π️Lonny's War Update- October 292, 2023 - July 24, 2024 π️
π️Day 292 that 120 of our hostages in Hamas captivity
**There is nothing more important than getting them home! NOTHING!**
“I’ve never met them,But I miss them. I’ve never met them,but I think of them every second. I’ve never met them,but they are my family. BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
The last time the Shem Tov family were with their beloved Omer, who is still being held captive for 292 days, was on October 6th. It was his mother’s birthday and the whole family came together to celebrate in Jerusalem.
This is their last family photo before he was taken hostage.
This is their last family photo before he was taken hostage.
There is no victory until all of the hostages are home!ΧΧΧ Χ Χ¦ΧΧΧ Χ’Χ Χ©ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧΧ€ΧΧ ΧΧΧΧͺ
Red Alerts - Missile, Rocket, Drone (UAV - unmanned aerial vehicles), and Terror Attacks and Death Announcements
*6:25pm yesterday - north - rockets Kiryat Shemona*6:50pm yesterday - north - rockets Tel Hai, Kiryat Shemona, Margaliot, Misgav Am- A barrage of some 15 rockets was launched from Lebanon at the Kiryat Shmona area in the past hour. Some of the rockets were shot down by the Iron Dome system, while others impacted open areas near the city in northern Israel. Additionally, several more projectiles were fired at the Mount Dov area on the border, the IDF says. The military does not immediately release details on possible causalities in the attacks. It says troops shelled the launch sites with artillery. Meanwhile, fighter jets struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher in Kfarhamam, infrastructure in Ayta ash-Shab, and an observation post in Khiam, the IDF adds.
*8:05am- north - hostile aircraft - Ayelet Hashahar
*9:55am - north - rockets - Abu Snan, Julis, Yinoch-Jat, Yarka, Clil, Amka
Hizbollah is deliberately targeting areas that haven't been targets in the past and that this are mostly northern communities that haven't been evacuated. Their goal is to show they can get to every area and terrorize civilians not evacuated.
Some of the rockets were shot down by the Iron Dome system, while others impacted open areas near the city in northern Israel. Additionally, several more projectiles were fired at the Mount Dov area on the border, the IDF says. The military does not immediately release details on possible causalities in the attacks. It says troops shelled the launch sites with artillery. Meanwhile, fighter jets struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher in Kfarhamam, infrastructure in Ayta ash-Shab, and an observation post in Khiam, the IDF adds.
*8:05am- north - hostile aircraft - Ayelet Hashahar*9:55am - north - rockets - Abu Snan, Julis, Yinoch-Jat, Yarka, Clil, Amka
Hizbollah is deliberately targeting areas that haven't been targets in the past and that this are mostly northern communities that haven't been evacuated. Their goal is to show they can get to every area and terrorize civilians not evacuated.
Hostage Updates
Former hostage Noa Argamani has reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in tears that her most difficult experience during her eight months of captivity was hearing the premier declare that the war was going to be long.
“The hardest moment I had in captivity was when I listened to the radio and heard you say the war will be long. I thought, ‘I won’t get out of here.’ It was a breaking point for me,” Argamani told Netanyahu in a meeting yesterday, according to Hebrew media reports.
She then reportedly broke down in tears and embraced another hostage relative who was in the meeting, as Netanyahu’s face remained emotionless.
Argamani, who was rescued last month from captivity in Gaza along with three other hostages, is now accompanying Netanyahu on his trip to the United States alongside her father Yaakov and other relatives of captives. The reported meeting took place in Washington, DC, after the flight from Israel landed.
In the meeting, she also said the remaining 120 hostages “must be brought home as quickly as possibly, before it is too late,” according to the reports.
“I saw death with my eyes,” she recounted, saying that fellow hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were killed while next to her.
The meeting was also attended by relatives of hostages who traveled to Washington to demonstrate against the premier and urge him to immediately sign a deal with Hamas to free the hostages. Netanyahu told them that the conditions for a deal for their release were “coming together, without a doubt.”
The Ynet news site quotes Daniel Neutra, the brother of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra, as calling the meeting “horrendous.”
“The prime minister avoided questions about the conditions and timing in which he would accept a deal,” he says. “He said we are closer than ever to a deal, but he didn’t give the impression that he is willing to accept a deal within a few days.”
Both coalition and opposition lawmakers condemn virulent criticism faced by freed hostage Noa Argamani and her father Yaakov for agreeing to accompany Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his state visit to the United States, along with several other relatives of hostages.
Family members of other hostages held by the terror group Hamas had urged the Argamanis not to go, claiming this would bolster the premier, whom many blame for failing to secure a deal to free the hostages after more than nine months.
Many relatives of hostages have been waging a months-long protest campaign against the Netanyahu government’s failure to strike a deal with Hamas, while a minority of families have been calling on him to escalate military pressure as a means of coercing Hamas into softening its negotiation stance.
Argamani, who was rescued by Israeli forces last month alongside three other hostages, is set to join Netanyahu with her father and other hostage family members for the prime minister’s speech tomorrow to the US Congress in Washington, DC.
In a post on Facebook yesterday, left-wing Haaretz pundit Uri Misgav — a vehement critic of Netanyahu — said that Argamani and her father “should be ashamed of agreeing to serve as decor” for Netanyahu on the same day that the IDF announced the deaths in Hamas captivity of hostages Alex Dancyg and Yagev Buchshtav.
Retired journalist Dan Margalit echoed Misgav, calling Argamani’s presence in Netanyahu’s delegation a “disgrace” in a tweet to his 164,000 followers.
In response, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) tweets that Argamani spent hundreds of days in captivity and has just lost her mother, and notes that her partner Avinatan Or is still being held in Gaza. He calls Misgav a “bottomless pit of gratuitous malice.”
Likud MK Eli Dallal calls Argamani a “real hero” and accuses her critics of “using her suffering for political criticism.” He says this constitutes “terrible, shameful and offensive behavior.”
“It is very good that Noa Argamani joined the prime minister’s delegation with representatives of the hostage families. She should be there to talk and recount what she went through in captivity and the urgency of bring back all the hostages,” chimes in Likud MK Boaz Bismuth.
Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Labor-Meretz union, rebranded as The Democrats, joins in condemning the criticism of Argamani, calling it “indecent.”
“None of us will understand the hell she went through,” Golan tweets, adding that even though Netanyahu’s trip was unnecessary and the premier has “abandoned” the hostages, “I respect Noa’s decision to join him.”
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum condemns the attacks against Argamani and her father, saying that “the decision to take part in the prime minister’s delegation to Washington is a personal decision of each family.”
“If only you had heard Noa Argamani in front of the prime minister yesterday, how she sat upright and represented the abductees and the abductees who were left behind, you wouldn’t utter a word of criticism about her decision to fly to Washington,” argues Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat is one of the hostages.
The families of the American-Israeli hostages urged the Biden administration to continue pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a hostage-ceasefire deal during their meeting Monday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk, according to a readout issued by the captives’ relatives.
Echoing a message they shared with reporters during a briefing earlier in the day, the families told Sullivan and McGurk that they expect Netanyahu to announce that he has finalized the deal to bring their family members home during his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
“Anything less, they said, would constitute an abject failure of his trip to Washington,” the statement from the families says.
During the hour-long White House meeting, the sides discussed the ongoing negotiations to release the remaining 120 hostages, including eight US citizens. The families “emphasized that there is a solid deal on the table and that securing it hinges on the political determination and cooperation from both sides involved,” the readout adds.
The American hostage families thank members of the administration for their support, including Sullivan, who has met with them 12 times.
Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told relatives of Hamas-held hostages yesterday that a deal for the release of their loved ones was ripening, he has not yet approved an official document with his updated terms for a deal to be conveyed by Israel’s negotiators to the mediators and from there to Hamas, Channel 12 news reports.
Netanyahu’s office on Sunday night said he had directed Israel’s hostage negotiating team to depart on Thursday for another round of talks. However, the report says, he has yet to formally approve the updated Israeli terms that would form the basis for the team’s discussions.
Since Israel’s latest proposal was conveyed to the mediators at the end of May, and Hamas responded with what the prime minister said at a press conference were 29 proposed changes, Netanyahu has publicly repeated four new nonnegotiable conditions for a deal, including a demand for ongoing Israeli control of the Philadelphi Route along the Gaza-Egypt border and at the Rafah border crossing, and for a mechanism to ensure armed gunmen cannot return to northern Gaza.
Israel’s security chiefs reportedly pushed back against the new demands at a lengthy meeting on Sunday, but Netanyahu insisted they be incorporated into Israel’s formal position.
However, says the unsourced Channel 12 report, the updated Israeli proposal has not been conveyed or even finalized: “Netanyahu has not approved it. He wants to see this or that [amended] draft,” the report says. And therefore, the report adds, the mediators do not have the updated Israeli response.
It is also not clear yet what level of negotiating team is supposed to resume the negotiations on Thursday — whether it will be led by Mossad chief David Barnea and his colleagues, or be of a lower, working level. In fact, says the report, it’s not even certain that a team will be dispatched.
It quotes an unnamed political source saying that, if there is progress on the basis of the new Israeli stance, it will take weeks for a deal. Reports from Sunday’s meeting said all Israel’s security chiefs were adamant that if a truce and hostages-for-prisoners deal is reached with Hamas, the IDF can stand fully withdrawing from the Gaza Strip for the first six weeks of a potential agreement. link We all need to remain optimistic because this is the closest we have been to a hostage deal since November, but we need to keep the pressure to above boiling as we know that getting Netanyahu's agreement to a deal is close to impossible due to his priority to keep his government together and himself as prime minister. But there does remain that sliver of hope and that is what we are all pushing for. We can't let Netanyahu again prevent a deal that will bring the hostages home. He is directly responsible for so much blood and death. He must bring home the remaining hostages who are still hanging on and alive as well as the bodies of those killed on and since October 7 as well as the bodies of the 2 soldiers held by Hamas for years and the 2 civilians held for 9 and 7 years.
Former hostage Aviva Seigel tells the US House Foreign Affairs Committee that she saw girls held with her after they were “touched” by their Hamas captors, in an emotional testimony in which she details the difficult conditions under which she was held for 51 days.
“I was starved while they ate in front of me,” she recalls, adding that she was constantly thirsty because the hostages were given little water.
Seigel — whose husband, American-Israeli hostage Keith Seigel, is still being held in Gaza — says she and other hostages weren’t allowed to sit or stand and that their only human right while in captivity was deciding whether they’d lie on their back or on their side.
Former Hamas hostage Aviva Seigel speaks to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing meeting in Washington with American hostage families on July 23, 2024. (Screen capture/YouTube)There was little oxygen and it was difficult to breathe, she says, highlighting the plight of those who have been in captivity underground for a period eight months longer than her. Seigel was released as part of the last hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in late November.
She recalls looking at her husband as they lay together in an underground tunnel, struggling to breathe, and praying to herself that she would die first so that she wouldn’t have to see him dead.
Seigel says she and those she was kept with were beaten and tortured.
“I saw the girls coming back after they were touched. I saw the girls coming back after they were forced to take a shower with the door open, when it was the first time that anybody saw their body,” Seigel says.
They weren’t allowed to hug each other or cry.
“Now, I’m here, thinking about Keith and the girls, and it’s too much for me to handle because I know where they are and who they’re with,” she says.
She calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the hostage deal on the table. It’s possible to end the war today, but if the sides wait, it could spiral out of control and it will then no longer be possible to save the hostages, Seigel warns.
Turning to the US lawmakers, Seigel says: “I’m asking you all, please help us. I’m begging. We need them back as soon as possible. I do not want Keith dead.”
Hostage Updates
Former hostage Noa Argamani has reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in tears that her most difficult experience during her eight months of captivity was hearing the premier declare that the war was going to be long.
“The hardest moment I had in captivity was when I listened to the radio and heard you say the war will be long. I thought, ‘I won’t get out of here.’ It was a breaking point for me,” Argamani told Netanyahu in a meeting yesterday, according to Hebrew media reports.
She then reportedly broke down in tears and embraced another hostage relative who was in the meeting, as Netanyahu’s face remained emotionless.
Argamani, who was rescued last month from captivity in Gaza along with three other hostages, is now accompanying Netanyahu on his trip to the United States alongside her father Yaakov and other relatives of captives. The reported meeting took place in Washington, DC, after the flight from Israel landed.
In the meeting, she also said the remaining 120 hostages “must be brought home as quickly as possibly, before it is too late,” according to the reports.
“I saw death with my eyes,” she recounted, saying that fellow hostages Yossi Sharabi and Itay Svirsky were killed while next to her.
The meeting was also attended by relatives of hostages who traveled to Washington to demonstrate against the premier and urge him to immediately sign a deal with Hamas to free the hostages. Netanyahu told them that the conditions for a deal for their release were “coming together, without a doubt.”
The Ynet news site quotes Daniel Neutra, the brother of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra, as calling the meeting “horrendous.”
“The prime minister avoided questions about the conditions and timing in which he would accept a deal,” he says. “He said we are closer than ever to a deal, but he didn’t give the impression that he is willing to accept a deal within a few days.”
Both coalition and opposition lawmakers condemn virulent criticism faced by freed hostage Noa Argamani and her father Yaakov for agreeing to accompany Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his state visit to the United States, along with several other relatives of hostages.
Family members of other hostages held by the terror group Hamas had urged the Argamanis not to go, claiming this would bolster the premier, whom many blame for failing to secure a deal to free the hostages after more than nine months.
Many relatives of hostages have been waging a months-long protest campaign against the Netanyahu government’s failure to strike a deal with Hamas, while a minority of families have been calling on him to escalate military pressure as a means of coercing Hamas into softening its negotiation stance.
Argamani, who was rescued by Israeli forces last month alongside three other hostages, is set to join Netanyahu with her father and other hostage family members for the prime minister’s speech tomorrow to the US Congress in Washington, DC.
In a post on Facebook yesterday, left-wing Haaretz pundit Uri Misgav — a vehement critic of Netanyahu — said that Argamani and her father “should be ashamed of agreeing to serve as decor” for Netanyahu on the same day that the IDF announced the deaths in Hamas captivity of hostages Alex Dancyg and Yagev Buchshtav.
Retired journalist Dan Margalit echoed Misgav, calling Argamani’s presence in Netanyahu’s delegation a “disgrace” in a tweet to his 164,000 followers.
In response, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) tweets that Argamani spent hundreds of days in captivity and has just lost her mother, and notes that her partner Avinatan Or is still being held in Gaza. He calls Misgav a “bottomless pit of gratuitous malice.”
Likud MK Eli Dallal calls Argamani a “real hero” and accuses her critics of “using her suffering for political criticism.” He says this constitutes “terrible, shameful and offensive behavior.”
“It is very good that Noa Argamani joined the prime minister’s delegation with representatives of the hostage families. She should be there to talk and recount what she went through in captivity and the urgency of bring back all the hostages,” chimes in Likud MK Boaz Bismuth.
Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Labor-Meretz union, rebranded as The Democrats, joins in condemning the criticism of Argamani, calling it “indecent.”
“None of us will understand the hell she went through,” Golan tweets, adding that even though Netanyahu’s trip was unnecessary and the premier has “abandoned” the hostages, “I respect Noa’s decision to join him.”
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum condemns the attacks against Argamani and her father, saying that “the decision to take part in the prime minister’s delegation to Washington is a personal decision of each family.”
“If only you had heard Noa Argamani in front of the prime minister yesterday, how she sat upright and represented the abductees and the abductees who were left behind, you wouldn’t utter a word of criticism about her decision to fly to Washington,” argues Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat is one of the hostages.
The families of the American-Israeli hostages urged the Biden administration to continue pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a hostage-ceasefire deal during their meeting Monday with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and White House Mideast czar Brett McGurk, according to a readout issued by the captives’ relatives.
Echoing a message they shared with reporters during a briefing earlier in the day, the families told Sullivan and McGurk that they expect Netanyahu to announce that he has finalized the deal to bring their family members home during his address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
“Anything less, they said, would constitute an abject failure of his trip to Washington,” the statement from the families says.
During the hour-long White House meeting, the sides discussed the ongoing negotiations to release the remaining 120 hostages, including eight US citizens. The families “emphasized that there is a solid deal on the table and that securing it hinges on the political determination and cooperation from both sides involved,” the readout adds.
The American hostage families thank members of the administration for their support, including Sullivan, who has met with them 12 times.
Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told relatives of Hamas-held hostages yesterday that a deal for the release of their loved ones was ripening, he has not yet approved an official document with his updated terms for a deal to be conveyed by Israel’s negotiators to the mediators and from there to Hamas, Channel 12 news reports.
Netanyahu’s office on Sunday night said he had directed Israel’s hostage negotiating team to depart on Thursday for another round of talks. However, the report says, he has yet to formally approve the updated Israeli terms that would form the basis for the team’s discussions.
Since Israel’s latest proposal was conveyed to the mediators at the end of May, and Hamas responded with what the prime minister said at a press conference were 29 proposed changes, Netanyahu has publicly repeated four new nonnegotiable conditions for a deal, including a demand for ongoing Israeli control of the Philadelphi Route along the Gaza-Egypt border and at the Rafah border crossing, and for a mechanism to ensure armed gunmen cannot return to northern Gaza.
Israel’s security chiefs reportedly pushed back against the new demands at a lengthy meeting on Sunday, but Netanyahu insisted they be incorporated into Israel’s formal position.
However, says the unsourced Channel 12 report, the updated Israeli proposal has not been conveyed or even finalized: “Netanyahu has not approved it. He wants to see this or that [amended] draft,” the report says. And therefore, the report adds, the mediators do not have the updated Israeli response.
It is also not clear yet what level of negotiating team is supposed to resume the negotiations on Thursday — whether it will be led by Mossad chief David Barnea and his colleagues, or be of a lower, working level. In fact, says the report, it’s not even certain that a team will be dispatched.
It quotes an unnamed political source saying that, if there is progress on the basis of the new Israeli stance, it will take weeks for a deal. Reports from Sunday’s meeting said all Israel’s security chiefs were adamant that if a truce and hostages-for-prisoners deal is reached with Hamas, the IDF can stand fully withdrawing from the Gaza Strip for the first six weeks of a potential agreement. link We all need to remain optimistic because this is the closest we have been to a hostage deal since November, but we need to keep the pressure to above boiling as we know that getting Netanyahu's agreement to a deal is close to impossible due to his priority to keep his government together and himself as prime minister. But there does remain that sliver of hope and that is what we are all pushing for. We can't let Netanyahu again prevent a deal that will bring the hostages home. He is directly responsible for so much blood and death. He must bring home the remaining hostages who are still hanging on and alive as well as the bodies of those killed on and since October 7 as well as the bodies of the 2 soldiers held by Hamas for years and the 2 civilians held for 9 and 7 years.
Former hostage Aviva Seigel tells the US House Foreign Affairs Committee that she saw girls held with her after they were “touched” by their Hamas captors, in an emotional testimony in which she details the difficult conditions under which she was held for 51 days.
“I was starved while they ate in front of me,” she recalls, adding that she was constantly thirsty because the hostages were given little water.
Seigel — whose husband, American-Israeli hostage Keith Seigel, is still being held in Gaza — says she and other hostages weren’t allowed to sit or stand and that their only human right while in captivity was deciding whether they’d lie on their back or on their side.
Former Hamas hostage Aviva Seigel speaks to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing meeting in Washington with American hostage families on July 23, 2024. (Screen capture/YouTube)There was little oxygen and it was difficult to breathe, she says, highlighting the plight of those who have been in captivity underground for a period eight months longer than her. Seigel was released as part of the last hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in late November.
She recalls looking at her husband as they lay together in an underground tunnel, struggling to breathe, and praying to herself that she would die first so that she wouldn’t have to see him dead.
Seigel says she and those she was kept with were beaten and tortured.
“I saw the girls coming back after they were touched. I saw the girls coming back after they were forced to take a shower with the door open, when it was the first time that anybody saw their body,” Seigel says.
They weren’t allowed to hug each other or cry.
“Now, I’m here, thinking about Keith and the girls, and it’s too much for me to handle because I know where they are and who they’re with,” she says.
She calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept the hostage deal on the table. It’s possible to end the war today, but if the sides wait, it could spiral out of control and it will then no longer be possible to save the hostages, Seigel warns.
Turning to the US lawmakers, Seigel says: “I’m asking you all, please help us. I’m begging. We need them back as soon as possible. I do not want Keith dead.”
- Hostage Matan Zangauker’s mom publishes clip of son in Gaza, adds she got sign of life
Israeli media publish a short video filmed in the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which hostage Matan Zangauker is seen squeezed between two terrorists on a motorcycle.
In the clip, which Channel 12 says has been discovered by Israeli forces in Gaza and recently shown to his family, the hostage is seen taken through a Khan Younis street as onlookers cheer gleefully. The report estimates the video to be from Zangauker’s first few days in the Strip. In an interview, Zangauker’s mother Einav says she has received indications her son is alive, including a bottle containing urine that has been determined to be his.
She also shares text correspondences Matan held with her and with other family members on the morning of October 7, before he and his since-released partner Ilana Gritzewsky were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
The text recount the family’s fear as terrorists were heard entering the kibbutz’s streets, later surrounding the house and entering, with Einav telling her son not to make a sound as he hid in the safe room and held the doorknob.
His last message to his mother was at 10:08 a.m., saying: “There are people here, they are trying to enter.”
Einav answered: “We sent police, be quiet. Matan? Are you okay?”
Matan no longer replied. video of the Hamas terrorists taking him into Gaza
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, demonstrates on Azza Street near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, while holding a photo of her son, June 27, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
- Hostage Matan Zangauker’s mom publishes clip of son in Gaza, adds she got sign of life
Israeli media publish a short video filmed in the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s October 7 attack, in which hostage Matan Zangauker is seen squeezed between two terrorists on a motorcycle.
In the clip, which Channel 12 says has been discovered by Israeli forces in Gaza and recently shown to his family, the hostage is seen taken through a Khan Younis street as onlookers cheer gleefully. The report estimates the video to be from Zangauker’s first few days in the Strip. In an interview, Zangauker’s mother Einav says she has received indications her son is alive, including a bottle containing urine that has been determined to be his.
She also shares text correspondences Matan held with her and with other family members on the morning of October 7, before he and his since-released partner Ilana Gritzewsky were kidnapped from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz.
The text recount the family’s fear as terrorists were heard entering the kibbutz’s streets, later surrounding the house and entering, with Einav telling her son not to make a sound as he hid in the safe room and held the doorknob.
His last message to his mother was at 10:08 a.m., saying: “There are people here, they are trying to enter.”
Einav answered: “We sent police, be quiet. Matan? Are you okay?”
Matan no longer replied. video of the Hamas terrorists taking him into Gaza
Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, demonstrates on Azza Street near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem, while holding a photo of her son, June 27, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Gaza
- Dozens of gunmen have been killed by IDF troops during a new operation in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the IDF says.
The offensive in Khan Younis was launched yesterday after the IDF said it identified Hamas regrouping there, three months after the army withdrew from the city in southern Gaza.
The IDF says troops with the 98th Division have been operating against Hamas above and below ground during the first 24 hours of the operation.
Dozens of gunmen have been killed by troops in clashes, tank shelling and by calling in airstrikes, the military adds.
The World Health Organization says there is a high risk of the poliovirus spreading across the Gaza Strip and beyond its borders due to the dire health and sanitation situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.
Ayadil Saparbekov, team lead for health emergencies at WHO in Gaza and the West Bank, says circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 had been isolated from environmental samples from sewage in Gaza.
“There is a high risk of spreading of the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus in Gaza, not only because of the detection but because of the very dire situation with the water sanitation,” he tells reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.
“It may also spill over internationally, at a very high point,” he says.
Saparbekov says WHO and UNICEF workers are scheduled to arrive in Gaza tomorrow to collect human stool samples as part of a risk assessment related to the discovery of the virus.
He says the assessment, which he hopes will be completed by the end of the week, will allow health officials to issue recommendations, “including the need for a mass vaccination campaign as well as what kind of vaccine should be used and what the age group of the population that will need to be vaccinated.”
Earlier this week, the Israel Defense Forces said it launched a program to vaccinate soldiers operating in Gaza and that it is working to facilitate the entry of vaccines into the Strip. link There will be the ignorant and the vicious who will say this is a good thing - 'let them all get polio and other horrible diseases'. This alone is a horrendous and disgusting sentiment and goes against all that is decent and against Judaism as well. But even if they can't get past these cruelties, they need to look beyond. Diseases like polio don't care about borders or wars or good vs bad. It spreads and there are large contingents in the Israeli population that are not vaccinated against polio and other communicable diseases, mostly but not only in the Haredi community. A year before the war, the health ministry was seeing polio virus in sewage water in Israel, again, mostly in the Haredi areas and launched a massive campaign to vaccinate, even going door to door. Unfortunately, their efforts were not very fruitful so we still have large numbers of children in Israel who are not vaccinated. Therefore, the health problems that we are responsible for in Gaza will not stay in Gaza. We must make every effort and work with the WHO to contain the sources and make sure the Palestinians in Gaza get the proper health care to catch this before it becomes catastrophic.
More than 50 sites used by terror groups in Khan Younis were struck by aircraft as ground forces with the 98th Division pushed into the city in the southern Gaza Strip over the past day, the IDF says.
The new operation in Khan Younis is being carried out by the division’s 7th Armored Brigade, the Paratroopers Brigade, and the Commando Brigade.
The IDF says the armored forces killed several gunmen with tank shelling amid the assault which began yesterday.
The sites struck by the Israeli Air Force included weapon depots, sniper positions, buildings used by Hamas, and tunnels, according to the IDF.
According to the IDF, Hamas has been attempting to regroup in Khan Younis, three months after the military withdrew from the area. The IDF warned civilians to evacuate the area before it launched the new operation.
Further south, in Rafah, the IDF says troops with the 162nd Division killed dozens of gunmen in clashes and by calling in airstrikes over the past day.
Meanwhile, the IDF says it identified Hamas rocket fire from central Gaza’s Maghazi yesterday, which it says fell short inside the Strip, including one projectile that struck a school in Nuseirat.
The offensive in Khan Younis was launched yesterday after the IDF said it identified Hamas regrouping there, three months after the army withdrew from the city in southern Gaza.
The IDF says troops with the 98th Division have been operating against Hamas above and below ground during the first 24 hours of the operation.
Dozens of gunmen have been killed by troops in clashes, tank shelling and by calling in airstrikes, the military adds.
The World Health Organization says there is a high risk of the poliovirus spreading across the Gaza Strip and beyond its borders due to the dire health and sanitation situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.
Ayadil Saparbekov, team lead for health emergencies at WHO in Gaza and the West Bank, says circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 had been isolated from environmental samples from sewage in Gaza.
“There is a high risk of spreading of the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus in Gaza, not only because of the detection but because of the very dire situation with the water sanitation,” he tells reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.
“It may also spill over internationally, at a very high point,” he says.
Saparbekov says WHO and UNICEF workers are scheduled to arrive in Gaza tomorrow to collect human stool samples as part of a risk assessment related to the discovery of the virus.
He says the assessment, which he hopes will be completed by the end of the week, will allow health officials to issue recommendations, “including the need for a mass vaccination campaign as well as what kind of vaccine should be used and what the age group of the population that will need to be vaccinated.”
Earlier this week, the Israel Defense Forces said it launched a program to vaccinate soldiers operating in Gaza and that it is working to facilitate the entry of vaccines into the Strip. link There will be the ignorant and the vicious who will say this is a good thing - 'let them all get polio and other horrible diseases'. This alone is a horrendous and disgusting sentiment and goes against all that is decent and against Judaism as well. But even if they can't get past these cruelties, they need to look beyond. Diseases like polio don't care about borders or wars or good vs bad. It spreads and there are large contingents in the Israeli population that are not vaccinated against polio and other communicable diseases, mostly but not only in the Haredi community. A year before the war, the health ministry was seeing polio virus in sewage water in Israel, again, mostly in the Haredi areas and launched a massive campaign to vaccinate, even going door to door. Unfortunately, their efforts were not very fruitful so we still have large numbers of children in Israel who are not vaccinated. Therefore, the health problems that we are responsible for in Gaza will not stay in Gaza. We must make every effort and work with the WHO to contain the sources and make sure the Palestinians in Gaza get the proper health care to catch this before it becomes catastrophic.
More than 50 sites used by terror groups in Khan Younis were struck by aircraft as ground forces with the 98th Division pushed into the city in the southern Gaza Strip over the past day, the IDF says.
The new operation in Khan Younis is being carried out by the division’s 7th Armored Brigade, the Paratroopers Brigade, and the Commando Brigade.
The IDF says the armored forces killed several gunmen with tank shelling amid the assault which began yesterday.
The sites struck by the Israeli Air Force included weapon depots, sniper positions, buildings used by Hamas, and tunnels, according to the IDF.
According to the IDF, Hamas has been attempting to regroup in Khan Younis, three months after the military withdrew from the area. The IDF warned civilians to evacuate the area before it launched the new operation.
Further south, in Rafah, the IDF says troops with the 162nd Division killed dozens of gunmen in clashes and by calling in airstrikes over the past day.
Meanwhile, the IDF says it identified Hamas rocket fire from central Gaza’s Maghazi yesterday, which it says fell short inside the Strip, including one projectile that struck a school in Nuseirat.
Northern Israel - Lebanon/Hizbollah/Syria
- Several suspected drones were
launched by Hezbollah at northern Israel an hour ago.
According to the IDF, some of the targets were shot down and several
explosive drones impacted the Mount Meron area.
Separately, a barrage of rockets was fired from Lebanon at the Galilee
Panhandle.
The IDF says most of the rockets were shot down and some projectiles
impacted the Kiryat Shmona and Margaliot areas.
There are no injuries in the attacks, and the IDF says it shelled the
launch sites with artillery.
Meanwhile, the IDF also confirms it struck a car in southern Lebanon’s
Shaqra earlier today, saying several Hezbollah operatives were in it.
Dead cows lie on the ground on July 22, 2024, after being killed by a missile launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon a day earlier, near Meron, northern Israel. (David Cohen/Flash90)
According to the IDF, some of the targets were shot down and several explosive drones impacted the Mount Meron area.
Separately, a barrage of rockets was fired from Lebanon at the Galilee Panhandle.
The IDF says most of the rockets were shot down and some projectiles impacted the Kiryat Shmona and Margaliot areas.
There are no injuries in the attacks, and the IDF says it shelled the launch sites with artillery.
Meanwhile, the IDF also confirms it struck a car in southern Lebanon’s Shaqra earlier today, saying several Hezbollah operatives were in it.
A drone strike was carried out against a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon’s Tallouseh a short while ago, the IDF says.
According to the military, the operative had been identified leaving a site from which rockets were launched at the Galilee Panhandle earlier.
West Bank and Jerusalem
- The government allocated some NIS 28 million in 2023 for the purpose of bolstering the security of illegal West Bank outposts, established in violation of Israeli law, the Peace Now organization reports.
The information was disclosed by director general of the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization, Hoshaya Harari, during a conference held by the Religious Zionism party in June that was recorded by Peace Now, the details of which are released today.
The funds came from a budget for bolstering security for both settlements and illegal outposts in the West Bank, and were used for purchasing vehicles, drones, cameras, electric generators, electric gates, lamp posts and fences, among other items.
Of the NIS 28 million, NIS 15 million was provided to illegal West Bank farming outposts that typically seize control of large tracts of land by grazing sheep, goats, and cows as part of a strategy to interrupt Palestinian territorial contiguity.
Thirty-three other illegal outposts received NIS 13 million.
The budget for security equipment and facilities for illegal outposts is slated to rise to NIS 63 million in 2024, Peace Now says.
“Not only does the Israeli government allow settlers to take over lands, establish outposts and farms in violation of the law, and attack and displace Palestinians without any response, it also funds and assists them,” the organization says.
“Settler violence is not a bug; it is a feature. It is part of an ongoing effort by the Israeli government to systematically expel Palestinians from their homes and lands in Area C in the West Bank.” link When we have the worst Finance Minister in the history of the state who is an extremist, messianic settler whose only priorities for the government are settlements and money to the religious, it is easy to see how our budget continuously goes to illegal ventures and our Prime Minister who appointed this finance minister does nothing because his only priority is to stay Prime Minister.
The IDF publishes footage of this morning’s drone strike in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, in which several Palestinian gunmen including top commanders were killed.
Among those killed was Ashraf Nafeh, who was the commander of Hamas in Tulkarem.
The IDF says Nafeh was responsible for preparing and planting explosive devices to be detonated against troops as well as participating in other attacks.
Nafeh was also involved in recruiting Hamas members, and he was in contact with Hamas officials abroad, the IDF says.
Also among the dead is Muhammad Awad, also known as Abu Abdo, the commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Tulkarem.
The IDF says Awad was involved in shooting attacks and raising money for terror activities in Tulkarem.
During the raid, troops shot several gunmen in clashes and destroyed explosive devices planted under roads, the military adds.
Two Defense Ministry employees are lightly wounded after a bomb exploded along the West Bank security barrier in the Mount Gilboa area, the military and medics say.
According to an initial probe, the Defense Ministry workers were carrying out a patrol along the border fence in the northern West Bank when they spotted a suspicious item.
The item was then understood to be a bomb, and it exploded and lightly injured the two workers. According to first responders, the pair were hit by shrapnel.
The IDF says it has launched a manhunt for those behind the attack.
The information was disclosed by director general of the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization, Hoshaya Harari, during a conference held by the Religious Zionism party in June that was recorded by Peace Now, the details of which are released today.
The funds came from a budget for bolstering security for both settlements and illegal outposts in the West Bank, and were used for purchasing vehicles, drones, cameras, electric generators, electric gates, lamp posts and fences, among other items.
Of the NIS 28 million, NIS 15 million was provided to illegal West Bank farming outposts that typically seize control of large tracts of land by grazing sheep, goats, and cows as part of a strategy to interrupt Palestinian territorial contiguity.
Thirty-three other illegal outposts received NIS 13 million.
The budget for security equipment and facilities for illegal outposts is slated to rise to NIS 63 million in 2024, Peace Now says.
“Not only does the Israeli government allow settlers to take over lands, establish outposts and farms in violation of the law, and attack and displace Palestinians without any response, it also funds and assists them,” the organization says.
“Settler violence is not a bug; it is a feature. It is part of an ongoing effort by the Israeli government to systematically expel Palestinians from their homes and lands in Area C in the West Bank.” link When we have the worst Finance Minister in the history of the state who is an extremist, messianic settler whose only priorities for the government are settlements and money to the religious, it is easy to see how our budget continuously goes to illegal ventures and our Prime Minister who appointed this finance minister does nothing because his only priority is to stay Prime Minister.
The IDF publishes footage of this morning’s drone strike in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, in which several Palestinian gunmen including top commanders were killed.
Among those killed was Ashraf Nafeh, who was the commander of Hamas in Tulkarem.
The IDF says Nafeh was responsible for preparing and planting explosive devices to be detonated against troops as well as participating in other attacks.
Nafeh was also involved in recruiting Hamas members, and he was in contact with Hamas officials abroad, the IDF says.
Also among the dead is Muhammad Awad, also known as Abu Abdo, the commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Tulkarem.
The IDF says Awad was involved in shooting attacks and raising money for terror activities in Tulkarem.
During the raid, troops shot several gunmen in clashes and destroyed explosive devices planted under roads, the military adds.
Two Defense Ministry employees are lightly wounded after a bomb exploded along the West Bank security barrier in the Mount Gilboa area, the military and medics say.
According to an initial probe, the Defense Ministry workers were carrying out a patrol along the border fence in the northern West Bank when they spotted a suspicious item.
The item was then understood to be a bomb, and it exploded and lightly injured the two workers. According to first responders, the pair were hit by shrapnel.
The IDF says it has launched a manhunt for those behind the attack.
Politics and the War (general news)
- My brother's column in The Times of Israel: (This is a difficult but very important column to read. As he writes, Israel has lost this war. We already lost this war on October 7 when our government and army abandoned its people and enabled 1200 to be viciously killed and another 250 kidnapped by the vile, barbaric Hamas terrorists. But we have turned this loss into an even greater loss for our future as he described very clearly below.
Disaster
I haven’t been in Palestinian areas of the West Bank since the beginning of the war. This is very unusual for me, because before the war I was in Palestinian cities and towns all over the West Bank every week. I spent this evening with one of my best Palestinian friends who I haven’t seen for many months. He is a businessman who business takes him all over the West Bank, all the time, even during the past almost ten months. He is from the West Bank and his wife is from East Jerusalem. Just recently, the Israeli authorities renewed his permit that allows him to live with his wife and three daughters in Jerusalem. He hasn’t been legally allowed to live with his family for most of the months since the beginning of the war. It took him three hours today to travel from Ramallah, where he has his office, to his home in Jerusalem. He is fortunate because now he can cross the checkpoint legally. I spent several hours listening to him as he described the horrific reality that millions of people in the West Bank live everyday now almost ten months.Israelis cannot imagine the despair that has become the overriding emotion of our neighbors. Despair is now turning into rage. People have lost hope and life is becoming unbearable. Almost 200,000 people who before the war earned their livelihood in Israel have had no income for almost ten months. There are places all around the West Bank that he described as becoming like Gaza before the war. People have the sense that they are living in a cage with no escape. They have no work, no money to feed their families and they sit around all day watching the news. What they are seeing on their television is not the news and the pictures that Israelis see. They are watching Palestinian lives being destroyed, innocent civilians, women, men and children been massacred by Israeli bombs, the entire Gaza Strip being demolished. I hear from my friends in Gaza every week how they are suffering and experiencing death and losing everything that they have. They are watching the Israeli army now destroying life in the West Bank as well. There are even now shortages of electricity and cuts in water supplies all around the West bank as well. Young Israeli soldiers enter villages and with uncontrollable violence enter homes, destroy property, steal money, humiliate people in their own homes and in their cars. The violence not only comes from settlers, it also comes from the Israeli soldiers. Settler violence knows no bounds and it is spreading to new areas every day. And there is no one who can protect them.
My friend is a man of peace, someone who has been part of peace activities. He used to do a lot of business with Israeli companies and had many Israeli friends. He has educated his young daughters to be peaceful and to want to live in peace with Israel. He does not watch the news at home, because he wants to protect his daughters, but even though they are under the age of ten, they grown afraid of Israelis and they too have feel hate them. He takes his daughters to a park near their home in Jerusalem in which young Israelis play also. His daughters refuse to go and play with the Israelis – they say, the Israeli kids might kill them.
He said that everyone hates the Palestinian Authority, some even more than they hate the Israelis. Palestinian Authority offices are empty, employees are only receiving a small part of their salaries and the bosses tell the workers to come in only one or two days a week. The employees of the Palestinian Authority hate the Authority as much as everyone else in the West Bank. No one is paying their taxes because they don’t have money and they don’t want to give anything to the Authority. Palestinian security personnel, police, preventive security and others sit around frustrated and talk about using their weapons to fight Israel. He said that people used to complain that the Palestinian Authority didn’t provide services, didn’t build schools or fix roads and now they want the Palestinian Authority to provide them with guns. People who were peaceful and only wanted to live a normal life have no reason to think about normal living. They think about arming themselves, to protect their families and to use those weapons to fight Israel. Israel, he said is creating monsters who will eventually break out of their cages and turn their rage against Israel.
He comes from a small peaceful village south of Bethlehem next to Gush Etzion. There is now a violent settlement next to his village, expanding and confiscating land from the village. The settlers, with weapons even threaten the Israeli soldiers who are afraid to confront them. The settlers have erected a gate that prevents the villages to get to their farm land. They enter the village during day and night and create havoc and destruction. There is no one to call to help them. Israel is now demolishing Palestinian homes, not only in area “c” but also in area “b” and even in area “a”. Israel has separated electricity lines that provide electricity to settlements and in areas such as Tubas there are daily cuts in power. Now the settlements have electricity and many Palestinians are suffering constant cuts of electricity – just like in Gaza even before the war. The same is happening with the water supply all around the West Bank. Even in cities such as Bethlehem, water flows only a few hours a week. Businesses all around the West Bank are closed. His own business is suffering and he has shut down most of his operations – and his business is supplying medical devices and equipment to hospitals and clinics. My friend is owed a lot of money by many of his clients. They give him checks to pay their debts, but their bank accounts are empty and the checks build up with nothing behind them. Every day that he stays in business he is losing money. But it is not about the money, he will survive, it is the loss of hope that tomorrow might be better.
What kind of life will the more than two million people in Gaza have when the war is over? What kind of life will the Palestinians in the West Bank have tomorrow? He told me what I have heard from many other Palestinians – the hero of the children of Palestine today is Abu Obaida – the spokesperson of Ezzedin al Qassam (Hamas military forces) in Gaza. It is not limited to Palestine – Abu Obaida is the hero of children in Jordan, Egypt and in many other parts of the Arab world. He asked “What is Israel creating here?” Israel doesn’t understand that it is losing the war because they may think that they are killing Hamas in Gaza but they are not. They are creating more and more people all over Palestine who feel that they have nothing to lose and that the only solution is to kill the Israelis. This feeling is not limited to Palestine. He used to do a lot of business with Turkish companies. He said that the hatred against Israel is so strong now even in Turkey that Turkish companies won’t sell to him because they refuse to have their good travel through the Israeli ports.
My friend said that they understood Israel when they attacked Gaza after October 7. He said that the Hamas leaders and those who killed and kidnapped Israelis deserved to be killed by Israel, but that was almost ten months ago. What has Israel achieved by killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza – noncombatants, people who hated Hamas even before October 7? What has Israel achieved by destroying all of Gaza and turning two million people into homeless people who lives have been destroyed? What does Israel expect to happen the day after the war? Will people want to live in peace with Israel after all of this – he asked me. He said that he sees Israeli television news from time-to-time. No one in Israel sees the reality that Palestinian see in their own lives. They don’t need television – they have relatives and friends in Gaza. What they see on Palestinian and other Arab news stations is not what Israelis see. Israelis have no idea of the suffering and the pain that they have caused.
Israel has lost this war and Israelis have no idea how badly they have lost. The war of revenge that Israel is fighting in Gaza has crossed every moral red-line that is imaginable. My friend used the word “unimaginable” throughout the evening. He is correct, it is unimaginable. In our pain and trauma caused by the brutal atrocities committed by Hamas, we Israelis have lost any kind of moral code that may have existed before October 7. Our soldiers are called heroes and we feel that they are protecting us. We talk about the great sacrifices that they are making every day in Gaza and we mourn for those who are killed in action. But those who send them into battle for what we have called a “just war” have gone too far and for too long. Most of those people who we are killing and are destroying their lives are facing atrocities committed by Israel. Those who survive will be there tomorrow. They were our neighbors and they will remain our neighbors. That is the reality. But our vengeance is creating monsters and no one is in our government in Israel, and maybe no one in our army and security forces is thinking about what happens when the war is over. What kind of tomorrow are we offering to the millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank? What kind of tomorrow are we offering to ourselves and to our children. What kind of future are we creating?
We all need a re-start. All of our leaders must go – ours in Israel and those in Palestine as well. They have failed us miserably. They are destroying us. If Israel’s few remaining friends in the world really care about Israel and the future of this country, they must help to put an end to this war. We don’t need friends who fuel the war and the hatred that we feel and that we create. The final task of the current government of Israel must be to end this horrible war, bring the hostages home and then go to elections. They cannot continue to represent us anymore. The criminals of this war on all sides must be brought to justice by their people who they have mis-served. The only way forward is for us to feel remorse. What has been done on October 7 and every day since has been done in our names – Israelis and Palestinians. These leaders have abused their power and they must be brought down. And we, as human beings, must begin to display our humanity by refusing to allow the killing and destruction to continue to be done in our names. This is the only way of creating a future here in this land that is worth living for. link
Senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk says the terror group signed a national unity declaration with other Palestinian groups, including rivals Fatah, while on a visit to China.
“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” Abu Marzuk said.
The declaration did not set out a timeframe for forming a new government.
There have been multiple announcements of unity agreements between the factions over the past years, however none of them have actually come to fruition.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz slams Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party for signing a “national unity” declaration with Hamas.
“Hamas and Fatah signed an agreement in China for joint control of Gaza after the war. Instead of rejecting terrorism, Mahmud Abbas embraces the murderers and rapists of Hamas, revealing his true face,” Katz writes on X.
“In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’s rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar,” he writes in English. “Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands.”
Senior Hamas official Hussam Badran said the national unity government would manage the affairs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, oversee reconstruction, and prepare for elections. link This is a brutal example of the heights of idiotic hypocrisy. The Israeli government including our foreign minister does everything in the power to reject the Palestinian Authority, to weaken it, to almost wipe it out of existence, then has the audacity to criticize these moves of reconciliation between it and the Hamas terror group? We should have been embracing the authority, helping it to reform and take its place in rebuilding a better Gaza and West Bank and partnering towards peace and a 2 State Solution. Instead, they do everything to drive it into the arms and partner with the barbarians responsible for the horrific acts of October 7 and the continued torture and killing of our hostages. "Katz, you can't have your cake whole and eat it too!"
After criticism emerges over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday meeting with Donald Trump in Florida — which falls on the birthday of his son Yair, who lives in Miami — his office puts out a statement that “it is of great importance to the State of Israel that the prime minister will meet with President [Joe] Biden and the two leading candidates for the US presidency.”
Netanyahu will have to stay in the US over the Jewish Sabbath because of the Friday meeting.
“On Thursday, the White House scheduled a meeting between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu at 1 p.m., and a meeting with Vice President [Kamala Harris] is scheduled for the afternoon,” says the PMO. “Therefore, the only possibility to meet with Donald Trump is on Friday.”
“Since it is not possible to fly on Shabbat, the delegation will return to Israel immediately at the end of Shabbat,” insists Netanyahu’s office. link Is this more of Netanyahu's utter hypocrisy or just signs of such a caring daddy? After all, we are footing the bill for his son's extended new home in Miami at the costs of millions of dollars (4 bodyguards on a rotating basis of 2 weeks for each 2 when they fly home for 2 weeks; an apartment in the same complex of the dear son in Miami for the body guards, a full time driver and car, and expenses of course). Netanyahu is such a good daddy that he appointed a crony to be the new Consul General in Miami who will put his son on the books as officially working for the consulate, giving him a bloated salary, making him a civil servant overseas with all the perks and expenses including a pension program and other savings programs, and he will probably put in an appearance every now and then at the consulate. Isn't that what good daddies are for?
- The Kan public broadcaster reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in talks to create a new body to manage the war in Gaza that will include National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, as part of an effort to placate the far-right politician who has been thwarting some legislation pushed by fellow coalition party Shas.
The Prime Minister’s Office issues a swift denial.
“The report is incorrect,” says the PMO. “The war is managed by the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the security agencies, and the core decisions are made by the entire security cabinet — this has not changed and is not about to change.”
The PMO explains that Netanyahu is looking to create “a forum for consultations and updates that will not the existing bodies and will not take their authority.”
Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit comments that talks between the sides are still ongoing. link We have learned all too well that the Prime Minister's Office lies constantly in order to serve their 'leader' when it suits them. And when their lies are exposed, they never admit them. They just don't comment. Therefore, I don't believe for a second that this isn't happening and that Netanyahu and Ben Gvir are in a negotiation for Ben Gvir to get more say in the managing of the war, which would be ever more a disaster than what is happening now.
Disaster
I haven’t been in Palestinian areas of the West Bank since the beginning of the war. This is very unusual for me, because before the war I was in Palestinian cities and towns all over the West Bank every week. I spent this evening with one of my best Palestinian friends who I haven’t seen for many months. He is a businessman who business takes him all over the West Bank, all the time, even during the past almost ten months. He is from the West Bank and his wife is from East Jerusalem. Just recently, the Israeli authorities renewed his permit that allows him to live with his wife and three daughters in Jerusalem. He hasn’t been legally allowed to live with his family for most of the months since the beginning of the war. It took him three hours today to travel from Ramallah, where he has his office, to his home in Jerusalem. He is fortunate because now he can cross the checkpoint legally. I spent several hours listening to him as he described the horrific reality that millions of people in the West Bank live everyday now almost ten months.
Israelis cannot imagine the despair that has become the overriding emotion of our neighbors. Despair is now turning into rage. People have lost hope and life is becoming unbearable. Almost 200,000 people who before the war earned their livelihood in Israel have had no income for almost ten months. There are places all around the West Bank that he described as becoming like Gaza before the war. People have the sense that they are living in a cage with no escape. They have no work, no money to feed their families and they sit around all day watching the news. What they are seeing on their television is not the news and the pictures that Israelis see. They are watching Palestinian lives being destroyed, innocent civilians, women, men and children been massacred by Israeli bombs, the entire Gaza Strip being demolished. I hear from my friends in Gaza every week how they are suffering and experiencing death and losing everything that they have. They are watching the Israeli army now destroying life in the West Bank as well. There are even now shortages of electricity and cuts in water supplies all around the West bank as well. Young Israeli soldiers enter villages and with uncontrollable violence enter homes, destroy property, steal money, humiliate people in their own homes and in their cars. The violence not only comes from settlers, it also comes from the Israeli soldiers. Settler violence knows no bounds and it is spreading to new areas every day. And there is no one who can protect them.
My friend is a man of peace, someone who has been part of peace activities. He used to do a lot of business with Israeli companies and had many Israeli friends. He has educated his young daughters to be peaceful and to want to live in peace with Israel. He does not watch the news at home, because he wants to protect his daughters, but even though they are under the age of ten, they grown afraid of Israelis and they too have feel hate them. He takes his daughters to a park near their home in Jerusalem in which young Israelis play also. His daughters refuse to go and play with the Israelis – they say, the Israeli kids might kill them.
He said that everyone hates the Palestinian Authority, some even more than they hate the Israelis. Palestinian Authority offices are empty, employees are only receiving a small part of their salaries and the bosses tell the workers to come in only one or two days a week. The employees of the Palestinian Authority hate the Authority as much as everyone else in the West Bank. No one is paying their taxes because they don’t have money and they don’t want to give anything to the Authority. Palestinian security personnel, police, preventive security and others sit around frustrated and talk about using their weapons to fight Israel. He said that people used to complain that the Palestinian Authority didn’t provide services, didn’t build schools or fix roads and now they want the Palestinian Authority to provide them with guns. People who were peaceful and only wanted to live a normal life have no reason to think about normal living. They think about arming themselves, to protect their families and to use those weapons to fight Israel. Israel, he said is creating monsters who will eventually break out of their cages and turn their rage against Israel.
He comes from a small peaceful village south of Bethlehem next to Gush Etzion. There is now a violent settlement next to his village, expanding and confiscating land from the village. The settlers, with weapons even threaten the Israeli soldiers who are afraid to confront them. The settlers have erected a gate that prevents the villages to get to their farm land. They enter the village during day and night and create havoc and destruction. There is no one to call to help them. Israel is now demolishing Palestinian homes, not only in area “c” but also in area “b” and even in area “a”. Israel has separated electricity lines that provide electricity to settlements and in areas such as Tubas there are daily cuts in power. Now the settlements have electricity and many Palestinians are suffering constant cuts of electricity – just like in Gaza even before the war. The same is happening with the water supply all around the West Bank. Even in cities such as Bethlehem, water flows only a few hours a week. Businesses all around the West Bank are closed. His own business is suffering and he has shut down most of his operations – and his business is supplying medical devices and equipment to hospitals and clinics. My friend is owed a lot of money by many of his clients. They give him checks to pay their debts, but their bank accounts are empty and the checks build up with nothing behind them. Every day that he stays in business he is losing money. But it is not about the money, he will survive, it is the loss of hope that tomorrow might be better.
What kind of life will the more than two million people in Gaza have when the war is over? What kind of life will the Palestinians in the West Bank have tomorrow? He told me what I have heard from many other Palestinians – the hero of the children of Palestine today is Abu Obaida – the spokesperson of Ezzedin al Qassam (Hamas military forces) in Gaza. It is not limited to Palestine – Abu Obaida is the hero of children in Jordan, Egypt and in many other parts of the Arab world. He asked “What is Israel creating here?” Israel doesn’t understand that it is losing the war because they may think that they are killing Hamas in Gaza but they are not. They are creating more and more people all over Palestine who feel that they have nothing to lose and that the only solution is to kill the Israelis. This feeling is not limited to Palestine. He used to do a lot of business with Turkish companies. He said that the hatred against Israel is so strong now even in Turkey that Turkish companies won’t sell to him because they refuse to have their good travel through the Israeli ports.
My friend said that they understood Israel when they attacked Gaza after October 7. He said that the Hamas leaders and those who killed and kidnapped Israelis deserved to be killed by Israel, but that was almost ten months ago. What has Israel achieved by killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza – noncombatants, people who hated Hamas even before October 7? What has Israel achieved by destroying all of Gaza and turning two million people into homeless people who lives have been destroyed? What does Israel expect to happen the day after the war? Will people want to live in peace with Israel after all of this – he asked me. He said that he sees Israeli television news from time-to-time. No one in Israel sees the reality that Palestinian see in their own lives. They don’t need television – they have relatives and friends in Gaza. What they see on Palestinian and other Arab news stations is not what Israelis see. Israelis have no idea of the suffering and the pain that they have caused.
Israel has lost this war and Israelis have no idea how badly they have lost. The war of revenge that Israel is fighting in Gaza has crossed every moral red-line that is imaginable. My friend used the word “unimaginable” throughout the evening. He is correct, it is unimaginable. In our pain and trauma caused by the brutal atrocities committed by Hamas, we Israelis have lost any kind of moral code that may have existed before October 7. Our soldiers are called heroes and we feel that they are protecting us. We talk about the great sacrifices that they are making every day in Gaza and we mourn for those who are killed in action. But those who send them into battle for what we have called a “just war” have gone too far and for too long. Most of those people who we are killing and are destroying their lives are facing atrocities committed by Israel. Those who survive will be there tomorrow. They were our neighbors and they will remain our neighbors. That is the reality. But our vengeance is creating monsters and no one is in our government in Israel, and maybe no one in our army and security forces is thinking about what happens when the war is over. What kind of tomorrow are we offering to the millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank? What kind of tomorrow are we offering to ourselves and to our children. What kind of future are we creating?
We all need a re-start. All of our leaders must go – ours in Israel and those in Palestine as well. They have failed us miserably. They are destroying us. If Israel’s few remaining friends in the world really care about Israel and the future of this country, they must help to put an end to this war. We don’t need friends who fuel the war and the hatred that we feel and that we create. The final task of the current government of Israel must be to end this horrible war, bring the hostages home and then go to elections. They cannot continue to represent us anymore. The criminals of this war on all sides must be brought to justice by their people who they have mis-served. The only way forward is for us to feel remorse. What has been done on October 7 and every day since has been done in our names – Israelis and Palestinians. These leaders have abused their power and they must be brought down. And we, as human beings, must begin to display our humanity by refusing to allow the killing and destruction to continue to be done in our names. This is the only way of creating a future here in this land that is worth living for. link
Senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk says the terror group signed a national unity declaration with other Palestinian groups, including rivals Fatah, while on a visit to China.
“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” Abu Marzuk said.
The declaration did not set out a timeframe for forming a new government.
There have been multiple announcements of unity agreements between the factions over the past years, however none of them have actually come to fruition.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz slams Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party for signing a “national unity” declaration with Hamas.
“Hamas and Fatah signed an agreement in China for joint control of Gaza after the war. Instead of rejecting terrorism, Mahmud Abbas embraces the murderers and rapists of Hamas, revealing his true face,” Katz writes on X.
“In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’s rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar,” he writes in English. “Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands.”
Senior Hamas official Hussam Badran said the national unity government would manage the affairs of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, oversee reconstruction, and prepare for elections. link This is a brutal example of the heights of idiotic hypocrisy. The Israeli government including our foreign minister does everything in the power to reject the Palestinian Authority, to weaken it, to almost wipe it out of existence, then has the audacity to criticize these moves of reconciliation between it and the Hamas terror group? We should have been embracing the authority, helping it to reform and take its place in rebuilding a better Gaza and West Bank and partnering towards peace and a 2 State Solution. Instead, they do everything to drive it into the arms and partner with the barbarians responsible for the horrific acts of October 7 and the continued torture and killing of our hostages. "Katz, you can't have your cake whole and eat it too!"
After criticism emerges over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Friday meeting with Donald Trump in Florida — which falls on the birthday of his son Yair, who lives in Miami — his office puts out a statement that “it is of great importance to the State of Israel that the prime minister will meet with President [Joe] Biden and the two leading candidates for the US presidency.”
Netanyahu will have to stay in the US over the Jewish Sabbath because of the Friday meeting.
“On Thursday, the White House scheduled a meeting between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu at 1 p.m., and a meeting with Vice President [Kamala Harris] is scheduled for the afternoon,” says the PMO. “Therefore, the only possibility to meet with Donald Trump is on Friday.”
“Since it is not possible to fly on Shabbat, the delegation will return to Israel immediately at the end of Shabbat,” insists Netanyahu’s office. link Is this more of Netanyahu's utter hypocrisy or just signs of such a caring daddy? After all, we are footing the bill for his son's extended new home in Miami at the costs of millions of dollars (4 bodyguards on a rotating basis of 2 weeks for each 2 when they fly home for 2 weeks; an apartment in the same complex of the dear son in Miami for the body guards, a full time driver and car, and expenses of course). Netanyahu is such a good daddy that he appointed a crony to be the new Consul General in Miami who will put his son on the books as officially working for the consulate, giving him a bloated salary, making him a civil servant overseas with all the perks and expenses including a pension program and other savings programs, and he will probably put in an appearance every now and then at the consulate. Isn't that what good daddies are for?
The Prime Minister’s Office issues a swift denial.
“The report is incorrect,” says the PMO. “The war is managed by the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the security agencies, and the core decisions are made by the entire security cabinet — this has not changed and is not about to change.”
The PMO explains that Netanyahu is looking to create “a forum for consultations and updates that will not the existing bodies and will not take their authority.”
Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit comments that talks between the sides are still ongoing. link We have learned all too well that the Prime Minister's Office lies constantly in order to serve their 'leader' when it suits them. And when their lies are exposed, they never admit them. They just don't comment. Therefore, I don't believe for a second that this isn't happening and that Netanyahu and Ben Gvir are in a negotiation for Ben Gvir to get more say in the managing of the war, which would be ever more a disaster than what is happening now.
The Region and the World
In a step that will hold up proceedings in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders, the court accepts the request of 70 states, organizations and individuals to file amicus briefs regarding the decision of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants against those leaders for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The measure means that a final decision by the ICC to grant, or reject, the arrest warrants will be significantly delayed. It also indicates that the court has concerns about its jurisdiction over the case and its admissibility, raising the possibility that the request for arrest warrants may even be rejected by the pre-trial chamber overseeing the case.
Previous cases have, however, also seen significant delays between the request for warrants and their issuance, such as the eight months it took between the request for an arrest warrant against former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir in July 2008 and the decision of the pre-trial chamber to approve it in March 2009.
The deadline to file the briefs is August 6, but the large number of briefs which the court’s Pre Trial Chamber I will have to review means that a decision on issuing the warrants will now be significantly delayed.
Prof. Yuval Shany of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law, who was given permission by the court to submit an amicus brief together with Prof. Amichai Cohen of the Israel Democracy Institute, says the court’s decision is an “unusual step” that is rarely taken at such a stage of proceedings, and likely indicates the court’s concerns over the jurisdiction and admissibility issues.
Other parties granted permission by the pre-trial chamber to file amicus briefs who will likely be supportive of Israel’s position include Germany, which has flagged concerns about the admissibility of the case; the US; Argentina; US Senator Lindsey Graham; the Israel Bar Association; the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists; and a group of organizations which include UK Lawyers for Israel, B’nai B’rith UK, the International Legal Forum, the Jerusalem Initiative and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Numerous parties hostile to Israel’s position have also been given permission to file briefs, including South Africa, Ireland, Bangladesh, and Spain.
Khan filed his request for arrest warrants in May due to crimes he alleged had been committed during the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza conducted by Israel against the terror organization. link Interestingly and ironically, Israel has the power to put an end to this whole thing (not the Hamas part). If we started a State Commission of Inquiry about the war and everything that led up to it, the ICC steps against Israel would end. Netanyahu, however is totally against a State Commission because he knows that it would completely damage his legacy and apply blame where it belongs, right in his lap. Another example of his choosing himself over what is good for the country.
In a step that will hold up proceedings in the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders, the court accepts the request of 70 states, organizations and individuals to file amicus briefs regarding the decision of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan to seek arrest warrants against those leaders for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The measure means that a final decision by the ICC to grant, or reject, the arrest warrants will be significantly delayed. It also indicates that the court has concerns about its jurisdiction over the case and its admissibility, raising the possibility that the request for arrest warrants may even be rejected by the pre-trial chamber overseeing the case.
Previous cases have, however, also seen significant delays between the request for warrants and their issuance, such as the eight months it took between the request for an arrest warrant against former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir in July 2008 and the decision of the pre-trial chamber to approve it in March 2009.
The deadline to file the briefs is August 6, but the large number of briefs which the court’s Pre Trial Chamber I will have to review means that a decision on issuing the warrants will now be significantly delayed.
Prof. Yuval Shany of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Law, who was given permission by the court to submit an amicus brief together with Prof. Amichai Cohen of the Israel Democracy Institute, says the court’s decision is an “unusual step” that is rarely taken at such a stage of proceedings, and likely indicates the court’s concerns over the jurisdiction and admissibility issues.
Other parties granted permission by the pre-trial chamber to file amicus briefs who will likely be supportive of Israel’s position include Germany, which has flagged concerns about the admissibility of the case; the US; Argentina; US Senator Lindsey Graham; the Israel Bar Association; the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists; and a group of organizations which include UK Lawyers for Israel, B’nai B’rith UK, the International Legal Forum, the Jerusalem Initiative and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Numerous parties hostile to Israel’s position have also been given permission to file briefs, including South Africa, Ireland, Bangladesh, and Spain.
Khan filed his request for arrest warrants in May due to crimes he alleged had been committed during the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza conducted by Israel against the terror organization. link Interestingly and ironically, Israel has the power to put an end to this whole thing (not the Hamas part). If we started a State Commission of Inquiry about the war and everything that led up to it, the ICC steps against Israel would end. Netanyahu, however is totally against a State Commission because he knows that it would completely damage his legacy and apply blame where it belongs, right in his lap. Another example of his choosing himself over what is good for the country.
The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen release a propaganda video showing what they say is the drone that was launched at Tel Aviv in an attack last week.
The so-called Jaffa drone struck a residential building in the central Israeli city early Friday, killing a man and wounding others.
The video shows a Jaffa drone in an exhibition, and ostensibly the moment the one that struck Tel Aviv was launched. The IDF identified the drone as a modified Iranian-made Samad-3 drone.
The drone had been adjusted to have a much further range than normal, allowing it to make a trip of some 2,600 kilometers — flying over Africa and Egypt, and then some of the Mediterranean — to reach Israel from the west. Houthi video
The Iran-backed Houthis are preparing to strike new sensitive targets in Israel and the region, according to sources from Yemen’s capital Sana’a quoted by the Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated daily Al-Akhbar.
Sources close to the Yemeni militia quoted by Al-Akhbar say that in response to the Israeli retaliatory strike on the Houthi-controlled Hodeida port in western Yemen on Saturday, itself a response to a deadly Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv, Houthi military leaders have added new items to their “target bank.”
The Yemeni rebel group — in cooperation with other members of the Axis of Resistance, Iran-backed paramilitary groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria — is said to be planning to hit the Israeli Mediterranean ports of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Haifa, in addition to the Red Sea port of Eilat.
The Israeli gas fields in the Mediterranean are now also said to be in the Houthis’ crosshairs, as well as oil tankers transporting fuel from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to Israel through the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Houthis are also said to be planning to target maritime trade in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and the rebel group is said to aim to use long-range projectiles to target “enemy maritime trade” directed toward the Cape of Good Hope along African coasts.
The route is much longer than the one through the Suez Canal, but has become increasingly popular since the Houthis began targeting ships transiting through the Red Sea with alleged connections to Israel, the United States or Britain.
Personal Stories Alex Lubnov, 32, was the head barman at the Supernova desert party, and has been missing since the morning of October 7, when Hamas terrorists launched an assault on the festival, killing and kidnapping partygoers.
The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen release a propaganda video showing what they say is the drone that was launched at Tel Aviv in an attack last week.
The so-called Jaffa drone struck a residential building in the central Israeli city early Friday, killing a man and wounding others.
The video shows a Jaffa drone in an exhibition, and ostensibly the moment the one that struck Tel Aviv was launched. The IDF identified the drone as a modified Iranian-made Samad-3 drone.The drone had been adjusted to have a much further range than normal, allowing it to make a trip of some 2,600 kilometers — flying over Africa and Egypt, and then some of the Mediterranean — to reach Israel from the west. Houthi video
The Iran-backed Houthis are preparing to strike new sensitive targets in Israel and the region, according to sources from Yemen’s capital Sana’a quoted by the Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated daily Al-Akhbar.
Sources close to the Yemeni militia quoted by Al-Akhbar say that in response to the Israeli retaliatory strike on the Houthi-controlled Hodeida port in western Yemen on Saturday, itself a response to a deadly Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv, Houthi military leaders have added new items to their “target bank.”
The Yemeni rebel group — in cooperation with other members of the Axis of Resistance, Iran-backed paramilitary groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria — is said to be planning to hit the Israeli Mediterranean ports of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Haifa, in addition to the Red Sea port of Eilat.
The Israeli gas fields in the Mediterranean are now also said to be in the Houthis’ crosshairs, as well as oil tankers transporting fuel from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to Israel through the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Houthis are also said to be planning to target maritime trade in the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean and the rebel group is said to aim to use long-range projectiles to target “enemy maritime trade” directed toward the Cape of Good Hope along African coasts.
The route is much longer than the one through the Suez Canal, but has become increasingly popular since the Houthis began targeting ships transiting through the Red Sea with alleged connections to Israel, the United States or Britain.
“He’s the guy who worries about everyone else,” wrote a friend. “He brings a big cooler of beer and arak to every party, carries the extra equipment, helps people put up their tents even if they met five minutes earlier.”
Alex Lubnov, pictured here with wife Michal, was the head barman at Supernova, when he was captured on October 7, 2023 by Hamas terrorists who attacked the desert rave (Courtesy)
The limited amount of information that Alex was able to share that morning showed that he was hiding in an olive orchard, before losing contact with his wife, Michal.
For more than a week he was considered missing before the family was informed that Alex was taken captive in Gaza.
Michal is five months pregnant and the couple have a two-year-old. The young family lives in Ashkelon, and Alex also cares for his parents, who both have physical disabilities.
The two met a decade ago when Alex was working as a chef at an Ashkelon restaurant where Michal was a waitress.
Now, said Michal, she’s been left alone and has been told that she can’t receive any kind of aid, financial or emotional, until the situation is resolved.
“I’ve been told that I’m on my own,” said Michal.
Acronyms and Glossary
ICC - International Criminal Court in the Hague
IJC - International Court of Justice in the Hague
MDA - Magen David Adom - Israel Ambulance Corp
PA - Palestinian Authority - President Mahmud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen
PMO- Prime Minister's Office
UAV - Unmanned Aerial vehicle, Drone. Could be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, or be weaponized with missiles or contain explosives for 'suicide' explosion mission
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