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In-Depth Issues:
Senior Israeli Official: Hamas Must "Come to Terms with Reality" - Lazar Berman ( Times of Israel)
Hamas "must understand that it has to accept the Witkoff outline," a senior Israeli official said Sunday, referring to the latest hostage release and ceasefire proposal presented by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff.
"Now the IDF is attacking, supplies are distributed differently, the U.S. is pressing. And we will be prepared for negotiations when Hamas comes to terms with reality."
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that "regardless of any negotiations," he instructed the IDF "to continue forward in Gaza."
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir instructed the military to expand the ground offensive against Hamas to additional areas in Gaza and establish additional aid distribution sites for the Palestinian civilian population.
Israel Rejects Charges of Palestinian Deaths at Gaza Aid Site - Lazar Berman ( Times of Israel)
Israel on Monday called a demand by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres for an investigation into alleged deadly violence at a Gaza humanitarian aid site a "disgrace."
Ever since the U.S.- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began distributing food inside Gaza last week, Hamas-controlled authorities have repeatedly claimed that dozens of people were being shot at the GHF sites.
The GHF has been emphatic that the claims are false and accuses Hamas of attempting to undermine its aid distribution by spreading panic.
Israel Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote on X: "There's one word you won't find in the secretary-general's statement: Hamas."
"Not a word about the fact that Hamas is the one shooting civilians and trying to prevent them from collecting aid packages."
"Not a word about the fact that Hamas - as stated by U.S. Special Envoy Witkoff - rejected yet another ceasefire proposal and the release of the hostages."
Marmorstein said "the real investigation that needs to be opened is why the UN continues to resist any attempt to provide aid directly to the people of Gaza."
The Israel Defense Forces said it didn't shoot Gazans at or near the distribution site and denounced the allegations as false.
The GHF published 15 minutes of video footage from the distribution site showing that no Palestinian civilians were shot at the site and said, "Reports of injuries and fatalities are completely false and fabricated."
"BBC Verify" Debunks Graphic Video of Massacre at Aid Distribution Site - Benedict Garman ( BBC News)
A graphic video - seen 134,000 times in one X post - claims to show shootings on Sunday morning near an aid distribution site in Rafah in Gaza, posted by an Al Jazeera journalist.
We have geolocated the clip to a spot in Khan Yunis about 4.5 km. from the nearest aid distribution point.
The direction of shadows suggests it was filmed in the evening, not the morning.
While verifying the clip, a local journalist who filmed another video of the same scene confirmed to us that the events pictured are unrelated to any aid distribution site, and occurred in the evening.
Photos Show Gratitude of Gazans Receiving Aid at Distribution Center on Monday - Caroline Glick ( X)
These photos were taken Monday morning at the Tel Sultan Distribution Center in Gaza by American relief workers.
They show glee, gratitude and relief in the eyes of Gazans receiving aid because these people have nothing to fear.
There are no Hamas terrorists there forcing them to pay for aid they were supposed to receive for free.
Hamas is trying to propagate yet another blood libel accusing our soldiers of shooting at civilians at the food distribution centers.
On Sunday, Hamas claimed that Israel killed 31 people at an aid distribution center, a slander that became the top story on nearly every major news outlet in the U.S. and Europe.
At the same time, CNN, which immediately published Hamas's blood libel, hid the truth about the Boulder story.
Its headline hid that the victims were Jews targeted for being Jews by a terrorist who supports Hamas.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Man Attacks Boulder, Colorado, Pro-Israel Demonstrators with Firebombs while Yelling "Free Palestine," Injures 8 - Jasper Ward
Mohamed Soliman, 45, yelled "Free Palestine" and threw incendiary devices into a demonstration on Sunday in Boulder, Colorado, to remember the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza. Four women and four men between 52 and 88 years old were transported to hospitals, Boulder police said. At least one was in serious condition.
(Reuters)
See also Colorado Attacker an Egyptian in U.S. Illegally - Luke Tress
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who attacked a group of pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, planned the attack for a year, according to an affidavit filed in a federal court in Colorado on Monday. "He stated that he wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead," the affidavit said, adding that Soliman vowed to "do it again."
He was in the U.S. illegally, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (Times of Israel)
- Trump: U.S. Won't Let Iran Enrich Uranium under Nuclear Deal - Barak Ravid
"Under our potential agreement - we will not allow any enrichment of uranium," President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. Iran has consistently said it won't sign any deal that doesn't allow enrichment.
(Axios)
- Irresponsible Reporting by Major U.S. News Outlets Are Contributing to the Antisemitic Climate - U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee
Reckless and irresponsible reporting by major U.S. news outlets are contributing to the antisemitic climate that has resulted in the murder of two young people at an Israeli Embassy event in Washington last month and the terror attack on a group of pro-Israel demonstrators in Colorado on Sunday.
Without verification of any source other than Hamas and its collaborators, the New York Times, CNN, and Associated Press reported that a number of people seeking to receive humanitarian food boxes from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation were shot or killed by the Israel Defense Forces. These reports were FALSE. Drone video and first-hand accounts clearly showed that there were no injuries, no fatalities, no shooting, no chaos.
It is Hamas that continues to terrorize and intimidate those who seek food aid. The only source for these misleading, exaggerated, and utterly fabricated stories is Hamas. Media sources who willingly parrot these libelous allegations should apologize and pledge to practice actual reporting of fact instead of engaging in dangerous propaganda that assists the terror group Hamas. (U.S. Embassy in Israel)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Three Israeli Soldiers Killed in Explosion in Northern Gaza - Yoav Zitun
Three IDF soldiers, two of them medics, were killed when they were extracting their comrades, whose vehicle had been hit by an IED in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. As they began returning, a massive blast occurred. The soldiers are Staff Sgt. Lior Steinberg, 20; Staff Sgt. Ofek Barhana, 20; and Staff Sgt. Omer Van Gelder, 22, all serving in the Givati Brigade. Two additional soldiers were wounded. (Ynet News)
- IDF Expands Gaza Ground Offensive, Troops Move on Khan Yunis - Emanuel Fabian
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday, "In the past day, troops expanded the ground maneuver, eliminated terrorists and destroyed many weapons depots and terror infrastructure sites, above and below ground." The air force hit dozens of targets, including cells of terror operatives, buildings used by terror groups, tunnels, weapons depots, and other infrastructure. Palestinian media reported that Israeli ground forces were approaching Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
(Times of Israel)
- IDF Intercepts another Houthi Missile Launched from Yemen on Monday
The IDF intercepted a missile launched by the Houthis in Yemen towards Israeli territory on Monday.
This follows a missile launch from the Houthis on Sunday.
(Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Colorado Attack
- Simply Existing in Public as a Jewish Person Is Increasingly Dangerous - Ruth Graham
The attack on demonstrators in Boulder, Colo., marching in support of hostages being held in Gaza, came less than two weeks after two Israeli Embassy employees were shot and killed as they left a reception at a Jewish museum in Washington. A month earlier, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor's mansion on the first night of Passover while Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, slept upstairs with his family.
The violence erupting across the country has deepened anxieties among many American Jews, and contributed to a sense that simply existing in public as a Jewish person is increasingly dangerous. The number of antisemitic episodes in the United States in 2023, in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel, was the highest ever recorded in a one-year period, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
"What we've seen these last few months is a shocking pattern of anti-Israel sentiment manifesting itself in antisemitic violence," said Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. "With each incident, there's a further shattering of our sense of security."
"Make no mistake: If and when Jews are targeted to protest Israel's actions, it should clearly and unequivocally be understood and condemned as antisemitism," said the chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Amy Spitalnick. (New York Times)
- "We Appreciate Your Sympathy, but We Need Your Outrage" - American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch
People were set on fire by a terrorist in Boulder, Colorado. Why? Because they were calling for 58 hostages still held by Hamas terrorists to finally be returned home. This happened not even two weeks after Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky were gunned down in Washington, D.C.
The Jewish community has been warning the world that chants of "globalize the Intifada" and "resistance by any means necessary" are calls to violence. We've now seen that violence erupt in America twice in less than two weeks. Do you finally believe us?
We appreciate your sympathy, but we need your outrage. Say it out loud. Condemn this incitement. Call out these dangerous lies. Demand that Hamas release the hostages. And tell your community that you will stand with us, and you will not tolerate any more violence against Jews.
(X)
The Gaza War
- No Ceasefire until Hamas Is Destroyed - Maj. (ret.) John Spencer
The goal for Hamas has never been a two-state solution or co-existence. Its charter calls for the annihilation of Israel. Hamas is now fighting to survive politically. If the war ends before Hamas is clearly and decisively defeated, it will be a Hamas victory.
Calls for a ceasefire may sound moral. They are not. A ceasefire without victory rewards war crimes such as mass hostage-taking, torture, mutilation, rape, the deliberate use of human shields, and the slaughter of civilians.
A Hamas victory would establish a new, horrific standard: that if you violate every rule of war with enough strategic cruelty, then international outrage will fall not on you, but on the state trying to stop you. It would teach regimes and terror groups everywhere that civilian deaths are not just tragic but useful, even essential, to political victory.
In every prior round of fighting since 2008, Hamas used international pressure for ceasefires to regroup, rearm, and dig deeper into Gaza's civilian infrastructure. Each ceasefire became a strategic pause, not a step toward peace. Oct. 7 was the result. Now Hamas is betting once again that international pressure will save it.
No nation can allow hostage-taking to become an accepted currency of warfare. To do so would invite it everywhere. The idea that a genocidal terror group can survive a war it started by choice, from a position of unprovoked aggression, is another dangerous precedent. It would send a clear signal to Iranian proxies across the region and radical groups worldwide that terrorism works.
War is always tragic. But some wars are necessary. Peace is not possible with an armed, fanatical regime in Gaza that seeks your destruction and views the murder of civilians as a divine duty.
Ending this war without defeating Hamas means condemning Israelis - and Palestinians - to unending conflict. It means Oct. 7 becomes a case study in successful terrorism, lawfare, hostage-taking, and wars of aggression. Those calling for an immediate ceasefire either do not understand war, or do not want Hamas to lose.
The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. (Jerusalem Post)
Israel and the West
- "Free Palestine" Has Become a Rallying Cry for Attacks on Jews - Stephen Daisley
They're burning Jews again. This time at a shopping mall in Boulder, Colorado, in the name of the cause of Palestine. The attacker shouted "Free Palestine" after firebombing a vigil for Israeli hostages. It comes almost two weeks after the fatal shooting in Washington, D.C., of Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. The murderer also shouted "Free Palestine."
It is more than a slogan of solidarity with the people in Gaza or a demand for another Arab state alongside Israel. "Free Palestine" has become a rallying cry for violent, homicidal anti-Zionism across Western cities, an incitement to and justification for aggression and attacks on Jews, their property, and their religious and cultural symbols.
A segment of the population in the U.S. and Europe has been recruited, via a mixture of foreign-funded anti-Israel propaganda and highly ideological domestic reporting, to a violent, homicidal cause on Western soil, where the tactics of Hamas and its ilk are replicated by people convinced they are taking a noble stand for an oppressed people. The intifada has been globalized, antisemitism weaponized, and Western citizens radicalized.
What happened in Boulder and in Washington will happen again. "Free Palestine" is now what you shout if you want to maim and murder but don't want to yell "Kill the Jews." (Telegraph-UK)
- Sanctimony on the High Seas - Brendan O'Neill
Bored with saving the planet, Greta Thunberg, Sweden's prophetess of doom, now wants to save Gaza.
She and a gaggle of self-righteous pals have set sail from Sicily, their boat a riot of keffiyehs and Palestinian flags, hoping to dock in Gaza in a week's time to "break the Israeli blockade."
Of all the smug stunts of the faux-virtuous activist class, this is surely the most preposterous. What does Ms. Thunberg plan to do when she gets there? Bellow: "HOW DARE YOU" at a column of IDF soldiers? Such daft antics might work on the political elites of the West who love nothing more than being told off by eco-pompous children. But it won't wash with the army of the Jewish state that is in hot pursuit of the antisemitic terrorists that butchered more than a thousand Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
If Gaza's two million inhabitants really are being "systematically starved" - they aren't - then how on earth will a small boat carrying little more than boxes of spare keffiyehs and smug activists help them? The most hilarious part of this watery clown show is that as these narcissists wail "Feed Gaza!," that's exactly what Israel is doing. Israel has handed out millions of meals over the past week through its Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
As they take selfies of themselves sobbing into their keffiyehs over what a uniquely barbarous nation Israel is, Israel is literally saving Palestinian lives. They do moral pantomime, for likes and clicks - Israel does actual aid, with very little thanks. All that these boat people have to offer to Gaza is cheap slogans and lame platitudes. I can't be the only person who finds it chilling that the world's only Jewish nation has become the target of rich, bored Westerners' fashionable rage.
(Telegraph-UK)
Observations:
- Even if Washington and Tehran reach an agreement on Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,
unless it features "anywhere, anytime" inspections, to which Iran has never agreed, Iran will secretly continue to develop nuclear weapons and cheat, cheat, cheat.
- Moreover, Iran is not going to stop its financial and military support for its terror proxies in the Middle East, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hizbullah in Lebanon, and the Houthi militia in Yemen. In short, Iran is not going to abandon its declared goal of obliterating the "Zionist entity" or the United States.
- Were it not for Iran's financial and military support, its proxies would not have been able to fire thousands of rockets, ballistic missiles and explosive drones at Israel over the past 20 months. The Trump administration must demand an immediate halt to the funding and arming of the Iran-backed Islamist terror groups. Furthermore, it must demand that Iran's leaders stop calling for the annihilation of Israel.
- As President Trump was voicing optimism regarding the prospects of reaching a nuclear deal with the Iranian regime, Ali Akbar Velayati, senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, received a delegation of Hamas and PIJ officials in Tehran.
- Iranian and Palestinian media quoted Velayati as "assuring" the officials that "the Zionist entity is doomed to disappear." Velayati "praised the victories of the Palestinian resistance [against Israel] as a rare achievement in the history of Islam."
- He also reassured the Palestinian terror leaders that the Iranian regime is determined to continue supporting them, to help them achieve their goal of murdering Jews and eliminating Israel. As long as the mullahs continue to wish for the destruction of Israel and America, and to back Islamist terror groups, they should be treated as dangerous enemies of both Israel and the U.S.
The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist, is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
This issue of Daily Alert was produced in Israel on Isru Hag.
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