Category: Articles

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

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened the Government Meeting on Sunday, saying: “We are conducting negotiations and not a scenario in which we just give and give. The principles we have determined are vital for the security of Israel.”

“Israel is prepared for any threat – both defensively and offensively. We are determined to defend ourselves and to exact a very high price from any enemy who dares to attack us – from any area whatsoever.

“At the same time, we are engaged in negotiations for the release of our hostages. This is a national mission of the highest order. We are holding very complex negotiations in which the other side is a murderous terrorist organization that is unbridled and obstinate.” Netanyahu emphasized, “Up until now, Hamas has been completely obstinate. It did not even send a representative to the talks in Doha. Therefore, the pressure needs to directed at Hamas and Sinwar, not the Government of Israel.”

Hamas claimed responsibility on Monday for an attempted suicide bombing in a major Israeli city on Sunday as the U.S. warned that current talks are “maybe the last” chance to secure a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

Both Hamas and the Islamic Jihad were responsible for a bombing near a synagogue in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Sunday night, in what Israeli intelligence described as a “terrorist attack.”

The only thing this enemy is serious about is eliminating Israel. No ceasefire with a terrorist entity will last as has been shown time and again.

Sources:
Netanyahu: ‘Put pressure on Hamas, not on Israeli government’, by Hezki Baruch/Israel National News, August 18, 2024

Hamas Claims Responsibility For Attempted Suicide Bombing As Blinken Says Talks ‘Maybe The Last’ Chance For Ceasefire, by The Jewish Voice, August 19, 2024

IDF surveillance post operators who served in Judea and Samaria say that the IDF has not learned lessons from October 7 and are warning of another horrific scenario in the near future.

‘Nothing has changed since October 7. Until today, we are still digesting what we saw over two years,’ said Noa and Ofri to Channel 13 News.

“Thousands of Palestinians approach the fence and the IDF does nothing. We have been seeing 60,000 people – and that is just one hole in the fence. There are many breaches in the fence, thousands could cross in one night. Maybe some go to work, beyond that we have no idea what they are doing here.”

Needless to say, aside from being a threat to the safety and security of the country, it is disturbing to hear this breach of security has not been addressed and resolved. Is anyone listening?

Source:
IDF soldiers: ‘Lessons of October 7 not learned in Judea and Samaria’, by Israel National News, August 16, 2024

19 years ago today, on August 15, 2005, Israeli forces began implementing the Disengagement Plan formulated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The date was changed so as not to coincide with Tisha B’Av and the preceding periods of mourning.

Israeli residents held a series of protests against the process, some of which turned violent. In many of the towns that were emptied, residents barricaded themselves inside buildings and fought the security forces with improvised weapons and projectiles. Over the weeks that followed, thousands of soldiers and police officers would make their way through the Gaza Strip, assisting Israelis who wished to leave willingly and removing those who resisted by force. Four towns in northern Samaria were emptied in a similar fashion. By September 22, 2005, Israel’s withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip to the 1967 “Green Line,” and the eviction of the four communities in Samaria, were completed.

In a lengthy write-up in the Times of Israel last December, Return to Gush Katif: A determined movement emerges to resettle Israelis in Gaza, Shlomo Elyashiv Fendel, son of Rabbi Dovid Fendel was among many community members interviewed. He accurately summed up why there needs to be a return to Gush Katif: “Resettling there will be a deterrent to future terrorist attacks and will strengthen Israel’s security. Eliminating Hamas is the beginning, but what will give us long-lasting security is settlements.”

Sources:
Today in History: Beginning of the disengagement from Gush Katif, by Israel National News, August 16, 2024

Return to Gush Katif: A determined movement emerges to resettle Israelis in Gaza, by Mati Wagner/Times of Israel, December 3, 2023

On Wednesday, COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories), a.k.a. the Civil Administration, which is now firmly in the hands of the Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich, completed its professional work and published a new blue line that delimits and defines the community of Nachal Heletz in Gush Etzion.

Nachal Heletz is one of the communities that the Netanyahu cabinet decided upon as part of the five new communities to be erected in response to the PA’s measures against the State of Israel and the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by several countries.

Smotrich stated, “No anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist decision will stop the continued development of the settlement enterprise. We will continue to fight the dangerous idea of ​​a Palestinian state and establish facts on the ground. This is my life’s mission, and I will continue it as long as I can.”

Source:
New & Improved COGAT Publishes Plans for Nachal Heletz in Gush Etzion, by David Israel/Jewish Press, August 12, 2024

Nearly three thousand Jews (2,958) ascended the Temple Mount on Tisha B’Av earlier this week.

One of the Jews was National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir who said, “We are here on Tisha B’Av, on the Temple Mount, to commemorate the destruction of the Temple. But we also have to say honestly: there is a very big progress here in governance, in sovereignty. Pictures of Jews praying here. As I said: our policy is to allow prayer.”

PM Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Ben-Gvir for determining policy on the Temple Mount. Ben-Gvir then released a subsequent statement, presumably in response to Netanyahu: “The policy of the Minister of National Security is to allow freedom of worship for Jews everywhere, including the Temple Mount, and Jews will continue to do so in the future as well. The Temple Mount is a sovereign territory in the capital of the State of Israel. There is no law that allows racial discrimination against Jews on the Temple Mount, or anywhere else in Israel.”

Source:
Ben Gvir Ascends Temple Mount on 9 B’Av, Jews ‘Break the Rules’ by Praying, Prostrating and Singing, by David Israel/Jewish Press, August 13, 2024

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/temple-mount-har-habayit/ben-gvir-ascends-temple-mount-on-9-bav-dozens-break-the-rules-by-prostrating/2024/08/13/