{"id":3466,"date":"2024-04-16T07:58:41","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T07:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2024-04-16T07:59:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T07:59:29","slug":"carolynes-report-on-monday-15th-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/?p=3466","title":{"rendered":"Carolyne's report on Monday 15th April"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Monday in Israel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anyone had asked Saturday night if we would be flying into Tel Aviv on Sunday, you could have bet your bottom dollar, that no way would the flight go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spent the night in trepidation along with half the world waiting for the outcome of Iran\u2019s attack on Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We presumed that the El Al staff were pre-occupied with staying safe as they didn\u2019t notify us of a  cancellation. Being exhausted by 5 am from worry and lack of sleep I would have happily nodded off but DH said we should at least try to check in to make sure we could claim a refund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Never before have we checked in so fast: about 3 minutes ! We passed  through security and sat waiting for the flight to be cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no, we boarded on time at 7 am,  along with the other brave or daft bods who decided we are going come what may. Many of us feel that we will not be cowed into changing our plans by  violent backward societies that are acting like Middle Ages barbarians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As said by Menachim Begin to Joe Biden \u201cI am not a Jew with trembling knees\u201d so we all enjoyed the flight and felt safe and well cared for. In fact, once we had seen the tremendous courage and success of the IAF, we felt safer than we had for weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran had shown their hand,  and we had shown ours,  and it was quite clear that despite threats to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, they do not have the capability and we do have the capability and resources to defend ourselves from a huge multi front attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Iron Dome has saved Israel from millions of casualties and some of the missiles sent by Iran could easily have brought a building down. One child was seriously injured and the Nevatim Airbase in the Negev suffered direct hits damaging the runway,  an A C-130 transport aircraft and some storage facilities .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ballistic missile with 750 kg warhead is lying in the Dead Sea which shows that Iran did intend to strike  indiscriminately causing maximum damage. Nearly half of their ballistic missiles crashed on launch and a large explosion in Iran is thought to have been caused by their own misfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s allies were superb with the US and the UK jointly downing 80 suicide drones and 6 ballistic missiles from both Iran and Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan destroyed missiles and the French also claim to have helped. ( not too sure about the French ). In total 350 projectiles with a combined weight of 60 tons of explosives were launched at Israel Saturday night , arriving in the early hours of Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Egyptians apparently declined to  help,  but you can understand their position as they have a large uneducated section of society,  who although we have a peace deal,  remain anti Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an unprecedented step Saudi Arabia has admitted to helping intercept missiles aimed at Israel that flew over Saudi airspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran is hopeful to destabilise Jordan and to trigger a Palestinian revolt toppling the King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel is threatening to retaliate,  but we are thinking that Biden may have made some deal with Iran, that if they gave notice of the attack (which they did),  he would try to stay Israel\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Biden seems quite determined to control Israel,  and while they are assisting in Israel\u2019s survival, they are not allowing Israel to claim a victory by sending out messages that they should not go into Rafah, should not hit Hezbollah harder and now hold back on retaliation on Iran, who they in fact empowered under Obama. There is a real carrot and stick approach going on here, but Israel are  not donkeys and they will  ultimately act in their own interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has emerged over this weekend is a potential alliance between Israel\/Saudi Arabia and other neighbouring states against the Iranians. The war in Gaza was an attempt to stop this alliance which has now moved fast forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly though this diplomatic pressure is having some effect,  as the planned Rafah operation looks to be on hold despite more units being called to Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Gurion airport was much quieter than usual, with our flight being the only one that had arrived in from London. A few dribbled in from the Greek Islands as the afternoon went on but it was mostly deserted. Ramon was however, closed , presumably due to damaged radar or the IAF using it instead  of the damaged airbase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That left us a bit stranded,  but the trains and buses were going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we arrived into Tel Aviv, life was carrying on usual and you just wouldn\u2019t believe that there had been such a major assault on the country overnight. The schools and kindergarten remained closed but the station was busy and we took a train to Beer Sheva and caught  a bus for the last three and half hours into Eilat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we alighted from the bus, weary from the journey, a huge boom which felt overhead crashed around our ears,  but within seconds we all just carried on,  as no sirens sounded, so we knew what was launched at us had been intercepted at sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hezbollah continue to fire rockets into Israel and four soldiers have been wounded today.   Clearly  we will have to respond much harder and probably sooner rather than later,  and perhaps that explains why Rafah is on hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamas have proposed a new cease fire deal that would include the hostages being released in  three 42 day phases. They are demanding a return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip and a complete withdrawal of the IDF. They are demanding 30-50 released prisoners for each hostage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t take too much intelligence to join up the dots and see that the appeasement of Iran, Israel\u2019s reluctance to destroy Hamas over the past decade did, in fact, cause October 7th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we do not consent to another October 7th, we really have no choice but to continue in Gaza, push Hezbollah back and respond to this latest attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel\u2019s response to the Iranian attack is yet unknown and the war cabinet are meeting to discuss the next move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Pesach holidays one week away, they will need to take into account the massive movement of people around the country and the risk of sparking a much wider conflict,  against the desire to hit back immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN\u2019s message urging Israel to show restraint should be totally ignored . Israel must make a decision taking into account her own interests and protecting the safety of her citizens,  and not the delusional demands of the criminally negligent anti Israel UN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no scenario in which a sovereign state would tolerate an attack on the scale of Saturday\/Sunday and then show restraint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, Israeli hackers have sent over 20 million text messages to Iranian phones telling them to prepare for an immediate war. This has caused a \u201crun of the bank\u201d, giving the authorities a real headache.
Sent from my iPad<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you so much Carolyne.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday in Israel: If anyone had asked Saturday night if we would be flying into Tel Aviv on Sunday, you could have bet your bottom dollar, that no way would the flight go. We spent the night in trepidation along with half the world waiting for the outcome of Iran\u2019s attack on Israel. We presumed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-from-israel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3468,"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions\/3468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shavuatov.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}