https://x.com/simonateba/status/1786728854163243015?s= 42
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Kamala Harris’ Reaction to the Now-Dead Hamas Ceasefire Deal Was Summed Up in Three Words
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/By Matt Vespa
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Where the Hell Is Merrick Garland? 
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A Palestinian State Will Lead To More Massacres, Final Nail in Coffin Torpedoing Biden Legacy
by Bassam Tawil
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has repeatedly spoken of the need for a "pathway" for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. According to Blinken, a Palestinian state would have two positive effects: First, it would pave the way for a normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and second, it would "isolate" Iran and its terrorist proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
This is the same Blinken who has put pressure on Israel to refrain from a military operation to destroy the remaining four Hamas battalions in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. If the battalions are not destroyed, it means that Hamas will remain in power and that Israel will, by default, lose the war. Hamas would be able to rebuild its military and, as it has vowed, will repeat the October 7 attack, time and again, until Israel is annihilated.
In addition, a Hamas victory would catapult the terror group's power and popularity among Palestinians, as well as Hezbollah, the Houthis and other terrorist groups. A Hamas victory would accurately be seen globally as proof that terrorism not only works but is rewarded. A Hamas victory would also definitively seal the chances of Iran and Qatar continuing to control the Palestinian state that Blinken is so keen to establish – as is seemingly the Biden administration's intent.
Opinion polls conducted by Palestinian organizations have repeatedly shown that a majority of Palestinians vastly prefer Hamas to the Palestinian Authority's ruling Fatah faction of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Shortly after Hamas's October 7 atrocities, 57% of respondents in the Gaza Strip and 82% in the West Bank said the terrorist group was "correct" to launch the attack.
"The work that Saudi Arabia, the United States have been doing together in terms of our own agreements, I think, is potentially very close to completion," Blinken said during a recent visit to the Saudi capital of Riyadh. "But then in order to move forward with normalization, two things will be required -- calm in Gaza and a credible pathway to a Palestinian state."
Saudi Arabia and the US are reportedly working on the details of an agreement to boost bilateral trade and defense ties – but a deal will not happen unless the kingdom and Israel establish diplomatic ties, US officials say.
The US argument is that a defense pact would solidify the seven-decade security alliance between Saudi Arabia and the US, tying the two countries ever closer together as US adversaries such as Iran, Russia and China seek to expand their influence in the Middle East.
Speaking to reporters earlier this year after a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Blinken tried to claim that the region faces two paths. The first is "to integrate Israel, with security guarantees and commitments from the countries of the region and also the United State and [the second is] to create a Palestinian state — at least a path that leads to that state."
Blinken added that, in his view, strengthening Israel's security and creating a Palestinian state would be the best way to thwart attacks by Iran's regional proxies such as Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and various militias that have carried out attacks on US and foreign interests in Syria and Iraq.
By establishing a link between Israeli-Saudi normalization and the establishment of a Palestinian state, Blinken would also give the Palestinians a veto right on any peace deal between Israel and an Arab country.
Many Arab countries, of course, have already demonstrated that they are capable of making peace with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state.
If the Saudis were really interested in normalizing their relations with Israel, they could have done so long ago. Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is delaying the move, in part, reportedly, out of fear of facing a backlash from his own people. He may, however, also have serious reservations that he would prefer not to talk about in public.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan never made their normalization agreements with Israel conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state. The Saudis pay a lot of lip service to a Palestinian state but have done little, if anything, in the last eight decades to help the Palestinians achieve a state.
Long before the 2020 Abraham Accords, Egypt and Jordan signed peace treaties with Israel without insisting on the establishment of a Palestinian state. Decades later, those peace treaties are still in force, although no Palestinian state was ever established.
Like most Arabs, the Saudis could not care less about a Palestinian state and might secretly prefer not to have one at all. They are no doubt aware that the Palestinians themselves are the biggest obstacle to the establishment of a state of their own. During the past eight decades, they have acted as a serial wrecking ball to every peaceful place they set foot. When Jordan graciously hosted them, in 1951, a Palestinian associated with Hitler's great ally, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, assassinated King Abdullah I. In 1970, in a bloodletting called "Black September," Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of King Hussein, after which the Palestinians were forced to flee to Lebanon.
Since 2005, when the Israelis unconditionally transferred every millimeter of Gaza to the Palestinians so they could build a "Singapore on the Mediterranean," Palestinian leaders squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid and failed to create adequate state institutions and a free and vibrant democracy. Moreover, the power struggle between the two main parties, Fatah and Hamas, has led to the creation of two separate entities for the Palestinians - one in the West Bank, ruled by the Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, and a second in the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, supported by Qatar and Iran.
The last thing most Arab states want is a Hamas-controlled Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain justifiably regard Hamas and other Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to their national security, most likely the main reason they all have refused to take in Gazan refugees.
Blinken's claim that a Palestinian state would "isolate" Iran and its proxies is pure nonsense. The opposite is the case. Iran, its proxies and Qatar would doubtless be extremely happy if the Biden administration would allow them to establish a terrorist state on Israel's doorstep. This state would be used by Iran and its terrorists as a launching pad for more October 7-style massacres of Israelis to further their goal of destroying first Israel, then the Arab states.
It is Israel -- not Iran -- that will find itself "isolated" and surrounded by Iran-backed Islamist terrorist groups thirsting for Jewish blood.
Blinken's claim that establishing a Palestinian state would bring security and stability to the Middle East is, to put it as nicely as possible, counterfactual. Palestinians had an independent Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip since 2005. In 2007, Hamas overthrew the ruling Palestinian Authority in Gaza and took full control there. At the time Palestinian Authority security officers were dragged into the streets and lynched, while another was thrown to his death from the roof of a high building.
The Hamas-controlled Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip poses a threat not only to the Palestinian Authority, but also to Israel and Egypt. For years prior to the October 7 atrocities, Hamas fired tens of thousands of rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip at Israeli cities and towns. The Egyptians, for their part, accused Hamas of working closely with Islamist terrorist groups in the Sinai who were responsible for killing Egyptian soldiers and civilians.
One can only imagine what would happen if Iran and its proxies could extend their control to east Jerusalem and the West Bank. They would undoubtedly turn these areas into bases for jihad (holy war) against Israel, as they have done in the Gaza Strip. A Middle East that includes a Palestinian state controlled by Iran and Islamist terrorists will be a less secure region, especially after Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
The new Palestinian state will not only be used to attack Israel, but also to undermine security and stability in neighboring countries, especially Jordan and Egypt. The Iranian regime and its puppets have never been satisfied with the peace treaties that these two Arab countries signed with Israel.
Just in case Blinken does not know it, Iran, through its proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, has already succeeded in infiltrating the West Bank. In recent years, the Israeli authorities have thwarted some of the countless attempts by Iran to smuggle weapons into the West Bank via Jordan.
"[Palestinian] Islamic Jihad is using Iranian money to buy weapons and loyalty in the West Bank," said a Palestinian Authority official. "The organization is paying high salaries to its members."
In the past three years, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas have established more armed cells and recruited dozens more gunmen in the northern West Bank, specifically the areas of Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem, the official revealed.
The situation in the West Bank has become so dangerous that Abbas's Fatah faction recently accused Iran of trying to spread chaos in its territory and declared that it would oppose outside operations that have nothing to do with the Palestinian cause.
Fatah said it would not allow "our holy cause and the blood of our people to be exploited" and warned that it would oppose any outside interference aimed at harming the security forces or national institutions.
Jamal Nazzal, a member of Fatah's "Revolutionary Council," said that Iran's fingerprints on the Palestinian reality were devastating, indicating that Tehran had decided to fight Israel to the last drop of Arab blood.
In an interview with the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV channel, he added that Iran has agents, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Nazzal pointed out that the Palestinian situation will not tolerate Iranian interference. He also noted that there are Iranian-backed armed groups in areas of the West Bank.
By continuing to obsessively promote the delusional idea of a Palestinian state, the Biden administration is sending a message to the Palestinians that it wants to reward them for launching the deadliest, most sickening attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
In addition, by trying to prevent Israel from destroying Hamas, the Biden administration is facilitating the creation of an Iranian-controlled terrorist state that can only become a source of instability in the Middle East and pose an existential threat not simply to Israel but to the region, especially after Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
By withholding ammunition and other military supplies from Israel, demanding that Israel end the war against Hamas and accept a Palestinian terror state, the Biden administration is advancing its already threadbare legacy since his surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021. First, Biden, by reconfirming that terrorism "works," would embolden all the other terrorists. Just keep on terrorizing everyone, and, when your demands are met, keep on increasing and hardening them.
More significantly, by appeasing Iran, Qatar and potential voters in Michigan by creating a Palestinian state, the Biden administration will in fact be inviting Iran to initiate still more attacks – not only on Israel but also on US forces in the Middle East. Iran has already launched more than 150 attacks on US troops in the Middle East just since October 2023, and nearly 300 since Biden took office in 2021. If Iran finally coerces the US to withdraw from the region as it is reportedly thinking of doing, the regime will finally be able to take over its neighbors' oil fields and holy sites without worrying about the US interfering.
Meanwhile, as the Biden administration, busy trying to win re-election in November, seems to have no idea how to end all the conflicts it ignited, directly or indirectly, in Gaza, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. The US has been backing both sides of all of them. Iran, presumably taking advantage of these distractions, and perhaps as a consolation prize for losing so much of Hamas -– has been moving to take over Sudan. It is a country rich in oil, gold, rare earth minerals and terrorism -- and felicitously positioned to help Iran launch unlimited combat drones – the planet's new "cheap, instant air force" -- at both Israel and US forces, and enable Iran to use Sudan's port on the Red Sea to continue obstructing maritime traffic.
After all, if terrorism "works," why stop?
Bassam Tawil is an Arab Muslim based in the Middle East.
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UN to vote on motion granting PA the rights of a state, Ambassador Erdan criticizes
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad on expected vote in the General Assembly: If UN grants the PA the rights of a state de facto, the US must stop funding the UN.
The UN General Assembly is expected to vote on Friday on a proposal that will grant the Palestinian Authority (PA) the rights of a state de facto.
The resolution would give the PA “the rights and privileges” to ensure its full and effective participation in the work of the General Assembly and other UN organs, “on equal footing with member nations.”
The PA’s initiative follows its failure to achieve full UN membership, after the US vetoed its bid at the UN Security Council.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, said in response to the expected vote, “The Palestinians are once again taking advantage of the automatic majority and the moral decay of the UN. After failing to obtain the status of a member state through the Security Council as required, they bypass the Council while trampling all the rules to bring the decision to the General Assembly.”
“If passed, the decision will not change anything on the ground but will prove how disconnected the UN is from reality and how it rewards terrorism,” he added.
“Since the initiative is against the UN Charter, if it is approved, I expect the United States to completely stop funding the UN and its institutions, in accordance with American law,” concluded Erdan.
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Yom Hashoah after Oct. 7: How Holocaust education failed
A generation of young Americans was taught to universalize the Nazi war on the Jews, leaving them vulnerable to being seduced by antisemitism and woke lies about Israel.
By JONATHAN S. TOBIN
For decades, American Jewry has marked Yom Hashoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day—with the same rituals and rhetoric. They heard from survivors, whose numbers continue to dwindle and who bore witness about their horrific experiences. They also heard from scholars, who were part of what had become a growth industry centering on Holocaust studies, which to many Jews and non-Jews became the sum total of their knowledge of the history of the Jewish people. And they also heard from politicians and community leaders, who mouthed empty rhetoric about “never again” letting such an awful thing happen.
It was a necessary exercise because, not without reason, Jews feared that without the ceremonies, memorials and museums that proliferated in the last few decades, the memory of the destruction of European Jewry at the hands of the German Nazis and their collaborators would be lost or erased. Preserving that memory will require continued work from Jews today and our successors.
But after Oct. 7, 2023—and all that has happened since then—we cannot continue conducting these same rituals in the same manner as before.
Instead, we must begin to integrate our necessary commemorations of the Holocaust into the broader context of Jewish history and the struggle for Jewish survival throughout the ages and into the present-day war against Israel.
Just as important, we must reassess our approach to Holocaust education in light of the horrifying reactions to the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust and the surge in anti-Semitism that has occurred throughout the world and, most particularly, on North American college campuses.
Defenseless no more
In the last eight decades since the Holocaust and then the birth of modern-day Israel in 1948, the world has remained a generally dangerous place for Jews. But the generations who grew up since these epochal events, particularly in the United States, thought of anti-Semitism and attempts at Jewish genocide as something that was relegated to the distant past. But after the horror of that Black Shabbat and Simchat Torah—when residents of 22 Israeli communities and hundreds of attendees at a music festival were attacked by Hamas and their Palestinian allies in an orgy of murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction—that complacency is no longer viable.
Though much lip service has been paid to memorializing the Holocaust and promises made about not forgetting it, after Oct. 7, the usual routine of drawing lessons from the events of the past won’t wash anymore. Despite Jews being subjected to unspeakable atrocities by vicious enemies who are, once again, bent on their extermination, the international community has turned on them.
While much of the world looks on with indifference and disinterest—or actually cheers on the murderers—the events of the Holocaust are no longer so remote from our contemporary experience. The difference, of course, is that the Jewish people are no longer defenseless. In the era from 1939 to 1945, the Jews had little or no ability to either defend themselves or find safe haven from a genocidal foe where they would be welcomed. Now the full force of international opinion and intellectual fashion is arrayed against the State of Israel, whose existence is the one true memorial to the 6 million men, women and children slain by the Nazis. It alone ensures that two millennia of Jews being persecuted and/or slaughtered with impunity have come to an end.
Having suffered the fate of powerless victims at the hands of the Nazis, in the wake of Oct. 7, the Jews are now demonized by those who think that they have no right to defend themselves against Hamas and other terror groups that wish to destroy Israel and slaughter its Jewish population. Despite being the party that was attacked and, according to objective military observers, using more care in avoiding civilian casualties in the course of conducting urban combat than any other contemporary army, Israel’s subsequent military campaign to eliminate Hamas is routinely smeared as a “genocide.”
Indeed, the entire apparatus of international human-rights advocacy and aid that was created in the wake of the Holocaust is now weaponized against the Jewish victims of Islamist attacks.
How is that possible?
As much as the conflict between Israel and its foes has always been a complex problem, the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism has nothing to do with the actual events of the current war with Hamas. It needs to be repeated that Gaza wasn’t occupied on Oct. 6 and that the failure to create a Palestinian Arab state (aside from the one that existed in Gaza in all but name since Israel’s 2005 withdrawal) is the result of repeated refusals from both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to make peace or accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn.
Old/new woke anti-Semitic propaganda
If Israel is now routinely and falsely accused of being an “apartheid state” or committing “genocide,” it is due to the success of a leftist/Islamist propaganda campaign that has convinced a considerable portion of young Americans, as well as those elsewhere that it has no right to exist. Those who chant for its destruction or cheer on the prospect of more terrorism against Jews on college campuses have been indoctrinated in the toxic myths of critical race theory and intersectionality that analogize the war to destroy the one Jewish state on the planet to the struggle for civil rights in the United States.
During the Holocaust, a Nazi movement steeped in racism convinced the citizens of the most educated nation on earth to see Jews as subhuman. Now, many of the most educated elements of American society have been seduced by a movement that dubs itself “anti-racist” but that is predicated on the notion that we are all locked in a perpetual race war between white oppressors and victims who are people of color. Like all variants of Marxism, this woke ideology targets Jews and classifies them as “white” oppressors, even though the conflict with the Palestinians has nothing to do with race and the majority of Israeli Jews are themselves people of color since they trace their origins to the Middle East and North Africa.
Jews suffering from a wave of antisemitism since Oct. 7 is the result of the success that “progressives” have had in making this new secular religion the orthodoxy that prevails throughout academia and many other sectors of American society. As historian Niall Ferguson noted in his seminal Free Press essay, “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” much like the way the demonization of Jews was enabled by the educated classes prior to the Holocaust, contemporary elites have embraced this old/new faith that also legitimizes Jew-hatred.
The woke lies have not gone unanswered, and the open advocacy for violence against Jews and the excesses of the student protests have shocked many Americans. But they are still repeated every day in much of the corporate liberal media and by leading political figures. Leading news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post, and broadcasters like MSNBC and CNN, consider them ideas to be debated and which reasonable people should agree to disagree about, rather than anti-Semitic and racist falsehoods to be condemned.
How then should we remember the Shoah at a time when Jews are once again under siege?
The perils of universalizing the Holocaust
We must start by no longer trying to isolate the Holocaust from the rest of Jewish history or contemporary struggles. The Shoah was a unique historical event that should not be treated—as it is by many Americans as simply a metaphor for something very bad—as merely just a particularly egregious example of man’s inhumanity to man. But it must also be seen as part of the narrative of Jewish history that stretches back to the destruction of the Jewish commonwealth by the Romans to today.
Sadly, many, if not most, of those involved in the spread of Holocaust education have sought to make its lessons palatable to non-Jews by universalizing its lessons. As a result, rather than being understood as an example of how antisemitism is hatred used for specific political purposes, it became merely seen as stemming from ordinary prejudice.
That was mistaken, in and of itself. But it also made it less likely that even those who had undergone some sort of rudimentary Holocaust education—as is true of many if not most of today’s college students—would be unable to understand how current woke ideas grant a permission slip to anti-Semitism. Indeed, the language of Holocaust education is now used against Israel and the Jews with their enemies no longer using the vulgar dehumanizing terms employed by the Nazis but instead libelously accusing them of being genocidal racists.
This means that as we honor the memory of the Holocaust, we must now do so without ever forgetting that Jews are once again under siege today. And we must do so without losing sight of the critical fact that the only difference between then and now is that the Jewish people are not as vulnerable as they were in the world that existed without Jewish sovereignty and military power.
We keep being told that many of those who demonstrate in favor of an end to the current war that would leave Hamas alive and well—and able to make good on its promises to repeat the horrors of Oct. 7 again and again—are well-meaning and simply sympathetic to the suffering of Palestinians. But the objective of the movement these supposedly well-meaning people support is to strip the Jews of Israel—and Jews everywhere, for that matter—of the ability to defend themselves against Islamists for whom Oct. 7 is just a trailer for what they wish to do to every Jew on this planet.
Simply put, if you are demonstrating for Hamas’s survival, you are on the side of a group that wishes to repeat the Holocaust. No matter how well-intentioned you may claim to be, that makes you no different from those who viewed the Nazis, who had their own narrative of grievance, with equanimity.
The German people suffered terribly as a result of the war that they launched, yet today, those who claim to speak for humanitarian values believe that there can be no consequences for those who commit or condone (as is true for the overwhelming majority of Palestinians) the mass murder of Jews and that Jews who defend themselves against genocide are the Nazis. Would those who demonstrate against Jewish self-defense apply the same lessons to the Allies who, in order to liberate the Nazi death camps had to kill many people, including civilians?
By the same token, those who wish for universities and other institutions to engage in discriminatory commercial conduct that would divest from anything to do with Israel are not criticizing Israel’s policies or leaders, but supporting a contemporary version of Nazi boycotts of Jews.
It is also just as clear that the leftist/Islamist attack on Israel is also aimed at the West and the United States. This debate over the war against Hamas is not one about whether Israel or its government and military are perfect but about a struggle for the future of the West, much as was true of the war against the German Nazis. The Jews are, as they were during the Holocaust, the canaries in the coal mine, warning humanity of the dangers of tolerating genocidal hate.
As we remember the Shoah, rather than stick to our usual routine of memorialization, it’s time for decent people of all backgrounds and faiths to understand that the war on the Jews didn’t end with the defeat of the Nazis. It continues to this day under new slogans, flags and worse, with many of those who claim to stand for enlightened thought allowing the enablers of Jew-hatred to pose as advocates for human rights and the oppressed. Those lies must not be allowed to stand.
There should be no Holocaust Memorial Day observance without it being made clear that there can be no proper honor given to the Six Million slain by the Nazis without linking that struggle to those against the anti-Semites of our time. We must not tolerate those who shed crocodile tears for Jews murdered in the past while tolerating or even supporting policies that enable antisemitism in the present, envisioning Israel’s destruction and the continued slaughter of Jews. If we cannot understand that, then invocations to remember what happened or ensure that it is “never again” allowed in this world are nothing more than pointless and counterproductive virtue-signaling.
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Operational Updates
Northern Gaza Strip
Yesterday (May 6), three launches were identified crossing from northern Gaza into Israeli territory, two of which were intercepted. Shortly after, IAF fighter jets and additional aircraft struck several terror targets in the area, including a military structure, and additional terrorist infrastructure.
Following IDF identification, IAF aircraft struck and eliminated an armed terrorist cell in the area of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
Central Gaza Strip
IDF ground troops continue to operate in the central Gaza Strip Corridor. During the operational activity, the troops identified a terrorist cell entering a military structure in the area. IAF fighter jets struck and eliminated the terrorists.
Northern Arena
Today, two aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into northern Israel, one of which was intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array. Light damage was caused and no injuries were reported.
A short while ago, IAF fighter jets struck Hezbollah military structures in several areas in southern Lebanon. In addition, the IDF struck Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure in the area of Kfarhamam, as well as a mobile launch post in the area of Ayta ash Shab in southern Lebanon. Below is footage of the strikes:
IDF Begins Precise Counterterrorism Operation in Eastern Rafah
Overnight, IDF ground troops began a precise counterterrorism operation to eliminate Hamas terrorists and dismantle Hamas terrorist infrastructure within specific areas of eastern Rafah. The operation was launched based on IDF and ISA intelligence.
Prior to the operation, the IDF encouraged residents in the area of eastern Rafah to temporarily evacuate to the expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, where the IDF has facilitated the expansion of field hospitals, tents, and an increase in water, food, and medical supplies (see image below). International organizations working in the area were also encouraged to temporarily evacuate prior to the beginning of the operation.
Following intelligence that indicated that the Rafah Crossing in eastern Rafah was being used for terrorist purposes, IDF troops managed to establish operational control of the Gazan side of the crossing. On Sunday, mortars were fired from the area of the Rafah Crossing toward the area of the Kerem Shalom Crossing, resulting in four IDF soldiers killed and a number of other soldiers injured. Click HERE to view footage of Israeli troops entering the Gazan side of the Rafah Crossing.
IDF tanks securing Eastern Rafah.
Furthermore, as part of the operational activity, IDF ground troops and IAF fighter jets struck and eliminated Hamas terror targets in the Rafah area, including military structures, underground infrastructure, and additional terrorist infrastructure from which Hamas operated. Since the start of the operational activity, approximately 20 terrorists have been eliminated and three operational tunnel shafts have been located.
Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu had this to say about the operation:
"Last night, with the consent of the War Cabinet, I directed [that the IDF] act in Rafah. They raised Israeli flags at the Rafah Crossing and took down the Hamas flags.
The entry into Rafah serves two of the main objectives of the war: Returning our hostages and eliminating Hamas.
We have already proven, in the previous release of hostages, that military pressure on Hamas is an essential condition for the return of our hostages. The Hamas proposal yesterday was designed to torpedo the entry of our forces into Rafah. That did not happen.
As the War Cabinet unanimously determined, the Hamas proposal was very far from Israel's core demands.
Israel will not allow Hamas to restore its regime of evil in the Strip. Israel will not allow it to rebuild its military capabilities in order to continue striving for our destruction. Israel cannot accept a proposal that endangers the security of our citizens and the future of our state.
Therefore, I have instructed the ranking delegation that left for Cairo: Continue to insist on the necessary conditions for the release of our hostages. Continue to strongly insist on the demands that are essential for ensuring the security of Israel.
At the same time, we are continuing the war on Hamas. The taking of the Rafah Crossing today is a very important step, an important step on the way to destroying Hamas's remaining military capabilities, including the elimination of the four terrorist battalions in Rafah, and an important step to damaging Hamas's governing capabilities, because as of this morning, we have denied Hamas the crossing that was vital to establishing its terrorist regime in the Strip.
I would like to send heartfelt condolences to the families that have lost their loved ones in recent days.
I salute our brave soldiers for perfectly carrying out the mission, for their fighting spirit and their heroism for everything they have done – and for what they will yet do.
I warmly embrace them on behalf of all citizens of Israel.
Together we will fight, and with G-d's help – together we will win."
Why Recognizing a Palestinian State Now Would Reward Hamas and Iran's Ayatollah Regime
THIS VIDEO explains why recognizing a Palestinian State after the October 7th massacre means rewarding Hamas for murdering over 1,200 Israelis.
It means giving a prize to the Ayatollah regime in Iran.
It means living with the possibility of another October 7th.
The only way to promote peace is through direct negotiations, within the framework of a regional normalization process.
The Link Between the Holocaust, Anti-Zionism and Oct. 7th Denial
In THIS ARTICLE, American-Israeli author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi shares his analysis of what connects the Holocaust, anti-Zionism, and Oct. 7th denial as pro-terror and anti-Israel demonstrations occur around the world.
Operation: Swords of Iron Humanitarian Update
Airdrops: 94 pallets containing tens of thousands of packages of food aid were airdropped in coordination with partner countries over northern Gaza yesterday.
Aid to northern Gaza: 46 aid trucks were coordinated to northern Gaza.
Coordinations: Out of 37 general coordination requests, 22 were approved. 12 coordinations to northern Gaza were requested with 10 being approved. Since Jan. 1, 88% of all coordination requests have been approved.
Ashdod Port: 35 trucks were coordinated via the Ashdod port through the Erez Crossing.
26 bakeries are currently operational in Gaza, providing close to 5 million breads, rolls, and pita breads daily.
So far, 3,204 injured and sick individuals and 725 escorts have been evacuated from the strip.
The northern water pipeline from Israel is now fully operational, providing an average of 50 liters per person a day.
Today, between 10:00 and 14:00, the IDF will pause operations in the Jurat Allot neighborhood of Khan Yunis, to enable the movement of humanitarian aid.
Senior Hezbollah Terrorist Praises Pro-Terror Demonstrations on American University Campuses
Recently, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Hezbollah terror organization, Sheikh Naim Qassem, was interviewed by Lebanese media. During the interview, Qassem praised the pro-terror/anti-Israel demonstrations that have taken place on university campuses across the United States. According to Qassem, "We salute and applaud [the demonstrators], and we believe they are standing for justice."
To read Qassem's full remarks, click HERE.
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HOOVER DAILY
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UCLA Protests Were Not About Free Speech—And Could Have Been AvoidedIf This Is True About the Failed Gaza Ceasefire Talks, Biden Is Truly Lost
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