Swords of Iron: Here is what happened on days 3, 4 and 5

The United Jewish Federations of America (UJA), in coordination with Israeli representatives in the US and Latin America, is sponsoring a special flight for Israeli citizens in Latin America. This flight, scheduled to depart from Lima on Tuesday, 10/10/23 at 20:00 Peru time, is for those who have been called up for reserve duty under Order 8. Foreign Affairs Ministry has asked for affected Israeli citizens to register via email at Consul@lima.mfa.gov.il.

The IDF has undertaken 1,149 airstrikes on Gaza as of Monday morning, a jump of around 800 since midday Sunday, while there are still six ongoing fights with Hamas in Israeli villages on the Gaza corridor.

Since Hamas' Saturday invasion of southern Israel, there are at least 700 Israelis killed from the invasion and at least 700 dead Hamas terrorists, with around 300-400 dead from fighting in Israel and another 400 dead in Gaza from airstrikes. There are also over 2,000 wounded Israelis and over 2,300 wounded Gazans.

The IDF does not yet have a breakdown of how many of the wounded Gazans are fighters versus civilians, but in 2014 it was about 50% each, and in more recent wars the percentage of fighters has been much higher.

IDF soldiers (Credit: IDF)

IDF Chief Spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari confirmed that Iran is generally in the picture and broadly supporting Hamas, but poured cold water on the idea that the Islamic Republic was the mastermind of the current invasion or that it gave the order for the exact timing.

IDF slow to clear Gaza corridor of terrorists

The six areas of ongoing or new fighting in the Gaza corridor include: Kfar Gaza (7 terrorists identified), Beeri (70 terrorists identified, mostly killed now, but some have hidden inside Yishuv houses), Nirim (6 identified), Alumim (4 identified), Shaar Hanegev (3 identified), Nir Oz (4 identified), and Hulit (4 identified.)

In most of the six situations, the terrorists have been caught or confronted before they entered the village in question, and the fighting is near the village, but not within, though there are exceptions and some of the situation is unclear due to the fighting taking place at night and the number of ongoing fights.

The IDF admitted that it has been slower to fully clean out the Gaza corridor of Hamas invaders and to seal the border from continuing invaders than it had hoped, with an original goal of early to mid-Sunday.

Currently, the strategy is to move not only a huge volume of troops to the border, but also a larger number of tanks to project power.

In addition, the IDF continues to encounter and destroy attack tunnels within Israeli territory which its vaunted billion-dollar technologies had failed to locate prior to the invasion.

A mix of aerial lookouts, massive new troops in the area plus those technologies are being used to locate missed tunnels, but the situation is still fluid.

In the North, huge new IDF forces are now present to deter Hezbollah from any additional involvement beyond its small few symbolic forays of rocket fire from Sunday, and there has been no rocket fire in more than half a day.

Top IDF and US military officials are in regular touch and US forces in the region are now ready to both enhance IDF intelligence tracking of potential drone threats from Iranian proxies around the region, and potentially even to use American forces to shoot down such threats.

Of the 1,149 airstrikes, there have been four massive rounds since midday Sunday: Beit Hanoun, Shejiya (both Sunday) and Jabalya around 1:00 a.m. Monday and over the entire Gaza Strip in recent hours.

Most of the strikes are destroying Hamas' fighting capabilities as opposed to top commanders who had gone into hiding before the invasion.

IDF soldiers and border police neutralized a terrorist who attempted to carry out an attack via tractor in Hebron, according to security forces.

The terrorist in question arrived on a tractor while live broadcasting on social media platforms. Officers coming from a shift in the Cave of the Patriarchs worked in conjunction with IDF fighters until the terrorist was neutralized.