DAY 9 OF THE GAZA WAR:Hezbollah Attacks as Israel Prepares Ground Invasion

Tel Aviv Diary October 15, 2023

Today marks the 9th day of the war. In the South, it is a period of preparation. Tens of thousands of IDF troops on the border are preparing for a massive ground assault. The goal remains the elimination of Hamas rule in Gaza. Hamas continues to fire rockets at Israel, the majority of which are aimed at the immediate area surrounding Gaza, with the lion’s share targeting Ashkelon, which is close to the border. Three rounds of rockets were aimed at the center of the country. One was aimed at our portion of Tel Aviv, another targeted other areas of Tel Aviv, and a third round fell harmlessly into the Mediterranean. The number of rockets has clearly decreased, since Hamas is attempting to ration its inventory for a prolonged war.

The Iranians and Hezbollah have decided to heat up the Northern borders. So far, they have chosen not to start a full-scale war, but are keeping things at a “slow boil”. Six anti-tank missiles were fired at Israel today. One person was confirmed dead in the northern border town of Shtula. Tonight, it was announced that we lost at least one soldier, I fear the number may be greater. In addition, there was a volley of nine rockets fired by Palestinians from Lebanon into Israel, northwest of the Galilee (Nahariya, Rosh Hanikra, Shlomi). Five were intercepted by Iron Dome, and the rest fell in open fields.

U.S. National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan stated today that it's possible Iran will decide to actively intervene in our war with Hamas. Due to that possibility, the U.S. officially announced that a second aircraft carrier, the USS Eisenhower, will join the USS Gerald Ford off our coast. Whether the Iranians and Hezbollah will be deterred by U.S. threats remains unknown. Hezbollah will continue to take limited military actions against Israel, assuming it can do so without provoking a major reaction from the IDF. Tonight Israel attacked a number of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to todays actions.

While the U.S. fully supports Israel, it is also pressuring the country to attend to the minimal humanitarian needs of Palestinians in Gaza. Sullivan asserted that Israel will restore water supply in Southern Gaza. He emphasized that safe spaces for civilians, free from military bombardment, where they have access to essential food, water, medicine, and shelter, must be established. This aligns with Israel’s plan to relocate the people of Gaza to the South, thereby clearing civilians from the Northern half of the Strip, i.e., where most of the Hamas infrastructure is located. The U.S. government, sensitive to world opinion, wants to ensure that Israel maintains its current broad, worldwide support.

IDF Chief of Staff Hertzi HaLevi met with troops along the Gaza border. HaLevi declared that our responsibility now is to enter Gaza, target every member of Hamas, and ultimately emerge victorious.

The commander of the Air Force announced today that its mission is shifting and that its new objective is to prepare for and support the ground assault on Gaza.

A bipartisan group of Senators, consisting of Senate Majority Leader Schumer, Senator Romney, Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Jacky Rosen, and Senator Bill Cassidy, arrived in Israel today as a show of support. Upon their arrival, they were greeted by a rocket attack on Tel Aviv, which forced the Senatorial delegation to take cover in a bomb shelter

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Prime Minister Netanyahu has invited President Biden to visit Israel during the coming week. Reports suggest that Biden is seriously considering the invitation.

This evening, Netanyahu met with the relatives of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas — for the first time. Family members and other representatives of those kidnapped have established a series of permanent tents opposite IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv.

An initial report from the Red Cross stated that, to the best of their knowledge, the condition of the hostages is not good.

To date, the army has notified the families of 155 individuals who have been kidnapped. There remains significant uncertainty regarding the total number of people Hamas killed and kidnapped last Saturday. Despite round-the-clock efforts to identify bodies, hundreds remain unidentified. As a result, additional families continue to receive the worst news possible, each and every day.

The Organization of Major Retail Businesses in the country is offering a voucher of 1,000 shekels to each person who has been forced from their home. The town of Sderot was almost fully evacuated today, with all residents being provided with hotel rooms in Eilat. The mayor of Ashkelon is demanding similar accommodations for his residents.

The conflict in Gaza is not at all new. On April 28, 1956, Moshe Dayan met with Roi Rothberg at Nachal Oz. Rothberg was in charge of security at the new Kibbutz. The next day, Rothberg was killed by a Palestinian gunman, who mutilated his body. Dayan, who was Army Chief of Staff of at the time, delivered his eulogy.

Yesterday with daybreak, Roi was murdered. The quiet of a spring morning blinded him, and he did not see the stalkers of his soul on the furrow. Let us not hurl blame at the murderers. Why should we complain of their hatred for us? Eight years have they sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and seen, with their own eyes, how we have made a homeland of the soil and the villages where they and their forebears once dwelt.

Not from the Arabs of Gaza must we demand the blood of Roi, but from ourselves. How our eyes are closed to the reality of our fate, unwilling to see the destiny of our generation in its full cruelty. Have we forgotten that this small band of youths, settled in Nahal Oz, carries on its shoulders the heavy gates of Gaza, beyond which hundreds of thousands of eyes and arms huddle together and pray for the onset of our weakness so that they may tear us to pieces — has this been forgotten? For we know that if the hope of our destruction is to perish, we must be, morning and evening, armed and ready.

A generation of settlement are we, and without the steel helmet and the maw of the cannon we shall not plant a tree, nor build a house. Our children shall not have lives to live if we do not dig shelters; and without the barbed wire fence and the machine gun, we shall not pave a path nor drill for water. The millions of Jews, annihilated without a land, peer out at us from the ashes of Israeli history and command us to settle and rebuild a land for our people. But beyond the furrow that marks the border, lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day that the tranquility blunts our alertness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call for us to lay down our arms.

It is to us that the blood of Roi calls from his shredded body. Although we have vowed a thousand vows that our blood will never again be shed in vain — yesterday we were once again seduced, brought to listen, to believe. Our reckoning with ourselves, we shall make today. We mustn’t flinch from the hatred that accompanies and fills the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, who live around us and are waiting for the moment when their hands may claim our blood. We mustn’t avert our eyes, lest our hands be weakened. That is the decree of our generation. That is the choice of our lives — to be willing and armed, strong and unyielding, lest the sword be knocked from our fists, and our lives severed.

Roi Rotberg, the thin blond lad who left Tel Aviv in order to build his home alongside the gates of Gaza, to serve as our wall. Roi — the light in his heart blinded his eyes and he saw not the flash of the blade. The longing for peace deafened his ears and he heard not the sound of the coiled murderers. The gates of Gaza were too heavy for his shoulders, and they crushed him.

Here is the Hebrew: