(Day 570) Swords of Iron -“Nachal Oz heroes of October 7th”

Chaim starts out by asking a rhetorical question about “what does evil look like”?

He then tells his viewers that he’s standing in a building on Kibbutz Nachal Oz, which was one of the hardest hit places on October 7th, 2023. He’s standing in a building that used to be a barracks for soldiers, and on that day it was burned and the only thing left in the building is the twisted, warped metal of bunkbeds and the walls and roof.

Chaim explains that 6,000 heavily armed and highly trained Nukba Force terrorists of Hamas came into this area and took over the kibbutz as well as the adjacent IDF base. Many of the soldiers at this base were female observers whose job it was to watch screens that were showing feeds from surveillance cameras. Most of them did not have weapons or training for ground combat. So when the attack began, those who could fled into bomb shelters, which are designed to protect people from rockets and shrapnel, not from armed infantry.

Nonetheless, they were in their shelters waiting to be rescued by the heavy IDF units or the police or whoever might come to rescue them, and it took a long time and for many people it was too long. There were a lot of other mistakes made on that day that allowed Hamas to carry out their attack. Chaim says those failures are being investigated, but he also wants his viewers to know that amidst the failures and the screw ups, there were also a lot of heroes on that day. There were people who organized rescue parties that helped get people out of harms way, despite all the confusion and the disorder.

But Hamas still managed to do a lot of damage. It was not just the civilian kibbutzeem that were attacked. Several IDF bases were also overrun and many soldiers and civilians were murdered. Many women and girls were also raped in very brutal ways and then murdered. Also, 251 people were kidnapped and held in the Gaza Strip as hostages.

Chaim admits at this point that the IDF “messed up” but he also says that after a year and a half of war, in which the IDF has smashed Hamas and Hezbollah and effectively defended the country against rocket attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, Shi’ite militias in Syria and Iraq and also two massive barrages of ballistic missiles from Iran itself, it’s time for the people of Israel to trust the IDF once again.

In the meantime, Chaim quotes Mossad director David Barnier who went to Qatar to participate in negotiations, saying that there’s no point in negotiating with Hamas as they are noy interested in building anything positive for the future of the Palestinians. They are just consumed with murderous hatred for Israel and that’s all they care about.

Others have also made the point that Qatar, which is mediating negotiations, has skin in this game. They are actively and unapologetically on Hamas’s side, trying to convince the Americans that Hamas is on its way to becoming a responsible political actor, moderating their behavior and their attitudes. This is a key component of the idea to have a five-year cease-fire, which Chaim thinks is a really bad idea since it will simply allow Hamas to re-arm, reorganize, and prepare for another round of fighting. Right now, they’re on the roaps, with most of their senior leadership eliminated and most of their fighters being poorly trained and organized. They are on the verge of defeat, there’s no reason to allow them to stay in power in Gaza and retain their freedom of action there.

Chaim says that the whole world needs to pay attention to what’s happening and stay focused on real solutions, not just quick fixes which will cause the trouble to go to a low burn level for awhile and then flare up again on someone else’s watch.

In this context, Chaim concludes by quoting Isaiah 25:9-10; And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord;
we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” For on this mountain the hand of the Lord will rest, and Moab shall be trampled down under Him, as straw is trampled down for the refuse heap.