Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 13 December 2023. © Richard Kemp

I was inside the Gaza Strip yesterday and witnessed two terrorist tunnels being destroyed with explosives by IDF engineers in Shejaiya. In the same area of Gaza City a short time later, the IDF suffered one of its deadliest single skirmishes since the ground offensive began, with nine soldiers of the Golani Brigade killed in a gun and explosives battle with terrorists.

Heavy fighting continues in the north and south of Gaza, both above ground and in Hamas’s extensive tunnel network, which – to give you a sense of scale – is assessed to be even more extensive than the London Underground’s 250 miles. The tunnels bring yet another incredibly formidable dimension to urban combat, which is itself among the most challenging of battle environments, characterised by particularly high casualty rates, especially among attacking forces.

I’ve been into those tunnels: they are heavily fortified, concrete lined and with lighting, electric power and air supply. Over two decades they have been constructed using vast sums of money, including international aid that should have been spent on civilian infrastructure, and costing the lives of many Gazans including dozens of children sent underground to work on them.

The IDF’s inexorable advance through Gaza both above and below ground has seen rocket launches into Israel dramatically reduced as terrorist freedom of action is choked off. That said, when I was in Shejaiya a volley was launched from further south, but it was knocked down by Israel’s Iron Dome before it could leave the sky over Gaza.

The terrorist command structure, too, is beginning to break down as senior leaders are killed, though the head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, and his henchmen probably remain underground somewhere in the south, no doubt with an eventual exit planned through tunnels beneath the border with Egypt. An increasing number of terrorists have been surrendering, which is an encouraging sign of plunging morale. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 27 November 2023. © Richard Kemp

Joe Biden is no friend of Israel. His constant appeasement of Tehran and blatant distancing from Jerusalem – even refusing to invite Netanyahu to the White House – as well as his feeble responses to Iranian-sponsored attacks against US forces in the region, have only weakened the Israeli government’s hand in fighting terrorism.

His dispatch of two carrier strike groups to the region to deter Iran was recognition that these blunders had brought the Middle East towards a much wider conflict. It was also an effort to restrain Israel from taking the law into its own hands against Iran and its proxies by trying to give the impression that the US was ready to do the dirty work if needed. Some hope of that!

After his visit to Jerusalem at the start of the war, Biden said: ‘My administration’s support for Israel’s security is rock solid and unwavering.’ It wasn’t long before his actions proved his duplicitousness. While saying publicly that Hamas had to be defeated, he began coercing Israel behind the scenes to stop short of achieving that goal. US collusion with Qatar, which has long harboured Hamas leaders, forced the Israeli war cabinet to agree a ceasefire in return for release of a few hostages.

Now the four day truce is expiring, Biden is pushing for an extension while still claiming to believe that eliminating Hamas remains a legitimate mission for Israel. He knows that the longer Israel’s attack on Hamas is paused for hostage release, the greater the likelihood that it will not be resumed. Hamas is reeling from six weeks of IDF assaults in the air and on the ground and all that can save them now is a permanent halt to Israeli operations.

They will continue to use their only two effective weapons to attempt to bring that about. The first is the hostages, and Hamas will try to drip feed further releases to buy themselves more time. The second is the civilian population of Gaza. If Israel does return to the fight, Hamas will ensure as many civilians as possible die to intensify international pressure on Israel. In that Biden is also their willing Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 20 November 2023. © Richard Kemp

Hamas uses hospitals and other protected places like schools and mosques for terrorist purposes. Since 2006, when the terror group took over the Gaza Strip, we have seen report after report showing just that.

Back then, an American Public Broadcasting Service documentary showed Hamas gunmen prowling the corridors of Al-Shifa Hospital, intimidating staff and denying access to protected areas. In 2014, a Washington Post journalist reported that the hospital ‘has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders’. In 2015, Amnesty International said that Hamas interrogated and tortured prisoners in Al-Shifa.

Yet since Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza, this has suddenly come into question. IDF explanations for raids into civilian buildings, especially hospitals, have been treated with disbelief and even hostility. This is despite CCTV images of hostages being rushed around the Al-Shifa hospital, and evidence of a tunnel leading underground from within the complex. Captured Hamas terrorists have confirmed the use of hospitals for their terrorist cause and even Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, admitted in a speech in 2021 that the group used civilian infrastructure for military purposes.

Chief among those questioning what ought to be clear facts, inevitably, has been the BBC and its international editor, Jeremy Bowen. After the IDF displayed weapons seized at Al-Shifa, he gave an on-air diatribe implying that this was not convincing evidence that Hamas had a base in the hospital. He even suggested the pile of weapons could belong to the ‘security department’. Perhaps it is a coincidence that Bowen’s claim directly echoed the words of a senior Hamas terrorist on Al Jazeera two days earlier.

US intelligence confirms Al-Shifa has been used as a military headquarters. But terminology used by the White House national security spokesman, John Kirby, that it housed a command ‘node’ rather than a command centre as the Israelis described it, suggests a desire to underplay its significance. It’s hard to understand such Continue reading →

Article published by Ynetnews.com,  23 November 2023. © Richard Kemp

I’ve never before heard such an outrageous question asked on British mainstream media in any context. On Thursday Sky News presenter Kay Burley put it to Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy that the planned release of 150 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for just 50 hostages shows that ‘Israel does not think that Palestinian lives are valued as highly as Israeli lives’. She claimed that an unnamed ‘hostage negotiator’ had suggested that to her.

Hearing this rubbish reminded me immediately of an account by Israeli writer and former soldier Hen Mazzig, who in 2013 was monstrously told by a female university professor in America: ‘You IDF soldiers don’t rape Palestinians because Israelis are so racist and disgusted by them that you won’t touch them.’

Even if Burley’s hostage negotiator actually exists, why on earth would she repeat such a demented proposition live on national TV? There can only be one explanation and that is a desire to humiliate Levy and sow the seeds of Israeli racism into the minds of her viewers. That would be true to form for this channel, whose reports about the Gaza war have been constantly skewed against Israel.

Examples are too numerous to recount here, but just from memory (and I watch as little of Sky News as I can), earlier this month Burley blatantly misquoted Article 51 of the Geneva Conventions in an attempt to persuade viewers that Israel was guilty of war crimes. And another interviewer categorically denied that some anti-Israel protest organizers in the UK had connections with Hamas despite the fact that such links have been definitively proven.

Sky is of course not alone; Israel derangement syndrome is a common sickness among much of the British media. After an explosion occurred in the parking lot of the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza last month, without evidence the BBC immediately accused Israel of bombing it. Their correspondent in Israel, John Donnison, said he couldn’t think of any other possible cause than ‘an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes’. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 10 November 2023. © Richard Kemp

The Israel Defence Forces have been attacking Hamas in Gaza from land, sea and air for two weeks now, following a three-week air campaign. Before ground operations began, US military advisers urged the Israelis not to launch a large-scale campaign, which they believed would result in an IDF bloodbath – and be less effective than a combination of air strikes and special forces raids. The IDF rejected that advice, and moved into Gaza with a large combined arms force. And it has confounded its critics.

The IDF has exceeded even its own commanders’ expectations with the speed and the extent of Hamas’s destruction. It has encircled Gaza City and is assaulting terrorist strongholds, killing large numbers of fighters including key commanders, smashing command posts and gaining valuable intelligence, while its forces have sustained fewer casualties than anticipated.

This is highly impressive. When Hamas launched its massacre of Israelis on October 7, it knew that retribution would follow and prepared the ground in detail for exactly what is happening now. Cities are the toughest environment to fight in, especially when on the attack, with innumerable rat-runs, covered fire positions, and concealment for booby-traps, command-detonated explosive charges, snipers and ambushes. As the Russians found out last year, tanks and armoured personnel carriers are particularly vulnerable to short-range anti-armour missiles.

The vast tunnel network that Hamas has constructed beneath Gaza represents another element of extreme danger. But in a neat metaphor for its operation, the IDF is simply avoiding entering tunnels wherever possible, preferring instead to detonate or collapse them from above ground.

Just as Hamas almost certainly exceeded its own expectations in its initial assault, it probably also underestimated the ferocity of Israel’s response. Although the IDF hasn’t yet located and killed the top level terrorist commanders, there are signs that Hamas is now under enormous pressure. Rocket launches from Gaza are at the lowest Continue reading →