A grave mistake

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Arab airlines back over Iran.
Iranian airliners still avoiding overflying the nuke enrichment sites.

Israeli War Cabinet further meeting announced, then delayed till tomorrow. No reason given.

Multiple sources have told the Jerusalem post that the IDF has decided on the targets, in Iran and on its proxies, but the timing has not been set.
Since the two Ministers advising Netanyahu in the inner cabinet are both former IDF Generals, we may presume that only the timing needs approval.

Given the usual collection of misinformation, I think it's safe to assume that the IAF is ready to roll whenever they get the go from Netanyahu, and that Go could be any night from now on, including tonight.
If the IAF only go after a limited set of targets, they can do it all with F35s, and no one will know there's an attack on until the first bomb doors open.
If they decide to use F15/F16 also, then these may be used against the proxies.
The air-air refueling aspect will be interesting.
Will the Israeli tankers launch, ostensibly to refuel combat air patrols, but actually (at night) refuel the strike aircraft?
Will they launch pretending to be airliners to go beyond Israeli airspace for en route refueling?
Have the Israelis obtained some buddy refueling pods for, say, some F15Is, and will use those?
Or will they load up with a sh!tload of external tanks?
https://theaviationist.com/2021/04/25/f-35i-fuel-tanks/
The F35s may just make the Iranian nuke sites with a top-off in Israeli airspace after take-off, and maybe again on return.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

About the only airline flying across Iran now, other than Iranian ones, is Turkish Airlines. Given Erdogan's recent statements about Israel, it wouldn't surprise me if he is rather hoping one of them gets downed by Israel.

There's a Lufthansa Mun-Sin flight overflying Israel now - no idea why that is, as every other Lufthansa flight, plus all non-Israeli airlines, are avoiding Israeli overflights.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

UK and German Foreign Ministers in Israel today

but..

We make our own decisions, Netanyahu tells Cameron
Foreign Secretary says after talks in Jerusalem that Israel has clearly ‘made a decision’ to respond to Iran’s assault

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... an-attack/

..and what are those decisions?



Iranian airliners are still avoiding the reprocessing sites at Natanz and Fordow.
There may be notams, I don't know.
All VFR flights by non-mil/emergency aircraft are prohibited.

So the better bet is probably on an Israeli strike on the Iranian nuke sites either tonight or tomorrow.
Unless Joe phones again....

After that?
Best stock up on popcorn.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Well, it's quiet......


..maybe too quiet

A reminder of the Begin Doctrine

"On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel. We shall defend the citizens of Israel in good time and with all the means at our disposal."

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The last two Israeli air strikes on nuke facilities were named Opera and Orchard. Maybe this one will be Oscar..they'll probably get an award for it.

Or may they should call it Spanish Inquisition..no one would be expecting that!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Tel Aviv airport showing all departure and arrival statuses as Unknown.
There is nothing civilian airborne over Israel.

The Jerusalem Post also says it's "Too quiet".

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Based on recent airliner flightpaths, both the Iranian nuke enrichment facilities have 50km radius exclusion zones around them.

[probes]

Isn't it interesting. With all 'parties' reportedly trying to avoid the 'full party/full-scale conflict' - and the reality moving towards it.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Iran wants 'Death to Israel', and there's no compromise of 'a bit dead'.

I haven't the slightest interest in what people say, only what they do.

[Woody]

Slight aside, had an absolute nightmare of a baggage offload yesterday on a BA TLV departure, apparently a passenger threatened a crew member, possibly not the best idea at the moment, which resulted in two passengers being offloaded along with their baggage, which was in 3 different containers, one in the rear hold which required 3 others to be removed first and then 3 more in the front, causing weight and balance issues, all in all the process lasted about 90 minutes and the departure was over two hours after scheduled time.

Just noticed on Flightradar24 that the flight operated to LCA as planned,but the TLV sector was diverted to Beirut

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

None of the measures being seriously proposed by those who want Israel not to strike again are looking like they are worth anything.
Some talk that Israel will wait till after Passover (next Mon 22-Mon29 in Israel) to attack Iran.
The US House vote on aid for Israel is due this Saturday.
Whether any of this makes any difference to Netanyahu is unknown.

[Rwy in Sight]

Isn't the BEY diversion maybe a most unusual diversion decision from ops reason?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Pentagon says it's ready to quickly move munitions to Israel, Ukraine if supplemental bill passes

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-797831

This would give Netanyahu a reason to delay a strike against Iran until after Passover, i.e. until the weapons have been delivered.

[probes]

If.

And, they've done it:

[Woody]

Isn't the BEY diversion maybe a most unusual diversion decision from ops reason?

I thought so, but it looks like they’re trying again this morning

[probes]

Interesting:
Israel’s Iron Dome. How layers of air defences protected the country against the biggest onslaught of missiles and drones in its history.

It has been claimed, though, that the tactics to start defence with the most expensive weapons made it hugely costly compared to the missiles etc fired by Iran.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I have no idea what the point of last night's attack-that-wasn't-an-attack was.
Perhaps it was done to satisfy calls in Israel for immediate action.
Presumably Israel did actually hit something, either a ballistic missile launch/storage site, or a nuke facility.
However, no one has an interest is letting anyone know what.
As I speculated earlier, Israel will probably now feel justified in a strike direct into Iran in the future, but probably not until the US has delivered the tranche of weapons that Congress is about to vote on.

Update: Telegraph has a bit more. Seems the strike has completely failed to satisfy the Israeli Right.

An Israeli minister has described Friday’s attack on Iran as “lame”, in a sign of the growing rift in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Multiple explosions believed to be caused by the interception of drones were reported early on Friday morning over the Iranian city of Isfahan, home to a major air base and nuclear site.
The US later confirmed that Israel had launched a retaliatory assault in response to last week’s attack by Tehran, which involved more than 300 drones, rockets and missiles.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the hard-Right national security minister, quickly dismissed his country’s operation with a one-word post on X, formally Twitter, using a Hebrew slang word that literally translates as “scarecrow” but also means “lame”.
Tasnim, an Iranian news agency, responded to Mr Ben-Gvir’s comments, saying: “The Israeli authorities are mocking themselves.”
Mr Ben-Gvir is the only member of the government to have spoken about the strike publicly and was quickly condemned for simultaneously confirming the attack, which Israel has not officially commented on, and undermining it.
Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader, said: “Never before has a minister in the security cabinet done such heavy damage to the country’s security, its image and its international status.
“In an unforgivable one-word tweet, Ben-Gvir managed to mock and shame Israel from Tehran to Washington. Any other prime minister would have thrown him out of the cabinet this morning.”
Israel’s Channel 12 also carried quotes from officials in the prime minister’s office saying Mr Ben-Gvir “was and remains childish and irrelevant to any discussion”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... ran-tweet/

One can only presume, from Netanyahu's lack of response, that Biden has either leaned on Israel very hard about weapons supplies, or promised them oodles of goodies immediately after the upcoming vote in Congress (tomorrow, I think), or both.

Anyway, price of oil has dropped = Biden's Mission Accomplished.
He just has to keep that up for another 7 months.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

But wait, there's more...!

...or promised them oodles of goodies immediately after the upcoming vote in Congress

The Biden administration is considering more than $1 billion in new weapons deals for Israel including tank ammunition, military vehicles and mortar rounds, U.S. officials said

https://www.wsj.com/world/biden-weighs- ... l-8b8607e4

[tango15]

So I read that as Israel either not having much to throw at Iran, or conserving what stocks they have, in case they need them. The munitions factories in NATO countries are going to be busy from next week! (I heard from someone who works in one of these places that they have been working flat out until recently, then it all went a bit quiet).

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The Ukraine Bill includes $14 bn for munitions.
The Ukrainians have stated that artillery ammo and air defence are their top priorities.

The Israel Bill includes $5.2 bn for assorted air defence stuff, including the Iron Beam laser system.
I would expect that the additional $1 bn, not significantly more than the $14.1 bn total in the Bill, contains some high tech stuff the US wasn't prepared to put in the original bill.
None of the latest precision-guided 155mm and mortar ammo has Israel listed as a customer, so I would guess they want some of that.