Important Takeaways:
- US officials believe hostage-ceasefire deal unlikely by end of Biden’s term
- Multiple senior US officials have reportedly acknowledged that a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas is unlikely before the end of US President Joe Biden’s term in office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
- The US officials told the outlet that one of the biggest obstacles to a deal has been the ratio of Palestinian security prisoners Israel must release in exchange for each hostage.
- The US has said publicly that Hamas has raised the number of prisoners it originally asked for, even after executing six hostages earlier this month.
- More broadly, WSJ reported that Hamas has made demands and then refuses to agree to a deal after Israel accepted them.
- “There’s no chance now of it happening,” an official from an Arab country told the newspaper. “Everyone is in a wait-and-see mode until after the [US] election. The outcome will determine what can happen in the next administration.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Making deals with Islamic terrorists doesn’t work
- “In its boldest move, Hezbollah sent four drones toward the Karish platform several weeks ago, all of which were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces,” reported The Times of Israel on July 31, 2022.
- This was exactly what surrendering part of the gas field to Hezbollah was supposed to prevent.
- “The proposal for this point involves recognizing it as part of Lebanon, with UN forces deployed there as a neutral party for both sides.” — The Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2024.
- United Nations forces are absolutely useless and pull back whenever there’s any conflict. (Nor is the UN remotely neutral.)
- Hezbollah will claim any territory it gets and attack anyway because that is what Islamic terrorists do. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. It’s going to attack when Tehran tells it to. As an Islamic terror group, attacking non-Muslims and dominating them is a fundamental religious obligation. So making deals with it won’t work.
- Just like making deals with Hamas doesn’t work.
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Important Takeaways:
- There were three other ways besides the recent smuggling of weapons through the corridor that were likely responsible for the vast majority of Hamas’s massive weapons buildup, the sources said.
- Although these points were made in a technical and professional context, they could also have significant implications for the ongoing debate within Israel over how crucial it is for the IDF to hold onto the Philadelphi Corridor or whether it can be temporarily given up as part of a deal for the return of dozens of Israeli hostages.
- According to people familiar with the matter, it could take Hamas years to rebuild its cross-border tunnel network, meaning certainly not during the 40-plus days Israel would theoretically leave the area during Phase I of one of the proposed hostage deals.
- Regarding the use of the tunnels for long-range rockets, IDF sources said Rafah, in general, and the corridor, in particular, had turned out to have one of Hamas’s largest long-range rocket arsenals that the military found, compared with any other part of Gaza.
- Hamas’s strategy was to place the long-range rockets and their launchers next to the border with Egypt to deter Israel from striking them and risking an international incident with Cairo, either by accidentally hitting Egyptian soldiers or merely causing explosions so close to another sovereign nation’s territory, the sources said.
- Furthermore, Hamas rocket teams would hide in the large tunnels, which had launchers and inventories of rockets connected to them via their extensive space and storage capabilities, they said.
- The Hamas rocket teams would briefly pop out of the tunnels at selected moments, only meters from the Egyptian border fence, and then either fire the rockets or set timers for them to launch, IDF sources said.
- After a brief time of being exposed and in an area in which Israel would be very worried about attacking, even if it had much time to calculate a precision strike carefully, the rocket teams would rapidly disappear back into the cross-border tunnels, they said.
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Important Takeaways:
- IDF says Hamas used site to plan and carry out attacks on troops and Israel
- The United Nations on Wednesday night condemned an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza that rescuers said killed 18 people, including UN staffers, and called for the global body’s sites to be protected “by all parties.”
- Under international law, protected civilian infrastructure loses that status if used for military activities.
- The IDF said it carried out “many steps” to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, including using precision munitions, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.
- The military said Thursday that “upon receiving the allegation that local Palestinian workers of the UNRWA agency were killed in the strike, the IDF contacted the agency yesterday for details and names in order to examine the allegation in-depth and as of this writing it has not yet been answered despite repeated requests.”
- “It is unconscionable that the UN continues to condemn Israel in its just war against terrorists, while Hamas continues to use women and children as human shields,” Danny Danon wrote on social media.
- “The solution,” he added, “is not a ceasefire, but the release of all hostages still held in Gaza and the elimination of Hamas.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday was as clear as he has ever been that he does not believe a ceasefire and hostage deal is likely in Gaza in a sharp rebuke to the Biden administration’s insistence it’s close at hand.
- On Sunday, President Joe Biden claimed that the parties were on the verge of a deal, and on Wednesday, a senior administration official claimed 90% of the agreement had been completed.
- “It’s exactly inaccurate. There’s a story, a narrative out there, that there’s a deal out there,” the Israeli Prime Minister said of the statement
- US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby doubled down on those assessments in comments to the press Thursday, saying, “90% – verge of a deal. You call that optimistic, I call that accurate.”
- “What Hamas has been demanding here, the Israelis have come forward to meet the terms as best they can,” the official said. “And Hamas, frankly, on this issue, we’ve had a pretty frustrating process.”
- The official said Hamas’s recent killing of six hostages had “colored” the ongoing negotiations and thrown into question Hamas’s willingness to reach a deal.
- Netanyahu has held two news conferences this week to argue that maintaining permanent control of the Philadelphi Corridor is vital to Israeli security.
- On Thursday, Netanyahu claimed Hamas “don’t agree to anything. Not to the Philadelphi Corridor, not to the keys of exchanging hostages for jailed terrorists, not to anything. So that’s just a false narrative.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Agreeing to the world’s demands to leave Gaza prematurely, even to have the IDF leave the Egyptian border area temporarily, would be a serious and strategic error that would embolden and resupply Hamas and put Israelis in grave danger.
- That’s the case that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made last night in a nationally televised press conference in Hebrew.
- A visibly emotional Netanyahu apologized to the hostage families and nation for not being able to get the six recently murdered hostages out in time. He called the six “pure souls” and vowed Hamas would pay a heavy price for this “horrible massacre.”
- However, the prime minister insisted that the only way to get back the remaining 101 hostages and protect all Israelis from future attacks by Hamas was not to surrender the vital gains the IDF has made so far.
- His top priority right now?
- The IDF absolutely must maintain control of the border between Gaza and Egypt called the Philadelphi Corridor, Netanyahu said.
- He called it “the oxygen tube for Hamas” because through the smuggling tunnels on that border has come most of the weapons, ammunition, rockets, explosives, and other supplies that the terror group needs to fight Israel.
- Cutting off those supply lines will suffocate Hamas and persuade them to make a deal, the prime minister insisted.
- “They thought that Iran will save them. Or Hezbollah will come save them. They are hoping that international pressure — or internal Israeli pressure — will affect it. But the first change for a possible [hostage deal] came because we took control of the Philadelphi Line.”
- “Once we get out of it we will not be able to go back in,” Netanyahu said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas representatives told various media outlets that the provisions U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that day were a “coup against” a previous Hamas-friendly proposal Israel rejected.
- Blinken was in Israel on Monday to discuss what he called the “last opportunity” for an end to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ongoing self-defense operations in Gaza, Hamas’s stronghold territory used to launch the unprecedented October 7 attack on the Israeli homeland. Reaching a ceasefire agreement this week would grant President Joe Biden and his political party a major diplomatic victory to tout during the ongoing Democratic National Convention (DNC)
- Blinken did not specify why the current talks are the “last opportunity” for a deal. Pressed by reporters on Monday, he offered only that “intervening events come along that may make things even more difficult if not impossible” if the parties wait longer to hash out an agreement.
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Important Takeaways:
- Families of hostages received alarming messages demanding ransom payments and threatening that without action, they may never see their loved ones again.
- The messages included warnings such as: “If you don’t fight the government, you won’t see your loved ones return.”
- An initial investigation suggests that those behind the threats are hostile actors, either of Iranian origin or affiliated with Hamas.
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Important Takeaways:
- Why it matters: The guidance comes as some Democratic lawmakers are fearful about their safety after being rattled by a series of disruptive pro-Palestinian protests since the Israel-Hamas war started last year.
- One House Democrat told Axios they are “very concerned” about their personal security and that “of course” other lawmakers are as well.
- A senior House Democrat said law enforcement is telling members “not to go to a certain area, because they expect violence.”
- “The protesters aren’t staying in a designated protest site … and there are people who are going to go and really try to cause trouble,” the lawmaker predicted.
- The bottom line: Several lawmakers expressed that there is little they can do beyond take reasonable hope that the security measures in place are enough.
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Important Takeaways:
- Along with a surge of combat aircraft and warships, President Biden dispatched three of his top Mideast advisers, including CIA Director Bill Burns, to the region this week to try to delay Iranian and Hezbollah military retaliation against Israel, and to use that borrowed time to craft an offramp from the collision course that ultimately risks a regional war that could draw in U.S. forces.
- But it is unclear how long Iran and its proxies may hold off. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that an Iranian attack could come with “little or no warning, and certainly could come in the coming days.”
- But multiple sources in the region told CBS News that Iran’s government continues to internally debate whether to use military force as it did on April 13, when it launched hundreds of drones and missiles towards Israel, or whether to conduct a covert intelligence operation.
- The U.S. assesses that Hezbollah could launch an attack with little to no warning.
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