Wednesday, October 11, 2023

10/11 Links Pt1: President Herzog: History Will Judge Those Who Fail to Stand Against Hamas; May God Avenge Their Blood; Fears of large-scale aerial infiltration in northern Israel

From Ian:

President Isaac Herzog: History Will Judge Those Who Fail to Stand Against Hamas
Not since the Holocaust have more Jews been murdered on one day. Not since the Holocaust have we seen such images of innocent Jewish mothers and children, teenagers and old women loaded into trucks and taken away into captivity. Hamas has imported, adopted, and replicated the savagery of ISIS.

Whole families have been wiped out. Mothers and fathers, with babes in arms, murdered in cold blood. Massacred. A young couple, Tamar and Yonatan, murdered in their home along with their 6-year-old twin daughters Shachar and Arbel, and 4-year-old son Omer. A wheelchair-bound Holocaust survivor in her 80s who was taken into captivity by Hamas terrorists. Israel will act firmly and with full force to defend its people and eliminate this threat. This is our solemn duty. However, the international community also has a duty to fulfill here.

For too long, when Israel has faced incursions or rockets from Gaza, elements of the international community have sought to justify Hamas' actions, swallowing their lies. Over the next days and weeks, Israel will be doing all it can to secure its borders, to remove the threat posed by Hamas, and to return its captive civilians and soldiers. It will demand the support of the international community.

History will judge Hamas for its crimes against humanity, along with all those who fail to stand against them.
Israel Agrees to Unity Government To Wage War on Hamas
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense chief and centrist opposition party leader Benny Gantz have agreed to form an emergency government, a joint statement from Gantz's National Unity party said on Wednesday.

Terrorists from Islamist group Hamas invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday in a surprise assault that killed at least 1,200 people, the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israeli history.

Israel has responded with a massive bombardment of Gaza that has killed 1,055, and deployed thousands of troops around the enclave amid growing expectations it will launch a ground invasion to destroy Hamas.

The sides agreed to form a war cabinet comprising Netanyahu, Gantz, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the statement said, and during the fighting with Hamas in Gaza will not promote any unrelated policy or laws.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid was not expected to join the emergency government at this stage.
John Podhoretz: President Biden’s Magnificent Statement
Give credit where credit is due: This afternoon, Joe Biden gave what might be the most powerful statement in support of Israel ever delivered by any president. There were no qualifications. There was no evocation of root causes. No effort was made to hold out an olive branch or to suggest to Hamas, or to its fellow Iranian vassal Hezbollah, or their paymaster in Tehran that their future cooperation might lead to better days. The president said Hamas exists to destroy Israel and to kill Jews, and pledged this country’s full support in Israel’s effort against its enemy. He did not shy away from mentioning the atrocities that have made all people whose moral sense has not withered into a bilious pool (i.e., Rep. Rashida Tlaib, hanging a Hamas flag in your office in tribute to monsters who beheaded babies, may history spit your name from its lips as a curse) rear in horror and revulsion. He did not even begin with the customary “good afternoon.” He simply said, “There are moments in this life when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on the world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.” And the words that followed never wavered.

Thank you, Mr. President.
Biden: Israel "Has a Duty to Respond" to Hamas Massacre
President Joe Biden said Tuesday: "There are moments in this life - and I mean this literally - when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas - a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews. This was an act of sheer evil. More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered - not just killed, slaughtered - in Israel. Among them, at least 14 American citizens killed."

"Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies. Families hid in fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention. And thousands of wounded, alive but carrying with them the bullet holes and the shrapnel wounds and the memory of what they endured. You all know these traumas never go away."

"The brutality of Hamas - this bloodthirstiness - brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS....So, in this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel....Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond - indeed has a duty to respond - to these vicious attacks.... Our hearts may be broken, but our resolve is clear....Let there be no doubt: The United States has Israel's back."
Tablet Mag: Israel at War
The Big Story
Inside Israel, everyone is waiting for the full ground war to start and the other shoe to drop. With 300,000 reservists called up in a mass mobilization after Saturday’s attack by Hamas, entire cities are now empty of military-age men. Israel’s forces are massed on the border with Gaza, poised to begin a ground invasion that will certainly make this war deadlier and more brutal than previous rounds of fighting in Gaza. While the desire to destroy the enemy that carried out the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is palpable inside Israel, there is also tremendous uncertainty about what kind of war this will be—whether a second front will open up on Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah, what victory would look like, and how the country can possibly heal.

Today’s Scroll is devoted exclusively to covering the war and its impacts on Israelis, Palestinians, the broader Middle East, and Jews across the world.


Fears of large-scale aerial infiltration in northern Israel
Air raid sirens blared across northern Israel on Wednesday night amid claims of drones and paragliders crossing the border from Lebanon.

Alerts were set off in cities including ​​Haifa, Tiberias, Beit She’an, Kiryat Shmona, Metula, Nahariya and Safed.

“Further to the reports of intrusion from the Lebanese border into Israel’s airspace, as of now fear of intrusion has been ruled out,” the Israel Defense Forces said over 90 minutes after the alerts first went off.

According to Israel’s Channel 12 News, 15 to 20 drones had crossed into the Jewish state from Lebanon. Reports were also received of terrorists on paragliders landing in northern Israel.

“No hits have been detected in Israeli territory and no casualties have been reported,” the IDF noted.

“IDF forces are scanning the area from the ground and from the air, added the statement.

The IDF Home Front Command had instructed residents to the north of Haifa to lock themselves in their homes and dim lights.


IDF says no drone infiltrated after entire north placed under alert



Jerusalem: Gaza op will leave Hamas with ’zero’ military capabilities
The ongoing Israel Defense Forces offensive will leave Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization with “zero military capabilities and zero motivation to carry out attacks” for decades, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told journalists on Wednesday.

“We regard Gaza as a huge terror base, the new caliphate as you will. This is ISIS on steroids because it has a state behind it: Iran,” the spokeswoman said as she announced Israeli officials are examining “new indications” of direct Iranian involvement in Hamas’s Oct. 7 shock attack.

“We are a country at war, but not only we are at war: This is a war of the entire civilized world against savagery,” the official said.

On Saturday morning, Hamas terrorists infiltrated several Israeli communities, killing at least 1,200 people and taking at least 100 hostages back to Gaza. Some 3,000 people were wounded in shooting and rocket attacks over the weekend, and the toll continues to climb.

As part of “Operation Swords of Iron,” the IDF is conducting wide-scale strikes on several strategic centers belonging to Hamas.

Overnight Tuesday, the Israel Air Force hit more than 200 targets in Gaza City’s Al Furqan neighborhood, which it called “a terror nest for Hamas” from which “many activities against Israel are carried out.”

The IDF “will continue to act powerfully against the infrastructures of the terrorist organization Hamas, which aim terror against Israel, and continues extensive waves of attacks in the Gaza Strip,” it added.

The more than 2,450 Hamas targets that have been hit across the Strip in five days of war included weapons storage facilities, command and control centers and naval assets, according to the military.

According to IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the military has defined killing senior Hamas terrorists as the its “top priority.”

Palestinian sources reported on Wednesday that Abdel-Fattah Diab Deif, the brother of Hamas military commander Muhammad Deif, was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza Strip.


Gil Troy: Palestinian culture is morally bankrupt
During the worst days of the Palestinian campaign of suicide bombing from 2001 to 2003, Hamas leaders often scoffed about the Jews’ weakness in mourning every innocent killed. In fact, dictators who willingly sacrifice their own people as pawns are called “strongmen,” while liberal democrats who argue about everything and mourn every casualty often look weak.

Here, too, they miscalculate.

Our communal solidarity and ability to lament individual loved ones murdered are among our great Jewish strengths and our secret democratic weapons. Because we mourn the dead reverently, we live life vigorously – creating a remarkably successful and resilient society. Meir also understood that when she said: “Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.”

So, yes, all of Israel, all of the Jewish people, in fact much of the liberal-democratic world, is crying wholeheartedly for each death, one by one – and crying out that Hamas better not harm those hostages and must free them immediately. But, like the tears of the first pioneers fleeing the pogroms, the tears of the Holocaust survivors fleeing Europe, and the tears of the Jews from Arab and Muslim lands also fleeing anti-Zionist Jew-hatred, our tears today catalyze; they don’t paralyze.

As we mourn deeply, we vow to live life more fully, to defeat the haters existentially, while fighting them more intensely – to crush them physically, too, restoring the deterrence so essential to keeping us safe while cursed by such evil neighbors.

The writer, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian and, most recently, the editor of the three-volume set Theodor Herzl: Zionist Writings, the inaugural publication of The Library of the Jewish People.
Biden Admin's Mixed Messages on Israel Embolden Hamas, GOP Says
The Biden administration’s demands for Israel to stand down as it mounts a defensive campaign against Hamas terrorists is undermining U.S. support for the Jewish state as it faces the most significant threat to its existence in 50 years, according to a group of Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee.

The lawmakers blasted the Biden administration for social media blunders that saw Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other elements of the State Department instruct Israel to de-escalate tensions on the heels of a surprise attack from the Iranian-backed terror group Hamas that has left more than a thousand dead and many more captive in militant territory.

Blinken on Monday pushed "for a cease-fire" in a post on X, formerly Twitter, but that message was quickly deleted amid accusations the administration was undermining Israel’s right to self-defense, a policy set forth by President Joe Biden. A similar incident occurred on Saturday, just after Hamas launched its surprise attack, when the State Department’s Office for Palestinian Affairs called on Israel to stand down. That tweet was also deleted, with the State Department telling the Washington Free Beacon the missive "was not approved and does not represent U.S. policy."

The Biden administration's mixed messages undermine global support for Israel at a critical time and come amid several U.S. foreign policy decisions that Republicans and analysts say enabled Hamas’s weekend attacks, most notably last month’s $6 billion ransom payment to the terror group’s masters in Iran. The administration’s rush to delete the errant posts indicate an "effort to conceal their statements," according to Rep. Mark Green (R., Tenn.), the House Homeland Security’s chair, and all 17 Republican members of the body.

"These initial reactions from your administration are very concerning," the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to the White House and obtained by the Free Beacon. "Your administration’s foreign policy has resulted in a number of national security failures and demonstrated utter weakness on the world stage. We must affirm that Israel has every right to respond to these barbaric acts of terror."
Biden Warned Netanyahu Not to Hit Hamas Too Hard
Behind the slick language (that of the speechwriter, not Biden) is a familiar narrative. Israel has to take out Hamas, which operates in urban areas and hides behind its own civilians, somehow without killing enemy civilians.

Hamas has told Gaza residents not to evacuate and leave the areas where Israel has warned that it will strike because it wants them to die.

“Ahead of airstrikes against targets belonging to the terror groups, and out of a desire to minimize civilian casualties, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has been sending warning messages to the residents of the Gaza Strip urging them to evacuate areas that are about to be targeted in strikes. In response to these messages, media outlets operated by Hamas and PIJ have been instructing residents of the Gaza Strip not to heed these warnings and not to share them or forward them to others.

On October 10, 2023, the spokesperson department of Hamas’s interior ministry wrote on the ministry’s Telegram channel: “An important note: We repeat our call on the residents to ignore the voice messages being sent randomly by the occupation to their phones demanding that they leave their homes. Their goal is to arouse panic and fear as part of a psychological warfare [campaign] accompanying the occupation’s aggression against us.”

These are the same rules that Israel has been playing by in earlier conflicts and they don’t work.

The Biden administration is also warning Israel not to be “disproportionate”.

“We remain focused on holding the terrorists accountable for their attacks, and we support Israel taking necessary and proportionate action to defend its country and protect its people, and in doing so U.S. citizens living, working and traveling in Israel,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in an emailed statement.

“Proportionate” action.

What’s a proportionate response to having entire communities wiped out, women kidnapped and raped, children abducted, babies killed by a genocidal Islamic terrorist group?

I don’t think Watson wants to consider that proposition too closely.

But the Biden administration is, despite some aggressive rhetoric, following the old familiar playbook. Hopefully, Israel will deviate from it or the end result will be the same as it was during previous campaigns against Hamas.

UPDATE: Much stronger warnings in private

US President Joe Biden reportedly urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during their Tuesday phone call to minimize civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as Israel continues its massive aerial campaign and readies for a potential ground incursion in response to Hamas’s terror onslaught.

While Biden offered full-throated support for Israel in a public address Tuesday that was overwhelmingly welcomed by Jerusalem, he apparently struck a relatively more balanced tone in his call with Netanyahu.

Biden was more direct than in prior calls that the IDF should work to avoid civilian casualties, NBC reports, citing two US officials

How do you defeat a terrorist organization that operates behind civilians without civilian casualties? You don’t.
Blinken To Visit Israel in Show of US ‘Solidarity and Support’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel on Wednesday to meet with senior Israeli leaders, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday, in a solidarity visit following an unprecedented Hamas attack that killed more than 1,000 Israelis over the weekend.

"It will be a message of solidarity and support," Miller said in a briefing. "He, of course, wants to hear from the leaders of Israel, hear from them directly about the situation they're facing ... about what they need and how we can best support them."

Miller said Blinken would be arriving in Israel on Thursday.

The State Department said Blinken will then head to Jordan to meet with senior officials there.


Why Wasn’t Israel Prepared for Hamas’s Assault?
In addition to the sheer horror, the frantic search for loved ones, and the concern for friends and family members about to don their uniforms and put themselves in harm’s way to defend their country—many Israelis’ initial reaction to the invasion on Saturday involved the question: how did this happen? A tightly controlled border kept Hamas’s forces inside the Gaza Strip, the Iron Dome reduced the danger of rocket attacks, and the terrorist group seemed deterred by the outcome of the many short wars it had fought with Israel over the past fifteen years. How did the IDF, with its vaunted intelligence abilities, its high-tech monitoring systems, and its expertise get caught so terribly off guard?

In the days, weeks, and years to come, there will be no shortage of finger-pointing and recriminations, as well as some serious debate and analysis. Eran Lerman outlines what is already known about how Hamas achieved its tactical success, and offers some preliminary conclusions:

The military wing of Hamas meticulously planned and coordinated an operation which included an unprecedented use of sophisticated homemade solutions. This in turn raises further questions as to the failure to learn of such plans, or detect the work done on technical devices. Specifically, the key to the border-fence breach was the use of small bombs dropped from drones, which were used to disable tanks as well as destroy the monitoring cameras guarding the fence. The Hamas operators managed to maintain strict secrecy as these preparations were underway—which incidentally, gives the lie to the claim that the attack was a spontaneous response to Israeli actions in Jerusalem in the prior week.

The intelligence failure begins at the strategic level of misapprehending Hamas intentions. Over the preceding two weeks, the Hamas “de-facto government” in Gaza, led by Yahia Sinwar, seemed to be angling for more Qatari money (brought in suitcases full of cash, since the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah controls the banks and refuses to help what they see as a rebellious province) and for more workers to be allowed into Israel, which the Netanyahu government was willing to concede. Israeli analysts concluded that Hamas is steadily becoming more concerned with running a government rather than a terrorist attack against Israeli civilian targets.

To this was added what some observers, particularly Major-General (res.) Yitzḥak Brik, a former tank officer and later IDF ombudsman, have been warning about for the last fifteen years. The IDF, once upon a time a well-trained and relatively large military based on its reserve armored formations, has become much smaller, less disciplined, less well trained (since the reserves are rarely called up), poorly prepared for ground warfare and maneuver, and much too reliant on airstrikes, precision munitions, and highly specific intelligence. As a result, there was little that could compensate for the lack of intelligence on October 7.
Years of subterfuge, high-tech barrier paralyzed: How Hamas busted Israel’s defenses
Israel long thought the high-tech security barrier dividing it from the Gaza Strip — bristling with razor wire, cameras and sensors, and fortified with a concrete base against tunnels and remote-controlled machine guns — was impenetrable.

But in the aftermath of the devastating surprise Hamas onslaught that killed over 1,200 people — the vast majority of them civilians — Israeli military officials speaking anonymously to media outlets have revealed some of the severe intelligence and operational deficiencies that enabled the surprisingly easy mass breach of the fence.

Meanwhile, IDF soldiers who were on guard duty have been recounting the shocking moments when the terrorists launched their complex operation to breach Israel’s “Iron Wall” around the enclave in multiple locations.

As Israel continued to reel from the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, questions remained as to how the attackers were able to breach the tightly defended boundary and then rampage murderously through surrounding areas for hours until security forces could respond with enough might to end the assault. Military officials have said these questions will eventually be dealt with, but that the IDF is currently dedicating its resources to the ongoing war.

The massive attack at dawn Saturday came under cover of a barrage of missiles aimed at Israeli civilian areas, and involved sniper fire, explosives dropped from drones on lookout and communication towers, and bulldozers that ripped through the six-meter (20-foot)-tall double fence barrier at an estimated 30 places along the border.

More than 1,500 terrorists quickly swarmed through in pickup trucks and on motorcycles, joined by others using gliders and speedboats at sea, to unleash gun attacks on nearby communities. Entire families were butchered as they tried to hide in their homes, with mutilated bodies later discovered in some locations. At an outdoor music festival, 260 people were systematically killed with gunfire and grenades.

The terrorists also abducted some 150 men, women and children, who were dragged back to Gaza as captives.

According to details reported Tuesday by The New York Times, citing initial assessments by four senior Israeli security officials, the operational failure began when an urgent alert early Saturday morning by intelligence officials about a sudden surge in Hamas communication networks wasn’t acted upon by border guards, who presumably didn’t get it or didn’t read it.
Hamas Executed Kibbutz Children
In one kibbutz home, the commander of an infantry brigade found the body of a 1-year-old girl, shot in the head.

The safe room was locked. After many efforts, soldiers opened the door. Inside, they found to their horror eight bodies of children, tied up and shot.

There are some kibbutzim where a large proportion of members were murdered.

At the outdoor festival near Kibbutz Re'im, the terrorists piled up the bodies of the young victims using a tractor, with a later attempt to set them on fire.

At one army base, dozens of defenseless female soldiers from a unit charged with camera surveillance were murdered.

What happened in the Gaza border communities was not an expression of a struggle for national liberation, but a terror attack by a Islamic fundamentalist organization, highlighting that it has no intention of holding negotiations with Israel in the future.

This will require new thinking among those who hoped that the murderous intentions of Hamas could be curbed.

Some consolation can be found in the huge motivation shown by reserve forces, as well as by Israeli civil society. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers showed up immediately.


US envoy tours Gaza border, slams Hamas’s ‘unbelievable evil’
The head of mission at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem toured the Israeli border area near the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, seeing first-hand the devastation wrought by Hamas‘s terror invasion over the weekend.

“We’ve come down here along the Gaza periphery to bear witness to the atrocities that were committed here on Saturday, and it’s really unbelievable,” Chargé d’Affaires Stephanie Hallet said as she choked up while filming a video message from Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

“As a mother and just as a human being, to see and to know what happened here is really important. We’ve been here, we’ve seen it, and it is evil, and we stand with Israel, all of us, we stand with Israel,” she said.


Inside Israeli hospital after ‘unprecedented’ Hamas terror attacks that saw 700 people treated in first 18 hours
Located some 25 miles from the Gaza Strip, Soroka Medical Center is where the wounded were sent after the Hamas terrorist attacks on Southern Israel this past weekend.

“The extent of the injuries to civilians, children, the elderly was unprecedented,” Dr. Shlomi Codish, CEO of Soroka, told The Post. “In the first 18 hours, we saw 700 people and treated them under fire — literally. Bombs were falling around us and air raid sirens were going off.”

Working 36-hour shifts, the staff has seen the unimaginable.

“What human being shoots young women in their beds, in their sleep?” asked Codish. “We had a patient come in, wearing her pajamas after being shot in bed. What are they protecting against?

“A pregnant woman came in after being shot in her abdomen,” recalled Codish. “She survived but the baby did not — killed in a terror attack before being born.”

Incoming was so intense that medical treatments were administered wherever possible.

“We performed surgery in the emergency department because patients did not have time to make it to the operating theater,” he said. “Out of 700, 18 died.”


Nearly 8,000 Israelis request firearm licenses amid Hamas war
The National Security Ministry said Wednesday that it has received over 7,946 new requests to carry arms since fighting with Hamas began in Israel's South this Saturday.

Over 545 permits for personal handguns have been processed, with 970 new licenses being issued overall. To address the high demand, the ministry is allocating 60 additional staff members to assist the department. Notably, more than 27,000 permits have been granted from the start of the year.

"Every city resident will be able to get an armament license," National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said this morning at the Sderot police station. "We are facing operation Guardian of the Walls 2, so we will be ensuring that we are prepared, with guns on every street corner," he added.

Correspondingly, the National Security Ministry has overseen the purchase of 10,000 firearms, out of which 4,000 assault rifles have been bought in a deal that costs around NIS 23 million. These guns will purportedly be distributed Wednesday, alongside other protective gear, to emergency response units in 400 locations across Israel.


Israeli woman, 25, is hailed a hero for saving entire kibbutz from Hamas after rallying residents to fight back and kill 25 terrorists - 'this will go down in lore for generations'
An Israeli woman has been hailed a hero after saving the community of Nir Am from Hamas as infiltrating terrorists began to invade.

Inbar Lieberman led a group of residents to kill more than two dozen advancing terrorists while defending the kibbutz (community), just a mile from the Gaza Strip.

Lieberman, who has been part of the security detail in the region since December 2022, heard explosions erupting early Saturday when Hamas launched the unprecedented and deadly attack on Israel.

She quickly realized that the sounds were different to those she heard during the usual rocket attacks on the kibbutz and rushed to open the armory and distribute guns among the 12-member security team.

The 25-year-old placed her squad of kibbutzniks in strategic positions across the settlement, set up ambushes, and turned the tables on the incoming forces.

She killed five terrorists herself, while the others claimed the lives of 20 more over a four hour period. Nir Am was turned into an impenetrable fortress, while nearby kibbutzim's suffered heavier losses.

'It was amazing, my husband was part of the standby unit that worked to prevent more casualties,' Ilit Paz told Israel Hayom.

'They heard the shots and made contact on their own with other members of the standby unit and with Inbal — and they understood that they were told to be on standby.

'But Inbal made a decision not to wait and be jumped operationally. In fact, the fact that they did it early prevented dozens of casualties.'


Grieving Thai family pleads for return of son's body from Israel
The last time Thai mother Noopar Pansa-ard said she heard from her son, gunfire and explosions crackled in the background as he told her to stay strong if anything happened to him.

"I told him - don't talk like that ... My heart will shatter if you don't return," Noopar said.

A day later, her son Somkuan Pansa-ard, 39, was killed during an attack by Hamas terrorists on Israel, where he had gone to work in a fruit plantation to send money back to help his family repay a loan.

Co-workers told his family on Sunday he had been shot by Hamas terrorists. It was not clear where in Israel Somkuan had been killed.

"Losing my son ... is the biggest loss in my life," said his father Khraboan Pansa-ard, hunched over on a chair as Noopar sat nearby, clutching a portrait of their son and wiping away tears.

A family and community grieves
"I didn't want my son to go because this country is at war. I feared he would lose his life," said Khraboan. "But he wouldn't listen. He had to take care of the family to make them happy. He said that it paid well."

Somkuan was one of the 30,000 Thais, mostly from the rural northeast, working in Israel's agriculture sector, according to Thai government data.


Israeli mom whose kids were abducted by Hamas goes off on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell: 'I can't be sympathetic'
An Israeli mother whose 12- and 16-year-old sons were abducted by Hamas terrorists was visibly irritated when MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked about Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, exclaiming: “I can’t be sympathetic.”

Mitchell, whose left-leaning network has drawn criticism for refusing to refer to Hamas attackers as terrorists, pressed the unidentified mom on her feelings about Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

“I can’t be sympathetic to animal human beings — well, they’re not really human beings — who came into my house, broke everything, stole everything, took my children from their bedrooms and took them to the Gaza Strip,” she said.

“Israel never done that, and it will never do. So there is no symmetry! I’m sorry.”

“I can’t be sympathetic to animal human beings — well, they’re not really human beings — who came into my house, broke everything, stole everything, took my children from their bedrooms and took them to the Gaza Strip,” she said. MSNBC

The mom added: “If you were dealing with a war who is between two countries, countries don’t take children hostages. I’m sorry. It’s against the laws of war. It’s against humanity. It’s against anything that we all believe in.”

“Every time we had missiles shot at us, I used to say to my children that they should be sympathetic towards the children of Gaza because they suffer a lot more than they do.”




The Caroline Glick Show : Order of the Day Retake Gaza The Caroline Glick Show IN FOCUS
The IDF launches "Swords of Iron", pro-Hamas rallies happen across the world, and the Biden response is strong and weak all at the same time.

Caroline updates on the status of the war on Day 4 before moving to the implications of the pro-Hamas demonstrations throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. As she explains, Hamas’s jihadist massacre in Israel and the empowered fellow jihadists abroad feel invincible.

This war is a wake-up call not only to Israel, but to the West that we must defeat the jihad, or lose everything.




The Israel Guys: Half a Million IDF Troops Called Up as Israel Enters Fourth Day of the War
Israel is now entering their fourth day of war with Hamas in Gaza. The IDF is now at nearly a half a million troops who have been called up to active duty, and they are concentrating their efforts securing Israel’s southern front, pushing back Hamas in Gaza, and preparing for a potential escalation in Lebanon.

Just overnight, the IDF struck some 200 plus targets in Gaza. The death count in Israel has now passed 900, which makes this the most Jews who have been killed in one day since the Holocaust. For reference, that is equivalent to 31,000 Americans dying in a terrorist attack in one day - 10 times the number who died in the 9/11 attack.






Tom Gross tells Turkish TV: There are no “hostages on both sides” as your reports claims



Hizbullah Exec. Council: Imagine What Will Become Of Israel When Images From Hamas Invasion Repeat

Senior Hamas Official Ali Baraka: We Have Been Secretly Planning The Invasion For Two Years

Fatah Revolutionary Council: We Will See Similar Scenes In The West Bank, Like The Gaza Envelope



Ben Shapiro: May God Avenge Their Blood
As more video emerges from the Hamas pogrom, Israel responds; a second front threatens in Lebanon; and the international community remains paralyzed by moral relativism.

Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF): https://www.fidf.org/
Israel Rescue: http://IsraelRescue.org
American Friends of Magen David Adom: http://Afmda.org
International Fellowship of Christians & Jews: http://IFCJ.org
The Ari Fuld Project: http://AriFuld.org




Rush Limbaugh (2007): Unleash Israel and win peace

Sky News Australia: Rishi Sunak’s support for Israel is a demonstration of ‘real leadership’: Credlin
Sky News host Peta Credlin says UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s quick decision to show support for Israel is a demonstration of what “real leadership” looks like.

“The UK Prime Minister outright rejected any attempt at moral equivalence that some in the media are trying to get up that we have seen from weak politicians here on the left,” Ms Credlin said.

“Greens MPs like Senator Mehreen Faruqi, who said it was a ‘disgrace’ for the Australian parliament to show solidarity with Israel.

“Or frontbenchers like Tony Burke who have still failed to condemn the violent hate from an Islamic preacher at an event in his own electorate on Sunday night.”

A Muslim Sheik preached to a crowd outside Lakemba station supporting the escalation of violence by Hamas against Israeli people, which is within the Employment Minister’s electorate.




Sky News Australia: 'Nothing to do with colonialism': Dr Gad Saad on Israel-Hamas conflict
Jewish evolutionary behavioural scientist Dr Gad Saad has discussed the recent Hamas attack on Israel with Sky News Australia host Piers Morgan.

More than 1,000 Israelis are dead, alongside more than 900 in Palestine, since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel over the weekend.

“This has nothing to do with colonialism and fighting for this piece of land or that piece of land,” Dr Gaad told Sky News Australia host Piers Morgan.

“It’s an existential battle where one group of folks don’t believe that the other group has a right to exist there with self-determination.

“Once we get rid of that mindset there could be peace.”






Biden Tapped This Group to Fight Anti-Semitism. It’s Defending Hamas’s Attack on Israel.
The Biden administration earlier this year tapped the Council on American-Islamic Relations for an initiative to curb anti-Semitism. This week, the anti-Semitic group and its leaders defended Hamas attacks that have killed more than 1,000 Jews.

The White House announced in May that the Council on American-Islamic Relations would take part in its "National Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism." As part of the initiative, CAIR launched a nationwide tour "to educate religious minority communities" on how to "protect their houses of worship from hate incidents." At the time, critics slammed the White House for partnering with CAIR, which has a history of anti-Semitism and was linked to Hamas in a federal terrorism case in 2007.

Now, CAIR is condoning the largest attack in Israel’s history, raising further questions about the administration’s affiliation with the controversial group. Hamas fighters invaded the Jewish state in a surprise attack over the weekend, killing hundreds of civilians and taking dozens of women and children hostage. The terrorist group said it will televise executions of hostages if certain demands are not met.

CAIR cast blame for the attack squarely on Israel. On Monday, the group urged lawmakers to "address the root causes of Mideast violence," which it attributed to the "Israeli government’s apartheid policies."

Nihad Awad, the executive director of CAIR, referred to Israel as a "settler colonial Apartheid state" in the wake of the attacks, and decried the placement of the Israeli flag on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Awad wrote on social media that "Israel=Russia," and called on President Joe Biden to condemn Israel, but not the Hamas attackers. "You must condemn the occupier not the occupied," Awad wrote.
White House strongly condemns 'repugnant' comments made by Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar: 'There are not two sides'
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called statements made by some Democratic members of Congress 'repugnant' as she told reporters Tuesday 'there are not two sides' when it comes to the terror attacks in Israel.

Jean-Pierre was asked about comments made by Democratic lawmakers who 'seem to be equating the Hamas terror attack with actions that were previously taken by Israel.'

A trio of members of the left-wing 'Squad' - Reps. Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush - are under fire for their reactions to the heinous attacks, which have killed at least 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians.

Omar called Israel's efforts to fight back against the Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas a 'war crime,' while Tlaib and Bush both called on the U.S. to stop sending funds to Israel.

'Look, I've seen some of those statements this weekend and we are going to continue to be very clear, we believe they are wrong,' Jean-Pierre said. 'We believe they are repugnant and we believe they are disgraceful.'
California Dems Under Fire for Ties to the Squad’s Anti-Semitic Socialist Party
Left-wing California candidates and elected officials have been attacked for their ties to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which has continued to support the Palestinian cause after Hamas’s deadly terror attacks killed over 1,000 Israelis.

In response to the attacks on Saturday, the national DSA stated that Hamas’s killing of civilians was "not unprovoked" and expressed its "solidarity with Palestine."

The San Francisco DSA called on its supporters to "join the fight" to "decolonize Palestine—from the river to the sea," a phrase that implies the eradication of the Jewish state.

San Francisco supervisor Dean Preston echoed these sentiments, criticizing Israel’s "unconscionable" invasion of Gaza and expressing his support for Palestines’s "struggle for freedom."

In response, Tyler Gregory, CEO of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, stated that Preston should be "automatically disqualified from office."

Other California politicians have also come under fire in recent days for their ties to the DSA, according to Politico. These include Sacramento mayoral candidate Flojaune Cofer and L.A. city councilwoman Nithya Raman. Raman disavowed the national DSA’s statement Monday, but her opponent Ethan Weaver criticized her prior "silence" and called for her to "reject the DSA endorsement."

The DSA also counts six House Democrats in their ranks, including "Squad" members Reps. Cori Bush (Mo.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), who has minimized the terror attacks and blamed them on Israeli "apartheid."


Rashida Tlaib Fundraiser With Ties to Hamas Accuses Israel Of 'Genocide'
A Hamas financier who has organized campaign fundraising events for Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) accused Israel of bringing brutal terrorist attacks upon its civilians with its "genocidal war against the people of Gaza."

Salah Sarsour on Tuesday shared a flier for a "Gathering In Support of the People of Gaza" sponsored by the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, for which he serves as president. The flier, posted on Sarsour’s Facebook page, accused the Israeli government of "intentionally bombing" buildings filled with "innocent people." It makes no mention of the fact that the Israeli military is attacking Hamas targets in Gaza in response to the terrorist group’s surprise invasion of the Jewish state, which has resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 Israelis and 14 Americans.

Such a glaring omission is unsurprising from Sarsour, who played a direct role in raising funds for a Hamas front group in the late 1990s, according to an FBI memorandum. Sarsour now serves on the national board of American Muslims for Palestine, which issued a statement Saturday claiming "Israeli violence" was the root cause of the Hamas invasion.

"The onus rests with the Israel apartheid regime to end the brutal siege on Gaza, or else the Palestinians will find themselves compelled to end it themselves as we’ve seen in the past 48 hours," Sarsour’s group said.

It’s a position Sarsour shares with Tlaib, for whom he co-hosted a fundraising event in July 2018. Tlaib blamed Israel for Hamas’s attack on the country, saying in a statement Saturday that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip has created "conditions that can lead to resistance." Sarsour personally donated $1,000 to Tlaib’s campaign in 2018.


Sky News Australia: Anti-Semitic protests in the UK described as 'appalling scenes'
The Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson says there are anti-Semitic protests taking place not just in the UK but all over Europe.

“And in a city like London that's so multicultural, you would find supporters of almost any cause," Mr Fraser told Sky News host Peta Credlin.

“But outside the Israeli Embassy, there was absolutely appalling scenes.

“And the sort of chants that you hear – the number of people who are actually supporting Hamas in this country is taking a lot of you by surprise."

Mr Nelson said in British politics there isn't any "political controversy" about denouncing Hamas' actions.


Sky News Australia: ‘Horrific’: Israeli forces discover bodies of 40 babies murdered by Hamas
Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson says the most “horrific news imaginable” has emerged from the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terrorists.

According to Ms Markson, the Israeli Defence Force has discovered the bodies of 40 babies and young children.

“They'd been killed – some even beheaded,” she said.

“The shocking sight of beheaded young children with their heads cut off meant that the soldiers who found them and recovered their bodies were seen crying and comforting each other.

“There truly are no words to capture the evil, the cruelty that would lead these barbarians to take the lives of innocent tiny, beautiful babies.

“It is so evil that it's beyond comprehension, beyond belief.”


Cops swoop on tradie who 'threatened to kill Jewish boys over an Israeli flag on their car' in one of Australia's wealthiest suburbs
A construction worker has been arrested after appearing to threaten to kill four Jewish teenagers if they did not remove an Israeli flag from their car.

Footage of the confronting incident shows the man - who is wearing an orange high-vis vest and a black cap - marching up to three teenage boys who were about to tie an Israeli flag to their car in Bellevue Hill, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.

He points a finger at them and repeatedly tells them to 'put it back in your car'.

'I swear if I f***ing see youse with that flag I’ll f**king kill youse all. I'm telling youse right now - all of youse,' he says.

On Wednesday afternoon a spokesperson for NSW Police said: 'Following inquiries, a 23-year-old man attended Liverpool Police Station, where he was arrested and is currently assisting police with their inquiries.'

The incident happened on Monday, the same day pro-Palestinian protests in Sydney's CBD turned ugly, with thugs chanting 'gas the Jews' and 'death to the Jews' in the shadow of the Opera House.

Around 1,000 protesters flocked to Sydney's Town Hall on Monday evening for a Free Palestine rally in the wake of reignited violence between Palestine and Israel.

The rally kicked off with various chants including 'Resistance is justified when Palestine is occupied', 'Israel, Israel you can’t hide you’re committing genocide' and 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.'


Protester pulls Israel flag down from Sheffield town hall hoists Palestinian symbol in its place in front of cheering crowd
Protesters scaled Sheffield Town Hall and ripped down the Israeli flag, replacing it with the Palestinian flag to applause from crowds below, dramatic video shows.

Two men climbed the council building during the stunt before getting down and fleeing the scene, police have said.

Shocking footage of the incident shows a hooded man shuffling along the ridge of the roof, around 60 metres off the ground.

After reaching the mast he pulls down the flag, video shows, before successfully raising the Palestinian flag in its place.

Gathered crowds celebrated as the blue and white banner was thrown to the floor, with Palestine supporters cheering the man who then climbed down and absconded.
Pro-Palestine protest planned for Sydney will be banned after vile scenes on the steps of the Opera House where activists chanted 'gas the Jews'
NSW Premier Chris Minns has called off an upcoming Free Palestine rally in Sydney after hundreds of protesters caused chaos outside the Opera House.

Minns said organisers had already shown they were not peaceful based on the wild scenes on Monday, during which protesters chanted 'gas the Jews' and 'f*** the Jews'.

More than 1,000 people are dead after the Islamist group Hamas attacked Israeli towns from the Palestinian territories on Saturday.

In a press conference on Wednesday, the premier apologised to the state's Jewish community for failing to provide a safe place to mourn following devastating attacks launched by terrorists over the weekend.

'The intentions were to light up the Opera House as a space for the Jewish community to commemorate what happened in Israel, the number of family and friends caught up in the conflict,' Minns said.

'We didn't do it. I take responsibility for that. I want to ensure it won't happen again.'

Mr Minns said paperwork for a second protest had been submitted to police, but that he expected the application would be denied.

'The protest organisers have already proven they're not peaceful.

'Shouting racial epithets is not the definition of a peaceful protest.

'The idea they're going to commandeer Sydney streets is not going to happen, and I am sure NSW Police will make that clear this morning.'

Tense protests on Monday night, organised by the Palestine Action Group Sydney, saw a burning of the Israeli flag, anti-Semitic chanting by protesters, and flares set off in the Opera House forecourt.

NSW Police Assistant Commissioner David Hudson said on Wednesday morning that the paperwork for the second protest was not submitted within the seven-day timeframe.




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