IDF Involvement on October 7 Hamas Attack
Updated 2024-08-26
2024-07-09 Yes it Was a “False Flag”, “Murder their Own Soldiers”. Israelis Widely Used “Hannibal Directive” on Oct. 7: Israeli Report https://www.globalresearch.ca/israelis-hannibal-directive-oct-7/5862017
2024-07-09 “On the Record with Hamas”: Jeremy Scahill Speaks with Hamas About Oct. 7, Ceasefire Talks & Israel With the war on Gaza now in its 10th month, we speak with journalist Jeremy Scahill about the state of negotiations for a possible ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. Scahill recently spoke to senior Hamas officials about the ongoing ceasefire negotiations and the group’s broader goals. He is a co-founder of The Intercept, and he recently announced he was leaving after more than a decade to launch a new investigative journalism outlet, Drop Site News, alongside colleague Ryan Grim. Scahill’s new article, “On the Record with Hamas,” examines the militant group’s motivations to launch the October 7 attacks in Israel, as well as its stance on the negotiations, based on interviews with a number of senior Hamas officials and other sources. “October 7 didn’t happen in a vacuum,” says Scahill. “The primary motivation, Hamas members told me, was to try to shatter the status quo on Gaza. They felt that the situation was becoming untenable.” Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc4atK6DzpM
2024-06-21 Israeli army probe finds multiple cases of friendly fire on October 7 The army probe identified numerous examples of Israeli forces targeting Israeli civilians, as well as overreacting or failing to act on October 7. Mainstream media has smeared The Grayzone for exposing Israel’s “Hannibal Directive” scandal months ago.
A review by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) set to be released this summer will conclude that Israeli soldiers killed many of their own people on October 7, Israeli media reported. The inquiry is expected to identify multiple failures of the IDF during the Hamas rampage in southern Israel.
According to Israel’s Channel 12 News, the IDF report due to be released in mid-July found “many casualties due to our forces firing on our forces.” Tel Aviv has been accused of ordering its soldiers to kill hostages rather than allow Hamas to use them in negotiations, a policy long known as the ‘Hannibal Directive.’
The IDF’s October 7 review appears to point to incompetence rather than the intentional killing of its own civilians. However, Israeli outlet Ynet’s investigation of the IDF’s conduct found Tel Aviv had ordered troops to follow the Hannibal policy.
Still, the conclusions from the forthcoming report will amount to an official admission that scores, if not more, of Israelis were killed by IDF soldiers, not Hamas. https://thegrayzone.com/2024/06/21/israeli-army-friendly-fire-october-7/?
2024-06-20 IDF Report Found Multiple Cases of Friendly Fire Deaths on Oct 7 A review by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) set to be released this summer will conclude that Israeli soldiers killed many of their own people on October 7, Israeli media reported. The inquiry is expected to identify multiple failures of the IDF during the Hamas rampage in southern Israel.
According to Israel’s Channel 12 News, the IDF report due to be released in mid-July found “many casualties due to our forces firing on our forces.” Tel Aviv has been accused of ordering its soldiers to kill hostages rather than allow Hamas to use them in negotiations, a policy long known as the ‘Hannibal Directive.’
The IDF’s October 7 review appears to point to incompetence rather than the intentional killing of its own civilians. However, Israeli outlet Ynet’s investigation of the IDF’s conduct found Tel Aviv had ordered troops to follow the Hannibal policy.
Still, the conclusions from the forthcoming report will amount to an official admission that scores, if not more, of Israelis were killed by IDF soldiers, not Hamas. https://news.antiwar.com/2024/06/20/idf-report-found-multiple-cases-of-friendly-fire-deaths-on-oct-7/
2024-06-20 Leaks of findings from Oct. 7 IDF probe show: Friendly fire incidents, hesitation to fight The IDF has aggressively denied various other leaks about failures related to October 7, so the complete silence in the face of this latest report was telling.
Officially, the IDF probes on October 7 will only be disclosed to the public in mid-July. On Wednesday, Channel 12 reported leaks of some of the key findings; the IDF, notably, did not deny the report.
Although the IDF also did not confirm it, the military has been aggressive in its denials of other leaks about failures related to October 7, so the complete silence in the face of this latest report is telling.
According to the report, the probe will find numerous cases of friendly fire errors leading to tragic deaths, groups of IDF soldiers who were too hesitant to confront Hamas invaders (as still others rushed to fight without being formally summoned), higher-up commanders ordering some groups of soldiers to remain in a reserve second-line capacity – when they should have headed into the front, and not knowing how to handle complex battlefield questions involving a hostage situation in Be’eri. https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-807053?
2024-04-03 The truth about October 7: Director Richard Sanders discusses his Al Jazeera film with Peter Oborne “When the Israelis and their supporters are called on to justify the ferocity of their response, which has killed far, far more people than the Hamas incursion… again and again and again, they will talk about babies and they will talk about rapes.”
Award-winning journalist and film director Richard Sanders, sits down with Middle East Eye columnist Peter Oborne to discuss his latest film with Al Jazeera’s Investigation Unit (I-Unit) October 7. The film provides a forensic analysis of the Hamas-led attack on Israel that day, revealing human rights abuses committed by Hamas fighters. The months’ long investigation also found that many claims repeated by politicians and western media, including mass rape and killings of babies, were false. Sanders explains that the failure of western media outlets in reporting these claims has been used by Israel to justify its war https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4vqO-Y70Mk
2024-02-27 Examining Israeli Allegations of Atrocities by Resistance in Operation al-Aqsa Flood Hamas’s Narrative: It’s important to note that the Hamas movement, amidst numerous false Israeli accusations after Operation al-Aqsa Flood on 7/10/2023, had its media office issue a document in January 2024 to clarify that their operation specifically “targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.” These locations were responsible for bombarding Gaza and its residents.
It also clarified that “Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people,” adding, “if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently.”
The Israeli accusations against the Palestinian resistance and GS residents of brutality and inhumanity in the attack on 7/10/2023 are an attempt to legitimize further Israeli crimes in GS. These accusations do not justify the retaliation against more than 2.3 million Palestinians living there, nor do they justify the commission of more than 2,325 massacres, the killing of more than 27,238, including more than 12,000 children, and more than 8,190 women, 122 journalists, 339 medical staff, and 46 civil defense members. Nor do they justify the loss of more than 7 thousand Palestinians under the rubble (70% of them are children and women), the injury of more than 66,452 Palestinians, the displacement of more than 2 million people in GS, and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of residential units, mosques, churches, health centers and government buildings, all until 3/2/2024, the 120th day of the war.
Israeli crimes in GS are well-documented with audio and visual evidence, and even admitted by Israeli officials, despite their false denials. This is often encouraged by the extreme right-wing settlement movement, which, according to a Haaretz article by Uri Misgav, prohibits criticism of the government and Israel’s “saintly soldiers.” They believe that “it is forbidden to end the fighting; dead soldiers and hostages are a worthy, noble sacrifice on the way to redemption, the silver platter on which the State of Judea will arise. For this camp, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the Messiah’s donkey, a useful idiot. They keep warning him that the day he dares stop the fighting is the day that his government falls.” https://www.globalresearch.ca/examining-israeli-allegations-atrocities-resistance-operation-al-aqsa-flood/5850689
2024-01-13 Israel’s MOST Brazen Lies About Hamas! https://www.facebook.com/24JimmyDore/videos/1100062397808776
2023-11-25 Israeli teen ”burned completely” by Israeli tank fire at kibbutz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjC0_swYbT4
2023-11-20 Palestinian Activist Remembers Vivian Silver, Israeli Canadian Peace Activist Killed in Hamas Attack [MEK Note:We will probably never know for sure, but is more likely that Vivian was killed by IDF tank firing at Kibbutz housing]
Israeli and Palestinian peace activists are mourning 74-year-old Canadian Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver after she was confirmed killed on October 7 during the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where she lived. She was previously thought to be held hostage. Silver co-founded the Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation, sat on the board for the human rights group B’Tselem and was an active member of Women Wage Peace. Silver’s friend and colleague Samah Salaime, a Palestinian feminist activist, says Silver would have pushed for dialogue to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. “This was her legacy, and this is what we have to march for and fight for after her death.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/20/vivian_silver
2023-11-19 IDF combat helicopter targeting Hamas fighters at Nova festival massacre shot some partygoers by mistake, says Haaretz A police investigation of the Nova music festival massacre on October 7 indicates that the IDF mistakenly shot some festival attendees while firing at Hamas terrorists. The alleged debacle was reported by Israeli newspaper Haaretz, citing a police source. The source told Haaretz that their police investigation intimates that an IDF combat helicopter fired at terrorists after arriving on the scene. While targeting the perpetrators, the helicopter reportedly also hit the festivalgoers. Three hundred sixty-four people were killed at the festival, a third of the fatalities from Hamas militants’ coordinated terrorist attacks on Israel on October 7, per The Times of Israel. Approximately 3,500 people attended the psychedelic trance festival three miles away from the Gaza border, per The New York Times.
Alongside the fatalities, dozens of festival attendees were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. A video of 25-year-old Noa Argamani being hoisted onto a motorcycle by militants while calling for her boyfriend went viral on social media.https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/idf-combat-helicopter-targeting-hamas-fighters-at-nova-festival-massacre-shot-some-partygoers-by-mistake-says-haaretz/ar-AA1kb3LG
2023-11-18 Hamas had not planned to attack music festival, Israeli report says Hamas fighters who attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7, killing hundreds, likely did not know in advance about the event and decided to target it on the spot, Israeli media has reported citing police and security sources. According to a copy of the first Israeli police report into the attack, obtained this week by Israel’s Channel 12, Palestinian fighters had originally intended to attack nearby kibbutz Re’im as well as other villages near the Gaza border. They found out about the music festival with drones and from the air as they parachuted into Israel.
While police found maps of the target locations on the bodies of killed Hamas members, none was of the festival location. An additional finding supporting the assessment, according to Haaretz, was that Hamas militants did not approach the festival from the direction of the border but from a nearby highway. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hamas-had-not-planned-to-attack-music-festival-israeli-report-says/ar-AA1k9UWu
2023-11-17 Death count from Re’im music festival massacre reportedly updated to 364 — a third of Oct. 7 fatalities https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/death-count-from-massacre-at-reim-music-festival-reportedly-updated-to-364-a-third-of-oct-7-deaths/
2023-11-17 DID ISRAEL’S MILITARY KILL ITS OWN CIVILIANS ON OCT. 7? Testimony from survivors of Al Aqsa Flood, combined with the documented past actions of Israel’s armed forces against captured soldiers and civilians, raise questions about what really caused the high Israeli death toll. For all the sensationalism surrounding the events of Oct. 7, when Hamas broke through the Gaza fence and seized territory in the Gaza Envelope as part of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, there is still much that we do not know. The official Israeli death toll from the attack is estimated at 1,200 civilians, revised from an initial estimate of 1,400. Among this figure are several hundred civilians, which Israel says were killed by Hamas militants. Other testimony from survivors of Oct. 7 suggests an alternative explanation—that in its fervor to defeat Hamas, Israeli commanders may have willingly targeted and sacrificed Israeli soldiers and civilians in the crossfire. Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone joins The Chris Hedges Report for an in-depth look. https://therealnews.com/did-israels-military-kill-its-own-civilians-on-oct-7
2023-11-17 The Chris Hedges Report with reporter Max Blumenthal on how the Israeli military launched a series of attacks on Oct. 7 designed to kill Hamas gunmen along with their Israeli hostages. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-with-reporter
2023-11-16 Were the Hamas Attacks in Israel a False Flag? The October 7th Hamas attack on Israelis has been referred to as “Israel’s 9/11,” which gives us good reason to believe that it was probably another false flag psy-op. Some people really do believe it was a false flag, i.e., that the Israeli regime allegedly knew that it was being planned and let it happen. As Paul Craig Roberts notes, how could Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency not know this was being planned? Don’t Israeli intelligence and military have the most sophisticated and comprehensive monitoring and surveillance of the Israeli sheeple and of Palestinians and of Hamas? The planning allegedly was going on for 2 years. Really? And there were warnings from other countries or intelligence agencies, including Egypt who had warned the Israelis of a terrorist attack being planned, warnings ignored.
And now we are learning that there is a high probability that many of the Israelis killed on October 7th were killed by the Israeli military (IDF) itself, possibly as high as 80% of the Israeli deaths, according to Scott Ritter. And Ron Unz described the IDF as possibly “trigger-happy Apache pilots”. It has also been difficult for Israeli authorities to distinguish between many killed Israeli and Palestinian bodies.
Justin Raimondo noted that the Israelis promoted the organization that later became Hamas for the purposes of discouraging Palestinians from supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasser Arafat as well as to cause blowback. https://www.activistpost.com/2023/11/were-the-hamas-attacks-in-israel-a-false-flag.html
2023-11-13 The October 7 Hamas Assault on Israel The Most Successful Military Raid of this Century. Israel has characterized the attack carried out by Hamas on the various Israeli military bases and militarized settlements, or Kibbutz, which in their totality comprised an important part of the Gaza barrier system, as a massive act of terrorism, likening it to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States. Israel supports this characterization by citing the number of persons killed (some 1,200, a downward revision issued by Israel after realizing that 200 of the dead were Palestinian fighters) and detailing a wide variety of atrocities it claims were perpetrated by Hamas, including mass rape, the beheading of children, and the wonton murder of unarmed Israeli civilians.
The problem with the Israeli claims is that they are demonstrably false or misleading. Nearly a third of the Israeli casualties consisted of military, security, and police officers. Moreover, it turns out that the number one killer of Israelis on October 7 wasn’t Hamas or other Palestinian factions, but the Israeli military itself. Recently released video shows Israeli Apache helicopters indiscriminately firing on Israeli civilians trying to flee the Supernova Sukkot Gathering held in the open desert near Kibbutz Re’im, the pilots unable to distinguish between the civilians and the Hamas fighters. Many of the vehicles that the Israeli government has shown as an example of Hamas perfidy were destroyed by the Israeli Apache helicopters.
Likewise, the Israeli government has widely publicized what it is calling the “Re’im massacre,” citing a death toll of some 112 civilians it claims were murdered by Hamas. However, eyewitness accounts from both surviving Israeli civilians and military personnel involved in the fighting show that the vast majority of those killed died from fire from Israeli soldiers and tanks directed at buildings where the civilians were either hiding or being held hostage by Hamas fighters. It took two days for the Israeli military to recapture Re’im. It only did so after tanks fired into the civilian residences, collapsing them onto their occupants, and often setting them ablaze, causing the bodies of those inside to be consumed by fire. The Israeli government has publicized how it has had to make use of the services of forensic archeologists to identify human remains at the Kibbutz, implying that Hamas had burned the occupants’ home. But the fact is it was Israeli tanks that did the destruction and killing. https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/the-october-7-hamas-assault-on-israel
2023-10-27 The Hannibal Directive: What Really Happened On October 7th As the fog of war clears, it seems the true story of October 7 is not quite as cut and dry as it once seemed. MintPress director Mnar Adley reports on how Israel used the Hannibal directive that resulted in the deaths of Israeli civilians at the hands of Israeli soldiers and police. This is a key piece of context missing from mainstream corporate media reporting on October 7th. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxGDRJJ9avw
2023-10-27 October 7 testimonies reveal Israel’s military ‘shelling’ Israeli citizens with tanks, missiles Israel’s military received orders to shell Israeli homes and even their own bases as they were overwhelmed by Hamas militants on October 7. How many Israeli citizens said to have been “burned alive” were actually killed by friendly fire? Several new testimonies by Israeli witnesses to the October 7 Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel adds to growing evidence that the Israeli military killed its own citizens as they fought to neutralize Palestinian gunmen.
Tuval Escapa, a member of the security team for Kibbutz Be’eri, set up a hotline to coordinate between kibbutz residents and the Israeli army. He told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that as desperation began to set in, “the commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”
A separate report published in Haaretz noted that the Israeli military was “compelled to request an aerial strike” against its own facility inside the Erez Crossing to Gaza “in order to repulse the terrorists” who had seized control. That base was filled with Israeli Civil Administration officers and soldiers at the time.
An Israeli woman named Yasmin Porat confirmed in an interview with Israel Radio that the military “undoubtedly” killed numerous Israeli noncombatants during gun battles with Hamas militants on October 7. “They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she stated, referring to Israeli special forces. As David Sheen and Ali Abunimah reported in Electronic Intifada, Porat described “very, very heavy crossfire” and Israeli tank shelling, which led to many casualties among Israelis. While being held by the Hamas gunmen, Porat recalled, “They did not abuse us. We were treated very humanely… No one treated us violently.” She added, “The objective was to kidnap us to Gaza, not to murder us.” https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/
2023-10-24 What really happened on 7th October? [MEK Note: Recommend reading full article] Evidence is now emerging that up to half the Israelis killed were combatants; that Israeli forces were responsible for some of their own civilian deaths; and that Tel Aviv disseminated false ‘Hamas atrocities’ stories to justify its devastating air assault on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
In the interim, two weeks of blanket western media reporting that Hamas allegedly killed around 1,400 Israeli civilians during its 7 October military attack has served to inflame emotions and create the climate for Israel’s unconstrained destruction of the Gaza Strip and its civilian population. Accounts of the Israeli death toll have been filtered and shaped to suggest that a wholesale civilian massacre occurred that day, with babies, children, and women the main targets of a terror attack.
Now, detailed statistics on the casualties released by the Israeli daily Haaretz paint a starkly different picture. As of 23 October, the news outlet has released information on 683 Israelis killed during the Hamas-led offensive, including their names and locations of their deaths on 7 October. Of these, 331 casualties – or 48.4 percent – have been confirmed to be soldiers and police officers, many of them female. Another 13 are described as rescue service members, and the remaining 339 are ostensibly considered to be civilians. https://new.thecradle.co/articles/what-really-happened-on-7th-october https://progressiveissuesblog.com/2023/11/25/2023-10-24-what-really-happened-on-7th-october/
2023-10-18 Israel/Palestine: Videos of Hamas-Led Attacks Verified ICC Has Mandate to Probe Attacks as War Crimes. Human Rights Watch has verified four videos from the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas-led gunmen, showing three incidents of deliberate killings, and presents this analysis in a video published today. The attacks should be investigated as war crimes.
On the morning of October 7, 2023, heavily armed men breached the fences separating Israel and Gaza and entered southern Israel. At least 1,400 people were killed, many of them civilians, including children, according to Israeli officials. Human Rights Watch continues to investigate these incidents, as well as others, as war crimes.
“These attacks highlight the importance of the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s ongoing investigation,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “The ICC prosecutor has made clear he can investigate serious crimes committed both by Palestinian armed groups in Israel and by Israeli authorities in Gaza.” https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/18/israel/palestine-videos-hamas-led-attacks-verified
2023-10-16 Hamas attack Israel’s Kibbutz Sufa: Newly surfaced video details terrorists infiltrating homes Newly surfaced bodycam footage details how the terrorists attacked Israel’s Kibbutz Sufa residential compound on October 7. The footage, captured on a camera worn by Hamas, showed them entering the Kibbutz in the south of Israel by climbing over the entrance gate, after which they unleashed gunfire on the neighbourhood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4XiTRkg9s8
2023-10-07,09 What happened in Israel? A breakdown of how Hamas attack unfolded A surprise attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israel – combining gunmen breaching security barriers and a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza – was launched at dawn during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. Saturday’s attack came 50 years and a day after Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an assault during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in an effort to retrieve territory Israel had taken during a brief conflict in 1967. Here’s how the brazen assault unfolded:
03:30 GMT – Covering rocket fire
At about 6:30am (03:30 GMT) Hamas fired a huge barrage of rockets into southern Israel with sirens heard as far away as Tel Aviv and Beersheba. Hamas said it launched 5,000 rockets in an initial barrage. Israel’s military said 2,500 rockets were fired. Smoke billowed over residential Israeli areas and people sheltered behind buildings as sirens sounded. At least one woman was reported killed by the rockets. “We announce the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and we announce that the first strike, which targeted enemy positions, airports, and military fortifications, exceeded 5,000 missiles and shells,” Mohammed Deif, head of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said.
04:40 GMT – Dawn infiltration
The rocket attack served as cover for an unprecedented multipronged infiltration of fighters with the Israeli military saying at 7:40am (04:40 GMT) that Palestinian fighters had crossed into Israel. Most fighters entered through breaches in security barriers separating Gaza and Israel. But at least one Hamas soldier was filmed flying over in a powered parachute. A motorboat carrying fighters was seen heading to Zikim, an Israeli coastal town with a military base. One video showed at least six motorcycles with fighters crossing through a hole in a metal barrier. A photograph released by Hamas showed a bulldozer tearing down a section of fence.
06:45 GMT – Israeli attacks
At 9:45am (06:45 GMT) blasts were heard in Gaza and at 10am (07:00 GMT) Israel’s military spokesperson said the air force was carrying out attacks in Gaza.
07:00 GMT – Fighting at Israeli military bases
Israel’s military said at 10am (07:00 GMT) that Palestinian fighters penetrated at least three military installations around the frontier – the Beit Hanoon border crossing (called Erez by Israel), the Zikim base, and the Gaza division headquarters at Reim.
Hamas videos showed fighters running towards a burning building near a high concrete wall with a watchtower and fighters apparently overrunning part of an Israeli military facility and shooting from behind a wall.
Saleh al-Arouri, deputy chief of Hamas in the occupied West Bank, issued a call to arms. “We must all fight this battle, especially the resistance fighters in the West Bank,” he said in a statement.
Several captured Israeli military vehicles were later pictured being driven into Gaza and paraded there.
Border town raids
Fighters raided the Israeli town of Sderot, another community Be’eri, and the town of Ofakim, 30km (20 miles) east of Gaza, according to Israeli media.
Residents of southern Israel fortified their homes to function as bomb shelters and were using them as panic rooms. Israel’s military ordered residents to shelter inside, saying on the radio, “We will reach you.”
By late evening, Israeli troops were still working to clear communities overrun by Hamas fighters. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/7/what-happened-in-israel-a-breakdown-of-how-the-hamas-attack-unfolded
2023-10-08 ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 2: Israel declares war as casualties skyrocket Ongoing fighting in towns around Gaza. As of 2 p.m. local time, Palestinian resistance fighters were still engaged with Israeli forces in several Israeli localities bordering Gaza, while the Israeli army announced that it would be evacuating 25 other border towns, and possibly more in the next 24 hours “according to the assessment of the situation.”
Throughout the day, the fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian commandos has been thickest in Kfar Aza, Re’im, Ofakim, Kissufim, Kibbutz Magen, Erez, Zikim, and several other Israeli colonies, although the map of confrontation continues to shift throughout the day, with some place being taken over by Israeli forces, while others coming under control of Palestinian resistance fighters.
Most importantly, both the resistance factions’ media organs and Israeli military sources are confirming that the Palestinian forces have been able to partially resupply in certain areas, which indicates that the resistance intends to prolong its operation in occupied Palestine. Hamas military spokesperson Abu Obidah confirmed that Hamas could resupply its fighters inside the occupied territories and managed to infiltrate more fighters.
“The Al-Qassam leadership managed to supply the fighters with weapons, shells, and equipment. The leadership also infiltrated new fighters and supported them with over 100 rockets.” Abu Obidah said. In a recent statement by Abu Obidah, he said that the Hamas air forces joined the battle with over 35 homemade drones.
The fighters inside Israel are not only Hamas-affiliated fighters, the PIJ also said that dozens of its fighters are joining the battle and fighting the Israelis. Whether this may lead to extended control over areas surrounding Gaza, or is part of a moving force meant to fulfill limited tactical objectives before withdrawing, remains to be seen. Media reports have reported increasing Israeli and Palestinian casualties from the ongoing fighting in the settlements, and the Israeli army released the names of 25 soldiers killed during the fighting as of 1 p.m. local time.
Hezbollah launches limited strikes
On Sunday morning, October 8, Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon fired rockets into northern occupied Palestine at three Israeli targets in the Shebaa Farms region, which is historically Lebanese land that has been occupied by Israel since 1967. The areas targeted by Hezbollah were “radar sites” such as Zebdine and Ruwaisat al-Alam.
The Islamic resistance organization put out a statement following the attack, proclaiming that it was “on the road to the liberation of what remains of occupied Lebanese soil,” and that an armed force in Hezbollah had carried out these attacks on the Israeli sites with “a large amount of artillery fire and guided missiles.”
The immediate cause of the strike was its coinciding with the surprise attack of the Gaza resistance a day earlier, which Hezbollah conducted in retaliation for Israel’s retribution against Palestinians in Gaza and its attacks on Al-Aqsa, and “in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance and their struggle,” as conveyed by a Hezbollah spokesperson.
Yet the Lebanese strike was also preceded by gradually mounting tensions on occupied Palestine’s northern border, namely between Hezbollah and the Israeli regime. The tensions expressed themselves in various incidents and inflammatory remarks from Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s threats of sending Lebanon “back to the Stone Age” after Hezbollah put up tents on the Israeli side of the border.
By approximately 11:50 a.m. local time,, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, Hashem Safi al-Din, put out a statement saying that “we are not remaining neutral in the battle that is being waged against the Israeli occupation.”
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