Delta Force and SEAL Team Six readied to help Israel rescue hostages

The United States is readying its special forces to help Israel locate American hostages, as waves of Israeli Defense Force reservists arrived at JFK airport in New York to join the fight against Hamas. Two senior U.S. military officials told The Messenger that ‘door kickers’ have been put on standby in a nearby European country, ready to assist Israel if necessary in their battle against Hamas. The Israeli death toll rose to 1,200 on Tuesday.

The military sources told the website that there was currently no indication the U.S. special forces would be sent to Israel, but they were only a few hours away by plane if need be. The military officials would not confirm which units were being readied, but said they fell under the Joint Special Operations Command. The two main counterterrorism units under the Joint Special Operations Command are the Army’s Delta Force, and the Navy’s SEAL Team Six – which was dispatched to kill Osama bin Laden.

Lloyd Austin, the Defense Secretary, said on Tuesday that the U.S. had also sent hostage negotiators to help the Israeli specialists. Twenty Americans remain missing in Israel following the weekend’s Hamas attack, including some whose relatives say they have been taken hostage. Austin said the U.S. has ‘people on the ground’ who will assist Israeli authorities ‘with intelligence and planning’ for potential operations involving hostage rescue efforts. The U.S. hostage negotiators will work alongside a team already in place, working out of the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, The Messenger reported.

Austin said the Pentagon has a ‘liaison cell’ in Israel working with Israeli special operations forces. Austin also said the U.S. has the ability to ‘rapidly deploy other resources into the region.’ President Joe Biden has dispatched the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford and five guided-missile cruisers and destroyers to the scene, and they arrived on Tuesday. ‘The arrival of these highly capable forces to the region is a strong signal of deterrence should any actor hostile to Israel consider trying to take advantage of this situation,’ said Gen. Michael ‘Erik’ Kurilla, who oversees U.S. Central Command. On Sunday, Austin said that the warships would carry U.S. Air Force warplanes ‘to bolster regional deterrence efforts’ – an effort to dissuade Iran or Hezbollah from taking advantage of the conflict and joining in.

On Monday, a senior defense official said the strike group can conduct ‘a full spectrum of missions, from intelligence collection, maritime dominance, to long-range strike, will ensure the United States is postured to respond to any contingencies and minimize the risk of a wider spread conflict that would threaten stability.’ The Pentagon is looking at supplying Israel with more arms, and liaising with defense contractors to ramp up their production. ‘These posture increases were intended to serve as an unequivocal demonstration in deed and not only in words of U.S. support for Israel’s defense and serve as a deterrent signal to Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and any other proxy across the region who might be considering exploiting the current situation to escalate conflict,’ the official said. ‘Those adversaries should think twice.’

In New York City on Monday, crowds of IDF reservists were gathering to board planes back to Israel to join the fight. The country has called up an unprecedented 300,000-plus reservists for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a ‘massive attack’ on the terror group Hamas. Some reservists danced and sang as they prepared to board their flight out of JFK. Delta Airlines, American Airlines and United Airlines have all suspended flights to Israel amid travel advisories from the State Department, but El Al is continuing to fly. Ticket prices have soared, but charities are funding the tickets for many wanting to return and assist, The Times of Israel reported.

Noam, an Israeli man who lives in New York and served in the special forces of the IDF, told the paper he was told on Monday morning he was being called up for reserve duty. By 1pm, he was at the airport, checking in for a 4pm flight. ‘They’re already been called up together so I’m just waiting to join them,’ he told the paper. Another man had flown in to JFK from his home in Kansas that morning. ‘They just told us to get here, and they would take care of it,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we are here.’ The reservists were motivated by the stream of horrific stories emerging from Israel, with first-hand accounts of the atrocities committed by Hamas.

Survivors recounted their terror as the Islamists arrived. Relatives told of their despair at murdered or missing relatives. Soldiers told of the almost unthinkable horror they found after clearing Hamas from areas surrounding Gaza. David Ben Zion, Deputy Commander of Unit 71, told i24News that he had seen victims decapitated, including children. ‘We went door after door, we killed a lot of the terrorists,’ he said. ‘We are stronger than them. They are aggressive, they are very bad. They cut heads off children, cut heads off women. But we are stronger than them.’ The bullet-riddled bodies of Israeli residents of a kibbutz lay among burned out houses, strewn furniture and torched cars. As many as 40 babies and small children were killed, IDF soldiers told i24News after taking them to the scene of the atrocity.

Harrowing images from the scene showed a baby’s cot covered with blood; her small bloodied dress lying next to it. The Israeli soldiers were seen comforting each other after witnessing such horrors, including the bodies of entire families who were gunned down in their beds. ‘You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers, in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms and how the terrorist kills them,’ said Israeli Major General Itai Veruv. ‘It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre, it’s a terror activity. It is something that I never saw in my life. It’s something that we used to imagine from our grandfathers, grandmothers in the pogrom in Europe and other places. It’s not something that happens in new history.’

The stench of bodies was heavy in the air as the soldiers showed journalists the kibbutz, popular amongst families. The small football nets where children would have played football were seen on a pocket of grass – but in the background, the bodies of families were laid on the ground. Outside one of the small houses of the kibbutz the body of a resident was covered by a purple sheet with a bare foot protruding. A pillow and other objects from the house lay scattered. Elsewhere bodies of the gunmen lay face down on the ground. A destroyed gate at the perimeter of the kibbutz showed where the gunmen had entered. The terrorists went on a rampage, killing hundreds of Israelis and taking dozens hostage in places like Kfar Aza, near Sderot.

Some of the houses had been almost totally destroyed in the attack with collapsed, burned walls. Israeli troops were going house to house to retrieve civilian bodies in body bags. They had not been able to take them before as they were still fighting gunmen and working through booby-traps. One soldier shouted: ‘Tell the world what you saw here.’ Soldiers were still securing the paths of the kibbutz, which had single-storey houses with verandas, palm trees and banana plants, as bursts of gunfire and explosions could be heard in the distance. ‘What the journalists saw today is a massacre: children, women and elderly who were butchered,’ said Nir Dinar, an Israeli Defense Force spokesman. ‘These are animals, worse than Isis.’

He said that the casualties numbered in ‘dozens’, adding ‘we are still counting.’ The United States has confirmed 14 Americans are among the dead, and at least 20 are missing, believed to have been taken hostage. Among them is 18-year-old Chicago high school graduate Natalie Raanan and her mother, and 34-year-old Daniel Ben Senior, whose father says she was working at the Nova musical festival when Hamas terrorists struck. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, is another American now being held captive by Hamas. His mother says he had his arm ‘blown off’ from the elbow down. ‘Unfortunately, what we heard about Hersh [from eyewitnesses] is that his arm was blown off from his elbow down. He tourniqueted his own arm,’ Rachel Golberg told CNN. Goldberg-Polin moved to Israel with his family in 2008 after first attending elementary school in Los Angeles.

The families of some of those who have been taken captive held a press conference in Tel Aviv to raise awareness. Among their missing relatives is Itay Chen, a former New Yorker serving in the Israel Defense League. ‘You would think that after 70 hours, if he’s not in the state of Israel, he might be somewhere else. He is, by definition, a POW. ‘We are asking for the US government to ask Hamas to treat him as a POW should be treated,’ his father, Rubi, said. Sisters Norelle and Roya Manzuri, who attended Temple Israel of Hollywood school, are missing along with Amit Cohen. Sagui Deke-Chen, 35, is also missing. His father, Jonathan, spoke at the press conference along with the families of other US citizens taken hostage.

Adrienne Neta, 66, is missing. Her son, Nahar, is desperately trying to find her. He lambasted the Israeli government for not providing any information about what is being done to find the missing. The Biden administration says it will do ‘everything it can’ to bring the hostages home, but it’s unclear if that will extend to negotiating with Hamas. ‘We will do everything possible to get them home. I don’t want to get too far ahead of where we are right now,’ Kirby said Israel’s response to Saturday’s attack continued today with dozens of airstrikes. Hamas, a designated terrorist group, has persisted with rockets. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12617253/seal-team-six-delta-force-israel-hostages.html?ito=msngallery

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