Important Takeaways:
- The Erez crossing, a pedestrian passageway, was one of the border points breached by Hamas fighters on October 7 when they launched their bloody attack on Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.
- An Israeli official told CNN the crossing would be opened to allow more humanitarian aid to enter blockaded Gaza.
- The United Nations welcomed news of the reopening cautiously. “This is positive news but, of course, we will have to see how this is implemented. We need a humanitarian ceasefire and a massive influx of aid”
- Before the war started, Israel restricted all access to and from Gaza by sea and air, and kept land crossings under tight control. It had two functional crossings with the enclave: Erez, which was for the movement of people, and Kerem Shalom, for goods.
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Important Takeaways:
- Rising global threats force ‘epoch-making’ shift in world order
- The return of great power competition across the globe is forcing countries to adapt, spurring major changes to alignment and spending from Europe to the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East.
- The change is everywhere on the map — but most evident in countries like Sweden and Japan as the nation’s make dramatic changes to meet rising threats from Russia and China.
- “I’ve described the security environment as the most dangerous I’ve seen in 40 years in uniform,” said U.S. Adm. John Aquilino, head of Indo-Pacific Command, before the House Armed Services Committee this month.
- The rise of new tensions has driven up defense spending worldwide. In an annual report this year, the International Institute for Strategic Studies found defense spending was up 9 percent worldwide last year, reaching $2.2 trillion.
- European countries collectively drove spending up from about $350 billion in 2021 to more than $388 billion in 2023, while Asian nations bumped that from more than $500 billion to higher than $510 billion in the same time frame.
- The spending bumps go hand-in-hand with public opinion. A November Ipsos poll of 30 countries found 84 percent of people believe the world is becoming more dangerous, up from 74 percent in 2018
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Important Takeaways:
- Following the failure of the latest round of negotiations in Qatar, Israel is not willing to make any further concessions to Hamas and is gearing up for an invasion of Rafah after Eid al-Fitr — the three-day holiday that follows Ramadan and ends around April 12 — or in early May at the latest, according to Egyptian sources who have been in contact with IDF officials, quoted by the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar daily.
- The ground op inside the last bastion of Hamas in the Gaza Strip would last between four and eight weeks, the sources say, and would be accompanied by an evacuation of the civilian population sheltering in Rafah, which amounts to about 1.5 million people, toward the center of the Strip along specific routes and at specific times, announced to civilians in each area of Rafah in advance.
- The mass evacuation would be monitored from the ground and the air to ensure that no Hamas fighters or Israeli hostages are hidden among the Gazan civilians, the Egyptian officials say.
- Cairo expresses its deep concerns over an IDF operation in the Rafah area, noting that it could lead to a further escalation not only in Gaza, but in the whole region, Al-Akhbar says.
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Important Takeaways:
- Four months after Israeli troops first stormed Gaza’s biggest hospital, al-Shifa, claiming it was a cover for a Hamas command and control center, they have returned.
- The Israeli military said it had “concrete intelligence” that Hamas operatives had regrouped there
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) now claim to have killed “over 140 terrorists” in ongoing fighting at al-Shifa and to have made some 600 arrests, including dozens of top Hamas commanders as well as some from Islamic Jihad.
- Israeli reports suggest that in recent weeks the army found that senior Hamas figures had resumed operations at al-Shifa and that some even took their families to the hospital.
- The IDF says it uncovered arms caches and a large quantity of cash at the site.
- Israeli media have suggested the operation at Shifa Hospital could last for several days. It is not being linked to the military operation in Rafah which Israel insists it must carry out to win the war with Hamas.
- “It’s going to happen. And it will happen even if Israel is forced to fight alone,” the Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister
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Important Takeaways:
- UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten visited Israel to collect evidence and reported that there was “clear and convincing” evidence corroborating Israeli accusations of rape by Hamas in three locations.
- At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape and then killed or killed while being raped. Credible sources described finding murdered individuals, mostly women, whose bodies were naked from their waist down – and some totally naked – tied with their hands behind their backs, many of whom were shot in the head.
- The mission team also found a pattern of bound naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down, in some cases tied to structures including trees and poles, along Road 232.
- In kibbutz Re’im, the mission team further verified an incident of the rape of a woman outside of a bomb shelter
- With respect to hostages, the mission team found clear and convincing information that some have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence including rape and sexualized torture and sexualized cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and it also has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas, Islamic Jihad Call for ‘Terror’ During Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan
- Leaders of the major Palestinian terror groups have called for Arab states and the Muslim world to engage in “terror” during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan — even as the Biden administration aims for a Ramadan truce in Gaza.
- Jerusalem Post:
- Palestinian Islamic Jihad is calling for Ramadan to be a “month of terror” and seeks to escalate attacks in the West Bank and Gaza. In a recent speech, Abu Hamza, the spokesman for PIJ’s Al-Quds Brigades, said he wants Arab countries in the region and pro-Iranian groups to continue to “unify” various arenas and fronts against Israel.
- This is the latest indication that terrorist groups plan to seek an escalation in hostilities over the next month. Hamza’s remarks were published by Beirut-based Al Mayadeen news channel, which is pro-Iranian and frequently highlights Hamas and Hezbollah attacks.
- The terrorist group’s comments are also linked to those made by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who has called for an escalation of hostilities during Ramadan.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel sets date for Rafah offensive in ultimatum for Hamas: War cabinet member warns onslaught will begin in three weeks unless all hostages are released
- Israel has threatened to invade Gaza’s Rafah by the start of Ramadan if Hamas does not return the remaining hostages in a dark ultimatum condemned by international observers.
- The United States and other governments, as well as the United Nations, have issued increasingly urgent appeals to Israel to call off its planned offensive on Rafah, where three-quarters of the displaced Palestinian population has fled.
- Some 1.2 million people are now taking shelter in sprawling tent encampments without access to adequate food, water or medicine in the city that used to be home to just 250,000.
- But the Israeli government says the city on the Egypt border is the last remaining stronghold in Gaza of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
- ‘The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know – if by Ramadan our hostages are not home, the fighting will continue everywhere, including the Rafah area,’ Benny Gantz, a retired military chief of staff, told a conference of American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Sunday.
- ‘Hamas has a choice. They can surrender, release the hostages and the civilians of Gaza can celebrate the feast of Ramadan,’ added Gantz, a member of the three-person war cabinet.
- Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, is expected to begin around March 10.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli forces rescue 2 hostages in Rafah and hammer the crowded city
- The dramatic rescue of Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, came amid mounting international concerns over a planned Israeli ground assault on Rafah.
- Israeli forces retrieved the two Israeli men taken captive during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in a “complex” overnight operation carried out “under fire in the heart of Rafah,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.
- The operation included a “wave of strikes” to help “enable the force’s disengagement” and strike Hamas operatives in the area, he said.
- The strikes set off widespread panic, according to the NBC News crew, with crowds racing to take loved ones, including children, to the Kuwait Hospital.
- The IDF had confirmed overnight that its forces conducted strikes in the area of Shaboura
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas Manual Shows Bomb-Making From Medical Supplies; Ambassador Criticizes Kremlin For Being Too Friendly With Hamas
- Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip recently discovered a Hamas manual with detailed instructions on how to produce bombs from medical equipment.
- The huge number of files and documents specifically include instructions on using Hydrogen Peroxide, a regular hospital substance, as a key ingredient in producing explosives and rocket propellant material.
- The Iranian-backed terrorist organization has a long history of exploiting dual purpose materials as key components in its production of weapons and terror infrastructure. For instance, the vast tunnel network, dubbed “Gaza Metro,” was largely produced through the terrorists’ large-scale confiscation of cement that was officially earmarked for the construction of civilian structures, such as hospitals and schools.
- Hamas’ indigenous arms production capabilities have been boosted by individuals within its ranks with an engineering background and innovative skills. Due to the strict military blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after the violent Hamas takeover in Gaza in 2007, much of the group’s rocket arsenal is produced from water pipes and streetlight poles.
- The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli security think tank based in Jerusalem, assessed in 2021 that Hamas had already developed significant local weapons production capabilities inside the Gaza Strip:
- “The terrorist group (Hamas) was no longer a force fighting an asymmetrical war with asymmetrical tactics and weapons. Hamas is now manufacturing a large part of its own weapons, expanding its research, and developing drones and unmanned underwater vehicles, engaging in cyber warfare, and on the cusp of graduating from unguided rockets to precision GPS-guided drones and missiles.”
- Hamas’s local weapons production is further supplemented with external weapons deliveries, mainly from its patron, the Iranian regime.
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Important Takeaways:
- Plans for U.S. strikes on Iranian personnel and facilities in Iraq, Syria approved after Jordan drone attack
- U.S. officials have confirmed to CBS News that plans have been approved for a series of strikes over a number of days against targets — including Iranian personnel and facilities — inside Iraq and Syria. The strikes will come in response to drone and rocket attacks targeting U.S. forces in the region, including the drone attack on Sunday that killed three U.S. service members at the Tower 22 base inside Jordan, near the Syrian border.
- Speaking at the Pentagon Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that the U.S. won’t tolerate attacks on American troops.
- “This is a dangerous moment in the Middle East,” Austin said, noting that Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on commercial shipping in the Red Sea were also happening in the region. “We will continue to work to avoid a wider conflict in the region, but we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our interests and our people, and we will respond when we choose, where we choose and how we choose.”
- Weather will be a major factor in the timing of the strikes, the U.S. officials told CBS News, as the U.S. has the capability to carry out strikes in bad weather but prefers to have better visibility of selected targets as a safeguard against inadvertently hitting civilians who might stray into the area at the last moment.
- Iran’s Reaction…any strike on Iranian territory or personnel would escalate tension in the tumultuous region, not make U.S. forces safer.
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