Israel-Hamas War SITREP for 27 OCT 2023 - IDF Increases Ground Attacks Into the Gaza Strip (Patreon)

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

The number of rocket attacks launched from Gaza continues to decrease, while the number of successful hits within Israel is increasing. In our assessment, this may be due to a dwindling number of Iron Dome interceptors in inventory and air defenses forced to be more conservative in selecting which rockets to intercept. Palestinian Islbackedgrowamic Jihad claimed they launched a Gazan-produced Badr-3 rocket with a 400-kilogram warhead toward Ashkelon. There were no reports of a major missile strike in the settlement.

The IDF conducted a series of raids and reconnaissance in-force operations within the Gaza Strip on the night of October 26 – 27. The Israeli Navy’s Shayetet 13 Commando Unit conducted a raid in southern Gaza, with close air support provided by IDF helicopters. In the morning, an IDF spokesperson said the operation "destroyed terrorist infrastructures of the Hamas terrorist organization and operated in a compound used by the organization's naval commando forces.”

The al-Qassem Brigade inaccurately claimed they successfully repulsed the attack. The IDF has repeatedly stated that the current raids, reconnaissance in-force, and incursion operations are not meant to occupy territory in the Gaza Strip and are antiterror and shaping operations.

Elements of the IDF 36th Armored Division conducted a raid into the Gaza Strip near Shujayyah, using armor and engineering vehicles supported by light infantry and close air support provided by helicopters. The mission objective was to destroy Hamas antitank firebases and destroy a command and control outpost.

Several smaller clashes were reported throughout the day. Pictures were shared from Gaza showing an Israeli Skylark reconnaissance drone that crashed in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. It is unclear if the drone was shot down, suffered a technical failure, or was jammed using electronic warfare.

The IDF launched another wave of attacks on the night of October 27 – 28, with greater intensity than the previous day. Communications systems in Gaza collapsed during the latest raids, with Hamas reporting that Israel had “cut communications and most of the Internet.” A large-scale bombing campaign by the IAF preceded the ground attack. A video out of Gaza reportedly showed the beginning of the air attack. We cannot verify if this video is from today, and headphone wearers, be warned that the volume is loud. To watch the video, you can 📺⚠🎧click here. There were reports of heavy fighting and the sounds of 📺 machine guns and small arms fire supported by artillery and rockets by both combatants. Israeli forces are supported by tanks and engineering vehicles, with helicopters conducting close air support.

U.S. and Israeli officials, speaking to United States news agency ABC News, that the ongoing operation is not the start of a large-scale offensive and is part of the previously planned “limited” incursions.

United Nations 200 Blue Line Border between Israel and Lebanon and the Golan Heights

Lebanese Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militants restarted their attacks on the Israeli border, and it remains unclear why there was an operational pause on October 26. Skirmishes involving antitank weapons and small arms occurred near Avivim and Misgav Am on the northern border, with Hezbollah attacking Israeli military positions. Israel responded with artillery, drone, and air strikes. Hezbollah claimed they wounded Israeli troops, which the IDF denied.

The West Bank

The calls from Lion’s Den for more protests on October 27 largely went unanswered despite a series of overnight raids by IDF forces in the West Bank.

On the evening of October 26 – 27, in raids conducted in the Jenin Refugee Camp, the IDF claimed that it killed a field commander in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Jenin, Ayser Mohammad Al-Amer. Palestinian officials confirmed the IDF claim and reported that three others were killed and 12 wounded in raids conducted by the IDF across the West Bank, including in Jenin. The IDF said that it arrested 17 members of Hamas and 19 other Palestinians wanted on outstanding warrants.

In the West Bank settlement of Qalqilya, Qassam Abdel Hafez was reportedly shot to death, but it wasn’t clarified by Palestinian officials if this was due to the overnight raids, clashes with Israelis, or other circumstances. The Palestinian news source WAFA claimed four Palestinians were wounded during an IAF raid in Nablus.

Despite the overnight raids and the call from the popular Lion’s Den party for a strike and mass protests, there were only a handful of incidents before Israel launched its second set of raids in Gaza, and the Internet failed. Prior to losing the Internet, Hamas made another appeal for residents of the West Bank to join the fight against Israel. Hamas Political Bureau leader Ismail Haniyeh called for more protests, and Political Bureau member Hussam Badran appealed that “this is the time for weapons.”

After the Internet outage in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians 📷 took to the streets in Ramallah, with some chanting, “If you have a rifle, if you have a gun, kill a Jew or give it to Hamas!” Others simply chanted, “Liberate Gaza,” while waving Hamas flags and banners. As the night continued, protests erupted in Nablus and other West Bank cities, numbering in the thousands. At the time of publication, there were no reports of significant unrest or violence.

Missile, Drone, and Airstrikes on Israel

Hamas and aligned militants and terror grounds in the Gaza Strip launched rockets at Kissufim, Kerem Shalom, Tel Aviv, Shfela, Ashkelon, Ramat Gan, Modi’in, Rishon Lezion, Holon, Ashdod, Sderot, and Netiv Ha’asara. The total number of rockets fired continued to decline, while the number of successful hits in Israel is increasing. Two rockets struck Sderot, destroying a house and an outbuilding. An apartment building was 📺 hit in Tel Aviv, wounding three to four people. A rocket 📺 also struck Ashkelon, with no injuries reported. A rocket strike in Rishon Lezion wounded one person.

ASSESSMENT: Hamas and other militant and terror organizations may be changing their tactics to gain a higher degree of success with their rocket attacks, and no air defense system is 100% effective. After 21 days of non-stop rocket strikes, it is more likely that the IDF is starting to conserve its inventory of interceptors and deprioritizing more rockets for intercept based on their projected impact.

Middle East Region and Theaterwide

The United States conducted two airstrikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guard-aligned facilities in response to a series of drone and rocket attacks on U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. A senior U.S. Two F-16 fighter jets carried out sorties near the town of Boukamal, close to the Iraqi border. The area is thought to be a main conduit for weapons transfers between Iran and Syria or Lebanon via Iraq. A battle damage assessment was not available.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said President Joe Biden “directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests,” adding that Washington “does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop…Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.”

Austin described the strikes as “narrowly tailored” and do not “constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict.”

Unmoved, the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance of Iraq launched another drone strike against U.S. forces stationed at Ain al Assad Airbase in Iraq in response to the U.S. airstrikes.

Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen attempted a drone attack on Israel, with the IAF 📺 intercepting an “unknown aerial target” that was deemed a threat over the Red Sea. Egyptian news services reported that the drone was shot down near the Red Sea town of Nuweiba.

The IDF and Egyptian officials initially reported that missiles struck the Egyptian Red Sea town of Taba, and a drone struck the Egyptian town of Nuweiba in an earlier attack. Taba borders the Israeli town of Eliat, which Hamas has targeted, while Nuweiba is over 50 kilometers away and outside of the range of known weapons available to Hamas. In Taba, Egyptian officials reported the ambulance bay of a hospital was hit, wounding six people.

IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that both projectiles originated from the Red Sea area, suggesting they were launched from Yemen. “To our understanding, the impact that occurred in Egypt originates from this threat. Israel will work together with Egypt and the U.S. and tighten the defense against threats.”

Later in the day, an Egyptian official stated Egyptian news agency al-Qahera, Cairo, believed the strike on the hospital at Taba was from a drone and not a missile. An unnamed government official said that “Egypt reserves the right to respond to the attack and says that once the destination for the launch is determined, all options are available.”

The IDF also reported that several rockets fired from Lebanon toward Israel struck the territory of Syria.

Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said during an interview with U.S. news agency NPR that militants back by Tehran have plans that are “more powerful and deeper than what [the United States] has witnessed, “ adding that attacks would come “at an appropriate time.”

Iranian hardliners continued their framing of the Israel-Hamas War as a United States-Arab War and continued calls for volunteers to step forward to fight Israel.

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.

During the “diplomatic” meeting with Moscow, Hamas official Abu Hamid told Russian state-controlled news agency Kommersant that the militant group is willing to release all civilian hostages, but they don’t know where they all are. He accurately stated that hostages are held by more than one group, adding that a ceasefire was required to search to find all the hostages and release them.

ASSESSMENT: These claims are almost certainly false. In our assessment, while the topic of hostages was almost certainly brought up during the meeting in Moscow, the real purpose was a signal to the Arab world and supporters of Hamas that the organization has the backing of Moscow and its allies in Iran. Russian state media appeared to justify the meetings, echoing common talking points that Hamas is part of a broader struggle against current world structures.

An unnamed senior Israeli official told the Times of Israel that Hamas is not negotiating in good faith and is using tactics to stall an IDF ground offensive into the Gaza Strip. A report in the United States publication Axios made a similar claim and that there has been no real progress in negotiations.

The head of the U.N Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) warned that public services are starting to collapse and food is becoming scarce in the Gaza Strip. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini criticizes world leaders, saying it “seems to have turned its back on Gaza.” UNWRA claims that they need 160,000 liters of fuel a day to supply hospital generators and bakeries. The U.N. reported that since October 7, 57 UNWRA employees have been killed. Lazzarini closed with, “We cannot turn a blind eye to this human tragedy.”

A Hamas spokesperson from the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt reported ten more aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Friday, a tiny fraction of pre-war traffic. Six of the trucks were with the International Committee for the Red Cross, which reported that six members of their medical staff were permitted through the Rafah crossing into Gaza, along with four other specialists.

At a press conference in Geneva, U.N. Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the U.N. is “concerned that war crimes are being committed. We are concerned about the collective punishment of Gazans in response to the atrocious attacks by Hamas…also amount to war crimes.”

Casualties

We no longer track Israeli or Palestinian casualty numbers due to serious questions about the veracity of reports from both combatants.

Rest of World: There were updates on the number of foreign nationals listed as dead, missing, or confirmed as hostages, with 38 nations reporting 248 of their citizens were killed:

• Argentina - 9 dead, 21 unaccounted
• Australia - 1 dead
• Austria - 4 dead, 1 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 - 5 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Columbia – 1 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Estonia – 1 dead
• France - 35 dead, 9 hostages
• Germany – 4 dead, 12 hostages
• Honduras – 1 dead
• Hungary – 2 hostages
• India – 2 killed, 4 unaccounted
• Ireland - 1 dead
• Italy – 3 dead, 1 hostage
• Kazakhstan – 2 dead
• Mexico - 2 hostages
• Moldova – 1 dead
• Nepal - 10 dead, 5 hostages
• The Netherlands – 1 dead, 1 hostage
• Paraguay - 2 unaccounted
• Peru - 3 dead, 4 unaccounted
• Philippines - 4 dead, 2 unaccounted
• Poland – 1 dead
• Portugal - 4 dead, 4 unaccounted
• Romania – 4 dead*, 2 hostages
• Russia - 23 dead, 6 hostages
• South Africa – 2 dead
• Spain - 1 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Sri Lanka - 2 unaccounted
• Switzerland – 1 dead
• Tanzania - 2 unaccounted
• Thailand - 33 dead, 18 hostages (decrease)
• Türkiye - 1 dead, 1 unaccounted
• Ukraine - 21 dead, 7 missing
• United Kingdom – 12 dead, 5 unaccounted
• United States - 34 dead, 1 unaccounted, 12 hostages
• Uzbekistan – 3 dead, 4 unaccounted

Israeli-Hamas Politics

Nearly half of Israelis are opposed to an “immediate” military ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Maariv. According to the poll by the Panel4All institute, 49% percent of respondents say it would be better to wait before launching a ground offensive on the Palestinian territory. Just 29% of respondents say the offensive should start immediately.”

The week before, 65% said they supported an immediate offensive into Israel, indicating that public support is waning as frustration with the Netanyahu administration continues to grows.

Geopolitics

In New York at the U.N. General Assembly, Canada attempted to amend a Jordanian resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The amendment proposed adding a condemnation of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that killed almost 1,400, including more than 1,050 civilians, and referring to the release of “civilians” as “hostages.” Jordan’s ambassador to the U.N., Mahmoud Hmoud, called the amendment an effort to “whitewash” Israeli “atrocities” in Gaza. The amendment failed to pass despite receiving a majority of votes. Eighty-eight countries voted in support of the amendment, 55 voted against, and 33 abstained. In order to pass, a two-thirds majority is required.

The General Council passed the Jordanian resolution with 129 countries voting in favor and 14 against, including the United States, Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Fiji, Guatemala, Hungary, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and Tonga. Another 45 countries abstained, including Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Greece, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, Ukraine and the U.K.

The non-binding resolution calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all civilians, the protection of civilians and international institutions, and the safe passage of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

U.N. ambassador for Israel Gilad Erdan called it “a dark day for the U.N. and for mankind…Today is a day that will go down as infamy. We have all witnessed that the U.N. no longer holds even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance…Israel intends to eliminate Hamas just as the world dealt with the Nazis and ISIS.”

Hamas welcomed the news and called for the immediate implementation of the resolution but made no indication they had located the missing hostages. The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority also welcomed the news, saying, “a solid international position rejecting Israel’s unhinged aggression.”

And that’s what we know.