Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday met with the delegation of United Nations ambassadors visiting Israel led by Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan.

“The UN is not a stellar organization when it comes to dealing with Israel. It has a UN so-called human rights commissions that devotes an enormous part of its resolutions against Israel, and nothing against Iran or Yemen or arenas of savagery,” the Prime Minister told the ambassadors.

Netanyahu told the ambassadors that they should care because “Israel is fighting the war of civilization against barbarism. Because Israel is responding to unbelievably brutal and unprovoked attacks. Because it’s doing so with the greatest effort by any army to minimize civilian casualties.”

He continued, “And we have discovered in the last few weeks, that UNRWA officials were complicit in the massacre. I think it’s time that the international community and the UN itself understand that UNRWA’s mission has to end.”

Source:
Netanyahu to UN ambassadors: ‘The world must understand that UNRWA’s mission has to end’, by Israel National News, January 31, 2024

Israeli soldiers discovered an underground tunnel running beneath the Bani Suheila cemetery in Khan Yunis, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday. This cemetery was one of many that IDF was accused of desecrating in recent Western media reports.

“While investigating the tunnel, the forces came across explosives, sliding doors, and blast-proof doors, and eliminated terrorists who were inside,” the IDF statement said.

“Inside the tunnel route, the forces located an office from which a Khan Yunis Brigade battalion commander managed the attack on October 7th, an operations room, a command-and-control center, and the living quarters of senior officials of the Hamas terrorist organization. The tunnel was also used by Hamas to command their attacks against IDF forces both above and below ground.”

The IDF said the shaft was one kilometer long and 20 meters below the cemetery, adding that it was part of a larger underground network.

Source:
Hamas command center uncovered under Gaza cemetery, by Pesach Benson/TPS via World Israel News, January 30, 2024

A plan for military control of Gaza which would gradually lead to a Palestinian state and Saudi Arabia’s normalization of relations with Israel was reported in Ma’ariv on Tuesday.

The first phase of the plan is a military government that will oversee humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians during the transition period.

The second phase will usher in rule of Gaza comprised by a coalition of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE, and Bahrain.

Included in the second phase is a normalization agreement that will create a new Palestinian Authority not involving Hamas or Fatah.

Israel will be allowed security control over the area similar to Judea and Samaria.

With the establishment of a new Palestinian Authority, reforms will be put in place to prevent the pro-terrorist indoctrination that characterized education in Gaza prior to October 7th.

The plan is expected to take four years and at the end of that period, a successful outcome will see the recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state.

This is only one of several plans that have been proposed concerning the governance of Gaza after the war. While nothing is set in stone and the word “state” is a highly charged word in this context, we hope we can see an alternative without a Palestinian “state.”

Source:
Netanyahu aides propose demilitarized Palestinian state, Saudi normalization, by Vered Weiss/World Israel News, January 31, 2024

The United States is suspending additional funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East temporarily as it reviews charges that 12 UNRWA employees took part in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.

“The United States is extremely troubled by the allegations,” stated Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman. Miller added that the United States is reviewing “the steps the United Nations is taking to address them.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with António Guterres, UN secretary-general, on Jan. 25 “to emphasize the necessity of a thorough and swift investigation of this matter,” Miller stated on Friday.

“We welcome the decision to conduct such an investigation and Secretary General Guterres’s pledge to take decisive action to respond, should the allegations prove accurate,” Miller said. “We also welcome the UN’s announcement of a ‘comprehensive and independent’ review of UNRWA.”

While this may be a “better late than never” scenario, there was significant evidence that UNRWA has been a problem for many years. Reports are coming out now that 10% of UNWRA employees have ties to terrorism. Though we would like to trust that a “thorough and swift investigation” will uncover the truth and that proper action will be taken to put a full stop to UNRWA funding, we will have to wait and see.

Sources:
UNRWA Ties to Oct. 7 Massacre Exposed – US Suspending Funding, by Hana Levi Julian/Jewish Press, January 27, 2024

Report: 10% of UNRWA staff affiliated with terror groups, by Israel National News, January 29, 2024

An estimated 5,000 people and a dozen Israeli government ministers attended a conference in Jerusalem on Sunday calling for the re-establishment of Jewish communities in Gaza.

Speaking at the conference, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pointed out that many of the soldiers fighting in Gaza were forcibly removed 19 years earlier when Jewish communities on the Gaza Strip were dissolved. Smotrich said, “We knew what that would bring and we tried to prevent it. Without settlements, there is no security.”

“We yelled and we warned,” Ben Gvir said. “If you don’t want another October 7, we need to return home and control the land.”

Source:
Israeli ministers demand Jewish resettlement of Gaza at Jerusalem conference, by Vered Weiss/World Israel News, January 28, 2024

The IDF has been establishing a wide buffer zone inside Gaza by demolishing buildings along the border, ignoring US warnings against reducing Gaza’s territory to just such ends.

A person close to Israel’s security apparatus said the work is intended to “keep this area completely clean of any terrorists or infrastructure, rocket launchers, mortars, and to give us the freedom of operation in that space.”

To enforce the buffer zone, the IDF has demolished an estimated 1,100 buildings along the border inside Gaza, according to News12, which noted that the demolition plan calls for toppling 2,800 buildings altogether.

Former Shin Bet chief and current Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter explained, “On the Gaza Strip all along, we will have a margin. And they will not be able to get in. It will be a fire zone. And no matter who you are, you will never be able to come close to the Israeli border.”

While the U.S. will express criticism of this, Israel must do what it needs to do to keep its sovereign nation safe.

Source:
Report: 1,100 Buildings Bulldozed to Produce Broad Buffer on Gaza’s Side of the Border, by David Israel/Jewish Press

Twenty-one Israeli soldiers were killed Monday when they came under attack in the southern Gaza Strip, triggering a blast that collapsed two buildings with soldiers inside them, the military said Tuesday morning.

The buildings were being rigged for demolition by troops when Palestinian gunmen fired an RPG at a tank securing the forces. A second blast then occurred in the buildings, possibly as a result of a second RPG, leading to their collapse.

It was the single deadliest incident since the start of Israel’s ground offensive in the enclave and raised the military death toll in the operation to 219.

This tragedy is another example of why Israel must be allowed to finish the war – to eliminate Hamas and all terrorist entities.

Source:
In deadliest incident of Gaza combat, 21 soldiers killed as buildings collapse in blast, by Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel, January 23, 2024

Zvi, an IDF reservist volunteer, and father to seven children, was the last IDF soldier to leave Gush Katif, and lowered the last flag of the IDF in Gaza at a post near the Philadelphi Corridor. Today, he raised the same flag again in Khan Younis.

“Nineteen years ago, I was in conscript service on the Philadelphi Corridor. We were the last forces to leave the Gaza Strip. This flag has been with me for nineteen years, as well as a letter from the company commander, Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi.”

We pray the raising of this flag is an omen for the many good things to come and to be returned to Israel.

Source:
19 years later: Reservist raises flag he lowered leaving Gush Katif, by Israel National News, January 23, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected conditions presented by Hamas to end the war and release hostages that would include Israel’s complete withdrawal and leaving Hamas in power in Gaza.

“In exchange for the release of our hostages, Hamas demands the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza, the release of all the murderers and rapists, and leaving Hamas intact. I reject outright the terms of surrender of the monsters of Hamas,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu also took a stronger line on the issue of Palestinian statehood than previously.

“I will not compromise on full Israeli security control of all territory west of the Jordan River,” he said.

US President Joe Biden on Friday said he spoke with Netanyahu about possible solutions for creation of an independent Palestinian state, suggesting one path could involve a non-militarized government.

“My insistence is what prevented for years the establishment of a Palestinian state that would have posed an existential danger to Israel,” Netanyahu said.

We applaud Prime Minister Netanyahu for making it clear and holding firm to his position that there will be NO TWO STATE SOLUTION.

Source:
PM rejects Hamas conditions for hostage deal which include ‘outright surrender’, by Reuters and ILH Staff/Israel Hayom, January 22, 2024

Israel’s security cabinet approved a proposal to transfer funds earmarked for the Palestinian Authority to Norway. This was done in the hopes of resolving a dispute between Jerusalem and Washington. Tax funds collected for the PA from PA residents working in Israel will be transferred to Norway but will only be released with the approval of Israel’s finance minister.

The Biden administration has demanded Israel unfreeze funds earmarked for the PA, as part of the administration’s bid to reform the PA’s leadership.

No reform of PA “leadership” should take place now. Let Israel do its job and eliminate the terrorist entity controlling the PA in the first place. As long as Hamas controls Gaza and the PA is militarized, there can be no realistic steps toward reform.

Source:
Israeli minister outraged as cabinet okays plan to transfer Palestinian Authority funds, by Vered Weiss/World Israel News, January 21, 2024