Flash Report 07 SEP 2023 - 02:00 PDT - Netanyahu, "We are at war" (Patreon)

Around sunrise, Hamas militants launched a coordinated and multidimensional attack across Israel involving the land, sea, and air. The attack came on the Sabbat and during planned protests by the IDF against Benjamin Netanyahu and his attempts to change the judiciary. 

Over 2,500 rockets have been fired, wounding hundreds. Militants have crossed from the Gaza Strip into at least 14 Israeli Kibbutzs, settlements, cities, and one military base. We have authenticated videos from the city of Sderot that show the massacre of entire families and the dead lying in the streets. Civilians have been executed. People are calling TV stations reporting that Iranian-backed Hamas militants are setting fire to homes in an attempt to flush the residents out, who are hiding in safe rooms. In Rahat, a city of 75,000, the mayor said there were an unknown number of dead and wounded, militants were shooting in at least one neighborhood, and the military was not responding to requests for intervention.

The IDF was caught completely off-guard in what may be the biggest intelligence failure by Israel since the 1967 Yom Kippur War.

Benjamin Netanyahu made his first statement almost four hours after the attacks started, declaring, "We are at war." Israeli special forces are reportedly in Sderot, and there are wounded among the IDF. The Israeli Air Force has also reportedly started a campaign of dozens of air strikes.

Russian social media was celebrating the attacks despite the large expat community and the hundreds of thousands of Russian Jews that now call Israel home. Iran has warned Israel to choose its response carefully. Iran backs Hamas and other anti-Israeli terrorist factions, with religious leaders declaring the destruction of the Zionist state had begun.

The Biden Administration remained consistent, calling for restraint from both parties. The IDF has declared that it was moving to war readiness, implementing the draft, and a formal declaration of war is expected by Kissnet later today.

While analysis is little more than a hot take at this time, based on the videos from Sderot and multiple Israeli cities in flames, it seems highly unlikely that Israel will use restraint in its response.

We do not have the analytical capabilities to determine what Hamas's operational objectives are. If the battle plan was simply to cause chaos and return to the Palestinian territories, this was a terrible miscalculation on their part.

Yes, the Russia-Ukraine War SITREP is coming.