Global SITREP D5-19: Is the IDF Prepared to Plow Gaza?

IDF D9 Heavy Combat bulldozer

UPDATE 12 November 2019: The answer to the title question of this SITREP may well come in the coming hours. HAMAS and Islamic Jihad have launched another massive rocket barrage against the civilian population of Israel. Israel's Iron Dome defenses have intercepted rockets as far north as Tel Aviv. These are massive rocket barrages that target sectors of Israel as if a grid was being used for targeting purposes.

As this is being written the massive barrage continues with Red Alert sirens blaring in: Shokeda, Kfar Maimon and Tushia, Zimrat and Shuva, Nachal Oz, Sa'ad, Alumim, Be'eri,Beit HaGdi, Netivot, Eshbol, Zru'a, Yoshivia, Mabu'im, Pa'amei Tashaz, Klachim, Talmei Bilu, Tkuma and Havat Izra'am, Tkuma.

Current Red Alerts in Israel at 09:20 AM Israel time 12NOV19.

More to come...

3 November 2019: The focus has been to the north and east of Israel for most of the year because that's where the military action has been taking place, from Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Wherever the Iranian regime has reached out its bloody hands war has resulted. And as 2019 closes out it can be seen that many of those countries have had their fill of Iranian hegemony over their affairs. So much so that the population of Iraq, especially the Iraqi Shi'a, want the Iranians out of the country. Now even in Lebanon the Iranians and their proxy Hezbollah have created conditions under which revolt was the obvious recourse for the population, to the point where another civil war is possible.

Eschatology Today assesses that the rocket fire coming out of Gaza this weekend occurred due to a direct order to the PIJ from the IRGC-QF and MG Qassem Soleimani who needed something positive given the unrelenting unrest that been ongoing in Iraq and now Lebanon where his Quds Force and Iraqi Shi'a militias are supposed to reign supreme. Israel has expected the rocket fire to come from the north, so perhaps the PIJ action, for which HAMAS paid the price, was merely a diversion? We shall see.

In any event, HAMAS may have gotten the message when a squadron of the IDF's heavy combat D9 bulldozers (image above) suddenly appeared in enmass on the berms facing GAZA earlier this week. The message the D9's appearance conveys is that the IDF is well advanced preparations for a dynamic entry-in-force into Gaza. In other words, D9 bulldozers mean business. There is nothing in Gaza which can stop the D9's from erasing the current Gaza-Israel border. Israel knows this, and no so do the leaders of HAMAS and their other terrorists in the strip, and it's not as if they haven't been warned. And contrary to some Israeli media reports, this coming operation is not a dilemma for Israel, but one in which HAMAS sees itself in an existential threat.

Irregardless of that fact that the political factions in Israel have not been able to form a government, the threat of Iranian (and/or proxy) rocket attacks from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza should be a catalyst to set differences aside and form a coalition to meet the threat head-on. Surely Israel's leaders must be aware that they dodged a catastrophe had the family in the Sderot home not been in their shelter and been killed with the rocket making a direct hit on their home. Nearly 24 months of complete inaction in dealing conclusively with the terrorist threat in Gaza is wearing very thin on Israel's population. Israel's leadership, both Likud and Blue/White simply have to get their act together, less a messianic figure emerge to act decisively in their absence.

More to come, no doubt. Marana'tha!