Israel-Gaza War (and Iranian Distractions)

[Yazata]

Yesterday the Houthis launched their biggest attack so far. This attack seems to have been aimed at warships more than at commercial vessels (which are increasingly avoiding the Red Sea).

The attack consisted of 18 drones, 2 anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile.

All were reportedly shot down by carrier-based F-18's from the USS Eisenhower, three Arleigh Burke class destroyers USS Laboon (DDG-58), USS Mason (DDG-87) and USS Graveley (DDG-107) along with the British Daring class air warfare destroyer HMS Diamond (D34).

There are no reports of any damage or casualties to military or commercial ships from this large attack.

All of these Houthi drones and missiles appear to be of Iranian manufacture. They appear to be receiving targeting information from several Iranian navy and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ships in the southern Red Sea. And there's talk that IRGC technicians are in Yemen helping the Houthis operate the Iranian weaponry.

https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1744898491917492690

USS Eisenhower

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USS Mason

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HMS Diamond

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[Yazata]

Photo of HMS Diamond bridge crew in flash suits watching a surface to air missile being launched from the vertical launch tubes in front of the bridge.

(royal navy photo)

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[Yazata]

Indications are that the Israelis are in complete control of northern Gaza, including all of Gaza city and the Jabalia area where resistance was most fierce with intense street fighting. That seems to mean that organized Hamas resistance has ceased. There may still be isolated holdouts. The Israelis are busy searching every building for arms caches, weapons workshops, tunnels and any military infrastructure they can find. And they are still taking casualties, since many of these facilities are boobytrapped. Half a dozen Israeli combat engineers were killed just the last few days when they entered boobytrapped tunnels.

Hamas resistance and fighting, sometimes heavy, continues in middle and south Gaza. The city of Khan Yunis is mostly under Israeli control, at least the central bits, but Hamas is dug in in some neighborhoods.

Conditions for civilians is deteriorating. Most of them have fled south and hundreds of thousands of them are tightly packed in crowds at the Egyptian border in Rafah, the largest city that Hamas still controls. Most people are sleeping in the open. Food is being shipped in from Egypt by the United Nations, but distribution appears to have totally broken down. Hamas police have disappeared from the streets and the food that arrives is immediately stolen by the mobs with no attempt at orderly distribution to those that need it most. The strong survive, the weak don't.

Interactive map of the current situation by War_Mapper on Soar

https://soar.earth/maps/asia-gaza-israel...33%2C10.29

[Yazata]

The Times of London is reporting that British PM Sunak has called a full cabinet meeting for 7:45 PM this evening local time. The newspaper reports that cabinet ministers that they spoke to believe the topic will be British participation with the United States in some kind of military operation against the Houthis.

[Yazata]

And tonight, the US and the UK with the support of Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and Bahrain, launched aircraft and missile attacks on multiple sites in Houthi controlled Yemen.

Confirmed targets as of now:
Abas airport
Taizz airport
22nd Brigade base in Taizz
Kahlan base, east of Sa'ada
Hudaydah airport
Zbudaid area, Hudaydah
Positions in Sana'a [including Daylami]

PBS is reporting that a "Western official" tells them that the "target set chosen was toward the higher end". The US and UK are on a “heightened posture”.

There's video on the internet showing fires and big plumes of smoke at the Hudaydah port and and the Sanaa airport.

Al Masirah, a Houthi operated TV station, is saying that the deputy Houthi foreign minister has announced that America and Britain will have to prepare to pay a heavy price and bear all the dire consequences for this "blatant aggression".

Photo of RAF Typhoon jets departing RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Cyprus is a long way from Yemen and A330 Multirole air refueling tankers also launched from Akrotiri to refuel the attack jets. (UK MoD photos) 

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The UK has been more talkative about these strikes than the US, which hasn't said much so far on the record. The British say four RAF jets were involved and one refueling tanker. The British appear to have hit two targets, both sites from which drones were launched.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/air-s...s-in-yemen

[Yazata]

The US Navy is saying that 15 F/A-18's from the USS Eisenhower were launched. A total of "well over" 100 precision guided munitions were launched, both from the aircraft and from ships. Along with the 4 British jets, that's 19 attack jets taking part.

There's also video of an E-2 Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft launching from the USS Eisenhower, probably to serve as airborne air traffic control to keep the 19 attack jets from getting in each other's way.

Photos just released by US Central Command

https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1745647250959724970

https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1745647248866738322

US F/A-18 launching from the USS Eisenhower

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Unidentified US destroyer launching Tomahawk cruise missile

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[Yazata]

It appears that the United States launched a second wave of attacks against the Houthis last night, about an hour after the first wave. Like the first wave, this also consisted of F/A-18's from the Eisenhower, along with Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from ships.

I'm guessing that the hour between the waves gave them a chance to get satellite imagery in order to do damage assessment of the targets that they wanted to hit to see which ones needed a second go.

(US Navy photo)

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Graphic by Schizointel detailing what happened. I don't know what his sources are for this, but if he's correct, a second RAF A-330 tanker launched, probably to refuel the four RAF fighters again on their flight back to Cyprus. 22 US F/A-18's are said to have been involved, so if 15 were in the first wave, seven were in the second. In addition to the carrier-based E-2 Hawkeye, the US appears to have also had a USAF RC-135 electronic intelligence gathering plane up plus a Navy P-8A maritime patrol plane, plus a KC-135 refueling tanker, presumably for those two land based planes probably flying from the Persian Gulf region. For a total of 32 aircraft, a large air attack.

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[Yazata]

The Houthis are reporting another air attack on a site at Hudaydah where drones were launched. It's unclear whether this was crewed aircraft or cruise missiles. But 'Al Arabiya' (Saudi Arabian network) is reporting that the US government is denying that this latest attack was American. So unclear if it happened, or if so who did it.

There's some indication that the US and its partners may have adopted new rules of engagement where if drones or missiles are fired at ships, then return fire will be directed at where the drones and missiles were launched from.

Satellite imagery said to be of the site obtained by AFP does seem to show damage. Though it's possible the damage was the result of the earlier attacks.

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[Yazata]

The big news today is the launch of several Iranian ballistic missiles by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps from inside Iran, targeting the vicinity of the US consulate in Erbil Iraq, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Iranians made some statement about blowing up an Israeli Mossad spy headquarters, which is probably false. It's believed instead that the missile launch was a message from Iran warning against any more air strikes on their Houthi allies, signalling that Iran is prepared to enter into a wider Middle Eastern war with the United States.

This Iranian attack on a US diplomatic facility, even if it was just a warning shot, launched from Iranian territory, is a significant escalation of Middle Eastern hostilities. The question now is what, if anything, the US does in reply.

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[Yazata]

Institute for the Study of War's latest Gaza map. The ISW has very close ties to the US 'deep state' and includes a former CIA director and several high ranking retired generals on its staff. So their assessment is probably close to that of the spooks.

My personal belief is that several of the small Hamas pockets shown in north Gaza and the Gaza city area are in fact Israeli controlled. But if this map is to believed, the Israelis are still encountering some resistance in Jabalia.

The Israeli are still advancing slowly in central Gaza, where three Israeli brigades are shown as active. But again, if this map is to be believed, the Israelis have shifted most of their forces to the Khan Yunis area, with nine active brigades. (A standard nato brigade has ~5,000 troops, but some countries' brigades are considerably smaller, with as few as ~1,500 troops.)

My personal guestimate is that Hamas still has something like ~15,000 fighters (many of them poorly trained kids with guns), down from ~25,000 at the beginning of the war. The Hamas fighters must be running low on ammunition at this point (with just about zero chance at resupply), while the Israelis have the advantage of abundant armor, artillery and complete control of the air.

Again, I get the impression that the Israelis are moving slowly in order to minimize their own infantry casualties (probably in the hundreds at this point), relying instead on artillery and air.

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