support for the families of the hostages. Tens of thousands participated. A number of popular artists performed and several of the former hostages addressed the crowd.
In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, Mansour Abbas, head of the Arab Raam party, attacked Hamas and said what Hamas did on October 7th was against every tenet of Islam. He called on all the Palestinian groups to lay down their arms and transition to a solely political struggle.
The story of the Thursday terror attack became even more tragic, after additional details emerged. It turned out that the first person to respond to the incident was Yuval Doron Castleman (37), a lawyer and former defense establishment official. Castleman rapidly killed the first terrorist and wounded the second with his pistol. A soldier from Sayeret Golani opened fire and killed the remaining terrorist. Then two reserve soldiers then arrived at the scene. Castleman immediately understood he could be mistaken for a terrorist, so he put down his gun, raised his hands in the air, took off his jacket to show that he had no bomb, bent down and yelled that he was an Israeli. Nevertheless, the two reservists shot Castleman, who later died at the hospital. One of the reservists was said to have been a member of the far-right Hill Top Youth.
A recent article in the New York Times: Intelligence Errors Prompt Scrutiny of Israeli Generals, but Little Backlash reported on the Hamas massacre plan intercepted by Israel, which precisely detailed the actions the terrorists undertook on October 7th. The Israeli intelligence community concluded the exposed game plan was aspirational, and that Hamas was not capable of implementing such a plan any time soon.
So numerous similarities exist regarding the ways in which we were caught off guard on October 7th, mirroring the exact same elements of surprise we experienced on October 6th, 50 years earlier. Two key factors explain both events. The first issue was our tendency to underestimate our enemies, discounting their capabilities. After the mistakes made in 1973, we vowed never to undervalue our foes again — nevertheless, we clearly did so 50 years later. Our second challenge is that we, the Jewish people, despite our extensive history of adversity, seldom anticipate the worst. This was true for the Jews in Germany before World War II, Israelis in 1973, and Israel in 2023 – in each instance, we failed to foresee the worst possible outcomes.
On Thursday, a missile of unknown origin seems to have landed on a major Houthi arms depot in Yemen. Everyone has denied responsibility for the mystery missile, however, many countries have reason to eliminate Houthi missiles and UAVs. Great Britain said it will send a warship to help protect freedom of the seas off the Yemeni coast.
Shlomo Avineri (90), one of the leading Israeli political scientists and esteemed public intellectuals, died on Friday. Avineri’s insightful contributions will be missed. One of Avineri’s comments is very relevant today.
I belong to those that have a great deal of criticism of the policy of Israel in the territories. But we cannot ignore the fact that from the other side, the Palestinians have not, to this day, had any serious voice who said: We made a mistake in 1948; we should have accepted the Partition Plan like the Jews did.
