By MICHAEL FREUND— This past Tuesday was a day that somewhere, deep inside of me, I had fancifully dreamed would never come. After three or four fitful hours of sleep, I awoke at dawn, downed a mugful of coffee, and proceeded to drive my oldest son to the Tel Hashomer military base, where he underwent…
By ELLIOTT ABRAMS, PRESSURE POINTS— The success of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system is one of the great stories to emerge from the Gaza conflict, but its importance may still have been underestimated. First, even enthusiasts for Iron Dome tend to exaggerate its variable costs. It is often said that Hamas can make rockets…
By ILIANA CURIEL, YNET— An IDF soldier was killed in a rocket and mortar salvo that was fired on the Eshkol Regional Council on Tuesday afternoon. In a separate incident, a civilian was killed in the same region by a projectile fired from Gaza. Another civilian was seriously injured and 15 soldiers were lightly hurt…
It appears that the first steps toward a “full-on” war have now been taken here in Israel. Will the military operations be confined to the conflict with Gaza and the Palestinians, or will it expand to include Egypt, Hizbullah in Lebanon, and even Syria? In the next hours and days, we may have the answer…
by TIMES OF ISRAEL— Israel conducted an air defense drill on Monday, simulating a possible attack on the country by Syrian and Iranian long-range missiles. The exercise, overseen by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and performed in conjunction with the United States, saw the successful test launch of four Patriot missiles from central Israel into the…
By ISRAEL HAYOM-— Several Israeli warplanes violated Lebanon’s airspace Sunday, according to Lebanese media outlets, flying over the country’s southern region and setting off sonic booms in a possible response to Saturday’s violation of Israeli airspace by an unmanned drone which Israel has speculated was launched by Hezbollah. Residents in the eastern area of south…
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz extends his best wishes for Rosh Hashanah to the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.
By YAOV ZITUN, YNET— The Home Front Command on Tuesday launched a first-of-its-kind exercise simulating evacuation and rescue operations from three different rocket landing sites. As part of the wide-scale exercise, hundreds of soldiers from the Home Front Command’s search and rescue Kedem Battalion simulated evacuation of casualties and removal of debris from several locations…
By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JPOST— The Israeli and US navies completed a joint drill last week in the Mediterranean Sea. The exercise, dubbed Reliant Mermaid, focused on search and rescue maneuvers and involved helicopter landings on vessels, but also live fire. The US Navy stressed that the exercise was not associated with any real world events…
BY RON BEN-YISHAI, YNET— IDF officials expressed discontent over the last round of fighting in the Gaza Strip, saying that despite calls for a ceasefire by Hamas, the rocket barrages have yet to stop. On Friday, more rockets were fired into Israel, probably by other Gaza organizations. The IAF in turn struck a terrorist cell…