News Digest — 6/27/24
Herzog, Netanyahu Tour North As UN Warns Of ‘Apocalyptic’ War With Hezbollah
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog toured northern Israel on Wednesday (26th), as months of skirmishes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah were feared to be on the verge of escalating to an all-out war the United Nations said would be “apocalyptic.”
Netanyahu, touring the Lebanese border on Wednesday (26th), observed a drill of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade, whose soldiers he hailed for their “determination to defend the country,” according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Flanked by his military secretary, Roman Gofman, the head of the IDF’s Northern Command MG Ori Gordon, and other lower-ranking commanders, Netanyahu asserted that Israel would achieve “victory” in the north in case of a full-blown war with Hezbollah.
The visits came as the IDF published footage of airstrikes it carried out on Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shab and Khiam. The army said it also shelled several more areas in south Lebanon with artillery. Earlier in the day, the army published footage of overnight airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon’s Shebaa and Matmoura.
Meanwhile, Israeli local authorities said several anti-tank guided missiles fired by Hezbollah on Wednesday (26th) caused some damage.
In the afternoon, at least five missiles struck Metula, causing damage and sparking a fire. Later in the day another missile struck a home in Avivim – the same home was struck by another missile several hours later.
Amid international concern, the foreign ministries of Germany and the Netherlands on Wednesday both called on their countries’ citizens to leave Lebanon, saying flights out of Beirut may soon no longer be available. The warnings, which came after German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited the region, followed a similar advisory issued by Canada’s foreign ministry on Tuesday (25th).
Diplomatic efforts by the United States and to a lesser extent France, have so far failed to make Hezbollah retreat beyond the Litani River, some 19 miles north of the border with Israel in accord with UN Resolution 1701 which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict.
President Herzog, who on Wednesday (26th) concluded a two-day stay in northern Israel with his wife Michal, accused the world of not doing enough to de-escalate tensions there.
“The international community should not be surprised if the situation gets out of control, because the international community is barely lifting a finger, barely doing anything to contribute to the full security of Israeli residents, after repeated violations of international treaties and agreements by Lebanon and Hezbollah,” Herzog said, according to a statement from his office.
The statement said the president and his wife stayed in Safed and toured several communities and army bases in the region over their two-day trip.
Despite the bleak image conjured by the president, US officials have reportedly assured their Israeli counterparts that Washington would give its “full support” to Israel in case of a war with Hezbollah.
‘No Alternative But Victory:’ Colonel Says IDF Nearly Finished In Gaza, Lebanon Next
“We are close to a decisive military victory in the Gaza Strip, and we are prepared for a battle in the north. We are already in a multi-front confrontation with changing forces, and at least in the places where I am, the IDF is prepared for a battle in the North,” Colonel Dvir Edri, commander of the 460th Brigade, told Maariv in a recent interview.
“It will not be easy or simple, but in light of the fighting in the South, we have a generation of experienced commanders and soldiers,” he added.
Responding to the comment that the soldiers were also tired and worn out, Edri stated, “When the task is to return over a hundred thousand residents to their homes, then I trust them to find the strength to do it in the best way.”
“Concerning Gaza, a short war is a relative matter,” Edri said. “No war in the past has set itself such a clear goal which takes a long time to achieve. It is impossible to destroy Hamas in a short time. At the start of the war they spoke of a year of fighting with varying levels of intensity because everyone understood that defeating Hamas would take time.”
“I believe we will be able to achieve our goals,” Edri stated. “Any military expert who can identify the achievements on the ground will say that we are close to victory. We have achieved definite results in the places we have reached. We defeated many battalions and achieved significant military accomplishments. Victory is a deceitful word – everyone defines it differently, but I think we are close to a decisive military victory.”
“Wherever we have been, we moved and maneuvered freely. When we first entered Gaza it took us a week to reach and capture a specific point,” Edri affirmed, adding, “Today we can return to it within a few hours and do whatever we want inside. Hamas may succeed in launching a rocket here and there in a three month period of time, but it no longer has the critical mass and quantity of missiles it had initially. That’s what military decisiveness looks like.”
When asked where the motivation of the fighters to fight for such a long period comes from, the conversation always returned to the horrors of October 7. Edri said, “Everything I saw and heard in the surrounding communities was concentrated on the moment of entering Gaza. I don’t like to use terms like revenge, but I think anyone who went to Gaza that morning understood that there was no alternative but an absolute, clear victory. I have known the surroundings for a very long time, and what we saw on October 7 was engraved in us in a way that cannot be described in words. The sights of the bodies and burnt vehicles were very harsh. But precisely because of them, there was a great belief in what we are doing and a deep sense of justice.”
“In the fields among the bodies, lay couples embracing. It was evident that they decided to die together, and that’s how we found them. It shocked me. It was part of the feelings that accompanied us as we entered Gaza alongside the magnitude of the responsibility and understanding that we were taking over three thousand people to war. I knew the power I had in my hands, and what I was entering with, and yet the fighters who were with us continued to amaze me. Not only the soldiers and reservists but also the commanders at all levels.”
Edri concluded, “We really felt that these were the same people who went out to fight 50 years ago in the Yom Kippur War, and we can not afford to lose. After the sights of October 7 we do not have that privilege. Therefore, everyone came to the division to do the best they could. No matter how well and how much they trained before, it didn’t matter what constraints they left behind. Everyone put aside their disagreements, as well as personal challenges and difficulties, and came to Gaza.”
AliExpress Metal Detector Helps Israeli Surgeon Save Lives
A surgeon at an Israeli hospital is using a simple metal detector purchased from AliExpress to locate shrapnel in war casualties.
Since the war broke out on Oct. 7, thousands of people have been admitted to Israeli hospitals with shrapnel injuries, and surgery is often lengthy, complex and challenging.
“When shrapnel fragments are in the hand or leg, they are easier to locate. However, in the head and neck area, it is much more challenging,” said Dr. Eyal Sela, director of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery Department of Galilee Medical Center.
“Surgeries in these areas are complex and sensitive, even light movements during the surgery can cause paralysis, due to the proximity to nerve and blood vessels.
Sela’s lightbulb moment came during an operation on a soldier hit by Hezbollah fire from Lebanon. The soldier was brought to the Galilee Medical Center, which is based in Nahariya near Israel’s border with Lebanon, with a bullet lodged in the base of his skull.
Despite the fact that Sela knew the area where the bullet was located, it took him over an hour to find it. It was then that he came up with the creative idea to use a metal detector to help him locate the shrapnel more efficiently.
He ordered one from the online retail outfit AliExpress and since it arrived has been using it to successfully locate and remove shrapnel from many patients, saving time and reducing surgical complications.
One recent patient was a soldier injured in a Hezbollah drone attack in Hurfeish, three weeks ago.
“This soldier arrived in serious condition, with shrapnel in the back of his head and skull. The entry wound was in one place, and the shrapnel in another,” said Sela.
“Without this device, locating it would have taken much longer, and the shrapnel was in a particularly sensitive area. The metal detector significantly shortened the procedure, preventing unnecessary incisions and complications,” he added.
Sela recently presented this innovative use of a metal detector at the Annual Meeting of the Israeli Society of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.
At the start of the war with Hamas in October, the Galilee Medical Center moved its inpatient wards and critical care units to its fortified underground facility.
Arab Influencers Welcome News Of Ultra-Orthodox Draft, Hoping It Will Divide Israel
Arab bloggers, journalists and social media influencers welcomed the news that the Israel government will require the ultra-orthodox sector to perform mandatory military service, hoping that the controversial move will create division and undermine Israel.
Some greeted the news of ultra-orthodox conscription as a sign that Israel was suffering from a lack of manpower to fight the war, and that it was evidence of “success of the resistance.”
Others said the division alone was an advantage and believed that it would make Israel weaker.
Jordanian writer Yaser Zaatreh called the decision a “legal drama in the Zionist entity,” gloating that Israel’s “conflicts explode one by one” while “the heroism of our Palestinian people exposes their fragility, and their supportive ‘West’ is in retreat.”
He added, “These are the ways of decline: internal division and external pressure.”
Ali Al-Sanad, a Kuwaiti anchor at Al Jazeera published a video explaining, “The Israeli army suffers from an abrupt shortage in personnel… For which the army is in need of this decision to enlist Haredim in the army.”
A social media user named Kassim wrote that the decision was “long-waited news” and one of the “blessings of the 7th of October.”
He added that “this decision will literally divide the Israeli public” and projected “bloody clashes between Haredim and the government, leading the government to collapse.”
Auschwitz Display Of 3,000 Murdered Childrens’ Shoes Return After Undergoing Preservation Process
Over 3,000 of the approximately 8,000 shoes belonging to children murdered in Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz have returned to display at the site of the memorial museum following an extensive preservation process, the Auschwitz Memorial, Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, and International March of the Living announced on Thursday (27th).
The shoes underwent a preservation process that took over a year of work at the Auschwitz Museum Conservation Laboratories.
Before the preservation process, the shoes were at risk of being unable to survive for future generations. The main issues were damage to the leather in the form of discoloring, corrosion caused by the shoes’ metal parts, along with the fragility of the leather and its delamination.
To address the issues that threatened the conservation of the shoes, back in September 2023, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation issued a call to raise half a million dollars for the conservation process of the children’s shoes.
The initiative to raise the funds was done through the International March of the Living organization, which launched an international fund-raising campaign.
Eitan Neishlos, founder and president of the Neishlos Foundation and a third-generation Holocaust survivor, gave a major contribution to kickstart the conservation project.
“Preserving the last remaining evidence of the children who were murdered at Auschwitz has even more meaning today, as the Jewish people around the world experience rampant anti-Semitism,” Neishlos said.
“We must all come together to make sure that no one will be able to deny or distort the horrors the Jewish people endured in the Holocaust,” he added.
“The project to conserve the shoes of children murdered in Auschwitz is a historic project that is crucial for preserving the evidence of German crimes during the Holocaust. It also has educational importance, allowing active participation in preserving the memory of children who were brutally murdered,” Dr. Shmuel Rosenman, Chairman of the March of the Living said.
“We who march every year in their memory along the path of death they walked, have been privileged to involve many in this project and ensure the preservation of the children’s shoes for another hundred years,” Dr. Rosenman continued.
Wojciech Soczewica, Director General of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, was optimistic that the collaboration “will, hopefully soon, lead to other projects, including the area of education of young generations.”
Naftali Furst and Aryeh Pinsker, who were in the Auschwitz camp as children and participated in death marches, arrived last year at the Auschwitz conservation lab to launch the project.
“This is a full circle moment. When I stood in front of the mountain of shoes at the Auschwitz Memorial, holding the crumbling children’s shoes, I thought of my family who were murdered there and of all the innocent children brutally killed by the Germans in the Holocaust. We must preserve their memory forever,” Pinsker said.
“I want to express my utmost gratitude to everyone who is involved in this sacred project to preserve the memory of the children and ensure that this evidence of Nazi crimes remains forever. I will forever be grateful that I took part in this effort, ”Naftali Furst expressed.
