News Digest — 8/20/24
In Military Operation: IDF, ISA, Retrieve Bodies Of Six Hostages From Gaza
The bodies of Nadav Popplewell, Yagev Buchstab, Yoram Metzger, Haim Perry, Alex Dancyg, and Avraham Munder were retrieved Monday night (19th) from Gaza in an IDF operation.
All six were kidnapped in Gaza by terrorists during the October 7 massacre and were murdered in captivity.
Popplewell, Metzger, and Perry, were announced murdered in June, and Dancyg and Buchstab were reported murdered last month.
On Tuesday morning (20th), Kibbutz Nir Oz said, ”With profound sorrow, Kibbutz Nir Oz announces the murder of Avraham Munder while held hostage in Gaza after enduring months of physical and mental torture.”
“Avraham was 78 years old, and a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz. He worked at the Nirlat Factory and was known for his warm nature and deep love of singing.”
“Avraham was abducted along with his wife Ruti, his daughter Keren, and his only grandson, nine-year-old Ohad, who was released in a hostage deal.”
“His son Ro’ee Munder, was brutally murdered in the October 7 massacre.”
“Ruti, Keren and Ohad were released in a November 2023 prisoner swap deal, in which most civilian women and children were released in exchange for convicted terrorists.”
The statement added, “We will forever remember Avraham for his clear voice, warm smile and boundless love for his family and kibbutz. May his memory be a blessing.”
Munder’s nephew told Kan News: “The IDF told us that he was found in a tunnel in Khan Yunis. We are not sure what the cause of death is, but it did not happen recently – apparently around March. A deal ended on the seventh day, and he was supposed to be included in a list for the next day.”
During the November deal, Hamas violated the ceasefire, as well as twice violating the terms of the prisoner swap. The terror group then abruptly ended the prisoner exchanges, though Israel was interested and willing to continue both the exchanges and the break in fighting.
Israel does not know how many hostages are still alive.
Israel Strike Targets Hezbollah Arms Depot In Lebanon, Causing Massive Secondary Explosions
Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck several Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, the IDF reported Monday evening (19th).
Secondary explosions were seen, indicating the presence of large quantities of weaponry in the facilities.
Residents of cities and towns in northern Israel were instructed to stay close to shelters following the blasts, Israel media reported.
Additionally, the IAF struck terrorist Hussein Ali Hussein in the area of Deir Qanoun in southern Lebanon. Hussein operated in Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit in the area of Yarine.
Hezbollah and other armed groups in Lebanon have been trading fire with Israel in parallel with the Gaza War.
Israel’s strikes for the last 10 months have regularly targeted Hezbollah fighters and rocket launch sites, but strikes on arms depots have been more rare.
Earlier on Monday (19th), IDF forces identified a terrorist cell operating from a Hezbollah military structure in Taybe in southern Lebanon, and IAF fighter jets attacked the structure in which the terrorists were operating.
Bedouin Soldier Killed In Hezbollah Drone Attack On Northern Israel
An IDF soldier seriously injured in a drone attack on northern Israel Monday (19th) succumbed to his injuries, an Israeli military spokesperson said Monday afternoon (19th).
Six people were injured, one of them critically, when five suicide drones operated by Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon, crossed into Israeli airspace Monday morning (19th) with one of the unmanned aircraft slamming into Moshav Ya’ara in the Western Galilee.
One building was struck in the drone attack, and a fire was sparked by the exploding unmanned aircraft. In addition, ten rockets were fired by Hezbollah terrorists into northern Israel.
Later on Monday (19th) the IDF announced that the soldier who had been critically injured in the attack had died.
He was identified as 45-year-old Chief Warrant Officer Mahmood Amaria, a resident of Ibtin, a Bedouin town southeast of Haifa in northern Israel.
Amaria had served as a tracker in the IDF’s 300th “Baram” Regional Brigade.
Of the five other injured IDF soldiers, one is listed in serious condition, with three others in light condition.
Israel’s Iron Dome air defense network intercepted three of the five incoming suicide drones, the IDF said Monday afternoon (19th), though two others managed to reach their targets.
“Following the hostile aircraft infiltration, sirens sounded in the western Galilee, as multiple suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon – the Israel Defense Forces Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted some of the targets, and others fell in the area of Ya’ara,” the IDF said.
In addition to the strike on Ya’ara a hit was reported outside of Kibbutz Gesher HaZiv.
Earlier on Monday (19th), IDF forces struck Hezbollah positions in Aita al-Sha’ab, Beit Leaf and Khula in southern Lebanon.
At least one Hezbollah terrorist was killed in the strikes.
Hezbollah Tunnel Clip Offers Glimpse Into An Underground Far More Advanced Than Gaza’s
The tunnel Hezbollah showed in a propaganda video last week gave a glimpse of a yearslong “tunneling project of massive proportions” that is more expansive, sophisticated and threatening than Hamas’ underground network in Gaza, according to Israeli analysis.
The footage showed Hezbollah’s tunnel to be large enough for storing missiles and transporting them on trucks, Channel 12 reported. Though Hamas has some tunnels large enough for middle-sized vehicles, Gaza’s underground tunnel network serves mainly as a tactical footway for the terror group’s fighters, not as a strategic throughway for weapons.
While it was unclear where Hezbollah’s tunnel was located, or how many there are like it, Channel 12 Arab affairs analyst Ohad Hemo opined that it was probably “deep inside Lebanon.”
Former military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman, said that each of the 160 Shiite villages in southern Lebanon was likely equipped with an underground combat position.
Hayman, who directs the Institute for National Security Studies, said that although Hezbollah considers its tunnels to be secure, “Israel has intelligence capabilities and a capacity for underground detections, developed in recent years, which is considered to be the most advanced tactically in the world.”
Amid fears of war in Lebanon, Hezbollah on Friday (16th) published a highly edited video showing an underground missile facility called Imad 4. The footage showed missile-laden trucks driving around the facility, as well as launching positions for projectiles. An official from the Iran-backed terror group said the missiles in the video have a range of about 86 miles, capable of reaching deep inside Israel.
According to Hemo, “the tunnel was reminiscent of tunnels, replete with missiles and drones, that are known to exist in Iran. Those tunnels are apparently meant to give the Islamic Republic underground positions to fire at Israel in wartime.”
He said that like Hamas, Hezbollah has also built tunnels where its top officials could take shelter. However, he added, Hezbollah’s combat doctrine is not as dependent on underground tunnels as Hamas’.
Hezbollah has also tunneled directly into Israel, but those tactical tunnels were exposed and destroyed by the IDF in the January 2019 Operation Northern Shield, according to Tal Beeri, an expert on underground warfare.
Beeri said in an interview with The Times Of Israel in January that Hezbollah’s tunnel network was cumulatively several hundreds of kilometers long.
In a research paper, Beeri assessed the route of a 28-mile long “attack tunnel” in southern Lebanon. He told the news outlet that North Korea, which has cooperated with Hezbollah on tunneling for some four decades, was also involved in the group’s latest tunneling efforts.
Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the Lebanese border on a near-daily basis since October 8, a day after the war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’ thousands-strong rampage through southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 kidnapped to Gaza.
The terror group has threatened all-out war against Israel in response to the July 30 killing of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s military leader, in an airstrike on its south Beirut stronghold. The airstrike came three days after a Hezbollah rocket killed 12 children in the Golan Heights.
Hours after Shukr’s killing, an explosion in Tehran killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. Iran has threatened to exact “harsh punishment” on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied being behind the blast.
Hamas Threatens To Bring Back Suicide Bombings
The Hamas terrorist organization threatened Monday (19th) to resume its use of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli targets if the war in Gaza continues.
On Monday (19th), the official Telegram channel of Hamas’ military wing – the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades – claimed responsibility for an explosion in Tel Aviv Sunday night (18th) which killed one and wounded another.
Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency confirmed earlier on Monday (19th) that the incident was almost certainly a botched Palestinian terrorist attack, noting that the man killed in the explosion was a Palestinian Arab.
In the group’s statement Monday afternoon (19th), Hamas dubbed the incident a “martyrdom operation,” and vowed that such operations would be brought back “to the forefront” should the war in Gaza continue.
“The Al-Qassam Brigades, in cooperation with the Al-Quds Brigades, announce the implementation of the martyrdom operation that took place yesterday evening, Sunday (18th), in the city of Tel Aviv.”
“The Brigades confirm that martyrdom operations inside the occupied territories will return to the forefront as long as the occupation’s massacres and displacement of civilians continue and the policy of assassinations continues.”
Palestinian Arab terrorist organizations have long-described suicide bombings , first used against Israeli targets in 1989, as “martyrdom operations.”
Used by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad during the 1990s, the number of suicide bombings soared during the Second Intifada of the early 2000s, only to decline later, with the near cessation of their use during the year 2010.
Hamas issued the warning after the group rejected the proposed hostage and ceasefire deal currently on the table, accusing Israel of changing its demands and the U.S. of bowing to Israeli pressure.
Opinion: Time To Face The Truth – Hamas Is A Unified Terrorist Entity – Yosee Yair Collins
It is time for the world to recognize the entirety of Hamas as a terror organization.
In the wake of the daring assassination of Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh and the ascension of Yahya Sinwar to the top job of political chief of Hamas, the false division between the political wing of Hamas and the military wing of Hamas has been exposed.
Haniyeh,who started his terrorist career as aide-de-camp of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, held the position of political chief since 2017 and was seen as a moderate in the eyes of many around the world. Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip around the same time to help strengthen ties with Hamas’ strategic allies, and since then he has mainly led a life of luxury in Qatar and has traveled between Hamas’ allies mainly Qatar, Iran, and Turkey with forays to Lebanon, Russia and China.
Recently, his escapades came to an abrupt halt following a mysterious explosion in a Revolutionary Guards guesthouse in Tehran that killed him and his bodyguard. Following his elimination, Hamas decided to give the top job to Sinwar, the head of the so-called military wing of Hamas, which is considered more radical.
In the past, many countries have made an artificial divide between the military wing of Hamas, which is seen as hardline radicals and is sanctioned and outlawed in most Western countries, and the political wing of Hamas, which is seen as a more moderate and dovish faction of the group with which agreements could be reached.
This has led some countries to leave the political wing out of their sanction regime in the hopes of strengthening their hand against the radical military wing. The position of the Israeli government and a small number of foreign entities and analysts is that such a distinction is arbitrary and has no basis in reality, rather both wings form a synergetic relationship that fathers the overall goal of Hamas, which is the destruction of the State of Israel.
This is not by any means a unique position the West has taken against Hamas. Similar distinctions have been made with other malign actors such as Hezbollah, the Taliban, and different elements within the Iranian regime. Yet, in no other case, is the distinction so blatantly false as this one – as has been shown following Sinwar’s ascension to the job.
Sinwar, the terrorist who masterminded the October 7 massacre that saw some 1,200 Israelis murdered and some 251 abducted, has now taken the position of the head of the political wing of Hamas while simultaneously holding the position of top military leader of the group. This shows without a shadow of a doubt that the political and military leadership are complementary parts of this machine of destruction.
Based on this evidence, the State of Israel must take diplomatic action and demand that all parties, governmental or otherwise – including the UN – recognize the entirety of Hamas as a terrorist organization.
To paraphrase the words of Bill Roggio, editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal: “There is no good Taliban and bad Taliban, there is the Taliban.”
The same must be said for Hamas: There is no moderate Hamas and no radical Hamas – there is only Hamas. It is not enough to theoretically declare Hamas as a terrorist organization. It must fully be treated as such.
The writer is an IDF combat veteran and analyst of current affairs, commencing a degree in history and political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
