Important Takeaways:
- Israel Approves Deal To Get 50 Hostages Back From Hamas: ‘We Will Continue The War Until We Achieve The Goals’
- Israeli officials voted on Wednesday morning local time to approve deal in which dozens of hostages kidnapped by Hamas will be let go in exchange for Israel releasing some Palestinian women and minors convicted of crimes from prisons inside Israel.
- Hamas will release 12-13 hostages a day for four days in exchange for a ceasefire during that period of time, The Times of Israel reported. Israel will release about three times that number to return to their homes in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem.
- Israel also reportedly agreed to allow fuel to go into Gaza, as well as a “significant amount of humanitarian aid,” the report said. Israel’s military and security agencies all reportedly supported the deal. It’s not clear when the ceasefire will go into effect.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly demanded that some of the conditions include the possibility for further hostages to be released after the four day pause, a commitment by Hamas to locate and find hostages held by other terror groups inside Gaza, and a refusal to release Palestinians from Israeli prisons who have been convicted of murder, the report noted, adding that Israel believes Hamas can help locate 30 additional women and children who were taken hostage by other terrorist groups.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Biden Administration’s $10 Billion Prize to Iran: Just A Small Thank You for Engineering a War, Wounding 56 US Troops and Trying to Drive the US Out of The Middle East
- From the Iranian regime’s perspective, annihilating Israel and the Jews would presumably be a major breakthrough, giving them a dominance over the Muslim world, even greater than Saudi Arabia’s.
- The dedicated funds that this new $10 billion will release can now be used to put the finishing touches on the mullahs’ nuclear bomb – to threaten their Sunni neighbors in the Gulf, Europe, and above all, “The Great Satan, the United States. Iran’s plans for cutting “The Great Satan” (and others) down to size are already underway in Cuba and throughout South America. Earlier this month, Israel helped Brazil thwart an attack by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hizballah on Brazil’s Jews.
- Sadly, the $10 billion looks suspiciously like a “pretty please” bribe not to try to drive the US out of the region this year [before the 2024 US election]; instead, wait for next year.
- The solution is not to give Iran $10 billion as a prize for practicing extensive regional aggression and engineering mass-murder. Real solutions would include cutting the flow of funds by re-imposing — and enforcing — primary and secondary sanctions; incapacitating the port from which Iran sends oil to China; sending Ayatollah Khamenei and the leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG) pictures of their homes; making the ruling mullahs seriously aware of military options, such as taking out the training bases and leadership of the IRGC, and employing significant military force when required — for instance now.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Erdogan blasts Israel as a ‘terrorist state’ intent on ‘total destruction’ of Gaza
- Erdogan told the Turkish parliament that “the Israeli government has been continuously committing war crimes for the last 40 days, they are bombing hospitals, streets and mosques, and are aiming for all these places intentionally, implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people.”
- “They [Israel] have been speaking about murdering all those people using nuclear weapons, so let me call on Benjamin Netanyahu — do you have nuclear weapons or not? Explain this, if you have the courage.”
- “You are threatening people with atomic bombs, nuclear bombs. It does not matter what you have, you are a goner,” he said.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at Erdogan hours later.
- “He calls Israel a terror state, but in his actions he supports the terror state of Hamas,” said Netanyahu, in comments released by his office. “He himself shelled Turkish villages within the borders of Turkey — we will not accept his preaching.” Netanyahu was likely referring to Turkish military action against Kurdish areas of the country in recent years.
- In 2019, Amnesty International found Turkey to have displayed “a shameful disregard for civilian life, carrying out serious violations and war crimes, including summary killings and unlawful attacks that have killed and injured civilians.”
- Hamas has been allowed to flourish inside Turkey for over a decade and has run operations from an office in Istanbul, although Turkey insisted it only hosted the group’s political wing.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Israel Seizes Control of Hamas Parliament; Israeli Defense Minister: ‘Hamas Has Lost Control of Gaza’
- Day 39
- Over 1,400 Israelis (363 soldiers) have been killed, and over 7,000 have been injured
- 240 Hostages
- IDF has struck over 15,000 Hamas targets
- Over 9,500 Rockets have been fired by Hamas toward Southern and Central Israel from Gaza (over 500 failed launches have fallen inside Gaza), with Lebanon and Syria also firing from the north.
- IDF robot found additional terror tunnels, including electricity being siphoned off from the [Rantisi Hospital] for use by the terrorists underground.
- [Also] contained suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenades, and a variety of weapons but also signs, such as baby bottles, that Hamas had held Israeli hostages there.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Israel kills Hamas commander who held 1,000 Gazans ‘hostage’ in hospital
- Israeli forces on Saturday night claimed to have killed a Hamas commander who held 1,000 Gazans “hostage” in a hospital as human shields.
- The Israel Defense Forces said that Ahmed Siam, a leader in Hamas’s al-Furqan Brigade, had blocked civilians from evacuating the Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City earlier this week.
- The IDF said that Siam and several other terrorists were killed while hiding out at a school building in Gaza, following a joint operation with Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah says it is introducing new weapons in ongoing battles with Israeli troops
- The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Saturday his fighters have introduced new weapons, including a missile with a heavy warhead in the ongoing fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border, adding that they will keep using the tense frontier to pressure Israel.
- Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also blasted the United States over the Israel-Hamas war, saying it is the only country that can stop Israel’s wide offensive on the Gaza Strip but doesn’t do so. He said attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, that Washington says have reached more than 40 rockets and suicide drone attacks, will continue until the war in Gaza comes to an end.
- Nasrallah’s comments came as the situation along Lebanon’s southern border continues to escalate. Hezbollah on Friday attacked northern Israel with three suicide drones after an Israeli strike in central Syria killed seven Hezbollah fighters.
- Hezbollah officials say that by attacking Israeli posts along the border, the Iran-backed group is keeping three Israeli army divisions busy at a time when Israeli troops are pushing into the Gaza Strip where more than 11,000 people have been killed over the past five weeks, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Israel Warns Hezbollah That Beirut Could Face Similar Fate to Gaza
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Saturday warned Iran-backed Hezbollah that launching a war would result in widespread destruction in Lebanon similar to that in Gaza, where Israel battled Hamas militants.
- “If it (Hezbollah) makes this kind of mistake here, the ones who will pay the price will be first and foremost Lebanese citizens,” Gallant told soldiers on Israel’s northern border in remarks relayed by his office.
- “What we’re doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Turkey’s Gaza fury deepens splits with EU
- After a bloody October 7 raid by Hamas… Erdogan initially sought to position Turkey as a mediator.
- But this apparent ambition evaporated last month after the Turkish leader portrayed Hamas not as a terrorist group but as “liberators” or “mujahideen” fighting for their land.
- Turkey is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Brussels would prefer Ankara to support rather than compete with its positions.
- “What the president says reflects badly here in Brussels. We always expect Turkey to align with us in foreign policy,” said an EU official who wished to remain anonymous.
- Erdogan, a devout Muslim and fervent advocate of Palestinian rights, toughened his criticism as civilian deaths in Gaza mounted, accusing Israel of committing war crimes and recalling Turkey’s ambassador to Tel Aviv.
- “Erdogan’s stance on Israel-Gaza adds to growing tensions between Turkey and the West over longer-standing issues, including EU accession,” said Hamish Kinnear, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
- Turkish-EU relations have been at standstill since the launch of membership talks in 2005.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- CNN ‘fires’ freelance Gaza photojournalist Hassan Eslaiah after claims he and five others were embedded with Hamas terrorists when they invaded Israel on Oct 7 and had prior knowledge of the attack
- CNN has ‘suspended all ties’ with a freelance photojournalist who appears to have been embedded with Hamas on October 7 at the time of the terror group’s barbaric assault on Israel.
- Hassan Eslaiah has been filing photographs of the conflict to CNN and The Associated Press since the Hamas attack on October 7. They include images of a burning Israeli tank from which soldiers were kidnapped.
- Now, photos have emerged of him posing with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. He also posted a now-deleted video to Twitter in which he described how Hamas fighters kidnapped Israeli soldiers from the burning tank.
- Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali have also been providing western media outlets with photos of the conflict since October 7. They have worked with CNN, The AP, Reuters and The New York Times, according to an expose by Honest Reporting.
- There are grave concerns over what each of the photojournalists knew and when.
- Israel’s government has demanded an explanation from the media outlets, all of which have denied having prior knowledge of the attack.
- In response to the criticism, a CNN spokesperson told DailyMail.com: ‘We had no prior knowledge of the October 7th attacks.
- The Associated Press, in its statement, denied having any prior knowledge of the attack and insisted the first photos it received were taken after it began.
- In 2021, it was widely reported that the Associated Press used the same office space as Hamas in Gaza.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Space becomes new theater of war: Israel shoots down a ballistic missile that was traveling 62 miles ABOVE Earth
- The Israel Defense (IDF) revealed last week that its Arrow missile defense system took down an ‘aerial threat’ allegedly fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
- While details are sparse, the accepted boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space is 62 miles above the surface, known as the Kármán line.
- DF said the Arrow intercepted a surface-to-surface missile in the Red Sea fired towards its territory after the rocket traveled nearly 1,000 miles from Yemen.
- Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed it was the third attack the group had launched at Israel and vowed there would be more to come until ‘Israeli aggression’ stopped, referring to the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
- Arrow, jointly built with the US, was first tested in 2013, followed by another in 2014 and again in 2019 over the state of Alaska amid concern about Iran’s continuous nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
- The defense system is designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to take down Houthi’s rocket last month.
- Arrow provides hypersonic capabilities and can defend a vast area, providing a comprehensive defense of strategic sites and large populated areas.
Read the original article by clicking here.
