Bibi: " Do Not Test the Will of the State of Israel or the Army of Israel."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara attended a memorial ceremony to honor the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fell during World War One. The ceremony is part of the events marking 100 years since the battle for Be'er Sheba. Also attending the ceremony were Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his wife and New Zealand Governor General Patsy Reddy and her husband.PM Netanyahu & Australian PM Turnbull at Battle of Be'er Sheba Centenary Service
Transcript of Bibi's speech:
"Thank you, ANZAC soldiers and the families of the brave Aussies and Kiwis who fought here and died here.
Nearly 4,000 years ago, Abraham came to Be'er Sheba, the City of Seven Wells. Exactly 100 years ago, brave ANZAC soldiers liberated Beer Sheba for the sons and daughters of Abraham and opened the gateway for the Jewish people to reenter the stage of history. The heroism of your fallen men will never be forgotten. The brave soldiers who are buried here played a crucial role in defeating the Ottoman Empire, liberating the Holy Land, ending 400 years of Ottoman rule in one great dash.
This momentous occasion was a historic milestone in the natural kinship between our peoples. When I say natural, I don’t just mean the way we address life and each other, that easy informality, that warmth. That was evident from the moment our people met your people. I mean something deeper, because there’s a historical significance of what happened here. ANZAC soldiers went on to capture Jerusalem, Tiberius, Megiddo, then continued northward. They were actually retracing the footsteps of the heroes of the Bible. They were stepping on the verses of the Bible, and they knew it, and their clergy who spoke of this so movingly a moment ago, they knew it too.
This partnership began two years earlier, in 1915, with a great defeat. In the defeat at Gallipoli, two things were forged. One, the absolute resolve of the ANZAC forces to redeem their fallen brethren and establish this glorious victory here. And the second thing that was forged was the first meeting between ANZAC fighters and Jewish fighters, the first Jewish fighters who stood shoulder to shoulder with them in Gallipoli, the first Jewish fighting force in 2,000 years. And that continued here with the Jewish Legion that helped liberate Palestine here, in this campaign that we mark today. This was a point, a partnership that has historic significance today.That’s the spirit of the army of Israel. It stands today. We set out a simple policy: We seek peace with all our neighbors, but we will not tolerate any attacks on our sovereignty, on our people, on our land, whether from the air, from the sea, from the ground or below the ground. We attack those who seek to attack us. And those who contemplate that, I strongly advise you: Do not test the will of the State of Israel or the army of Israel.
PMW: PA accuses Israel of using "poisonous gas" while exploding terror tunnel
Yesterday, Israel carried out a controlled explosion to destroy an attack tunnel dug by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group that started in the Gazan city of Khan Younis and crossed into Israeli territory.JCPA: The Terror Tunnels of Gaza
A member of Islamic Jihad, Khaled Al-Batsh, explained [in Al-Dustour (Jordanian newspaper), Oct. 31, 2017] that the tunnel that Israel attacked "was intended for freeing prisoners from the Israeli occupation prisons." Al-Batsh was implying that the purpose of the tunnel was to facilitate the entry of Islamic Jihad terrorists into Israel, to kidnap Israelis who would then be used as hostages to force Israel to release prisoners.
At least seven members of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas terror organizations, including senior terrorist commanders, were killed in the explosion of the tunnel.
Instead of condemning the digging of the terror tunnel, Mahmoud Abbas's PA and Fatah chose to accuse Israel of using "poisonous gas" in breach of International law.
Since the end of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip – headed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are close to Iran – have been engaged in an unprecedented military buildup. The aim is to rehabilitate their military capabilities which were damaged in the war against the IDF. According to Israeli security sources, the Palestinian organizations have managed to bring their capabilities to a point well beyond what they had in 2014.
That has included manufacturing a large number of rockets, developing new weapons such as drones, building up elite units such as naval commandos, and digging new attack tunnels into Israel, which Hamas and Islamic Jihad view as a “strategic weapon.”
The tunnel-digging is a large-scale project that employs thousands of people and costs tens of millions of dollars. Hamas and Islamic Jihad receive financial and technological assistance from Iran for the project. A large portion of the financial resources also comes from tax revenues that are supposed to alleviate Gaza’s electricity, water, and employment shortages but are diverted to the tunnel project.
On October 24, 2017, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza who is also commander of its Izzadin al-Qassam military wing, boasted that the military wing can now fire in 51 minutes the same number of rockets it fired at Israel during the 51 days of Operation Protective Edge.
Sinwar also revealed that Hamas has managed to smuggle large quantities of weapons into Gaza. “The quantity of weapons we brought into the Strip in 2015-2016 is much larger than the entire quantity we brought into the Strip during the past 10 years,” he said.
As noted, Hamas and Islamic Jihad see the tunnels into Israeli territory as a “strategic weapon” that deters Israel.