Operation Iron Swords - Day 196 - 19 April 2024

“At any point, Hamas could have ended this burgeoning tragedy to
surrender and release every hostage. …
Hamas instigated and owns this humanitarian catastrophe.”
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)

Contents

UPDATED - True Promise IR-IL NEW - War Termination NEW - Operations NEW - Operations - Gaza NEW - Operations - Judea-Samaria NEW - Operations - Lebanon NEW - Operations - Syria / Iraq NEW - Operations - Yemen UPDATED - Operations Maps NEW - By-Standers NEW - Axis of Resistance NEW - Allied for Democracy UPDATED - By the Numbers

Passover will begin in the evening of Monday, April 22, and will last through April 30 just after sundown. Jews in the land of Israel and some Reform Jews in diaspora will end Passover on the evening of Monday, April 29th. Passover, also known as Pesach in Hebrew, is a significant Jewish holiday commemorating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt, as narrated in the biblical book of Exodus. It is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays and is celebrated for seven or eight days, depending on tradition. The central ritual of Passover is the Seder, a ceremonial meal held on the first two nights (and sometimes the last two nights) of the holiday. During the Seder, the Haggadah, a text that recounts the story of the Exodus, is read aloud, and symbolic foods are eaten. These include matzo (unleavened bread), bitter herbs (to symbolize the bitterness of slavery), charoset (a mixture of fruits and nuts representing the mortar used by the Israelites in their forced labor), and others.

The prohibition of chametz (leavened food) is a significant aspect of Passover observance. This stems from the biblical command to eat only unleavened bread during the holiday. Many Jews thoroughly clean their homes before Passover to remove all traces of chametz, and some even perform a ritual search, called Bedikat Chametz, to ensure no chametz remains. Passover is also a time for Jews to reflect on themes of freedom, redemption, and renewal. It is a time for family gatherings, storytelling, and prayer, as well as for contemplating the relevance of the Exodus story to contemporary issues of justice and liberation.

War Termination

Regarding the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip , the G7 foreign ministers demanded an immediate ceasefire in the Strip, the release of all detainees, and a guarantee of the arrival of aid. They renewed opposition to a massive Israeli military operation in Rafah , warning of its disastrous consequences for civilians. They also added that more efforts must be made to alleviate the devastating and worsening humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. The G7 denounced what it described as the "unacceptable number of civilians" who were martyred in Gaza during the Israeli war. Regarding the negotiations file, Blinken said that discussions to release detainees in the Gaza Strip are still ongoing. He stated that Washington wants a future in the region that guarantees the integration of Israel into it and resolves the Palestinian issue, considering that the appropriate time to recognize the Palestinian state has not yet come, according to his description.

The political analyst in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Nahum Barnea, said today, Friday, that there is “a consensus among hundreds of members of the Israeli occupation army, the Shin Bet, and the National Security Council, who have been working for half a year on the issue of Israeli prisoners, that the head of the Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas In the Gaza Strip , Yahya Sinwar , wants a prisoner exchange agreement.

He added that Sinwar "wants an agreement on his conditions, which he has not changed for months, and the latest Hamas proposal that was presented was within the same conditions, and Sinwar did not tighten his demands, but rather adheres to them. These conditions are difficult to comprehend, but currently there are no other facts available." He pointed out that "it is difficult to understand the logic of the Israeli campaign these days under the title Hamas does not want a deal." It is likely that the Mossad and its head, David Barnea, are behind this campaign.”

The Yedioth Ahronoth analyst believes that “Israel wasted two opportunities to make Hamas soften its positions; the first was during work on the first deal, last October, when a prisoner exchange was carried out, and Sinwar was in dire need of fuel, medicine, and food. He agreed to liberate two kidnapped persons in addition to the hostages who had been captured.” He continued: "When Sinwar saw that he lacked kidnapped people in order to fulfill the terms of the deal and asked to change it, the Israeli side refused. This was a tragic mistake. And those who made the decision on our side did not believe that they were condemning the rest of us to half a year of hell, and perhaps death."

He added: "The second opportunity was last month, at the height of Israeli control in Khan Yunis. Israel held in its hand an important bargaining chip. Hamas was ready to back down from its condition of an immediate Israeli withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip, but it insisted on dividing the Gaza Strip and the return of the population to the north." He concluded by saying: “The Israeli army imposed a veto, and Benjamin Netanyahu stuck to it, dissipating the possibility. The Israeli army is now ready to give up partition and allow the Palestinians to return to the north, but Sinwar has returned to his original agenda.”

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz said that it had seen satellite and photographic images taken last Tuesday, revealing that the Israeli occupation army is building and developing two settlement outposts on what it described as a strategic road that divides the Gaza Strip into two halves. The occupation army calls the construction and development of the two settlement outposts the “Netzarim Corridor,” describing it as a long-term achievement, and confirms that the corridor was built to last.

The "Netzarim Road", located in the middle of the corridor, divides the Gaza Strip into two halves. The two settlement outposts were built along this road, which aims to enable the Israeli army to control the movement of Palestinians from south to north and launch operations in different parts of the Strip, according to the Israeli newspaper report. According to Haaretz, the two settlement outposts are located at the crossroads between the “Netzarim Road,” and one of the outposts is located at the crossroads of the Netzarim and Salah al-Din Roads, and the other is at the intersection of the Gaza coastal road.

It says that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled across the region from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south in the early stages of the war. The process of building the two settlements appeared clearly in satellite images taken at different times during the war by Planet Labs, a company specialized in collecting remote data on the Earth and photographing it using these satellites. According to the newspaper, the photos show that “Netzarim” was paved to be an extension of the already existing road. Its lands were also prepared for the establishment of the two settlements. The army transferred its equipment to it after that.

The occupation established the Netzarim settlement in 1977, 5 kilometers from Gaza City, with an area estimated at 2,325 dunums (a dunum equals a thousand square metres). While the total area that the occupation controlled to secure the settlers was about 4,300 dunums. On August 15, 2005, the Israeli army began evacuating the settlers.

According to Haaretz, the photos also show air-conditioned housing units brought to the site, electrical power infrastructure, and toilets and bathrooms. The phrase "Welcome to the Netzarim base" was written on a concrete barrier at the outposts on the coastal road. Haaretz added that the Netzarim Corridor - which is currently controlled by Israel - is among the negotiating points between Tel Aviv and the Islamic Resistance Movement ( Hamas ), which demands the withdrawal of the Israeli army from it and from the settlement outposts established on it.

On the other hand, the Israeli army considers the construction and control of the corridor an achievement achieved through its war on Gaza, and wants its occupation of the site to continue for a long period of time, which the Hamas movement does not accept, as the newspaper indicates. In two of the videos - taken not far from the Salah al-Din Road site - Israeli soldiers can be seen singing and dancing.

Operational Update

The two guests of the program “Gaza... What Next?” believe that the current atmosphere between Iran and Israel was created by Gaza and October 7, and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to exploit the issue of Iran in order to marginalize the Gaza Strip. The researcher in strategic and political affairs, Saeed Ziad, said that Gaza is the heart of the action, and without it, the Israeli response to Iran would not have been in such a weak form - as was described - and the United States of America would have pushed it away or protected its back.

Iran announced - at dawn on Friday - that there had been explosions in the sky of the city of Isfahan , and confirmed that there had been no missile attack or damage to sensitive installations. While American media quoted officials as saying that Israel carried out retaliatory strikes in response to the Iranian attack that targeted it last Saturday, the Israeli army refused to comment on the matter.

According to the researcher, what the United States wants, and is trying to rationalize with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, is for Gaza to remain the area of strategic engagement, and for Israel’s efforts not to be dispersed in other areas. It is likely that Iran, for its part, read the scene well and knew that Israel was suffering from the October 7 predicament and from internal weakness due to drowning in the Al-Aqsa flood , in addition to the United States being shackled to it. Therefore, Iran tried to exploit this situation and attack Israel. Iran has succeeded - adds researcher Ziad - in launching a new path in which it broke the rules of engagement that had been established for 45 years, and encouraged the Lebanese Hezbollah to expand the scope of its clash with the occupation.

Ziad stresses the role of Gaza and what happened on October 7 in changing the equation of the conflict, highlighting that in normal circumstances Israel would have responded more broadly, and Iran, for its part, would not have responded at all or postponed its response as it did in the past. The researcher in strategic and political affairs believes that Gaza benefits from the current situation, because it relieves pressure on it, and that Israel will not be able, no matter how strong it is, to maintain a high pace of clashes in Gaza as long as it is busy on other fronts. He said that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza believes that The military action required now is to engage in a larger number of arenas to engage in clashes with Israel.

In the same context, the academic and expert on Israeli affairs, Dr. Muhannad Mustafa, confirms that Netanyahu tried to exploit the issue of Iran and make it the center of internal and international attention in order to marginalize Gaza, but he failed in that, and the Israelis understood the tricks of their prime minister and became more severe on the issue of their prisoners held by the resistance. Palestinians in Gaza. The international level has also brought Gaza back to the forefront due to the humanitarian crisis there.

Dr. Mustafa, for his part, points out that Iran imposed a deterrence equation and a new conflict equation on Israel that cannot be separated from what is happening in the Gaza Strip, as what happened on October 7 encouraged other parties in the region and weakened Israel. He said that the Israeli response to Iran harmed the Israeli deterrence system and contributed to its erosion, indicating that Iran attacked Israel and announced it at the time and with official responsibility, while Israel has not yet officially announced the attack on Isfahan.

Operational Update - Gaza

The Israeli army bombed several areas in the Gaza Strip after committing new attacks in the past hours, raising the number of martyrs to more than 34,000. Al Jazeera's correspondent said that a Palestinian woman was martyred and others were injured this evening in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in the Al-Salam neighborhood, east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. The reporter added that a child was injured in a separate bombing near the Eastern Cemetery in Rafah.

Since this morning, the Israeli army has continued to fire and fire artillery shells towards the border areas east of the city of Rafah, amid low and intense flight of reconnaissance drones. This repeated bombing comes while the Israeli media is talking about preparations being made by the occupation army to begin a military operation in Rafah, which houses about 1.5 million displaced people. Earlier today, Al Jazeera's correspondent said that Israeli warplanes bombed a house today in the Beit Lahia project area in the northern Gaza Strip.

The occupation aircraft also launched raids on the Al-Sikka and Tal Al-Zaatar areas in Jabalia, which are also located north of the Gaza Strip. At the same time, the occupation artillery targeted the vicinity of Ezbet Beit Hanoun in the same area. A few days ago, the Israeli army carried out an incursion into Beit Hanoun for the first time in 4 months, targeting displaced people in the area. The resistance confronted the invading forces and carried out operations against them that included sniping at soldiers, in addition to launching rockets towards the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip .

In Gaza City, Israeli warplanes targeted Al-Shati camp today, and 3 people were martyred yesterday as a result of the bombing of the Al-Jazzar family’s home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of the city. In the central region, the occupation bombed empty homes and agricultural lands in the Al-Mughraqa area, the vicinity of the electricity company, and north of the Nuseirat camp. Two days ago, Israeli forces retreated from the northern Nuseirat area after a military operation that left large numbers of martyrs and widespread destruction. Also in field developments, Israeli Channel 13 reported that Iron Dome intercepted this evening a missile fired from Gaza towards the Sderot settlement on the Gaza Strip.

Operational Update - Judea-Samaria

Friday evening, the death toll of Palestinian martyrs rose by 7 as a result of the ongoing Israeli incursion into the city of Tulkarm and its two camps, in the northern occupied West Bank, according to medical sources and official government media. The Palestinian Ministry of Health announced in a brief statement that the child martyr Qais Fathi Nasrallah (16 years old), who was injured by live Israeli occupation bullets, arrived at Tulkarm Government Hospital from Tulkarm camp.

The official Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) also said that the child Nasrallah was wounded by live occupation bullets in the head, on the street leading to the Shweika suburb, north of the city of Tulkarm. In another incident, Palestine TV (government) said that the Israeli army killed 5 Palestinians inside a house in the Nour Shams camp in the city of Tulkarm as a result of shooting and assassinating them in cold blood. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that the occupation army continues to prevent ambulances from entering Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm in the West Bank, thus obstructing the transfer of injured people from inside it.

Activist in the Services Committee of Nour Shams Camp, Ibrahim al-Nimr, described the latest storming of the camp as “the largest and most violent of the 22 previous stormings of the camp during the last two years,” as the occupation deliberately bulldozed its entire infrastructure and a large part of its homes. During a series of military incursions in the last two years, Tulkarm Governorate recorded the martyrdom of more than 40 of its residents, about half of whom were from Nour Shams camp. Al-Nimr told Al Jazeera Net that the occupation army used a large number of military vehicles and drones during its incursion into the ground to track and monitor the resistance fighters. He said, "The occupation wanted this raid to liquidate the battalion and end its presence, especially its leader, Abu Shuja."

The Israeli forces stormed Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm in the West Bank , and clashes took place, resulting in the injury of 4 Israeli soldiers, including an officer. Al Jazeera's correspondent said that the occupation bulldozers destroyed several homes and infrastructure inside the camp, while the occupation army continues a campaign of arrests and investigations with citizens.

Israeli Army Radio said that an officer and three soldiers were injured during an Israeli army operation in the Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm, northwest of the West Bank. Israeli sources said that two of them were seriously injured after clashes with the Palestinian resistance in the camp.

For its part, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarm reported that they were engaged in clashes with Israeli soldiers in the Nour Shams camp with machine guns and explosive devices, causing direct casualties. The Al-Qassam Brigades in Tulkarm also said that they targeted occupation vehicles at the entrance to Tulkarm camp with explosive devices. Al-Aqsa TV, quoting family sources, said that the young man, Salim Ghannam, was martyred by occupation bullets during the ongoing storming of Nour Shams camp in Tulkarm. He is the brother of the martyrs Amer and Ahmed Ghannam, who were martyred in the invasion of the camp on October 19.

The commander of the Tulkarm Battalion in the Al-Quds Brigades and one of its founders, Muhammad Jaber “Abu Shuja,” was also martyred after the occupation forces besieged the Nour Shams camp for more than 18 hours. The Israeli Army Radio website announced that two soldiers were injured by bullet fragments during an exchange of fire with gunmen in the camp. The occupation forces stormed the town of Qasra, south of Nablus, from the southern side, and fired tear gas bombs.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that two young men were injured by live bullets during confrontations with the occupation in the town of Beita, south of Nablus.

The Islamic Jihad movement "strongly condemned the Arab and international silence regarding the continuing Zionist crimes against our people in the West Bank." It confirmed in a statement that storming the city of Tulkarm and imposing a siege on Nour Shams camp confirms the Israeli government’s sponsorship of settlers’ crimes, according to the statement’s description. She added that this "suspicious silence is a green light for the criminal entity to proceed with its declared plans." It also condemned what it said was the Palestinian Authority's continuation of the policy of security coordination, which has proven to be "a disaster for our people and comes at the expense of their cause and national goals," as the statement said.

In another matter, the Israeli prosecution decided, at the request of the police, to freeze the conditional release of academic Nadra Shalhoub and transfer her to the District Court. The Israeli court decided to suspend Shalhoub's arrest under restrictive conditions. Dozens of students participated in a protest in front of the Israeli Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, coinciding with Shalhoub’s trial session this morning, demanding her release. The police arrested Shalhoub yesterday evening without prior warning or summons, following an incitement campaign targeting her over the past weeks, after she was accused of accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, and denying that acts of rape had occurred on October 7.

Operational Update - Lebanon

Operational Update - Syria / Iraq

Operational Update - Yemen

Maps

All maps are lies. “Not only is it easy to lie with maps, it is essential,” wrote cartographer Mark Monmoneir in his book How to Lie with Maps. He showed that condensing complex, three-dimensional spaces onto a two-dimensional sheet of paper [in old days] is bound to be reductive. But it is impossible to comprehend the war in Gaza without reference to maps, otherwise the entire conflict is reduced to an endless series of meaningless acts of random violence and the suffering of civilians. The first characteristic of guerrilla warfare is the loss of a front line. Evidently, different mappers have different ideas of how to depict the war in Gaza, notably those that seek to depict Israeli progress in the ground campaign. Part of the problem is latency. The news that forms the basis of the maps takes time to filter out to mappers, and the cartographers take time in crafting their maps, and it takes time to curate them. These processes are uneven among mappers, so their maps may differ in detail. Probably there is some ideological bias, or at least thematic apperception, which is understandable in wartime. It may come as no surprise that al-Jazeera maps depict rather less Israeli territorial progress than other sources. Finally, there remains the epistemological question of just exactly what are the colored in areas depicting. Naively, this might be understood as areas of Israeli control, that are no longer contested by the HAMAS. Or possibly these are areas of Israeli presence, in many of which the possibility of an RPG-wielding HAMAS militant popping out of a tunnel unexpectedly remains a live possibility. With the "zero-range" combat characterized by small unit tactics on both sides, maps may be prey to a fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Bystanders

The European Union imposed sanctions on 4 Israeli settlers and two Israeli “extremist” groups due to acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The Council of the European Union, the institution representing the 27 member states, said that individuals and entities subject to these sanctions are “responsible for serious human rights violations against Palestinians.” The Council explained - in a statement - that these violations include “acts of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, as well as violations of the right to property and the right to private and family life of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.” Sanctions include asset freezes and visa bans.

Axis of Resistance

Allied for Democracy

A 1997 law introduced by then-Senator Patrick Leahy prohibits foreign aid programs and the US Department of Defense from accessing foreign security, military and police units that commit human rights violations. On Thursday, ProPublica reported that a special State Department committee investigating alleged human rights violations based on the Leahy Law recommended months ago that Blinken exclude several Israeli army and police units operating in the West Bank from receiving American aid.

At a press conference in Italy on Friday, Blinken was asked about the recommendation and confirmed that he had made decisions based on the committee’s investigation, adding, “This could be done in the coming days.” An American official said that Blinken's decision regarding the unity of Netzah Yehuda is based on incidents that occurred before the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, all of which occurred in the West Bank. One source said that several other IDF and police units investigated would not be punished after they addressed their behavior.

Operation Iron Swords - By the Numbers

• 1,900,000 IDPs in Gaza
• 76,833 Gazans injured, 28% adult male
• 70,000 tons of explosives dropped on Gaza
• 70,000 housing units completely destroyed
• 70,000 Israeli IDPs from Lebanon border
• 45,000 bombs dropped in Gaza
• 43,000 Gazans killed, including buried under rubble
• 33,000 Gaza targets attacked
• 34,120 Gazans martyred
• 20,528 Palestinians in Israeli prisons [Haaretz, 20 Mar 2024]
• 15,140 Israelis injured [i24 TV]
• 15,000 rockets launched from Gaza
• 14,520 Gazan children martyred
• 13,000 HAMAS combatants killed [N12]
• 13,000 HAMAS combatants killed [IDF]
• 11,000 arrested by Israelis in the West Bank in 2023
• 10,000 Gazans missing under the rubble
• 9,920 Gazan women martyred
• 9,400 Palestinians in Israeli prisons
• 9,000 IDF needing psychological assistance
• 8,365 arrested by Israelis in the West Bank since Oct.7th
• 7,209 IDF injured admitted to rehabilitation [IDF]
• 6,800 IDF officers and soldiers injured [Channel 12]
• 6,000 HAMAS combatants killed [HAMAS]
• 5,500 IDF wounded [reports]
• 4,800 West Bank Palestinians wounded
• 4,700 sites targetted in Lebanon
• 3,850 wanted persons arrested throughout Judea and Samaria
• 3,484 administrative detainees
• 3,188 IDF wounded [IDF]
• 2,100 Gazan women are missing
• 1,609 terrorists killed on the first day
• 1,650 wanted persons arrested throughout Judea and Samaria affiliated with Hamas
• 1,160 Israelis killed on the first day
• 604 Israeli officers and soldiers killed since the start of the war
• 468 West Bank Palestinians martyred
• 364 people [including fighters] killed in Lebanon
• 260 Israeli officers and soldiers killed in Gaza
• 240 Hezbollah fighters killed in Lebanon
• 126 people recovered, including 91 Israelis, 11 bodies, and 24 foreign workers
• 116 living hostages in Palestinian custody
• 70 civilians killed in Lebanon
• 29 IDF deaths were caused by "friendly fire"
• 15 Israelis killed in the West Bank and Israel

Not every number is reported every day, so sudden jumps generally reflect reporting artifacts rather than actual upticks. Many of these numbers fluctate, up and down, with no apparent explanation. This list records the highest number reliably reported for each matter, under the theory that reality with catch up with reports, as is relentlessly the case.