Author: AFSI Staff

As terror attacks in the Hebron and Gush Etzyon areas escalated over the weekend, residents demanded security forces close off access roads leading towards Palestinian villages.

“The region was relatively quiet for months, because ever since the war started the access to the roads from the villages was closed. But as soon as they let them move freely, the attacks start. Just this morning, another attack happened because the roads were opened,” said Meir Dana-Picard, Chairman of the Board of Residents in Mount Hebron.

He was referring to Sunday morning’s drive-by shooting near the Palestinian village of Tarqumiyah in the Hebron region in which three police officers were killed. The terrorist came from the area of the village of Idna, whose access road was reopened that very morning. The attack took place approximately half an hour after the renewal of traffic.

What started off as a massacre by Hamas in Israel’s south and random bombings in the North by Hezbollah is now spreading in other areas of the country like a cancer. Not only is preventing further terror attacks in this area critical but so is securing it so another Oct. 7 cannot happen. Israel must come up with a comprehensive strategy to combat all the Iranian proxies’ broader plans to harm Jews.

Source:
Mount Hebron Leaders Call for Action as Palestinian Terror Attacks Surge, by Sveta Listratov/TPS-IL, September 1, 2024

Recent events have reportedly triggered a major policy shift in Israel’s approach to Judea and Samaria. Designated a “secondary arena” since the onset of the war with Hamas on Oct. 7, onset, the recent increase in terror attacks in the area have convinced top officials that this stance is no longer tenable. The Israel Defense Forces now considers Judea and Samaria as the country’s most critical front after the Gaza Strip.

While this directive is still in its initial stages, with substantial changes on the ground expected to take time, a series of operations across Judea and Samaria are imminent. “The Jenin operation is just the beginning,” security officials emphasize.

The recent spate of terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria underscores the need for comprehensive action across the entire sector. With a new level of aggressive action required, one security source described what’s needed as “not just mowing the lawn but uprooting the problem at its source.”

Source:
Israel to classify Judea, Samaria a ‘combat zone’ amid terror escalation, by Hanan Greenwood/JNS, September 3, 2024

The IDF on Wednesday began an extensive ground operation against terrorist nests in Jenin and Tulkarm in northern Samaria.

This operation, called Operation Summer Camps, is the largest that has been carried out in Judea and Samaria since Operation Protective Shield in 2002 (during the second Intifada) which broke the terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. The current operation is being carried out by a division-size force, with some of the fighters arriving in the targeted areas in helicopters. Covert forces are also involved in the operation and various “fraudulent methods” are being used to mislead the enemy. Heavy exchanges of fire erupted with the arrival of the fighters at every location.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz tweeted Wednesday morning: “Iran is working to establish an eastern terrorist front against Israel in the Judea and Samaria, according to the Gaza and Lebanon model, by financing and arming terrorists and smuggling advanced weapons from Jordan.”

It’s critical that this military operation is being carried out. Due to Iran’s ongoing efforts via proxies to destroy Israel, it is believed to have been weeks away from being able to launch suicide attacks inside Israel, like those seen in the Second Intifada (buses, cafes, etc.). Operation Summer Camps was designed to prevent a repeat of that level of horrific terror attack.

Sources:
IDF Launches Operation Summer Camps in Samaria, 10 Terrorists Dead, by David Israel/Jewish Press, August 28, 2024

Israeli Foreign Minister Hints at Several Days of Counterterror Operations in Judea and Samaria, by Pesach Benson/TPS-IL, August 28, 2024

Knesset member Ariel Kellner and the Beyadenu organization are promoting a comprehensive and first-of-its-kind bill to protect the Temple Mount complex.

The bill also states that whoever desecrates the Temple Mount complex or damages the antiquities inside the complex inadvertently or on purpose, who does something that may desecrate the Temple Mount complex, or carries out excavations inside the Temple Mount without the permission of the Antiquities Authority, shall be sentenced to imprisonment of between three and ten years, according to the severity of his actions, along with a fine.

Tom Nisani, CEO of Beyadenu, said: “The Temple Mount complex is created and damaged daily by excavation, unauthorized construction, and vandalism. The purpose of this law is to protect the most significant heritage site of the Jewish people for generations.”

It goes without saying that this is a long overdue bill, and we pray it passes swiftly and is enforced consistently.

Source:
Bill presented to protect Temple Mount complex from Muslim destruction of Jewish history, by Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz/Israel365News, August 27, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the meeting of the political-security cabinet in the Kirya in Tel Aviv on Sunday morning by referencing the IDF’s pre-emptive strike in Lebanon in the early morning hours.

“This morning, we identified Hezbollah preparations to attack Israel. In consensus with the Defense Minister and the IDF Chief-of-Staff, we directed the IDF to initiate action to eliminate the threat,” Netanyahu said.

“Since then, the IDF has been taking strong action to foil the threats. It has eliminated thousands of rockets that were aimed at northern Israel. It is thwarting many other threats and is taking very strong action – both defensively and offensively,” he said.

Hezbollah was reportedly preparing to fire about 6,000 rockets and missiles at Israel when the IDF launched its pre-emptive strike. However, even though the major attack on Tel Aviv was preempted, we cannot ignore that over 300 rockets were still launched at the North.

Hezbollah was certainly prepared to attack Israel with the intent of massive destruction: however, Israel was certainly ready to take the decisive action that it did to defend itself. The pre-emptive air strike that Israel carried out averted what could have been another devastating tragedy.

Photo above shows a home in Acre damaged by the terror attack.

Sources:
Netanyahu: ‘Whoever harms us, we will harm them’, by Israel National News, August 25, 2024

Tzfat Chief Rabbi: ‘Our blood is as red as that of Tel Aviv residents’, by Israel National News, August 26, 2024

Major General (res.) Gershon Hacohen has pointed out that if the towns of Gush Katif had not been evacuated in the 2005 Disengagement, then the October 7 massacre would never have happened.

Hacohen explained, “If there had been no Disengagement, there would have been no October 7, because Hamas could not have organized for it the way they organized. The entire area of Gush Katif became a training field, a model for tanks, a model of a fence, a model of towns. If we were present in Gush Katif, they would not have had where to organize such trainings.”

It boggles the mind in ways we cannot put into words about how devastating a decision that was made by the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. We can only move forward and pray that the rebuilding of of Jewish communities in this area becomes a reality.

Source:
‘If there’d been no Disengagement, there’d be no Oct. 7’, by Israel National News, August 23, 2024

Israeli government officials, local municipalities and NGOs are waiting to see whether Israel’s Civil Administration will implement a recent cabinet decision calling for Israel to reclaim responsibility from the Palestinian Authority for a nature reserve just east of Gush Etzion in the Judean Desert.

Knesset member Simcha Rothman stated, “anyone who doesn’t understand after Oct. 7 that a quiet village can’t become a base for terrorism didn’t get the memo.”

Naomi Linder-Kahn of Regavim said, “Israel handed over jurisdiction to the P.A., but the P.A. allowed private contractors with foreign governments to develop here,” she added. “They are not private individuals building homes,” she emphasized, “rather this is a massive project, supported by a P.A. master plan to take over the area.”

Source:
Israelis demand Civil Administration reclaim Gush nature reserve from PA, by Josh Hasten/JNS, August 22, 2024

Following Hezbollah’s recently released video highlighting its network of tunnels and underground facilities, experts said the lessons Israel has learned from tunnel warfare in Gaza will be valuable, but that Hezbollah’s underground will be more formidable. “We’ve gained an immense amount of experience in Gaza dealing with complex underground threats,” Prof. Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University.

According to Rabi, Hezbollah’s tunnel network predates the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and the terror group is constantly upgrading it. Hezbollah, said Rabi, “learned a lot relating to geology, building techniques, and more. Now, when Hezbollah builds tunnels, they are more difficult to find, much more complex and significantly more resistant to bunker buster bombs.” He also noted that some of these tunnels are more like underground cities.

Since it began ten months ago, Israel’s Swords of Iron operation has been thorough and persistent in routing out terrorist activities. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have uncovered and destroyed hundreds of terror tunnels, an unprecedented phenomenon in modern warfare. While ground-based terror attacks against Israel have been common, the growing problem of tunnel networks poses an ongoing and significant threat. These tunnels are increasingly being used for the smuggling of weapons, adding a dangerous dimension to Israel’s defense and security challenges. We have faith that the IDF will always be up to facing any challenge in protecting the one and only Jewish State.

Sources:
From Gaza to Lebanon’s ‘Land of Tunnels’: Israel Prepares for a New Underground War, by Noah Michaeli, August 20, 2024

‘It’s Reached Dangerous Levels’: Assassination Shines Spotlight on Iranian Weapons Smuggling to Palestinians, by Pesach Benson/TPS, August 21, 2024

Terrible headline, right? Sadly, we keep reporting too much on this issue.

A full 300 Border Police officers, accompanied by Civil Administration inspectors and heavy machinery, raided the Sde Yonatan and Or Meir homesteads in Binyamin early Tuesday morning, around 4:00am, and destroyed all the buildings there, including residential houses.

“What happened here this morning is madness on every scale,” residents declared. “Arab terror strikes every day everywhere in the country, a terror attack occurs in Tel Aviv, and Jews are slaughtered in Samaria – but instead of ensuring the return of long-lost security, the defense system, under Minister Gallant’s orders, sent its best officers this morning to demolish settlements.”

We are seeing too much of this type of story in the last year and it must stop! With a massive war going on we think it’s high time that Israel make every effort to come to it senses and remember who the land legally belongs to.

Source:
Police demolish Israeli homestead in Binyamin region, by Israel National News, August 20, 2024

The news that Hamas was planning to dig up corpses from an old British cemetery in the Gaza Strip to pressure the British government to turn against Israel shines a spotlight on a question that needs to be asked: How did dead people come to be regarded as “hostages”?

In normal discourse and popular culture, a hostage is typically a person taken prisoner and held bound in some basement—alive—while the kidnappers wait to see if their demands will be met.

A person who is kidnapped and murdered is not normally referred to as a “hostage.” He or she is referred to as dead—as a murder victim.

Source:
Hamas is exploiting dead hostages, by Moshe Phillips/JNS, August 20, 2024