This was expected though. Both by organisers and observers (maybe they didn’t expect drones, but they were expecting sabotage). Taking the ship out of comission already at Malta is early though. Strangely early, since Israel does not possess the drones to reach Malta. So they could not have been launched from Israel itself. There was a military Israeli tanker in Malta 7 hours before the sabotage attack, though.
Meanwhile, Israel claims that Gaza operations are about to be expanded.
I am very worried about expansion of Israeli military operations in Syria under the pretext of protecting the Druze. Syria is unstable, just came out of the worst war the Middle East have seen for many decades, and Israel (Smotrich even claims that the particion of Syria is the goal, but while powerful, he doesn’t call shots) keeps attacking weekly and now threatens to enter Suweyda governate proper.
What Syria needs now is a long period of detente with everyone and economic and social recovery, it is a super vulnerable state. Refugees just started returning and israel is threatening to destroy the recovery completely.
Very interesting interview, from one of the best sources on Syria
https://x.com/ajaltamimi/status/1918363302301975019
High IAF activity over Syria. The situation is quite bad.
https://x.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1918411135314780550
https://x.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1918417371607535835
Military reporter from Israel:
Stated political goals must be taken with a grain of salt, as always.
‘The IDF has said that it sees the return of the 59 hostages still held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip as the most important goal of the war, with defeating the terror group in second place.’
Yet Bibi said the other day that it wasn’t. 
Yeah, there is a reason why I wrote: “Stated political goals must be taken with a grain of salt, as always.”
There may also be a disconnect between Netanyahu cabinet goals and the goals the IDF high command thinks they have or should have, because that has certainly happened in the past. Or it’s just empty rethoric. Lots of salt needed.
I also heard somewhere that they (the IDF) were struggling with no-shows with their reservists. I wonder maybe if this might be connected ?
Why would a sane person entangle in an endless (both in time and in geographical aspects) war?
The suffering in Gaza is extreme, but let us be realistic, the war has only lasted a year and a half at a fairly low intensity. Far from long enough for the Israeli public to view it as an endless war. Most Israelis still want to win a crushing military and political victory, although number of those who favour long term cease fire is growing.
Try telling that to all the Palestinians who have needlessly been slaughtered.
Nah, it is unfortunately expansion of operations. The intensity of warfare, ever since the Cease Fire broke down, has been very, very low to the point where it is barely warfare (it has become more a medeaval siege).
But yes, they have had problem, motivation to fight is far lower as soldiers no longer see the war as truly important.
I wouldn’t, because I do have some social intelligence and compassion.
I am using technical accurate language, but for those involved in the epicentre, a very low intensity conflict (particularly after so much infrastructure has been destroyed combined with crushing blockade), still resembles hell, and certainly for civilians trapped there.
But high intensity warfare is a term that actually has meaning.
Apart from the obvious asymmetry of the two sides, the war largely meets the criteria for high-intensity conflict.
No, it is not a high intensive war at the moment and the current scale of fighting does not meet the requirements you even listed above. It may become one again unfortunately, but clashes now are of a very low intensitivity. Not that it helps civilians trapped. Because an ill placed IAF bomb can end up killing a hundred or more.
There is just one high intensive war being waged today and it is not in the middle east. But you seem to think that I am trying to minimise the agony of Gazans, which is hardly what I was trying to do. I am using military technical language that has meaning, because a high intensive war would mean that for instance the UK (if it fought one), would run out of ammunition after a very few weeks. That is how much munitions you use in a large scale state vs state high intensity conflict, of which we thankfully only have one of in the world.
A High Intensive war indicates expenditure of thousands or artillery shells, thousands of mortar or drone equalents per day, and losses of a hundreds or more per day. It requires war economy and high mobilisation.
As stated, IDF has demobilised long ago and fighting has been low scale for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean anything for those who suffer because Gaza has been destroyed long ago and is nigh unlivable as an environment now. Then add very high concentration of civilians in the zone of conflict, and it’s hell of course.
Anyway, the point I was originally trying to make is that IDF is mobilising and that it is about to get even worse. Soon, hundreds of thousands will have to relocate again to so called safe sones that are not at all safe. It is a gargantuan humanitarian disaster, irrespective of intensity.
Anyway, Ansar Allah hit outside Ben Gurion air port with a ballistic missile today. Note worthy because of the high economic impact, since foreign airlines are cancelling flights enmasse. Note worthy also because it flew through US GBAD and israeli GBAD and they all failed to shoot it down.
And both the US and Israel are now about to drawn into one of those endless wars which they say they so want to avoid. If they think they are going to bomb the Houthis into submission from the air then I’d wager that they are very much mistaken.
I think the respective political leaders obviously very much do want this war. They benefit from never-ending wars, despite their constant rhetoric.
It’s called reducing their old inventory so that the great military industry can build more.
