Two terrorist attacks were carried out against Israel in the last 24 hours, resulting in a stern response from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
The first was a car attack against Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. Three soldiers were standing along a road in the northern West Bank when the Palestinian driver drove straight into them. Two of the soldiers were seriously wounded with the third suffering slight injuries.
“We welcome the brave attack that was carried out against the Zionists,” a Hamas spokesperson said, according to the Hebrew-language Maariv website.
“We demand from our people in the West Bank to carry out more attacks, in order to teach the occupation a lesson,” the Hamas statement continued.
Then Friday two rockets were fired by Hamas toward Israel that landed in the Gaza Strip. The rockets never made it across the Israeli border and no reports of damage or injuries were reported by Hamas.
However, the Israeli Defense Forces struck against Hamas, continuing the policy that Israel will retaliate for any attempted attack upon them by the terrorist group.
“The IDF, by means of Israeli air force aircraft, attacked the Hamas terror organization’s infrastructure in the central Gaza Strip a short time ago,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced in a press release.
“The attack was executed in response to the rocket fire at Israeli territory earlier in the afternoon,” the military said. “Hamas is the party responsible for what takes place in the Gaza Strip.”
The IDF reported a direct hit against their target.
A rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel on Tuesday night.
Residents scattered for shelter as alarms pierced through the quiet night. The IDF said the sirens sounded in Zikim, Karmia, Netiv Ha’asara and Yad Mordechai. All of those towns border the northern Gaza Strip.
Radio Israel reported the rocket landed in an open area between two towns although the IDF would not confirm that report.
The rocket attack was the latest in a string of launches at Israel over the last month due to in-fighting among groups in the Gaza Strip. A salafi group has been fighting against the Hamas leaders in the Strip and their clashes seem to end with rockets being fired into Israel.
Israeli officials say that Hamas is responsible any time a rocket is fired into their nation from the Gaza Strip.
The attack comes on the heels of the United Nations claiming that Israel could be found liable for war crimes from last summer’s rocket attacks by Palestinian groups.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon earlier this month warned Israel would not allow the conflicts between Hamas and the salafi organization to disrupt Israeli life.
“In recent days we received another reminder about the complexity of the situation in the Gaza Strip, a hostile entity controlled by a murderous terrorist organization, Hamas, which is also challenged by terror gangs affiliated to the global jihad,” he said.
Hamas is using heavy equipment and engineering equipment to quickly build a system of attack tunnels into Israel according to sources of the Times of Israel.
The terrorists are using small bulldozers that can be used to negotiate tight spaces. Larger tractors are being used on the Israeli side of the tunnel.
The tunnels are being reinforced with wood because it’s difficult for Hamas to obtain all the concrete they need to build their planned tunnel network. The terrorists routinely redirect shipments of concrete meant for rebuilding houses to tunnel construction.
Hamas is also working on a rocket system that would produce short-range missiles quickly because those are the missiles least likely to be shot down by Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system.
Israeli security forces have said they are aware of the tunnel construction but that when they investigated the tunnels ended just before entering Israeli territory.
A new report from the Milwaukee Jewish Federation shows a significant increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Wisconsin in 2014.
The report shows 33 confirmed incidents of anti-Semitism in 2014 compared to 13 in the previous year.
“America is a great place to be Jewish. There is less anti-Semitism in this country than in many places across the globe,” Elana Kahn-Oren said. “[However] hatred is hatred. And wherever it goes unchecked, it harms us all.”
The report gave examples of confirmed incidents:
- At least nine swastikas were drawn, carved or painted at various places, including public streets, the driveway of a Jewish high school student’s home and in an elevator of a Jewish institution. Swastikas and a Star of David were carved at two golf greens, causing $5,000 in damage. Another included a reference to “1488,” a known white supremacist symbol.
- A man entered a Jewish facility shouting “All Jews will (expletive) burn.”
- At one business, a hairdresser told a potential client that she doesn’t cut “Jewish hair.” At another, an employee called his boss a “stingy Jew” when he refused to give him a raise.
Also a rally during the Hamas attacks on Israel this summer had protesters comparing Jews to Nazis and making anti-Semitic chants.
The group says despite the increase, it’s very likely the number of cases are under-reported as people do not want to deal with the hassle of police or the possibility of retribution for reporting the incident.
A military court in Judea sentenced the mastermind of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers to three life sentences.
Hussam Kawasameh was convicted last week for the planning and financing of the terrorist action. He also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hamas for his work in gathering weapons. He was also the one who hid the bodies and destroyed the evidence.
Prosecutors for the IDF said that Kawasameh did not see the boys as human beings and killed them simply because they were Jews.
The father of one of the victims said that his son was a good student who helped his siblings. Avraham Fraenkel said that his son Naftali wasn’t just murdered…but that he was used as an unwilling tool for terror as Kawasameh hid his body for 18 days.
Kawasameh did not speak at the hearing.
The White House is refusing to name the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.
The group, which has been labeled terrorists by many governments throughout the Middle East, has been supported in the past by the Obama administration when they were controlling Egypt.
A petition on the White House website called for the administration to join other nations in designating the group terrorists. Over 213,000 signatures were obtained in a month. When a petition reaches 100,000, the administration claims they will respond within 30 days.
“[The] Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of violent killings & terrorizing opponents. Also, MB has direct ties with most terrorist groups like Hamas,” the petition reads. “A book by one of their prominent figures, Sayyid Qutb, called Ma’alim fi-l-Tariq, is the bible for many terrorist groups.”
“The Muslim Brotherhood has shown in the past few days that it is willing to engage in violence and killing of innocent civilians in order to invoke fear in the hearts of its opponents. This is terrorism. We ask the US government to declare MB as a terrorist group for a safer future for all of us.”
The White House dismissed the petition in a short reply.
“We have not seen credible evidence that the Muslim Brotherhood has renounced its decades-long commitment to non-violence,” the White House stated.
Israeli leaders said Thursday they had foiled a plot to bomb the largest soccer stadium in Jerusalem by the terrorist group Hamas.
Shin Bet security service said that 30 members of the terror group has been arrested and many had received weapons and explosives training in Jordan and the Gaza Strip.
The statement from Shin Bet also said that Hamas leaders in Turkey planned the plot against Teddy soccer stadium and also against the city’s light railway system.
“We have no information about these Israeli claims … It is clear Israel wanted to create a new story to divert the world’s attention away from the escalation in Jerusalem,” Hamas said in a statement.
Israeli intelligence services and Defense Forces have stopped a number of Hamas plots in the last few weeks. Eleven Israelis have been killed in the last month because of Hamas terrorist attacks.
Four Palestinians connected to the terrorist group Hamas have been arrested in connection with a plot to assassinate Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Israeli’s Shin Bet security agency reported the men had been working to obtain an RPG and had designs to fire it at the minister’s car outside his home in Nokdim in the West Bank.
The assassination plot is the latest action in a series of terror actions against Israelis conducted by Hamas and Palestinians. Last week two Palestinian terrorists attacked Jews praying inside a synagogue, killing four and an officer that responded to the terrorist attack.
“We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who came to pray and were met by reprehensible murderers,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the time.
Hamas would not state they knew about the planned assassination but did not condemn it.
“We have no information about this issue. However, we stress that leaders of the Occupation who are responsible for the killing of children and women and for defiling the sacred sites are legitimate targets for the resistance,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told reporters.
An Israeli police officer has died from injuries sustained during the terrorist attack Tuesday at a Jerusalem synagogue.
The terrorist group Hamas is claiming that the attack was revenge for the killing of a Palestinian bus driver on Sunday despite the fact it was proven by multiple sources the bus driver committed suicide.
Hamas dismissed all the evidence that Yussuf al-Ramuni killed himself and said the death had to be caused by Jewish settlers.
“I strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack on worshipers at a synagogue in Jerusalem, which killed four innocent people, including U.S. citizens Aryeh Kupinsky, Cary William Levine, and Mosheh Twersky, and injured several more,” Obama said in an official White House statement.
“There is and can be no justification for such attacks against innocent civilians. The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the victims and families of all those who were killed and injured in this horrific attack and in other recent violence.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling on world leaders to finally end their excuses for Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis and condemn Mahmoud Abbas for inciting violence against innocent civilians.
Netanyahu pointed out that the Palestinian Authority has been routinely spreading false statements to incite anger toward Israel.
“Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and the PA are spreading false rumors, saying we are defiling the Temple Mount, that we plan to destroy holy sites — those are all lies,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu noted the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack but noted that in the same statement also included false propaganda about the Israeli government.
“I urge all world leaders… I want to see shock, utter denunciation of terrorism, of the murder of Jews in their prayer shawls,” Netanyahu said.
