‘War IS Hell’……
Israeli citize -solders are tiring of the war they are serving in….
“Once upon a time, I had my high-tech career and my family life, and I had to strike the balance,” said Krauss, who spent four months battling Hamas militants in Gaza and is preparing to return next month. “Now I have to enter into that equation the fact that I am disappearing for weeks, or months, on end.”
Krauss’s dilemma, or some version of it, is shared by some 80,000 Israeli reservists who are planning to leave, or have already left, families, jobs and studies to serve on the front lines of Israel’s grinding wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Increasingly, some are choosing not to report for duty, putting further strain on an overextended military amid an ever-widening regional war.
Nadav Shoshani, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said in a briefing last week that the army’s enlistment numbers are down by about 15 percent since the period after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, when hundreds of thousands of Israelis from all walks of life reported to fight, many without being summoned.
Historically, the country has maintained a small standing army, relying on reservists to fill out its ranks during a series of short-lived wars. But the Hamas-led rampage across southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and some 250 taken hostage, thrust Israel into the longest conflict in its history. In the early months of the war, about 350,000 Israelis were called up, a staggering figure in a country of less than 10 million.
The losses, too, have been unprecedented. More than 800 soldiers have been killed since October 2023.
“Wherever you look — the economic crisis, the toll on the reservists and their families, and of course the dead and the wounded — Israeli society is definitely at the edge of its capacity,” said Gayil Talshir, a political analyst at Hebrew University….
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“I feel like the government is making me ask my wife for a weekend with the boys in Vegas, but actually it’s to go for weeks into Lebanon to defend the country,” said a reservist in the special forces who has served for nearly 300 days over the past year. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in compliance with military protocol.
His 12-man unit is down to five after seven refused to show up.
“We never imagined a war that would be going so deep and going for so long,” he said. “And also, that there’s no one to replace us.”
Soldiers swap stories of partners threatening divorce and of bosses — many reservists themselves — running low on patience. Many women are struggling as single parents, cutting back their work hours to meet child-care needs, as productivity plummets across the board….
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Israel Troops use civilians as shields…
(As does Hamas)
The Israeli soldiers grabbed his arms on each side, Nasir Damaj recalled, marching him through the streets to the blown-out shell of a mosque.
A shaft led to an old underground cave. As they ordered him to climb down, Mr. Damaj said he realized why: He was being used as a human shield.
“They wanted me to scout what was downstairs, to protect them,” Mr. Damaj said.
He said he protested, but the three soldiers and their commander, assault rifles in hand, forced him to investigate what the Israelis later called “an underground combat facility.”..
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Israel attacks on the West Bank increase
Before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli airstrikes on the West Bank were relatively rare, experts said, with only a few confirmed cases.
But during the raids in Jenin and other Palestinian areas beginning in August, the Israeli military reported carrying out about 50 airstrikes on the West Bank.
More than 180 people have been killed in airstrikes on the territory in the past year, including dozens of children, according to the United Nations and the Palestinian human rights group Al Haq. The Israeli military declined to provide a death toll, but contended that “98 percent” of the people killed in airstrikes were “involved in terrorist activities.”
The strikes have caused extensive damage to roads, electricity networks and water and sewage lines. Local, international and United Nations humanitarian workers say Israel has disrupted their relief efforts, while videos verified by The New York Timesappear to show Israeli bulldozers blocking emergency vehicles from passing. (The Israeli military said it operated in accordance with international law.)
Instead of calling them raids, residents, aid workers and some experts have likened what is happening in the West Bank to a war….
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The tactic creates disproportionate damage to civilian infrastructure and is aimed at trying to cause so much damage and destruction that civilians turn against armed groups in their areas, he said.
“That kind of pressure wasn’t imposed on villages and towns in the West Bank until very recently,” he said.
The Israeli military rejected his assessment, saying, “The claim that the I.D.F. deliberately causes harm to civilian infrastructure is false.” Instead, it has long accused Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups of embedding themselves in civilian areas.
The day after the Israeli military forced Mr. Damaj into the cave, it returned and ordered Khalid Salih, 59, a school attendant, and his wife to leave their home before it was blown up, the couple said….
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Hezbollah KEEPS firing stuff into Israel….
Hezbollah fired about 250 projectiles into Israel on Sunday, a day after an Israeli strike in the heart of the Lebanese capital killed more than 25 people.
The aerial attack was one of the largest Hezbollah has mounted against Israel since the Lebanese militant group started firing on Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. It also coincided with a flurry of diplomacy aimed at halting the intensifying fighting in Lebanon.
More than 65 people were wounded in the attack on Saturday in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. As rescuers searched through the rubble, the death toll rose on Sunday to at least 29 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Three Israeli defense officials said the strike was an attempt to assassinate a top Hezbollah military commander, Mohammad Haidar. One of the Israeli defense officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, later said that Mr. Haidar was not killed.
On Sunday, waves of air raid sirens blared throughout much of Israel, including in the Tel Aviv area and the hilltop town of Safed. Israel’s military said that around 250 projectiles — a term usually referring to rockets — had been launched as of the evening, and that some were intercepted by air defense systems….
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Nov 24, 2024 – ISW Press
A top adviser to the Iranian supreme leader discussed Lebanon and ceasefire negotiations, nuclear policy, and a potential Iranian response to Israel’s October 25 strike. Lebanese Hezbollah is likely firing large numbers of rockets at Israel to pressure the Israeli government during ongoing ceasefire negotiations. Russia reportedly recruited hundreds of Yemeni nationals to fight in the Russian military amid growing cooperation between Russia, Iran, and the Iran-backed Houthi movement.
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