You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 10: Israel at War: Update #2, Oct. 8th 2023

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Oct. 8th, 2023: Death toll, number of casualties, hostages, IDF human observers, IDF unpreparedness & Iran. An update from Israel-Hamas war which started on Oct. 7th 2023. Read full transcript on my substack: https://efrat.substack.com/p/israel-hamas-war-2nd-update Support Israelis in need - I will forward your donations to people who need it: https://buymeacoffee.com/efenigson Follow me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/efenigson Telegram: https://t.me/efenigson All other links: https://linktr.ee/efenigson  Support my work: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/efenigson

October 8th, 2023. This is Efrat Fenikzon and I'm here to share a second update from Israel-Hamas war which started yesterday. I just want to start by saying that any support I will receive on these updates, any financial support, I will forward to the people of Israel that are in need or have been evacuated from their homes. I will add the link to support me in the notes. The general situation in Israel is very hard to digest. It's a mix of confusion, frustration, fear, shock, hatred, and lots of sadness and anxiety over murdered loved ones and missing people, some of which were taken hostage in the most brutal ways one can imagine. The footage surfacing on social media are highly disturbing and hard to comprehend. They trigger trauma, and oftentimes people

discover their missing loved ones in one of those videos or photos. Tonight on Israel's channel 12 mainstream media, they reported a Hamas soldier that was taken hostage, saying, We prepared for over a year. The demonstrations in Israel encouraged us. It's been five hours till Israel started shooting at us. We were all set up with 1,000 soldiers. We created 15 breaches in the border fence. We were surprised or shocked that IDF is not waiting for us. This is a quote of the Hamas soldier. Three weeks ago, a reporter in Israel called Zvi Yechezkeli, he's an expert on Arab matters and Hamas, showed that Hamas public video materials of their exact plan to penetrate and attack Israel, asking like me where is the israeli intelligence because the video was very detailed and it showed

exactly what they are planning to do he also calls this surprise attack bigger than yom kippur war some numbers and details about what's been happening in the past 24 hours so today the envelope villages around the Gaza Strip were being evacuated. Many villages were ruined and burned to the ground by the Hamas terrorists. There were a few IDF naval operations to take down breaches from the sea of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces. Hundreds of points were attacked by the IDF in Gaza today, which you probably have seen or heard in the mainstream media, including one tunnel. The Israeli death toll is growing, this is the hard part, with over 700 deaths. Recent reports are talking about 800 to 1,000 even. More than 2,100 people are injured,

300 severely injured, out of which 280 people are missing, still missing. More than 100 people we know were kidnapped, including moms with babies, kids, old people, and of course, young men and women. Apparently, among the kidnapped, there are a few American citizens as well. Among the dead are 57 Israeli soldiers. Over 400 terrorists, Hamas terrorists, were killed so far by the Israeli forces. The Israeli mainstream media is also sharing with us today that each day of war cost us taxpayers $25 to $40 million, which is a future hit in GDP. They're just preparing us for that. I mentioned yesterday the outdoor party that took place, which had no less than 5,000 young people celebrating in nature.

This event was horrifying as young adults were ambushed and slaughtered by the Hamas terrorists. Some of those young people managed to escape by running in the fields and finding a hiding place. Some were captured, tortured. We know of some young women that were raped and later taken hostage. Many of these young adults are missing and their families are going crazy. Let's look at another angle related to weapons. About three years ago, the IDF started a process of taking back weapons from people living in the Gaza envelope villages, Israeli citizens, of course, under the excuse that these weapons are being stolen.

A certain allowance of permitted weapons for each village was granted, which created even more anxiety and distrust amongst the citizens who wish to protect themselves. So that's another question mark that I have of what is the trend here? Why are people not allowed, not like before anyway, to hold weapons anymore and protect themselves in these problematic areas? that's something else that needs to be answered. Next, let's talk about the IDF human observers. So their role is to be the eyes on the border fence. These are normally female soldiers that are sitting in the bunker looking at computer screens all day, well, for their shift anyway, for a few hours straight, and they're supposed to report every little movement that they see on the fence. The IDF also operates many advanced weapon systems to take down anything coming close to the

fence, but nothing was triggered. It is said that a drone from the Hamas was attacking one of those weapon systems, and that's why they were disabled. I don't know if this is verified yet, but questions are raised on what happened to the observers, to the human observers. There were some horrible rumors running around saying that those human observers were taken down as the first step by the terrorists when they came in and crossed the border. Others say they did report the breaches, but the forces were not present to act on it. I said it yesterday as well. So where were those forces. Well, the Gaza division was moved to the Judea and Samaria area. Entire battalions, some of the most professional in the IDF, were moved from the Gaza Strip to secure illegal

outposts in Samaria and secure a member of the parliament, no less, in Hawara, a Palestinian village, which is, again, a big question mark of why that happened right before this incident. Retired General Yitzhak Brick said that Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of general staff, fought to hide his report on the IDF's unpreparedness for war. Brick said in April this year and many times before that Israel is not ready for an all-out war and laid the reasons for it. There may have been an ignoring of that by the government of Israel. Up north in the border with Lebanon there were rockets fired today by Hezbollah to Israeli towns. Citizens were called to evacuate their homes. This north front of where the Hezbollah is, is next in the predicted

line of attack. And lastly, a point about Iran. Hamas spokesman told the BBC today that Hamas received support from Iran for its surprise attack on Israel. So that was verified. Iran has publicly praised the attacks. Criticism on the Biden administration were heard from the U.S. for unfreezing $6 billion last month, allegedly for humanitarian aid, but the Iranian president explicitly said that they'll use this money, which is theirs, for whatever they see fit. thank you for watching and following me your support over the past 24 hours is very important and as I promised I will forward any financial support that I receive through the buy me a coffee service to the people in Israel who are in need of that financial support at the moment

I'm really grateful for all of your support it's not taken for granted I feel it's coming to me but it's going directly to the people of Israel as well. See you soon and thank you for watching.