st albans fox

Urban warfare is ugly israel estimated the numbers of Hamas fighters killed in mid July at 17k. You’d assume by now that’s over 20k. If you’re prepared to accept Hamas numbers then you should also accept IDF ones - then that’s approx 1:1. If you think that 2:1 is horrific then don’t look up what was done to clear ISIS fighters by forces inc NATO. there was a Haaretz (not known for their sympathetic approach to govt) article early sept which pointed out that Hamas had barely admitted any casualties of its fighters since last October ( in contrast to Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah who usually announced combat deaths on telegram). This is apparently done to drive sympathy in the west to their plight - admitting x number of fighters killed affects that. On that subject, I have noted over the last few days that Hezbollah are no longer announcing its casualties. we have total numbers from the Lebanese govt (should be more reliable than Hamas) but we don’t know how many are Hezbollah fighters. I saw a figure of 6.5% children as a percentage of deaths recorded up to today. I can’t find women numbers but I thought I’d seen was around 200 which would be around 10%.. hamas should have surrendered ages ago. Their only hope is that Harris wins and they’ve managed to stumble through to January. I believe that she will force through a deal.

Villa have employed v capable people to run their club together with owners prepared to invest as much as is allowed they have recruited a top quality coach and ‘hey presto’ …….

I feel bad correcting you because it’s probably somewhere between 10/15k - tough to defend that on any level though. @mph - they haven’t really started fighting on the ground. Up until yesterday the IDF were no more than 400m into Lebanese territory and some reports said that they hadn’t stayed there but returned. In 2006 they went in with less caution and paid heavily for it. Hezbollah are a formidable ground fighting force in the south where there are extensive tunnel structures for them to hide in. Israel had a lot of success in destroying hezbollah missiles from the air before they could be launched in 2006. Hezbollah learned from this which is why they developed the incredible tactic of paying locals sympathetic to their cause to house such weaponry. Videos from the last week often show many secondary explosions in what appear to be civilian structures. Israel made a lot of miscalculations in 2006 - they were clearly preoccupied in recovering half a dozen soldiers that had been taken hostage (which effectively kicked off the month long war). As @SecretPro posted, the pagers etc were a very effective way to destroy the enemy’s comms structure and also take out more than a thousand senior military personnel from the fight. I expect if Israel gets more involved on the ground in s Lebanon that they will take a lot more casualties than they have in Gaza.

I can only think that the us think that Iran’s nuclear program is leverage in general negotiations around the region.(eg. Allowing that to proceed gives the USA some leverage over Iran geo politically). if Israel were to destroy it then Iran has way less to lose in future discussions about global issues. Saudi would surely be delighted if it were gone. However, surely the USA aren’t keen for Iran to actually have nuclear weapon capability - up to this point, hezbollah has been the insurance policy against Israel attempting to blow it to pieces. If Israel are really dismantling hezbollah then whilst they may frame that as protecting their northern borders and removing the threat of missiles so close by, my guess is that it’s related to a move to push back Iran’s nukes by a decade. the take out from this is that whilst the G7 might publicly say that an attack on the nuclear sites is off limits, privately they won’t be.

As far as I was aware he’d had a pretty tough time before this evening. Let’s hope this kicks him on

Fernandes red card overturned so no ban can only think that he was effectively a victim of Martinez’ jump tackle at palace where the outcome dictated the sanction. Presumably refs were told that this should have been red because the player was not in control of where his opponent would be when he landed and was therefore ‘out of control’. it’s amazing that the three var officials didn’t see that there was insufficient force involved in the challenge on Sunday to warrant a red, irrespective of the slip etc. he could have pulled out but he made sure he made contact with madders

I guess I thought it perhaps illustrated that the ‘invasion’ at this stage isn’t as stupid as a full on movement of troops into s Lebanon would be and which your post alluded to. Iran launching a fair number of ballistic missiles towards Israel would be.

UNIFIL spokesman just said on CNN that his info was that incursions were limited and close to the border. Infact today Israel released videos of its forces operating inside s lebanon border area over the past months destroying Hezbollah infrastructure. That shows Hezbollah weren’t prepared to highlight that this had been happening.(Presumably to save face.) the spokesman also said that his info was that currently no forces were inside Lebanon. It’s Jewish new year tomorrow night - I doubt Israel will want to have forces under fire until Friday so this pattern may continue. or it could use that expectation to surprise Hezbollah.

So yesterday we had the USA offering a running commentary on Israel preparing to enter Lebanon and today on Iran responding to recent events by targeting Israel. I noted the Israeli spokesman mentioned yesterday evening that public comments on Israeli plans would compromise their soldier’s safety (surely a criticism of the USA spokesman). Can only assume that making these public comments is biden’s attempt to try and stop them from going ahead. Clumsy but likely shows how impotent the administration feel.

There can’t be any media substance to it cos I believe under the terms of a super injunction the media can’t make any reference to it. So it will only be on SM (as per boris and his daughter)

The tweet quotes mailonline but there was nothing on there. This was originally on social media during the transfer window and clearly a wind up. It includes ngolo too! neither player is affordable on wages alone ! They are both contracted till 2026 at least. No point wasting any time on wind ups

No but that can be solved with a by election ( he could actually be stuffed into the House of Lords and wouldn’t need to be elected an MP) echoes of a metropolitan mayor becoming PM ……. @Daggers was having a laugh but I reckon if jezza was on the ballot then the membership would elect him

Some talk about starmer and a super injunction re his private life Would those who know more about the Labour Party than me like to have a guess at who would be the most likely replacement for him if he wasn’t there ??

Young kids find it difficult to get playing time in a struggling team coaches will go with what they know to save their job. We have space for one creative player in cooper’s system and facundo +BEK are in front of will

They would argue that the international community have had eleven months to get this done diplomatically - I’m wondering if this is all pointing to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program in the near future

Israel is a small country As you say, if Iran launches a huge number of missiles then of those escaping Israeli air defences, a proportion would malfunction and land in the West Bank (possibly even Gaza) they could probably safely target demona as it’s in the Negev but they wouldn’t bomb a nuclear plant for obvious reasons. I just don’t see Iran doing anything stupid directly when they have created their proxies to do things for them. Hezbollah are sitting on Israel’s northern border as a deterrent to Israel attacking Iran. You could make an argument that Israel is attempting to remove that threat so they can actually take out Iran’s nuclear program. That could be where this is all heading ?? If Hezbollah aren’t going back to the litani out of choice then I guess Israel can justify forcing them back via a ground ‘invasion’. . At the very least they need to put the anti tank missiles out of range because they have no real defence against those coming across the border. Or they can just accept that the northern border region is uninhabitable whenever Hezbollah decide there’s something going on that they dislike. I’d say Hezbollah have made their own bed on this one. The Americans have been trying to get 1701 enacted for almost a year now. It simply wasn’t going to happen without force being used.

I guess so although if a govt does agree safe passage then I think that if he doesn’t break his part of the agreement in the future then he should be safe. The thought of him ‘retiring’ from the struggle even in exile would be a stretch though. that would remove his ‘safety’. Reports yesterday that there are still negs ongoing but they (Egypt and Qatar) are no longer attempting to consult sinwar because he’s not been heard from for a couple of weeks. As was mooted last October, without the hostages, the tunnel network below Gaza is going to be destroyed, either by flooding or by bunker busters. Hamas release the hostages and they effectively surrender. I think that’s one of the main reasons that biden’s three stage plan never got anywhere. Neither side had any expectation that it would get past stage 1. @mph - broadly agree with your sentiment about a proportion of those in Gaza having no alternative but to toe the party line to stay safe. There was, hover, no requirement to be seen singing and dancing in the streets last October. you could have stayed home ?? being carried along without knowing the details of what had actually been done is an excuse of sorts. We need to somehow move forward two generations in an instant across a swathe of the region.

Word from Washington was that Israel offered (three weeks ago) sinwar and his family safe passage as part of a ceasefire agreement which released all the hostages immediately. I do wonder if that indicates israel thinks sinwar may be dead or used it as a way to try and flush out whether he’s still alive.

hezbollah have many tens of thousands of missiles available to launch. If they went for it (would have to be with Iran’s approval) then they would easily overwhelm Israel’s air defences. The response would not be something Iran is likely to risk. I agree with you that they wouldn’t use nuclear weapons though - it’s their ultimate deterrent given their geographical position surrounded by states and are at best indifferent at govt level. Clearly they don’t want Iran developing nuclear capability but again, I can’t see that Iran would launch anything into Israel given that Gaza and the West Bank would surely be subject to fall out. I guess on a military level, having the capability raises your profile. Israel currently knows it could strike anywhere in Iran with conventional weapons and that Iran could only do the same if it went with a very large number of launches which by their nature would likely risk Palestinian casualties in both the West Bank and Gaza due to some malfunctions. something i noticed looking through the news today regarding UNWRA and Hamas From the Palestine chronicle blog In southern Lebanon, the head of the UNRWA Teachers Union in Lebanon, Fateh al-Sharif, was killed along with his family in an Israeli raid on the al-Bass camp. from the BBC Hamas says Lebanese leader killed in air strikepublished at 07:20 British Summer Time 07:20 BST Palestinian militant group Hamas says Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, the group's leader in Lebanon, has been killed along with some family members in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon.

News new member of the coalition cabinet brings with him 4 votes and and dilutes Ben gvir and smotrich’s influence in govt. they no longer have an effective veto on domestic policy and BN will be emboldened in acceding to some details in possible Gaza ceasefire negs. You’d also assume that the current situation with Hezbollah may give BN a bit of leverage with sinwar (if he can be contacted) (also makes an election ahead of the 2026 timescale less likely without enquiry influence as discussed yesterday)

I thought his attendance was pretty decent and in-line with pre covid after vichai’s death he clearly felt he needed to be at games as much as possible - vichai used to be pretty much at every game whereas top didn’t covid interrupted that and post Covid he didn't attend as much, that’s true. But even in our relegation season I was impressed with his presence at home games. And as the season came to a crescendo, members of the family were also there to offer moral support.

Having a new wife who is pregnant is not a reason to sell up! there are lots of reasons but that isn’t one of them Our owner isn’t tied to a desk at seagrave - no other club has owners who are that hands on

They misspelled it it’s ‘bored office support ‘ cos there’s nothing to do

I wouldn’t take anything from an away game at a big six club as being indicative of anything you simply don’t generally get the rub of the green at these grounds - always been the same and always will be