It’s the end of February and the start of Adar. Neither month seems to bring on any improvements in the negotiations. There are still hostages and Hamas isn’t giving them up without some major concession from Israel (even though the US wants them ALL released immediately).
Hamas is still smuggling in lots of material via the aid trucks. IDF checkpoints confiscated one, and arrested the driver. The value of the actual aid sent is more than enough to guarantee every Gazan a standard of living wel above that of most neighboring countries. Of course, that does not take into account the aid that Hamas simply stole or resold at a profit.
Israeli news is all concentrated on the release of the army inquiry. That document does not relate to any responsibility the part of the government. Netanyahu and his “friends” are still successfully blocking all moves toward any kind of inquiry that might (read: probably) likely to) point out that the IDF is subordinate to the government and therefore the prime minister is the one most responsible for any oversights on the Israeli side. The biggest item in the IDF report is that the top leadership believed that Hamas did not intend to attack. One of the basic rules of intelligence analysis is that you operate based on your enemy’s capabilities, NOT his intentions.
Wetherhorn 