IDF Disasters Leave 10 Dead in Ambush, 3 Hostages Murdered

Last week, Hamas fighters ambushed an IDF contingent and in a disastrous engagement in the Shuja’iyya neighborhood, 10 soldiers died, including a battalion commander and a Colonel.  The commander, Lt. Col. Tomer Greenberg rallied his troops before the operation to avenge a similar ambush during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, in which his Golani battalion also suffered grievous losses with 13 killed. These are his final battle orders to his men:

“Hear and ready [for battle]. How many times I’ve dreamt of saying this. I think that I may’ve dreamt for nine years for this moment.  Here and ready. Leaving for the attack on Shuaj’iyya.  Even though this seemed distant, I had no doubt in the last few hours that it would not be. We are now about the settle a score nine years in the making [since the 2014 battle]. We are leaving to attack Shuaj’iyya, and that it the most important one.  Do what you have to do.”

Perhaps in heroic books of war commanders rally their troops to victory after enormous defeats by reminding them of their fallen comrades.  But in real life, such bravado often leads to tragic consequences.  Those who lead their troops into battle should weigh every action before committing themselves to battle.  Recklessness breeds error.  Presuming you are all-powerful and that the enemy will shrink before your might is the route to disaster.  Especially in Gaza. That’s what befell Golani’s 13th battalion.

IDF: Killing their own

Earlier this week, three Israeli hostages escaped from their captors.  They knew of the danger they faced if they went into the streets in the face of IDF troops. On 10/7, when they were captured by Hamas, they may even have seen Israeli soldiers firing on Israeli hostages.

In their tunnel prison they could hear the firing, missiles, screams of the wounded and dying. They understood that venturing outside would endanger them. So they found a white cloth, tore it and attached it to a stick.  They removed their shirts so that soldiers would know that they were not booby trapped fighters. As they emerged, they waved the white flag.  A sniper on  a roof 30 feet away, shouted “Terrorist.” He then opened first, killing two of the hostages.  The third ran into a neighboring building.  The commander called out to cease firing.

They heard the wounded hostage in the building calling out for help in Hebrew. He ordered soldiers into the building. There they shot and killed the final hostage.  Two of the hostages were captured IDF soldiers. The third was an Israeli Bedouin.

שקר מוחלט, אני לחמתי בצוק איתן, ההוראות היו – ירי על מנת, כל מי שנשאר באזור שבו אנחנו נלחמים הוא מטרה לגיטימית, יש ספק-אין ספק.

אפשר להגיד שזה הכרחי (זה לא), אפשר להגיד שככה מנצחים מלחמות (אני בספק), אבל לא צריך לשקר. אלה ההוראות פתיחה באש בעזה. כל מי שנמצא באזור הלחימה- מחבל. pic.twitter.com/OSjPjWDRKk

— Ariel Bernstein (@bernstein_ariel) December 16, 2023

This was not an “accident” or “mistake,” as the global media are reporting.  This was at best negligent homicide.  At worst, it was a a catastrophe, both military and political.  A grievous breach of discipline, training and leadership.  It was a tragedy that never should have happened.

Ariel Bernstein denounced the IDF claim that the killings were contrary to the rules of engagement, in the tweet above. He wrote:

An absolute lie. I fought in Operation Protective Edge (2014). The orders were fire on sight. Anyone remaining in the area in which we were fighting is a legitimate target. Whether or not there is any doubt [about their identity].

One can talk about whether this is necessary (it isn’t), or say this is way to win wars (I doubt it).  But you don’t have to lie [as the IDF did].  These are the orders for opening fire in Gaza.  Anyone in the combat zone: terrorist.”

When three Israeli hostages emerge from captivity they should be welcomed with open arms by their “liberators.” How can a soldier not tell from 30 feet whether someone is Israeli or Palestinian?  For sure, these captives would have spoken Hebrew, and with an Israeli accent.  It’s easy enough to tell a Palestinian from an Israel Jewish Hebrew accent.  And finally when the last remaining hostage cried out for help in Hebrew, why didn’t that cause the soldiers to reconsider?

The IDF claims that the soldiers didn’t understand what they’d done until they noticed that one of the dead had “western features ” (yes, that’s what media account said).  At that point someone said, “Oops.”

The brother of one of the murdered hostages railed at the army’s shoot-to-kill policy:

In an interview with Army Radio on Friday, he said the shooting of his son and the other two hostages “was not a mistake, it was an execution – literally.”

Shamriz said that the signs that were hung on the building where the hostages were held, calling for help, were written by his son, a veteran of the elite Yahalom [Border Guard] unit.

“They did everything right – took their shirts off, hung a white flag and marched in broad daylight in the middle of the street and shouted for help, but in our army they don’t know how to follow the rules of engagement,” he said.

“Even if it’s a terrorist, why shoot him like that? He was naked, unarmed, and even if it’s a terrorist – why not shoot him in the legs? This is against all the rules taught by the IDF.”

“Those who abandoned you also murdered you after all that you did right,” Ido, brother of Shamriz said at the funeral in kibbutz Shefayim, north of Tel Aviv, attended by dozens of relatives and family members.

“You survived 70 days in hell,” Shamriz’s mother, Dikla, said in her eulogy. “Another moment and you would have been in my arms.”

When the Allies liberated Dachau, did they shoot the camp inmates?  No, they pitied them. They clothed them. They fed them.  They helped them in any way they could.  Isn’t that the least the killers could have done for their comrades?

There is something terribly wrong here. Not just about the incident itself. But about how the news of it is being conveyed. In almost all similar events, the IDF never, ever admits error.  But the army recognizes this is among the worst things that could happen.  Israeli troops under a commander kill their own.  And hostages seeking their freedom from captivity to boot.

So it has released damaging details of the incident.  Attempting to get ahead of the story.  Hoping that by being transparent it will count for something with an angry and unforgiving public.  That’s entirely unlike the IDF.   There are probably worse details yet to come about this.  The army does not admit blame easily.  Having done so, means there is more to come. And it will be bad.

This morning Israeli snipers shot and killed my two family friends in an attack on the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza.

Nahida (Um Emad Anton) and Samar, mother and daughter, were walking to the Sisters’ Convent to use the only bathroom.

One was killed as she tried to… pic.twitter.com/ZtTxgsDrVf

— Hammam Farah (@hammam_therapy) December 17, 2023

In a separate incident, an IDF sniper outside Gaza’s Holy Family Church, murdered a mother and daughter within the Church compound.  He shot one of them, and as the second tried to drag her to safety, he killed her as well.  This is a Catholic Church. A Church.  Under the auspices of the Pope.  It’s bad enough that they destroy mosques.  But a church?  The church officials added that an Israeli tank fired two shells into a building housing 54 disabled patients, some on respirators.

Enraged Hostage families protest outside IDF headquarters

After refusing to permit his Mossad chief to begin talks with a Qatari mediator about a ceasefire leading to the possible release of more hostages, Bibi Netanyahu has relented.  After the killings, he had little choice. So David Barnea traveled to Norway to meet his Arab counterparts.  Qatar acknowledged the talks.  These are the same officials who concluded talks leading to the last ceasefire, which resulted in the freeing of over 100 hostages.

Of course, Netanyahu could have negotiated such a ceasefire long ago.  Hostage families have been begging him to do so for weeks.  But he refused. He and the war cabinet met with them and they excoriated him for abandoning them.

Instead of doing all in his power to free them, he argues that it is fighting alone that forces Hamas to the negotiating table. This is almost certifiably delusional, when anyone can see that the first round of hostages were freed only during a ceasefire. None were freed during hostilities. Nor has combat forced Hamas to come to the table.

Bibi is now captive of a war of his own creation.  His rhetoric demanded the annihilation of Hamas.  Now that the war has begun to take its toll and the nation grows restless and grumbling grows, he cannot relent. To do so would mean weakness. As soon as his enemies, both in domestic politics and Hamas, smell weakness they will pounce.  He is caught between a rock and a hard place.

Biden: Israel’s willing hostage

In different circumstances, a US president would pressure Bibi to relent.  He would bargain, threaten, promise–anything to drag the region away from the brink.  But this president is hopelessly captive to Israel and the Lobby.  Speaking of hostages, he’s been a willing one for five decades.  He is utterly lost.  Israel has lost the entire world. Gaza is a sinking ship.  Yet Biden clings to Israel like it’s a life raft in stormy seas.  If he doesn’t do something more than flapping is gums about “lessening the civilian toll” and “turning from mass attacks to surgical strikes,” they both will drown, and deservedly so.

As National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan traveled to Israel to meet with Netanyahu, his spokesperson, John Kirby gave this horrifying account of what may be ahead in Gaza:

Q And the idea of Israel scaling back its high-intensity operations in Gaza, when do you want and expect that to happen?

MR. KIRBY: Well, as Jake said himself, I mean, we’re not dictating terms to the Israelis. We did talk to them about what they’re thinking in terms of transitioning from high-intensity to what we would consider lower-intensity military operations.

Look, we agree with the Israelis that this conflict could go on for months. But what Jake talked to them is about the importance of thinking about transitioning to a different phase here, where it’s — where the operations are more targeted, more precise, more surgical, really, in scope and scale. What that looks like on the calendar and how that transition is made is really going to be up to our Israeli counterparts to decide…

I am old enough to remember the US boasting of “surgical strikes” against the Vietcong.  And the happy talk about victories on the battlefield.  That all lead to 50,000 US dead over a decade.  The final result was a North Vietnamese victory and the reunification of the south and north. No doubt, the US could have had this result without any war and any dead.

Israel faces the same circumstance.  It could have had all its hostages released by now if it had agreed to an extended ceasefire.  But Bibi couldn’t back down.  Without Hamas eliminated, he would not have the victory he so desperately needed.  Pride goeth before a fall.

As I’ve written here, the Biden approach to this war has been catastrophic.  Biden has frittered away whatever credibility the US had with the world.  Our closest allies are scratching their head and asking what went wrong with our president.  How does he not see the peril he is in if he doesn’t change course?

We still cling to the thin reed of the Palestinian Authority to save us all. Biden is looking for a way to save face by bringing Mahmoud Abbas to the rescue. He and his corrupt PA cronies will take over the mess that is Gaza and unload it from the US and Israeli collective plate.  But Bibi is balking at even this prospect. It means facing the wrath of his extremist ministers who detest anything Palestinian, especially the PA.

There is one key interlocutor missing from this drama: the Palestinians themselves. No one is asking any Palestinian, let alone a Gazan, what they want.  We have seen when major powers invade a country and attempt to impose their will on a captive population. It doesn’t go well for them.  Remember Iraq?  US forces toppled Iraq, disbanded the Baath Party and attempted to graft American democracy onto a dysfunctional sectarian Arab state.  We did the same in Afghanistan.  Didn’t work there either.

In a way, Biden and Bibi were made for each other.  Two hapless leaders facing the prospect of defeat on the battlefield and in politics; not knowing where to turn or how to get out of their predicament.  With the result that they soldier on into deepening misery for Gazans, Israelis and even Americans.