As Israel approaches its fourth week of war, which has been dubbed “Swords of Iron,” sparked on October 7th, when the Hamas terrorist organization launched a surprise attack by land, air, and sea. After a heavy barrage of several thousand rockets, Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli territory, infiltrating military bases and civilian population centers, where they massacred the inhabitants and took others captive. As of this writing over 1,400 Israelis have been killed, roughly 4,000 in many cases critically injured and at least 220 kidnapped remain in Hamas captivity.
Since the invasion and brutal massacre, the IDF has been striking terror targets in Gaza as their terror organizations continue to fire rockets into Israel. Meanwhile during the second week of the war, Hezbollah and other groups in Lebanon upped their attacks as well, targeting towns and military installations in northern Israel with rockets and anti-tank munitions. IDF forces have responded as needed and many villages and communities have been evacuated. There have been uprisings in Judea & Samaria, Southern Israel remains under attack, missile sirens are sounding in central Israel and today buildings in both Tel Aviv and Ashdod were directly hit. Not surprisingly, while pressure for “humanitarian aid” comes from many sources and anti-Israel and antisemitic rallies grow around the world (and particularly in the U.S.) in volume, Hamas seems to have no shortage of missiles to fire into the homeland.
There’s way too much for us to try to cover here but as we wish you all a Shabbat Shalom and send prayers for strength and safety to all of Israel and the IDF, we ask you to please read and share the below messages from our most dear friends Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar of the Sovereignty Movement on the definition of Victory and Aharon Pulver, of the Israel Independence Fund on living through these nightmarish times. Finally, we highlight an important article and video on Ambassador Gilad Erdan’s address to the UN regarding not caving into Iran, the country that has surrounded Israel with all of its terror proxies.