Hamas strike on Israel - Threadbans in op - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

The US is "moving additional assets" to the Middle East, a defence official has told Sky News.

The move will "bolster regional deterrence efforts and increase force protection for US forces", the official said.

"That means more military hardware is being moved or will be moved to the region to do two things - try to deter Iran from taking any massive action and also to protect existing American forces that are in the region," he said.

"I think the consensus among experts is that the Iranian will respond, but they will almost certainly respond against Israel directly rather than any American military in the region. (Sky news)

Israelis consider the children terrorists.

They never will admit as much but they do. That is clear in their actions.

Biden saying a strike is likely sooner rather than later but it doesn't make sense from Iran's strategic perspective.

Iran striking Israel directly will just give the Israeli govt the excuse it's goading for. They are hopelessly outmatched by US firepower.

I imagine there will be a response but not in that direct way.

they may not be harmless at all but they won't be 2,000 lb bombs for sure and hopefully the Israelis who have safe rooms will be safe unlike the poor Palestinians in their tents with no protection and no food or medicine.

...

Germany has told it's citizens to leave Iran immediately.

they are bigging up the we are about to strike back massively so much they will have to do something now or lose serious face

The most senior IDF commander dismissed for his role in the drone strike
that killed seven aid workers in Gaza is a settler who signed an open
letter in January calling for the territory to be deprived of aid, it
can be revealed

In the letter, Mandel, a religious nationalist who lives in a
settlement in the occupied West Bank, called, with more than 130 other
reserve officers and commanders, for the flow of aid into Gaza to be
restricted.

The letter was sent on January 20 to the Israeli War
Cabinet and the IDF chief of staff and implored them to “do everything
in your power” not to allow “humanitarian supplies and the operation of
hospitals inside Gaza City” following its evacuation.

The aid workers killed in the strike (clockwise from top left): Palestinian
Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom of Australia,
Damian Soból of Poland, and Jacob Flickinger of the US and Canada, and
James Kirby, James Henderson and John Chapman of Britain.Credit: AP

The idea was to lay siege to the area until the estimated 130 Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were returned.

A 7 year old could join up the dots. There was no error. To give an idea how much of sh​it the Israeli authorities don't give, the investegative report into the incident amounts to 539 words.

Everything is limited, but the iron dome system is cutting edge. It calculates the trajectory of income rockets and if it calculates the rocket will land in uninhabited areas, it won't shoot it down. Israel being so small, they don't need long range interceptors, so each launcher can take 20 missiles, each battery has up to 4 launchers and they have 10+ batteries deployed. So fully stocked up, that's 800 missiles ready to defend before reloading. Really impressive system, tuned to their needs.

So 50 missiles from Lebanon won't deplete Israeli AA.

Iran won't launch a direct attack. If they did, it may or may not be successful, regardless, there would be explosions in Tehran within hours and they won't see Israel coming. Iran are in a pickle, after all the bluster, they need to hit back to save face, but not too hard it elicits a strong Israeli counter response etc…

I'd be surprised if Iran launched a direct attack. Excuse the pun but Iran v Israel is David v Goliath.

Iran has a large regional military on paper but it's light years behind Israel in terms of technology.

Any strike on Israel would come back to them tenfold.

ruthless terrorist organization whose aim is the destruction of Palestine, targets international journalists, wounding 7. One lost her leg. They were traveling in clearly marked PRESS group

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/cnn-journalist-and-others-wounded-in-idf-strike-on-gaza-refugee-camp/

Iran must be protected!

Whens the pro-Iranian marches?

The rockets launched from Lebanon and/or Palestine are unguided, short ranged and generally follow a predictable ballistic arc. That can be computed to a final impact point fairly easily and the Iron Dome is programmed to fire only if predicted arc impacts a populated area.

Iron Dome is relatively cheap at @ $10k a shot but missiles are still a limited resource.