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In-Depth Issues:
IDF: Renewed Gaza Operation Is about Controlling Territory and Food Distribution - Yonah Jeremy Bob ( Jerusalem Post)
The IDF said Sunday that its current operation in Gaza is not about killing Hamas's remaining forces but about taking control of Gazan territory and food distribution.
Since renewing hostilities in March, the IDF has killed 800 Hamas terrorists, including 50 senior officials and a dozen top officials.
Hamas is not defending any of its territory or resisting the IDF in any organized manner. Rather, Hamas has switched to guerrilla warfare, and even that on a limited basis.
If earlier in the war there were large numbers of roving Hamas attackers waiting to ambush IDF soldiers, now such incidents are few and far between.
Hamas's preference now is to set off remote-controlled explosives from a safe distance when IDF soldiers get close enough.
Mounting Pressure on Hamas in Gaza - Shachar Kleiman ( Israel Hayom)
With the targeted killing of its top leaders, Gaza is now being managed by a second-tier Hamas command structure made up of brigade commanders and mid-level staff officers.
The new head of Hamas military forces is Gaza City brigade commander Az al-Din Haddad, who was part of the inner circle that planned the October 7 massacre.
He is working alongside Raed Saad, head of Hamas's production division.
Sources within Hamas report that new brigade commanders have been appointed to replace those eliminated, but they now command a significantly smaller and less trained force. Many of the new recruits are minors.
Part of Hamas's crisis is financial. Several of its financial leaders have been killed.
Ismail Barhoum, head of the finance division, was eliminated in March, and numerous money changers were also targeted.
Last week, the IDF destroyed the Al-Qahira money exchange office in Gaza City, which Hamas used to store and transfer tens of millions of dollars.
However, Hamas's foreign leadership remains largely unscathed and is capable of raising vast sums of money.
IDF: "Hamas Playing Games - Will Hold onto Hostages" - Yossi Yehoshua ( Ynet News)
"Hamas will not return all the hostages at once - they'll play a game and always keep some in their hands," said a senior IDF official on Sunday.
"What drives Hamas to a deal is military pressure - that's what has brought hostages back so far."
IDF Southern Command officials said Hamas remains committed to Israel's destruction and is seeking a ceasefire to rebuild its capabilities and resume fighting.
IDF: Gaza "Not Even Close" to Famine ( Jerusalem Post)
The Israeli security establishment held discussions on the humanitarian situation in Gaza on Monday, where a senior IDF official stated that "there is no famine in Gaza, we're not even close to that," N12 reported on Tuesday.
Officials said there have been 110 looting incidents since the resumption of aid to Gaza last week, mostly by Gazan civilians, armed gangs, and organized clans.
In addition to the aid distribution center that opened in Rafah on Monday, three more aid centers are expected to open by Friday.
Israel's New Buffer Zone in Syria Begins to Stabilize - Yair Kraus ( Ynet News)
After six months, the new security buffer zone Israel has established along the border in the Golan Heights is beginning to take shape.
Col. Benny Kata tells how Tel Kodna, once a Syrian outpost, has overnight become a forward Israeli control post.
"If I'm physically sitting here on the ground, I'm protecting the Golan much better - and that's our mission," he says.
"We chose the places where we operate. We didn't overreach - we went into specific points that provide real defense for the Golan residents."
"Every decision we make is guided by one principle: what serves the mission of defense."
Recently, the Alexandroni reserve brigade replaced the regular troops at the outposts in Syria.
Maj. (res.) D. said, "Our company had a 98% turnout. Nearly everyone showed up. Everyone understands how important it is to be here, to free up regular forces, and to take part in this mission."
Former Israeli Hostage Says Hamas Captors Sprayed Him in the Eyes with Insect Repellent ( Times of Israel)
Freed hostage Omer Wenkert, now 23, told the Israel Bar Association on Sunday that after the Israeli offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza in May 2024, his captors intentionally starved him, saying he was fed half a pita a day for two or three weeks.
"They did things that seriously endangered my life, for fun. One of them brought insect repellent, stood me up at the end of the corridor, and sprayed me in the face, with my eyes open."
"He also decided to beat me with an iron rod."
"Bathing was once in 50 days, with a little bottle. Only after nine and a half months did I bathe for real."
The tunnel he was kept in for most of his captivity was "about 90 cm. (35 inches) wide,"
with a hole as a toilet.
"I was on a small mattress with my back against the wall. I was there for 420 days, I think."
New Palestinian Militia Operating in Southern Gaza - Nir Hasson ( Ha'aretz)
A new Palestinian militia has recently begun operating in southern Gaza.
Videos on social media show armed Palestinians in Gaza wearing standard military gear, including a patch labeled "Anti-Terror Service" in English and Arabic.
The group is linked to Yasser Abu Shabab, a powerful and well-connected member of a large Bedouin family in Rafah.
Abu Shabab said Saturday on Facebook that he is working "to ensure the delivery of flour trucks to the displacement camps. Our young men operated under dangerous conditions to prevent the theft of flour. We were shocked by the organized looting aimed at selling it on the black market."
How Textbooks and Children's Shows in America Became Hamasified - Seth Mandel ( Commentary)
A state hearing involving the Massachusetts Teachers Association discussed a workbook for kids in kindergarten and first grade called Handala's Return, which featured on its front page a map of Israel and Gaza and the West Bank all labeled "Palestine."
Israel did not exist. Handala explains that "Zionists" took her family's home by force and won't let her back even though she has the key.
The students are then asked to draw their own home and key, presumably to imagine their own sadness were the Jews to come and take their home away.
At the end of the workbook is a page titled "Help Handala Free Palestine."
The students are instructed to write what they will do to "raise funds for the children of Palestine" and what they will chant at a "Palestine protest."
There have been endless examples of antisemitism in American grade-school lesson plans.
Young children are being drafted as child soldiers into "the Palestinian struggle."
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Iranian Media Praise DC Jewish Museum Shooter as "Dear Brother" - Benjamin Weinthal
Kayhan newspaper, the mouthpiece of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, wrote on Saturday: "Our dear brother Elias Rodriguez, who killed two Israelis in the U.S., has founded the Washington Basij,"
referring to an Iranian paramilitary organization that is assigned to crush all dissent.
(Fox News)
- Israeli Reservists Answer the Call Despite Challenges - Michael Blum
Reservist Haim Halevi, 35, had to quit his job and leave his young son behind to fight in Gaza, but still felt "proud" to serve after his third call-up in 18 months. Israel's military is activating tens of thousands of reservists for its expanded offensive in Gaza, which it says is aimed at defeating Hamas.
Despite professional, mental and family challenges, most reservists continue to turn up to fight in a war now in its 20th month. "No one is forcing me...I'm proud to defend my country," said Halevi.
75% of reservists have responded positively to the latest call, according to a report presented to parliament.
(AFP)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- IDF Intercepts Two Missiles from Yemen on Tuesday - Yoav Zitun
IDF air defenses intercepted two missiles launched from Yemen toward Israel at 5 a.m. and 7:42 a.m. on Tuesday.
(Ynet News)
- Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Begins Distributing Food Aid
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said it began distributing food aid in Gaza on Monday, with additional aid trucks scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. The GHF condemned threats from Hamas targeting humanitarian organizations supporting aid distribution at GHF's Safe Distribution Sites. It accused Hamas of trying to prevent Palestinians from accessing humanitarian supplies at the designated locations.
"It is clear that Hamas is threatened by this new operating model and will do everything in its power to see it fail," the foundation said.
On Monday, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry called on Gaza residents not to cooperate with the new aid mechanism. (Jerusalem Post)
See also Inside an Aid Distribution Center in Gaza - Shirit Avitan Cohen
The opening of central distribution centers for humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza has begun.
The first is in Rafah, near the humanitarian zone in southwestern Gaza. It aims to supply essentials to civilians in a war zone, reduce Western pressure, and counter Hamas's takeover of aid shipments.
A secured access route protected by the IDF was opened from the Al-Mawasi area to the distribution center.
Families are required to undergo security screening, after which they register and receive weekly supply packages for their household. Both the American company operating the center and the IDF have pre-established lists of eligible families.
(Israel Hayom)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Jerusalem Liberation Day
- Israelis Celebrate the Liberation of Jerusalem - Nadav Shragai
On Monday Israelis marked Jerusalem Day, when the IDF liberated the city in the Six-Day War of 1967. Jerusalem is Zion, the wellspring of Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. A Jewish state without Jerusalem is a crippled state. A Jewish state with Jerusalem is a complete state.
For the same reason that we did not establish a state in Uganda, but in the Land of Israel, we did not set our capital in Tel Aviv or Haifa, but in Jerusalem. It remains the glue that unites Jews around the world.
King David purchased Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount) from Araunah the Jebusite. His son Solomon built the Temple there. The destruction of the two Temples, the first by Nebuchadnezzar and the second by the Romans, brought about an unceasing longing for the city and its rebuilding.
The sanctity of the city was woven into almost every religious holiday and ceremony that Jews maintained throughout the world in daily prayers, at funerals, at circumcisions, at bar mitzvahs, in the blessing after meals and even at weddings. In all these and more, Jerusalem was present in an intense emotional connection, never to be forgotten.
So when you walk in the streets of Jerusalem, remember that this city is the embodiment of Jewish justice, the foundation for our right and claim to this land, our home. And whoever returns and liberates his home is not a conqueror. (Israel Hayom)
- Remembering Jerusalem Day, 1967 - Patricia Levinson
On June 7, 1967, the Jewish people witnessed a miracle. On that day, the ancient walled city of Jerusalem, with its holy sites, was recaptured for the Jewish people for the first time in 2000 years.
Jerusalem has always remained the beating heart of the Jewish people. Jews have always lived in Jerusalem. We Jews face Jerusalem to pray. Every year, we end our Passover seders with the words: "Next Year in Jerusalem."
That evening, in the midst of a blackout, my husband and I sat by our radio. Then we heard the sounds of the shofar being blown at the Western Wall and the voice of Gen. Shlomo Goren, Chief of the Military Rabbinate, blessing the occasion.
Three weeks later, we went to Jerusalem and traced the footsteps of the Israeli paratroopers. We entered the ancient walled city through the Lions Gate, walked across the Temple Mount, past the Dome of the Rock, descended a staircase and stood before the Western Wall. With a prayer and full hearts, we reverently touched the stones, knowing that we had experienced a life-changing moment in time.
The writer has served on the National Board of Directors/National Assembly of Hadassah, The Women's Zionist Organization of America, for 32 years. (Times of Israel)
- Photos: Tens of Thousands Attend Jerusalem Day Flag March - Liran Tamari
Tens of thousands gathered Monday afternoon for the annual Jerusalem Day Flag March, which proceeded along its traditional route from the city center through the Old City to the Western Wall.
(Ynet News)
Murder in Washington
- Free Palestine's Real Target Is America - Liel Leibovitz
As the killer of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky was being detained, he shouted the words that have become the soundtrack to so much American suffering: "Free Palestine." The murders were a reminder that "Free Palestine" is not about the war in Gaza, not about Israel's response to Hamas's atrocities on Oct. 7, not about the well-being of Palestinians or any other living beings.
"Free Palestine" is the rallying cry of a terrorist operation that is funded by foreign governments and designed to sow chaos, fear, and violence in America's streets. This violence always begins with Jews, but it never ends there. Free Palestine's real target is America.
The list of terror's witless enablers is long. But there are still many more of us, normal Americans who refuse to accept a reality in which Jews are targeted and attacked by a death cult and in which Washington or New York or Chicago becomes just another Beirut, a bloody battlefield thick with jaunty jihadis.
In 1871, facing another murderous, Jew-hating militia, the Ku Klux Klan, Congress passed the Enforcement Act that gave the government wide power to do everything necessary to defeat these homegrown terrorists. It did so because Americans could unite behind the elementary idea that the Klan was pure evil and profoundly un-American. The same is true of Free Palestine.
Pro-Palestine is anti-America, and Free Palestine means death. We must fight it with everything we've got.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. (New York Post)
- You're Not Freeing Palestine, You're a Dupe for the Islamist Cause - Rena Cohen and Ariel Cohen
The murderer of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky shouted, "There's only one solution. Intifada revolution." The First and Second Intifadas were organized by terrorist Yasser Arafat. Tactics included the killing of 21 mostly teenaged girls and the wounding of 130 young people waiting in line to enter Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium disco, bombing pizzerias filled with young mothers and kids, bombings and shootings in restaurants and holiday festivities, and bombing city buses. This is what Hamas-supporting protesters are calling for when they scream for intifada.
Before 9/11, it was tough trying to explain to Americans that the real targets of terrorists attacking Israel were the U.S. and the West. Attacking the Israelis, or the Jews, or the Zionists is just the opening act. It is never, ever the endgame. "Globalize the intifada" means the violent destabilization of the U.S. and the West before their aspired conquest and destruction.
(Newsweek)
- In Cultures Where Jews Live under Threat, the Rest of Society Inevitably Suffers - Nathan Miller
From 2010 to 2013, I was an American employee of Israel's Mission at the UN in New York. Every morning, I walked past a permanent police cordon into the office building and then past two more doors manned by Israeli secret service. Every time we set foot in the ambassador's car, his security detail swept it for bombs.
Every weekday, I line up with other parents to drop off my six-year-old and eight-year-old at Jewish day school amid high walls, thick gates and heavily armed guards. It is the same drill when our family goes to synagogue, attends a Jewish event or gets on a plane to go to Israel.
My kids read antisemitic graffiti sprayed on the streets and ask what it means. The roads in our city are sometimes blocked by violent protestors, holding signs that justify murder and call for the destruction of all Jews.
History shows that in cultures where Jews live under threat and persecution, the rest of society inevitably suffers as well. It also shows that while antisemitism is a constant, so is the tremendous resilience of the Jewish people and the State of Israel, supported by men and women of conviction like Yaron and Sarah willing to risk their lives for a better future. (The Hill)
- What Yaron Lischinsky Knew - David Schiff
I first met Yaron Lischinsky in 2018. He had just begun his bachelor's degree at Hebrew University and joined the school's Model United Nations program where I was a mentor. Charismatic and charming, with an infectious smile and an aura of quiet confidence, he quickly set himself apart as one of the group's strongest students. It was no surprise, then, that he would eventually end up at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
A consummate diplomat, Yaron made it clear that his career goal was to represent Israel on the world stage and to serve the country he was so proud of. His command of multiple languages, extensive knowledge of history, and disarming charm made him the perfect representative.
A few years later, Yaron and I were both enrolled in a master's program in diplomacy at Reichman University, where we worked together on the final paper for a course on conflict resolution.
In the final draft, Yaron wrote, "Delegitimization denies the adversary's humanity and morality, providing a kind of psychological permit to harm the delegitimized group." Years later, the same delegitimization Yaron warned of would claim his life. (Times of Israel)
- The Pogrom Comes to Washington - Brendan O'Neill
We cannot close our ears to the mood music in our societies that at the very least makes outrages like the murders in Washington more likely. We are living through the most ruthless, most relentless demonization of the Jewish state in the entire 77 years of its existence. And it is hard to see the double slaughter as anything other than the armed wing of a loathing for Israel that long ago crossed the line from political critique into neo-medieval hysteria.
Ours is a world in which the Jewish nation is continually damned as "uniquely murderous." As barbarous beyond belief. As so wicked it deserves violent erasure "from the river to the sea." Zionists "don't deserve to live," activists say. Week after week, the self-righteous beat the streets to libel Israel as a baby-killing machine. Can we really be surprised if, in the midst of such hysteria, some come to see Israel's diplomats as demonic and deserving of the ultimate punishment?
It would be a deadly folly to ignore the culture of intolerance and outright bigotry that has been stirred up by the myopic animus for the world's only Jewish nation. Unhinged hatreds birth unhinged behavior. This is the globalization of Hamas's pogrom, a murderous assault not only on Jewish citizens and Israeli embassy staffers but also on our civilization itself.
The writer is the author of After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation.
(Spiked-UK)
- When Words Become Weapons - David Harris
What does "Free, free Palestine" mean? It sure isn't a cry for peace or coexistence. Rather, it's a call for the annihilation or expulsion of nearly 10 million Israelis, who live in a land associated with the Jewish people since time immemorial. Hamas, arguably the most regressive social movement on the planet, has been repackaged as a "progressive" cause. That has led to bizarre images of politicians, not to mention LGBTQ and women's groups, embracing a cause that opposes everything they purportedly stand for.
Unless decisive action is taken, more innocent people may meet the same fate of political violence in America as Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky. Free speech is a hallowed tradition. But when free speech becomes violent speech, when it seeks to incite, when it says some people, like Israelis and Zionists, have no right to live, it has crossed a line that can't be ignored or intellectualized away.
When instigators march around with their faces covered to hide their identity, this must be stopped. In fact, it should have ended long ago. Would anyone today allow the Ku Klux Klan to get away with this at Columbia?
Antisemitism has a long and lethal history. It must never be minimized, rationalized or lumped together with every other "ism" or "phobia" under the sun to diminish its significance and specificity.
Appeasing the mob isn't a strategy; it's an act of abject cowardice. Unless things change, and rapidly, in taking on the elaborate ecosystem in which Sarah and Yaron's assassin was incubated, more lives will be lost.
The writer is executive vice chair of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). (New York Post)
Israel and the West
- The Obstacle to Peace Is Hamas. Britain Would Not Accept Living Next to a Force that Wants to Destroy the UK - Amb. Tzipi Hotovely
Israelis desperately want a different future, one that is free from Hamas and one in which our 58 remaining hostages are home in Israel, reunited with their families or afforded a proper burial.
We desperately want to live in peace with our neighbors, but the presence and ongoing attacks from genocidal terror groups on our border causes such a peace to remain elusive. I am sure that no Briton would accept an Islamist terror group operating on its border, sworn to destroy the UK.
There was a ceasefire in place on Oct. 6, 2023, that was brutally breached by Hamas. We now live in a post-Oct. 7 reality. For our security, we need to see Gaza demilitarized; no one can expect us to simply wait for another Oct. 7. All Western leaders agree that Hamas must not remain in power, yet no viable plan that takes seriously our security concerns has been proposed.
Hamas has created an industry from the aid that it diverts from those who need it.
Its strategy is to steal it, sell it and use it to recruit new terrorists, pay their salaries and continue launching attacks against our people. The evidence of Hamas looting aid from international organizations, paid for by donor countries including the UK, is overwhelming. Even Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has criticized "the looting and theft carried out by criminal gangs targeting warehouses and storage facilities of humanitarian aid [in Gaza]."
The writer is Israel's Ambassador to the UK. (Telegraph--UK)
- The Misinformation Against Israel Costs Lives - Charles Moore
The BBC interviewed Tom Fletcher, a former British diplomat who is now the UN humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, who said that if Israel did not let in UN food there were "14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours." That was five days ago. Not one such death has been reported.
In fact, the same IPC report whose projections he grossly distorted has admitted that there is currently no famine in Gaza.
But the damage was done. In Parliament, 13 MPs repeated the Fletcher dead baby formula. Tom Gross, the respected monitor of Israel coverage in the media everywhere, noted that the New York Times, NBC News, Time magazine, The Guardian and ABC News all repeated Fletcher's claim, citing the BBC as a reliable source.
Although admitting the "horrendous level of suffering" in the conflict, Gross says, "I follow it incredibly closely, and so far as I can tell, no one has yet died of hunger in this conflict." Yet the times since Oct. 7, 2023, that the BBC has run starvation scares about Gazan people are almost uncountable. You barely hear that Israel's policy is not to stop the aid but to find more secure ways of distributing it.
The constant use of the word "genocide" to describe Israel's war has an effect on the collective mind of the West. If Israel is killing babies, say angry, radicalized young men, let's kill the baby-killers. The extreme anti-Israel ideology of the man who murdered the young Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington was the gateway to his actions. If we judge by the slogans shouted in the pro-Gaza marches in Britain, many are passing through the same gateway here.
The writer, a member of the House of Lords, is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, and the Sunday Telegraph.
(Telegraph-UK)
Antisemitism
- Witness to Jihad - Kathleen Hayes
For 25 years, I belonged to an insular, authoritarian Trotskyist organization. After the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington, I'm gripped with the sense that the deranged sect I left behind is now everywhere, spawning toxic new cells, scoring previously unimaginable victories.
I'm quite familiar with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the radical Maoist organization the murderer once belonged to. Before quitting my former group in 2016, I marched countless times in demonstrations organized by ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), another activist group Elias Rodriguez apparently belonged to. His beliefs and delusions were, broadly speaking, mine.
Today they're shared by a wide swath of liberal society - people who would never shoot a young man and woman in cold blood, but who think there's a context in which the shootings are, if not justifiable, then at least comprehensible as a response to Israel's "genocide."
They're starting with the Jews, but of course they won't end there.
As Columbia University's pro-Palestinian Apartheid Divest declared last year: "We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization."
The writer is the author of Antisemitism and the Left: A Memoir. (Los Angeles Jewish Journal)
Observations:
- Ten countries have already given Hamas the greatest reward and have responded to the Oct. 7 murder, torture, rape, beheading, and kidnapping of over 250 people by recognizing the "State of Palestine."
- Next in line to reward the wanton murder of Jews appears to be French President Emmanuel Macron who, together with the UK and Canada, is promoting a high-level conference on "the two-state solution."
- The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States provides the most widely and internationally accepted formula for recognizing statehood in international law, requiring the new state to meet four cumulative criteria: a permanent population; a defined territory; a government; and capacity to enter into relations with other states.
- Of the 147 UN states that ostensibly have recognized the "State of Palestine," 100 countries did so between February 4, 1988, and November 1, 1995. 82 of them gave their recognition in November and December 1988, in response to the November 15, 1988, "Declaration of Independence" issued by Yasser Arafat and the PLO. At the time, the PLO was being hosted in Tunisia and was an entity incapable of performing any of the requisite functions associated with governance.
- The Oslo Accords established a "Palestinian Authority" with powers and responsibilities to govern the daily lives of the Palestinians resident in areas that would be transferred to its control. The accords made absolutely no mention of the creation of a "State of Palestine." To the contrary, in the accords, the issue of statehood was left open for "permanent status negotiations."
- By definition, the Israeli-Palestinian commitment to "permanent status negotiations" precludes any predetermination by any foreign state, parliament, international or regional organization president or international leader, of the outcome of such negotiation by attempting to recognize, initiate, support, or sponsor a Palestinian state outside the agreed negotiating forum.
Amb. Alan Baker, former Legal Adviser and Deputy Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians.
Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria, is director of the Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative at the Jerusalem Center.
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