Israel Update: January 1 (day 453)

by | | Israel Updates

Jay Zeidman
Jan 01, 2025

Wishing all of you a happy New Year and happy final night of Hanukkah. Chag Semeach as we say in Hebrew. We pray that all of our hostages come home now and that the people of Israel can live in peace. Am Israel Chai.

While it is hard to switch from a message of hope and optimism to the topic below, I felt compelled to start today’s update with a detailed report that the Israeli Health Ministry released which describes the most unimaginable, horrific experiences that the hostages endured. I urge you read with caution.

[WARNING: GRAPHIC AND EMTIONAL TESTIMONY] FDD writes: Israel plans to submit a report to the United Nations outlining the horrific abuses that Israeli hostages were subjected to by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The report was collected from over a year of interviews with medical and welfare teams that worked with both hostages who were released in a negotiated November 2023 deal and rescued in IDF operations. “The testimonies presented in this report serve as a wake-up call for the international community to apply increased pressure on Hamas and its supporters to release all hostages without delay,” said Israeli Health Minister Uriel Busso.

  • You can read the full English version of the report here: The State of Israel’s Submission to the Special Rapporteur on torture
  • The Israeli Health Ministry will be submitting a report to the United Nations’ Alice Edwards, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It marks the first formal report by the Health Ministry about the hostages’ experiences.
  • The testimony and many other damning details are included in a report cataloging the physical, sexual and mental anguish the now-former abductees — some of them children — were subjected to, and the lasting effects it has had on them.
  • …the report details how they were burned and beaten, starved and humiliated, as well as how the abuse impacted their mental and physical health even long after they were freed.
  • According to the report, the terrorist captors forced two minors to perform sexual acts on one another and compelled them to take off their clothes in front of them, touched their private parts, and whipped their genitalia.
  • The same two former hostages also reported that “they were held bound and were beaten throughout their captivity. Signs of binding, scars, and marks consistent with trauma were found,” the report says.
  • “Two of the children that were held together during captivity reported that they were held bound and were beaten throughout their captivity. Signs of binding, scars, and marks consistent with trauma were found. Additionally, two young children had burn marks on their lower limbs. One child stated that the burns were the result of a deliberate branding with a heated object.”
  • Both the child and adults who were with him in captivity described the incident as a purposeful branding event, not an accident. It was described as an extremely traumatic experience. Cases of Physical and Sexual Violence Against Women and Men One of the returned hostages described being sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a Hamas terrorist.
  • “On several occasions, captors forced women of all ages to undress while others, including the captors, watched. Some women reported that the captors sexually assaulted them. In addition, some women reported that they were tied to beds while their captors stared at them. Another woman, injured during the attack, was held in a dark isolation for 30 days, bound and unable to move. She had no contact with the outside world, received an inadequate amount of food and water, and did not receive treatment for her injury. Other women also reported starvation and abuse by their captors The men endured severe physical abuse, including continuous starvation, beatings, burns with galvanized iron (branding), hair-pulling, confinement in closed rooms with a limited amount of food and water, being held in isolation with hands and feet tied, and being denied access to the bathroom, which forced them to defecate on themselves.”
  • Released hostages related to authorities that they were deliberately separated from other family members who were being held. In one case, a woman was held in complete isolation, in darkness, bound, receiving very little water and food and not getting treatment for injuries.
  • “The hostages were denied medical treatment for acute injuries caused during October 7 and subsequently, in addition to for untreated chronic conditions. Fractures, shrapnel wounds, and burns were treated inadequately, leading to complications which required additional surgeries, that could have been prevented with proper care.”
  • “About half of the returned hostages described being deliberately starved during their captivity. They were given a poor diet, which often led to hunger that worsened over time. In addition to inadequate nutrition, they were kept in dark spaces, increasing the risk of vitamin D deficiency. This malnutrition resulted in an average weight loss of 815 kg (10-17% of body weight), with children losing an average of 10%, and in one extreme case, a girl lost 18% of her body weight.”
  • Captives, including children, were forced to watch videos of the October 7 atrocities. Many of the terrorists who took part in the attack filmed it, including extreme acts of cruelty.
  • Some captives, the document says, “witnessed the killing of other captives, further deepening their sense of helplessness and hopelessness.
  • “Some returned hostages had paranoid anxieties, fearing retaliation against their loved ones still in captivity if they spoke about their experiences. The inability to share their trauma with therapeutic factors, which made it harder to process their trauma. The returned hostages have been experiencing “survivor’s guilt,” feeling responsible for being rescued while their loved ones remain in Gaza.”
  • “These are actions that cannot be tolerated and demand that the world wake up and take action. The report highlights the horrors the hostages endured and reveals to the world the brutality of the enemy with whom Israel is engaged. The testimonies presented in this report serve as a wake-up call for the international community to apply increased pressure on Hamas and its supporters to free all the hostages without delay. I urge the global community to utilize all available means to end this cruelty and bring the hostages home immediately. It is a moral and humanitarian imperative, and the time to act is running out.”
  • Link to YNet Summary
  • Link to Times of Israel Summary

Situational Update

  • The Times of Israel reports: Rocket and drone alert sirens triggered by attacks from Yemen have repeatedly sent millions of Israelis running for shelter in the middle of the night over the past 12 days. In the past month, the group has fired 11 ballistic missiles and at least nine drones at Israel.
  • While hostage discussions continue, the Jerusalem Post reports that Hamas is reportedly refusing to release 12 of the 34 hostages in the first phase of an alleged deal in the works, instead offering the bodies of 12 killed abductees. While Hamas has refused to release all the requested 34 living hostages, the terror group has reportedly upped the number of security prisoners it demands released.

The Numbers

Casualties

  • 1,820 Israelis have been killed including 825 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+2 since Sunday)
    • First Sergeant Yuval Shoham, 22, was killed in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday. Tragically he was killed in an accident, when he was hit by the rotation of the turret in the tank he was in, during fighting in the Jabalia area.
    • Sgt. Uriel Peretz, 23, was killed inside a building in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun when it was hit by anti-tank fire.
  • The South: 393 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed (+2 since Sunday)
  • The North: 131 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel (no change since Sunday)
  • Additional Information (according to the IDF):
    • 2,521 (+20 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 479 (+6 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
    • 5,566 (+25 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 815 (+6 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
  • According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 45,361 (no reported change Sunday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 107,803 (no reported change Sunday) have been injured during the war.
  • Facts about the Gaza Casualty Count:
  • The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Hostages (no change)

  • There are currently 96 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza
  • 7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
  • On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
  • During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
  • 145 hostages in total have been released or rescued
    • The bodies of 38 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
  • 8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
  • This leaves 100 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
    • At least 34 confirmed bodies are currently being held in Gaza
    • 30-50 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity
    • Thus, at most, 50-70 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
    • Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of 2 IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.

Listen

Rocket Alerts

  • +250 rocket alerts since Sunday
  • Since 12/1 there have been 1,466 rocket alerts from the Houthi rebels in Yemen

Source: Rocket Alerts in Israel

Reports, Opinions, and Analysis

How the Houthis turned their weaknesses into strengths by Ari Heistein with The Times of Israel

  • How has this seemingly ragtag group of Yemeni rebels managed to rule 20 million people, intimidate Gulf neighbors, fire continuously on Israel, and disrupt international shipping in the Red Sea? The answer is that they have resourcefully and adaptably exploited ostensible disadvantages in order to promote their regime’s interests.
  • First, the Houthis’ extremist religious-political movement has managed to garner little public support
    • Despite their continued unpopularity, the Houthi regime is sustained by a relatively small collection of loyalists with familial ties and ideological commitment to the group. This “tyranny of the minority” has withstood immense military, economic, and political pressure without major internal fractures or defections. While disputes among leaders have been reported, they have ultimately been resolved in ways that promote regime cohesion and continuity.
  • Second, Yemen has been the poorest country in the Arab world since well-before the civil war erupted there a decade ago. This would presumably pose a major challenge for an insurgent regime that needs to fund both an extended military campaign and prevent rebellion or starvation vis-à-vis the 20 million people living under its rule.
    • By playing up Yemen’s dismal economic state and the impact of the Saudi-led campaign on the population, the Houthis helped usher in tens of billions of dollars in aid into their territory. They then systematically siphoned this aid off through a variety of means, from establishing front companies to brazen acts of theft.
    • In addition, the Houthis leverage the misery of everyday Yemenis to force them into submission. Since there is barely any private sector economy within Houthi-controlled areas, the majority of the public is either living off of government salaries or aid, and the regime exploits this dependency to promote loyalty, or at the very least compliance.
    • For example, if a teacher in primary school does not want to indoctrinate her students with the radical Houthi curriculum or Yemeni parents do not want to send their young children to Houthi military camps, they will likely be removed from the beneficiary lists and made ineligible for humanitarian aid regardless of need.
  • Third, the Houthis’ location on the far end of the Arabian Peninsula, over a thousand kilometers away from major Middle Eastern hubs, had relegated them to the sidelines of global affairs.
    • …they have since discovered that their positioning also has advantages. The perception of this group as largely irrelevant enabled them to build up massive amounts of long-range firepower (supplied by Iran) without the global community taking much notice or interest.
  • The international response to these attacks has so far has been ineffective. This is also partially attributable to the group’s location over 1,000 kilometers from major American or Israeli bases, which complicates efforts to launch effective airstrikes on the Houthis’ strategic assets.
  • Link: How the Houthis turned their weaknesses into strengths

Israel should strike Iran now, paving way for Trump 2.0 by Seth Cropsey with The Hill

  • The recent shift in geopolitical events against Iran and its proxies provides Israel with a clear opportunity — and the second Trump administration with one as well. Israel must strike Iran now, hitting any number of high-value targets within the Islamic Republic.
  • The collapse of the Assad regime should remind observers of international events of two basic facts.
    • First, the strength of authoritarian states can dissipate without any apparent warning. Assad was viewed as having options and may have been able to choose between his Iranian and Russian backers in a manner relevant to the broader, ongoing Eurasian crisis. Yet just a few weeks later, the Assad regime has vanished.
    • Second, international crises intersect in unexpected, largely chaotic ways that produce shocking outcomes — or more accurately, expose extant weaknesses. The Assad regime was never strong enough to withstand sustained opposition absent overwhelming external support.
  • Hezbollah has lost its command structure and taken heavy casualties since September, limiting its ability to deploy in support of Assad. Israel has killed a number of IRGC liaison officers from its strike on Damascus in April onward. Iran was thus in no position to react to a rapidly-developing crisis. In a direct confrontation, isolated from its international backers, the Assad regime thus predictably collapsed.
  • Given Saudi Arabia concluded a modus vivendi with Iran in 2023, Israel cannot strike Iran by transiting Saudi airspace. It must follow a corridor over Syria and Iraq instead. Without Syrian-provided early warning, a strike against targets in Iran becomes much more practical.
  • If Israel could pull off a strike on the Iranian nuclear program in the coming weeks — or against other critical targets in Iran from arms factories to intelligence and security institutions — then the Iranian state may well face a broader domestic and regional backlash, with each actor it has contained sensing weakness.
  • Instead, the U.S. needs a new strategy to apply pressure on Tehran, one that incorporates sanctions, threats and action against proxies, and intelligence operations to degrade what remains of Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
  • Link: Israel’s opportunity to strike Iran amid geopolitical shifts

The Middle East’s Next Aftershocks: The Trump administration will find it hard to disengage from a region still being reshaped by the effects of Oct. 7 by Raphael S. Cohen in Foreign Policy

  • …with a cease-fire in place in Lebanon, looming prospects of one in Gaza, and Syria’s new leaders busy consolidating their country, the question today is whether the Oct. 7 aftershocks are coming to an end at last. After all, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to “to get rid of the wars” swiftly, even before he gets into office, and incoming senior defense officials have signaled a desire to reorient the United States to the Indo-Pacific. But in practice, disengaging from the Middle East may prove more difficult than they anticipate.
  • The first tremor is likely already underway in Yemen. For well over a year, the Houthis have preyed on international shipping in the Red Sea, despite the efforts of a U.S.-led coalition to stem the attacks.
  • …Israel has not viewed the Houthis as an imminent threat until recently—and presumably now has fewer tricks up its sleeves. A campaign against the Houthis may not be as quick or spectacular as the decimation of Hezbollah.
  • But just because Israel faces longer odds in its campaign to destroy the Houthis does not mean that it will not try. Most immediately, renewed strikes will destroy much of what is left of Yemen’s battered infrastructure. Israeli airstrikes have thus far focused on the Houthi-controlled ports of Hodeidah, Al-Salif, and Ras Qantib, as well Sanaa International Airport, all in an effort to sever the delivery of Iranian weapons to the group. Israel has also vowed to target the Houthi leadership, a step both Israel and the United States have thus far avoided.
  • In the short run, though, even some Israeli analysts recognize that Israel will need U.S. assistance in countering Houthi missiles and drones, and international shipping will need to rely on the U.S.-led naval coalition for safe passage through the Red Sea.
  • Even if the Trump administration is unmoved by humanitarian plight, it will still need to consider the chance that conflicts in Yemen spill over into neighboring Saudi Arabia and, in turn, threaten global energy supplies.
  • If the Houthis represent one of the aftershocks, then Iran is another—and a potentially far more consequential one.
  • Iran has responded to what it sees as its deteriorating security situation by doubling down on its nuclear program. That sets Iran on a collision course with not only Israel, but also with the United States and other Western powers.
  • As if the Houthis and Iran were not enough, there are any number other regional fault lines that are softly but audibly rumbling. Syrian politics are still far from settled, with the possibility of renewed sectarian tension.
  • And if NATO ally Turkey fighting the United States’ longtime Kurdish allies was not sufficient to keep Washington involved, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces are still holding thousands of Islamic State prisoners. Should they be released, the ranks of the Islamic State would swell.
  • This gets at the fundamental challenge for the incoming U.S. administration. Much like the first Trump administration—and the Obama and Biden administrations, for that matter—the incoming team wants out of the Middle East. But getting out comes at a cost.
  • Leaving the Houthis unaddressed risks ongoing attacks in one of the world’s busiest sea lanes, missiles raining on Tel Aviv, and a potential violent spillover into Saudi Arabia. Ignoring the Iran problem risks letting a state that inaugurates its president to chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel” possess nuclear weapons, not to mention setting off more nuclear proliferation in the volatile Middle East. Completely disengaging from Syria risks a return of the Islamic State and jihadist terrorism.
  • Link: The Middle East’s Next Aftershocks

**While I am not a fan of the NYT, I found this article fascinating on just how successful the Israeli intelligence apparatus was in penetrating and severely debilitating Hezbollah and its leadership.

Behind the Dismantling of Hezbollah: Decades of Israeli Intelligence: A Times investigation shows how extensively Israel penetrated the Lebanese militia, closely tracking the group’s commanders and culminating in the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah by Mark Mazzetti, Sheera Frenkel and Ronen Bergman in The New York Times

  • Right up until he was assassinated, Hassan Nasrallah did not believe that Israel would kill him.
  • It was also the result of two decades of methodical intelligence work in preparation for an all-out war that many expected would eventually come.
  • It is a story of breakthroughs, as in 2012 when Israel’s Unit 8200 — the country’s equivalent of the National Security Agency — stole a trove of information, including specifics of the leaders’ secret hide-outs and the group’s arsenal of missiles and rockets.
  • And there were scrambles to save their efforts, as in September, when Unit 8200 collected intelligence that Hezbollah operatives were concerned enough about the pagers that they were sending some of them to Iran for inspection.
  • The Hezbollah campaign, part of a broader war that has killed thousands of people in Lebanon and displaced more than a million, defanged one of Israel’s greatest adversaries and dealt a blow to Iran’s regional strategy of arming and funding paramilitary groups bent on Israel’s destruction. The weakening of the Iran-led axis reshaped the dynamics in the Middle East, contributing to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
  • Israel was in a standoff with Mr. Nasrallah and his top commanders of Hezbollah, the “Party of God,” for decades, and Israeli intelligence assessments have concluded that it will take years, possibly more than a decade, for the group to rebuild after their deaths.
  • But operations during the [2016] war, based on Israeli intelligence gathering, formed the foundation for the country’s later approach. One operation planted tracking devices on Hezbollah’s Fajr missiles that gave Israel information about munitions hidden inside secret military bases, civilian storage facilities and private homes, according to three former Israeli officials.
  • As Hezbollah rebuilt, the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, expanded a network of human sources inside the militia
  • Specifically, the Mossad recruited people in Lebanon to help Hezbollah build secret facilities after the war. The Mossad sources fed the Israelis information about the locations of hide-outs and assisted in monitoring them, two officials said.
  • A significant moment came in 2012, when Unit 8200 obtained a trove of information about the specific whereabouts of Hezbollah leaders, their hide-outs and the group’s batteries of missiles and rockets
  • That operation raised confidence within Israeli intelligence agencies that — should Mr. Netanyahu make good on threats to attack Iran’s nuclear sites — the Israeli military could help neuter Hezbollah’s ability to retaliate.
  • Mr. Netanyahu visited the Tel Aviv headquarters of Unit 8200 shortly after the operation. During the visit, the head of Unit 8200 made a show by printing out the trove of information, producing a tall stack of paper. Standing next to the material, he told Mr. Netanyahu, “You can now attack Iran”
  • …when the 2006 war ended, Israel had “target portfolios” for just under 200 Hezbollah leaders, operatives, weapons caches and missile locations. By the time Israel launched its campaign in September, it was tens of thousands.
  • Turning Pagers Into Deadly Devices
    • Israel’s Unit 8200 and Mossad championed a plan to supply Hezbollah with booby-trapped devices that could be detonated at a future date
    • Israeli engineers mastered placing PETN explosives within the batteries of electronic devices, turning them into small bombs.
    • In 2014, Israel seized an opportunity when the Japanese technology company iCOM stopped producing its popular IC-V82 walkie-talkies. The devices, originally assembled in Osaka, Japan, were so popular that replicas were already being made across Asia and sold in online forums and in black market deals.
    • Unit 8200 discovered that Hezbollah was specifically searching for the same device to equip all of its frontline forces
    • Israel began manufacturing its own replicas of the walkie-talkies with small modifications, including packing explosive material into their batteries…The first Israeli-made replicas arrived in Lebanon in 2015 — and more than 15,000 were eventually shipped
    • In 2018, a female Israeli Mossad intelligence officer drafted a plan that would use a similar technique to implant explosive material into a pager battery.
    • Over the next three years, Israel’s increasing ability to hack into cellphones left Hezbollah, Iran and their allies increasingly wary of using smartphones. Israeli officers from Unit 8200 helped fuel the fear, using bots on social media to push Arabic-language news reports on Israel’s ability to hack into phones, according to two officers in the agency.
    • Worried about smartphones being compromised, Hezbollah’s leadership decided to expand its use of pagers.
    • As it did, Hezbollah began looking for pagers hardy enough for combat conditions
    • Israeli intelligence officers targeted the Taiwanese brand Gold Apollo, well known for pagers.
    • In May 2022, a company called BAC Consulting was registered in Budapest. One month later, in Sofia, Bulgaria, a company called Norta Global Ltd. was registered to a Norwegian citizen named Rinson Jose. BAC Consulting bought a licensing agreement from Gold Apollo to manufacture a new pager model known as the AR-924 Rugged.
    • Working through intermediaries, Mossad agents began marketing the pagers to Hezbollah buyers and offered a discounted price for a bulk purchase.
    • The Mossad presented the gadget, one without any hidden explosives, to Mr. Netanyahu during a meeting in March 2023. Not convinced [that the pager would break], Mr. Netanyahu abruptly stood up and threw the device against the wall of his office. The wall cracked, but the pager did not.
    • Israeli intelligence analysts, who were constantly monitoring the use of the devices, discovered a potential problem with the operation. At least one Hezbollah technician began to suspect that the walkie-talkies might contain hidden explosives, according to three Israeli defense officials. Israel dealt with it swiftly this year, killing the technician with an airstrike.
  • In late August, Mr. Barnea, the Mossad chief, wrote a secret letter to Mr. Netanyahu, according to a senior Israeli defense official. The letter advocated a two-to-three-week campaign that included eliminating more than half of the group’s missile abilities and destroying installations within about six miles of the Israeli border. At the same time, senior military officials began their own effort to lobby Mr. Netanyahu to intensify a campaign against Hezbollah.
  • On Sept. 11, intelligence showed that Hezbollah was sending some of the pagers to Iran for examination, and Israeli officials knew it was only a matter of time before the covert operation would be blown.
  • On Sept. 16, Mr. Netanyahu met with top security chiefs to weigh whether to detonate the pagers in a “use it or lose it” operation
  • The following day, at 3:30 p.m. local time, the Mossad ordered an encrypted message to be sent to thousands of the pagers. Seconds later, the pagers detonated.
  • At the time the pagers exploded, Mr. Jose, the Norwegian who was the head of one of the Mossad front companies, was attending a technology conference in Boston.
  • Israeli officials secretly pressured the Biden administration to ensure that Mr. Jose could leave the United States without going back to Norway. Israeli officials would not disclose Mr. Jose’s location. One senior Israeli defense official said only that he was in a “safe place.”
  • The most consequential decision remained: whether or not to kill Mr. Nasrallah. As senior Israeli officials debated, intelligence agencies received new information that Mr. Nasrallah planned to move to a different bunker, one that would be far more difficult to hit
  • Mr. Netanyahu and other top advisers opposed notifying the Biden administration. They believed that U.S. officials would push back against the strike, but that regardless, the United States would come to Israel’s defense in case Iran retaliated. They agreed to keep the Americans in the dark.
  • Mr. Netanyahu approved the assassination the next day, after he landed in New York and only hours before standing at the podium at the United Nations.
  • Link: Behind the Dismantling of Hezbollah: Decades of Israeli Intelligence

Antisemitism

How the international community funds the Hamas war machine by Natan Galula by Jewish News Syndicate

  • On Nov. 29, 2024, three Palestinians, a woman and two children, were crushed to death while waiting in line outside a bakery in central Gaza. The images of thousands of Palestinians huddled against each other, pressing inwards for a bag of pita bread, with young girls on camera desperately gasping for air, made headline news all over the world.
  • The agency running the United Nations’ World Food Programme warned in early December that the “humanitarian response in Gaza is nearing collapse. For over 50 days almost no food has reached North Gaza.”
  • Similar warnings were proclaimed in the past. In March, the Food Security Analysis Unit, which works under the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, released a report that stated, “Famine is now projected and imminent in the North Gaza and Gaza Governorates and is expected to become manifest during the projection period from mid-March 2024 to May 2024.”
  • According to Eyal Ofer—a former government adviser, frequent guest commentator on Israeli media outlets and an expert on “Hamas economics”—shortages of food in Gaza are not due to a lack of foreign aid.
  • The bakery scenes “were completely orchestrated by Hamas,” he said. The rest, he said, is “smuggled” to Hamas-controlled markets.
  • After Israel took measures to stop Hamas from getting the wheat, the terrorist group readjusted its method of operation and took over the bakeries, said Ofer.
  • Ofer emphasized that those who argue Hamas is able to ensure its rule thanks to the humanitarian aid are wrong. Hamas already rules Gaza, he noted, which is why it controls pricing there.
  • Plundering aid
    • Hamas – It exploits its power to plunder the international resources delivered into Gaza, which it uses to sustain its dictatorship.
  • UNRWA and Hamas
    • In no other conflict or place in the world, she said, “can you find a situation where an external body assumes the responsibility to finance all the daily needs of the [local people] in a way that absolves them of any responsibility for themselves.” While UNRWA takes care of the welfare of Palestinians, Hamas can keep arming itself and bolster its military capabilities, concentrating all of its efforts on the next massacre of Jews, she added.
  • Fueling the warmongers
    • The problem [in Gaza] is political. Politics have turned Gaza into a war machine. Gaza doesn’t really need outside help. Its people need to decide if they prefer investing in themselves, rather than destroying what the Jews have built.”
    • Foreign supplies that regularly enter Gaza serve as the basis of its current economy, from which Hamas collects its salaries and continues its terrorist activities, she said.
  • The mafia in Gaza
    • “Hamas is present everywhere in the Gaza Strip: the police, humanitarian associations, actors in the private and public sectors, the contractors’ union—Hamas is networked within and across Gaza. You can’t just vacuum Hamas out, it is everywhere,” he said.
    • In a tweet that went viral on Sunday, he wrote that “Hamas operates like a mafia and a clan-based enterprise: one brother is in the military wing, another in the police force, they ensure the sister works for UNRWA, a noncombat-profile cousin becomes a driver for an aid organization, an uncle gets a government position, another cousin is a ‘journalist’ for Al Jazeera, and the grandmother is added to the list of welfare recipients.”
    • The claim that Iran provides 70% of Hamas’s funding is “nonsense,” he wrote. “In extreme cases, Iran provides 5-10% of Hamas’s funding. The vast majority of Hamas’s funding comes from its ability to funnel money that the world sends to the Palestinian Authority (and other Gaza charitable causes) and Gaza for its own purposes.”
  • The money-laundering scheme
    • The primary currency in the Gaza Strip is the Israeli shekel. During the war, Hamas acquired a monopoly on cash in Gaza, with local banks largely unserviceable.
    • “Many Gazans today receive direct donations from abroad, transferred via Western Union, the banks, cryptocurrencies like USD Coin, Vodafone Cash Wallet [a mobile app], GoFundMe, monthly stipends from the P.A., U.N. humanitarian agencies such as UNICEF. All these transfers are deposited in bank accounts, and their holders need to convert them into cash—whether the deposit is in dollars or shekels. Who do they go to for cash? Hamas.”
    • The Islamist organization developed an entire industry of non-banking ATMs, Ofer explained. The Gazans transfer to Hamas their dollars or shekels and Hamas provides them with cash, though with “unbelievably” high fees, he said.
  • Link: How the international community funds the Hamas war machine

2024’s Top Ten Worst Anti-Semitic Incidents: Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Report on Rising Hate in The Jewish Onliner

 

  1. Iran’s Proxy War: Anti-Semitism on the Frontlines
    1. Tehran continues to use its proxies, including terror cells in Europe and missile operations in Yemen, to target Jews and spread hatred.
  2. UNRWA’s Ties to Terror: A Global Scandal Uncovered
    1. …evidence of UNRWA’s deep connections to terror groups was uncovered. Thousands of its employees were found to have ties to Hamas, with at least 2,440 of 13,000 staff members actively involved in terrorism.
  3. Synagogue Attacks: A Global Surge in Violence
    1. Synagogues around the world faced a rising wave of attacks in 2024, including violent incidents in Tunisia, Germany, Russia, Australia, and the United States.
  4. International Courts: A Weapon Against Israel
    1. International legal institutions, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), have been weaponized to accuse Israel of crimes against humanity.
  5. Influencers Spread Hate: The Far-Left and Far-Right Unite
    1. These influential figures, with millions of followers across platforms like X, TikTok, and Telegram, help normalize hatred and promote dangerous anti-Jewish stereotypes, reaching global audiences without significant pushback from tech platforms.
  6. Elite Universities: Antisemitism Thrives on Campus
    1. At campuses like UCLA and across Europe, pro-Hamas rhetoric and anti-Zionist movements have grown, leading to the vilification of Israel and increased risks for Jewish students.
  7. Francesca Albanese: Blaming Israel for Hamas’ Atrocities
    1. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel, consistently blaming the Jewish state for the atrocities committed by Hamas.
  8. NGOs’ Anti-Israel Agenda: Poisoning Public Opinion
    1. …several prominent non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch continued to demonize Israel, issuing misleading reports that accused Israel of genocide in Gaza.
  9. World Leaders Target Israel: Diplomatic Attacks Escalate
    1. These political figures use their platforms to normalize anti-Israel sentiment on the world stage, further contributing to the growing isolation of Israel in international diplomacy.
  10. Athletes Under Attack: Anti-Semitism at the Sports Arena
    1. The 2024 global sports scene became another battleground for antisemitism, with Israeli athletes targeted during competitions. At a UEFA football match in Amsterdam, Israeli fans were viciously attacked by rioters in what was described as a “Jew hunt.” In Paris, Israeli athletes at the 2024 Olympics were subjected to Nazi salutes and other forms of anti-Jewish harassment. The Iranian regime’s influence was evident in many of these attacks, as its calls to boycott Israel spread across various sporting events. These incidents, along with the exclusion of Israeli teams from international competitions, demonstrate how the hate directed at Israel has permeated even the world of sports.

Suspected Hamas Operative Hailed As A Humanitarian After Arrest by Kassy Akiva in The Daily Wire

  • A Gaza doctor who has been published twice by The New York Times and profiled by CNN is actively detained and being interrogated by Israel, which believes he is a terrorist operative. But despite evidence suggesting close ties to Hamas, international organizations are hailing him as a humanitarian.
  • Media outlets including CNN have profiled Abu Safiya without investigating his ties to Hamas. The New York Times published two op-eds authored by Abu Safiya where he begged for help for his hospital.
  • In five Arabic news articles, from four different articles, spanning from 2017 to 2021, Abu Safiya was referred to with his Hamas terrorist military rank of Colonel. These articles are published in Quds Net News Agency, Alray, Pal Times, and twice in Al Watan.
  • “It’s clear these news articles are using the word ‘aqeed’ to describe Hussam Abu Safiya which means military colonel,” Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) told The Daily Wire.
  • Safiya’s social media shows his support of the October 7 attack and hostility towards Jews. The day after the attack, Safiya shared a graphic of Palestinians breaching the Israeli border with the caption, “We are coming back to you, we are coming back, oh our country we are coming back.”
  • Link: Suspected Hamas Operative Hailed As A Humanitarian After Arrest

Lawmakers, health care providers raise alarm about growing antisemitism in medical field by Marc Rod with the Jewish Insider

  • …lawmakers, medical professionals and Jewish community advocates sounded the alarm about the spread of antisemitism in the health care field, both within medical schools and in clinical settings.
  • One panelist, a therapist who asked not to be identified by name out of concern about professional consequences, explained that some in the mental health space are pushing a theory known as “decolonizing therapy” in which Jews are treated as oppressors in therapeutic settings and Zionism is treated as a mental illness that patients should be told to reject.
  • The therapist also highlighted efforts to blacklist therapists who identified as or were willing to serve patients who identified as Zionists and said that professional organizations in the psychology space have been part of perpetuating these harmful ideologies, rather than combating them.
  • Another panelist, a doctor and medical school faculty member who also asked to remain anonymous, said that some Jewish patients at their hospital’s fertility clinic were reluctant to file complaints about the hostility they faced from medical providers, out of fear that the staff would damage their embryos. And they said that another provider had cut off contact with a patient after the patient told the provider that she had visited Israel.
  • They said administrators had refused to enforce the hospital’s rules out of fear of upsetting anti-Israel staff and dismissed complaints of discrimination, in some cases referring impacted staff to a counselor who herself had posted antisemitic content and leaked their complaints.
  • Jewish physicians, the doctor said, have also faced harassment, doxxing and antisemitic comments and conspiracy theories at their hospital and university. And some physicians have described Zionists as dangerous to their patients and responsible for racial inequities in health care.
  • Link: Lawmakers, health care providers raise alarm about growing antisemitism in medical field

World chose to ignore Hamas sex crimes, that will not change by Ben Dror Yemini in Ynet (Yedioth Ahronoth)

  • The report on the horrors endured by hostages held by Hamas, that is to be presented to the United Nations this week, will not cause waves. The Western media reporting on Israel is preoccupied by the IDF’s operation in the Adwan Hospital in Jabaliya
  • This is the result of racism and a willing blindness. It is no secret that there is continued, systematic abuse of basic rights all over the Arab world. When that is the norm, there is no room for outrage. It is only what Israel does that evokes such a response.
  • The fact that Israel is expected to hold higher moral values and norms than Muslim countries is not a positive thing because it implies racism.
  • As to the sexual crimes committed by the Hamas terrorists, the world response spanned from denial to justification. Israel, the argument states, is a colonial power, an oppressor and a racist occupier. Therefore, the murderous attack and the atrocities committed against it, is some king of a rebellion of slaves.
  • It is of course, a refutable theory because rape and enslavement are the hallmarks of Sunni and Shiit Jihad, regardless of Israel.
  • An article published in Foreign Policy in 2009, titled The Militarization of Sex by Hanin Ghaddar, revealed Hezbollah’s practice of Mutaa, a form of “temporary marriage” only acceptable within Shiite communities, that “allows couples to have religiously sanctioned sex for a limited period of time, without any commitments, and without the obligatory involvement of religious figures.” This is a cover for prostitution and is nothing compared to the revelation of Hezbollah’s prostitution rings where Syrian women were forcibly abused, as was revealed in 2016.
  • Despite these facts, members of the media and universities spread lies that Hamas is not like ISIS when all Jihadist movement have made rape and sexual abuse, the norm. These are war crimes and crimes against humanity.
  • Women are being smuggled and sold, from poor areas to richer ones. Egyptian women are sold into Gaza. This proves there was never a siege on the Strip and that the economic situation in Gaza was better than in some parts of Egypt. It could have been better still if funds were invested in development rather than an underground tunnel system. But Jihad where it appears, is the central cause of death and destruction.
  • Link: World chose to ignore Hamas sex crimes, that will not change

Sources: JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, and the Times of Israel