Israeli President Netanyahu tries to deflect the criticism for US Senate Majority Leader Schumer….
More aid is going into Gaza, but air drops are no substitute for truck and ship aid and assistance….
Talks resume in Qatar between Israel and Hamas…
The US and Iran had secret talks to try to cut back Iran backed proxies attacks on American troops and Red Sea shipping in January…
Israeli PM Netanyahu has approved his military moving into Rafah to nunt doiwn Hamas operators….
The area has over a million inhabitants and the US has warned against any indiscriminate bombing of civilians…
Cuts in US Aid to Israel have been mentioned….
The Israeli prime minister said Senator Chuck Schumer’s call for elections in Israel had been “totally inappropriate.”
Here’s what we’re covering:
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Netanyahu to Schumer: ‘We’re not a banana republic.’
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José Andrés, the chef helping send aid ships to Gaza, calls for a cease-fire.
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New ways to get aid into Gaza are not yet relieving hunger, experts say.
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The U.N. has documented more than two dozen attacks on Gazans waiting for aid since January…..
President Biden hurried out of Afghanistan with the resolve to minimise the ‘Boots on the Ground’ in the Middle East……
THAT has NOT lasted…
Combat troops are in Iraq and parts of Syria and Jordan….
And supply and other support bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates….
And now combat aircraft are operating into Yemen and military transports are dropping aid pallets into Gaza, while the US Army is going to construct a floating dock on off shore for Gaza aid….
After the wind-down of the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, the administration had wanted to pivot and direct its foreign policy power toward countering Russian aggression and Chinese expansionism. But the morning of Oct. 7, when Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people in Israel, changed all that.
Now, the Pentagon finds itself increasingly involved in the region’s most intractable conflict, a widening role that reflects both Biden’s staunch support for Israel and his mounting frustration with how it has prosecuted the subsequent war.
More than 31,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and with Israel rebuffing the administration’s calls to get more aid to the enclave, there are few signs the U.S. military missions will wrap up soon….
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It took the unusual step of positioning two aircraft carriers, including the Eisenhower and the USS Gerald R. Ford, in the Middle East. It also deployed ships from the Bataan amphibious ready group off Israel and announced it would send a squadron of F-16 fighter jets and additional air defense systems to the region.
The moves represent an uptick in U.S. military activity in the area, but they remain for now a far cry from the vastly larger footprint the Pentagon oversaw at the height of its post-9/11 insurgent wars, when more than 160,000 troops were deployed to Iraq and some 100,000 to Afghanistan.
Today, in addition to its larger, long-standing bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the United States has some 4,000 troops in Jordan, 2,500 in Iraq and 900 in Syria. And the operations remain relatively modest, with no significant increase to the military’s pre-Oct. 7 presence on land….
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Mar 17, 2024 – ISW Press
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 162nd Division and combat engineers demolished a 2.5-kilometer-long tunnel in the northern Gaza Strip during the week of March 10. The IDF called the tunnel the “longest underground route” in the northern Gaza Strip that it has discovered during the war. The tunnel network allowed Hamas units to move between the northern and southern Gaza Strip.
Mar 16, 2024 – ISW Press
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved plans on March 15 for a military operation into Rafah. The Prime Minister’s Office did not provide additional details. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that the Biden administration has not seen the plan and the Biden administration does not know how Israel plans to protect civilians in Rafah. The IDF said on March 13 that it plans to move civilians from Rafah to “humanitarian enclaves” in the central Gaza Strip before any Israeli offensive into Rafah. There are approximately 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians currently in Rafah.