Israel at war: What happened on days 42-43?

Rocket sirens sounded across northern Israeli border towns on Saturday morning after a barrage of at least 25 rockets was fired from Lebanon, the IDF confirmed.

The Israeli military said it was striking the source of the fire, as well as several Hezbollah terror positions across the border. 

Sirens also sounded in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona later on Saturday. The IDF said it responded to the rocket fire.

The IDF strikes Hezbollah terror targets in southern Lebanon on November 18, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/ALAA AL-MARJANI)

Hezbollah says it shot down Israeli drone

The Iran-backed Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone near the border in the early hours of Saturday.

Lebanese officials said an Israeli airstrike hit a building in an industrial area near the town of Nabatieh, one of the deepest Israeli strikes inside Lebanese territory since fighting resumed last month. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.

After a suspect was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter and battery in the death of a pro-Israel protester near Los Angeles earlier this month, Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said that his office has “not ruled out a hate crime” in the case.

But he added that at present, based on what the police know, the death does not appear to be a hate crime.

“Simply put, looking at the statements as well as the words that accompany this act, we cannot at this time meet the elements of a hate crime,” he said at a Friday morning press conference. “But nevertheless, we will continue to explore and investigate that offense as well as that special allegation.”

Kessler’s death has received widespread attention as it has come during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza as well as during a reported spike in antisemitism in the United States following the outbreak of the war. A number of prominent pro-Israel activists have claimed that his death was motivated by antisemitism.

Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji, 50, of Moorpark, California, was arrested Thursday morning in the case and charged with two felony counts — involuntary manslaughter and battery causing serious bodily injury. His bail was set for $1 million, and he will be arraigned Friday afternoon. The charge of involuntary manslaughter implies that there was no proven intent to murder, Nasarenko said.

Torrance Police Department vehicle. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

But Nasarenko said each count was accompanied by the “special allegation that in the commission of those crimes, the defendant personally inflicted great bodily injury upon Paul Kessler.” Nasarenko added that those allegations “elevate these offenses to strikes under California’s three-strikes law, which makes punishment prison-eligible.”

Police investigate motives behind assault

Regarding the hate crime determination, Nasarenko said the investigators are specifically looking into “whether or not the acts, the impact, the force, was accompanied by specific hate speech, specific statements or words that demonstrate antipathy or hatred toward a specific group.” He said there are still outstanding search warrants in the case, and nine have so far been executed.

Sheriff James Fryhoff said the investigation has thus far gotten statements from 60 witnesses and that his team has reviewed 600 pieces of evidence. He said the investigation, which began within 24 hours of Kessler’s death on Nov. 5, has so far comprised more than 2,000 hours of work by his investigators. He encouraged anyone with information or footage of the incident to come forward.

Nasarenko also thanked Ventura County’s Jewish and Muslim leaders, saying that they have “shown restraint” and respect as the investigation is underway.

Fryhoff and Nasarenko also met virtually with Kessler’s family on Thursday, they said.

“They are mourning. They are grieving. And they are asking for privacy for this very difficult period,” Nasarenko said.

He added that while Kessler’s Israel advocacy has received considerable attention since the altercation took place nearly two weeks ago, he wanted to share additional information about Kessler, “because in this process, we should never forget that human life was taken, and that a victim exists.”

Nasarenko highlighted that Kessler had worked in medical sales for decades and had taught sales and marketing at a number of colleges. He was a pilot, and had been married for 43 years. He left behind a son.

“We want to continue to remember and honor Paul Kessler, and the tragic loss of life that has occurred,” Nasarenko said.

At least five Palestinians were killed and two more injured in an Israeli strike on a building in the West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said early on Saturday.

The Israeli military did not immediately provide comment on the incident at Balata refugee camp, in the central city of Nablus.

The Palestinian Red Crescent earlier said its medics were dealing with five serious injuries from the blast, all of them men ranging from 19 to 25 years in age.

Regional violence spikes

The West Bank has seen a sharp surge in violence since the deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza last month.

At least 186 Palestinians, including 51 children, have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the October 7 Hamas attack, according to UN figures.

Hilltop view of the Palestinian refugee camp Balata on the edge of the West Bank city of Nablus (credit: REUTERS)

An additional eight have been killed by Israeli settlers, while four Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians, according to the figures.

During a rally held at the end of the fourth day of the abductees's families's march to Jerusalem, the families's representatives demanded that the cabinet members meet with them on Saturday in order to explain the position of the Israeli government regarding a possible deal.

At the rally, various representatives of the families called out the government for their failure to clearly communicate with the families.

Naor Paktzi, representative of the families of the abductees from Kibbutz Be'eri: "How do you accept Shabbat without knowing where our abductees are? We have a message for the War Cabinet - you cannot make a decision without sitting with us and looking us in the eye. Look us in the eyes!"

Ivy Mozes, chairman of the Organization for Victims of Hostilities in Israel. His wife (who was pregnant) and son were burned to death by a terrorist in 1987: "I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu and the government of Israel if it is necessary to release the criminal who murdered my wife Ofra who was pregnant and my son - I say do it and release them home today. I will no longer be able to hug my wife Ofra, but the families of the abductees can. It's time to get them back now!"

The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be'eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 14, 2023. (credit: Omer Fichman/Flash90)

Look us in the eyes!

Kamelia Hoter Yishai, grandmother of Gali Tarshansky (13) who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Be'eri: "Personally, it is difficult for me to relate to this group called abductees because everyone has a name - Gali, Yossi... Everyone has a family, everyone has dreams. Since that bitter day, we have not heard from the government or the ministers in charge of anything about what is happening with Gali in Gaza beyond the fact that she was kidnapped."

She continued "I am asking Bibi Netanyahu to come to us tomorrow, look us in the eyes, and tell us something, anything so that we will not be treated as monkeys. I started this march out of a national mission to get all the answers we deserve. I want to thank all the wonderful citizens of this country and say thank you, you give us the strength to continue, we need you with all your strength tomorrow in Jerusalem, help us get answers."

Yuval Haran, whose seven family members were kidnapped: "How can you put a price on a 3-year-old girl? I have a question for the prime minister and cabinet ministers - do you have anything better to do than meet us? I want to say thank you to everyone who is joining us. We started with a few hundred, today we are tens of thousands, and tomorrow we will be many more. Come be our support, the whole world will hear our cry. We don't have the privilege to wait any longer."

Udi Goren, cousin of Tal Chaimi who was kidnapped from his home in Nir Yitzhak to members of the War Cabinet: "You are carving the fate of the nation now - how is it possible that you are not here now? We were betrayed once and lost faith in the idea. You have a chance to make amends, don't abandon us again. This war has one and only image of victory - 238 abductees standing safe and sound in the Knesset square. There is no victory until the last abductee."

It was a slow trickle, each long press of the finger and ensuing quick tap was days and sometimes weeks apart (it’s hard to comprehend that a whole month has passed since October 7), but I am here to tell you that I — a former social media manager — have removed each and every social media app from my phone.

In fact, as I was writing this very esssay, I realized I still had Threads downloaded, opened it for a minute, saw a Thread that said “Zionism is antisemitism,” and promptly deleted that, too.

I have zero desire to restore a single one of them.

What happened to me has probably happened to you, too. I saw a Tweet, a TikTok, an Instagram Story that filled me with such fury and indignation that I spent hours — sometimes days — formulating and reformulating an epic, fact-based, emotionally charged, imagined response. Imagined, of course, because I knew I’d never post it. I’ve seen so many celebrities and random acquaintances do such utterly embarrassing and harmful and reputation-destroying things in the last weeks to even dare to try.

And to be clear: I would try if I thought I could change someone’s mind and force them to see my humanity, but beyond the small, intimate, personal conversations that I can have off the apps, I feel like these enraged indignant responses only seem to silo people further.

ANTISEMITIC IMAGES seen on TikTok in Oct. (credit: CST)

I’ve worked in social media since 2014 — in the Jewish realm of social media, specifically. That means I’ve seen a lot of awfulness, gas chamber memes, overt antisemitism and Islamophobia. I’ve personally been told many times to go back where I came from (which, yes, is Israel, and that feels grimly funny now). Yet I’ve also believed in its power to heal, to make people feel seen, to energize activism, to educate.

I still believe that — kind of? But I’ve also never seen it this awful, this polarizing, this … honestly, unhinged. An unscientific poll of people I know seems to indicate the same thing: Social media is the worst it’s ever been, maybe because the Israel/Palestine conversation has always been so impossibly polarizing.

People are so stuck in their “side” and binary that they’re willing to share anything — without fact-checking, without making sure they’re not getting in bed with people whose worldview is dangerous, without asking themselves for a small second, wait, is this Islamophobic? Antisemitic? Completely detached from reality? Without wondering if they sound like a conspiracy theorist, or if they’re just being cruel for cruelty’s sake.

And the amount of words wasted on misinformation and meanness doesn’t even compare to the number of words some people insist on putting into other people’s mouths (or keyboards, rather) when their statement doesn’t 100% pass whatever standards they’ve arbitrarily decided it must. Beyond Israel and Palestine, we’ve been tearing ourselves apart inside our Jewish community, and that also breaks my heart.

Grief and rage

I understand the deep grief and rage behind most posts. I’ve been enraged and grieving myself. I’ve been scared too: Of the growing antisemitism. Of the people who tell me that I and my family, because we were born in Israel, can’t be innocent civilians, that we all deserve the horrors of October 7 to befall on us.

I’ve also been scared for the life of every innocent person lost and about to be lost. Around 1,200 Israelis killed, 300 kidnapped, over 10,000 Palestinian lives believed to have been taken, all unfathomable numbers. And I’ve been scared about the cycle of rage and violence and siloed indignation that removes the humanity of a whole swath of people. Because I do believe that that’s part of what got us here. And I keep seeing it evinced, over and over again, on social media.

I am — unlike many “experts” newly minted by numbers of followers or magnitude of chutzpah — not an expert of Middle Eastern politics, despite being Israeli and working in Jewish media for almost a decade. I know a lot, but I am not a politician or historian. And yet, to the extent I believe that there is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I believe that it has to be one that takes into account the inherent humanity of all those involved. I believe that it will be human and imperfect.

I’m awed by the people who are still managing to use social media for good right now, the little spots of light — people who parse through history and reality with wisdom and empathy, well-educated veteran observers of Israel and Palestine, academics, journalists, fierce activists, who, through immense pain, still manage to retain their humanity.

Yet for me, I’ve realized being on social media is doing more harm than good. It’s keeping me further away from solutions and useful action, and closer to rage and fear. So for now, I can’t stay there.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday suggested that Germany supported Israel in the Gaza war out of guilt over the Holocaust and drew a contrast with Turkey, which he said was able to speak without bias.

"The Israeli-Palestinian war should not be evaluated with a psychology of indebtedness. I speak freely because we do not owe anything to Israel," Erdogan said at a joint news conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz before the two leaders held private talks.

"Those who feel indebted to Israel cannot speak freely. We did not go through the Holocaust process, we don't have such situation, because our respect for humanity is different," the Turkish president said.

Erdogan said earlier this week that Israel was a "terror state" committing war crimes in Gaza and that its campaign against Hamas included "the most treacherous attacks in human history."

Erdogan's comment in Berlin went to the heart of Germany's post-war identity, which is based on deep atonement for the Holocaust. Germany systematically killed 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims during World War Two. Modern Israel was founded in 1948 as a safe haven for Jews.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a news conference in Tel Aviv, earlier this month. (credit: MAYA ALLERUZZO/REUTERS)

Scholz did not respond directly to Erdogan's remarks but restated Germany's commitment to Israel's right to defend itself.

"If you know Germany, you know that our solidarity with Israel is beyond all question," Scholz said. "Israel has the right to defend itself. At the same time all lives are equally precious and the suffering in Gaza distresses us."

Erdogan's trip was his first visit to Germany in four years. Erdogan, whose party faces key local elections next year, could benefit from Scholz's backing for modernizing Turkey's customs union with the European Union and visa-free EU travel for Turks.

Scholz, dealing with a court ruling that blew a 60-billion-euro hole in his budget, a coalition row over the economy and rising immigration, needs Ankara's help in stemming migration to the EU.

But the talks were overshadowed by the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hamas fighters on Oct. 7 surged into Israel, killing 1,200 and taking some 240 hostages. In retaliation, Israel invaded Gaza with a goal of eliminating Hamas, and Palestinian authorities have said more than 12,000 have died.

Germany has seen an uptick in antisemitism and Islamophobia since the conflict began and has faced criticism for making it hard to hold pro-Palestinian protests, which the government fears might be antisemitic.

Fighter planes

The two leaders sought to emphasize areas of agreement including the importance of their economic ties and support for a deal on Ukraine grain exports.

Scholz declined to respond to a question on whether he would approve the sale of the 40 Eurofighter warplanes that Turkey wants. His approval would be needed since Germany is a member of the British-French-Spanish consortium that makes them.

Erdogan said he could go elsewhere if Scholz did not agree.

"We can procure fighter jets from many other places," Erdogan said.

Berlin would also like to see Turkey give its final approval to Sweden's accession to the NATO military alliance. Though Erdogan has dropped his objections, the Turkish parliament has yet to ratify Sweden's membership.

About 26 Palestinians, mostly children, were killed in an Israeli bombardment of Khan Yunis city in south Gaza early on Saturday, the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

The IDF said that following the latest warnings on Saturday in the North, air defense fighters successfully intercepted an air-to-surface missile that was launched from Lebanese territory towards an IDF drone.

The alert was triggered following the interceptors that were launched, no crossing into Israeli territory was detected.
 

During a rally held at the end of the fourth day of the abductees's families's march to Jerusalem, the families's representatives demanded that the cabinet members meet with them on Saturday in order to explain the position of the Israeli government regarding a possible deal.

At the rally, various representatives of the families called out the government for their failure to clearly communicate with the families.

Naor Paktzi, representative of the families of the abductees from Kibbutz Be'eri: "How do you accept Shabbat without knowing where our abductees are? We have a message for the War Cabinet - you cannot make a decision without sitting with us and looking us in the eye. Look us in the eyes!"

Ivy Mozes, chairman of the Organization for Victims of Hostilities in Israel. His wife (who was pregnant) and son were burned to death by a terrorist in 1987: "I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu and the government of Israel if it is necessary to release the criminal who murdered my wife Ofra who was pregnant and my son - I say do it and release them home today. I will no longer be able to hug my wife Ofra, but the families of the abductees can. It's time to get them back now!"

The destruction caused by Hamas Militants in Kibbutz Be'eri, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 14, 2023. (credit: Omer Fichman/Flash90)

Look us in the eyes!

Kamelia Hoter Yishai, grandmother of Gali Tarshansky (13) who was kidnapped from her home in Kibbutz Be'eri: "Personally, it is difficult for me to relate to this group called abductees because everyone has a name - Gali, Yossi... Everyone has a family, everyone has dreams. Since that bitter day, we have not heard from the government or the ministers in charge of anything about what is happening with Gali in Gaza beyond the fact that she was kidnapped."

She continued "I am asking Bibi Netanyahu to come to us tomorrow, look us in the eyes, and tell us something, anything so that we will not be treated as monkeys. I started this march out of a national mission to get all the answers we deserve. I want to thank all the wonderful citizens of this country and say thank you, you give us the strength to continue, we need you with all your strength tomorrow in Jerusalem, help us get answers."

Yuval Haran, whose seven family members were kidnapped: "How can you put a price on a 3-year-old girl? I have a question for the prime minister and cabinet ministers - do you have anything better to do than meet us? I want to say thank you to everyone who is joining us. We started with a few hundred, today we are tens of thousands, and tomorrow we will be many more. Come be our support, the whole world will hear our cry. We don't have the privilege to wait any longer."

Udi Goren, cousin of Tal Chaimi who was kidnapped from his home in Nir Yitzhak to members of the War Cabinet: "You are carving the fate of the nation now - how is it possible that you are not here now? We were betrayed once and lost faith in the idea. You have a chance to make amends, don't abandon us again. This war has one and only image of victory - 238 abductees standing safe and sound in the Knesset square. There is no victory until the last abductee."

Rocket sirens were heard in Safed, Biriyeh, and Amuka.