In the middle of the week, Hamas was surprised to find the IDF again in the north of the Gaza Strip. After thinking that this part of the war was behind it, it discovered infantry forces (the Nahal Brigade) and armor (the 401st Brigade) in the Sabra and Rimal neighborhoods, and also on the outskirts of Shatti.
This is part of the third phase of the war, in which the IDF changes the format of its operations and moves from a massive campaign, with large forces, to a more focused campaign against specific targets. This phase is possible after the IDF defeated the brigades and battalions of Hamas, leaving smaller forces in the field and less organized, which can be dealt with even without enslaving half an army for the benefit of any operation.
., Photo: IDF spokesman
These promotions will last for varying periods of time.
Sometimes a night or a day, sometimes a few days.
This will be determined according to the target - usually the Hamas infrastructure that needs to be hit.
The IDF plans to operate in this format for the foreseeable future. Months, maybe even years. Enter, strike and leave. Until a new, more efficient and less hostile government is established in Gaza, and even then Israel will strive to maintain maximum security freedom of action as it has been doing in Judea and Samaria since Operation Protective wall.
This limited operation in the north of the Gaza Strip is being conducted at the same time as the more intense campaign in the south.
The IDF has almost completed the attack on the city of Khan Yunis brigade on its four battalions. Remnants of them remain active in the refugee camp and in the west and south of the city, although their effectiveness is limited. The massive migration of citizens from the city (about 150,000 of its residents have been evacuated, out of about a quarter of a million) indicates that they They don't believe that Hamas can protect them. The criticism that some of them voiced - openly, in the media - shows that their desperation outweighs their fear.
The IDF also boasted this week of the fact that it killed hundreds of Hamas operatives, and killed hundreds of others who were transferred for investigation. It also destroyed many land infrastructures, although the rule that applies here too is not what was destroyed but what remains. And in this aspect, it must be admitted, the war is proceeding slowly. Very Slowly. Most of the underground infrastructure is still active, and a significant percentage of the Hamas fighting force was not damaged, or was only partially damaged and switched to another guerilla combat "mode".
Faced with the three declared goals of the war - to return home the abductees, to harm the leadership of Hamas and to destroy its Posh (command and control) infrastructure - the IDF is successfully meeting only one, the third, and even that to a limited extent for the time being.
The first target, the abductees, is still far away;
The contacts do take place all the time, but the difficult decisions are still ahead of us.
The proposed deal will be difficult to digest in terms of the number of prisoners that Israel is required to release, during the cease-fire, and especially in the fact that most of the abductees will be left in Gaza after the cease-fire, and this is without entering into the political turmoil it may create against the backdrop of threats by ministers and parties to withdraw from the coalition.
The IDF also made it clear this week that it would know how to stop the fighting if necessary, and accordingly also renew it. This was also its answer in November, when the previous deal for the release of abductees was realized. So today the IDF supported the deal, knowing that there is no other effective way to ensure that the abductees will return home alive
So today he also made it clear that a ceasefire - certainly if it is prolonged - will have costs, mainly in the military rehabilitation capacity of Hamas and in the postponement of the planned campaign in Rafah.
The second goal frustrates Israel greatly.
A senior official admitted this week that he was convinced that this week, four months into the war, Israel had already frustrated at least two or three of the organization's top officials.
In practice, she didn't kill any of them.
Sinwar, Daf, Marwan Issa and several other senior officials continue to operate and command the organization, and even if it is more difficult for them because of communication and compartmentalization problems - their rule remains unshakable.
Israel has indeed killed dozens of commanders in the middle ranks of battalion and company commanders, but the damage to the senior ones is less, and shows that in the race that the parties conducted on the eve of the war - Hamas to prepare hiding places, Israel to locate and mark them - the former clearly has the upper hand.
The Hamas leadership will finally be located.
It could happen today, or in a month or a year.
Since she surrounded herself with hostages, the decisions on how to act will be accompanied by difficult ethical and public dilemmas.
The leadership and the public will need nerves of steel.
The public has already proven that it is mature enough to deal with the harsh reality that has been imposed on us.
The leadership, on the other hand, continues to sink into the political mire and may lose the legitimacy of its decisions - every decision, from a deal to an action that will cost the lives of hostages.
There is no fighting without assistance
In this harsh reality, there was one bright spot this week: the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague that did not issue an interim order to stop fighting, and in fact allowed Israel legitimacy to continue the campaign.
The principled discussion of South Africa's illusory claim of genocide in Gaza has not yet been legally decided, but for all intents and purposes, Israel was freed to continue on its way, even if it was called to be more careful about the humanitarian concerns of the residents of Gaza and the language of its elected officials.
These two issues are important for the continuation of the war.
The first, to buy Israel more time and legitimacy, until it defeats Hamas.
The claims and demonstrations against the introduction of aid to Gaza are understandable, but without aid there will be no fighting.
This is part of the deal with the Americans, the essence of which is: flour and fuel in exchange for bombs and a veto in the United Nations. In Washington, they see the figures - about 30,000 dead Palestinians and about 65,000 wounded, and about 1.4 million refugees who are now mainly concentrated in the Rafah area - and ask Israel to take the appropriate steps The government understands and approves, and in its way stutters when it comes to the need to tell the truth to the Israeli public.
Tent camp in Rafah, photo: AFP
Which brings us to the second issue.
As the days go by, many ministers free themselves from the shackles of war and unity and return to the old and bad politics.
It is evident in every corner, in every speech, in every visit.
Those few who transcend, who see the common good, the national responsibility, the one-time opportunity we were given to rise from hell, are stronger and more united.
Unfortunately, too many do not understand this.
They continue to fill the pool with water, and may drown us all in it.
Likud Communications Minister
Tal Lev-Ram, who was appointed this week to command the IDF Air Force, is a colleague and friend of mine. An excellent professional, intelligent, very matter-of-fact. A combat officer in the past, and later a speaker (in the Southern Command) and a military reporter (in the IDF Air Force and in Maariv).
A lover of Israel and a lover of the IDF, and one who is not afraid of criticism: not of his own criticism of others, nor of others' criticism of him.
On the eve of his appointment, Communications Minister Shlomo Karai tweeted against Defense Minister Yoav Galant: "Unfortunately, it seems that the Defense Minister who was elected by the Likud and received a mandate from the right to be the Defense Minister of the State of Israel, decided a long time ago to go in the opposite political direction. To appoint a distinctly left-wing man as commander of the IDF In such a sensitive period, either one of the two straw candidates from the extreme left (Nurit Kanti and Ilail Shahar, who were also candidates for the position - YEL), instead of privatizing the station or making it exclusively military for the sake of the soldiers without current affairs, or at the very least leave an objective person And from someone like Dani Zaken (who was temporarily in charge of the station - 11), it's a shame and disgrace."
A few clarifications about this tweet.
The first, intra-Likud: Karai, in his unintelligent way, actually states that Gallant is not the defense minister of the State of Israel but the defense minister of the Likud, and that his decisions should be driven by the Likud interest and not the national interest.
He does it in the middle of a war, at a time when the entire country is supposed to be united, or as the Prime Minister is wont to say - there is no right or left.
The second, the appointment itself: in Karai's world, anyone who is not a person who is politically identified (or identified with the right) is necessarily a leftist, and for the sake of the Mahadrin - an extreme leftist.
According to the Minister of Communications, leftism is a disease comparable to leprosy or rabies, and which obliges anyone in their right mind to stay away from those who suffer from it.
Let's leave, once again, the search for a unifier during the war, and once again emphasize the obvious: for Karai, skills are not important, only political loyalty is important.
Karai is right about one thing: the IDF's airwaves should be closed or privatized. It has no place in the current, current media map, with the multitude of digital and social channels and platforms. The soldiers have long since needed their own station, and do not need their own station. The IDF knows how to speak to them In many other ways, and those who think that they can be indoctrinated through a military station are welcome to get out of Ceausescu's Romania.
But Gali IDF is not the story. It may be that Shalv Ram will maintain it, and it may be that he is the commander who will close it. I trust him to do what is good for the station and what is good for the IDF.
Those who know him know that it will be so.
From hundreds of conversations with him over the years, I can testify that politics is less interesting to him.
The only ones he will serve will be the listeners.
The story is self-destructive, still alive on October 6.
In his world, the high-minded are not meant to serve us, the public, but him and his goals.
For this purpose, he was sent to the Ministry of Communications, and this is how he has been operating since his first day in office.
Even before he learned the difference between television and radio, he wanted to reform the public broadcasting corporation, and then worked in every way to crush certain television channels in order to strengthen others.
Karai talks about media pluralism, but lives in a fantasy world where the government determines messages and the media broadcasts them without asking or making it difficult.
This is what he expected Gallant to do in the IDF; on the way he tarnished Danny Zaken and others when he revealed what he thought of them.
The Minister of Communications has no standing in the appointment of the Gali commander of the IDF, and Gallant did well when he sent his tweet to its rightful place in the trash. Political commentators will probably see Lev Ram's appointment as further proof of Gallant's distance from Netanyahu, but in my eyes that is less important. What is important is The lifting of the curtain that Kraei made for himself and many of his friends, who did not yet understand - or refuse to accept - that Israel changed irrevocably on October 7th.
Not just underwear and tank tops
I checked this week how many items of clothing, combat equipment and other means have been issued to the IDF since October 7. Here is some of the data: approximately 6 million items of clothing and shoes, approximately 630 thousand items of combat equipment, 2,915,163 pizzas and hamburgers, 13,784,757 personal five-packs, 7,338,515 fresh and chilled sandwiches for eating, 492,880 meat sandwiches, etc. For the benefit of the winter days, approximately 64,000 windbreakers, approximately 260,000 storm suits, approximately 610,000 pieces of winter clothing, approximately 2 million heating bags, approximately 120,000 neck warmers, approximately 170 thousand gloves, as well as about 800 water heating systems, about 1,000 generators, about 1,600 air conditioning systems for tents, about 1,700 inflatable tents and about 1,600 buildings for living in the field.
This is an impressive logistical operation, perhaps unprecedented.
It requires adjustments from the first moment.
Not only because of the huge amount of soldiers (about 300 thousand reservists at the peak, in addition to regular and permanent soldiers) and because of the continuation of the war, but in view of the demands from the field.
Thus, the battle rations changed already four times during the war.
At first, the soldiers received the "Quarter", then it received energy supplements, and later the troops were given meat pots (a box with disposable pots and gas cookers for cooking in homes in Gaza) which were also upgraded in the meantime with rice and pasta supplements for self-cooking.
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The residents of the area went through a similar process.
At first the soldiers slept in field tents (igloo), which were replaced by inflatable tents.
For the winter, mobile heat guns were added to the tents, and in the cold places (Mount Dov, the Golan Heights, the Upper Galilee) hundreds of air-conditioned buildings heated by generators were scattered.
Although the networks were flooded with images of soldiers sleeping in huge puddles, the reality on the ground was a little different: after the first rain there were several tents that were erected incorrectly, lessons were learned and this week there were only two inquiries from fighters about tents that were torn (and immediately replaced with new ones).
This logistical campaign is conducted from the General Staff down: to the commands and arms, and from them to the divisions and brigades in the field. Any introduction of equipment to the forces in Gaza or to the forces on the Lebanese border is an operation for everything, with battle procedure, axes of movement and security. There have already been cases when convoys were attacked, or the supporters of the fighting who led them got into fighting together with the forces that received the supplies.
"We are talking about dozens of supply operations every night, for four months now," says Brigadier General Haim Malki, Chief Logistics Officer (KLR).
"We put everything into the forces: food, water, clothing, combat equipment, ammunition, fuel and medical equipment. This usually happens in convoys, and there have been cases where we have brought equipment by air. The fighters in the field lack nothing: today we even manage to get uniforms out for washing. Our people collect them In personal bags with the fighter's name on each bag, and they are returned to him after a few days."
I asked my king about the shortages at the beginning of the war, especially of ceramic vests.
He said that it was decided beforehand that only those who enter to fight in Gaza will receive a ceramic vest, and those who remain in Israeli territory will receive a regular bulletproof vest. According to him, this bulletproof vest is less heavy and more effective against shrapnel (in areas that are threatened mainly by rockets and missiles) because its layer of protection is wider.
This did not convince the soldiers, and especially their parents.
Around the world there was a hunt for ceramic vests.
Donors invested millions in equipment, most of which was thrown away because it did not meet the required protection standards.
Most of the time it was ceramic panels that didn't protect enough or that crashed upon impact, and sometimes there was a problem with the vest itself and its straps.
Most of these vests were tested by the IDF and rejected, but Malki says there were also some that were provided directly by donors to the units and endangered soldiers in the field. This also happened with non-standard helmets and tactical uniforms that are not fireproof.
Malki says that logistics often saves lives.
The medical treatment is unprecedented, from the response in the field to the rapid evacuation to the hospitals: only about 7.5% of the wounded die, a figure that brought medical officers from all the world's armies to Israel to study and copy.
The mental torture has also changed dramatically: mental health officers have been stationed in the field, who immediately meet the fighters who have developed severe combat reactions.
Experience shows that in most cases the best treatment is to immediately return them to combat to prevent the worsening of the phenomena, although we must honestly admit: in this context, of the psychological consequences of war, the main campaign is still ahead of us.
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