Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel says it killed 18 Gaza-based Hamas members in charge of West Bank attacks

2024-06-01

[IsraelTimes] Shin Bet security agency says terror cell, primarily made up of prisoners exiled to Strip in 2011 Shalit deal, planned multiple attacks between 2022-2023 in which 8 were murdered

Israeli forces have killed 18 members of Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
’s so-called West Bank headquarters — a unit based 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 that is responsible for advancing terror attacks against Israel from and within the West Bank — amid the ongoing war, the Shin Bet security agency announced on Friday.

Among those killed was Yassin Rabia, the head of the unit. Rabia was killed alongside another top member of the headquarters in a strike in Rafah earlier this week. The strike was also said to have killed dozens of Paleostinian civilians in a blaze caused by a secondary explosion.

An IDF probe into the strike found that a hidden store of weapons may have been the actual cause of the deadly blaze, and that an ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
that targeted an adjacent area had used small munitions that would not ignite such a fire on their own.

Another nine members of the unit have been detained by troops in the Gaza Strip, the Shin Bet added.

The agency said the unit is primarily made up of Hamas members who were exiled to Gaza in a 2011 deal with Hamas, in which Israel released 1,027 Paleostinian terror convicts in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Members of the unit make contact with West Bank Paleostinians in order to recruit them to carry out terror attacks in the territory and in Israel proper, the Shin Bet said.

Among those detained by troops in November was Mahmoud Bashir Tanira, who the Shin Bet said is a member of a West Bank headquarters unit involved in directing attacks.

The Shin Bet said Tanira’s interrogation revealed that the unit was involved in numerous terror attacks in the West Bank between 2022 and 2023, which resulted in the deaths of eight Israelis and the injury of others.

According to the Shin Bet, among the attacks directed by the unit were a shooting against the settlement of Beit El in October 2022, in which an Israeli civilian was maimed; a shooting at a gas station near Eli in June 2023, in which four Israeli non-combatants were killed and two were maimed; a shooting near the settlement of Kedumim in July 2023, in which a soldier was killed; a shooting at a car wash in Huwara in August 2023, in which two Israeli non-combatants were killed; a shooting at the Hamra junction in August 2023, in which an Israeli civilian was maimed; and a shooting near Hebron in August 2023 in which an Israeli civilian was killed.

According to the Shin Bet, the unit was involved in at least 20 more shooting attacks in the West Bank last year.

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 Paleostinian Authority health ministry, more than 510 West Bank Paleostinians have been killed in that time.

Link

The Grand Turk

Erdogan: Over 1,000 Hamas members being treated in hospitals in Turkey

2024-05-14

[IsraelTimes] Ottoman Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says that more than 1,000 members of the Paleostinian terror group Hamas
Hamas

..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
are being treated in hospitals across ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
, reiterating his stance that Hamas is a "resistance movement."

Speaking at a presser after talks with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Ankara, Erdogan also says he was saddened by the Greek view of Hamas a terrorist organization.

Hamas has had an office in Turkey since 2011 when Turkey helped secure the agreement for the terror group to free Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

The Iran-backed group is designated as a terrorist organization by a host of countries including Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada along with the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Sinister Hamas terms would let it keep most hostages, win the war, inflame the West Bank

2024-05-11

[IsraelTimes] It took the US more than a day to internalize that Hamas had not in fact accepted a hostages-for-truce proposal. But the text of its ’agreement’ is far more duplicitous than that.

On Tuesday night, more than a day after Hamas

claimed to have approved what it said was the Egyptian and 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 mediators’ proposal "regarding a ceasefire agreement," the US State Department front man Matthew Miller finally declared publicly, "That is not what they did."

Rather, said Miller, "They responded with amendments or a counterproposal." The US, he said, was "working through the details of that now."

In fact, close examination of the Hamas document, as issued (Arabic) by the terror group itself, shows that far from containing "amendments" or a remotely viable counterproposal, it is constructed with incendiary sophistication to ensure that Hamas survives the war and regains control over the entire 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. (Quotations from the Hamas text in this piece are from a translation by the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera website.)

But that’s far from all.

It is also calculated to ensure that Hamas secures further key, immensely far-reaching goals without having to meet the prime Israeli requirement for a deal: the release of all the hostages. In fact, Hamas can abrogate the deal, with all of its key goals achieved and then some, while continuing to hold almost all of the hostages.

Among those goals is one of the most central Hamas objectives since it invaded Israel on October 7 — seeing its declared war of destruction against the Jewish state expand to the West Bank. By extension, the terms of the document are also designed to destroy US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing...
’s grand vision of Saudi normalization and a wider Middle East coalition against Iran.

A STREAM OF OMINOUS CHANGES
Much has been made of the fact that, whereas Israel has repeatedly insisted it will not end the war as a condition for the release of the hostages, Hamas, in the opening paragraphs of its own sinister alternate proposal, specifies that one "aim" of the deal is "a return to a sustainable calm that leads to a permanent ceasefire." But relatively speaking, that’s splitting hairs: The proposal conveyed by the mediators to Hamas late last month, and described by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
as an "extraordinarily generous" Israeli offer, reportedly provides for an "arrangement to restore sustainable calm" — which sounds like a near-euphemism for a permanent ceasefire.

Much has correctly been made of the fact, however, that, in the Hamas document, Israel is to cease military operations in the first six-week stage of the three-stage deal, in which 33 hostages are to be freed, and that the IDF must "withdraw completely" from Gaza and a "permanent cessation of military operations" must take effect before any more hostages are freed in the second stage.

Less widely appreciated is that the Hamas proposal states that, in the first stage, "internally displaced people in Gaza shall return to their areas of residence" and that "all residents of Gaza shall be allowed freedom of movement in all parts of the Strip," with all Israeli "aviation (military and reconnaissance)" in Gaza to cease for much of each day.

Combined with a partial withdrawal of IDF troops as further specified for this first stage, the effect of these demands would be to enable Hamas’s button men and officials to retake control of the entire Gaza Strip. The Hamas proposal does use the word "unarmed" in one clause to describe the displaced persons who would be allowed to return to their areas of residence, but the accompanying demands and provisions mean that Israel would have no right and no means under the proposal to impose any such limitation.

Even more significant, and largely unrecognized, however, is the radical reconfiguration in the Hamas document of the terms and process for the release of Israeli hostages.

The Hamas proposal is structured to enable it to release very few of the hostages in return not only for an end to the IDF’s campaign in Gaza and its survival and resumption of full control there, but also for a planned surge in support for Hamas in the West Bank, the further neutering of the Paleostinian Authority, and the potential major escalation of violence against Israel in and from the West Bank

Many of the relatives of the 128 Israelis still held in Gaza since October 7, alive and dead, have pleaded, desperately and understandably, for a deal at any or almost any price, including an end to the war, in return for the release of all, most, or even many of the hostages.

But the Hamas proposal is structured to enable it to release very few of the hostages in return not only for an end to the IDF’s campaign in Gaza and its survival and resumption of full control there, but also for a planned surge in support for Hamas in the West Bank, the further neutering of the Paleostinian Authority, and the potential major escalation of violence against Israel in and from the West Bank.

How so?

WHO GOES FREE
The Hamas proposal remakes the previous document under which Hamas was to release at least 33 living hostages in the first stage of the deal, at a rate of three hostages every three days from the first day that the deal takes effect.

In the Hamas proposal, as has been widely noted, it no longer commits to freeing 33 living hostages in the first stage — itself a concession by Israel, which had sought 40 living hostages in the first stage — but now says the 33 hostages may be "alive or dead."

Moreover, Hamas would release the first three hostages on only the third day of the deal taking effect, and thence "three other detainees every seven days." This means that whereas, in the Israel-backed proposal, all 33 hostages would go free in the course of the first month of the deal, the Hamas schedule means fewer than half of the 33 would be released in the first month.

Furthermore, the Hamas proposal specifies that the first hostages to be released will be "women as much as possible (civilians and female soldiers)." It raises the number of Paleostinian security prisoners to be released in exchange for each of the (believed five) living female Israeli soldiers held hostage from 40 to 50 — including 30 who are serving life terms, where the Israeli offer specified 20 life-termers. And it removes a key clause in the Israel-backed proposal, under which Hamas would be allowed to choose only 20 of the security prisoners to go free in stage one, and Israel would have the right to veto those choices. Rather, it states, the Paleostinian security prisoners will be released "based on lists provided by Hamas."

The accumulated consequence of all those changes is that, in the very first days of the deal, Hamas would be able to secure the release of hundreds of the most dangerous and iconic terror chiefs and murderers, including at least 150 serving life terms, in return for the release of very few of the hostages.

The Hamas proposal also features a clause requiring the release, on the 22nd day of the deal, of "all prisoners from the Shalit deal who have been rearrested."

For Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza who was himself among the 1,027 Paleostinian security prisoners freed by Israel to secure the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, this would plainly constitute the closing of a certain circle — the freeing of the many of his colleagues who returned to terrorism after their spectacularly contentious release 13 years ago but who, unlike him, were recaptured.

Finally, in this regard, a widely reported Israeli demand for the right to veto the return of some West Bank-based Paleostinian security prisoners to the West Bank, but rather to have them instead sent to Gaza or into exile, is absent from the Hamas proposal.

Why does all this matter?

WEST BANK PRIMACY
The nightly release during November’s weeklong hostage deal of dozens of Paleostinian security prisoners prompted scenes of jubilation in the West Bank. As The Times of Israel reported at the time, "Night after night, dozens of green Hamas banners were waved in front of cameras, and freed prisoners wore them as headbands — even in the streets of Ramallah, the bastion of the Fatah-controlled Paleostinian Authority."

And the security prisoners who were being freed then were women and minors.

By contrast, under the Hamas terms now, dozens upon dozens of prisoners serving lengthy terms and life terms, murderers and mass murderers and terror chiefs — including Marwan Barghouti, the most popular of all Paleostinian security prisoners, who is serving five life terms for orchestrating deadly terror attacks during the Second Intifada, and Ahmad Saadat, serving a 30-year term for organizing the liquidation of tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001 — would be coming out of jail. And they would be returning to the West Bank.

Their release, as calculated by Sinwar, would be expected to be perceived by West Bank Paleostinians as an astounding humiliation for Israel, an indictment of the Paleostinian Authority, which had failed to set them free, and a stunning victory for Hamas.

Amid what would be regarded as a vindication of Hamas’s implacable determination to destroy Israel, and as proof of the success of its tactics and its strategy toward that goal, Sinwar would reliably expect the euphoria accompanying the return of the prisoners to cement Hamas as the peerless champion of the Paleostinian cause, fueling soaring support for Hamas in the West Bank and the unification of West Bank Paleostinians behind it, the marginalizing of the already failing PA, and the dawn of a new era of escalated violence and terrorism against Israel.

ABROGATING THE DEAL
At this early stage of the ostensible three-stage, 18-week deal, Hamas would have very little incentive to proceed with the process. It would have precious little left to extract from Israel.

And Israel, crucially, would have very little if any remaining leverage over Hamas.

It would be Hamas’s delighted pleasure to calculate how far to proceed with the deal before abrogating it — with the stated "interconnected" stages of its proposal providing it with numerous opportunities to do so. Hamas would be able to calculate the right moment to halt the hostage releases, and to do so in a way designed to fool as many people as possible into thinking that it was the Israelis who were the rejectionist guilty party — as it did successfully on Monday night when falsely claiming to have accepted a ceasefire agreement.

And Hamas would do so knowing that the US wants the war to stop and stay stopped. The Biden administration has been publicly fuming at Israel for months at the high civilian corpse count in Gaza, and is desperate to secure and maintain a ceasefire amid an election campaign and with huge tensions on and beyond university campuses. Already withholding weaponry from Israel in order to prevent the IDF from tackling Hamas in its last remaining stronghold in Rafah, deeply mistrustful of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his core far-right coalition, the administration would be immensely reluctant to provide diplomatic support and weaponry for a resumed Israeli military campaign.

IN SUMMARY
Under the terms that it has set out, therefore, Hamas expects to survive, rearm and reassert full control in Gaza, and establish primacy in the West Bank. Israel will be under attack on multiple fronts. The ambitious, improbable American vision of an Israel integrated into the region, at peace with Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...

Saudi Arabia

...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
, with a reformed PA ruling in the West Bank Gaza, will be shattered. Most of the hostages will still be held in Gaza, with no prospect of release. And Israel will be more torn and vulnerable than ever.

On Monday night, soon after the office of Hamas’s overall chief 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...
issued its ostensible acceptance of a ceasefire, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he had spoken with Haniyeh, who had assured him that "the ball is in the opposite court. We are honest in our intentions."

Indeed, the document leaves no doubt about Hamas’s intentions. You just have to read it.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF: We have enough arms for Rafah; PM: ‘We'll fight with our fingernails' if needed

2024-05-10

[IsraelTimes] War cabinet minister Gantz pushes back on criticism of Washington, hailing its efforts to support Israel during war; delegations leave Cairo as latest talks on hostage deal end

The Israel Defense Forces asserted Thursday that the military had enough munitions for its planned missions, after United States President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. ’This Is A Man ThatDoes Not Seem Demented’...
threatened that some arms shipments would be frozen if Israel launched a planned offensive in southern 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 Rafah.

"The IDF has armaments for the missions it is planning, including missions in Rafah. We have what we need," IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said, responding to a question at a presser.

While some commentators have agreed the military likely has munitions needed for a Rafah offensive, it may be hard-pressed to face Hezbollah if the conflict in the north develops into all-out war and Washington continues to withhold munitions.

Meanwhile,

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in his first direct response Thursday to Biden’s warning, said that if Israel "has to stand alone, we will stand alone."

"During the War of Independence 76 years ago, we were few against many," he said. "We had no weapons, there was an arms embargo on Israel, but with the strength of the soul, the bravery and the unity within us — we won."

"Today we are much stronger," Netanyahu continued. "We are determined and we are united to defeat our enemy and those who seek to destroy us... If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails."

The IDF’s operation in Rafah has so far been limited to the eastern outskirts of the city and the border crossing with Egypt. In the city itself, more than one million Paleostinians are thought to be sheltering. The US offered tepid support for the limited operation to remove Hamas
Hamas

from the Rafah Crossing area, but warned that its stance could shift if the offensive widened or if the delivery of humanitarian aid

was hampered for a sustained period.

The White House on Wednesday confirmed a delay in the transfer of 2,000- and 500-pound bombs over concerns that the IDF could use them in densely populated Rafah, as it has in other parts of Gaza.

"The US has so far provided security assistance to the State of Israel and the IDF in an unprecedented manner during the war," Hagari said.

Unprecedented is exactly the right adjective.

Highlighting the coordination between the militaries, he said IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi speaks regularly with US CENTCOM chief Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla.

"Even when there are disagreements between us, we resolve them behind closed doors," Hagari stated. "Israel has security interests, but we are also aware of the interests of the US, and that’s how we will continue to act."

In comments aired Thursday night but taped before Biden announced his threat, Netanyahu told an American interviewer that he hoped to smooth out the ruffles in his relationship with Biden which have arisen due to the war.

"We often have our agreements but we’ve also had our disagreements. We’ve been able to overcome them. I hope we can overcome them now, but we will do what we have to do to protect our country," Netanyahu told US media personality Phil McGraw of the "Dr. Phil Primetime" show.

But he added that Israel "has no choice" but to destroy Hamas’s remaining battalions in Rafah, a move he has maintained can only be achieved via an intensive ground campaign.

"Rational-minded people understand that we don’t have a choice," he contended.

On CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
Wednesday night, Biden announced that his administration would stop providing Israel with offensive weapons if it launched a full-on ground invasion into populated parts of Rafah as part of its campaign to topple Hamas.

"I’ve made it clear to Bibi and the war cabinet: They’re not going to get our support if they go [into] these population centers," Biden said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

The interview marked Biden’s toughest public comments yet on the matter and came shortly on the heels of his decision to put a hold on the transfer of bombs.

In addition to the warning from Washington, Channel 12 news reported Thursday that Israeli security chiefs believe the country must plan for who will govern Gaza after the war before launching an expanded operation in the city. The report was unsourced.

Aside from a document in which he committed to installing "local officials" unaffiliated with terrorism to administer services in the Strip instead of Hamas, Netanyahu has postponed security cabinet discussions regarding the so-called "day after" the war, possibly fearing this could lead to fractures in his mainly right-wing coalition.

There’s also the problem of who on the list will still be alive and functional when Gaza surrenders to the IDF. Impossible to make more than general plans under the circumstances.

Channel 12’s military news hound Nir Dvori said Thursday he had been told by officials that Israel’s position is that it will move forward with the operation in Rafah even without US backing, and that this had been made clear to Washington in recent days.

Biden’s warning was met Thursday with condemnations by numerous Israeli politicians. Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir went further than anyone when he wrote on X that "Hamas [loves] Biden," complete with a heart emoji.

Pushing back on the more negative reactions to Washington, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz criticized attacks on the US by government ministers.

"The US stood by Israel in its most difficult hour and the attacks on it by irresponsible ministers are ingratitude intended for domestic purposes and stemming from political considerations," Gantz said in a statement that didn’t mention anyone by name.

Commenting on Biden’s ultimatum, Gantz said he believed vital arm shipments will continue.

"Israel has a moral and security obligation to continue fighting to return our hostages and remove the threat of Hamas from the country’s south, and the US has a moral and strategic obligation to provide Israel with the tools required for this mission," he added.

CAIRO HOSTAGE-TRUCE TALKS BREAK UP
Amid the promises to continue the offensive in Rafah, both Israeli and Hamas delegations left indirect hostage-truce talks in Cairo earlier Thursday, according to media reports. Before departing, Israel’s negotiators put in writing their specific objections to a document issued by Hamas on Monday night that purportedly accepted a deal.

Channel 12 said that CIA director Bill Burns had also departed the region and headed back to the US.

According to an Egyptian source quoted by al-Qahera, efforts by Egyptian, 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 and US mediators "are ongoing to bring the two sides’ points of view closer."

I note that there are still no Israelis involved in the negotiations. How did that work out for y’all in the last round?

However,
those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things...
Channel 12 reported that the current round of talks, at least, was over. It said that in their talks with Burns Wednesday, Israeli leaders criticized the CIA chief for continuing the Cairo talks in the wake of what they have called Hamas’s unacceptable terms, saying his presence risked creating the incorrect impression that the Hamas document could serve as a basis for progress.

The terms that Hamas said Monday it had accepted differ in numerous key aspects from a proposal that Israel approved and that the US described as "extremely generous," with officials in the terror group claiming the deal would yield an end to the war. Israel, however, has said repeatedly that it will not accept a deal that involves ending the war and that it fully intends to resume its campaign to destroy Hamas once any deal has been carried out.

Among the differences:

That should be among other differences! because after that first one, all the others are comparatively — though not actually — minor...

The Hamas proposal would see the release of 33 Israeli hostages, alive or dead, whereas the Israeli text requires the release of 33 living hostages; the Hamas proposal removes the veto Israel demanded on the release of certain Paleostinian security prisoners, and raises the number of Paleostinian security prisoners to be freed; the Hamas proposal provides for the free movement of Gazooks back to the north of the Strip, without security checks as required by Israel to prevent Hamas button men returning north.

The Hamas proposal also changes the timing of hostage releases within the phases, and some of the specifics on Israeli troop withdrawals. It also demands the release of all Paleostinian security prisoners freed in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner deal who have since been rearrested.

Significantly, Hamas said on Monday night that it regards itself as having accepted terms for an end to the war, whereas both the Israeli-backed text and the Hamas response refer to restoring "sustainable calm." In an introductory paragraph, the Hamas text says the "framework agreement aims for... a return to sustainable calm in a way that achieves a permanent ceasefire."

It may well become a permanent ceasefire, but it won’t matter to you lot, because Hamas will no longer be present.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF, Shin Bet say several senior Hamas terrorists killed as Shifa op continues

2024-03-31

[IsraelTimes] Army chief Halevi visits troops, praises ’very, very successful’ campaign at hospital, as fighting continues throughout Gazoo

The IDF and Shin Bet security agency on Saturday announced that four senior Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede, bad boyz were potted by troops at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital in recent days.

Troops have been raiding buildings at the hospital complex, following intelligence indicating that brass hats in the terror group are holed up there. They’ve arrested hundreds of terror operatives and killed over 200 in days-long exchanges of fire at the complex.

In one incident, the IDF said troops of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 unit, Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion and Duvdevan unit encountered and killed a group of armed Hamas operatives who ran out of Shifa’s emergency room.

Among them was senior Hamas commander Raad Thabet — named by the IDF on Thursday as the head of the terror group’s recruitment and supply acquisition — and Mahmoud Khalil Zakzuk, who the IDF says is the deputy commander of Hamas’s rocket unit in Gaza City.

In another incident, troops of the Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit killed senior Hamas operatives Fadi Dweik and Zakaria Najib during a chase at Shifa’s maternity ward, according to the IDF.

The IDF and Shin Bet say Dweik was a senior member of Hamas’s intelligence division. He perpetrated the 2002 terrorist shooting attack in the West Bank settlement of Adora, killing four civilians, and was exiled to the Gaza Strip in the 2011 Shalit deal with Hamas, in which Israel released 1,027 Paleostinian terror convicts in exchange for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. In Gaza, he continued to advance attacks in the West Bank, defense officials say.

Najib, according to the IDF and Shin Bet, was a senior operative in Hamas’s so-called West Bank headquarters, tasked with promoting attacks against Israel from the West Bank. He is accused of involvement in the 1994 abduction and killing of Nachshon Wachsman, and was also released in the 2011 Shalit deal.

Other Hamas button men have been killed by troops in and around the hospital, the IDF said, adding that troops have seized weapons and intelligence documents.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi hailed the ongoing operation at Shifa Hospital during a visit to the medical center on Friday.

"Almost two weeks, very, very successful, and this is an operation... to plan it in a war, to carry it out in a war, to execute it correctly in a war, [is] very, very complex," Halevi told troops.

"So far [there have been] very great achievements... no one can roll back [the effects of] such a large number of arrested terrorists, such a large number of dead terrorists, so many senior people," he said.

Halevi said the operation has "achieved its goal," but added that it will continue "thoroughly until it is announced that we are done."

The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza said Saturday that at least 32,705 people had been killed in the territory during more than five months of war between Israel and the Paleostinian terror group.

The toll includes at least 82 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 75,190 people had been maimed in the Gaza Strip since the war was triggered by the devastating Hamas-led onslaught against Israel on October 7.

The Hamas-run ministry’s figures, which are unverified, do not differentiate between fighters and civilians, and are also believed to include Paleostinians killed by terrorists’ misfired rockets. Israel says some 13,000 terror operatives are among the dead.

Earlier Saturday the Paleostine Red Islamic Thingy said five people were killed and dozens maimed by gunfire and a stampede during an aid delivery in Gaza.

AFP said it had footage of a convoy of trucks moving quickly past burning debris near the distribution point in pre-dawn darkness as people shout and gunfire echoes — some of which were warning shots, according to unnamed witnesses quoted by the French news agency.

The Red Islamic Thingy said it happened after thousands of people gathered for the arrival of around 15 trucks of flour and other food, which were supposed to be handed out at Gaza City’s Kuwait roundabout, in the territory’s north. The roundabout has been the scene of several chaotic and deadly aid distribution incidents, including a deadly incident on March 23 that drew intense international scrutiny.

Eyewitnesses told AFP that Gazooks overseeing the aid delivery shot in the air, and that Israeli troops in the area also fired and some moving trucks hit people trying to get the food. The Israeli military told AFP it "has no record of the incident described."

In the al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the IDF said troops of the Givati Brigade killed several button men, including some who tried to attack them with bombs.

The Israeli Air Force carried out dozens of strikes across Gaza over the past day, mostly in al-Amal and al-Qarara, which the IDF said was to support the maneuvering ground troops.

The IAF also struck three tunnel shafts in an area from which a rocket was fired toward the border community of Kissufim on Friday, the IDF said.

Meanwhile,
...back at the abandoned silver mine, the water was up to Jack's neck and still rising. And then he smelled the smoke...
in central Gaza, the IDF said troops of the Nahal Brigade killed several terror operatives over the past day.

In one incident, the army said Nahal troops spotted a cell moving weaponry and called in a dronezap against them. Large secondary blasts were seen after the strike, according to the IDF. A fighter jet later struck the building the cell was seen leaving.

Two more Hamas cells were struck by drones in northern Gaza after being identified by the 215th Artillery Regiment. Fighter jets later also struck a building used by those operatives, the IDF adds.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas said to execute leader of Gaza’s powerful Doghmush clan; Doghmushes declare vendetta

2024-03-15

See also here.

[IsraelTimes] Clan leader reportedly killed in family’s compound, allegedly for stealing humanitarian aid for resale and suspected ties to Israel

Hamas
Hamas

...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
reportedly killed the leader of the powerful Doghmush clan

Goodness! It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard from the Doghmushes, and now they’ve gone and got themselves killed, probably due to a perceived threat to Hamas…

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...
City, because the group allegedly had been stealing humanitarian aid and was suspected of having contact with Israel.

Under the circumstances, I imagine that anyone who can muster enough of a threat is doing the same. That’s how low trust/high clannishness (Me-and-my-brother-against-my-cousin) societies work.

Unconfirmed reports on Arab media said that the clan leader, who was not named, was "executed" in the family compound along with two others.

Earlier this week, a Hamas-linked website warned Paleostinian individuals and groups against cooperating with Israel to provide security for aid convoys amid the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza as war rages between Israel and Hamas.

“Do not dare to protect your robberies against the rampaging Hamas minions, lest we fall upon you like wolves on the fold. Inshallah, Allah will curse all your mustaches for even thinking of self-protection against the most-beloved of the King of Lies.”

Those who did would be treated as collaborators and handled with an iron fist, the Hamas al-Majd security website said, quoting a security official in Paleostinian terror forces.

A less picturesque way to describe it, but conseiderably more succinct.

The warning came in response to reports that Israel was considering arming some Paleostinian individuals or clans in Gaza to provide security protection for aid convoys entering the enclave as part of wider planning for humanitarian supplies after the fighting ends.

Doghmush is a large, armed clan that has clashed with Hamas in the past and has a history of engaging in organized crime as well as arms trading. It leads the Army of Islam terror group and is allied with al-Qaeda.

A matter of faith or merely an alliance of convenience?

It kidnapped and held British journalist Alan Johnston from March to July 2007, and was also reportedly involved in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

The Doghmush clan is based in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City and in Sabra in western Gaza, the Ynet website reported.

Despite the recent reports of cooperation with Israel, clans have put out a statement saying they still support Hamas, Ynet said.

Whether true or not beyond the moment, it was clearly necessary.

On Wednesday, Hamas said in a statement that it welcomed the clans’ announcement and praised them for refusing to cooperate with Israel, Ynet said.

Gaza has a number of large traditional family clans affiliated with political factions including Hamas and Fatah, the rival group that dominates the Paleostinian Authority in the West Bank.

Some of the larger clans in Gaza City and elsewhere are believed to be well-armed but they have a long history of clashing over rival interests and there has been no indication that they would consider working with Israel.

Israel has not yet provided a clear plan for a postwar scenario in Gaza and has repeatedly rejected a proposal favored by the US and much of the international community to restore the Paleostinian Authority’s rule over the enclave.

In seeking an alternative to both the PA and the Hamas terror regime, which it has vowed to eradicate, Israel has been floating the possibility of Gazook clans running the Strip’s civilian affairs, while the IDF would retain security control. Some experts are dubious about the feasibility of Israel’s proposal; a similar attempt was made decades ago, unsuccessfully. But experts’ skepticism is mainly due to the diminished clout that clans now hold in contemporary Gazook society, and the inevitable influence that established Paleostinian political movements would exert over them.

Israel has also reportedly considered arming Gaza civilians in order to secure aid convoys.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says that at least 31,184 Paleostinians have been killed since October 7, and some 72,899 have been injured. The terror group’s figures are unverified, however, and don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, of whom Israel has said it killed some 13,000 inside Gaza and an additional 1,000 inside Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre.

Doghmush clan says it considers all Hamas members legitimate targets after leader assassinated

Interesting times for Hamas…

[IsraelTimes] The Doghmosh Family — a major clan 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...
— has issued a statement declaring that all Hamas
Hamas

...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
members are legitimate targets after its leader was assassinated by members of the terror group along with ten other relatives allegedly for stealing humanitarian aid

and being in contact with Israel.

The statement pledges retribution against all responsible and warns Hamas fighters not to test the clan’s patience.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas says Israel avoiding ceasefire demands

2024-03-07

[GEO.TV] Hamas
Hamas

...a regional Iranian catspaw,...
has said that Israel is evading demands for a ceasefire when it has shown the flexibility required to reach a truce that stops the Israeli aggression against the Paleostinian people.

These demands include a permanent ceasefire, the return of the displaced Paleostinians 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...
to their homes, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip and the entry of humanitarian aid, according to Al Jazeera.

In other words, Hamas demands preemptive surrender with no payoff for Israel.

"We will continue to negotiate through our brotherly mediators to reach an agreement that fulfils the demands and interests of our people," Hamas said in a statement.

Update from the Times of Israel at 11:00 a.m. ET:

A Jordanian report claims to detail Hamas’s proffer for a ceasefire deal, which proposes the release of hostages in exchange for high-level Paleostinian prisoners one week after a permanent ceasefire goes into effect.

According to the report in A-Rai al-Youm, among the prisoners whose release is demanded by Hamas
Hamas

...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
are top terror convict Marwan Barghouti, in jail for multiple murders; top Hamas bombmaker Abdullah Barghouti; PFLP head Ahmad Sadat; Ibrahim Hamed, the former commander of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank; and Abbas al-Sayed, a senior Hamas member responsible for planning bombings that killed dozens of Israelis. Israel would also have to release all sick prisoners, anyone over the age of 60 or under 18, and all women, as well as 57 people freed in the Gilad Shalit deal and re-arrested.

Under the deal, no hostages would be released for the first week of the ceasefire, and Israel would agree to carry out a complete withdrawal from Gazoo before a second group of hostages was released.

Hamas also demands complete freedom of movement in Gaza and for unfettered aid access.

According to the report, the terror group’s representatives told Egypt that the proposal was nonnegotiable and represented their final position.

Nearly every element is likely a nonstarter for Israel

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Biden says Israel agrees to stop Gaza attacks for Ramadan as Hamas mulls draft truce proposal; Israel under the impression they’re actually involved in the negotiations UPDATE: Hamas nixes deal

2024-02-28

In the context of a mutually agreed upon and honoured formal ceasefire that involves a list of which kidnapped hostages are alive and which are dead, right? Israel is not just going to stop if Hamas won’t, nor continue abiding by the thing when Hamas decides their hudna is over.

[GEO.TV] US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. I'm not working for you. Don't be such a horse's ass....
said Israel has agreed to halt military activities 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...
for the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, as Hamas
Hamas

...a regional Iranian catspaw,...
studied a draft proposal for a truce which includes a pause in fighting and a prisoner-hostage exchange.

The draft proposal, which a senior source close to truce talks in Gay Paree told Rooters would allow hospitals and bakeries in Gaza to be repaired and 500 aid trucks to enter the battered enclave every day, is the most serious attempt in weeks to end the conflict which erupted in October last year.

Ramadan is expected to begin on the evening of March 10th and end on the evening of April 9th.

"Ramadan is coming up, and there’s been an agreement by the Israelis that they would not engage in activities during Ramadan, as well, in order to give us time to get all the hostages out," Biden said during an appearance on NBC's "Late Night with Seth Meyers".

He also warned that Israel risked losing international support due to the high corpse count among Paleostinians, adding that Israel had committed to make it possible for Paleostinians to evacuate from Rafah in Gaza's south before intensifying its campaign there to destroy Hamas.

Biden, whose remarks were recorded on Monday and broadcast on Tuesday, said there was an agreement in principle for a ceasefire between the two sides while hostages were released. He said he hoped to have a ceasefire in the conflict by the following Monday.

"There are too many innocent people that are being killed. And Israel has slowed down the attacks in Rafah," Biden said, adding that a temporary ceasefire would jumpstart a process for Paleostinians to have their own state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a two-state solution.

Under the draft proposal, the exchange of Paleostinian prisoners for Israeli hostages would be at a ratio of 10 to one, the senior source said.

The draft also states Hamas would free 40 Israeli hostages including women, children under 19, elderly over 50 and the sick, while Israeli would release around 400 Paleostinian prisoners and will not re-arrest them, the source told Rooters.

Mediators have ramped up efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, in the hope of heading off an Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah where more than a million displaced people are sheltering at the southern edge of the enclave

On October 7, Israel launched a ground assault on Gaza. The Israeli forces mercilessly killed 30,000 Paleostinians.

Explaining the categories, TV report says US plan would see 400 Palestinian prisoners freed for 40 hostages

That Joe Biden administration, is just chock full of bright ideas.

[IsraelTimes] Channel 12 sets out what it says is the American proposal for a key part of a potential new hostage release deal with Hamas
Hamas

...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
: the number and nature of the Paleostinian security prisoners who would be released in exchange for hostages held captive 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...
since October 7.

In all, the report says, the US proposed at the Gay Paree talks on Friday that some 400 Paleostinian terror inmates would be released in exchange for 40 Israeli hostages within the intended six-week truce.

Twenty-one Paleostinian security prisoners would be freed by Israel in exchange for the seven Israeli women who were to have been released on the final day of the previous truce, at the end of November, when Hamas reneged on the terms and the truce collapsed; a three-to-one ratio.

Ninety Paleostinian security prisoners would be released in exchange for five Israeli women soldiers held hostage; an 18-to-one ratio. Fifteen of those prisoners would be major turbans with blood on their hands, including several mass murderers.

Another 90 prisoners would be released in exchange for 15 men aged over 50 among the hostages; a six-to-one ratio.

One hundred and fifty-six prisoners would be released in exchange for 13 Israeli male hostages who are ill or injured; a 12-to-one ratio.

Finally, according to the Channel 12 report, some 40 additional Paleostinian security prisoners who were freed in the 2011 deal for the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, but who were since rearrested for further terrorist activities, would also be freed.

The report, which is unsourced, says the US proposal was put on the table in Gay Paree, where the US, Israel, Egypt and 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...
agreed on a new framework proposal for the potential deal.

It notes that despite US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier...
’s optimistic talk yesterday of a hoped-for deal by March 4, Israel remains pessimistic about an imminent deal coming to fruition.

Israel agreed at Paris hostage talks to freeing 400 Palestinian prisoners — report

[Israel Times] As part of a framework for a hostage deal hashed out during recent talks in Gay Paree, Israel agreed to release some 400 Paleostinian prisoners — among them Death Eaters convicted of "heavy" crimes, according to 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 state-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera.

Citing unidentified sources, the report says Israel also agreed to the gradual return of displaced Paleostinians to 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...
, barring those of "military service age," and the entry of further aid and temporary shelters into Gaza, including heavy machinery and equipment.

Additionally, the report says Israel proposed moving its forces out of crowded parts of Gaza and stopping reconnaissance flights for 8 hours a day as part of a six-week truce accompanying the release of Israeli hostages.

Update from the Times of Israel at 9:40 a.m. ET:

Hamas said to deride deal outline as ‘Zionist document’ as Qatar sees ‘race against time’

Qatari mediators said to relay broadly negative response by terror group to 6-week truce framework

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Latest hostage rally demanding deal with Hamas takes on stronger political tones

2024-02-04

[IsraelTimes] Organizers and speakers at weekly protest in Tel Aviv say faith in the government needs restoring, accuse Netanyahu of being guided by desire to avoid elections

Not even pretending to pretend they’re apolitical anymore, the paid frontpersons of the international Progressive left continue their efforts to overthrow the elected Netanyahu government using any excuse plausible. At least they’ve stopped importing foreign Antifa cadres to make the speeches.

Speeches at the weekly Tel Aviv rally demanding the return of hostages held in Gaza took a more strongly political tone than ever before on Saturday night, with speakers accusing the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being indifferent to the hostages’ fate and Netanyahu of being guided by personal considerations and stalling to avoid investigations and elections.

At previous rallies at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, organizers and speakers had adhered to a nonpartisan line, drawing a clear distinction between their movement, which is centered on retrieving hostages in Gaza, and anti-government protests that took place elsewhere at the same time.

This departure from previous policy was evident at the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s weekly rally, its 17th, which thousands attended. Emcee Rami Beja opened it, calling retrieving the hostages "the only way to restore confidence in the country’s leadership."

At previous rallies, he had urged participants to refrain from "engaging in politics."

Ronen Manelis, a reserves brigadier general and former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, elaborated on his lack of confidence in that leadership.

Not far from Hostages Square, several thousand people protested against the government on Kaplan Street. Participants, including some relatives of hostages, intermittently blocked traffic on the adjacent Ayalon Highway and Ibn Gvirol streets amid festivities with police.

Officers on horseback and others were filmed driving back protesters and detaining some.

That’ll be the direct action Black Bloc faction getting their jollies by violence against the police, innocent bystanders, and public and private property.

The Kaplan Street anti-government protest and another such rally at Habima Square took place for the sixth consecutive week. Footage from those protest protests showed participants holding up signs and chanting slogans calling for Netanyahu’s resignation.

According to numerous unconfirmed reports, Hamas is demanding far-reaching concessions for a second deal. National Security Minister Ben Gvir last week called some of the reported terms of that deal — including a weeks- or even months-long ceasefire and the release of thousands of ~~bandidos~~ Lions of Islam from Israeli jails — "reckless." Ben Gvir has threatened to pull out of the coalition, endangering the government, if such a deal goes ahead.

Netanyahu has ruled out releasing thousands of prisoners for the hostages. He has also rejected a key Hamas demand — ending the war and withdrawing the IDF as a condition for any further hostage releases, insisting that the war will end only when Hamas is destroyed and all hostages released.

A key argument against the reported terms of a second deal with Hamas is the danger to security that the release of many convicted ~~bandidos~~ Lions of Islam will entail. The controversial 2011 deal for the release of hostage soldier Gilad Shalit saw the release of over 1,000 terror convicts, some of whom later committed deadly attacks. One of them was Yahya Sinwar, now Hamas’s Gaza leader and the architect of the October 7 massacres.

A different group of families of hostages, the Tikvah Forum,

...also spelt Tikva Forum...

disputes such assertions. Its members, who include parents of some of the hostages in Gaza, reject making concessions to Hamas and argue in favor of freeing the hostages either by force or through a deal that would not "endanger other Israelis," as they have phrased it.

Another rally with hundreds of participants marched through Jerusalem Saturday night demanding an immediate release of the hostages. Some of the participants carried signs and rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud critical of the government, including ones demanding Netanyahu’s resignation.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

An ideological minority of parents of hostages held by Hamas oppose negotiations

2024-01-21

Long, sad, but encouraging that not all are as short-sighted as the noisy ones.

[IsraelTimes] Tikva Forum is a grassroots, right-wing alternative to the main hostage advocacy group, the well-financed Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum based in Tel Aviv. Its members, primarily pro-government religious Zionists, say they are putting country before loved ones

“We feel that the demand to release hostages ‘now,’ that emphasis on ‘now,’ is liable — not intentionally, of course — to hurt the hostages,” said Tikva spokesman Eitan Zeliger. “It plays into the hands of Hamas, who might be encouraged to raise the price.”

Tzvika Mor is a co-founder of the Tikva Forum, made up of relatives of hostages in Hamas captivity. “Tikva” in Hebrew means hope; the national anthem is called “HaTikva.” The Tikva Forum supports — through volunteer lectures, prayer rallies, demonstrations and media appearances — the government’s declared objective to use overwhelming military might to force Hamas into releasing the people its terror operatives abducted on October 7 during a massacre of 1,200 people. Of the 240 people seized as hostages that day, 132 are thought to still be held in Gaza — not all of them alive. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 25 of those still held by Hamas, citing intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.

The Tikva Forum is not connected to the Tikvah Fund or the Kohelet Forum although, like those organizations, its members tend to be on the political right. Its message carries particular resonance coming from the parents and siblings of hostages. Indeed, Mor and the other members of the Tikva Forum are uniquely positioned to provide an alternative to the dominant voice among the families of hostages. This dominant voice, given expression by the well-financed and well-staffed Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum based in Tel Aviv, also seeks to focus public attention on the suffering of the hostages.

The differences between the two forums are nuanced and are generally more about tone than substance. Members of both forums are acutely familiar with the pain of being a parent or relative of a hostage. Spokespeople and members of both forums take care to express themselves diplomatically and generally refrain from attacking the other side. Several members of the Tikva Forum who spoke with The Times of Israel expressed gratitude to the many volunteers of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum for providing both material and emotional support to the hostages’ families.

On January 10 the two forums organized an event with music, speeches and prayers. The event was emceed by two young women, Emuna Libman from Kiryat Arba, whose brother Elyakim Shlomo Libman is being held captive by Hamas
Hamas

...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
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 Yarden Gonen of Kfar Vradim, whose sister Romi Gonen is being held hostage.

Emuna and Eliyakim’s father, Kiryat Arba council chairman Eliyahu Libman, is one of the founders of Tikva. Gonen is active in the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

NOT AT ANY PRICE
Nevertheless, Tikva front man Eitan Zeliger said that while the two forums were united in their desire to release the hostages, there are important differences.

"We feel that the demand to release hostages ’now,’ that emphasis on ’now,’ is liable — not intentionally, of course — to hurt the hostages," said Zeliger. "It plays into the hands of Hamas, who might be encouraged to raise the price."

Cradling a picture of his son Eitan, 23, who is being held hostage by the Hamas terror group in Gaza, Tzvika Mor explained to a group of high school students why he opposes freeing Paleostinian murderous Moslems jugged
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
in Israel in exchange for his son’s release.

"It’s not just about my personal suffering as Eitan’s father; it’s about the nation as a whole," Mor told the girls in late December at the Tohar religious Zionist high school in Yad Binyamin, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Ashdod.

"I can’t let my personal hurt take priority over collective interests," said Mor, shifting the weight of the shoulder strap supporting his Glock 19 handgun. "Letting murderous Moslems go free endangers Jewish lives. And Eitan wouldn’t want that."

The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’s website is called BringThemHomeNow.net. Some activists use slogans such as "Time’s running out, free the hostages now," or "Keep on freeing them until the very last hostage."

Zeliger noted that the position calling to free the hostages now, no matter the cost, was expressed recently by Yesh Atid MK Mickey Levy during a meeting in the Knesset with hostages’ families. Levy, who was sitting next to Ronen Tzur, the head of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, became emotional at one point during the meeting because of his connection to one of the hostages.

"I say this in my own name, and I say this in the name of my party: any price, any price. I said this from the first day, all the 6,000 [Paleostinian prisoners held by Israel], a complete ceasefire, I don’t care, at any price, any price, bring them home now," said Levy.

Many, though not all, of the families of hostages present applauded in response to Levy’s declaration.

ONLY MILITARY PRESSURE ON HAMAS WILL RELEASE HOSTAGES
"The second difference," said Zeliger, "is that we believe that only military pressure on Hamas will get the hostages released. All the negotiating, all the diplomacy, all of it, is not worth anything without the military pressure. And we think that pressure should be increased, including a curtailing of humanitarian aid

."

The sense that more can be done to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages is shared by families not necessarily aligned with either Tikva or with the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. On January 9, a group of relatives of hostages converged on the Kerem Shalom crossing and attempted unsuccessfully to stop trucks carrying humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. The protest was not organized by Tikva.

Zeliger said that Tikva opposes any demonstrations, rallies or marches that can be construed as pressuring the government into making concessions to Hamas.

"We believe that every attack on the war cabinet not only does not help; it hurts," he said.

But when Zeliger was asked about concrete measures, the differences between Tikva and the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum were less clear. Zeliger said, for instance, that some Tikva Forum families, like families in the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, supported the temporary truce deal brokered at the end of November by 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...
, Egypt and the United States that resulted in Hamas releasing 105 hostages — 81 Israelis, 23 Thais and one Filipino — and Israel releasing 240 Paleostinian prisoners.

Others did not.

Zeliger said the Tikva Forum is not opposed in principle to negotiations conducted by Mossad head David Barnea or other official government representatives in Qatar, Egypt or elsewhere to secure the release of the hostages.

"We just think that none of that will work without heavy military pressure," he said.

On January 10, numerous sources reported that Israel’s war cabinet was again mulling a Qatari proposal for a hostage deal and ceasefire. That offer was said to go beyond a temporary truce and to provide a roadmap for ending the war that includes Hamas’s leaders going into exile and Israel withdrawing troops from the Gaza Strip.

NO REPEAT OF ’THE ERROR OF THE SHALIT DEAL’
Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!...
co-founder Mor said that he and other members of the Tikva Forum were spreading a message of what he calls "collective responsibility," so that Israel "doesn’t repeat the error of the Shalit deal."

Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier taken hostage in 2006, was released in a prisoner swap in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Paleostinian murderous Moslems and prisoners held by Israel. It was the most lopsided prisoner swap in Israel’s history.

At least six Israelis were murdered in the four years following the Shalit swap by murderous Moslems released under the deal. Among those released was Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, believed to be the criminal mastermind behind the October 7 massacre in southern Israel. In comparison to the Shalit deal, the conditions of the hostage swap reached between Israel and Hamas at the end of November were radically better. Israel released approximately three Paleostinian security prisoners for each Israeli hostage.

On October 7, Mor’s son Eitan was taken hostage together with his childhood friend Elyakim Shlomo Libman. The two were working as unarmed security guards at the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Re’im, when they were taken hostage. Libman is named after his paternal uncle Shlomo, who was murdered in August 1998 by murderous Moslems who, after being captured, were later released in the Shalit deal.

Mor said that his son has "a huge heart" and his apartment in central Jerusalem was known for being open to anyone in need.

Noting that "nothing is a coincidence," Mor said that just four months before Eitan was kidnapped by Hamas, the family had discussed the Shalit prisoner swap.

"Eitan said to us, ’If I am taken hostage, do not do a prisoner swap to let me free.’ That’s our household. That’s my educational message to my children," Mor said. "If we agree to a deal, it means people we don’t know, whose faces we can’t see, will be murdered... We don’t know who they are but we know they will be murdered."

’I HAVEN’T GIVEN UP ON MY SON’
The opposing approaches between the two hostage family forums were on display during a December 17 appearance on Kan TV in which Mor was berated by Alon Nimrodi, the father of Tamir Nimrodi, an IDF soldier captured by Hamas.

Mor said, "Pleading with [Hamas] to speak with us is ridiculous and irresponsible. You wouldn’t even buy a secondhand electric scooter that way."

Responded Nimrodi: "Tzvika, if you have given up on your son... I haven’t given up on my son. I am not willing to hear words like that, and in my opinion, you are in a total minority with that position of yours. Those statements of yours are arrogant. I’m sorry to say this to you."

Mor then charged that Nimrodi was "reading word for word from a PR messaging page prepared in Tel Aviv."

Mor later broke down and cried on air.

Since that exchange, Mor and Nimrodi have had a rapprochement.

"He tried reaching me right after our TV appearance, but I was so upset I could not answer my phone," said Mor. "The morning after, we spoke at length. I don’t blame Nimrodi — just before our appearance on TV he had attended the funeral of his son’s best friend. What made things worse was that the producer did not tell us we would be on the show together."

Mor makes it clear that just because he is opposed to negotiating with Hamas doesn’t mean he cares any less about his son.

"Not a day goes by that I don’t cry for Eitan. But that doesn’t mean I wallow in self-pity," he said.

Mor and other relatives of hostages who oppose public protests that can be construed as attempts to pressure the government say they have encountered antagonism from within the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. With the lives of their loved ones hanging in the balance, the emotions of parents, grandparents, spouses, and children of hostages are understandably at a breaking point, and at least in the eyes of Nimrodi and other like-minded relatives of Hamas captives, Mor is promoting a course of action that could endanger the lives of their family members.

"We saw there were a number of families within the Tel Aviv forum that attacked us and bullied us and we were unable to express our ideas in a democratic way," said Mor. "These families are by no means the majority, but they are the most vocal. They set the tone." "We saw there were a number of families within the Tel Aviv forum that attacked us and bullied us and we were unable to express our ideas in a democratic way," said Mor. "These families are by no means the majority, but they are the most vocal. They set the tone."

Mor said that the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum messaging was dictated by a left-wing, anti-government political agenda.
Indeed.
"We can’t agree with the anti-government strategy of Ronen Tzur," said Mor, referring to one of the co-founders, and present head of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

Tzur, a former Labor MK, is a political strategist and public relations campaigner who was instrumental in the campaign to free Shalit. In recent years he led a campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "How to defeat Bibi-ist terror." He was a former adviser to current war cabinet minister MK Benny Gantz.

Other dominant voices in the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum include former Labor MKs Emilie Moatti and Colette Avital, and J Street Israel director Nadav Tamir.

A HOUSE DIVIDED
Soon after the October 7 attack, families of hostages realized they had to cooperate, share information and formulate a campaign. The Mor and Libman families were initially part of this effort. A group of lawyers, media strategists and former diplomats volunteered to help. They formed the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

Cybersecurity firm Checkpoint donated a building on Leonardo Da Vinci Street, adjacent to Hostages Square, which is now the headquarters of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

Donations from businesses and private individuals have enabled the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum to conduct a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to raise awareness of the plight of the hostages both locally and worldwide.

There are finance, legal and medical staff as well as international relations, a graphics team, social workers and psychologists operating out of the headquarters — all volunteers. The organization also provides food to families of hostages.

Due to the location of the Hamas attack, in the southwest Negev, a disproportionately high percentage of hostages are from secular kibbutzim that have traditionally supported Labor, which seems to explain the strong presence of Labor-affiliated people working for the hostages forum. Fittingly, the building now housing the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum was once the headquarters of the Kibbutz Movement.

But not all the families of the hostages fully identify with what they see as the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’s political agenda.

"We can’t condone a strategy of capitulation to Hamas that Ronen Tzur is spearheading, as though we have to give them an offer that Hamas can’t refuse," said Mor.

He claimed that many families were not happy with the way the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum was being run and that only about 15 families were really active in the forum.

One source in Tikva that preferred to remain anonymous claimed Tzur is exploiting the hostage crisis to lead an anti-government line as a continuation of his "Bibi-ist terror" campaign.

Tzur said in a written response on January 10: "I respect Tzvika Mor and I wish for him and for everyone the speedy return of Eitan. I extend my hand to Tzvika, as I did this week in the Knesset and offer to work together for the return of the hostages and to unite the people of Israel after their return, God willing."

Tzur said he was not aware of the bullying Mor referred to and that he personally had never participated in a meeting where there was such bullying.

"The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum includes 110 families, representing more than 90 percent of the families of hostages, and decisions for action are made by vote," Tzur said.

Tzur added that the pain of the families as expressed in public, including in the Knesset meeting with Levy, is authentic, deep and full of real anger and fury.

"To claim that the expression of this pain and sorrow is motivated by politics is patronizing," he said. "In summation, I have a personal request for Tzvika: Don’t tell any volunteer like myself that he is working for Hamas. We are all brothers and we shouldn’t forget that."

Regarding the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’s position on specific steps such as increasing military pressure, releasing Paleostinian murderous Moslems in exchange for hostages, or some form of ceasefire, Tzur said, "The Families Forum acts to release the hostages in every possible way and does not interfere with the war cabinet’s operational considerations for the IDF and the security establishment."

’WE AREN’T THE ONLY ONES IN THIS’
At Tohar High School, Mor ended his hourlong lecture and took questions from the girls.

"Aren’t you worried about ripping the nation apart again?" asked one girl, referring to the demonstrations and public festivities over the Netanyahu government’s proposed overhaul of the judicial system in the months leading up to October 7 that nearly tipped the country into a civil war.

(A few days after this question was asked, the Supreme Court struck down a key element of the government’s proposed judicial overhaul, the latest blow traded in the ongoing struggle.)

"I believe that 95% of the people are with me," said Mor. "So that is not called ripping anything apart."

Mor was temporarily drowned out by the roar of a fighter jet, apparently headed to Gaza.

"On its way to another satisfied customer," quipped Mor before continuing. "I tell those families who want a deal at any price, ’People are sick of seeing you putting yourselves first.’

"I tell them, ’You are losing the support of the people. You aren’t the only ones in this. There are families who don’t sleep at night because their sons are fighting in Gaza. There are evacuees. Try to be with the people.’ They are so stuck in their sorrow that they can’t lift up their heads," he said to the girls.

The Tikva Forum, Mor told The Times of Israel, was established when it became impossible to voice a more pro-government position within the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

Tikva has a distinctly religious Zionist political leaning and several members are residents of West Bank settlements. In addition to Mor, a resident of Kiryat Arba, the Tikva Forum’s two other founders are also settlers: Kiryat Arba council chairman Eliyahu Libman, the father of Elyakim Libman, and Shilo resident Ditza Or, the mother of Avinatan Or.

Shira Libman, CEO of the Yesha Council, who is also the sister-in-law of Eliyahu Libman and the aunt of hostage Elyakim Libman, said that one of the goals of the Tikva Forum, the way she sees it, is to support families that want to publicly present a different voice over the fate of the hostages.

"It’s not easy," said Libman, "to be so selfless, to be willing to speak up so forcefully in favor of pressuring Hamas into freeing the hostages when the natural response of any parent whose child is taken hostage is to focus solely on getting that child free at any price."

Libman said that while additional families may not be in favor of paying any price to release their relatives, they feel isolated and afraid that if they speak up they will be seen as uncaring — or worse, that they could be endangering their relatives in captivity who are at risk of Hamas retaliation.

"What makes it even more difficult is the fact that there was a major failure — that because the state failed on October 7, now the government should pay whatever price to get the hostages back," she said.

"But if we continue to pay the price, there will be no end to this. Hamas will learn to continue this strategy and the next time instead of 250 hostages there will be 2,500 hostages and instead of 1,200 people murdered there will be 12,000, God forbid."

Mor said it’s "incomprehensible" that Hamas is setting the terms for a deal and Israel is not forcing it out of its tunnels by cutting off its water, its food, its fuel.

Mor’s position is based on the premise that even a temporary truce, like the one agreed upon at the end of November to facilitate the release of Israeli hostages, takes pressure off Hamas. The food, fuel and water permitted into Gaza — as humanitarian measures, but often commandeered by Hamas — undoubtedly enable Hamas to continue fighting. He also argues that organizing public pressure against the government to strike a deal with the terror group inflates the price Hamas will demand.

But would Mor feel the same about the previous hostage deal, or a future one, if his own son were on the list of hostages slated for release?

"Any deal that hurts our national dignity; that shows we are weak, that we don’t have the ability to persevere, that we are not willing to sacrifice — and as a result undermines our security and will lead to Jews being murdered in the future — I will oppose," said Mor. "Even if my son is on the list of hostages slated to be released."

Not all members of the Tikva Forum are willing to declare themselves on board with that.

Shilo resident Ditza Or, mother of Avinatan, preferred not to say whether she would be capable of opposing a hostage deal that would see her son released.

"What I can tell you is that I’m in favor of a deal — and I am actively working for such a deal — in which the IDF will completely dismantle Hamas to the point where those senior Hamas members who remain will give up the hostages to save themselves," she said. "They’ll get their lives in exchange for the life of my son."

Or’s son Avinatan appeared in a Hamas video posted on Telegram together with his girlfriend Noa Argamani. The video shows Argamani, who has both Chinese and Israeli citizenship, being forcibly held, sitting between two murderous Moslems on an all-terrain vehicle on its way to Gaza as she reaches out her arms to Avinatan, who is being marched away from her, surrounded by at least three more terrorists. The two had been at the Supernova festival.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas confirms senior commanders killed in earlier Gaza fighting

2023-11-27

[IsraelTimes] IDF had previously said it hit tunnels where Ahmed Ghandour, Ayman Siam were hiding but did not say for certain that they were dead; terror group lists two others also killed

The Hamas
Hamas

...a regional Iranian catspaw,...
terror group confirmed Sunday the deaths of several senior commanders who were targeted by Israel during the fighting 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.

In a statement, the military wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said Ahmed Ghandour, the commander of its northern Gaza brigade; Ayman Siam, the head of Hamas’s rocket firing array; as well as Wael Rajab and Raafat Salman were killed.

The Israel Defense Forces had previously said it had targeted Ghandour and Siam, but did not confirm they had been killed. After Hamas’s announcement, the IDF confirmed it had killed Ghandour, Siam, Rajab, Salman, and Farsan Khalifa, another senior member.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and remove it from power in Gaza after the terror group carried out a devastating cross-border attack on October 7 that killed over 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians. Around 240 people were kidnapped and taken hostage in Gaza as thousands of turbans rampaged for hours through southern areas.

Earlier this month the military said it hit top Hamas commanders in a pair of recent ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s against the terror group’s underground infrastructure in Gaza.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari did not at the time specify whether the senior Hamas officials were killed in the airstrikes. The army has targeted several of the listed individuals multiple times in the past 15 years.

One strike targeted a tunnel where several senior Hamas military commanders were hiding, including Ghandour and Siam, Hagari said.

The other strike targeted a tunnel where senior members of Hamas’s politburo were hiding, including Rawhi Mushtaha, Essam al-Dalis and Sameh al-Siraj, he added.

Hagari said at the time that "Hamas is trying to hide the results of the strike."

Ghandour was the head of the Hamas military wing’s northern Gaza brigade and one of the most senior military officials in the terror group. He was said to be a close confidant of Hamas military chief Muhammed Deif, and oversaw the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

Ghandour is believed to have survived several IDF liquidation attempts, including in 2002 and 2012, and the US State Department designated him as a global terrorist in 2017.

He served time in Israeli prisons from 1988 to 1994 and was tossed in the clink
Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
by the Paleostinian Authority from 1995 to 2000.

Siam has served as the head of Hamas’s rocket firing array. He also once served as the commander of Hamas’s artillery forces.

Israel has previously attempted to assassinate Siam, including in 2009 and 2014.

Rajab was Ghandour’s deputy, also serving as an operations officer in Hamas’s northern Gaza brigade. He once served as head of police in northern Gaza, and the commander of Hamas’s Beit Lahiya battalion.

Salman was the head of Hamas’s combat support array in northern Gaza. He previously served as the deputy to the head of the terror group’s northern Gaza brigade.

The IDF said he was involved in the planning of the October 7 onslaught, specifically the use of paragliders to infiltrate into Israel.

Salman was killed in the same strike as Ghandour and Rajab, according to the IDF.

Khalifa was a senior commander in Hamas’s so-called West Bank headquarters, from which the terror group directs attacks against Israel from the West Bank.

The IDF said Khalifa was close to senior Hamas members, and worked to direct attacks against Israel, most recently by recruiting a terror cell in the Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem.

Israel has largely focused its operations so far on northern Gaza, urging residents to flee south while still targeting terror sites in the lower half of the Strip.

Most of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million people is now sheltering in southern Gaza, where the IDF believes Hamas’s remaining leaders are hiding in tunnels.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Why Israel agreed to the hostage deal, and how Hamas may intend to exploit it

2023-11-23

[IsraelTimes] The cabinet’s 35-3 vote shows ministers believed there was no better arrangement, and were persuaded the war will resume afterward; Yahya Sinwar may have other plans.

At the very start of Israel’s war against Hamas
Hamas

...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
, an Israeli official told news hounds that the IDF would strike Hamas everywhere 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...
, even at the cost of possibly harming some of the 240 hostages being held there. If the IDF had information on a specific location where hostages were believed to be held, it would not target that location. But otherwise, its operations would not be limited by fears of inadvertently harming the hostages.

As the ground operation continued, however, some war cabinet members made clear that the entire approach to the fate of the hostages had gradually changed. This culminated on Saturday night with war cabinet observer Gadi Eisenkot privately telling families of the hostages that the release of their loved ones was the first priority of the war, even ahead of destroying Hamas, and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz stating at a presser that Israel potentially has "decades" in which to destroy Hamas while the imperative to secure the release of the hostages was urgent.

That evolved mindset is at the heart of the agreement approved overnight Tuesday-Wednesday by the full Israeli cabinet: The war is being suspended for four days to enable the release of some 50 Israeli hostages, and the halt in the fighting could potentially be extended by an extra day for each group of 10 more Israeli hostages that Hamas can produce and release.

**

The fact that cabinet ministers voted 35-3 in favor of the deal with the terror group that seized and is holding most of the hostages, and that organized and led the slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7, underlines how potentially advantageous Israel’s political and security leadership believes the deal to be.

Obviously, Israel would have wanted an agreement to secure the return of all hostages. Ministers were told that there was no such deal to be made.

Obviously, too, Israel would have wanted the IDF to have itself located and rescued all, or at least more of the hostages — without necessitating any deal with the terrorists, any release of Paleostinian security prisoners, any halt to the war. But that option, ministers were told, was not available either. Only one hostage has been extricated from Gaza to date — Orit Megidish, three weeks ago, in an extremely high-risk operation — even as the IDF has taken greater control of many of Hamas’s strongholds in the north of the strip. (The case of Nachshon Wachsman. a soldier kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas in 1994, underscores the difficulty of such rescues. In Wachsman’s case, Israel knew precisely where he was being held, in the West Bank just outside Jerusalem, but a rescue attempt proved disastrous, with Wachsman killed by his captors as IDF commandos attempted to break in, and the lead officer in the rescue attempt killed as well.)

This deal, the ministers were told, was the only hostage-release option currently available. For all the pain over those who will remain captive in Gaza — including many who are elderly and many parents — almost all ministers were persuaded that it was a deal with the devil that nonetheless had to be done.

Crucial to the near-unanimous support — with only Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit ministers voting against — was the pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the war will resume once the deal is carried out, and that the war’s declared aims remain unchanged: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capabilities and the return of all the hostages.

Ministers were also told that the progress of the ground offensive thus far was central to Hamas’s agreement to the deal, and that resuming the ground offensive was crucial to the effort to secure the release of the rest of the hostages.

**

Given that even some of the coalition’s most hardline elements — notably including Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party — considered the deal to be well worth taking, the question must plainly be asked: Why did Hamas agree to it, even offer it?

Its strategic goal in mounting the October 7 slaughter was to pursue its raison d’etre — killing Jews and ultimately destroying the State of Israel. But it also took hostages in order to secure the release of its gunnies from Israel’s jails. In a 2011 deal, it leveraged its 2006 kidnapping from within Israel of a single captive, IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, to secure the release of more than 1,000 Paleostinian security prisoners, some 280 of whom were serving life terms. And yet here, now, it has agreed to release 50 Israelis in return for some 150 Paleostinian women and youths, none of whom has been convicted of murder.

This would suggest a Hamas under pressure for a deal. But if so, that is hard to square with reports that Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza Hamas chief who orchestrated the slaughter and is said to have determined the terms of the deal, is euphoric over the "success" of October 7. Presumably, in any case, Sinwar believes he is outsmarting Israel over the deal’s terms and implementation.

Many Israeli commentators expect that Sinwar will seek to use the pause to reorganize his terrorist-army — most of which remains intact even though much of its infrastructure in northern Gaza is destroyed or located in areas under IDF control. They suggest that he may also use the pause to emerge from wherever he is hiding, for a "victory picture" to revitalize his army and demoralize Israel.

Some commentators also assess that he is eager to prevent the imminent extension of Israel’s ground offensive into southern Gaza, and especially Khan Younis, where he, other Hamas leaders, and many of the hostages are believed by some to be located.

Thus, they speculate, Sinwar will try to stretch out the implementation of this deal, including by asking for a longer halt to ostensibly track down further hostages, potentially pitting families of those hostages against the government, while attempting to gradually bolster international pressure on Israel to abort the ground offensive altogether.

Tamir Heyman, a former IDF intelligence chief, said Tuesday he believes international pressure on Israel, most relevantly from the US, will actually ease as a consequence of the halt in fighting — with more humanitarian aid

going into Gaza — and also that the pause can be utilized by the IDF, too, to refresh and reorganize its forces.

The semantics surrounding the accord are important in this context. The deal is being widely reported as providing for a "ceasefire" — and a ceasefire is generally understood to represent a halt in fighting intended to accommodate discussions on ultimately ending the fighting. Israel’s politicians, and the government decision on the deal (Hebrew link), by contrast, refer to a "pause" in the campaign.

Asked about the deal, the pause in fighting it involves, and the potential impact of that pause on restarting the war, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said such agreements were the preserve of the political echelon, and was adamant that the IDF would be able to pursue and achieve the war’s stated objectives.

For his part, Netanyahu reportedly told ministers on Tuesday night that the expansion of the IDF’s ground offensive into Khan Younis was "not a matter of whether but of when."

Link

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