You're The Voice | by Efrat Fenigson - Ep. 9: Israel at War: Update #1 - tough questions, Oct. 7th 2023

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Oct. 7th, 2023: An update from Israel-Hamas war which started this morning. Sharing some key details and concerns, mostly based on Israeli citizens’ voices from the ground, and on official statements. Read full transcript on my substack: https://efrat.substack.com/p/israel-hamas-war-an-update The article with IDF spokesperson update: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-7-2023/ 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 7th, 2023. This is Efrat Fenningzon, and I'm here to share an update from Israel-Hamas war, which started this morning. I'm going to share some key details and concerns, mostly based on Israeli citizens' voices from the ground and based on official statements. This is a very tough day for me and for us in Israel, and it is tough for people of Palestine too, especially now that israel is starting to attack back this war and every war is a horrible thing for everyone involved except for those who get rich from it right this morning around 6 a.m around sunrise hundreds of hamas terrorists at least 300 breached the border fence in multiple places completely unimpeded leading to terror attacks and kidnappings in israeli towns or villages the terrorists

infiltrated a significant number of dry land outposts as well as a naval naval infiltration point in zikim as we speak israel is actively engaged in combat in 22 outposts this is from the idf statement the official statement the attacks have already resulted in over 100 casualties and more than 100 kidnaps of israeli citizens in one village 50 israelis have been taken hostage leaving people locked in shelters for long periods of eight to nine hours without rescue. By the way, the 100 kidnappings is not the official number. It's what we hear from people on the ground. I think official numbers talk about 30 or 40 people, but we know there are more.

In some places, the terrorists were burning the village and people didn't know if to leave the shelter and surrender or stay and pray for the fire to not reach them. Many young people who were in a big outdoor party near the Gaza envelope villages were attacked there. Some ran away, some were injured, and some are still missing. Apparently, Israeli defense forces that were supposed to be around Gaza were placed around the West Bank because of security concerns

so that the Gaza envelope was left unoccupied with military. They say around 60% to 80% of that area was left without the IDF forces that were supposed to be there. Soldiers are being recruited for reserves as we speak from this morning, but because of stupid reasons such as no public transport, they're waiting hours to get to the bases. mainstream media this is an interesting point apparently admits that idf spokesperson is forbidding them to tell the complete truth about what's happening highlighting a lack of

transparency and this is to the israeli citizens i'm not even talking about overseas i'm talking about to the people of israel here for hours and hours the reports that came from the mainstream media were completely lacking, and people started to rely mostly on the news from each other, from people on the ground. Only now, 6 p.m. Israel time, or it's actually 7 already, 12 hours after the event started, we received the first formal statement from the IDF spokesperson, and I will include an article with that statement in the notes. A year ago, there was a military operation in Gaza to prepare for such events, and ongoingly there are trainings for these kind of scenarios. This raises serious questions for me anyway about Israeli intelligence. What happened? Two years ago

there was a successful deployment of underground barriers with sensors to alert exactly on these kind of terrorist breaches. Israel has one of the most advanced and high-tech armies. How come there was zero response to the border and fence breaching i cannot understand that personally i served in the idf 25 years ago in the intelligence forces there's no way in my view that israel did not know of what's coming a cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces so this what happened to the strongest army in the world how come border crossings were wide open. Something is very wrong here. Something is very strange. This chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system. With the recent normalization

efforts of Israel and Palestine led by Saudi Arabia, I wonder whether a prisoner's exchange deal is something that could only be seriously considered by Israel if a shocking event like that happened? Is it a possibility that only with Israel hostages it can be justified to release dangerous prisoners from Israeli prisons? I don't know. Mainstream media reported that Deputy Hamas leader Salah al-Aruri suggests using Israeli prisoners for leverage in negotiations, so maybe. A point about the situation in Israel in the past few years, which I want to make, is related to, and those who follow me know, that there's a general sense of insecurity in Israel. There's political and social instability and unrest. Public funds are being misused on agendas such as COVID, climate, judicial reform, abolishing cash, and many more.

the current government is highly corrupt in my view while the previous one was no better I don't care about having a popular opinion I care about exposing evil forces wherever and whomever they are so to me this surprise attack seems like a planned operation on all fronts this is a failure to protect the people of Israel for sure perhaps the biggest failure since the Yom Kippur War exactly 50 years ago, if not bigger. By the way, is it a coincidence it's exactly 50 years ago, almost on the day? The Yom Kippur War was on October 6, 1973. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that this feels like the work of the deep state.

It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold once again to the higher powers that be. at the same time this is still very very difficult to fathom have a good evening