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Saturday, January 6, 2024

01/06 Links: WH defends UNRWA: 'They do great work in Gaza'; Released Gaza hostage tells of trauma, Hamas's sexual violence; South Africa blames the victim of genocide

From Ian:

The UNRWA are ensuring the 'day after' includes more wars
Pompeo confirmed that of the 5 million identified as "Palestinian refugees" by UNRWA, fewer than 200,000 meet the international criteria for refugee status. Apparently, the number of Palestinians living today who meet the criteria for refugee status is less than 30,000. For the first time a senior American official revealed the numbers, before that administration after administration, both Democratic and Republican, allowed UNRWA to perpetuate the lie.

Lying not only leads to waste and corruption, it is also a significant obstacle to peace. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which is responsible for all other refugees, has a mandate to pursue sustainable solutions for the refugees under its responsibility, through voluntary return, integration into the host country, or resettlement in a third country. UNRWA, on the other hand, has no such mandate. The agency admits that it does not have the authority to pursue long-term and sustainable solutions for refugees, Including resettlement in third countries.

UNRWA has encouraged generations of Palestinians to wallow in the hell of refugees, stuck between a possible new life and the "right of return" promised to them by radical factions committed to eternal war with Israel. It is clear to the Palestinians, who admit this in private conversations, that the "right of return" is not realistic, but it was and remains one of the main stumbling blocks in future peace negotiations. Instead of helping solve the problem, UNRWA is exacerbating it.

However, in April 2021, president Biden decided to renew funding for the agency, without explanation. The president has not explained why America is willing to support more than 5 million people through a refugee agency, when perhaps only 30,000 of them qualify to be called refugees.

The FDD has been calling for years to shake up the organization. Until the current war, the call to Congress and the Senate was not to cut aid entirely, but to work with the relevant regional actors to find bilateral solutions. It is time to call for the closure of this unnecessary and harmful organization.During the 2021 conflict, Matthias Schmala, UNRWA's operational director in Gaza, said in an interview that the IDF's operations during the war were carried out "with sophistication and precision." In doing so, he was seen as confirming that Israel acted within the boundaries of international law.

Shamala also noted, "During the 11 days of fighting, we did not run out of food, water or supplies, and from my point of view, there is no severe or acute shortage of medical equipment. Food or water." Finally, Shamala admitted that UNRWA "cannot work in a place like Gaza without coordination with local authorities and Hamas, this is true of any authoritarian regime of this kind."

Cooperating with Hamas terrorists
The interview was nothing short of amazing. He acknowledged that Israel had made an effort to avoid collateral damage, that it had helped ensure the flow of aid to Gaza even as rockets were being fired at Israeli civilians, and that UNRWA was coordinating with Hamas, an organization designated as a terrorist organization under existing law in most Western countries that support its agency.

Already in 2021, during an examination of the possibilities of shielding the UNRWA building, a hole and a tunnel were discovered in the location where missiles were launched. The depth of the hole, which was about 7.5 meters below the floor of the school, actually revealed the existence of a tunnel under the UNRWA building. UNRWA strongly condemned (only verbally and externally, of course) the fact that such tunnels may exist, and the use made by Palestinian armed organizations under its schools. UNRWA argued that it was inconceivable that students and staff would be put in danger in this way. UNRWA also "demanded" that all sides cease any activity or conduct that endangers the organization and its staff and impairs UNRWA's ability to provide assistance to Palestinian refugees in security and safety, but of course THEY did nothing to remove Hamas from its facilities.

The revelations during the "Iron Swords" War proved beyond any doubt that UNRWA schools serve as a human shield for Hamas tunnels, that Hamas fires from them and that it uses the aid given to UNRWA for its needs. Some UNRWA personnel have simply become Hamas.

Until the current war, a question hovered in the air about the real number of refugees in the Gaza Strip, but after the war, the refugee problem in Gaza will be real and painful. Gaza residents are entitled to a refugee aid agency aimed at providing real assistance to those in need. UNRWA has lost all rights to be this agency, because of its support for terrorism and corruption. Apparently, the time has come for the main donors to UNRWA: the United States and Germany, to divert their donations and support from UNRWA to another aid organization that will engrave on its banner a real desire to help Gazan refugees truly rehabilitate, under close supervision of the UN and donor countries.
White House forcefully defends UNRWA amid alleged terrorism ties: 'They do great work in Gaza'
The White House defended the United Nations Relief and Works Agency Thursday as Republican lawmakers are demanding investigations into reports that the aid body's staff has embedded with Hamas and aiding the terror organization in Gaza and throughout the Middle East.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby defended the agency, however, when asked if Republicans' calls to investigate the agency have shifted the administration's "strategy" regarding the organization. Former President Donald Trump forcibly cut ties with UNRWA in 2018, but the group again began receiving money from the U.S. after President Joe Biden entered office in 2021. Since that time, the U.S. has sent UNRWA more than $700 million.

"The U.N. relief agency does important work. In fact, they're doing a lot of heavy lifting right now in terms of trying to get food, water, medicine to the people of Gaza all up and down the strip. They're doing a lot of work, and they're doing it in harm's way," Kirby told reporters. "You can't hold them accountable for the depredations of Hamas and the way Hamas uses civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, for command and control or storage of weapons for the holding of hostages.

"I'll let the U.N. speak to their agency and what alarms they want to raise or not," he continued. "They do great work in Gaza, and they are important to helping get the humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. And we're grateful for that work that they're doing very much in harm's way. I will let them speak to whatever concerns they have over Hamas' activities and the degree to which that they feel obligated to speak out or not."

Kirby reiterated that "it is not some state secret here that Hamas hides itself in hospitals and schools and digs tunnels under residential complexes and neighborhoods, and this is what the Israelis are up against, a group that absolutely doesn't abide by the laws of war and has no compunction about putting civilian lives in greater danger."

Longstanding concerns about UNRWA’s tolerance for terrorism escalated after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel, and it took on a greater role in distributing the massive influx of humanitarian aid that is arriving in Gaza.

"For decades, funding UNRWA has been a form of automatic virtue signaling and support for the myths of Palestinian victimhood," Gerald Steinberg, president of the Israeli watchdog group NGO Monitor and emeritus political studies professor at Bar Ilan University, recently told the Washington Examiner. "UNRWA should have been closed years ago to transform the Palestinian economy from total dependence to jobs and growth.”
Evidence of the terrorist organizations’ use of civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip
Hamas, Hezbollah and many other terrorist organizations use civilian facilities and populations as shields to hide their military-terrorist activities. The use of civilian facilities and the civilian population was exposed and documented many times during the Second Lebanon War and in various IDF operations against the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, and in a very extensive way during the most recent war in the Gaza Strip.

Firing rockets and mortar shells from within population centers and public institutions such as hospitals and schools, and placing military facilities in or near them, are a well-known modus operandi used by Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Its objective is to protect Hamas operatives from IDF responses and increase their chances of survival. Claims and documentation of the use of Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas, against the civilian population were raised as early as 2006. According to an article[2] by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, Hamas has been using the civilian population as human shields in conflicts with Israel since 2007.

The extensive use of civilian facilities, and of citizens as a “human shields” has many expressions, including the locations of headquarters and military bases, and hiding terrorists, in the heart of residential neighborhoods, in private homes or public institutions, launching rockets and mortar shells from populated areas, shooting from houses, mosques, schools and other public facilities, stockpiling weapons inside civilian homes, and using ambulances and rescue vehicles for operational needs. Obviously, the cynical and deliberate exploitation of a civilian population is a war crime, a crime against humanity and a flagrant violation of the basic principles of international law of armed conflict, which require a distinction between civilians and combatants.

Since the beginning of the war (October 7, 2023), the IDF has exposed the full extent of Hamas’ use of civilian facilities for military-terrorist purposes[3] after finding that Hamas had set up a significant part of its command network in the extensive tunnel system it constructed under civilian facilities especially the hospitals. It also became evident that Hamas used school buildings to store weapons, such as rockets, anti-tank missiles, launchers and automatic rifles. The military warehouses were found in close proximity to functioning classrooms or to a civilian population that found shelter in the schools. Mosques and private homes were used to store weapons and as hiding places for shafts that led to tunnels and as factories for the production of weapons.

Hamas’ use of civilian institutions and facilities for military-terrorist purposes is a deliberate strategy with several objectives. Its primary objective is to reduce damage to the military-terrorist assets of Hamas and other terrorist organizations and to grant them a kind of immunity from IDF activity, exploiting the knowledge that the IDF will avoid harming civilians as much as possible and therefore avoids attacking institutions such as hospitals and schools or non-combatant population concentrations. It is also intended to allow Hamas and other terrorist organizations to gain political-propaganda advantages in the battle for hearts and minds by representing Israel as attacking innocent civilians.


BESA: A New Existential War: Israel's Perception of the Enemy's Goals
Many believed that in the era of peace with Egypt and Jordan, and with the collapse of Syria's army in the civil war, the era of threats from state armies had ended. Experts explained that while there were remaining threats from terrorist organizations, they did not pose an existential threat to the State of Israel. On Oct. 7, Israel received a painful wake-up call that this was a dangerously wrong assessment.

Israel had become accustomed to focusing on the nuclear threat as an existential danger. However, combined with the threat from Hizbullah in the north, Palestinian terrorist organizations now represent an overarching regional threat.

For years, it has been argued that economic development and prosperity for the Palestinians are the key to achieving stability and order. But Hamas' leadership has taught us that its conduct is guided not by the Palestinians' economic situation but by a deep religious rationale.

Western cultural observers, who for centuries have separated religious motives from the political, diplomatic, and military considerations of state leaders, have no tools with which to understand the leadership of Iran, Hizbullah, and Hamas, which are driven by religious conviction.

It is crucial that the Israeli leadership understand the religious logic guiding Israel's enemies. Mohammad Deif, head of Hamas' military wing, named the current war "Al-Aqsa Flood," in the belief that through this battle, a great cosmic salvation would unfold. Israel's victory must be decisive in a way that neutralizes the belief among the leadership of Hamas, Hizbullah, and Iran that the day of Israel's destruction is at hand.

The central goal of the war for Israel should be that upon its conclusion, a profound disappointment will be instilled in the Islamic believers who started and sustained it. They must be forced to accept that once again, their time has not come, and the gates of heaven have not opened before them.

Victory is not only contingent on the magnitude of the achievement on the battlefield but on the trends in the struggle that develop in the days after the war. The Hamas vision will likely persist - but Israel's ability to force jihadist believers to recognize their weakness increases the chances of a temporary cessation of their struggle.


Middle East Aflame Because Iran Thinks Biden Is 'Mush,' Retired CENTCOM Commander Argues
President Joe Biden's administration has squandered the deterrence against Iran established under former president Donald Trump, retired Marine general Kenneth McKenzie argued in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

"Iranian leaders work with Lenin's dictum that 'you probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw.' Tehran and its proxies are pressing their attacks because they haven't confronted steel," wrote McKenzie, who led CENTCOM from 2019 to 2022.

Under McKenzie's command, American forces killed military commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. That action, according to McKenzie, was a key factor in deterring Iran from further coordinating strikes on American assets and allies in the Middle East.

"It takes will and capability to establish and maintain deterrence," McKenzie said. "We were able to reset deterrence as a result of this violent couplet. The Iranians have always feared our capabilities, but before January 2020, they doubted our will."

With Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis disrupting passage between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a "forceful response" is needed, McKenzie wrote. He added that taking such an action "isn't likely to lead to theaterwide escalation" and that doing so is especially important as the "Chinese are watching to see how we respond to a threat involving a narrow strait," a reference to Beijing's designs on Taiwan.

"To reset deterrence, we must apply violence that Tehran understands," McKenzie said. "Paradoxically, if done earlier, this violence could have been of a far smaller and more measured scale. Indecision has placed us in this position. There is a way forward but it requires the U.S. to set aside the fear of escalation and act according to the priorities of our strategic documents and concepts."


Memo gives Israel legal backing to prevent Gazans from returning home during war
A memo submitted Wednesday to Israel's political leadership claims that Israel has no legal obligation to allow displaced Gaza residents to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip for the coming months. The opinion was written in recent days in light of claims made within the security establishment that under international law, Israel had to allow residents to return to their homes.

The memo is signed by Dr. Raphael (Rafi) Bitton from Sapir College, Prof. Eugene Kontorovich from George Mason University, and Prof. Avi Bell from the law schools of Bar Ilan University and the University of San Diego.

The three analyzed the state of war from a legal perspective and wrote, among other things, that the determination that there is an obligation to allow residents to return northwards would thwart a key military objective in war – finding and returning captives. They further explained that according to reports, the Israeli captives were transferred to the southern Gaza Strip under the cover of humanitarian corridors created by Israel, while being forced to disguise themselves as locals. Requiring the military to allow reverse movement (northward) is akin to requiring the military to lose its grip having its focus on the captives, they suggest.

The three jurists emphasized that returning the population to the north bears no relevance so long as the fighting continues. They detailed the state of war in the northern Gaza Strip and noted that one indication that there were still ongoing hostilities that prevent such a return is the fact that Israelis from border communities have not been allowed back home either.

However, they stressed that "even if fighting in the northern Gaza Strip stops, preventing enemy force movement is a lawful method of warfare." The three jurists concluded the memo by adding that "the IDF has no legal obligation to enable the return of the population to the northern Gaza Strip, and such a duty is unlikely to emerge in the coming months. The IDF has a vital military need justifying non-return of the population as long as fighting continues and as long as the goal of freeing the captives remains."
Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas Commander Yahya Sinwar Must Decide How He Departs
Under the current circumstances, it seems that Sinwar has three options.

The first is to be killed by the IDF and go down into history as another shahid (martyr), like many of his predecessors, including Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

Second, Sinwar could surrender to the IDF with the hope of being released (again) in a future prisoner exchange deal with Israel.

The third option is for Sinwar to leave the Gaza Strip, willing or unwillingly. This means either escaping from the Palestinian coastal enclave through one of their tunnels along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt or leaving (together with other Hamas commanders) as part of an internationally sponsored deal similar to the one that allowed PLO leader Yasser Arafat and his forces to exit Lebanon in 1982.

The general sense among Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip is that Sinwar would opt for the first option – “martyrdom,” if and when Israeli soldiers surround his hideout. Journalists who have been meeting with Sinwar on a semi-regular basis since he was released from Israeli prison as part of the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner swap are convinced that he would rather die as a shahid than surrender or be captured by the Israeli military.

The last two options – surrender or arrest – entail an element of humiliation, and this is not something Sinwar can tolerate. After all, he sees himself as one of the Palestinians’ and Arabs’ great “warriors” in modern history because of the Hamas invasion of Israel and the high death toll and damage inflicted on Israel. For someone like Sinwar, death is preferable to being shown surrendering or being arrested (perhaps in his underwear) by IDF soldiers. In Sinwar’s world, it is better to die as a “martyr” than to be depicted as a defeatist or coward. One of the recurring slogans chanted by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past few years is: “Death is preferable to humiliation.”

Yet, this does not mean that if given an “honorable” way out of his predicament, Sinwar would not go for it. If, for example, he was allowed to leave the Gaza Strip in an agreement engineered and supervised by some Arab countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, he would find it hard to turn down the offer.

Such a deal could elevate the Hamas terror chief to the equal of Yasser Arafat and send a message that he is leaving the Gaza Strip triumphant because Israel was not able to kill him or capture him. Moreover, Sinwar knows that living in exile hardly spells the end of Hamas’s leaders’ political and military careers. He sees that Hamas leaders based in Qatar, Lebanon, and Turkey are continuing to operate from their offices and homes in Doha, Beirut, and Ankara, and there’s no reason why he should not join Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled Mashaal, and Saleh al-Arouri in pursuing the bloody fight against Israel from these countries.
South Africa blames the victim of genocide
Blind condemnation
South Africa’s application to the ICJ blindly condemns the blockade on Gaza that Israel imposed in the wake of its 2005 withdrawal from the territory. It does not address the reasons for this blockade: a sharp increase in rockets fired at Israeli civilian targets from within Gaza, bombs placed in export goods, and the redirection of aid or other imports to the manufacture of rockets and other weapons.

If Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza had laid down their weapons, there would have been peace, and there would have been no blockade. They didn’t.

Hamas even made war against other Palestinians, in the form of Fatah, which nominally governs the West Bank.

South Africa’s application does not explain why, if genocide was Israel’s intent, it completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005, instead of using its vast military superiority to simply push the Palestinians into the sea. Or why it didn’t do so as soon as Hamas was elected in 2006 and sharply increased the number of rockets it lobbed at Israel.

A project of genocide could have been completed decades ago, if that is what the Israelis had in mind. But that never was the objective.

Instead, it kept coming back to the negotiating table, kept offering Palestinians a road to sovereignty, and kept going as far as it could – while protecting itself from Palestinian violence – to build a rapprochement with the Palestinian people.

Dilemmas
South Africa’s application to the ICJ does not recognise the dilemma in which Israel found itself, in that Israel’s own offers of a peaceful two-state solution, and its own disengagement from Gaza, and its own evacuation of Israeli settlers in Gaza, were met only with more and more violence against Israeli citizens.

It rejects the claim that Israel is not deliberately targeting civilians, but then cleverly tries to blame Israel for the evacuation of 1.9 million Gazans from their homes. Therefore, whether Israel evacuates civilians or not, as they go after Hamas fighters and infrastructure, they get to be blamed for supposedly genocidal actions.

They’re literally damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.

And since, technically, any number of civilian deaths can be made to fit the Genocide Convention criteria, no effort on the part of Israel will be enough.

The ICJ application blames Israel for destroying civilian buildings, without recognising that Hamas and other militant groups operate from inside and among these very buildings.

That urban warfare is ugly should not be news to anyone. That it automatically amounts to genocide, however, is a leap.

In making that leap – for purely political reasons of ‘solidarity’ – South Africa ignores the actual genocidal intent of the 7 October attack, and blames the victim for the violence with which it is defending itself.


As Israel seeks allies’ support against UN genocide charge, Canada won’t say whether it will intervene in case
The court’s members, including Canada and Israel, have a right to intervene in cases to support one side or the other. Over the past two years, Canada has used this legal avenue to support cases at the ICJ against Russia, Iran, Syria and Myanmar.

So far, aside from Israel itself, only the United States has publicly opposed South Africa’s court application. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, said Wednesday that the case was “meritless, counterproductive and completely without basis in fact whatsoever.”

The Globe and Mail asked federal officials whether Canada plans to intervene in the case and whether it would support the court’s ruling, but they did not answer directly. “Canada is aware of the filing by South Africa,” said Geneviève Tremblay, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada.

“Canada strongly supports the role of the ICJ in the peaceful settlement of disputes,” she added.

“We recognize Israel’s right to exist and right to defend itself. In defending itself, Israel must respect international humanitarian law. Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected. We are alarmed at the diminishing safe space for civilians in Gaza. The price of defeating Hamas cannot be the continuous suffering of all Palestinian civilians.”

Most other Western countries have not commented on the case. Nicolas de Rivière, the French ambassador to the UN, told journalists that France will not “encroach” on the court’s mandate, but added: “We’ll make sure that we’ll support the outcome of the decision.”

A growing number of Muslim countries are supporting South Africa’s application, with Turkey and Jordan becoming the latest. “We welcome the application,” Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Öncü Keçeli said in a statement Wednesday. “We hope that the process will be completed as soon as possible.” Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said the government will appear before the International Court of Justice next week “to challenge South Africa’s absurd blood libel.” South Africa is “giving political and legal cover” to the Gaza-based Hamas militant group for its Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis, he said in a statement this week.


IDF, Shin Bet chiefs visit tunnels in heart of Khan Yunis
IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Director Ronen Bar on Saturday visited a Hamas tunnel in the heart of Khan Yunis, signaling Israel’s progress in the fighting in southern Gaza.

Halevi said, “You have a great advantage over those who fight against you. There is no place anywhere in the Gaza Strip where there is a force at your level,” referring to the seven full brigades fighting in Khan Yunis.

The IDF also announced the death of Lt. Col. Roee Mordechai, 31, a commander at the Nahal Brigade’s training base, from Tel Aviv, killed during fighting in the northern Gaza Strip,. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Shin Bet Head Ronen Bar in Khan Yunis (credit: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Also on Saturday night, IDF chief spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari revealed an up-to-date photo of Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif .

The photo, the second to be revealed in recent weeks, shows Deif holding a stack of US dollars and a plastic cup of juice – further confirmation that despite wounds from past IDF assassination attempts, he is in better condition than expected.

Hagari said that “Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza Strip has been completely dismantled,” signaling the end of the recent campaign in the Darag – Tuffah area, the last northern Gaza stronghold after Jabalya fell on December 19.

IDF seizes weapons, destroys tunnels throughout Gaza
The military has seized tens of thousands of weapons in that area and millions of documents, Hagari said.

The IDF also announced it had killed Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion commander Ismail Saraj and his deputy.

The IDF discovered Hamas Nukhba military vests hidden in UNRWA bags stashed in a medical clinic in northern Gaza. The raid was directed by intelligence after Israeli troops came under fire in the area in previous days.

A building next to the raided medical clinic contained RPGs, AK-47s, and ammunition.

Separately, in Khan Yunis, Israeli forces located and destroyed a weapons storage facility containing dozens of Kalashnikov rifles, the IDF added.

Troops, both on the ground and airborne, eliminated many terrorists in the south Gaza area on Friday, the IDF said. A number of tunnel shafts were also uncovered and demolished.

The facility also contained remotely detonated explosive devices, RPGs, and more than 100 ammunition cartridges, the military added.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, and the neighborhood of Al-Furqan, troops identified drone operators targeting IDF personnel. In response, troops directed UAVs to strike at the terrorists.


Former US VP Mike Pence to Israel: 'The American people are with you'
Former United States vice president Mike Pence visited the headquarters of Israel’s Northern Command on Friday night during his solidarity trip to the country, the IDF and Israeli media reported.

Pence met with Maj.-Gen. Ori Gordin, who presented him with an up-to-date picture of Israel’s activity in the northern sector. Gordin noted that Hezbollah had violated a regional ceasefire established by the United Nations at the end of the Second Lebanon War.

Pence also met with reserve soldiers of the 7338th Artillery Brigade, who have been protecting the northern border since October 7.

In this meeting, Pence commended the commitment of the reserve officers who left their jobs and families to protect their country, as well as their determination to continue to do so until security is fully restored in the North.

In an interview with CBN News, the former vice president discussed American support for Israel, antisemitism, and his own beliefs as a Christian Zionist.

“I came to Israel to say to the people of our most cherished ally that the American people are with you,” Pence said.


Hamas chief Haniyeh tells Blinken to focus on ending Israeli ‘aggression’
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to use his current Middle East tour to end Israel’s “aggression” as war rages in Gaza.

The top US diplomat arrived in Turkey on Friday at the start of a trip that includes planned visits to Israel and the West Bank as well as several Arab and Gulf states.

US officials have said that Blinken, in his fourth regional tour since fighting erupted with Hamas’s October 7 assault on Israel, would focus on getting more aid into the Strip.

In a video message posted late Friday on Hamas’s social media channels, Haniyeh, who lives in exile, said he hoped Blinken had “learned the lessons of the last three months.”

The war was sparked by the October 7 onslaught, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians slaughtered in their home communities and at a music festival amid brutal atrocities, and seizing an estimated 240 hostages.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza aimed at destroying the group’s military and governance capabilities and returning the hostages.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says at least 22,700 people have been killed in the Strip since the war erupted on October 7. The Hamas figure does not differentiate between civilians and combatants and includes Palestinians killed by errant rocket fire from Gaza. Israel says it has killed 8,500 terrorists since launching the war.

US support for Israel’s military campaign “has caused unprecedented massacres and war crimes against our people in Gaza,” Haniyeh said.
Blinken, Borrell call for diplomatic solution to Israeli-Hezbollah conflict
Evacuated Israelis must be able to return to their homes on the country’s northern border, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday night as he called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Hezbollah.

“It is very important that Israelis have security in the North,” Blinken said as he wrapped up a trip to Turkey and Greece and prepared to head for what he said is his fourth tour of the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. It will include stops in Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.

Blinken’s trip is focused on the Gaza war, freeing the hostages held there, and preventing an all-out war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

“We have an intense focus on preventing this conflict from spreading,” he said, as he noted, in particular, the plight of Israelis who had been evacuated from their homes on the northern border 90 days ago at the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

“Tens of thousands of people have been forced from their homes in northern Israel because of the threat posed by Hezbollah,” Blinken said.

“We are looking at ways – diplomatically – to try and defuse that tension so that people can return to their homes; so they can live in peace and security. This is something that we are actively working on,” he said.


Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets in ‘initial response’ to killing of Hamas leader

IDF Eliminates Major Tunnel, 20 Terrorists Beneath Gaza’s Once-Luxurious Blue Beach Hotel
Israel Defense Forces have uncovered and eliminated a major Hamas tunnel beneath Gaza’s Blue Beach Hotel, a luxury beach resort hotel that opened in Gaza in the summer of 2015 and featured cabana boys serving clients on its private beach, along with an Olympic-size swimming pool. Guests were hosted in 162 “chalet-style” rooms set in landscaped grounds with views of the Mediterranean — until Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023.

The hotel was part of the entertainment district along Al-Rashid Street in Gaza City that featured “dozens of new and modern resorts, chalets and coffee shops. The Washington Post described the hotel as one of a number of luxury businesses catering to wealthy Gazans. According to economic analyst Nizar Sha’ban, “Most foreigners who visit the Strip and stay in its hotels are journalists, aid workers, UN and Red Cross staff.”

But no longer.

The 162nd Division’s 14th Brigade, in cooperation with the Yahalom Special Engineering Unit, discovered and eliminated the subterranean passage, complete with seven tunnels shafts, including several containing terrorist living quarters.

The tunnel found near the entrance to the beachfront Blue Beach Hotel in the Shati area of Gaza City was booby-trapped with explosives.

Yahalom Unit forces identified the tunnels’ routes using a range of methods and destroyed the infrastructure this week.

Hamas exploited the hotel, using it as a shelter from where they planned and executed attacks both above and below ground.

Many weapons were found beneath the hotel, including AK-47 assault rifles, explosives, and drones. During the course of combat, dozens of Hamas terrorists entrenched in the hotel fired anti-tank missiles at IDF forces, who returned fire and eliminated the terrorists.


IDF reveals most recent photo of Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif

IDF commando unit locates weapons along with dolls, games inciting hatred

Released Gaza hostage tells of trauma, Hamas's sexual violence
Agam Goldstein Almog, a 17-year-old released after 51 days of captivity in Gaza, shared her harrowing experiences at a gathering in Tel Aviv's Square of the Kidnapped, marking 100 days of war. Her testimony highlighted the event, attended by thousands, including families of IDF casualties and kidnapped individuals.

Recounting her kidnapping, Almog described the terror: "My father was shot immediately as he stood by the safe room, clutching my sister's bed board. He screamed 'No no no' as we, huddled in a corner, were forcibly taken, stepping over his body without a chance to say goodbye. The chaos was deafening."

In captivity, Almog faced the constant threat of death, unsure of how or when it might come – through torture, shooting, or air force bombings. She also witnessed the plight of other girls, "Many experienced severe sexual assaults and complex injuries, left untreated. We had to bandage ourselves or help each other."

Regarding her experience in captivity, she said: "You live death. You don't know when it will catch you and what it will look like, whether it will happen through torture or if they just shoot you or from the air force bombings. You constantly think about what death will look like."

The conditions the hostages were subjected to
After moving from a house to a tunnel, Almog was exposed to another harsh experience. "Suddenly a door opens and six girls were waiting, and then we realized that there are girls who were alone. Many girls experienced severe sexual assaults, they were wounded with very severe and complex injuries that are untreated. They bandaged themselves or we helped them do so." She added, "I can't even imagine what their condition is, what hope they are clinging to."

Romi Cohen, whose twin brother, Nimrod, remains captive in Gaza, expressed her anguish, "We're stuck in the day of his kidnapping. He's enduring starvation, cold, sleep deprivation, and psychological trauma. At 19, he's just a child, his life barely begun."

He is in harsh conditions - severe hunger, cold, lack of sleep, and in a difficult mental state. He is 19, still a child. Just started life. It's unreasonable that he's in captivity," she said.


Families of Israeli Hostages Plan Protest at Kerem Shalom Border Crossing Into Gaza
Relatives of Israelis being held captive in Gaza announced plans to demonstrate on Tuesday at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to highlight lack of humanitarian access to the hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

Shai Wenkert, father of a hostage suffering medical issues, told Israel’s Channel 12 that the protest aims to contrast daily truckloads of Gazan aid against deprivations forced on the hostages.

There are reportedly 100 supply trucks now entering Gaza daily, below pre-war levels but still significant given barred access to the captives for months. Organizers say withholding overall aid is not the objective.

“It’s not because we don’t think they don’t deserve aid,” Wenkert said of Gazans, explaining the protest was not a move to hold the aid from reaching Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.


The Ricochet Podcast: Finding the Way Back
Hosted by James Lileks, Peter Robinson & Rob Long
With guest Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The trio is back for 2024! The reunited gang is happy to welcome back Ayaan Hirsi Ali to discuss the West’s crisis of confidence and its fumbling attempt at post-Judeo-Christianity. Plus James, Rob and Peter have a few thoughts about Claudine Gay’s resignation, and they divulge their philosophies on new year’s resolutions.


The Israel Guys: Hezbollah RETREATS from Israel’s Northern Border
Word broke yesterday that Hezbollah is retreating from Israel's northern border to create a buffer zone. This comes in response to intense pressure Israel is placing them under to do this very thing. Despite what you are seeing in the news, Israel is actually winning this war. Also Israel announces their plans for a post war Gaza.




When protests become acts of intimidation
Toronto city officials and police should make it clear to the Avenue Road protesters that their demonstration must move elsewhere. Protests that seek to make Jewish-Canadian residents feel insecure and fearful in their own neighbourhoods are not an attack on a government or a state. They are an attack on a people. This is rank antisemitism that opens the door to more extreme acts.

Toronto police report that there were 98 hate crimes in Canada’s largest city between last Oct. 7 and Dec. 17, more than twice as many as in the previous year. Fifty-six of those hate crimes, more than half, were antisemitic.

And while the violence in Israel and Gaza is clearly behind this spike, Statistics Canada reports that hate crimes have been on the rise for years.

Many Canadians struggle to find balance in assessing the grim events of the past three months in the Middle East.

But one thing is beyond debate: Jewish Canadians should not be targets for vitriol and violence because of events in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Anti-Zionist demonstrations in or near Jewish neighbourhoods are, in their own way, acts of vitriol. And they accompany other, similar, acts.

Protesters demonstrate in front of and deface Jewish-owned businesses, as though such acts do not encourage others to go farther.

In Victoria, the management of the Belfry Theatre cancelled a play that explores the morality of the conflict between Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East, after rowdy protests that culminated in the theatre being vandalized.

Jewish students and faculty report that they feel fearful and intimidated on college campuses.

This cannot stand. Supporters of the Palestinian people have every right to express their views and to protest actions by Israel, but they have no right to intimidate and to threaten people on the street, on campuses, in theatres or in neighbourhoods. To tolerate such misbehaviour is to encourage much worse actions that inevitably follow. Enough.
Comment: After weeks of demonstrations, enough is enough
The tactics were out of any anarchist’s handbook. A 33-page manual is circulating with the anti-Zionist crowd outlining tactical manouevres for protests and potential confrontations.

Very concerned with our touching their cars — “personal property” — they were much less concerned with surrounding and shoving and slugging.

A young woman full force slugged my husband on the side of his face, and then ran away. We were outnumbered. But you know, and I know, sometimes you just have to say No.

Enough is enough.

And where were the police while all this was going on? They had to know this group’s plan — they certainly knew mine! They were nowhere to be seen.

When I spoke with the constable that afternoon, I had assured her that I appreciated their concerns and potential for protection.

However, I told her, and I do not stand alone here — the police must not continue to allow these illegal blockades of our streets.

Jews in Victoria are frightened. The father of one of the women with me that night was a survivor of the Shoah. She looked at me and said this feels like 1939.

When you watch the cavalcades of cars blocking airports, or marches of thousands of threatening and yelling pro-Hamas demonstrators, think of what happens if Israel does not fight back.

And as we have watched even our local politicians deny reports of the rape and massacre of Israeli woman — even after an 80-day delay in confirmation by the Israel-hating UN — as Jewish women we feel particularly vulnerable.

We know where hatred, anti-Semitism (a Jew-washing phrase coined by Wilhelm Marr to identify and victimize German Jews) leads. To our rape and murder.

So yes, enough is enough. We want our politicians to also say enough. No more hate-fests on the grounds of the legislature. No more taking over our streets. No more hate-filled cavalcades. No more attacks.

No more screaming and chanting instead of dialogue.

Enough. Enough.

I will attend all upcoming demonstrations. I will hold posters of the Israeli hostages, still illegally held in some dank tunnel in Gaza. We have no idea who is alive and who is dead.

But this Jew is standing up in the face of hate, and saying every week: Enough is enough.
House Democrats' Jan. 6 press conference interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters

University of California Medical Prof Defends ‘Zionist Doctors’ Conspiracy, Calls for Investigation
Rupa Marya, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, argued in a recent social-media post that the presence of “Zionists” in U.S. health care may be harming patients and should therefore be investigated.

Marya’s comments came in response to a post from “anti-racist” activist and former Democratic congressional candidate Saira Rao.

“Realizing how many American doctors and nurses are Zionists and genuinely terrified for Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, South Asian and Black patients — even more than usual. And usually it’s bad,” Rao wrote in a New Year’s Day post on X.

The comments were widely condemned as antisemitic, even by vocal advocates of the Palestinian people.

“It is a lie. Stop that nonsense against [the] health system. its [sic] racist,” Ahmed Tibi, an Arab-Israeli Knesset member, responded on X.

Mehdi Hasan, an MSNBC contributor and frequent critic of Israeli policies, denounced the anti-racist organizer for flirting with the boundary of antisemitism. “I’ve long argued that antizionism shouldn’t be equated with antisemitism but, sorry, these kind of ‘antizionists’ takes are nothing but antisemitic,” Hasan wrote on X in early January. “You can’t just make sweeping bigoted remarks about millions of Jewish doctors & nurses and hide behind ‘Zionists.’ It’s just wrong.”

However, Marya rushed to Rao’s defense, arguing that her concern about the malign influence of Zionist doctors was in fact legitimate.

“The presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity,” Marya wrote on X. “Zionism is a supremacist; racist ideology and we see Zionist doctors justifying the genocide of Palestinians. How does their outlook/position impact priorities in US medicine?”

Marya expanded her thoughts on Instagram: “There are so many Jewish doctors who don’t espouse an ideology of supremacism and justification of land theft, apartheid and genocide. They are not the issue here.”


NY girl's basketball game called off after 'disgusting' antisemitism
This was flagrant and foul.

A high school girls’ basketball game in Yonkers was canceled this week when players on the home team shot antisemitic slurs at their Jewish opponents, who needed security guards to escort them off the court to safety.

The girl’s varsity teams from The Leffell School, a private Jewish school in Hartsdale, and Roosevelt High School, a public school in Yonkers, faced off in the non-league game Thursday evening.

“I support Hamas, you f–king Jew,” a Roosevelt player snarled at a Leffell opponent, according to The New York City Public Schools Alliance, a group of parents and teachers fighting antisemitism.

From the outset, there was hostility and aggression with “substantially more jabs and comments thrown at the players on our team than what I have experienced in the past,” senior player Robin Bosworth wrote in an op-ed for Leffell’s student-run newspaper, The Lion’s Roar.

At the end of the third quarter, her teammates were getting injured by the rough plays, and “players on the opposing team started shouting ‘Free Palestine’ and other antisemitic slurs and curses at us,” wrote Bosworth, also editor-in-chief of the school paper.

“I have played a sport every athletic season throughout my high school career, and I have never experienced this kind of hatred directed at one of my teams before,” Bosworth said.

“Instead of responding to hatred with more of the same, we chose to separate ourselves from the situation and leave with dignity and pride in who we are and what we believe in,” she continued.


Cambridge University is embroiled in antisemitism row after college refused to discipline students who called for a 'mass uprising' against Israelis to 'free the Palestinian people'

BDS blow to Big Mac, Jewish student attacked in UK, shul threats

Pro-Palestinian protesters stage sit-in on Westminster Bridge in first demo of 2024

Surprise pro-Palestinian protest blocks bridge outside UK parliament

Are protests on college campuses “independent of the Hamas party line”?
When the current war between Israel and Gaza is over and the reporting of it is reviewed and judged, this sentence written by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic will rank among the silliest written:
Those on U.S. college campuses and in European capitals calling for a cease-fire are demonstrating their admirable independence of the Hamas party line.

This was written in the context of an essay that argues that “Hamas Doesn’t Want a Cease-Fire” (January 2, 2024). While it may be true that Hamas does not actually want a ceasefire right now, and it’s certainly true that it would not adhere to a permanent one, this claim about campus protests shows how little its writer actually understands either Hamas and its goals, or the campus protest movement.

To start with, as The Atlantic itself reported in early November, in the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, National Students for Justice in Palestine promulgated a “toolkit” that states, “we as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement,” and “this is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.” (Emphasis added.) Commenting on those passages from SJP, Conor Friedersdorf wrote, “the declaration that SJP is united with Israel’s attackers, rather than a faction that is merely allied with them, seemingly cuts against claims of uncoordinated or independent advocacy.”

But set that aside. Even if nominally there may have been some cases in which campus protests explicitly called for a bilateral ceasefire (though I’m not actually aware of any that have), in reality, calls for ceasefire are not directed at Hamas. Hamas is, after all, the party that broke the ceasefire on October 7, 2023, as well as on November 28, and that no one sane imagines would adhere to one permanently. In many cases, the protests also call for “intifada,” that is, continued armed attacks against Israel. If they stop their primal drumming and chants long enough for speeches, you might hear about the effects of the war on the people of Gaza, but it’s unlikely you’ll hear about the continuing rocket fire into Israel. The calls for ceasefire, functionally, then, are of course directed only at Israel.

Meanwhile, what Hamas, which no one thinks can extract a military victory over Israel, wants is for Israel to be demonized for the fighting. Campus protests accomplish that. As Matti Friedman wrote recently in the Free Press, “In Europe and North America, as we’ve now seen on the streets and on campuses, many on the progressive left have arrived at an ideology positing that one of the world’s most pressing problems is the State of Israel – a country that has come to be seen as the embodiment of the evils of the racist, capitalist West, if not as the world’s only “apartheid” state, that being a modern synonym for evil.” The hostility to Israel embodied in these protests is part and parcel of Hamas’s plan.




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