Israel-Hamas War SITREP for 18 OCT 2023 - Biden Visits Israel and Gaza Hospital Explosion Consumes Everything

Action Report

The information space remains highly problematic, with an extreme amount of disinformation being spread by the proxies of both combatants. Ground fighting continues to be local skirmishes and the neutralization of squad-sized sabotage and reconnaissance teams. It is difficult to ascertain where the truth lies between all the claims in an environment where the ground fighting is somewhere between terrorist and police actions and actual combat between two belligerents. Unless we state, “we were able to independently verify the claim,” or provide three unique sources in the report, the claims should be considered “unverified.” Otherwise, every third sentence would be, “We cannot independently verify the claim.”

Gaza Strip and Southern Israel

There were no reports of significant fighting for the fourth day in a row. Engagements were limited to mortar strikes and the Israel Air Force providing close air support (CAS), interdiction, and suppression missions. Hamas militants and their supporters conducted 20 to 25 fire missions targeting Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.

The IDF claimed that two Hamas senior commanders were killed in airstrikes. The head of the antitank guided missile array of Hamas’s Gaza City Brigade, Muhammad Awdallah, and the commander of the Naval Forces of Hamas, Akram Hijazi, were targeted by the Military Intelligence Defense Directorate of the Israel Defense Forces (Mossad). The IDF 📺 released videos of the strikes, but they do not conclusively show either were killed, and we cannot independently verify the claims.

United Nations 200 Blue Line Border between Israel and Lebanon and Northern Israel

In the north, Lebanese Hezbollah used small arms, mortar, artillery, and antitank weapons to strike 15 Israeli military positions and five civilian targets. The IDF released a video showing a drone strike on a Palestinian-aligned firebase in Lebanon, with Hezbollah confirming two additional fighters were killed today. Metulla was attacked again, and the IDF expanded the military exclusion zone to five kilometers of the Blue Line border with Lebanon.

The West Bank

Up to 45 skirmishes between the IDF and Palestinian-aligned militants erupted in the West Bank, responding to a call for a “day of unprecedented anger.” after the explosion at the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem-run Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital in Gaza City. Unrest spread to 37 settlements, with leaders calling for a general strike. The number of incidents was similar to the October 13th “day of rage.”

Missile, Drone, and Airstrikes on Israel

Rocket attacks from Gaza targeted Kissufim, Sderot, Beersheba, and the central Israeli regions while not targeting Tel Aviv or Ben Gurion Airport during United States President Joe Biden’s diplomatic visit. The number of rockets fired has remained consistent for the last four days.

The IDF has started a furious public relations campaign after the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital. Releasing data on the number of failed rockets launched by Gaza, the IDF claimed that 12.71% of the rockets fired on October 17 landed within the Gaza Strip with supporting radar data. In total, 450 rockets have fallen short since October 7. The IDF also accused Hamas and its aligned forces of setting up firebases adjacent to hospitals, UNWRA schools, mosques, restaurants, diplomatic missions, and hotels. We did geolocate one video that showed a Hamas firebase located in civilian housing but cannot validate any other claims.

State Comptroller of Israel, Matanyahu Englman, confirmed our assessment on September 17 that Israel’s vaunted civil defense network is suffering from serious neglect. After touring bomb shelters in northern Israel, including the city of Ma’a lot-Tarshiha, Englman admitted there is a lack of provisioned bomb shelters. Currently, defense is being provided by armed volunteer civilians who have not been able to go to work since October 8 due to constant border skirmishes. The Comptroller said that they were working on formally drafting the volunteers into the IDF so they could receive pay from the armed forces.

Assessment: We have previously assessed that the IDF is suffering from significant corruption that has negatively impacted force readiness and that the civil defense network has been allowed to decay. The October 7 attack by Hamas has pushed these deficiencies into the public domain.

Middle East Region

President Biden told Israel’s War Cabinet that he understood that it would take time to defeat Hamas, with Minister Benny Gantz telling the President, “It could take years,” according to an unnamed Israeli official. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant allegedly told Biden that U.S. military aid would be “critical for Israel,” with the President responding that it would be easier to provide long-term support if Israel would allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.

The United States reported that there were attempted drone strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq, with the kamikaze drones intercepted by air defense without incident. Iranian-backed Iraqi militants launched the strikes, responding to the call of a day of anger.

While there was a significant increase in rhetoric from Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, there remains no indication that any of the nations and organizations are preparing to do more than ongoing saber rattling.

War Crimes and Human Rights

As an editorial policy, we are referring to Hamas fighters as militants and not terrorists. New intelligence indicates the attack on October 7 was conducted by the equivalent of a brigade in size and demonstrated previously unseen asymmetrical warfare tactics that included combined arms that go beyond a terrorist attack. Further, in calling Hamas terrorists, there is less accountability for the command and control structures, which ordered what can be described as an invasion.

Egypt continues to keep the Rafah crossing closed, and carefully worded statements from President Biden and other U.S. officials hinted that the biggest barrier to opening the border is Egypt. This aligned with our earlier assessment when the gate didn’t open on Sunday, with Egyptian leaders blaming Israel. On Sunday, Israeli and Hamas officials told Reuters-Thompson that neither had agreed to a ceasefire or a border opening.

On Wednesday, during an interview with CNN, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Rafah was not open due to the damage caused by four airstrikes on the access roads linking the Egyptian and the Gaza sides of the border. Shoukry claimed the approach roads were heavily damaged and that four Egyptian workers were injured by an Israeli airstrike on October 17. We could not find any other statement from Egyptian officials, a protest submitted to Israel, or a statement from U.N. representatives.

President Biden told reporters while flying back to the United States on Air Force One that a deal had been reached with President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt to allow “up to 20 trucks” to enter Gaza through the Rafah border crossing. Biden said that the first shipment wouldn’t be until at least Friday due to ongoing road repairs on the Gaza side. Additionally, Egypt will not allow anyone, including foreign passport holders, to leave Gaza. The United Nations will distribute the aid when it arrives, with Biden saying, “We’ll see how it goes,” adding that if Hamas confiscates the aid, “then it’s going to end.”

The United Nations said that to support the civilian population, Egypt will need to allow 100 trucks a day through the Rafah crossing. The United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, told CNN, “So number one, we need to be able to have the assurance that we can go in at scale every day, deliberately, repetitively and reliably. Secondly, we have to be able to do so to reach people safely. International humanitarian law is there for a reason. It requires people to make their own choices about where to be safely, and it requires us, and indeed, all of us, to ensure that safety and the humanitarian community to provide aid to people in the places they choose to be safe.”

The largest hospital in Gaza, Shifa Hospital, said that it would run out of fuel today unless more supplies are allowed to enter the Gaza Strip. General Director Mohammed Abu Selmia claimed that surgeries were being performed on the floor without anesthesia, and basic medical supplies were critically low. We could not independently verify the claim.

After intense negotiations with the United States, Israel, and other nations, the Israeli government announced that a safe zone had been created in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis. The IDF said that within that zone, international humanitarian aid would be provided. Al-Mawasi is an agricultural area on the Mediterranean coast with two road connections to the Rafah border crossing and one to the city of Khan Younis. Hours before the announcement, the IAF bombed Rafah and Khan Younis, cities that Gaza residents were told to go to avoid Israeli airstrikes in the north.

The United States Department of Defense released a statement that, based on its own intelligence and information shared, the explosion at Al-Ahli was caused by a missile launched by Palestine Islamic Jihad, a separate militia from Hamas, that crashed in the hospital parking lot. During a joint press conference between U.S. President Biden and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden said, “I am deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday. And based on what I’ve seen, it appears it was done by the other team and not you. But, there are a lot of people out there who are not sure.”

Later in the day, a reporter flying with the President on Air Force One challenged his position, with Biden saying, “I don’t say things like that unless I have faith in the source from which I’ve gotten it.”

Pictures and videos released on October 18 showing the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City raised significant questions about the authenticity of claims made by Hamas. A small impact crater of approximately one meter in width and 30 centimeters in depth was in the corner of a parking lot at the 80-bed hospital. The hospital had been previously damaged on Sunday, and there were few signs of an 800-person mass casualty event. Of the four experts who would go on the record with the BBC, three said the damage was consistent with a failed rocket, with a fourth saying that a Hellfire missile was possible, but the damage was inconsistent with that type of munition. Six additional experts declined to comment.

A spokesperson for the Hamas Ministry of Health adjusted the number down to 471 people killed, while General Director Selmia at Shifa Hospital estimated the death toll was between 200 and 250. The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem, which runs the hospital, called the “attack” a crime, stating, “Hospitals, designated as sacred havens under international law, have been desecrated by Military Forces.” During an interview, Bishop Hosam Naoum said the IDF had warned the diocese to evacuate the church three times but refused to assess blame on any party, “As people of the cloth, we are not military experts. We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that we’ve had enough of this war.”

Casualties

After the incident at the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem-run Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza City, serious questions about the accuracy of casualty numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry and conflicting reports from hospital officials and religious leaders within Gaza has resulted in our team no longer reporting casualty numbers provided by Israeli or Palestinian officials. This is in alignment with our long-standing editorial policy. Because information about foreign nationals who have been killed, held hostage, or missing is coming from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or similar agencies of the impacted nations, we will continue to monitor those numbers. The truth matters, and our editorial team believes that in the current environment, it is impossible to determine the truth.

Israel: Last day of entry – no longer tracked.

Hamas/Gaza: Last day of entry – no longer tracked.

Rest of World: There were updates on the number of foreign nationals listed as dead, missing, or confirmed as hostages, with 36 nations reporting 206 of their citizens were killed:

• Argentina - 7 dead, 15 unaccounted
• Australia - 1 dead
• Austria - 3 dead, 2 unaccounted
• Azerbaijan - 3 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Belarus - 3 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Belgium – 2 dead
• Brazil - 3 dead
• Cambodia - 1 dead
• Canada - 6 dead, 2 unaccounted
• Chile - 4 dead, 1 unaccounted
• China - 4 dead, 2 unaccounted
• Columbia – 1 dead, 1 hostage
• Estonia – 1 dead
• France - 21 dead, 11 unaccounted
• Germany – 4 dead, 8 hostages
• Honduras – 1 dead
• Ireland - 1 dead
• Italy – 1 dead, 1 unaccounted, 1 hostage
• Kazakhstan – 2 dead
• Mexico - 2 hostages
• Moldova – 1 dead
• Nepal - 10 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Paraguay - 2 unaccounted
• Peru - 2 dead, 5 unaccounted
• Philippines - 3 dead, 3 unaccounted
• Poland – 1 dead
• Portugal - 1 dead, 4 unaccounted
• Romania – 4 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Russia - 16 dead, 8 missing, 1 hostage
• South Africa – 2 dead
• Spain - 1 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Sri Lanka - 2 unaccounted
• Switzerland – 1 dead
• Tanzania - 2 unaccounted
• Thailand - 30 dead, 17 hostages
• Türkiye - 1 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Ukraine - 23 dead, 8 missing
• United Kingdom – 7 dead, 9 unaccounted
• United States - 31 dead, 13 unaccounted
• Uzbekistan – 3 dead, 4 unaccounted

The increasing number is largely due to ongoing DNA testing on bodies that were too badly mutilated for identification. Some of the unaccounted were within Gaza visiting family when the hostilities started and may be stuck at Rafah.

Israeli-Hamas Politics

No update

Geopolitics

Jordan scrapped the planned summit between the United States, Palestine, Egypt, and the Kingdom of Jordan because of the questionable claims that Israel was responsible for the explosion at Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital and the inevitable war. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Al-Safadi says in a statement that “following consultations with our Palestinian and Egyptian brothers, and after a discussion with the United States, we decided not to hold this summit. We aim from this summit, if it is held, to produce one solution that has no other, which is to stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians, and deliver the aid they deserve.”

Al-Safadi went on to specifically cite the explosion at the hospital, saying, “Refraining from holding the summit also due to the ongoing Israeli massacres against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the most recent of which was the Baptist Hospital massacre, which came as a shock to everyone and cannot be tolerated.”

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, will be visiting Isreal on Thursday. Sunak said he would push for Israel, Hamas, and Egypt to open up humanitarian corridors into Gaza “as soon as possible” and plans to visit other regional capitals.

President Biden will address the American public on Thursday in a prime-time speech to outline Washington’s response to support Israel and Ukraine in their respective wars.