Hamas Fires Rockets at Central Israel for First Time in Months

NYT
Israel’s military says the rockets came from Rafah, where its troops have been advancing.

Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at central Israel on Sunday afternoon, setting off air-raid sirens in the Tel Aviv area for the first time since at least late January, and showing that the group retains some long-range missile capabilities more than seven months into Israel’s war against the militant group in Gaza.

The Israeli military said at least eight rockets were fired from the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli forces have been advancing in an operation against Hamas that has drawn global scrutiny. Over 800,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah in the face of the Israeli offensive, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the enclave, according to the United Nations.

Air defenses shot down “a number” of rockets, according to the Israeli military, and there were no immediate reports of major damage.

Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service, said two women were lightly wounded as they fled to a bomb shelter. Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, took responsibility for the rocket fire, saying it came “in response to massacres against civilians.”

Israeli leaders have insisted for months that a large-scale ground operation in Rafah was necessary to root out the brigades of Hamas militants that remain in the city. The Biden administration, the United Nations and human rights groups have all expressed serious concern over the offensive, which they said threatened the safety of civilians sheltering there.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice appeared to order Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah, although at least some of the court’s judges said limited operations could continue despite the decision.

The Israeli military said its troops continued to fight in and around Rafah over the weekend, engaging in firefights. And on Sunday, Israel’s defense minister visited the city, indicating that the military had no intention of stopping. Mr. Gallant received a situational assessment from troops there and was briefed on the “deepening of operations,” according to a statement from his office.

“Our goals in Gaza are emphasized here in Rafah — to destroy Hamas, return the hostages, and maintain freedom of operation,” he told troops, according to the statement.

Israeli politicians also said the rocket fire demonstrated the necessity of the Rafah offensive. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, called the incident proof that “wherever Hamas is, the Israeli military must act.”

The rocket barrage briefly disrupted daily life in central Israel, where many people have settled into a kind of wartime routine. Thousands of Israelis called up for the military’s reserves in the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks have returned home, and rocket attacks have been largely aimed at communities close to the border with Gaza and with Lebanon.

Israel’s war cabinet will meet on Sunday night to discuss continuing efforts to reach a cease-fire deal and free hostages held in Gaza, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the talks. Diplomats are aiming to restart negotiations for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas at some point in the next week, according to three officials briefed on the process. According to the officials, preliminary discussions were held this weekend in Paris.

At least seven people were arrested in Tel Aviv on Saturday night as demonstrators protested against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Featuring a large banner that read “Crime Minister,” the demonstration added to the growing pressure on Mr. Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza. Many in Israel are angry that he has not done more to bring home the more than 100 hostages believed to still be held in the enclave.

Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet who recently threatened to quit the government, said he was seeking to establish an independent commission to investigate Israel’s failure to stop the Hamas-led surprise attack on Oct. 7, as well as its conduct in the war. Under Mr. Gantz’s proposal, the commission would also probe whether Israeli military and political officials had acted in accordance with international law. Mr. Gantz said he had submitted his proposal for cabinet approval; it was unclear whether Mr. Netanyahu and his allies would back the move. A rival of Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gantz has said he would leave Israel’s emergency wartime government unless the prime minister answered major questions about the future of the war.

Four U.S. Army vessels broke free of their moorings off the coast of Gaza on Saturday amid rough seas, the Pentagon said in a statement. Two of them were beached on the coast of Israel, near Ashkelon, and were being recovered with the help of the Israeli military. The other two were anchored on the beach near the temporary pier built by the U.S. military to help deliver aid to Palestinians in the war-torn enclave. The pier was still fully functional, the Pentagon said. The episode was the latest hiccup in the U.S. effort, which has struggled to increase the amount of aid getting into Gaza.

Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid bound for the Gaza Strip waiting on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on Sunday.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Aid trucks from Egypt were expected to enter the devastated Gaza Strip on Sunday under a new U.S.-brokered agreement to reopen a vital conduit for humanitarian relief.

Egypt has blocked aid from entering the enclave via its territory since Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing — which provides access to southern Gaza — in early May. The two sides have traded blame over the crossing’s closure, even as aid has piled up on the Egyptian side. After U.S. pressure, Egypt announced on Friday that it had agreed to divert trucks through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, which is roughly two miles from the Rafah crossing, as a temporary measure.

Roughly 200 trucks carrying food and other aid from Egypt were set to enter Gaza on Sunday via Kerem Shalom, according to Ahmad Ezzat, an Egyptian Red Crescent official. COGAT, an Israeli military agency that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs, could not be reached for comment.

The quantity of food, water and medicines reaching Gazans has plummeted since the war began nearly eight months ago. As a result, the United Nations and aid groups have been warning of widespread hunger in the enclave and urging Israel to open more routes for aid to enter. But in recent weeks, aid shipments into Gaza through the two main land conduits have been interrupted.

One of those crossings is Kerem Shalom, which sits at the intersection of Gaza, Israel and Egypt. Israel temporarily closed Kerem Shalom a few weeks ago after a Hamas rocket attack there killed four of its soldiers. Since then Israel has allowed some aid into Gaza though Kerem Shalom, but its distribution has been a point of contention. Israel says that aid agencies must distribute the aid. But the agencies say that the Israeli military’s activity in southern Gaza has made their job nearly impossible.

The other major gateway for aid is between Gaza and Egypt, at Rafah. Israeli forces captured the crossing as part of their initial advance toward the city overnight on May 6. Since then, Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian officials have been unable to strike a deal to resume aid shipments there.

When the Rafah crossing closed, the Egyptian government also initially held out on sending aid trucks toward Kerem Shalom, in what American and Israeli officials called an attempt to pressure Israel to back down from its operation in Rafah.

On Friday, Egypt and the United States announced that Cairo had agreed to temporarily allow food, basic supplies and fuel to move from its territory into Gaza though Kerem Shalom. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Egyptian president, emphasized that the measure was a stopgap until “a new legal mechanism” could be found on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing.

It remains unclear when the Rafah crossing will reopen for aid. U.S. officials are expected to head to Cairo this week to “support efforts to reopen the Rafah crossing,” according to the White House.

Two children stand on the back of a truck receiving bags from a man. Nearby a tent camp is visible.
Palestinians preparing to flee Rafah, in southern Gaza, earlier this month.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Gazans have been uprooted time and again during the more than seven months of Israel’s invasion and bombardment. Facing the prospect of having to pack up and flee once more, some in Rafah are putting off leaving, at least for now.

More than 800,000 Palestinians have already fled the southern city of Rafah and its surrounding areas over the past three weeks as Israel presses a military offensive there, according to the United Nations. But many are holding on in what was once considered the safest place in the Gaza Strip, where more than a million had come to find shelter.

They are exhausted, hungry and know that the next place they flee to likely won’t be safe either. Israel has continued to bombard Gaza, even in areas previously designated as safe.

Israeli forces dropped leaflets ordering people to evacuate and launched a military offensive this month in the eastern part of Rafah, and they have been advancing yard-by-yard deeper into the city. The U.N.’s top court appears to have ordered Israel to stop its offensive, but Israel, so far, has signaled that it will continue.

Some in western Rafah are waiting to see what comes before getting out. Others have even fled and returned, having found neither safety nor the essentials of life elsewhere.

“The most despicable word I don’t like to say or hear is ‘displacement,’” 30-year-old Randa Naser Samoud, a math teacher from northern Gaza, said on Thursday as the Israeli military pushed toward the center of the city. “Evacuation means loss of value in life, so much suffering and pain.”

Along with her husband — a dentist — and their three children, Ms. Samoud has already been displaced four times. They are now living in a tent near a U.N. warehouse, and though their area has not received orders to evacuate, about three-quarters of the people around them have already fled.

As Ms. Samoud walked with one of her young sons on Thursday, she saw trucks on the street being loaded with the belongings of families preparing to flee.

“The topic of evacuation is not an easy thing to talk about or decide on,” she said. “I am always talking with my husband about the plans if needed but it’s still hard to decide.”

Her father suggested they move to a school building in one of the cities where many people had fled for shelter. But Ms. Samoud says that the schools-turned-shelters are not good options because of a lack of sanitation and garbage piling everywhere. She worries her children will get sick.

With each displacement, Gazans must start anew, as they often can’t take much with them. Transportation costs can be hundreds of dollars.

“The ultimate horrible thought on my mind is the moment that I have to escape my tent and leave everything I have collected or bought behind me,” she said, pointing to the clothes, dishes and food they have in their tent.

Ahlam Saeed Abu Riyala, 40, said that concerns about access to water have kept her and her family of eight in western Rafah after they were displaced four times.

For months, they have been living in a tent steps away from the Egyptian border — close enough to speak to the Egyptian soldiers on the other side. As Ms. Abu Riyala stood outside her tent speaking to a neighbor, a water truck nearby pumped out clean drinking water for the displaced people in the camp.

“We are now of two minds; I say we should evacuate Rafah before it is too late, but my husband says ‘no,’” she said. “But we cannot leave for many reasons, and water is the top priority.”

The sounds of Israel’s air and ground invasion keep them on edge. They can hear tanks and, at times, Israeli armed drones that play the message “security” in Arabic or the sound of dogs barking, she said.

Even if they choose to leave, the cost of such a trek might be beyond their means.

“Mentally, physically and financially, I’m exhausted and fed up with the word ‘evacuation,’” she said. “I hate my life and all of this suffering.”


GREAT WAY TO NEGOTIATE A CEASEFIRE, HUH?

Israeli politicians also said the rocket fire demonstrated the necessity of the Rafah offensive.

This seems clear to me.

Read up on the how the Japanese soldiers treated the civilians on Okinawa during the war... they literally used them as human shields and forced some women and children to be suicide bombers because they knew US troops would get closer to them and want to help.

drglnc,
Did you read my PM?
Robert

Another Anti-Israel Ruling in The Hague
The International Court of Justice is detached from reality on Rafah.


WSJ Editorial Board
Is the International Court of Justice paying attention? On Friday the ICJ ruled that Israel “must immediately halt its military offensive,” and other actions in Rafah, “which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Such was the dire prediction of Israel’s enemies before the Rafah operation began, but it isn’t reflected on the ground.

The only group Israel aims to destroy in Rafah is Hamas. Since the invasion of the city began nearly three weeks ago, Israel has expertly evacuated about a million Gazans. Because Hamas isn’t party to the ICJ trial, the ruling demands nothing of it, while seeming to tell Israel unilaterally to stop fighting in the terrorists’ last stronghold.

What about the Israelis held hostage in Rafah? The ICJ knows that Hamas refuses to release them, which the ruling calls “deeply troubling.” Well, thanks, but the judges effectively ask Israel to abandon the hostages.

Like most rulings from The Hague, this one will be ignored. Israel rightly says it is already in compliance with the court’s wishes—its Rafah offensive isn’t genocidal, so it need not be halted. No state in Israel’s place could do otherwise.

The ICJ also orders Israel to open the Rafah border crossing from Egypt. For weeks Israel has been begging Egypt to open that crossing. But since Israel, not Hamas, now controls Gaza’s side of the border, Egypt had refused, holding up 2,000 aid trucks. Only after President Biden called Egypt’s President on Friday did Cairo agree to reopen the crossing. But why was the ICJ blaming Israel?

A dissent on the court is notable. “The Court’s jurisdiction is limited to the Genocide Convention,” writes Julia Sebutinde of Uganda, and “there are no indicators of a genocidal intent on the part of Israel.” The ICJ case brought by South Africa includes examples of allegedly genocidal rhetoric from Israel, but her rejoinder is highly effective.

“The vast majority of the statements referred to the destruction of Hamas and not the Palestinian people,” she says. A few “renegade statements” by uninvolved officials were “highly criticized by the Israeli Government itself.” She finds that “South Africa has either placed the quotations out of context or simply misunderstood,” but also suggests another motive: “South Africa, and in particular certain organs of government, have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a cordial relationship with the leadership of Hamas.”

The inversion of international law is something to behold: Hamas slaughters Israeli civilians and hides behind its own so that Israel stands accused. The ICJ’s presiding judge is Lebanon’s Nawaf Salam, whose bias is outrageous. He has denounced Israel for decades and is active in Lebanese politics, having twice been a candidate for prime minister since joining the bench in The Hague.

The transparent nature of the ICJ ruling has the benefit of making it easier to dismiss. Israel is advancing in Rafah and intends to halt in a few weeks when the job is done. Only when Hamas is defeated in Rafah can war in Gaza ebb.

President Crappypants great pier idea...and then


https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2024/05/27/4-u-s-army-ships-run-aground-near-floating-gaza-pier-boots-on-the-ground/ [/i][/color][/size]


[frypan] [frypan] [frypan]


LET'S GO BRANDON!!!

Better than the cut and run from Afghanistan? Or is that yet to be seen?

GAZA — Terrorists across the globe faced the bitter reality today that if they rape and murder hundreds of women, the United Nations will give them a country to operate and billions of dollars.

"Today, we have put terrorists on notice," declared Secretary General António Guterres to the United Nations General Assembly. "Let it be known that the consequences of mass rape and murder will be swift, and in the form of cash."

Terrorist organizations reeled from the shocking news, stunned by the United Nation's dramatic action. "My English not so good, let me be sure I understand," said terrorist Mohammed Deif. "We do nothing, get no money. We rape women, United Nations give us money? You are sure?" asked Deif, clearly dazed by the harsh new reality. "And you say if shoot children, we get to run country? Well, okay... if we must go rape women and shoot kids, we must. Bye-bye."

The Biden administration has thrown its full support behind the move, vowing to hunt down every single terrorist and personally give them a suitcase of cash. "We will not sit idly by as ruthless barbarians film themselves raping women and butchering children," declared Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. "We will ensure those murderous psychopaths receive their just due - a country to plan more attacks from, and the cash for more ammo and GoPro cameras. There will no more warnings, only cash."

At publishing time, billionaire terrorist leaders living in Qatar had learned the devastating news that they would be receiving millions more dollars for their role in financing mass rape.

Well, Biden is clearly funding the foes for the IDF and slow-walking ammo to Israel. At this point we could've told the Ukrainian neo-nazis to go to Afghanistan and pick up what we were going to leave! Ooops, that ended up in Taliban hands and they sold the bulk to Iran...which is using it against the IDF...Soooo...


LET'S GO BRANDON!!!

1. FIFY
2. Satire always contains at least a grain of truth.

Again to the topic of a "genocide":

"How Israel worked to renew Gaza’s water supply amid the war, with help from locals"

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-israel-worked-to-renew-gazas-water-supply-amid-the-war-with-help-from-locals/ 

They prolly put fluoride in the water.

And, now this...


Risk of War Between Israel and Hezbollah Builds as Clashes Escalate
Despite efforts to keep hostilities in check, officials on both sides are sounding warnings

WSJ
Israel and Hezbollah are moving closer to a full-scale war after months of escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group, adding pressure on Israel’s government to secure its northern border.

Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization closely aligned with Iran, opened a battle front with Israel on Oct. 8, a day after the deadly Hamas-led raid inside Israel sparked the current war in Gaza.

Hezbollah says that its attacks are in support of the Palestinians and that it won’t stop until Israel ceases its war in Gaza. Reluctant to open a second front, Israel initially responded to Hezbollah with tit-for-tat attacks, trying to calibrate its actions to avoid sparking a full-scale war.

But in recent weeks, both sides say there has been a sharp rise in hostilities. Hezbollah has increased its drone and rocket attacks, hitting important Israeli military installations. Israel, too, has stepped up attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites deep into southern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley as well as senior military officials in the group.

Without a cease-fire in Gaza and subsequent deal with Hezbollah that meets Israel’s requirements, Israeli officials say an offensive is inevitable against a foe that is far more formidable than Hamas.

Benny Gantz, a minister in Israel’s war cabinet, said Israel would return residents to northern Israel by Sept. 1—when schools restart—either “through a deal or through an escalation.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was prepared to take “very strong action” against Hezbollah. “Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will sit and do nothing is making a big mistake.”

Wildfires sparked by Hezbollah drone and rocket attacks raged through northern Israel beginning Sunday. The blaze was largely contained by Tuesday morning and caused few injuries. But images spurred demands in Israel that after about eight months of low-intensity warfare with Hezbollah, which has left more than 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes, the government needs to go on the offensive.

“They are burning here, we need to burn all of Hezbollah’s strongholds and destroy them. War!” said Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, during a visit Tuesday to Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli city affected by the blaze. It has been largely depopulated because of the war and under constant bombardment from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The U.S. and France have been working on creating the outlines of a diplomatic solution to the conflict, shuttling between Israel and Lebanon for months.

The talks aim to move Hezbollah’s forces over 6 miles north of Israel, past the Litani River, and the influx of either the Lebanese military or international forces into the area could enforce the removal of the militants from the border area, according to diplomats briefed on the talks. Israel and Lebanon would also negotiate pre-existing border disputes.

Lebanese officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Pushing back Hezbollah’s forces would put the group’s antitank missiles out of range of Israeli communities and prevent its long-threatened invasion of northern Israel.

Many Israelis from northern Israel say that a cease-fire isn’t enough to bring them back to their homes.

Giora Zaltz, head of the Israeli regional district bordering with Lebanon, said that the main two threats his constituents fear are a Hamas-style invasion into their territory by Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces and shoulder-launched missiles that Israel can’t easily intercept. Alleviating their fears requires pushing Hezbollah forces and armaments several miles into Lebanese territory, which Zaltz said requires either an enforceable diplomatic solution or military action.

Without this, he said, citizens won’t return to their homes. “The border will move farther and farther south,” he said.

Hezbollah, which is also a powerful political party in Lebanon, says it won’t agree to any diplomatic deal with Israel until the war in Gaza is halted. Despite a fresh push from President Biden for a cease-fire in Gaza, there are significant challenges left for getting there, and Israel says it will keep fighting in Gaza at some level until the end of the year.

Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said the main message behind Hezbollah’s operations is that the group is ready for a full-scale war with Israel and will fight without any rules or limits.

“We have called for a cease-fire in Gaza and we don’t intend to widen the war, but if Netanyahu decides to expand the war, it won’t be a walk in the park,” he said.

Many Israelis from the northern part of the country say they don’t trust Hezbollah to stick to any agreement, and instead want Israel to remove Lebanese villages close to the border, where Hezbollah fighters live and could return under the guise of civilians. Otherwise, they say, many won’t return to their homes.

“We gave our chance to the diplomatic approach in 2006,” said an Israeli border-community resident, Nissan Ze’evi. “It became a total failure.” Only a military solution, he said, would make his family feel safe enough to go home.

Hezbollah was supposed to disarm and stay away from Israel’s border under the terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed after a summer war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006.

But Israeli officials say that, rather than pulling back, Hezbollah has amassed an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles there, along with thousands of battle-hardened infantrymen.

A Hezbollah official said that Israel has been continuously violating U.N. Resolution 1701 with aerial, naval and land incursions into Lebanese territory.

More than 100,000 Lebanese have been displaced from their homes because of the fighting, and many rely on financial support from Hezbollah. Najib Bajouk, a resident of the border town of Aita el Shaab, left his hometown in October following attacks between Hezbollah and Israel. He now lives in the city of Tyre with his wife and three children. “My house was completely destroyed due to Israeli targeting of the town, but the moment the cease-fire is reached I plan to go back and rebuild it,” he said.

Netanyahu, during a visit to northern Israel in May, said Israel had surprises planned for Hezbollah, but wouldn’t reveal them to Israel’s enemies.

Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, said Israel could opt for the smaller goal of pushing Hezbollah past the Litani River, or take the opportunity to disarm Hezbollah and remove the threat of its short-range rocket arsenal, which can overwhelm Israel’s air defenses.

Either choice, he said, would likely spark a full-scale war, one that would lead to a “level of destruction that will be unprecedented in Israeli history.”

After about eight months of fighting, Hezbollah is still able to move its forces closer and farther from Israel’s border as needed, according to an Israeli air force intelligence officer.

Each side has learned about the other’s weaknesses, the officer said, while trying to avoid making any moves that could spark a full-scale war.

“Both sides are preparing and ready if something will happen,” the officer said.

Israel Repels Raid From Gaza, Highlighting Border Concerns
Incident comes as U.S. and Arab mediators push for a cease-fire deal


WSJ
TEL AVIV—Militants from Gaza tried to stage a raid into Israel on Thursday, the Israeli military said, an attempt that highlighted Israel’s fears that Hamas still poses a threat to its security despite the group’s diminished military capabilities since it led the attacks of Oct. 7.

A group of fighters crossed the first of two border fences between Israel and Gaza before encountering an Israeli patrol, engaging in a firefight and retreating back into Gaza, Israel’s military said. One Israeli soldier was killed in the clash and three militants were killed by Israeli drone and tank fire.

The military said the militants were carrying rifles and rocket-propelled grenades and were trying to infiltrate in the area of Kerem Shalom, home to a border crossing for bringing humanitarian aid into the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

President Biden has urged Israel to end the war with Hamas, saying the group is incapable of conducting another Oct. 7-style attack. Israeli leaders say Israel hasn’t sufficiently eliminated the military threat posed by Hamas, whose leaders have threatened to continue invading Israel.

“There are still lots of weapons and terrorists in Gaza and they have their own capabilities, from the IDF’s perspective there is still work to be done,” said an Israeli military official following the raid attempt, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli soldiers man a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip. PHOTO: AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES
U.S. and Arab mediators are making a concerted push to broker a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas to end eight months of fighting that has led to tens of thousands of deaths and a humanitarian disaster across Gaza.

Last Friday, Biden urged Israel to stand behind the proposed deal, which he presented as an Israeli proposal, saying that Israel’s security isn’t at risk because Hamas has already been degraded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would continue its war until Hamas’s military and governance capabilities in Gaza are destroyed, and his office said that Biden’s framing of the deal didn’t accurately reflect that position. Hamas said Thursday it wouldn’t accept the proposal in its current form.

Netanyahu accepted an invitation to address a joint session of Congress on July 24 about Israel’s war in Gaza, the top two congressional Republicans said on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, fighting continued across Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military said it was continuing its operations in central Gaza’s Bureij and Deir al-Balah, as well as Rafah in the south. Israeli soldiers also reached Rafah’s Mediterranean coast, an Israeli military official said on Friday. Israel is now deployed across the roughly nine-mile border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, a week after the military said it established operational control over the border zone.

Israel also said it struck a Hamas compound embedded within a northern Gaza school run by the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian refugees on Friday, a day after a similar strike on what Israel said were Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants within the agency’s school-turned-shelter killed about 40 people, Palestinian officials said. The agency has called on “all parties to the conflict” to not use its facilities for military purposes.

“There are still thousands of Hamas terrorists, armed, and capable of conducting terror attacks,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior Israeli security official. Referring to the Thursday raid, he said that militants advancing toward Israeli territo
Also on Friday, a temporary pier built by the U.S. and designed to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza was put back in place, the Pentagon said. The offshore pier was shut down last week after breaking in the Mediterranean’s choppy waters. Israeli forces assisted in the operation, the Pentagon said. Biden has vowed no U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza.

How long the pier will operate is unclear, as it has been damaged a number of times since its installation last month. In all, 1,000 metric tons of aid have traveled via the pier, the Pentagon said, a fraction of what Gaza’s 2.2 million residents need.

Biden last week made public details of a previously undisclosed Israeli cease-fire proposal, which would begin with the return of some Israeli hostages held in Gaza since Oct. 7 in exchange for a six-week halt to the fighting. While Biden presented the deal as a map to a permanent cease-fire, Israel described it as a path toward “sustainable calm,” an Israeli official said. Netanyahu’s office has repeatedly said that the deal wouldn’t end the war before Hamas is uprooted.

Hamas’s Gaza chief and architect of the Oct. 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar, said that he wouldn’t accept a proposal that doesn’t lead to a permanent cease-fire.

Thursday’s border incident is one of several since Hamas-led militants burst through into southern Israel and killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. The resulting war has killed more than 36,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities. The figure doesn’t specify how many were combatants.

Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terrorist group based in Lebanon, has made several additional attempts to cross into Israel from that country, after opening its fight against Israel on Oct. 8. The undeclared war between Israel and Hezbollah has increased in intensity in recent weeks. Efforts to end the fighting between the two are unlikely to bear fruit until the war stops in Gaza, diplomats briefed on the process say.

Further complicating negotiation efforts, Netanyahu’s war-cabinet colleague Benny Gantz could resign his post as early as Saturday. Gantz, a centrist, said in May that he would quit on June 8 if Netanyahu didn’t present a plan for ending the war and securing Gaza. People close to Gantz said that is still his intention. Netanyahu’s government could survive the blow but would be more reliant on far-right politicians.

Opinion: Don’t Blame Israel First
World opinion should impose more pressure on Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar.


WSJ
As reports come out of the Biden administration about cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, bear in mind that the goal of one side in the discussions remains the elimination of the sovereign nation of Israel.

Hamas’s 1988 charter continues to call for Israel’s destruction.

Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose wealth subsidizes Hamas’s military operations, has said, “The perpetual subject of Iran is the elimination of Israel from the region.” It remains so.

Despite the recent emergence of cease-fires as a means to end wars, active military conflicts on this scale typically don’t end this way. More often, cease-fires occur when the opposition has effectively been defeated, as Germany and Japan were in World War II.

The debate over the terms of the current Israel-Hamas cease-fire proposals turns mainly on whether a stop to the fighting would be permanent or temporary, following a hostage and prisoner exchange. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to reserve the right to resume fighting against Hamas.

Pointedly, the Biden administration’s proposal for a six-week cease-fire includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza. Such a departure surely would be interpreted as a victory for Hamas, and in particular for its military leader, Yahya Sinwar.

Mr. Sinwar, the primary architect of the Oct. 7 invasion, who presumably resides inside the Gaza tunnel system, should be seen as the central figure in the conflict, more important to its resolution than Mr. Netanyahu or President Biden.

Recent news reports have suggested that Hamas’s so-called political leadership in Qatar is more amenable to ending the conflict than is Mr. Sinwar, though both insist that Hamas retain a primary governing role in Gaza. Mr. Sinwar apparently believes he has Israel bogged down in a quagmire and that international opinion has turned the Jewish state into a pariah, pushing the Israelis toward a settlement on his terms.

As with the airliner attacks on the U.S. mainland on Sept. 11, 2001, which live on simply as “9/11,” the origin of the Israel-Hamas war has been reduced similarly to “Oct. 7.” While the attack in 2001 was mainly about killing Americans, there is a danger in losing sight of the much broader political purposes of Mr. Sinwar’s Oct. 7 invasion.

When it happened, the assault’s events seemed incomprehensibly heinous—the point-blank shootings of innocents, rapes and the abduction of 252 hostages into Gaza (at least 43 of whom are believed to have died in captivity). It is clear in retrospect that the barbarity was Mr. Sinwar’s long-term strategy.

Hamas’s intention was to force the Israel Defense Forces inside Gaza indefinitely, as it pursued Israel’s longstanding policy of freeing hostages. With Hamas holding the captives inside its virtually impenetrable underground city of tunnels, the Sinwar political calculation was correct that images of Israel’s inevitable assault on Hamas in the neighborhoods of Gaza to free hostages would in time transfer international blame onto Israel, aided, of course, by organized Palestinian-Hamas protest groups across the U.S. and Europe.

And finally by Joe Biden. Asked days ago in an interview if he thought Mr. Netanyahu was prolonging the war out of self preservation, the American president replied, “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.” In March, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an astonishing floor speech that Mr. Netanyahu “no longer fits the needs” of Israel. A belief has emerged in what passes for world opinion that if Mr. Netanyahu can be forced out of office, a “moderate” Israeli leadership will emerge, and somehow the war will end.

Rarely discussed, because it is so incredible, is the assumption that any successor Israeli government would allow the Sinwar-led Hamas to emerge intact, in Gaza, with whatever weaponry it has left. The more plausible reality is that if Hamas and its leadership is to avoid execution or assassination, it will have to plot its next steps somewhere other than the Gaza Strip. Perhaps Spain, Ireland or Norway, each of which has recognized a Palestinian state, would offer to take Hamas in.

An additional reality, which no cease-fire proposal can dispel, is that the elimination of Israel will continue as an active goal of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and some U.S.-based protest groups. On May 31, another anti-Israel divestment group invaded and closed the Brooklyn Museum, carrying signs with slogans such as “No Normalization of Settler Colonialism.”

The debate over the Israel-Hamas war has fallen deeply into a moral imbalance. The conflict’s grinding status quo—with Palestinians and the Israeli hostages continuing to die—has little hope of changing until the statements of foreign leaders, analysts, the media and not least Mr. Biden and his many translators begin to impose serious political and moral pressure on the man who put this horror in motion: Hamas military commander in chief Yahya Sinwar. Blame him first.

Hamas needs to be totally destroyed. Hamas supporters FU. The nonsense with the world court and the UN court is outlandish. We should defund them if we provide any funding. Perhaps we should exit the UN and form a new group with only first world countries.

U.S. intelligence aided Israeli hostage rescue
A team of American personnel based at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem has been focused on such efforts since the Gaza war began in October.


WAPO
The United States provided some intelligence that aided in Saturday’s rescue of four Israeli hostages, according to several people familiar with the matter.

An American team based in Israel furnished the information, these people said, though it appeared to be secondary to intelligence gathered by the Israelis ahead of the operation. One person said the U.S. material included overhead imagery. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the operation’s sensitivity.


That team, composed of special operations and intelligence personnel working out of the embassy in Jerusalem, has been in Israel since the war began in October. Since then, it has shared with Israeli counterparts information about hostages’ potential location gleaned from U.S. drone surveillance over Gaza, communications intercepts and other sources, said the people familiar with the matter.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a parliamentary committee Monday that any “claims that we have agreed to a cease-fire without our conditions being met are incorrect.” The remark came as a Hamas official, Suhail Hindi, told The Washington Post that the plan presented publicly by President Biden last week was “still under discussion” by the group.
End of carousel

“The United States is supporting all efforts to secure the release of hostages still held by Hamas, including American citizens,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. He noted this work includes ongoing negotiations and “other means.”

Hamas and other militants took approximately 250 hostages amid their brazen cross-border assault into Israel on Oct. 7, a gruesome attack that left 1,200 dead. At least 112 people have been freed, either as part of a negotiated deal between Israel and Hamas late last year or through coordinated rescue operations.

Of the hostages who remain in Gaza, fewer than 80 are believed to be alive. Eight American citizens are thought to be among those still in captivity, including the remains of three who are dead.

Saturday’s daytime mission was part of a broader Israeli operation in central Gaza that local health authorities said left at least 210 Palestinians dead. Israeli officials described the rescue operation as weeks in the making and enabled by “precise intelligence.” Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said two buildings were targeted and that the personnel involved took fire.

Washington maintains what one U.S. official characterized Saturday as a “very deep partnership” with Israel on its hostage-rescue efforts.

Days after the Gaza war began, the Pentagon acknowledged that a “small number” of U.S. military personnel were at the embassy in Jerusalem to assist the Israeli government through planning and intelligence support.

U.S. intelligence analysts also are helping Israeli officials in some of their work to map out the extensive network of tunnels that Hamas has built beneath Gaza, contributing powerful analytic technologies that fuse fragments of information, according to officials with knowledge of that work.

U.S. defense officials have said that while American military personnel have been advising the Israelis, they have not accompanied Israel’s military on any missions in the Gaza Strip. President Biden has been adamant that he will not put American “boots on the ground” there.

Blaming Israel for Rescuing Its People
Hamas hid four hostages in a crowded civilian area and fired on rescuers.


WSJ Editorial Board
It’s rare good news in a grinding war. On Saturday Israeli commandos rescued four hostages from two civilian buildings near the heart of Gaza’s Nuseirat market. It was a high-risk but well-planned and -executed mission that is a morale boost for Israelis.

Arnon Zamora was killed while leading the rescue mission at the head of his force. He will go down in history with Yoni Netanyahu, the fallen leader of Israel’s 1976 raid to free hostages in Entebbe, Uganda.

Noa Argamani, age 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, were all abducted during the music-festival massacre. A video showed Ms. Argamani begging for her life. Eight months later she heard a knock on the door: “It’s the IDF, we’ve come to rescue you.” She can now visit her terminally ill mother. Mr. Jan was mobbed on his return by friends chanting, “He is one of us, and we will never give him up,” a refrain of sports teammates now given new meaning. Mr. Jan’s father died hours before his son’s return.

The non-surprise is that professional anti-Israel voices, United Nations officials and the European Union foreign-policy chief rushed to attack Israel. Egypt condemned the operation “in the strongest terms.” How dare Israel rescue its own citizens. Didn’t it know there would be casualties? The BBC asked whether Israel gave a warning that the rescue raid was coming. Seriously? A tip-off to terrorists? Perhaps read them Miranda rights too.

Haters of Israel will blame it and excuse Hamas every time, and the media are easily manipulated into playing along. The Hamas figure is likely inflated, and it includes the terrorists killed trying to stop the rescue as well as those who hid the hostages.

Hamas started the war with a massacre, took these hostages and hid them in a crowded civilian area. Then, when Israel came to free them, Hamas responded with heavy fire, including RPGs—yet people are condemning Israel. It makes us wonder if the West has lost the moral discernment and instinct for self-preservation needed to defend itself in a world of killers. Hamas could not survive if not for its enablers around the world.

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In this day and age, antisemitism is inexcusable.

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Post #198

That’s the shortest best thing I’ve read about the global reaction since this started. I concur 100%. And I am as UNsurprised as I can be. (See what I did there?)