news

Explosions being reported in Eilat, no confirmation yet.

This particular location seems geographically relevant to keep an eye on. It's Israel's southern port and the location closest to another Jordan town that could flare up. Israelis and Jordanians living less than 5km apart here.

🔴Kan Hebrew Channel:

Israel informed the mediators that it is ready to consider a large-scale prisoner deal with the Gaza Strip, leading to the release of a large number of israelis, this is what a political official familiar with the ongoing talks with Qatar, Egypt and other mediators told the channel.

According to reports in various media outlets, Hamas is demanding the transfer of fuel to Gaza, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and a ceasefire - and the political official replied: “Things are approaching the moment of maturity, and we will soon know where they are headed.”

Potential direction of current talks might be crucial.

Libya expels the ambassadors of Britain, the United States, France and Italy from the country because of their governments’ position on the situation in Gaza.

US quietly expands secret base in Israel: Report

The US has been quietly moving ahead with expanding a secret base it maintains in Israel’s Negev desert, just 32km (20 miles) from Gaza, according to a report by The Intercept.

Code-named “Site 512,” the construction at the radar facility atop Mt. Har Qeren will include what US government records describe as a “life support facility”, or barracks-like structures for staff.

The Intercept said on Friday the $35.8m facility, which was not publicly announced or previously reported, was obliquely referenced in an August 2 contract announcement by the Pentagon.

I was looking for a Tony Benn quote and stumbled on this classic interview with him during the 2009 Gaza Massacre. The BBC had refused to broadcast details of charities supporting people in Gaza, so he went full belligerent pensioner mode to get it on air. The way he runs rings around her while defending Hamas is . Benn might have been a DemSucc, but it really shows up as the fucking melt he is here

Edit: fuck, I found what I was looking for - “there’s no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber”. I forgot it was in the context of him calling John Bolton a war criminal and telling him that America is a declining empire. It’s also quite telling to hear the Syrian Ambassador to the UK saying “errr, guys, the border with Syria, terrorists guys, guys?”

https://streamable.com/if98x0

🇵🇸❌🇮🇱 — On October 21, 2023, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), published a propaganda video, threatening the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) against a ground invasion of Gaza

During the footage, Al-Quds Brigades fighters are seen moving inside the underground tunnels of Gaza, as well resting and reading the Quran preparing for a possible battle inside the Bunkers that exist under Gaza strip

According to War Noir (https://t.me/war_noir/13525), PIJ fighters are armed with AK-103-2 rifles (from 🇱🇾 Libya), 🇷🇸 Yugoslavian M70B1 rifle with a rare silencer/suppressor, RPG-7 Launchers with PG-7V/M rockets, 🇨🇳 Chinese Type 56-1 rifles, PKM/Type 80 machine guns, AKM rifles and explosives/grenades.

watching Palestinians whose Twitter accounts I have followed for years - both regular citizens and journalists - go from posts of desperation about the current hell in Gaza to silence and then the announcement of their deaths is a modern horror I don't really have the words for

Nitter

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Edit

Aljazeera' s brave veteran journalist Wael Dahdouh's wife, son and daughter were killed in an Israeli airstrike which targeted a shelter house they had fled to. Wael received the news while on air covering the nonstop Israeli strikes on Gaza!

Nitter

There are two raw video clips at the link.

Could I BE anymore dead?

(you'll find this funny within the next hour)

Second Palestinian killed in latest Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank

The director of Jenin Governmental Hospital, Wissam Bakr, identified the second person killed early on Monday as Nawras Ibrahim Bawaji. He was 28 years old.

Bawaji and Amir Abdullah Sharbaji were both shot by Israeli forces during the raid, which we reported earlier near the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin.

At least nine other people were reported injured, according to the Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

Among those injured was a young man, who was hit by missile fragments following a drone strike on the home of the Qaniri family in Jenin.

A video posted by Al Jazeera Arabic on X, formerly Twitter, also showed a bulldozer in the process of destroying a gate in the Jenin refugee camp.

[The tweet - Nitter]

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, who is reporting form Ramallah, also in the occupied West Bank, confirmed from sources that at least 20 people were detained in a separate raid in the Palestinian territory.

Since the October 7 Hamas attack in Israeli, at least 114 people, including children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank. At least 1,600 have been arrested.

- Al Jazeera

Meatball is campaigning via the Gaza war.

Emphasis mine.

Florida cargo flights arranged by DeSantis carried drones and body armor for Israel

The Israeli government procured the equipment and asked the state of Florida for help transporting it overseas, a source with knowledge of the arrangement told CNN. The supplies were included on two cargo planes that left Florida for Israel on October 17.

DeSantis’ office previously said the cargo flights carried “medical supplies, clothing items, hygiene products and children’s toys” that had been donated to help Israel in the aftermath of the attack by Hamas earlier this month, but it did not mention that the state was also carrying equipment for Israel that could be used in response to the war effort.

The governor’s office confirmed to CNN on Thursday the inclusion of the additional equipment.

“At the request of the Israeli Consul General in Miami, cargo planes contracted by Florida were used to transport healthcare and hospital supplies, drones, body armor, and helmets that first responders can use,” Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for the governor’s office, said in a statement.

Redfern said that the governor’s office also worked with the Israeli consul general to “help get weapons and ammunition to Israel through private parties.” However, the source said Florida did not transport those supplies, and it’s unclear how the state aided Israel in the movement of munitions.

[Continues]

https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-10-26-23/h_234c329652009146b0a95177fb2fcdfb

Emphasis mine. I love how the NYT doesn't even bother to explain. But in so doing for libs who are actually thinking the settlers seem like a direct extension of the Israeli state.

Four more Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank overnight into Friday as violence continues to rise, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Since Oct. 7 at least 110 Palestinians have been killed and another 1,900 wounded in clashes with Israeli forces or attacks by settlers, the ministry said.

The U.N. Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it had recorded a significant increase in Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians and their property in the occupied territory since Oct. 7, with at least 146 such attacks. The agency added that amid the increase in violence at least 82 Palestinian households, comprising 607 people, have been displaced from their homes.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/27/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news/939bf05a-51a2-5fab-8741-6982f76d295e?smid=url-share

Per CNN just now: The Detroit synagogue stabbing was not hate motivated.

Simplicius' recent piece on Ukraine and a little on Israel.

My summary:

I never really know how much stock to put in the reports by certain Ukrainian soldiers and such (the plural of anecdote is not data after all) so I'll leave most of it out, though there is a report by a soldier in the 47th brigade - which was rotated away from the Zaporozhye front after taking such high losses that there were fears that the soldiers would mutiny, and sent to try and stop Russia around Avdeevka - that the casualties that they're experiencing are the most horrific in the entire conflict. Considering the absolute killing ground that Zaporozhye was and is, one shudders to think.

Anyway, over in Avdeevka, Russia has continued their very slow and steady advance, taking a slag heap and planting their flag on it, which the Ukrainians got pissy about and fired drones at the flag. Russia wants to gain control of the coal coke plant as it's a good position to watch over a large chunk of the battlefield here, so that'll be next on the agenda probably. Comparisons are being made by both sides to Bakhmut, and again to the appalling strategy of hold-territory-at-any-cost-to-prevent-embarrassment. A representative of a DPR brigade said that the town will fall "soon", which in Russian speak is "hopefully within this decade".

Ukraine is trying to make their Kherson D-day happen, but it's not going to happen. The logistics simply are not there. They aren't being sneaky ninjas, undercutting Russian defences by daringly finding a weak spot to cross the river and then continue onwards - they are being pounded on marshy river islands.

Rumors continue, as they have for the last month or two, of a new front soon opening up from Belgorod. Apparently Russia has withdrew most of their troops from Belarus and so an assault on Kiev isn't in the cards, but something around Kharkov might well be. Reports that Ukrainians are using 14-15 year olds now on that front to try and have some presence there but I don't really know how much stock to put in it. Russia may be trying to form some kind of south-bound offensive on the west side of the Oskil river, which doesn't mean that Kharkov itself has to be threatened, but we shall just have to wait and see.

Simplicius talks about Russia's Orlan reconnaissance drone, and how Ukraine is having a massive amount of trouble dealing with the extensive information that they give to Russia, so much so that Simplicius calls it “the single most successful combat drone in the history of warfare," far surpassing the Reapers and Predators that the US uses to bombard Afghani weddings. Tens of thousands of objects have been destroyed thanks to the Orlan. It is cheap, flexible, durable, and versatile - all things that the US can no longer make, and that Russia has generally excelled at. The anti-drone Volnorez jammers that Russia is putting on more and more armored vehicles are also briefly mentioned. Russia continues to repel fairly large (by Ukraine's standards) drone and missile attacks on Crimea without breaking much of a sweat. And Russian air defence is reportedly well on its way to figuring how to counter ATACMS.

In more international news, Russia has conducted their final tests on the Burevestnik missile, which is nuclear-powered and thus can essentially travel forever. This is causing some in the United States to freak the fuck out, because the problem is that their radar and missile detection is located along the logical places that they would expect Russia to strike from, and not, say, around the Mexican border, but now this missile gives Russia the ability to fire a missile, send it on its merry way skirting around known missile detection sites, do a loop-de-loop a dozen times over the Pacific ocean for funsies, and then land it through the US's southern border and hit their military factories - of which they already have pretty few. So US arms companies are scouting out places to put new radar sites.

Simplicius describes Israel as in a lose-lose situation. Israeli commanders have said that the operation will take 3 months, though it could be much more drawn out than that. If Israel stops, then the damage done to Gaza will only give Hamas more and more angry recruits and strengthen them, far from weakening them. If Israel goes in, then they might face horrific losses that the demoralized state might not be able to withstand. A former CIA chief has warned Israel about this. And this is just Gaza - Hezbollah could also cause extremely major problems. Regardless, it seems that Ukraine will be going through a bullet and artillery famine as deliveries to Israel are prioritized.

It seems like the US has been trying to pull Israel back from the brink and stop - or at least stall - the ground operation to try and get things set up. The US has a total of 4 THAAD batteries and 50 Patriot batteries, and they're sending a quarter of those to the Middle East. The US is even drawing up a plan to evacuate all American citizens from the region if worst comes to worst. Meanwhile, the Resistance has been busy too, with the Hezbollah-Israel border clashes amping up, the strikes on US bases in Iraq, and Yemen firing those missiles towards Israel that were shot down. There is a rumor that Russia is allowing Iran to use one of their military airbases in Syria to land their planes to facilitate arms transfers given that Israel keeps knocking Aleppo and Damascus airports out. Meanwhile, Lavrov went off to Iran, and Russia's deputy defence minister met with Iraq's ambassador and talked about the conflict.

Bombardment in northern Gaza on 'a scale we've never seen before'

Rushdi Abualouf reporting from Khan Younis, Gaza

There was a huge bombardment in the north of Gaza strip on a scale we’ve never seen before.

Huge flames could be seen rising into the sky – it seemed they were using different types of bombs.

At the hospital here ambulance drivers told me they couldn’t communicate with anyone, so they were just driving in the direction of the explosions.

There’s been panic everywhere, even here in Khan Younis, where the bombing was less, as people try to reach family members in other areas to check they are safe, but the phones have been cut off.

It’s total chaos.

- BBC

The BBC needs to join the 21st century and provide links to specific updates.

Hamas Military Spox Says Releasing Israeli Captives Requires Releasing All Palestinian Prisoners

Al Manar

Commentary: Alhamdulillah nothing less than every one!

Chris Hayes "interviewed" a Norwegian doctor about the dire situation involving hospitals in Gaza. I didn't time the segment and I was listening to it the background. I have no idea how long it was. 5 minutes? Hayes hardly asked any questions. At the end of the "interview" - he didn't miss a step he thanked the doctor for his time and quickly moved on to the next segment.

TV news often goes hours speaking elliptically about the fucking "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza in passive constructions. When they they finally sort of cover the horror - Hayes's segment is typical. I think I'm beyond angry to something like nausea. In private I hope he at least acknowledges that he's a soulless corporate husk that's addicted to his sweet, sweet MSNBC compensation package so he doesn't rock the boat. But I wonder if he even does that.

The next segment was about the hostages and I changed the channel before the flood of questions started.

🇸🇾💥🇺🇸 Reports that the US base at Al-Tanf, Syria was targeted by two drones.

I wonder if it’s taboo to take political stances on things in other countries like it is in America (my experience anyway)

In high school, I can remember no one taking a stance on anything and defaulting to the “middle” instead, even if they were the furthest thing from a centrist. Very much radiates not discussing your salary energy

Godamnit people need to talk about all the elephants in the room I swear to god because how else do you build coalition? Friends, sure, but why aren’t these things normalized

American officials told ABC: The United States is pressuring #Israel to adopt a narrower scope of its attack and adopt a gradual approach.

Israel is preparing for a "multilateral operation" from the sea, ground and air, defense minister says

Israel is preparing for a "multilateral operation" on Hamas from the "air, ground, and sea," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video statement released Monday.

Gallant has completed a tour of the Ashdod Navy base, where he said he "conducted a situation assessment of naval operations" and "toured the shores on Israel’s southern border together with Navy Commander VADM David Saar Salama," according to the Ministry of Defense on Monday.

He commended the work of soldiers and commanders in "thwarting many attacks that would have taken place" against Israel, Gallant said in a video statement filmed during the visit.

“My message to the soldiers – well done, you did an excellent job! Keep preparing for our operation, it will come soon. We are preparing thoroughly for the next step – a multilateral operation in the air, ground, and sea," Gallant added. "Do your work, get ready. We will need you.”

https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-10-23-23/h_419603129343e9e4f686bb5b6268359e