12 Oct, 2023 18:09

Israeli army chief admits ‘failure’

General Halevi has vowed to “dismantle” Hamas after the IDF was caught off-guard

The Israel Defense Force did not live up to its responsibility to protect the country when Hamas struck, but now intends to fight the war and destroy the terrorist group and its leadership, IDF chief of staff General Herzi Halevi said on Thursday.

“The IDF is responsible for the security of our nation and its citizens, and we failed to do so on Saturday morning,” Halevi said, in Hebrew, in his first public remarks since the conflict broke out. “We will look into it, we will investigate, but now it is time for war.”

Halevi described Hamas as “animals” and “merciless terrorists who have committed unimaginable acts” against men, women and children, and their attack on the morning of October 7 as “murderous, brutal and surprising.”

The IDF “understands the magnitude of this time, and the magnitude of the mission that lays on our shoulders,” Halevi said.

“Yahya Sinwar, the ruler of the Gaza Strip, decided on this horrible attack, and therefore he and the entire system under him are dead men,” the Israeli general added, vowing to “attack them and dismantle them and their organization” and that “Gaza will not look the same” afterward.

'Sinwar and Hamas members are dead men and we will destroy them'IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi has vowed that the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, will be targeted and eliminated by Israel after the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel pic.twitter.com/XrQTc07kC5

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) October 12, 2023

Israel will “do everything” to rescue the hostages that were seized by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, Halevi said. Theremay be as many as 200 people missing from Israeli villages and townsnear Gaza that the Palestinian fighters raided over the weekend.

Since Saturday, around 1,200 people have been killed in Israel and at least 1,100 in Gaza, according to local officials.

Halevi became the IDF chief of staff in January. He previously oversaw the IDF Southern Command, including a November 2019 operation against Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Prior to that, he ran the military intelligence directorate (2014-2018).

The Hamas attack came on the anniversary of the 1973 war, which also caught Israel by surprise. Though eventually victorious, Halevi’s predecessor David Elazar ended up being blamed for the military setback.

The 51-kilometer-long border with Gaza is normally patrolled by at least three IDF battalions, but two of them were redeployed to the West Bank to provide security for the Jewish festival of Sukkot,American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Thursday. His Israeli source blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the decision.

(Bannon said he was surprised the new Unity Government didn't get rid of Netanyahu, this was such a major error. Col. Harvey said the IDF and Mossad opposed Netanyahu, but he thinks it was a sheer Intelligence failure because they underestimated Hamas, and didn't double check)

https://www.rt.com/news/584770-idf-general-hamas-failed/

12 Oct, 2023 17:46

Sputnik journalist's infant child killed in Ukrainian strike

While producer Khaibar Akifi suffered severe injuries, his four-year-old daughter died in the bombing

The four-year-old child, and parents-in-law, of a Sputnik Afghanistan producer were killed in n a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Belgorod Region on Wednesday.

Khaibar Akifi and his wife Olesya were wounded in the attack, according to his employers in Moscow. Their dead daughter was been named as Amina.

“Our staff member Khaibar Akifi, 29, was severely hurt in the strike and is in intensive care,” the head of the ‘Rossiya Segodnya’ media group, Dmitry Kiselyov, told RIA Novosti.

Akifi’s family lost three members in incident, Kiselyov said, calling it an “enormous tragedy.” His wife’s parents died in the strike as well.

The journalist is still “in critical condition,” the head of the Belgorod Region health department, Andrey Ikonnikov, said on Telegram on Thursday. Akifi’s condition is still “unstable,” he said, adding that medical personnel are “doing everything to save his life.” Earlier, the region's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that Akifi had suffered burns to his respiratory tract, upper and lower extremities, and was in a coma.

The journalist’s wife Olesya, who is a philologist and a lecturer at Belgorod State Technical University, underwent surgery and is being treated in the regional hospital’s intensive care unit as well, Ikonnikov said, describing her condition as “stable.” Previously, Gladkov called her condition “severe,” adding that she suffered a lower limb fracture and a concussion.

RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, also commented on the incident, confirming Akifi’s identity and saying that the man had “worked throughout the weekend” as he was covering a massive earthquake that struck Afghanistan. After that, he took several days off to visit his wife’s parents living in the Belgorod Region. That was when the Ukrainian drone struck their home.

An impromptu memorial was set up at the site of the tragedy as the locals sought to pay their respects to the victims, RIA Novosti reported, publishing a video from the area. Footage shows bouquets of flowers and children’s toys laid near the destroyed family’s house.

On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported “destroying” an aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launched by Ukrainian forces towards Belgorod Region. The initial report mentioned no casualties or damage on the ground.

According to the governor, the drone was intercepted en route to the regional capital. Its debris hit several residential buildings, causing a fire. Two houses were completely destroyed and another one was partly damaged.

Russia’s border regions, including the Belgorod Region, have frequently come under Ukrainian shelling, artillery, and drone strikes since the start of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Such attacks have claimed numerous civilian lives.

Ukrainian forces have increased their attacks on Russian territory over the past several months, at the same time as a much-touted summer counteroffensive by their forces has failed to achieve major results.

(This is the third or fourth Russian journalist to be killed by Ukraine, they target them specifically. Russia is not going to hold back in some areas, they will never attack civilians but ==expect a major multiple bombing and drone strikes in the middle of the night or early morning soon.)

https://www.rt.com/russia/584774-sputnik-journalist-injured-ukrainian-strike/