Recent Appearances...

Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas tunnel found by IDF in child's bedroom in Rafah

2024-06-07

[NYPOST] Israeli troops discovered an entrance to a Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
tunnel inside a child’s bedroom in Rafah on Thursday.

The IDF says it recovered a trove of weapons and explosives from the tunnel. The operation is the latest of what Israel calls its "precise, intelligence-based, targeted operations" inside Rafah.

"This week, the troops located a tunnel shaft inside a child’s room, and a butcher’s knife next to it. In addition, the troops identified six Lions of Islam near a school in the area of the troops. The Lions of Islam were eliminated by a UAV and tank fire," the IDF said in a statement.

Images released by the IDF show troops operating in the dense urban environment of Rafah. Images also show the cache of weapons, explosives and other equipment troops retrieved during the operation.

News of the operation comes the same day an Israeli strike took out Hamas and Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
Lions of Islam hiding at a United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
school for displaced Paleostinians in central Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
. Local officials say that the strike killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and kiddies.

Israel said it was targeting a Hamas compound inside the school containing 20 to 30 fighters and that many of them had been killed.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF Finds Tunnel in Child's Room; Strikes Hamas HQ Inside UNRWA School

2024-06-06

[Breitbart] The snoopy blanket is a nice touch
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed Thursday that it had found an entrance to a Hamas terror tunnel inside a child’s room during operations in Rafah.

A Hamas tunnel was discovered by the IDF in the room of a Palestinian child in the town of Rafah, near the Gaza-Egypt border, June 2024 (IDF)

In a statement, the IDF said:

Over the past few weeks, the soldiers of the 828th Infantry Training School Brigade under the command of the 162nd Division have been conducting precise, intelligence-based, targeted operations in the Rafah area. The soldiers located weapons, eliminated terrorists and destroyed terrorist infrastructure in the area.

This week, the troops located a tunnel shaft inside a child’s room, and a butcher’s knife next to it. In addition, the troops identified six terrorists near a school in the area of the troops. The terrorists were eliminated by a UAV and tank fire.

The 828th Brigade Combat Team has completed its mission in the Rafah area and is now preparing for future operations.

The IDF has continued to move slowly through Rafah, fighting Hamas terrorists and eliminating tunnels, including smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border. One tunnel destroyed this week in Rafah was two kilometers long.

The IDF also conducted a precise airstrike Thursday morning on a complex that it said was used by dozens of Hamas terrorists inside a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Gaza

In a statement, the IDF said:

A short while ago, IAF fighter jets, directed by IDF intelligence and the ISA, conducted a precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who belonged to the Nukhba Forces and took part in the murderous attack on communities in southern Israel on October 7th were operating in the compound.

The terrorists directed terror from the area of the school while exploiting it and using it as a shelter. Several terrorists who planned to carry out terror attacks and promote terrorist activities against IDF troops in the immediate time frame were eliminated in the strike.

Before the strike, a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.

The Times of Israel reported that Hamas claimed that Israel had carried out a "massacre," and UNRWA said dozens had been killed:

The Hamas-run government media office claimed at least 27 people were killed in what it termed the Israeli "massacre." UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma told Reuters that the number of those reported killed in the Israeli offensive on the Nuseirat school is between 35 and 45, but it still cannot confirm the number at this stage, she added. It was not immediately clear how many of those killed were members of terror groups.

CNN parroted Hamas’s claims, describing the attack as an "Israel [sic] strike on UN school that left dozens dead."

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters Thursday that the terrorists who were killed included some who were involved in the October 7 attack. He added that the IDF had targeted three specific classrooms.

Mencer added that the school had been used for "staging attacks" and as a "forward operating base." He noted that the IDF had called off the attack twice because of concern about potential civilian casualties before proceeding when it was safest to do so.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using schools for terrorist purposes, and has accused UNRWA of helping it.

Hamas has been fighting back, attempting to infiltrate terrorists into Israel even as the IDF moves into Rafah. One Israeli soldier was killed Thursday in a gun battle after terrorists were seen moving toward the border in the morning fog. Three terrorists involved in the attempted infiltration were killed in an airstrike and in tank fire, the IDF said.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Thinking

2024-06-04

A taste.

[IsraelNationalNews] The leaders of the American State Department who whitewashed Fatah/PLO/PA are no less rejectionist towards a viable resurrected nation of the Jews than the Hamas or Islamic Jihad beheaders of Jewish infants are.

Once again the cause of creating Arab state # 22 has emerged on the center stage of world opinion. That would be the second state for Arab nationalism, not first, in the original April 25, 1920 Mandate of Palestine’s territory. As is often cited, but usually ignored, today’s Jordan was gifted with almost 80% in 1922.

The recipient Arabs would be those who deny Jews their sole, minuscule, resurrected one—whether it’s 9-15 miles wide by the pre-UNSC Resolution 242, ‘49 Auschwitz/armistice lines, or 242’s which granted Israel a reasonable territorial compromise, where Israel’s extreme vulnerability was finally taken into consideration in the wake of the June 1967 War, started with an Egyptian blockade of Israel…a casus belli.

The Arabs in question mostly came into the land of Israel/Judea from elsewhere, and only in fairly recent history (despite largely fictitious claims otherwise) have renamed themselves “Palestinians.” The more historically accurate designation should be “Palestinian ARABS”—where Arab is the main identifying noun, and Palestinian is the descriptive adjective.

They speak the same language, share most of the same culture, religion, and so forth as hundreds of millions of other Arabs. Granted, there’s some differences among these folks, but no more, for example, than 40 million stateless Kurds who speak different dialects in Turkey, Iraq , Syria, Iran, and so forth. Or, for that matter, Jews from over 50 different countries who’ve been oppressed in many if not most of those lands.

The following two links show how in the public relations fight to deny Jews their one state, Arabs have tried to transform themselves into the “old” and “new “ Jews over rights of possession in the ancient land of Israel/ Judea: Here and here.

Here’s a PLO executive committee member paraphrased in the above second link:

“There are no differences between Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, and other Arabs…It is only for tactical snd political reasons that we now emphasize “Palestinian” identity in out battle to deny Zionism and Jews any rights to the land at all.”….Zuheir Mohsein, Dutch newspaper Trouw, 3/31/1977."

When considering the claim for a 22nd Arab state, please next consider such things as…

There are Moroccan, Libyan, Algerian, Iraqi, and other Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews who predate Arab conquerors of those lands by millennia.

Do they get to demand other states besides Israel because they perhaps decide to rename themselves “Moroccans” instead of Jews?

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Quds Brigades claim attack on Israeli soldiers in Rafah

2024-06-02

[Al Jazeera] The Al-Quds Brigades – the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement – said that it bombed Israeli soldiers and vehicles with a barrage of heavy mortar shells in the vicinity of Tal Zorob, in the west of Rafah.

Related:

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel will not agree to halt in Gaza fighting without hostage return; Hamas releases hostage video of Noa Argamani

2024-06-01

[GEO.TV] Israel will not agree to any halt in fighting in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
that is not part of a deal that includes a return of hostages, a senior Israeli security official said on Friday.

The comment came after a statement from Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
declaring that it would be ready to reach an agreement including an exchange of hostages for Paleostinian prisoners, as long as Israel stopped the fighting in Gaza.

"There will be no truce, or any halt in fighting whatsoever, in Gaza which is not part-and-parcel of a hostage-release deal," the official said in comments sent to Rooters.

"Any ceasefire would arise solely within the framework of a deal."

‘Save us’: Hamas publishes propaganda video featuring voice of hostage Noa Argamani

[IsraelTimes] Family says they believe 26-year-old, taken captive alongside boyfriend Avinatan Or at Nova rave on October 7, drew the sketches in video featuring her voice

Hamas
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
published on Friday a new propaganda video featuring the voice of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani in which she urged the country to bring about her release after what she said had been over 237 days in captivity.

Friday marked the 238th day of the war, however the date the recording was made could not be verified.

"I appeal to the people of Israel, save us," she said in the recording, which is assumed to have been dictated to her by her captors.

"Go out to the streets to demonstrate, shut down the streets of Tel Aviv and don’t come home until we return. Don’t let [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the government kill us. Save us, time is running out, the people must decide. We don’t want to die here."

In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that the images seen in the video featuring Argamani’s voice were believed by her family to be drawings made by the 26-year-old.

Most Israeli media do not carry the video clips themselves unless asked or given permission to do so by the hostage’s family members; the Argamani family said that it approved the publication of the clip by media outlets. While the clip is subtitled in English, it does not precisely match Argamani’s words in Hebrew.

"One hundred and twenty-five men and women have been held hostage by Hamas for 238 days. The Israeli government must hear the call and act decisively, without the need for any propaganda video from Hamas, to swiftly reach a deal to bring the hostages home!" the forum said in a statement.

Argamani was seen in one of the first Hamas videos released during the massacre of hundreds of partygoers at the Supernova desert rave on October 7, seated on the back of a cycle of violence behind her Hamas captor, screaming, "Don’t kill me!"

In the video, Argamani is stretching her arms out toward her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, who is also held by hard boyz in GazooIn mid-January, Hamas released a video of her in captivity. She appeared gaunt and under duress, speaking about other hostages killed in ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s and frantically calling on Israel to bring her and others home.

Argamani’s mother Liora has terminal cancer and has issued pleas to see her daughter again.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

'Islamic Jihad' published a new video with the alleged hostage Trufanov taken within the month

2024-05-31

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Saraya al-Quds group (a terrorist organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) published a second video with Russian Alexander Trufanov allegedly being held hostage. The video was posted on the movement’s Telegram channel.

In the video, the man stated his first and last name, and also talked about his state of health.

“The first thing I want to say is that my condition is fine and I am healthy,” he said.

The Saraya al-Quds group is the military wing of Islamic Jihad (a terrorist organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation)

As Regnum reported, a day earlier the group published the first video of a supposedly captured Russian. In these footage, a young man speaks Hebrew and promises to soon show the whole world the truth about the fate of the hostages.

Representatives of the Israeli Embassy in Russia commented on the information about the kidnapped person and his relatives. The diplomatic mission reported that terrorists kidnapped Trufanov along with his grandmother, mother and fiancee, who were returned to Israel as part of the first deal to free the hostages. The Russian's father was killed by terrorists.

Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023. According to Israeli authorities, 1.2 thousand people were killed as a result, and another 253 Israelis were taken hostage. Some of them - more than a hundred people - were released as part of a week-long truce last fall.

On November 30, Israeli Sapir Cohen, the fiancee of Alexander Trufanov, returned to Israel as part of those released from captivity by the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. As reported in the office of the Prime Minister of the Jewish State, Trufanov himself remained hostage to the radicals. Cohen was released along with five other Israelis.

Earlier, the Russian Embassy in Israel announced that they managed to rescue Irina Tatti and Elena Trufanova, the grandmother and mother of Alexander Trufanov, who, like him, have Russian citizenship, from Hamas captivity.

The Times of Israel adds:

In scripted 3-minute propaganda clip, hostage held by Paleostinian terror group since Oct. 7 mentions Israel’s Al Jazeera ban, indicating he was likely alive earlier this month.

In the nearly three-minute-long video, Trufanov — in a statement almost certainly dictated by his captors in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip — refers to Israel’s decision to pull the Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
i-owned Al Jazeera news channel off the air on May 5, indicating that the footage was likely filmed within the last month and that he was alive then.

In the clip released Thursday, Trufanov notably addresses both of his parents as recipients of the message, even though his father, Vitaly Trufanov, was murdered on October 7 in the Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
onslaught.

The Russian-Israeli was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his mother, Yelena, grandmother, Irena Tati, and girlfriend, Sapir Cohen — all of whom were released in a hostage deal in late November.

Sasha and Sapir had recently moved in together in Ramat Gan, and had been visiting their family in Nir Oz over the Simhat Torah holiday.

Sasha’s parents and grandmother had been in their home, which had a safe room, while Sasha and Sapir had been in another house without a safe room. It was later learned that Vitaly had been taken from the house before the rest of the family.

In the propaganda video released on Thursday, Sasha mentions Israeli hostages allegedly killed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza amid the ongoing war, a pressure tactic that has been used repeatedly in clips published by the terror groups. In many of the cases, Israel says hostages were kidnapped after being killed by the murderous Moslems on October 7 or by their terrorist captors in Gaza.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Palestinian Islamic Jihad publishes propaganda video of hostage Sasha Trufanov

2024-05-30

[IsraelTimes] In nearly 30-second-long clip, Trufanov identifies himself and says that in the coming days, he will speak about what happened to him and other hostages in Gaza

The Paleostinian Islamic Jihad'>Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
terror group on Tuesday released a short propaganda video showing hostage Alexander (Sasha) Trufanov in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip.

The nearly 30-second-long video was not dated, and no further information indicated when it could have been filmed.

In the clip, Trufanov identifies himself and says that in the coming days, he will speak about what happened to him and other hostages in Gaza.

Islamic Jihad and Hamas
Hamas

..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
have both previously issued similar videos of hostages the terror groups are holding, in what Israel says is deplorable psychological warfare. Most Israeli media do not carry the video clips themselves unless asked to or given permission by the hostage’s family members.

Trufanov was kidnapped on October 7 from Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his mother, girlfriend, and grandmother Irena Tati — all of whom were released in a hostage deal in late November. His father, Vitaly Trufanov, was murdered in the Hamas onslaught.

The four Trufanov family members, who immigrated from Russia 25 years ago, have no other relatives in Israel.

Yelena Trufanov was one of three women who appeared in a Hamas propaganda clip that was released on October 30.

Yelena, 50, and her mother Irena Tati, 73, were released by Hamas on November 29 at the request of Russian President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...
. The move came during a week-long negotiated lull in the fighting that included the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Paleostinian security prisoners Israel had jugged
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
as well as an increase in humanitarian aid

to Gaza.

Recent indirect talks between Israel and Hamas in Cairo over a deal to temporarily halt the fighting in Gaza and free remaining hostages broke up with no discernible progress.

It is believed that 121 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released prior to that. Three hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 19 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military.

The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 37 of those still held by Hamas, citing intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

One more person has been listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.

Hamas has also been holding two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who are both thought to be alive after entering the Strip of their own accord in 2014 and 2015, respectively, as well as the bodies of fallen IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas says it captured Israeli soldiers in Gaza; Israel denies, says ongoing fighting in Jabaliya ‘high intensity’

2024-05-27

[GEO.TV] A front man for Hamas
Hamas

..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
' armed wing said on Sunday its fighters had captured Israeli soldiers during fighting in Jabalia in northern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
on Saturday, though the Israeli military denied the claim.

The Hamas armed wing front man did not say how many soldiers had been kidnapped and showed no proof of the claim.

"Our fighters lured a Zionist force into an ambush inside a tunnel ... The fighters withdrew after they left all members of the force dead, maimed, and captured," Abu Ubaida, the front man for Al Qassam Brigades, said in a recorded message broadcast by Al Jazeera early on Sunday.

The Israeli military on Sunday denied the claim by Hamas' armed wing.

‘High intensity’ fighting ongoing in Jabaliya

[IsraelTimes] Among recent IDF operations in northern Gazoo’s Jabaliya, troops demolished Hamas
Hamas

..always the voice of sweet reason...
’s general security headquarters, raided the home of Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
’s northern Gaza brigade commander, and battled dozens of button men, the military said.

The IDF said soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade led an assault in the Jabaliya market area in recent days, killing some 100 button men in dozens of close-quarters encounters in the area’s narrow alleys, and by directing ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s and tank shelling.

It described the fighting in Jabaliya as "high intensity."

Several booby-trapped buildings were also neutralized by troops in the area, the IDF said. In a video released by the military, an bomb is seen planted in a store in the market area.

In the latest raid on Hamas’s general security headquarters, the army said the paratroopers discovered documents and Hamas infrastructure at the headquarters. The headquarters had already been raided by the IDF in December, although it was not completely demolished at the time.

During the raid on the PIJ commander’s home, forces located a cache of weapons and "many intelligence documents." Several more caches of weapons were located in the Jabaliya market area, the military added.

The military released footage from the fighting in Jabaliya, some of the captured weapons, the bomb found in the market, and the demolition of the Hamas headquarters.

The IDF pushed into Jabaliya earlier this month for the third time during the war, in an operation focused on killing Hamas cells that regrouped in the city’s historic refugee camp, an area that the military had not reached previously.

The fighting has been described by the IDF and some officers as "intense" and the "most ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful" of the war, with many engagements, both above ground and with Hamas operatives using tunnels. The IDF has also recovered the bodies of seven slain hostages from tunnels in Jabaliya.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF presses ahead with Rafah offensive after World Court’s ambiguous halt order

2024-05-26

[IsraelTimes] Officials say ruling allows Israel to continue operations in Gaza’s southernmost city; soldier seriously hurt in northern Strip as IDF battles Hamas across the enclave

Israeli troops on Saturday engaged in festivities with Paleostinian button men across the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip, including Rafah, a day after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt operations in the enclave’s southernmost city that would risk destroying the civilian population.

A statement from the Israel Defense Forces said that a cell in Rafah that shot up troops was killed, and several tunnel shafts were found and destroyed, alongside caches of weapons.

The fighting came after Paleostinian media on Friday evening reported a large Israeli ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
in Rafah’s Shaboura area, one of the neighborhoods located about halfway between the Israeli border and the coast where the IDF began operating against Hamas
Hamas

..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
earlier in the week.

The IDF operation in Rafah, which it asserts is Hamas’s last major stronghold, has fueled further international criticism of Israel over the war in Gaza, with the ICJ issuing a significant but somewhat ambiguous ruling instructing Israel to stop military activities that could result in the destruction of the civilian population sheltering there.

Israeli officials said they consider the ICJ order to allow room for some operations in Rafah, rejecting interpretations that the court ruling required Israel halt the offensive altogether.

"What they are asking us, is not to commit genocide in Rafah. We did not commit genocide and we will not commit genocide," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Channel 12 news.

Asked whether the Rafah offensive would continue, Hanegbi said: "According to international law, we have the right to defend ourselves and the evidence is that the court is not preventing us from continuing to defend ourselves."

The ICJ, which is based in The Hague, did not immediately comment on Hanegbi’s remarks. Hamas also did not immediately comment.

Another Israeli official pointed to the phrasing of the ruling by the ICJ, depicting it as conditional.

"The order in regard to the Rafah operation is not a general order," the official said on condition of anonymity.

FIGHTING IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL GAZA
Also Saturday, a reservist with the Bislamach Brigade’s 6828th Battalion was seriously maimed during fighting against terror operatives in northern Gaza.

He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

The announcement came after the military said troops operating in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya killed dozens of button men in close-quarters combat and by calling in airstrikes over the past day.

The troops also located and demolished rocket launching sites and buildings used by terror groups, alongside caches of weapons, the IDF said.

Among those killed were operatives who had directed attacks on troops, and a Hamas sniper cell that had shot up soldiers several times in recent days, according to the military.

Meanwhile,
...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves...
in central Gaza, several more operatives were killed in festivities with troops and by tank shelling, the IDF said.

On Friday in central Gaza, the IDF said an airstrike killed the deputy commander of Hamas’s national security force. According to the IDF, Diaa al-Din al-Sharafa was responsible for "managing the mechanism that secures the borders of the Gaza Strip."

"During the war, this mechanism prevented the population from evacuating from combat zones," the IDF said

Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas following the October 7 terror onslaught that started the war, including its civil authority and members of its political wing.

FURTHER DETAILS ON ’COMPLEX’ IDF OP TO RECOVER HOSTAGES’ BODIES
The military on Saturday released footage and additional details from the operation to recover the bodies of three slain hostages from the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday.

The bodies of Orión Hernández Radoux, 30, Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Michel Nisenbaum, 59, who were all killed on October 7, were located in a tunnel in Jabaliya, the same area where the bodies of another four hostages were recovered a week earlier.

The IDF said troops of the 75th Armored Battalion killed a terror operative who was apparently a lookout over the area where the bodies were held. The soldiers then raided and captured the site.

A short while later, troops of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, Shin Bet agents, and special forces of the Military Intelligence Directorate entered the tunnel and located the bodies.

The bodies were extracted from the tunnel in a "complex" overnight operation, the military said.

According to the IDF, the location of the bodies was extracted from intelligence obtained in recent days by the military and Shin Bet.

The intelligence also revealed that the three were kidnapped by Hamas forces of Evil from the Mefalsim area in southern Israel on October 7, and were killed there or a short while later en route to Gaza.

10 Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on northern Gaza school
[GEO.TV] Israeli warplanes targeted al-Nazla School in northern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
's Safatwi neighbourhood, leaving at least 10 Paleostinians killed and 17 maimed, Wafa news agency reported.

Is there a single public building in all Gaza that has not been taken over by Hamas and its little friends for C&C or a fighting outpost or an entrance to the tunnel system below? At any rate, I’d bet big money that this particular school is not the sole exception.

The Israeli attack targeted a school sheltering displaced people in the neighbourhood, located just south of Jabalia, according to Al Jazeera.

Northern Gaza’s Jabalia camp has been under fierce attack today, pushing more people to flee the area.

Palestinians want implementation of ICJ ruling

That’s nice.

[GEO.TV] Forced from her home by Israel's seven-month-long Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
offensive, Salwa al-Masri has little hope her plight will be alleviated by a ruling from the UN's top court ordering Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah.

"The massacres are only increasing," she said, as she cooked a meal on an open fire outside a tent in Deir al-Balah.

"They shouldn’t say one thing, while the action is something different," said Masri, who fled her home in northern Gaza earlier in the war. "We want these decisions to be implemented on the ground."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Under a rug in Gazan home, IDF troops found shaft leading to bodies of 4 hostages

2024-05-25

[IsraelTimes] The Times of Israel joins paratroopers fighting in the heart of Jabaliya’s refugee camp, where a determined officer made a sad but profound discovery — days before he was killed.

Three drones patrolled overhead in languid circles. A smaller quadcopter took off buzzily from a four-story structure, which a Hamas commander had called home until Paratrooper Battalion 202 stormed into the Jabaliya refugee camp two weeks ago.

Now, Lt. Col. Almog Rotem uses the building in the northern Gaza Strip as a temporary command post, as his forces continue to drive toward the sea, flushing out organized Hamas resistance.

Across a narrow alley — now strewn with pieces of concrete and metal, clothing, and the detritus of urban combat — sits a smaller home with a jagged hole blasted into one side. Inside, a small child’s bike and a wheelchair lie crumpled amid the cinder blocks.

A family had lived in that home until they cleared out ahead of the Israeli paratroopers’ arrival. But amid the furniture and children’s toys, the house had contained a gruesome secret.

Last Thursday, the bodies of four Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7– Itzhak Gelerenter, Amit Buskila, Ron Benjamin and Shani Louk – were discovered by Israel Defense Forces troops in a tunnel dug under that very home.

Long. An embedded reporter reports, including this tidbit:

Dozens of Hamas fighters were killed by Rotem’s troops, among 400 eliminated by the division in Jabaliya.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israeli troops leave Jenin after 40-hour raid; 8 gunmen reported among 12 dead

2024-05-25

From Thursday.

[IsraelTimes] Military says operation targeted Hamas, Islamic Jihad terrorists and infrastructure; eight of the dead claimed by terror groups as their gunmen; PA says surgeon, teacher killed

Israeli soldiers pulled out of Jenin early Thursday after a raid that lasted over 40 hours in the northern West Bank city, the military and local Paleostinian health authorities said.

Troops withdrew from the city early Thursday, a military spokesperson told The Times of Israel, after carrying out raids in the city’s refugee camp and exchanging fire with masked button men in a nearby neighborhood in the city center.

The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it had launched the operation following "intelligence information from the Shin Bet indicating the activity of armed ~~bandidos~~ turbans affiliated with the Hamas
Hamas

..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
terror organizations, and the presence of many terror infrastructures in the area."

Later Tuesday, the IDF said that amid the raid, troops had demolished the home of Ahmed Barakat, a Paleostinian terrorist involved in the killing of Israeli civilian Meir Tamari in a shooting attack near the settlement of Hermesh in May 2023.

Barakat was killed in a dronezap in March.

On Wednesday, the IDF said troops had "exchanged fire with gunnies and killed a number of terrorists, including two ~~bandidos~~ turbans who threw explosives at the forces."

And in a statement on Thursday, the IDF reported that in the midst of the raid, troops identified an armed squad shooting in their direction, and pursued them to a hospital compound where they sought refuge.

The button men abandoned their vehicles, inside of which soldiers found six weapons as well as ammunition, the IDF said, attaching what it said was a video of the events.

PALESTINIANS SAY 12 DEAD, 25 WOUNDED
The Paleostinian Authority health ministry said Israeli forces had killed 12 people during the raid in Jenin.

AP reported that eight of the dead were claimed by Hamas and other terror groups as their button men.

The IDF said it had only shot up button men and Paleostinians hurling bombs at troops.

The official PA news agency WAFA and medical charity Doctors Without Borders reported that surgeon Usaeed Jabareen, from Jenin’s Khalil Suleiman government hospital, was among those killed on Tuesday.

An AFP correspondent reported seeing five bodies at the hospital morgue, including Jabareen’s.

A schoolteacher, Allam Jaradat, and a student were also among the dead, WAFA said, quoting hospital director Wissam Bakr.

Several of the bodies of those killed were draped in flags and carried among crowds of Paleostinians through the streets as gunfire rang out.

Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....>
condemned the Israeli raid, as did Hamas, the terror organization against which Israel is waging war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, and which also has a significant presence in the West Bank.

PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa warned in a statement Wednesday of the dangers of "Israeli military escalation and settlers attacks in the West Bank."

Jenin is widely seen as a hotbed of terrorist activity, and the IDF regularly carries out operations there.

On May 17, a rare Israeli ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
in Jenin targeted a command room belonging to a local terror network and killed another terrorist involved in the murder of Meir Tamari, according to the military.

Since October 7, troops have arrested some 4,000 wanted Paleostinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,700 affiliated with Hamas. According to the PA health ministry, more than 510 West Bank Paleostinians have been killed in that time. Based on military estimates, the vast majority of those killed since October 7 were shot during festivities amid arrest raids.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Heads of Iran-allied militant groups meet in Tehran

2024-05-24

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Heads of Iran-allied militant groups meet in Tehran https://t.co/9ZJC4FYD6j
— Naharnet (@Naharnet) May 23, 2024

Leaders of the Iran-led, so-called "axis of resistance", including Hamas
Hamas

..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
's Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
and Hezbollah's Naim Qassem

... the Grand Vizier of the Hezbullies...
, discussed the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
during a meeting in Tehran on the sidelines of president Ebrahim Raisi's funeral, state media reported Thursday.

The "axis of resistance" brings together Iran's regional allies in the fight against Israel, including the Paleostinian movement Hamas, Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
's Hezbollah, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
's Iran's Houthi sock puppets
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
s and Iraqi Shiite gangs.

The leaders of these movements met Wednesday after attending ceremonies organised in Tehran to pay tribute to Raisi, who died Sunday in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran.

The meeting was attended by Haniyeh, the head of Hamas's Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
-based political bureau, as well as Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem and Houthi front man Mohammed Abdulsalam.

Haniyeh had also previously had an audience with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...>
Iranian officials meanwhile included General Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as General Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of the guards.

They discussed "the latest political, social and military situation in Gaza and the al-Aqsa Flood operation and the role of the resistance front," state broadcaster IRIB reported.

The meeting reportedly stressed "the continuation of jihad and struggle until the complete victory of the Paleostinian resistance in Gaza with the participation of all resistance groups and fronts in the region", IRIB said.

Hezbollah's al-Manar channel also reported the meeting, broadcasting photos.

Iran's Fars news agency said representatives of Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine and Iraqi groups were also present at the meeting.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October, Iran's foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who also died in the helicopter accident, had increased his trips to the region, particularly to Lebanon and Syria.

Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
is a key backer of Hamas, but has repeatedly denied involvement in the Paleostinian group's October 7 attack on Israel.

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-12 More