Important Takeaways:
- The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah this week struck a military post in northern Israel using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack wounded three soldiers, one of them seriously, according to the Israeli military.
- Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months, but the one on Thursday appears to have been the first successful missile airstrike it has launched from within Israeli airspace.
- “Hezbollah has been escalating the situation in the north,” said military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “They’ve been firing more and more.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden faces criticism for failing to impose pressure campaign on Iran as it races toward nuclear weapon
- After the head of the United Nation’s atomic watchdog agency warned that Iran has enough uranium to produce “several” nuclear bombs, a firebrand Iranian lawmaker declared on Friday that the Islamic Republic of Iran possesses atomic weapons.
- “In my opinion, we have achieved nuclear weapons, but we do not announce it. It means our policy is to possess nuclear bombs, but our declared policy is currently within the framework of the JCPOA,” Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani told the Iran-based outlet Rouydad 24 on Friday, according to an article published by the independent news organization Iran International in London.
- The JCPOA provides massive economic sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for assurances it will not, within a limited time period, build a nuclear weapon.
- Ardestani, who was re-elected to Iran’s quasi-parliament in March, added, “The reason is that when countries want to confront others, their capabilities must be compatible, and Iran’s compatibility with America and Israel means that Iran must have nuclear weapons”
- The Iranian parliament member noted, “In a climate where Russia has attacked Ukraine and Israel has attacked Gaza, and Iran is a staunch supporter of the Resistance Front, it is natural for the containment system to require that Iran possess nuclear bombs. However, whether Iran declares it is another matter.” Fox News Digital sent press queries to Iran’s Foreign Ministry in Tehran and its U.N. mission in New York.
- Just two days before Ardestani’s announcement, the president of the Iranian Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, Kamal Kharrazi, told Al-Jazeera Network Qatar, “I announced two years ago, in an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, that Iran had the absorptive capacity and the capability to produce a nuclear bomb. Iran still has that capability, but we have not made the decision to produce a nuclear bomb
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Israel has insisted that it must invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1 million people had sought refuge, in order to accomplish its core objective of “eliminating” Hamas’ presence in the enclave after months of fighting further north.
- But Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sunday that even a full-scale ground assault on Rafah would fail to achieve that goal.
- Israel is “on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
- “Even if it goes in and takes heavy action in Rafah, there will still be thousands of armed Hamas left,” Blinken said, noting that “we’ve seen, in areas that Israel has cleared in the north, even in Khan Younis, Hamas coming back.”
- Blinken said that instead of focusing on an assault on Rafah, Israel should prioritize presenting a credible post-war plan for Gaza.
- Talks for a new cease-fire deal have seemingly broken down, and President Joe Biden threatened last week to halt the shipment of certain arms to Israel should it launch a full-scale assault on Rafah.
- Nearly 360,000 people have fled the city since Israel ordered a partial evacuation a week ago and sent tanks in, according to the United Nations.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Joe Biden has been hiding intelligence on the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and their command tunnels, depriving Israel of vital information that could lead to an end to the war. That revelation came in a report on Saturday and was framed as the administration offering that information now if the ongoing operation in Rafah is canceled.
- The story first broke in The Washington Post , with the paper describing the offer as follows.
- The Biden administration, working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, is offering Israel valuable assistance if it holds back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders and find the group’s hidden tunnels, according to four people familiar with the U.S. offers.
- There’s no other way to read this except that the Biden administration has been protecting Hamas. If intelligence exists that can help “pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders,” it should have been given to Israel the moment it was produced. The same goes for any information about the terror tunnels.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Final proof Biden’s America is utterly adrift, ignored – and barreling toward disaster: ANDREW NEIL’s expert analysis of an infirm, incoherent President… now losing all control
- The words were forceful enough on Tuesday when President Joe Biden rightly condemned the current ‘ferocious surge of anti-Semitism in America and around the world.’
- He was speaking, appropriately enough, at a Holocaust memorial ceremony in the US Capitol on May 7 – seven months to the day of Hamas’s unprovoked and barbarous attack on Israel.
- Biden was even explicit about Hamas’s crimes and its responsibility for the war that inevitably followed October 7.
- ‘I have not forgotten,’ averred the President.
- But the most remarkable feature of his speech was how little his words seemed to matter. They disappeared in the wind almost as soon as they were uttered.
- There was a time when America — indeed the world — took serious notice of what a US president said. Biden, it appears, can be safely ignored.
- Certainly, few seem to heed his warnings these days.
- He told Iran ‘don’t’ when it threatened to retaliate for Israel’s fatal attack on its Revolutionary Guard HQ in Damascus, Syria. Tehran proceeded to launch over 300 missiles and drones at Israel, nearly all of them thankfully taken out before reaching their targets.
- He informed Israel that rooting out what’s left of Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was a ‘red line’ the Jewish State must not cross because of the potential for more civilian casualties. This week Israel started rooting out Hamas in Rafah.
- He informed Israel that rooting out what’s left of Hamas in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was a ‘red line’ the Jewish State must not cross because of the potential for more civilian casualties. This week Israel started rooting out Hamas in Rafah.
- On Tuesday, he addressed the poisonous anti-Semitism now rampant on university campuses.
- He highlighted ‘vicious propaganda on social media … Jews forced to hide kippahs under baseball caps, tuck Jewish stars into their shirts … Jewish students blocked, harassed, attacked while walking to class .. anti-Semitic posters, slogans calling for the annihilation of Israel … too many people denying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and October 7th … it’s absolutely despicable — and it must stop.’
- He is, of course, absolutely right to call this out. The pity is that it’s taken him so long to do so.
- The so-called National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), instigators of many of the encampments, has called October 7th ‘a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.’
- New York’s Columbia University SJP has declared ‘full solidarity with Palestinian resistance,’ praising the ‘historic’ attack ‘despite the odds.’
- These are not protestors pleading for peace to be given a chance. They want to see Israel destroyed and Hamas victorious.
- Biden’s own campaign supporters are funding this pro-war rabble.
- Money from Democratic megadonor George Soros has gone to a group called Jewish Voice for Peace which immediately after October 7 blamed, ‘Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity,’ for the slaughter.
- Yet as President, Biden couldn’t even bring himself to condemn the notorious anti-Semitic ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ chant so beloved of the protestors.
- As Biden claimed his support for Israel is ‘ironclad even when we disagree’ we learned that his administration was holding up shipments of precision bombs to Israel to signal to the Israeli government that Washington really doesn’t want it to pursue the all-out defeat of Hamas.
- To be fair, Biden’s intervention, well-meant and heartfelt – as it no doubt was despite all its inadequacies – was over-shadowed by Stormy Daniels testimony in the Donald Trump hush-money trial in New York.
- The media was more obsessed with that than Biden’s important words about anti-Semitism, which is not the President’s fault.
- But you can’t help feeling that a President with more authority and respect would also have commanded more attention.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Rockets fired at Israel from the North and the South following overnight Rafah op
- US military shoots down Houthi UAV • Activists block aid from entering Gaza • Son of Hamas leader warns ceasefire is a ‘trap’
- On October 7th terrorists took some 240 hostages into Gaza
- 132 hostages remain in Gaza
- 38 hostages in total have been killed in captivity, IDF says
- Turkey says Israel’s Rafah operation is another war crime
- IDF takes over Palestinian side of Rafah crossing – report
- According to the army radio, troops of the 401st Brigade had taken full operational control of the crossing.
- During the operation, Israel Air Force jets and troops of the 215th Fire Brigade struck and destroyed Hamas terror targets, among which were military buildings, underground infrastructures and other terrorist infrastructures from which Hamas operated in the Rafah area.
- During the overnight operation, 20 terrorists were killed in action, according to the IDF’s estimates, and many others were wounded.
- According to southern Command officials, 50 Hamas targets were attacked in the operation.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- A Palestinian State Will Lead To More Massacres, Final Nail in Coffin Torpedoing Biden Legacy
- If the Saudis were really interested in normalizing their relations with Israel, they could have done so long ago. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is delaying the move, in part, reportedly, out of fear of facing a backlash from his own people. He may, however, also have serious reservations that he would prefer not to talk about in public.
- Like most Arabs, the Saudis could not care less about a Palestinian state and might secretly prefer not to have one at all. They are no doubt aware that the Palestinians themselves are the biggest obstacle to the establishment of a state of their own. During the past eight decades, they have acted as a serial wrecking ball to every peaceful place they set foot.
- The last thing most Arab states want is a Hamas-controlled Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain justifiably regard Hamas and other Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to their national security, most likely the main reason they all have refused to take in Gazan refugees.
- Blinken’s claim that a Palestinian state would “isolate” Iran and its proxies is pure nonsense. The opposite is the case. Iran, its proxies and Qatar would doubtless be extremely happy if the Biden administration would allow them to establish a terrorist state on Israel’s doorstep. This state would be used by Iran and its terrorists as a launching pad for more October 7-style massacres of Israelis to further their goal of destroying first Israel, then the Arab states.
- It is Israel — not Iran — that will find itself “isolated” and surrounded by Iran-backed Islamist terrorist groups…
- A Middle East that includes a Palestinian state controlled by Iran and Islamist terrorists will be a less secure region, especially after Iran acquires nuclear weapons.
- Biden, by reconfirming that terrorism “works,” would embolden all the other terrorists. Just keep on terrorizing everyone, and, when your demands are met, keep on increasing and hardening them.
- More significantly, by appeasing Iran, Qatar and potential voters in Michigan by creating a Palestinian state, the Biden administration will in fact be inviting Iran to initiate still more attacks – not only on Israel but also on US forces in the Middle East…. If Iran finally coerces the US to withdraw from the region as it is reportedly thinking of doing, the regime will finally be able to take over its neighbors’ oil fields and holy sites without worrying about the US interfering.
- Meanwhile, as the Biden administration, busy trying to win re-election in November, seems to have no idea how to end all the conflicts it ignited, directly or indirectly, in Gaza, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. The US has been backing both sides of all of them. Iran, presumably taking advantage of these distractions, and perhaps as a consolation prize for losing so much of Hamas -– has been moving to take over Sudan. It is a country rich in oil, gold, rare earth minerals and terrorism — and felicitously positioned to help Iran launch unlimited combat drones – the planet’s new “cheap, instant air force” — at both Israel and US forces, and enable Iran to use Sudan’s port on the Red Sea to continue obstructing maritime traffic.
- After all, if terrorism “works,” why stop?
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) urged residents of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, to evacuate to nearby “safe” zones on Monday as a long-delayed attack by Israel against the last Hamas strongholds appeared to be imminent.
- The apparent mobilization of the IDF came after Hamas fired rockets from close range at the Kerem Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid crosses from Israel into Gaza, on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding several others.
- The U.S. has been telling Israel, privately and publicly, not to attack Rafah since February. Israel insisted it would do so, regardless of international pressure and regardless of hostage talks, to complete its goal of destroying Hamas.
- The IDF has been dropping flyers on Rafah with maps indicating where residents should take refuge during the fighting.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Turkey on Thursday suspended all imports and exports to Israel citing the country’s ongoing military action in Gaza and vowed to continue to impose the measures until the Israeli government allows the flow of humanitarian aid to the region.
- Turkish officials would coordinate with Palestinian authorities to ensure that Palestinians are not affected by the suspension of imports and exports, the ministry said.
- This week Turkey decided to join the legal case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice and would soon submit a formal request to intervene in the case.
- South Africa filed a case at the ICJ accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention with its military offensive against Hamas.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Colombia has become the latest Latin American country to announce that it will break diplomatic relations with Israel over its military campaign in Gaza, but the repercussions for the South American nation could be broader than for other countries because of longstanding bilateral agreements over security matters.
- This could affect Colombia’s military, which uses Israeli-built warplanes and machine guns to fight drug cartels and rebel groups, and a free trade agreement between both countries that went into effect in 2020.
- Also in the region, Bolivia and Belize have also severed diplomatic relations with Israel over the Israel-Hamas war.
Read the original article by clicking here.
