We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi says that despite the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the war against Hamas continues and is far from over.
He also says that the IDF will know how to return to fighting in the event of a truce as part of a hostage deal and that returning the hostages is a more urgent matter than other goals.
"We are fighting this war differently, it is different from its predecessors," Herzi says in a press statement marking six months since Hamas's October 7 onslaught.
"The war in Gaza continues, and we are far from stopping. Senior Hamas officials are still in hiding. We will get to them sooner or later. We are making progress, continuing to kill more terrorists and commanders and destroy more terror infrastructures, including last night," he says.
"We will not leave Hamas brigades active in any part of the Strip. We have plans and we will act when we decide. At the same time as the offensive effort, we allow the introduction of humanitarian aid into the Strip. The interest of Hamas is to present a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to press for an end to the war," Halevi says.
He says "Hamas is trying to take control of the humanitarian aid and prevents its distribution, to return and control the Gaza Strip, this should not happen."
"Therefore, we continue to dismantle Hamas from its military and governmental capabilities, to bring about... stability to the region," Halevi continues.
On the operation to recover the body of hostage Elad Katzir, Halevi says "We all would have liked to have him back alive, we didn't succeed in that."
"We will continue to act in any way. We will continue our efforts, intelligence and operational, to return all the hostages as quickly as possible," he says.
"As chief of staff, I personally feel a responsibility to return them, and so do the other commanders of the IDF and its soldiers," he continues.
Halevi says hostage negotiation talks should be "done responsibly and carefully and its details should be left in the right rooms."
"The IDF is strong enough for the State of Israel to know how to pay prices for the return of its sons and daughters. We have a moral duty to them and the IDF will know how to withstand even a difficult price and will also know how to come back and fight with strength," he says.
Halevi says "When we went to war at the beginning, we knew and said that it would last a long time, to achieve the goals. We have made very significant achievements in fighting in Gaza, but the goals have not yet been fully achieved, the return of all hostages home, the return of all residents of the north and south to their homes in safety, and the dismantling of Hamas in the entire Gaza Strip, in a way that will allow for a government that is not Hamas in the Gaza Strip."
"This reality is extremely complex and there are no simple solutions. We conduct the war with responsibility and determination. We must not be delusional," he says.
"As we said, some goals will take a long time, and we will not let up until we achieve them. The return of the hostages is important and urgent, and its timer is different from the timer of the other goals," Halevi says.
Speaking at the WEF, Savor CEO Kathleen Alexander boasts about how her company is "saving the planet" from the evils of agriculture by replacing real butters and oils with synthetic versions made from carbon dioxide and methane. 😳
"Savor is part of bringing transformation to the food system by re-imagining how we make an entire macronutrient—fats and oils."
"The result is that we can dramatically lower the planetary footprint of our food system."
"Our food system today uses about 50% of the habitable land on the planet. It's 20-30% of our greenhouse gas emissions."
"And we can reduce all of those by 50-100%."
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• Middle East risk flares — IDF hits Hezbollah sites in south Lebanon; Houthis threaten Saudi assets; France deploys naval/mine-countermeasure assets near Hormuz.
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⛽ Oil & Energy
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🇮🇷🏆🇺🇸 Iran Is a Bigger Defeat Than Vietnam | Foreign Policy
At his second inaugural, U.S. President Donald Trump pronounced his hope “that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country.” By losing his Gulf war, Trump has achieved that goal. His choice to launch a campaign against Iran was encouraged by others, but fully his own. It has led to a reversal that marks a strategic calamity far greater than the U.S. defeat in the Vietnam War.
Defeat in the Iranian war looks, on the surface, nothing like other U.S. military defeats. The speed of the war and its remoteness have lent an air of unreality to the whole endeavor. The White House has not been burned, as it was in 1814; there have not been protests against a nonexistent draft. The absence of substantial U.S. casualties in this conflict also masks the scale of the U.S. defeat. To be sure, the war has been deadly: Thousands of Iranians, ...
According to The Wall Street Journal, Donald Trump reviewed military options for a full-scale war against Iran to “finish the job,” but has decided, for now, not to move forward.
The report says Trump is concerned that renewed military conflict could hurt the chances of a diplomatic resolution and of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, and that he’s shown willingness to let indirect talks in Qatar run past the August 18 deadline. He is said to be fine with continuing limited strikes on Iranian targets if Tehran violates the current temporary deal - as it already has, repeatedly.
How are those negotiations going?
Not well. It seems JD Vance’s “historic” face-to-face achievement was a one-off. Washington has been quietly downgraded from talking to the Great Satan to negotiating with the Little Satan instead - a senior Qatari official confirmed that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Qatari officials in Doha, but there are currently no high-level U.S.-Iran meetings ...
