IT'S EASY FOR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY TO PRESSURE ISRAEL WHEN IT IS NOT FACING ANY THREAT FROM MILITANT PALESTINIAN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

The Philadelphi conundrum

“If, after Oct. 7, and after seeing the implications of military buildup, we don't insist on this, then it essentially means Israel can be forced to fold on any issue.” 

 

By Israel Kasnett

 

JNS

Sep 5, 2024

 

 

The Philadelphi Corridor

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visibly frustrated and at times even rightfully furious, addressed a hostile foreign press Wednesday evening, condemning defeatist elements who advocate for Israel’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor—a move demanded by Hamas, the international community, some of the prominent leftist representatives in Israel’s political and defense establishments, and a minority of Israeli civilians.  

Clearly under pressure from the international community to leave the corridor, Netanyahu warned repeatedly during the press conference that such a retreat would enable Hamas to maintain power and smuggle in weapons, preventing the demilitarization of Gaza and posing a grave threat to Israel’s security.

National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz and Knesset member Gadi Eisenkot held their own press conference on Tuesday evening, accusing Netanyahu of obstructing a potential hostage deal with Hamas. They also disputed his stance that Israel should maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor. 

But many Israelis believe this type of thinking is misguided and part of the failed “conceptzia” (governing assumptions) that preceded the Oct. 7 attacks. 

As Gallant, Gantz and Eisenkot, as well as opposition leader Yair Lapid, have demonstrated in recent days, they and other high-ranking political and military figures still hold on to these defeatist views. 

According to Enia Krivine, senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Israel Programs and National Security Network, “Since day one of the war there has been tension between two of the primary war goals—to bring the hostages back and dismantle Hamas.”

Some in Israel’s political and military echelon, said Krivine, “have decided that bringing the hostages home alive has become the paramount war goal and that this moral imperative supersedes the other two goals,” she said. 

Thousands of Israelis siding with this view are currently demonstrating against Netanyahu, accusing him of obstructing a hostage deal.

Netanyahu has been criticized by Israelis on the right for not entering Rafah sooner and taking control of the Philadelphi Corridor immediately after the initial military invasion of Gaza on Oct. 27.

Now that Israeli forces are there, Israelis on the left want Netanyahu to withdraw them to facilitate a deal to get more hostages released. 

But many experts, including Krivine and former Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, agree with Netanyahu that contrary to what some Israeli defense officials believe, Israel will not be able to easily return to the corridor once it withdraws, as the international community will place heavy pressure on Jerusalem to keep it from doing so. 

“There are those who believe that we can temporarily relinquish control—for 42 days—until the first phase of the deal is completed, and then, if the deal does not progress, return and regain control of the area,” said Ben-Shabbat.

“Of course, the IDF has the ability, operationally, [to] reoccupy this corridor even after 42 days, but it’s not just a matter of military capability,” he added. “Everyone understands that once we leave, Israel will face immense diplomatic pressure from the U.S. and other countries not to return.”

Ben-Shabbat warned that since we are in the final stretch before the U.S. elections, the expected American pressure “will be extremely heavy.”

“The legitimacy Israel had to occupy this corridor following Oct. 7 will not exist after we leave it,” he said. 

Krivine agreed, saying Israel “would [not] have the legitimacy or the support necessary to accomplish this; not from the United States, not from Egypt and not from the international community.”

Part of the reason for Israel’s insistence, she told JNS, is because the third primary goal of the war is “to make sure that Hamas can no longer pose a threat to Israel.”

Part of the confusion leading up to the press conference was that Netanyahu seems to now be saying he does not intend to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, but media outlets had reported that he had agreed to withdraw from parts of the corridor that are heavily populated, in the second phase of a proposed ceasefire deal.

Netanyahu clarified on Wednesday that Israel would be willing to withdraw if a suitable foreign entity is found that is able to properly monitor the border and prevent smuggling there.

It is worth mentioning that the European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) was supposed to monitor the Rafah border after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, but in 2007, after Hamas took over, EUBAM officials simply ran away, fearing for their own security.

Israel is not interested in, nor can it afford, a repeat of such a scenario.

The Philadelphi Corridor was problematic from the very beginning

When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice overrode strong Israeli objections to giving up control over the Philadelphi Corridor. 

Israel knew that without effective control of this strip of land, it would become a conduit for smuggling weapons into Gaza. But heavy pressure from the Bush administration, and Rice specifically, forced Israel to pull its forces from the area.

Rice urged Israel to vacate the corridor as a “peaceful gesture” to the Palestinians. Unfortunately, Israel’s leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, caved to this dangerous request.

While today Egypt denies it has allowed the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, we know this is not true.

Already in 2008, Rice said Cairo must improve border patrol efforts after Israeli officials complained that Egypt was doing a “terrible” job on the Gaza border, failing to stop smuggling of weapons and ammunition into Gaza through tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.

“We think that Egypt has to do more. Those tunnels need to be dealt with,” Rice said at the time.

Israeli officials said they had sent a video to Washington showing Egyptian security forces helping Hamas terrorists smuggle arms across the border into Gaza.

Egypt responded that it was “doing its best” with the number of personnel it was allowed to deploy at the border under the 1979 peace treaty and a subsequent agreement with Israel.

When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2013, he allegedly moved to destroy many of the tunnels.

But having uncovered and blocked off 150 smuggling tunnels so far in just the past few months, the IDF has proven that Egypt cannot be trusted and Israel cannot again leave the corridor since Hamas, or other terror organizations, will swiftly return to building new ones.

That decision by the Americans—the type of thinking that continues to pervade the U.S. State Department through the present day—directly led to the tragic events of Oct. 7, the ensuing war over these last 11 months and the continuing tragedy of the hostages in Gaza.

This thinking is the reason Israel was forced to pause fighting for three months earlier in the war, was behind the American pressure on Israel not to enter Rafah and is the leading reason the Americans insist the war “must end now.”

Demonstrating more common sense, Israel’s Security Cabinet voted last Thursday night in favor of maintaining a continued IDF presence in the corridor, even at the cost of a hostage deal. 

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against the decision, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir abstained. 

Following news of the execution by Hamas of six hostages, whose bodies were found on Saturday in a Rafah tunnel, Gallant on Sunday called for the Cabinet to reverse its decision, claiming that the corridor is one of the biggest obstacles to a ceasefire deal.

U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his shock and anger over the hostages’ murders and said Hamas leaders must be held accountable. 

However, when asked if he felt Netanyahu had done enough to get the hostages released, Biden said “no.”

During a local press conference on Monday, Netanyahu dismissed reports that Biden had criticized him for not doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal, saying he “does not believe Biden said that” in light of the murders.

“What message does this send Hamas?” said Netanyahu.

“I don’t believe that either President Biden or anyone else serious about achieving peace and achieving [the hostages’] release would seriously ask Israel to make these concessions. We’ve already made them. Hamas has to make the concessions,” he added.

What if Israel withdraws?

Ben-Shabbat told JNS that relinquishing control of the Philadelphi Corridor “would encourage Hamas, signal to the residents of Gaza that the terror organization will continue to be the dominant force in the Strip and might even embolden the ‘resistance axis,’ particularly Hezbollah, to take a harder stance against Israel.”

He added: “If, after Oct. 7, and after seeing the implications of military buildup, we don’t insist on this, then it essentially means Israel can be forced to fold on any issue.” 

Ben-Shabbat went on to say that “past experience does not allow us to rely on the goodwill of others, especially after what happened to us on Oct. 7.”

He recalled what happened in January 2009 on the eve of the conclusion of “Operation Cast Lead,” when then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement with the United States and NATO for joint efforts to counter the smuggling threat. 

“This agreement did not prevent even a gram of gunpowder from being smuggled into Gaza,” he said.

While some argue that it’s not wise to occupy the corridor because it’s a narrow strip of land, and staying there would expose Israeli forces, Ben-Shabbat told JNS that “now is precisely the time for the IDF to carry out all the necessary engineering work in the area to improve conditions for the safety of our forces,” adding, “Who said we have to settle for a 14-meter-wide strip?”

Ensuring the security of Israeli forces “justifies making the necessary changes to the terrain, and the width of the corridor should be determined accordingly,” he said.

In Krivine’s view, Israel may eventually be able to allow the Egyptians or Americans physical control of the corridor, but it would be irresponsible to do so today.

“There is no way to prevent arms getting in—or terrorists and potentially hostages—being smuggled out of the enclave without a credible inspections regime in the corridor both below ground and above ground,” she said. “Until there is a credible inspections regime established that deprives Hamas the ability to rearm, the Philadelphi corridor must remain in the hands of the IDF.”

[Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar “understands that the hostages are his only remaining leverage over the government of Israel,” she said, adding that Sinwar’s “wicked decision” to execute the hostages when IDF forces were so close to rescuing them “was a ploy to create a wedge in Israeli society and pressure Netanyahu into making tough concessions at the negotiating table.”

Sinwar, she said, “knows that Israel’s Achilles heel is its deep valuing of human life, and he understands how to drive a stake into the heart of Israeli society.” 

According to Krivine, giving in to Hamas’s demands means that the terror group survives and begins the process of rebuilding. 

“There is no third party—not the P.A. and not the moderate Arab states—that will step into the void unless the IDF can ensure that Hamas is unable to regroup and rearm,” she said.

Israel’s path forward

Brian Carter of the American Enterprise Institute seems to agree.

He told JNS that “either Israel or another capable entity must control the Philadelphi Corridor for Israel to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its capabilities to the same level the group reached by Oct. 7.”

Otherwise, he warned, “Hamas will gradually rebuild itself and undo the progress Israel has made toward defeating the group.” 

Any outcome that results in a rebuilt Hamas is “unacceptable and would constitute an Israeli defeat,” he said.

According to Carter, the way forward is to find a party that is capable of and willing to control the Philadelphi Corridor. 

He believes it is “unlikely” that any force could prevent smuggling under the corridor without a presence on the corridor.

Ben-Shabbat told JNS that Israel can take more steps to ensure it achieves its objectives in this war.

First, Israel must “completely deprive Hamas of control over the supplies entering the Strip,” he said. “This is its lifeline and the main means of maintaining its governance.”

Second, Israel should “divide Gaza into more sections, beyond what currently exists.”

Third, as another former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Giora Eiland, proposed, Israel should launch a “broad operation” in northern Gaza. This means evacuating Gaza City and the northern Strip, closing it off as a military zone, cutting off supplies to the area, and then conducting a thorough military operation to destroy terrorists.

“In my opinion, it is a good option,” Ben-Shabbat told JNS. 

“The plan does have its drawbacks though as Israel can expect resistance from the United States and the international community, and the fact that it involves returning many IDF forces to the Gaza Strip,” he noted. 

Finally, Ben-Shabbat suggested Israel could “take action” against Hamas leaders abroad.

MAYBE THIS IS WHY ISRAELI SETTLERS HAVE BEEN ATTACKING WEST BANK PALESTINIANS AND THEIR TOWNS

‘Jenin terror cell planned Oct.7-style massacre in Samaria’

The indictment accuses Osama Bani Fadl of making preparations for a mass infiltration of Jewish communities.

 

JNS

Sep 5, 2024 

 

 

Mourners and armed Palestinians attend the funeral of Palestinians killed during an Israeli military operation in Jenin, June 6, 2024.

 

A Palestinian terror squad based in Jenin planned to infiltrate Israeli communities in Samaria and carry out an Oct. 7-style massacre, according to an indictment published by Channel 14 on Wednesday.

The charges filed against Osama Bani Fadl, who stands accused of murdering Israelis Shay Silas Nigrekar and his son Aviad Nir on Aug. 19, 2023, in Huwara, reveal that he fled to Jenin after the shooting, joining a terror cell there, Channel 14 News reported.

Fadl was arrested in November during an Israeli counterterrorism raid in the Jenin camp. Israeli security forces said at the time that the armed suspect was located in a hideout used by local terrorist operatives.

The indictment accuses Fadl and other members of the terrorist squad of making preparations for a mass slaughter targeting Jewish residents of Samaria, including by infiltrating Israeli towns using vehicles.

The terror cell reportedly also planned attacks inside the town of Ma’ale Efraim in the Jordan Valley, and a drive-by shooting and car bombing at the gas station outside Eli in the Binyamin region of Samaria, a location that was targeted twice by Palestinian terrorists over the past 14 months.

In response to the news, attorney Haim Blecher of the Honenu legal aid group, who represents the Nigrekar family, told Channel 14 News that his clients demand prosecutors seek the death penalty against Fadl.

The Israel Defense Forces has reportedly classified Judea and Samaria as a “combat zone” in light of the recent uptick in Palestinian terror attacks.

The report came shortly after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urged the government and army to order a large-scale counterterrorism campaign throughout Judea and Samaria in the wake of the murder of three police officers in a drive-by shooting near Hebron on Sunday.

“We are one step away from Oct. 7 in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich warned, speaking from the site where Chief Inspector Arik Ben Eliyahu, Command Sgt. Maj. Hadas Branch and 1st Sgt. Roni Shakuri were killed.

Israeli security agencies on Aug. 28 launched a large-scale counterterror operation targeting the Jenin and Tulkarem areas, involving hundreds of troops and air support. So far, at least 30 terrorists have been killed in the operation, which is still ongoing, according to recent IDF figures.

“The rise of terror in Judea and Samaria is an issue that we need to be focused on at every moment. The process is an attack to prevent terror. We are mowing the lawn; the moment will also come when we will pull out the roots, that must be done,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said following a situational assessment with IDF officers on Wednesday.

“The rise [in terror] that comes in the form of car bombs and shootings everywhere, these are things that need to be put to an end,” he added.

On Tuesday night, hundreds of Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria gathered in protest at intersections throughout the territory, demanding that the military launch a broader operation against Palestinian terror.

In the first six months of 2024, Judea and Samaria saw more than 500 Arab terrorist attacks each month on average, according to figures published by Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria).

During that period, first responders recorded 3,272 acts of terrorism in the region, including 1,868 cases of rock-throwing, 456 attacks with Molotov cocktails, 299 explosive charges and 109 shootings.

Terrorists have killed 14 people and wounded more than 155 others in Judea and Samaria between January and July, the rescue group said.

ISRAEL'S RETALIATORY STRIKES ARE NOT WORKING

Hezbollah hit Israel’s north 1,300 times in August, most in one month since Oct. 7

The figure marked an increase of 400% compared to January. 

 

JNS

Sep 5, 2024

 

An Israeli firefighter walks near smoke and fire following over-border rockets launching to Israel from Lebanon, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

August was the most intense month in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group so far, with more than 1,300 attacks on the Jewish state recorded, authorities said on Thursday.

According to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), Hezbollah terrorists fired no fewer than 1,307 rockets, missiles and drones last month, up 20% from July.

The figure included the some 320 missiles and drones fired as part of Hezbollah’s Aug. 25 attack, which the terrorist organization said came in retaliation for Israel’s targeted killing of top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

The Shin Bet recorded 855 attacks in June, 1,000 in May, 744 in April, 746 in March, and 534 in February. The August figure marked an increase of 400% compared to January, when 334 projectiles were launched across Israel’s northern border.

Between the start of the Hezbollah attacks on Oct. 8 and Dec. 31, a total of 2,000 attacks were recorded.

Hezbollah has attacked the Jewish state nearly every day since Oct. 8, firing thousands of rockets, missiles and drones at Israel, killing more than 40 people and causing widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain internally displaced due to the ongoing violence.

Shortly before midnight in Israel on Wednesday night, the Israeli Air Force said that it hit more than 10 Hezbollah “military infrastructures and launchers” at three sites in Southern Lebanon.

The launchers “posed a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel,” the IAF said.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah fired 65 rockets from Lebanon into Israel.

HUNTER BIDEN ROLLS OVER

By Bob Walsh

It is being reported as I type this that Hunter Biden is copping to the tax charges against him.  

I am GUESSING this is to keep the whole Biden mess out of the election cycle, and that Joe has agreed to pardon him, or at least commute his sentence, on his way out the door.  After all, if he pleads out, none of the actual evidence has to be presented.  Therefore it mostly doesn't make it into the news.

All things considered that is a fairly smart move.  I wonder if somebody made him an offer he couldn't refuse?  (Actually I don't wonder, there is no doubt in my mind that that is what happened.)

FEDERAL JUDGE RULES AGAINST N.M. FREEZ-OUT OF REPUBLICANS

By Bob Walsh

 

 

There is a group in New Mexico (and 31 other states) called the Voter Reference Foundation.  They are backed by the Republican party and are essentially conservative and opposed to illegal voting.  The state has refused to provide public record information to this group.  

U .S District Court Judge James Browning has just ruled that the state can not refuse to supply the information and that referring the matter to the state prosecutors was inappropriate.

The state intends to appeal the ruling.

The organization operates a web site, VoteRef.com  

THIS IS REALLY FUNNY

Tim Walz's family members reveal they are backing TRUMP in bombshell leaked photo

 

Daily Mail 

Sep 4, 2023

 

A new image of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz's family shows a portion that are supporting his rival in November. 

Eight members of Walz's family posed for a photo wearing 'Nebraska Walz's for Trump' shirts while standing in front of a 'Trump 2024 - Take America Back' flag. 

The photo was initially shared by a friend of the family with a representative for former Nebraska gubernatorial candidate Charles W. Herbster, who first posted the image to X on Wednesday.

KAMALA NOT READY FOR THE JOB OF COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF -- AND NEVER WILL BE

Cowardly Kamala has just failed her first test to be president! DAN MCLAUGHLIN says Harris's pathetic response to Hamas's execution of an American should terrify everyone

 

By Dan Mclaughlin

 

Daily Mail

Sep 4, 2024

 

Kamala Harris hasn't had many chances to show what type of commander-in-chief she'd be if given the opportunity. 

 

Kamala Harris hasn't had many chances to show what type of commander-in-chief she'd be if given the opportunity.

Judging by her reaction to the murder of an American hostage by Hamas, she's not ready for the job – and never will be.

Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen, was one of six hostages executed by Hamas in Gaza this weekend.

The 23-year-old, a California native living in Jerusalem, was snatched from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7.

A young woman, who huddled with him in a bunker as the terrorists attacked that day, said he protected her by throwing Hamas's grenades out of their hiding place – before one of the bombs blew off his arm below the elbow.

 

The 23-year-old, a California native living in Jerusalem, was snatched from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7.

 

The IDF believes he was executed along with the others as Israeli forces closed in on their captors.

Two weeks since officially accepting the Democratic Party nomination, this was Harris's first real foreign policy test.

But here was her milquetoast tweet on Sunday: 'As [President Biden] said, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes… It is long past time for a ceasefire and hostage deal. We need to bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza.'

That, of course, is painfully obvious – and utterly useless.

Everyone in the U.S. and Israel wants the hostages home. And it doesn't take a foreign policy genius to see that peace is always preferable.

But how do we achieve it?

Israel cannot be expected to settle for anything less than the complete destruction of Hamas's ability to stage another October 7.

Yet, for 11 months, an agreement has been maddeningly elusive.

And Harris offers no breakthrough solutions – only banal platitudes and cowardly equivocation.

In March, she threatened 'consequences' for Israel if it entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah to try to rescue the hostages.

'We have been clear in multiple conversations and in every way that any major military operation in Rafah would be a huge mistake,' she said.

 

A young woman, who huddled with Goldberg-Polin in a bunker as the terrorists attacked that day, said he protected her by throwing Hamas's grenades out of their hiding place – before one of the bombs blew off his arm below the elbow (seen above in hostage video released by Hamas on April 24, 2024). 

Here was her milquetoast tweet on Sunday: 'As [President Biden] said, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes… It is long past time for a ceasefire and hostage deal.'

 

In late July, she refused to preside over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the US Congress – one of her few responsibilities as vice president.

After meeting with the Israeli leader in private, Harris insulted him further - saying she'd warned Netanyahu that she 'will not be silent' about 'the dire humanitarian situation' facing the Palestinians.

Just hours before Goldberg-Polin's body was found this week, sources close to the Vice President told the Washington Post that she 'could be open to imposing conditions on some aid to Israel.'

She has managed to give anti-Israel activists the impression from private meetings that she would support an arms embargo against Netanyahu's government.

Her spokespeople deny that – for now.

But her campaign appears happy to keep winking in that direction.

Now, the White House reportedly proposes to present Israel and Hamas with a 'take it or leave it' ceasefire deal.

And what are they doing to put more pressure on Hamas?

Nothing.

Reporters asked President Biden on Monday if he thought Netanyahu had done enough to secure a deal with Hamas to release the captives.

He said 'no' and shuffled off without elaborating.

At least four other American citizens are believed to be still held alive in Gaza; Edan Alexander, 20; Sagui Dekel-Chen, 35; Omer Neutra, 22; and Keith Siegel, 64.

Three others are presumed dead. Their bodies have not been recovered.

Maybe, Mr. President and Madame VP, you should demand that Hamas free the hostages immediately without precondition?

But Harris and Biden dodge the issue — too scared of their own domestic critics to take a side and too unsure of their own power to exercise it with conviction.

 

Hours before Goldberg-Polin's body was found this week, sources close to the Vice President told the Washington Post that she 'could be open to imposing conditions on some aid to Israel.' (Above) Jonathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin

In March, Harris threatened 'consequences' for Israel if it entered the southern Gaza city of Rafah to try to rescue the hostages. 

 

In 1853, an American citizen named Martin Koszta was abducted in Turkey by Austrian agents.

As a result of Koszta's imprisonment, American captain Duncan Ingraham threatened to open fire on an Austrian ship in the Turkish harbor if Koszta wasn't immediately surrendered to them.

Lo and behold, he was released.

Today, the Biden White House is working overtime to paint Harris as some sort of shadow president advising Biden and making the tough calls behind the scenes.

The administration is releasing photos of her in the Situation Room and adding her name to official reports of Biden's calls with foreign leaders, such as Netanyahu and China's Xi Jinping.

They're sensitive to the reality that the Democratic Party's nominee for president has scant foreign policy experience, as the world burns around them.

The only international emergencies she has touched – as 'border czar' overseeing America's illegal immigration calamity and as the last person to advise Biden before his calamitous decision to hastily yank US forces from Afghanistan – were unmitigated disasters.

Now, we can add the unending war in Gaza to her resume of fatal failures.

TO END HEZBOLLAH'S DAILY ROCKET BARRAGES, ISRAEL NEEDS TO TURN INTO RUBBLE EVERYTHING SOUTH OF THE LITANI RIVER IN LEBANON

Hezbollah pounds Galilee with over 100 rockets, causing heavy damage but no injuries

Home in Kiryat Shmona takes direct hit, with owner saying his parents’ home was hit when he was a kid; firefighters tackle blazes sparked by rockets

 

By Emanuel Fabian

 

The Times of Israel

Sep 4, 2024

 

Israeli security forces at the scene where a missile fired from Lebanon hit a home in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, September 4, 2024

 

More than 100 rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel on Wednesday, sparking fires and causing damage but no injuries, authorities said.

Within an hour just before noon, some 65 rockets were launched from Lebanon at the Galilee Panhandle area, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Several rockets impacted the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, causing damage to at least one home, local authorities said.

The IDF said some of the rockets were intercepted by air defenses. Others hit open areas, sparking fires. Firefighters were working to extinguish the blazes.

The Iran-backed Lebanese terror group Hezbollah took responsibility for the barrage, claiming to have targeted Israeli military positions.

Later in the day, one projectile was fired from Lebanon at the border community of Shtula, and another five rockets were launched at Zar’it in the Western Galilee, according to the IDF.

In the evening hours, the IDF said that one anti-tank guided missile was fired from Lebanon at the Kiryat Shmona area, and a barrage of some 30 rockets was launched at the Galilee Panhandle.

The military said that some of the rockets were intercepted while others impacted open areas, sparking fires near Kfar Blum.

There were no injuries in the attacks, claimed by Hezbollah.

 

The Iron Dome air defense system intercepts rockets fired from Lebanon at northern Israel, September 4, 2024.

 

Israeli fighter jets struck also Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon Kounine and Qabrikha, which were used in previous attacks on Israel, the IDF said.

The military released footage of the strikes.

Later Wednesday, the IDF said that it struck a building in southern Lebanon’s Houla where several Hezbollah operatives were identified.

Eliezer Peretz, whose home in Kiryat Shmona was struck by a rocket, told the Walla news outlet that he had been in the northern city of Safed, where he runs a market stall, when he received a call from his municipality telling him that his home had taken a direct hit.

Peretz said he had still not seen the damage but that officials told him it was heavy.

“This is really hard,” Peretz said, explaining that it was a brand new home for him and his family.

“My wife and I put a lot of energy and money into it,” he said. “This is a really harsh situation and you can’t get used to it.”

“The important thing is that we are healthy and well,” he said. “What was destroyed we will rebuild.”

As a child growing up in the city, he said his parents’ home had also been hit by a rocket from Lebanon.

“I grew up in this reality,” he said.

The Peretz family, along with the rest of Kirya Shmona, was evacuated to a hotel in Tiberias when fighting in the north started last year. Tens of thousands of northern residents were moved to safer areas and have still not returned to their homes.

 

Security forces at the scene where a missile fired from Lebanon hit an open area near the northern city of Kiryat Shmona, September 4, 2024. 

Earlier Wednesday, the IDF said it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher in southern Lebanon’s Zibqin, used in a previous attack on Israel. Buildings used by Hezbollah in Khiam and Ayta ash-Shab were also struck, the military added.

Meanwhile, overnight, a drone heading toward Israel from the eastern direction was shot down by air defenses, the IDF said.

The military said the drone did not enter Israeli airspace.

The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq took responsibility for launching the drone, claiming it tried to target the Haifa port.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed dozens of drone attacks on Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with the IDF reporting downing many of them. Many of the militia’s claims have been exaggerated, but in one case it managed to hit an Israeli Navy base in Eilat, causing damage.

 

The Iron Dome air defense system intercepts rockets fired from Lebanon at northern Israel, September 4, 2024.

 

Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war against the Hamas terror group there. More than 8,000 rockets have been fired at Israel from Lebanon since the start of the war.

So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 26 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 20 IDF soldiers and reservists. There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.

Hezbollah has named 432 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. Another 76 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have also been killed.

War in Gaza erupted when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. The 3,000 terrorists who burst into the country also abducted 251 people who were taken hostage to Gaza.

Israel responded with a military campaign to destroy Hamas, topple its Gaza regime, and rescue the hostages.

International mediators are striving to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. Ending the fighting in Gaza is seen as a key step toward calming the situation in the north, where the spiraling violence has stoked fears it could explode into a full-blown war.

THE WEST BANK IS CONTROLLED BY TERRORISTS, NOT BY THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Gallant: IDF ‘mowing the lawn’ in West Bank, but will need to ‘pull out the roots’

Defense minister details major crackdown aimed at tackling rise of terror; says all terror operatives must be eliminated or, if they surrender, arrested

 

By Emanuel Fabian

 

The Times of Israel

Sep 4, 2024

 

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant meets with the chief of the IDF Central Command, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth (right) and the commander of the West Bank division, Brig. Gen. Yaki Dolf (left), at an army base in the northern West Bank 

 

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that the military has been “mowing the lawn” during an ongoing major operation against terror groups in the West Bank, but will eventually need to “pull out the roots.”

The operation — internally dubbed “Summer Camps” by the army — began on August 28 with simultaneous raids on Jenin, Tulkarem and the Far’a camp near Tubas, with the goal of dismantling Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror networks in the three areas of the northern West Bank.

Following an assessment in the West Bank with senior IDF officers, Gallant said that “the rise of terror in Judea and Samaria is an issue that we need to be focused on at every moment.” He was calling the West Bank by its biblical name.

“The process is an attack to prevent terror. We are mowing the lawn, [but] the moment will also come when we will pull out the roots, that must be done,” he said.

“The rise [in terror] that comes in the form of car bombs and shooting everywhere, these are things that need to be put to an end,” he added.

“These terror organizations that call themselves by all kinds of names, in Nur Shams, or Tulkarm, or Far’a, or Jenin — they [the terror groups] should be wiped out. Every such terrorist should be eliminated, [or] if they surrender, arrest them. There is no other option, use all the forces, everyone who is needed, with full strength.”

 

IDF troops are seen along a torn-up street in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, September 2, 2024. 

 

The defense minister said he had ordered the military to carry out airstrikes “wherever necessary” in order to “avoid endangering soldiers.”

So far, according to the IDF, more than 30 gunmen have been killed in the operation, among them the head of Hamas in Jenin and the head of Islamic Jihad in the Tulkarem area.

The raid in Far’a has since concluded, but troops have pressed on with operations in Jenin, a known terror hub. The IDF also relaunched operations in Tulkarem, after leaving the city for several days.

On Wednesday, the IDF released footage of it demolishing a bomb-making lab in Tulkarem amid an ongoing operation there.

Another clip released by the military shows an explosive device planted under a road in Tulkarem being neutralized by troops.

The IDF said it also located a bomb hidden in a baby carriage in the area.

 

This image released by the IDF on September 4, 2024, shows an explosive device planted in a baby carriage in the West Bank city of Tulkarem. 

On Wednesday, an AFP journalist in Jenin reported seeing empty streets, with residents leaving their homes only to purchase necessities.

The streets were strewn with the rubble of overturned asphalt as armored military vehicles rumbled past.

Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp — where army bulldozers destroyed infrastructure — have long been strongholds of Palestinian terror groups.

The IDF has said it is working to uncover explosive devices planted under the roads, while also allowing municipal workers to repair the damaged infrastructure.

 

IDF troops are seen operating in the West Bank city of Jenin. September 2, 2024. 

Violence in the West Bank has surged in the past year, following the October 7, Hamas terror onslaught in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were massacred and 251 were taken hostage.

Since that date, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,000 affiliated with Hamas.

According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 670 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 29 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.

BUT HEZBOLLAH CONTINUES TO FIRE ITS DAILY ROCKET BARRAGES AT ISRAEL

Reshaping the battlefield: How thwarting attacks from Iran and Lebanon changes the game

Israel's ability to neutralize threats both defensively and offensively, near and far, is forcing our neighbors to reconsider their strategies – it's time to craft a new security doctrine.

 

By Zvika Haimovich  

 

Israel Hayom

Sep 4, 2024

 

The Israeli Iron Dome defense system fires to intercept an attack from Lebanon over the Galilee region on Sunday, August 4, 2024      

                               

The night of April 14 marked Iran's retaliation for the elimination of the Revolutionary Guards' Lebanon-Syria Corps commander in Damascus two weeks earlier – an attack successfully intercepted by Israel and its allies. On August 25, Israel launched a preemptive strike to neutralize Hezbollah's planned response to the killing of its chief of staff, Fouad Shukr, three and a half weeks prior. These two events form a crucial turning point in Israel's evolving strategy.

These incidents convey two crucial messages. First, the offensive actions planned by Iran and Hezbollah were thwarted – one through defensive measures, the other through impressive offensive capabilities of the Air Force and Intelligence Division. Both instances highlighted a significant gap between our adversaries' intentions and capabilities versus the actual results.

Second, the IDF's intelligence capabilities (which faced justified criticism after Oct. 7) demonstrated remarkable accuracy and penetrability of our enemies' plans. This ranged from uncovering initial intentions to understanding the timing down to the day and hour.

The triad: Deterrence, intelligence, and offensive capability

The events of April and August have far-reaching implications. They're part of the IDF's effort to restore deterrence across the region. This deterrence is built on intelligence capabilities that identify high-value targets, coupled with formidable military power in both defense and offense. These factors challenge our adversaries, forcing them to reevaluate their strategies, target selection, and timing. Adding to this is the unwavering US support for Israel – in defense, offense, and on the international stage.

 

  

An Iranian ballistic missile retrieved from the Dead Sea after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, at Julis military base, in southern Israel April 16, 2024. 

 

Deterrence, though it became a contentious term after Oct. 7, remains crucial and relevant. It will continue to play a central role in the security doctrine being reshaped in the wake of the Iron Swords War. When enemies repeatedly see their plans foiled and face severe consequences – with distance (be it Yemen or Iran) no longer providing safety – they're compelled to change tactics. Our challenge then becomes staying vigilant and sharp enough to identify these shifts, lest we fall into outdated thinking that leads to misconceptions.

However, actions alone, no matter how significant, aren't enough. We need to build a comprehensive system that can maximize, analyze, and translate the implications of these operations into an adaptive operational strategy.

In the post-Oct. 7 reality, such moves carry even greater weight. They're essential for restoring the IDF's capabilities and perception – both externally against our enemies and internally within Israel. While they lay an excellent foundation for change, they must be accompanied by complementary measures. Only then can we say we've truly learned from Oct. 7 and are actively reshaping the security landscape in our region.

If we've chosen to alter the security situation in the north without resorting to all-out regional war – which seems to be the preference of the Israeli government and others – then simply creating a sense of vulnerability through targeted eliminations as seen in both the April and August incidents won't suffice. Even proactive threat removal and weakening enemy capabilities – while important – aren't enough on their own. Although the operation on August 25 offered a chance to disrupt Hezbollah's plans more extensively than they had anticipated in their planned response.

The April and August events draw a clear line – one of intelligence, lethality, deterrence, and the dawn of a new reality. Our success will be measured by how effectively we capitalize on these opportunities to keep reshaping the strategic landscape.

WITH AID NOW FLOWING INTO GAZA IN INCREDIBLE QUANTITIES, HAMAS IS NO LONGER IN ANY RUSH TO MAKE A DEAL

Starve them out: Israeli generals present “plan to defeat Hamas”

Two-phased “Generals’ Plan” calls for the forced evacuation of northern Gaza and a total siege on the terrorists who remain there.

 

By Ryan Jones

 

Israel Today

Sep 4, 2024

 

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Giora Eiland is the former head of the Israeli National Security Council, a post he held from 2004 to 2006. 

A forum of top Israeli army reserve commanders this morning published a “plan to defeat Hamas” that is certain to raise eyebrows.

The plan was presented in a video clip that went viral on social media by Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Giora Eiland, a former national security advisor and one of Israel’s leading defense experts. Eiland explained that the tactics being employed in Gaza over recent months aren’t getting the job done, either in terms of defeating Hamas or securing the return of the remaining hostages.

“There’s nothing that a dictator fears more than an angry mob,” Eiland said, explaining that the successful hostage deal in November of last year was made possible by the fact that Israel was allowing a mere two trucks of aid into Gaza every day until that point. One of Hamas’s chief demands in those negotiations was to increase the number of daily aid truck deliveries to 200.

With aid now flowing into Gaza in incredible quantities, Hamas is no longer in any rush to make a deal.

What Eiland and his fellow generals in the “Forum of Reservist Commanders” propose is a firm siege on northern Gaza leading to the surrender or death of the 5,000 Hamas terrorists remaining there.

What’s being called “The Generals’ Plan” calls for the evacuation of the 300,000 civilians still in northern Gaza (Gaza City) via two tightly-controlled corridors, following by a total siege that permits no aid to enter the area. Any remaining Hamas forces can either lay down their arms, or die.

“As long as Hamas receives and controls the humanitarian aid, it cannot be defeated,” explained Col. (res.) Hezi Nahama in remarks to Ma’ariv. “The Generals’ Plan is the right way at this time to defeat Hamas and free the hostages, and we should have implemented it months ago. Those who cannot implement it are failing in their duty and will not be able to lead the IDF and the State of Israel to defeat Hamas,” he added in a swipe at the current political and military leadership.

If after northern Gaza is fully cleansed of the terrorist threat Hamas continues to fight, the same plan can be implemented in other areas like Khan Yunis and Rafah.

International law

The Generals’ Plan takes into account the fact that international actors like the United States and United Nations would undoubtedly oppose it by explaining:

Imposing a siege on a trapped enemy is legitimate and permitted under the strictest interpretations of international law. The required condition for implementing the siege is providing civilians a reasonable opportunity to leave the area through safe corridors before it is imposed. A siege is the most effective way to end wars quickly while minimizing casualties on both sides, including civilian deaths on the opposing side.

The US Department of Defense’s war manual and a 2022 Harvard University conference on siege warfare unequivocally state that siege is a legitimate and permissible tactic of war, including starving the enemy to death, as long as necessary steps are taken to assist non-combatants, with priority given to evacuating them from the besieged area.

Need for sound tactics

In a radio interview yesterday, Eiland criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his disjointed approach to the Gaza war, and urged Israel’s leaders to adopt sound tactics and strategies that can lead to real victory.

In particular Eiland noted that Neatnyahu’s position on the Philadelphi Corridor (Gaza-Egypt border) isn’t helpful without a broader strategy of occupation. And Israel simply doesn’t have deployed the number of forces needed to hold Gaza long-term.

Siege warfare is the only way forward, Eiland insisted.

“There is no chance of achieving victory while massive amounts of supplies are entering Gaza, which enables the population to get used to their situation,” he said. What’s worse, Hamas is still able to easily recruit new fighters in Gaza because it controls the flow of international aid, taking what it needs for itself, and selling the rest at inflated prices, which in turn enables it to offer unheard of pay to a desperate population.

“We have hit their military capabilities and some of their senior commanders, but this does not fundamentally change the situation,” Eiland stressed. “There is no real pressure on [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, and he will not agree to any deal” until is made desperate.

THE TWO-STATE SOLUTION IS FITTING A SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE

Friedman: US pressure on Israel reduces chances of regional peace

The Biden administration thinks that such pressure improves the chances of Israel-Saudi peace, but it actually does the opposite, said the former ambassador to Israel. 

 

By Alex Traiman and Etgar Lefkovits

 

JNS

Sep 4, 2024

 

Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman

 

Israel’s decisive defeat of Hamas in Gaza will facilitate regional peace with Saudi Arabia, whereas failure to achieve such a result is thwarting a deal, according to former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

Friedman, who served under former President Donald Trump when the Abraham Accords were signed four years ago, told JNS that U.S. pressure on Israel regarding the war was making the chances of regional peace more remote.

“Being a strong regional superpower that can manage its borders is what is admired in the Arab world,” he said in an interview with JNS. “The Saudis want to see a strong Israel defeating [the two countries’] common enemies.”

The Biden administration thought, he continued, “that by limiting Israel’s ability to prosecute the war they were preserving the opportunity for peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia; just the opposite. What makes the Arab world pay attention to Israel is Israel’s strength against the enemies their countries face as well. If you reduce that strength, you reduce the prospect of normalization.”

Motivated by hatred with or without the Saudis

The former ambassador, who conceded that no one could have imagined that the war against Hamas would drag on for nearly a year, downplayed assessments that terrorists carried out the Oct. 7 massacre to thwart an emerging deal with Saudi Arabia.

“They did it because they could,” he said. “Their motivation was hatred, with or without the Saudi initiative, and they did it because Israel let its guard down.”

Friedman voiced pessimism regarding a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, despite recent remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden and top administration officials that a deal was close.

“I am not optimistic that they will ever make a deal,” he said.

A second term?

Friedman, who is based in the United States but travels to Israel several times a year for his “spiritual health,” said the Oct. 7 attacks have made him want his old job back, should Trump be re-elected in November.

“There is unfinished business, and course correction after four years of the Biden administration,” he said.

A proponent of Israeli sovereignty over the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria with local autonomy for Palestinians, Friedman said Israel needs to change the deeply entrenched international paradigm of a two-state solution, which he called “fitting a square peg in a round hole,” by first changing its own mindset.

There must be a serious national discussion and consensus on the issue in Israel, he said, noting that it has been relegated to the Israeli far right, who he said have no credibility on the issue and don’t speak for the mainstream public at large.

“There is a vacuum on this issue … and leadership is not in place to make this happen,” he said.

NETANYAHU'S POLITICAL OPPONENTS HAVE ESSENTIALLY HIJACKED THE 'BRING THEM HOME' DEMONSTATIONS

Don’t confuse Washington’s Netanyahu-bashing with those of Israeli critics

By pressuring Israel rather than Hamas and their enablers, the Biden-Harris administration has given aid and comfort to the hostages’ murderers. 

 

By Jonathan S. Tobin

 

JNS

Sep 4, 2024

 

 

Biden and Harris are sticking to Obama’s failed formula for the Middle East that has already cost so many lives in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. 

 

After 11 months of second-guessing, sabotaging and undermining the Israeli effort to defeat Hamas, President Joe Biden doubled down on his administration’s policy that has been so beneficial to the terrorists. His declaration that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure a deal to release the remaining hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 was very much in line with the entire tenor of Washington’s approach to the conflict. Coming in the wake of the announcement that six of the remaining hostages had been murdered, including one American, Hersh Goldberg-Polin,  in cold blood by Hamas, the implication pointed to Netanyahu’s supposedly tough stance in the negotiations as the cause of their deaths and not the diabolical intentions of their Hamas captors.

This is entirely outrageous. Blaming Netanyahu for the murders of the hostages, whether implicitly or directly, is giving Hamas a pass for its latest act of barbarism. Hamas is a genocidal criminal organization that has rejected every ceasefire proposal since the initial pause last fall. The idea that Netanyahu is somehow responsible for their crimes because he hasn’t abandoned the effort to ensure that Oct. 7 cannot be repeated—as it most certainly would be if conditions like an Israeli withdrawal from crucial points in the Gaza Strip like the Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt—is sheer madness.

Yet in understanding the pressure campaign being mounted on the Israeli leader by the administration, it’s important to grasp one key fact about this controversy. Though liberal corporate mainstream media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN conflate Washington’s anti-Bibi campaign with Israeli protests against the prime minister, that is a deliberate misreading of the situation.

The Israeli protests have gotten considerable publicity and are supported by the country’s left-wing establishment that still resents Netanyahu, and his nationalist/religious and Mizrachi supporters. They want a hostage deal apparently at any price, even if it wouldn’t mean freedom for all of the captives. And they also want Netanyahu out of office.

Washington’s political motivations

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris share the latter objective and, in principle, they want the hostages freed. But their motivations are very different from those of most of Netanyahu’s domestic critics. What they want is an end to the war against Hamas. And they want it for two reasons.

Part of the impetus for U.S. pressure on Netanyahu is purely political.

Since the opening weeks of the war, the Democratic Party has been badly split on both the issue of support for Israel and the objective of eradicating Hamas, which Biden initially endorsed after Oct. 7 and from which he has been gradually backing away ever since. Both when they were promoting Biden’s since dropped bid for re-election and the coup that replaced him with Harris, the leadership of the Democratic Party has behaved as if unifying their party is the primary goal.

By that, they mean keeping their intersectional anti-Israel left wing on the reservation rather than opposing the ticket because of what they perceive as the administration’s insufficient hostility to Israel. To that end, they have expended considerable effort to appease the antisemitic pro-Hamas Arab voting bloc in the swing state of Michigan. They have also signaled left-wingers elsewhere, including the pro-Hamas mobs on college campuses that in Biden’s words “have a point” and according to Harris should be “heard.”

Pro-Israel Democrats have made their peace with this because they share the objective of defeating former President Donald Trump in November and can point to the continuing flow of U.S. military aid to Israel, even if it is being slow-walked rather than expedited.

That notwithstanding, above all, the goal for Washington is to end the fighting in Gaza and preclude the outbreak of full-scale war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, at almost any cost. The sooner the guns are silenced, the quicker they can put the whole issue behind them and preclude losing the far more numerous pro-Israel voters in the American political center in the election.

But their motives are not entirely about the November election. The position of Biden and Harris is just as much a function of the guiding ideology of the foreign policy pursued by former President Barack Obama.

An obstacle to appeasing Iran

Obama clashed with Netanyahu because he was an obstacle to his most important foreign-policy goal: appeasement of Iran and a realignment of the Middle East away from America’s traditional allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia. That was the chief reason for the decision to bow to Tehran’s demands and conclude the 2015 nuclear deal that guaranteed that Iran would eventually get a nuclear bomb.

The same policies were behind Biden’s efforts to revive that deal, which Trump abandoned in 2018 exert a “maximum pressure” campaign on the Iranians to force them to abandon their nuclear ambitions. That was cut short by the election of Biden in 2020. Even when Biden’s effort to revive it failed—since the Islamist regime felt it could get closer to its objective by not signing an even weaker deal than the one Obama had embraced—the Obama alumni who ran American policy since January 2021 still stuck to the same theme. That’s why they pressured Israel (then under the administration of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid) to appease Hezbollah by surrendering natural gas fields along the border with Lebanon. They also removed the Houthis in Yemen from the list of foreign terrorist organizations and forced the Saudis to abandon their war against them. That’s a decision that has come back to haunt the West in the form of the Houthis successful interdiction of international shipping in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.

And they are now prepared to allow northern Israel to be depopulated by Hezbollah’s incessant firing of rockets and missiles rather than take action that might offend the terrorist group’s masters in Tehran.

On top of that, they are still holding onto the myth of the two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. That would repeat the catastrophic mistakes that led to the creation of a Hamas terrorist state in Gaza by replicating the situation in Judea and Samaria, directly endangering the existence of what would be left of Israel after a repartition of the country to create yet another Palestinian state.

What the Israeli protesters want

Though the vitriol being spewed against Netanyahu and his domestic opponents may seem in sync with Biden-Harris policies, it’s easy to see that the American objectives are not shared by the overwhelming majority of Israelis, including many, if not most of those demonstrating against the prime minister.

Many Israelis have taken to the streets in the wake of the discovery of the bodies of six hostages murdered by Hamas. They are demanding a hostage deal “now” and blaming the lack of one on Netanyahu. It may seem as if they are operating from the same talking points as Biden and Harris, but that assumption is entirely misleading.

What Israelis want

At this point, Netanyahu’s domestic opponents fall into two categories.

On the one hand are hostage families who are desperate for Israel’s government to do anything to retrieve their loved ones. It should be understood that those who have spoken out against Netanyahu do not represent all of the families. Some of them have supported the prime minister’s stand in which he seeks to balance the obligation to ransom the hostages with the need to protect the country’s security and, by extension the lives of 8 million people, in addition to those who remain in the hands of the Oct. 7 murderers. But the latter has gotten little attention from the leftist-dominated Israeli press or the international media.

The hostage families are entitled to say what they want, no matter how over the top their rhetoric. Who among us wouldn’t trade the world, let alone a victory for Hamas, to secure the return of our loved ones?

But what must be understood is that Netanyahu’s political opponents have essentially hijacked the demonstrations. Their goal is simple: ousting Netanyahu from office and reversing the outcome of the November 2022 Knesset elections. Their disingenuous complaints about the government’s since-abandoned plans for judicial reform, responsibility for the Oct. 7 disaster or simply being too concerned about preventing Hamas from surviving and striking again to agree to a hostage deal at any price were all a pretext to their wanted result.

That doesn’t mean that even many of those demonstrating against Netanyahu share Biden’s and Harris’ worries about offending antisemites in Michigan, or their goal of appeasing Iran and creating a Palestinian state.

As even The New York Times conceded in an article last week, these positions are utterly rejected by mainstream Israeli opinion, including many of Netanyahu’s political foes at home.

Outside of the long-since marginalized far left, even those Israelis who loathe Netanyahu oppose the Biden administration’s positions on ending the conflict in such a way as to enable Hamas to reconstitute and resupply (via the crucial border with Egypt) itself after a ceasefire.

Most Israelis understand that had Biden stuck to his initial position of strong support, the defeat of Hamas would have been made possible and accomplished faster, and at the cost of fewer lives on both sides. And they also realize that pressuring Netanyahu—and not Hamas and its enablers in Qatar and elsewhere—is part of the problem.

By pursuing its vendetta against Netanyahu rather than supporting Israel, the administration has undermined U.S. interests in the region and given aid and comfort to the terrorists. Rather than supporting Israelis or the hostages, Biden and Harris are sticking to Obama’s failed formula for the Middle East that has already cost so many lives in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen. In doing so, they may think they are bolstering their party’s election prospects and achieving Obama’s long-sought ambition for a realignment in the Middle East. But that has nothing to do with saving the hostages or bringing peace to the region.

THE NAZIS EXTERMINATED OVER 90 PERCENT OF POLAND'S JEWISH POPULATION OF 3.3 MILLION IN THE HOLOCAUST

March of the Living marks 80 years since liquidation of Lodz Ghetto

More than 200,000 Jews passed through the ghetto, the vast majority of whom were sent to their deaths. 

 

JNS

Sep 3, 2024

 

Some 500 participants, including Polish officials and ambassadors from 12 countries, marked 80 years since the liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto as part of a march and ceremony in central Poland on Aug. 29, 2024. 

 

The International March of the Living held a joint March of Remembrance and March of the Living last week to mark 80 years since the liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto, the second-largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe after Warsaw during World War II.

The event gathered 500 participants, including Polish officials and ambassadors from 12 countries, to honor the memory of those who suffered and perished during one of the darkest chapters of history.

The ceremony was held at the historic Radegast train station, where the last transport from the ghetto departed 80 years ago on Aug. 29, 1944. This transport marked the final phase of the ghetto’s liquidation, during which thousands of Jews were deported to extermination camps, including Auschwitz and Chelmno.

 

Polish Jews herded to death camps

 

“We gather to remember those who suffered in the Lodz Ghetto and to share some lesser-known stories of resilience, courage and strength. Our aim at the March of the Living is to educate the young generation to learn from the tragic past of the Holocaust, in order to build a better future. We must ensure that what happened during the Holocaust is never forgotten,” said Michel Gourary, director of the European March of the Living.

Participants of the march walked the historic route that once bore witness to the suffering of the ghetto’s inhabitants. At the Radegast station, wreaths were laid and prayers offered in memory of the victims. The ceremony was followed by a march to the Monument to the Martyrdom of Children, the Monument to Poles Saving Jews in the Survivors’ Park and the Roma Forge, ending at the Monument to the Decalogue in Lodz.

A number of aging Holocaust survivors attended, including 98-year-old Leon Weintraub, who survived the ghetto, four concentration camps and a death march; and Marian Turski, who insisted on joining the ceremony and marching together with those assembled.

The Lodz Ghetto in central Poland, established in February 1940, was one of the most significant sites of Jewish suffering and resistance during the Holocaust. At its peak, it housed more than 160,000 Jews, who were forced into labor under brutal conditions. Despite the deprivation, the community maintained cultural and educational activities, a testament to their determination to preserve their humanity.

By the time the ghetto was liquidated in 1944, more than 200,000 Jews had passed through it, the vast majority of whom were sent to their deaths. The destruction of Polish Jewry was nearly complete by the end of the war, with over 90% of Poland’s pre-war Jewish population of 3.3 million perishing in the Holocaust.

The march took place as part of March of the Living’s regular memorial events throughout Europe on the local and national Holocaust memorial days where Jews lived and perished. The organization’s flagship program is a seven-day educational journey in Poland which culminates in a symbolic march on the Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) between Auschwitz and Birkenau.

DON'T BE FOOLED BY THE HUGE TURNOUTS OF PROTESTERS IN TEL AVIV ..... THEIR PROTESTS ARE NOT ABOUT RETURN OF THE HOSTAGES, THEIR REAL GOAL IS TO OUST NETANYAHU

JNS poll: Majority of Israelis back Netanyahu on Philadelphi, oppose protests

The Israeli premier's positions are supported not only by coalition voters, but by about a third of opposition voters, according to the survey. 

 

By Caroline B. Glick

 

JNS

Sep 4, 2024

 

 

View of the Philadelphi Corridor between the southern Gaza Strip and Egypt, on July 15, 2024.

 

An overwhelming majority of Israelis support Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s negotiation positions regarding a hostage deal with Hamas and oppose anti-government demonstrations in Tel Aviv demanding an immediate deal at any price, according to a new, in-depth JNS poll.

Netanyahu’s positions are supported not only by coalition-party voters, but also by approximately one third of voters for opposition parties, the survey found. 

Direct Polls conducted the survey on Monday evening both before and after the prime minister’s press conference, finding a significant disparity in Netanyahu’s favor in the latter sampling.

At the press conference, Netanyahu set out the rationale for his refusal to remove Israel Defense Forces troops from the border zone between Gaza and Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, its code name on IDF maps.

JNS asked respondents: “Do you believe Israel should support or oppose a deal that conditions the receipt of between 18-30 hostages on an IDF withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor for six weeks, during which Hamas will be able to rearm and smuggle hostages out of Gaza?”

Thirty-five percent of respondents overall said that Israel should agree to such a deal, while 62% opposed it. Three percent had no opinion.

Among coalition party voters, 7% supported withdrawing from the Gaza-Egypt border, compared to 62% of opposition voters. Ninety-two percent of coalition voters opposed the withdrawal and 33% of opposition voters opposed withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor.

Notably, 65% of opposition voters polled before the press conference supported withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor, and only 57% of opposition voters polled afterwards supported that position. Support for the withdrawal among coalition voters decreased from 8% to 5%.

The disparity between the way opposition party voters polled before and after Netanyahu’s press conference viewed mass anti-government protests on behalf of a hostage deal was even more apparent. Fifty-two percent of opposition party voters surveyed before Netanyahu’s press conference thought that the demonstrations advanced the goal of getting the hostages home. Thirty-two percent said that the demonstrations had no impact on whether or not a deal would be achieved that would get the hostages home. Sixteen percent said that the demonstrations decreased the chance of getting a hostage deal with Hamas.

After Netanyahu’s press conference, only 42% of opposition voters believed that the demonstrations increased the prospects for getting the hostages home. Thirty-nine percent said that the demonstrations didn’t affect their plight, and 19% said that the demonstrations decreased prospects for bringing them home.

Sixty-one percent of Israelis agreed with the sentence, “Only military pressure on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and planned military actions including hostage rescue operations can lead to the release of the hostages.” Thirty-three percent agreed that “Continuing IDF operations in the Gaza tunnels endangers the hostages’ lives.”

Israelis are sharply split over whether Netanyahu bears responsibility for the execution of the hostages. Opposition voters support the claim 69% to 28%, while coalition voters oppose it 94%-6%.

The hostage deal Netanyahu has accepted involves three phases. In the first phase Israel would agree to free hundreds of Hamas terrorists from prison and significantly draw back its forces from Gaza while accepting a six-week ceasefire. Hamas in exchange would free 18-30 hostages. In two later phases of the deal, Hamas would release the rest of the hostages—alive and dead—in exchange for the further release of terrorists from prison and continuation of the ceasefire.

JNS asked Israelis if they believed Hamas would be willing to release additional hostages in later phases of the deal or would refuse to release them. Sixty-nine percent of Israelis (88% of coalition voters and 50% of opposition voters) believe Hamas will not release additional hostages. Only 24% of Israelis (10% of coalition voters and 38% of opposition voters) said that Hamas will be willing to advance along the deal and release additional hostages.

In other words, 69% of Israelis believe that between 83 and 71 hostages would be left behind in Gaza indefinitely.

Hamas’s negotiating position is that Israel must remove all of its forces from Gaza, including from the 3 kilometer wide security perimeter within Gaza along the border with Israel, the Netzarim Corridor that separates central and southern Gaza from northern Gaza, and the Philadelphi Corridor.

Seventy-three percent of Israelis, (95% of coalition party voters and 51% of opposition party voters) oppose Hamas’s demands. Twenty-two percent of Israelis support it, (4% of coalition voters and 40% of opposition voters).

A majority of Israelis do not trust the Biden-Harris administration’s commitments to support Israel if Hamas breaches the ceasefire-for-hostages deal. In response to JNS’s question, “Do you believe that the Biden-Harris administration will permit or block Israel from reinstating hostilities and reconquering Gaza to defeat Hamas if Hamas breaches the agreement,” 38% of Israelis said the United States would permit Israel to renew military operations; 56% said the United States would block Israel from renewing its military operations in Gaza. Only 14% of coalition voters believed the Biden-Harris administration would support a renewal of operations, while 61% of opposition voters trusted the administration’s support. Eighty-one percent of coalition voters said the United States would prevent Israel from renewing its operations if Hamas breaches a ceasefire deal, compared to 31% of opposition party voters.

On Sunday, Arnon Bar-David, the chairman of Israel’s main labor union, the Histadrut, declared a general strike in order to force the government to accept a hostage deal at all costs. A Labor court ruled the strike illegal on Monday afternoon and ordered it stopped immediately. The damage to the economy from the lost work hours is assessed at 2 billion shekels ($541 million).

JNS asked the public whether they believed that the strike advanced a hostage deal, had no impact on prospects for a hostage deal or damaged prospects for a hostage deal. Eighteen percent said the strike increased the prospects for a deal, 32% said it had no impact and 50% said it harmed prospects for a deal.

The heads of the anti-government protest groups active since January 2023 and the Hostage Families Forum, which represents a few dozen hostage families, have been cooperating informally since Oct. 7. In December 2023, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, the unofficial leader of the anti-government political groups organizing the protests, called for the anti-government groups to work behind the hostages’ families. On Tuesday it was reported that Barak’s associates will begin officially cooperating with the Hostage Families Forum from now on, effectively merging the group representing a fraction of the hostages’ families with the anti-government protest movement.

JNS asked the public whether it believed that the anti-government protest groups have joined the hostages’ families groups in order mainly to help secure their release, mainly to overthrow the government or to advance both goals equally. Fifty-five percent of Israelis (90% of coalition voters and 20% of opposition voters) said that the anti-government groups are helping the Hostages’ Families Forum to overthrow the government.

Twenty percent of Israelis (3% of coalition voters and 37% of opposition voters) said the anti-government groups were supporting the Hostage Families Forum to secure the hostages’ release.

Twenty-four percent of Israelis (7% of coalition voters and 41% of opposition voters) believed they were helping the Hostage Families Forum to advance both goals equally.

In light of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s open opposition to the Security Cabinet’s decision to oppose all withdrawals from the Philadelphi Corridor, JNS asked whether Israelis believe he should quit or be fired, or whether he should remain in his position. Fifty-one percent of Israelis said that Gallant should be fired or resign.

Thirty-three percent (53% of coalition voters and 14% of opposition voters) said Gallant should resign.

Eighteen percent of Israelis (32% of coalition voters and 4% of opposition voters) said that Netanyahu should fire Gallant.

Forty-five percent of Israelis (13% of coalition voters and 76% of opposition voters) said he should remain in his position.

Similarly, 48% of Israelis believe that IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Hertzi Halevy should either resign immediately or in the next four weeks and 41% believe that he should leave when the war is over. Only 7% believe he should remain in his position until the official conclusion of his term in 2025.