Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Why can't Palestinian civilians flee to Egypt? Because the "humanitarians" would rather see them dead and blame Israel.

Earlier today, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht suggested that Palestinian civilians in fear to leave the Gaza Strip for Egypt for the duration of the war. Later, the IDF clarified that this was not an official call telling residents to go to Egypt.

Which brings up the question: wouldn't that be the best possible thing for Palestinians who are in the war zone now?

Arabs throughout history have faced wars, and many have moved from one area to the next. Millions of refugees left Syria and Iraq to go to neighboring countries. Most eventually return.

For the most part, while they aren't happy about it, their Arab neighbors have accepted (if not exactly welcomed) the influxes of refugees.

Egypt too has reluctantly hosted hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Sudan, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.

But almost no Palestinians!

The same "progressives" that insist that countries have open borders to welcome refugees who flee for little reason other than economic opportunity are surprisingly quiet about suggesting that the obvious place for Palestinians to flee is Egypt. Nations would bankroll the temporary structures and infrastructure needed. It would be just like Jordan's camps that still exist on the Syrian border.

People fleeing wars go to neighboring states. Why can't Gazans?

Of course, Egypt doesn't want them. Egypt's border to Gaza is heavily guarded. It has strict rules on which Gazans are allowed to enter and where they can go once they come.

But nevertheless, according to reports, Egypt is preparing for an influx of Gazans it does not want:

While the government source told Mada Masr that the government has issued a security alert on its borders with Gaza as it does not want its borders to be breached, preparations are being made in case that eventuality comes to pass.

At Sunday’s crisis management meeting, those in attendance discussed a plan that would see tents set up in the two Egyptian cities closest to Gaza — Sheikh Zuwayed and Rafah — and to identify government buildings, such as schools or service headquarters, that can act as temporary shelters, said an official source in the North Sinai Governorate General Office who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media. Each tent would contain mattresses, blankets, and food supplies, water and meals would be provided and medical service points set up in the vicinity.

The plan, the source continued, is to be implemented if the president’s office gives instructions to do so, said the source. Instructions from the president’s office also stated that if the president tells North Sinai to implement the plan to put up shelters, the Armed Forces are to enclose the tents with cordons and Palestinians should not enter the walled city of Arish.

No one wants to host huge numbers of refugees. But people who claim to care about Palestinians, who are raising the alarm that the Gazans have no place to go to be safe, are curiously silent about this obviously flawed but temporary solution. It is certainly the least of all evils.

So why is the very idea - of Gaza civilians taking shelter in a relatively friendly Arab country - forbidden to be discussed?

Because the people who pretend to care about Palestinian lives really don't. They only want to use Palestinians as pawns, as they've been used since 1948 by the Arab world. Every Palestinian who is in misery is a potential terrorist or a potential subject for a newspaper article about how cruel Israel is. Every dead Palestinian is a victory for those who hate Israel.

Israel would love for the Gaza civilians to get out of the way so it can destroy the terrorist infrastructure and the terrorists. Hamas wants to continue to use them as human shields. Gaza's civilians want to have the choice of where they go.

And ostensible "pro-Palestinian activists" are on Hamas' side.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

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10/10 Links Pt1: Vengeance After a Pogrom; ‘The Babies, The Mothers, The Fathers’: Israel Shows World Aftermath of Hamas Massacre; "Gas the Jews' on the steps of the Sydney Opera House

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: Vengeance After a Pogrom

So it is not enough to stop Hamas in its tracks and get it to stop doing what it’s doing, to go back into its hidey-hole and live to earn the propagandistic word-vomit support of Mehdi Hasan and Ilhan Omar. The blood of every Israeli who died (and was wounded) in these attacks must be avenged because not to do so is effectively to excuse the murders themselves in the most profound moral sense. Vengeance is an act of memory. It says the people avenged were of such value that their passing must make everything stop until that passing is commemorated in kind.

This is why the inevitable (and already sounded) calls for “restraint” in the face of the Simchat Torah pogrom are statements of moral and spiritual idiocy. Except to the extent that restraint is always warranted—if you drive 200 miles an hour on a switchback on your way to getting your vengeance, you will show a lack of restraint that will get you killed—there is no moral benefit to restraint per se. Should you act with restraint if an old woman is being beaten up on a subway car right next to you? Should you act with restraint when a tiny child is carrying a potful of boiling water? Of course not. Restraint itself isn’t a virtue. It is one of a variety of responses to immediate conditions that do not have the clearest solutions.

Israel should not restrain itself. It should extirpate the evil done to it and its people. It should avenge their blood. Sorry, milquetoasts. Go retreat into your comforting delusions. Amalek may soon come for you too.

Matthew Continetti: No Daylight

For Israel’s cause is just. It has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to provoke hundreds of terrorists to invade its country, infiltrate dozens of communities and IDF posts, murder hundreds of innocents, and seize more than a hundred captives. Unless you count the very existence of a Jewish State as a provocation—which Hamas and its fellow travelers in the West do. To their eternal shame.

Right now, moral support of Israel may seem to be symbolic or easy, compared with the hard work of military logistics and the backroom wheeling and dealing necessary to give Israel the time to finish the job. Soon, however, international opinion will mobilize against Israel. The pleas for surrender will be echoed by the "democratic" socialist squad here at home. If the Biden administration truly stands with Israel, it will ignore the jackals, explain why Israel is right, and continue to replenish the weapon stocks of the Jewish State until Hamas has no power over Gaza and the terrorists scatter to the wind.

What Biden cannot do is follow the example of his former boss. "When there is no daylight [between America and Israel], Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states," Barack Obama told the Washington Post back in 2012. As usual, he had things precisely backwards. America gains credibility among the nations of the world when we follow through on our promises, support our allies, and act from a position of strength. Obama’s second term demonstrated the costs of "daylight" between America and Israel, and it is a price everyone still must pay.

The Abraham Accords signed under Donald Trump proved Obama wrong. Israel’s allies multiply when it is strong, and when American support is unequivocal. That is the model the Biden administration must follow if it wants to make good on its pledges of support. It must work tirelessly to allow the Israelis to destroy the military capability of Hamas and to demonstrate Israel’s capacity to destroy its enemies.

This will not be easy work. America must demonstrate continual support for the IDF in the face of inevitable media criticism and global upheaval. If we falter, then the adversary, whether he is in Moscow or Tehran or Beijing or Pyongyang, will feel emboldened. In this new world, where conflicts from Eastern Europe to East Asia are beginning to merge into one, America cannot afford to waver. The U.S.-Israel alliance must be more than pieces of paper. It must be more than an emotionally satisfying Tweet. There must be no daylight between us.

Israeli Fatalities in Hamas Attack Reach 900

The death toll in Israel from the Hamas surprise attack and subsequent battles rose above 900, including at least 123 soldiers. 130 people are thought to have been abducted and taken into Gaza.

Over 500 people remained hospitalized, many with life-threatening injuries; over 2,700 have been injured since Saturday.

The IDF said it had managed to seal the border, mining areas around breaches as a stopgap against further incursions.

"In the last day, not a single terrorist entered via the fence," said IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. He added that the military had not identified any tunnels crossing from Gaza into Israeli territory.

300,000 IDF reservists have been mobilized.

Lt.-Col. Richard Hecht said the bodies of 1,500 terrorists had been located in Israel. Hundreds more have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.

Not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed on one day.

As President of the State of Israel, I speak to you now from our capital city Jerusalem, under the dark shadow of war, as my nation continues to endure a savage attack from a cruel and inhumane enemy >> pic.twitter.com/1EU8fZYhIS
— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) October 9, 2023

Statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israel is at war. We didn't want this war. It was forced upon us in the most brutal and savage way. But though Israel didn't start this war, Israel will finish it. Once, the Jewish people were stateless. Once, the Jewish people were defenseless. No longer.
Hamas will understand that by attacking us, they have made a mistake of historic proportions. We will exact a price that will be remembered by them and Israel's other enemies for decades to come.
The savage attacks that Hamas perpetrated against innocent Israelis are mindboggling: slaughtering families in their homes, massacring hundreds of young people at an outdoor festival, kidnapping scores of women, children and elderly, even Holocaust survivors. Hamas terrorists bound, burned and executed children. They are savages. Hamas is ISIS.
And just as the forces of civilization united to defeat ISIS, the forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas. I want to thank President Biden for his unequivocal support. I want to thank leaders across the world who are standing with Israel today.
In fighting Hamas, Israel will win this war, and when Israel wins, the entire civilized world wins.

Terror apologist and pseudo-scholar Norman Finkelstein had a podcast Sunday where he discussed with his guest Mouin Rabbani, another sham scholar, the Hamas attack on Israel.

Rabbani refused to believe that any civilians were attacked; it was all probably Zionist propaganda:

Yes, there are reports which appear to be increasingly substantiated that there was a mass casualty event at a rave that was being held in the Negev Desert. Was that part of the planning does that help explain the timing of the operation? I really don't know. I would also say given -- as you would know better than anyone -- given the nature of Israeli and pro-Israeli propaganda that I would like to withhold confirmation and judgment until the facts are out.

By Sunday afternoon, there were numerous eyewitness reports in the media of Hamas targeting civilians - and this podcast was about that topic - and neither Finkelstein nor his "expert" guest had felt that any off that information was valid, and they assumed that Hamas would never attack civilians.

Rabbani doubled down:

I think first we need to define terrorism. I would argue that any armed action that is directed at a military target can in no way be characterized as terrorism. So, to the extent that what we saw yesterday was a military offensive against the Israeli military, it simply cannot be characterized as terrorism.

That tells you a little about how much self-deception the Israel haters have.

Rabbani then gave his audience another example of his "expertise:"

And a final point concerns settlers, because settlers are typically characterized as civilians but these are effectively armed auxiliaries of the Israeli military and there was a court case - I can't remember if it was in New York or something in the late 1970s - where the judge ruled that a family that was suing I think the P.L.O. because a settler who had some connection with the United States was killed, the judge ruled that settlers were, in his words, “willing participants in a civil war.”

I found the case he referred to - it was an attempt by Israel to extradite a terrorist from the US who attacked a bus in the West Bank, killing one passenger, in 1986. A lower court judge ruled that it was a political act and therefore protected. The ruling was overturned, partially because the original judge was wrong about defining all settlers as combatants:

While Magistrate Caden adopted the broadest possible definition of what constitutes a political act, he made some effort to justify his determination here within the framework discussed above. Acknowledging that the settlers "do not fit the description of military personnel as it is commonly thought of," Magistrate's Opinion at 52, the Magistrate concluded that all settlers were subject to the kind of attack at issue here because "at a minimum they are willing participants in a civil war or violent community conflict designed to acquire a long sought after homeland." Id. This analysis, however, is contrary to the record.

Whether there was a violent political uprising sufficient to trigger the application of the political offense exception to an attack directed against an Israeli military vehicle, which is assumed for present purposes, there was no "civil war or violent community conflict" raging on the West Bank in April of 1986 of sufficient magnitude to transform every Palestinian and Israeli living on the West Bank into a combatant "capable of fitting the definition of either civilian or soldier."

Rabbani memorized the exact words because they fit his belief system, and conveniently forgot everything else about the case including the decade it happened in

Then Finkelstein weighs in with his own ignorance and bias:

Norman Finkelstein
I would like to add one more point. I recognize the distinction between civilians and combatants. [Moulin: Yes, that's the key distinction.] However, I know I will seem to be contradicting myself, and that's because I think neither legal formulas nor sociological texts can, in all circumstances, capture the complexity of life. Most of the Hamas militants, probably the ones who broke through the fence, okay?

Mouin Rabbani
It's probably their first time out of Gaza.

NF:
It's their first time out of Gaza because you assume they're mostly in their 20s. The blockade has gone on now for 18 years. They grew up in a concentration camp. They want to be free. One of the natures of the current technology is they get to see on the screen all these people walking free. They want to be free. They joined Hamas, they volunteered. Yes, by international law, they constitute combatants. Do I think they're legitimate targets because they're combatants? You'll never convince me. You will never convince me.

I know what the law says. I know what I'm legally obliged to say. I know what as a scholar or reported scholar I'm supposed to say. But, are you going to convince me a person who grew up in a concentration camp and wants to breathe free air, is - to use the language of international law - a legitimate target, I can't do it. I cannot. Now, people are going to say, “you're a hypocrite, you say you uphold international law, you know the fundamental principle of international law is the principle of distinction. Now you're contradicting yourself.” Yeah, I'll admit it. I don't think legal formulas can capture every situation. And I don't believe a child who was born into a concentration camp is a legitimate target. If he, in this case, it is he, if he wants to be free. I can't see it.

Which means, according to Finkelstein, it doesn't matter what war crimes the Hamas terrorist does - killing civilians, rape, murdering babies, hostage taking - they cannot be attacked by Israel as military targets because they only want to be free.

That is just a small indication of the dishonesty and immorality of the anti-Israel crowd.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The Hamas attack on Saturday could have been limited to military targets. They successfully overran IDF outposts and killed scores of soldiers, kidnapping more of them. Such an operation would have been a spectacular display of strategy and intelligence. One could understand Palestinian pride at such an attack.

But Hamas' goal, and the goal of their Iranian consultants, wasn't to defeat the IDF in a battle. The army was not the target of the operation. The IDF soldiers were a mere roadblock on the way to the real goal - of murdering, raping and kidnapping as many Jews as possible.

The kibbutzim weren't a military target. The villages weren't a military target. The music festival wasn't a military target. But they were the primary targets of the Palestinian terrorists, who gleefully took videos of their attacks against women and children, showing naked women as trophies, burning houses to force Jews to leave and be murdered, shooting rockets not to directly kill the Jews but to force them to run to shelters where they could be slaughtered en route.

Today, there are many articles in Arabic media about how this operation restored "dignity" to Palestinians. Al Jazeera, which was in the forefront of celebrating 9/11, published "Al-Qassam [Hamas] succeeded in restoring all meanings of dignity, pride, power and victory among Palestinians and Arabs."

Killing Jewish civilians isn't collateral damage. It is the goal. It is the highest aspiration of Palestinians. And judging from the responses in Arab editorials, it is one that is shared by a great percentage of the Arab world.

Comparing anyone to Nazis is almost always a lazy rhetorical device, meant to shock more than illuminate. But seeing the glee that accompanied this attack, as well as all other "successful" attacks on Jews in Israel, points to one comparison that cannot be ignored.

Certainly there were some Nazis who were extraordinarily sadistic, whose hate of Jews prompted them to come up with new ways of humiliating and breaking the spirit of Jewish victims. But much of the horror of the Holocaust was that it turned murder into an assembly line process. For the Nazis, dehumanizing the Jews was a necessary precondition for masses of Germans to take part in the genocide. But the Nazis tried to shield the Germans from seeing the murders directly.

The US Holocaust Museum's article on the mobile killing units, the Einsatzgruppen who murdered up to two million Jews, describes how the shootings morphed into the initial gassings: "The mass shootings were resource-intensive, requiring many shooters and escort guards as well as guns, ammunition, and transport. Concerns about the inefficiency of the shootings and their psychological impact on the shooters led to the development of special vans outfitted with engines that pumped carbon monoxide into sealed passenger compartments. "

The only psychological impact we have seen in the Arab world to the deliberate slaughter of hundreds of innocent Jews in a single day is an overflow of happiness and glee.

The German people and other antisemites in Eastern Europe who enabled the Holocaust with their centuries-old hate of Jews were not, on the whole, gleeful about the killings (unless they could directly profit by stealing the Jews' possessions.) They looked at murdering Jewish children the same way they looked at someone exterminating rats and mosquitoes - a dirty but necessary job. The gas chambers murdered the Jews while protecting the ":civilized" Germans from having to witness their deaths.

The Arabs, on the other hand, revel in trading videos of dead Jews like baseball cards.

Germans didn't hand out sweets on the street corners for every dead Jew. The Palestinians do - and not one of them says publicly how disgusting this is.

The Palestinians aren't embarrassed at their glee. Much of the larger Arab world is gleeful as well. People have rightly noted that Simchat Torah was Israel's 9/11 - but this is not only true from the victims' side but from the attackers' side as well. The same spontaneous celebrations that broke out in Arab capitals on September 11, 2001 are being seen from Muslims living in Western capitals, today, because so many Jews were slaughtered. As I noted earlier today, one Al Jazeera columnist said that the entire Muslim world was celebrating, saying the massacre and rapes "inspired hope in the hearts of the Palestinians at home and abroad, and in the hearts of the Arab and Islamic peoples, in an unprecedented way."

Palestinians will be writing poems and songs celebrating their murder of Jews for years and decades to come.

The idea that killing Jews is the ultimate source of pleasure can be seen in another way. According to the IDF, some 1,500 terrorist bodies have been found in Israel. For all the hundreds of Jews killed, more Hamas members were killed already outside the airstrikes in Gaza. Sacrificing more than one militant to kill each Israeli civilian is still considered "dignified."

One can easily imagine the parents of the 1,500 dead Palestinians in terms of the story of Sisera's mother in the Song of Deborah, being comforted knowing that her son's troops are sharing "a womb or two for every soldier." But the Palestinian parents are more monstrous than Sisera's mother - they know their sons are not coming home, but they feel that the Jews they murdered and the women they raped made their deaths worthwhile.

Can anyone doubt that Palestinians would happily use a nuclear bomb to destroy Israel even if it killed most of them as well? Can anyone doubt that the Palestinians would happily architect a new Holocaust to murder the seven million Jews in Israel if they had the capability?

We are seeing Palestinian supporters worldwide celebrating dead, raped and kidnapped Jews. They aren't Nazis. But in a narrow sense, they are far worse.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

On Sunday, the Democratic Socialists of America held a pro-Hamas rally in Times Square.

As they often do, they held signs and chanted slogans like "By any means necessary" and "Resistance is justified when people are occupied."

These are old slogans to be sure, but the media and the Jewish Left never really noticed before what they literally mean - that Palestinians are allowed to do the most depraved war crimes against civilians in the name of "resistance."

Pro-Hamas rallies oversea were more explicit in their hate. In Germany, sweets were handed out celebrating the outrages.

And coming a day after Palestinians did exactly that, murdering and kidnapping babies and raping women, even the hard-core Jewish Left became squeamish at seeing their purported allies supporting the most vile antisemitic terrorist attack in the region's history.

Joshua Leifer, contributing editor for the socialist Jewish Currents, saw enough:

Turned on my phone after the holiday and was overwhelmed by the images of death and horror. My partner and I frantically text friends and loved ones to make sure they're okay. Everyone seems to have lost someone or knows someone who has. The loss, the tragedy—incomprehensible.

There's also a deep sense that the left abroad has lost the values it was supposed to stand for. I thought we were leftists because we wanted a world without war, torture, the killing of families & children in their beds

I thought we were leftists because we abhor cruelty, detest violence, and believe in the inherent, even divine, worth of all human life. I thought we were leftists because our struggle was for all people to be able to live with freedom and dignity.

Are these not the values that led us to oppose the cruel siege on Gaza? To resist the brutalities of the occupation? To oppose apartheid? Where are these values when Israeli children are held hostage, families wiped out, corpses violated before cheering crowds?

People who were supposed to have been interlocutors, partners in some type of common conversation, self-professed human rights defenders, even would-be colleagues are celebrating and glorifying unspeakable acts that violate the most basic elements of human life. I feel sick.

What part of "by any means necessary" did Leifer not understand? Did he never hear of the second intifada where his same Leftist friends justified blowing up babies in pizza shops, also using the euphemism of "resistance" for depraved terror attacks?

But for Palestinians, many Arabs and other Muslims, the rapes and baby-murdering is something to be openly proud of.

In one pro-terror rally in New York, the crowd cheered when the speaker described how Hamas murdered "hipsters" at the rave.

In Australia, in front of the iconic Sydney Opera House on Monday night, a crowd of thousands of Muslims openly chanted "Gas the Jews!" and "Fuck the Jews!"

Really hard to argue that this is just enthusiastic "anti-Zionism."

But it gets worse. A writer at Al Jazeera waxed poetic about Hamas's murdering Jews - and claimed that every true Muslim shared his enthusiasm:

Throughout the Islamic world in the four corners of the globe, you will not find anyone among the two billion Muslims who was not happy with what the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades accomplished on Saturday, unless they are a hypocrite or a dissenter

....This invasion has inspired hope in the hearts of the Palestinians at home and abroad, and in the hearts of the Arab and Islamic peoples, in an unprecedented way....

No matter the extent of the upcoming destruction in the Palestinian structure, and no matter the number of martyrs and wounded due to the retaliatory aggression, the Palestinian people will not pay attention to it in the face of the sun of this victory and the magnitude of the results and gains resulting from it.

For the first time in the history of the usurping Zionist entity in Palestine, the Jewish people have tasted the meaning of war, the meaning of destruction, killing and suffering....

The coming years in the history of the Jewish people will not be like the past years, and destruction will not only befall the Palestinian people, but will befall the Jewish people first and foremost...

The mask is fully off: the Israel haters hate Jews, not "Zionists." And they don't just love killing Jews but they thirst to humiliate them. Murdering babies are what they consider honor, and raping girls and parading them naked with bloody vaginas is what they consider dignity.

This is a sick society. It is a deeply antisemitic society. And for a brief while, even some people on the anti-Israel Left seem somewhat uncomfortable with this.

It won't last long.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/09 Links Pt2: The Hamas pogrom is the result of the West's refusal to accept the idea of evil; We were fools to support the Palestinian cause

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Hamas pogrom is the result of the West's refusal to accept the idea of evil

Israel’s heart has been broken. At war once again against genocidal enemies, its people are shattered by shock, grief and horror.

At time of writing, the number of those murdered has risen to 800, with 2,315 wounded and at least 100 being held hostage in Gaza.

The images of what happened will stay with us forever. Dozens of Israelis were gunned down in their homes and their cars.

Elderly people and small children were slaughtered; women were raped; bodies taken into Gaza were paraded and desecrated; mothers with children in their arms were abducted and are now being held as hostages in Gaza’s terror tunnels.

This was barbarism and depravity, not seen on such an infernal scale since the Holocaust.

Every one of these attacks on Israeli civilians was a war crime. It is a moral imperative to destroy the forces who committed them and who — as they tell us — are intent upon eradicating Israel and the Jewish people.

And yet the US State Department said after the pogrom: ‘We urged all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

All sides? That means the US is telling Israel to “refrain” from defending its people. Should the Americans have refrained from waging war against Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban after 9/11 as a “retaliatory attack”?

Of course not. Such moral equivalence, it seems, applies only to Israel. It is also the default position of the western left.

This has been on display once again in the media coverage of these events. Newspapers have been reporting “horrific” casualty figures “on both sides”; the BBC and other outlets announced on Monday morning that the death toll was 1,100, similarly equating the Israeli victims of mass murder with those killed in the attempt to prevent any more such attacks.

Fred Maroun: We were fools to support the Palestinian cause

As an Arab, I am ashamed. As someone who supported the Palestinian cause, I am ashamed. But now, as far as I am concerned, the Palestinian cause is dead. In fact, that cause has never existed because all evidence points to the Palestinians wanting nothing but the destruction of Israel and the Jews, at any cost.

The Palestinians have had 75 years to choose to have a state next to Israel, but they have repeatedly chosen terrorism.

Through the murder of hundreds of Israelis and the cheering for those murders, they made their final choice clear. Some people will say that it’s the fault of terrorists and not the fault of Palestinians. I won’t be one of those people. Terrorists cannot exist unless they’re supported by the people.

Before this, there seemed to still be a glimmer of hope for a Palestinian state, but I now admit that those of us who believed in that hope were naive. That hope is dead now. I see many peace activists, who previously held nuanced views on the conflict, now declaring on social media their unwavering support for Israel.

What choice do we have left? The so-called Palestinian cause will now forever be covered with the blood of Israelis that Hamas massacred and that Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists cheered.

The only hope left for Palestinians who don’t wish to be terrorists is to move out of Gaza and the West Bank. They will never have a state on that land.

In the meantime, each of us who pays any attention to this conflict must stand with Israel. It is the duty of every decent person in the world. It is the only reasonable choice left.

Amb. Alan Baker: Hamas and Islamic Jihad Are Criminally Liable for War Crimes

The deliberate and cynical use by Hamas and Islamic Jihad of their own civilians as human shields, as well as their use of mosques, hospitals, schools, and private houses as weapons storage facilities and firing platforms, are no less severe war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.

The construction of tactical tunnels beneath urban civilian areas, hospitals, public facilities, and urban roads are also a war crime and a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

Moreover, advocating a religious holy war aimed at creating a regional Islamic entity encompassing the whole of the territory of Israel contravenes the provisions of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide.

For all the above crimes, Hamas and PIJ leaders and commanders are accountable and prosecutable under international law, which considers non-state actors bound by customary norms of international humanitarian law when they become a party to an armed conflict.

Hamas, even as a non-state entity or part of a non-state entity, is considered by all accepted criteria to be fully accountable under international humanitarian law for its actions in terror attacks against Israeli civilians and using its own civilians as human shields. Thus, its leadership, commanders, and fighters are punishable for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Martin Bright: Hamas is no resistance movement – it is an anti-Semitic, misogynist terror cult

he following statement should be uncontroversial. An organisation that kidnaps unarmed women, children and old people then parades the naked bodies of its dead victims should not be considered as a resistance movement. Hamas is what Hamas does: it is a violent Islamist terror cult. It has shown itself, in its actions in Southern Israel over the Jewish sabbath in its true anti-Semitic, misogynist colours.

You are waiting for a qualification, perhaps? This is not a time for “buts”. No rhetoric about the biggest prison camp on earth or the Israeli Apartheid state or the fascists in Netanyahu’s government can justify or explain the brutality of those men with guns on motorbikes and pickups. They were driven by the hatred of Jews and the hatred of women, which lie explicitly, transparently at the heart of Hamas ideology. It is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

Truth may be the first victim of war, but empathy is the second. When I posted my views on Hamas on social media, the reaction to the massacres and rapes and kidnappings was an exercise in equivocation and moral relativism. I was schooled that anything goes in war and told that I should compare what happened to Dresden, Hiroshima and Vietnam (but not the Holocaust funnily enough). Both sides abuse women and children and pretend it’s for a cause, apparently. Could the “lovely old lady” depicted in one Hamas kidnap video actually be a settler who is actively stealing land and livelihoods from Palestinians.? The Israeli Defence Force has been doing the same as Hamas for years. Examine the records of post-war Jewish terrorist organisations Irgun and the Haganah. How many pieces of silver had I taken I taken?

One person suggested my comments were the final proof that the free speech organisation for which I work, Index on Censorship, is a “neo-con cut-out” (translation from the hard-left jargon: CIA front organisation). I wouldn’t mention this slew of poison if it weren’t so prevalent and consistent.

There is no correct way to react to atrocities of this kind, but this is surely the moment to show our common humanity. As the historian Anthony Glees, who advised the Thatcher government on Nazi war criminals wrote: “Few who have seen the picture of SS officers ‘interrogating’ an elderly Jewish woman with whips during WW2 will ever forget it. Same here.”

This is not the time for “buts”. There will come a time for a reckoning within Israel about the intelligence failings that led to this catastrophe. The support of any Israeli government depends on its ability to keep its people safe from harm in a hostile neighbourhood and in that Netanyahu has ostensibly and catastrophically failed. Many of these atrocities took place at a music festival for peace in the desert. What greater cultural symbol of progressive, inclusive Israel could there be? What greater symbol of everything Hamas despises. Dozens of young Israeli men and women held hostage in Gaza is Israel’s greatest nightmare.

In the wake of the massacre of Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists, the world has reacted -- but not all in the same way.

Condemned Hamas

o United States
o  Germany
o  France
o  Morocco (voiced "deep concern" and condemned attacks on civilians "where ever they are".)
o  EU (EU Commission chief von der Leyen: "I unequivocally condemn the attack carried out by Hamas terrorists against Israel. It is terrorism in its most despicable form.")
o  Canada
o  Great Britain
o  Ukraine (President Zelenskiy: condemned the "terror attack" and said Israel's right to defend itself "cannot be doubted".)
o  Poland (President Duda: "Rockets attacks and detention of civilians as hostages arouse our deepest opposition. Poland strongly condemns all acts of violence")
o  Italy
o  Japan

Called For Restraint/Cease-Fire

o  UAE (Foreign Ministry: "The UAE calls for the exercise of maximum restraint and an immediate ceasefire to avoid serious repercussions," )
o   UN (UN Middle East peace envoy Wennesland: ("I appeal to all to pull back from the brink.")
o  China (The Chinese foreign ministry urged both sides "to remain calm, exercise restraint and immediately end the hostilities to protect civilians and avoid further deterioration of the situation")
o  Saudi Arabia (The foreign ministry called for an "immediate cessation of violence")
o  Egypt (Foreign minister called for "exercising maximum restraint and avoiding exposing civilians to further danger".)
o  Turkey (President Erdogan: "We call for restraint from all parties.")
o  Russia (Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov urged restraint)
o  Qatar (The foreign ministry said Israel alone was responsible for the ongoing escalation of violence with the Palestinian people, and called for both sides to show restraint.)
o Kenya (Principal Secretary Sing'oei: While Israel has a right to retaliate, a peaceful path to resolving this unfortunate development is urged,)
o  Uganda (President Museveni: "The break out of renewed violence in Israel- Palestine is regrettable. Why don’t the two sides implement the two States’ Solution? To be condemned, in particular, is the practice of targeting civilians and non-combatants by the belligerents.")

Blamed Israel

o Abbas (The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves against the "terror of settlers and occupation troops,")
o African Union (Chairman Mahamat: "Denial of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, particularly that of an independent and sovereign State, is the main cause of the permanent Israeli-Palestinian tension" and urged "both parties to put an end to military hostilities and to return, without conditions, to the negotiating table.")
o Kuwait (Blamed Israel for "blatant attacks".)
o Indonesia ("Indonesia requests that acts of violence stop immediately to avoid increasing human casualties. The root of the conflict, namely the occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel, must be resolved according to the parameters agreed upon by the U.N.")

Apparently, Abbas does not see a need to offer even a mild condemnation or sympathy -- not even in English.

Endorsed the Slaughter

o Iran
o Hezbollah (described the slaughter of civilians as a"decisive response to Israel's continued occupation and a message to those seeking normalization with Israel".)

No surprise here.

But in the US, there were some surprises when members of "The Squad" condemned the massacre:

o Ilhan Omar: "I condemn the horrific acts we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas... We need to call for de-escalation and a cease-fire."

o  Bernie Sanders: "I absolutely condemn the horrifying attack on Israel by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. There is no justification for this violence...It must end now"

o  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Today is devastating for all those seeking a lasting peace and respect for human rights in Israel and Palestine. I condemn Hamas' attack in the strongest possible terms...An immediate cease-fire and de-escalation are urgently needed to save lives."

o  Jamaal Bowman: "I strongly condemn the horrific attacks by Hamas and am saddened by the loss of precious lives, especially on the holy day of Simchat Torah."

o  Ayanna Pressley: "These devastating attacks on Israelis are deeply alarming, and my heart breaks for the victims and their loved ones. It is long past time to stop this cycle of violence..."

o Cori Bush: "I strongly condemn the targeting of civilians and I urge an immediate cease-fire and de-escalation to prevent further loss of life"

Seeing these politicians condemn Hamas is unusual, but understandable considering how uncomfortable they must be having to come out with public statements in response to a situation where Jews outnumber how many Palestinian Arabs have been killed.

We will see if their sympathies remain consistent.

Rashida Tlaib did not follow her fellow squad members. She offered no condemnation, settling for "I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day."

A major concern was raised by Italian Prime Minister Meloni, who announced that "particular attention is being paid to the security of the Jewish community in the country." Germany has begun dealing with this issue. On Saturday night German police broke up a pro-Hamas rally.

Some countries went further and translated their condemnation of Hamas into action:

Austria and Germany said on Monday they were suspending aid worth tens of millions of euro to Palestinians in response to Islamist group Hamas' deadly attack on Israel to ensure funds were not flowing into the wrong hands.

This will include aid to the West Bank. Meanwhile, the EU will hold an emergency meeting tomorrow that will include a discussion of development aid.

Of course, considering the $6 billion Iran is getting from the US, Hamas is not too upset.

The overall question is: will the West remain consistent in its condemnation of Hamas, and what actions will they take to back up those words.

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Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas did not condemn Hamas' murderous attack on Israeli civilians. On the contrary - he defended it.

On Sunday evening, Abbas made a phone call with Ahmed Helles, a member of his Fatah Central Committee and Commissioner of Mobilization and Organization in the Southern Governorate. During the call, Abbas "reaffirmed the right of our people to defend themselves."

Apparently, attacking families in their homes and raping girls attending a concert is "defending themselves."

Keep in mind that every time Abbas or his predecessor Yasir Arafat condemned terror attacks, it was at the urging of the United States. But without any outside pressure, the "moderate" Fatah and Palestinian Authority leaders have no problem with what is by far the worst atrocity against Jews since the Nazis.

In fact, the PA prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh parroted Abbas defense of Hamas - and went beyond it, in a call with the Norwegian foreign minister:

Shtayyeh received a phone call Saturday evening, from the Norwegian minister, during which he assured her that Israel’s continued refusal to implement international resolutions and the lack of accountability for the crimes it commits against the Palestinian people would exacerbate the conflict, and that Israel’s undermining of the two-state solution will not allow it to enjoy peace as long as the Palestinian people do not obtain their legitimate rights.

Shtayyeh stressed the right of the Palestinian people to defend their land and sanctities, which are constantly being violated.

Shtayyeh said that what is happening today is a natural result of not responding to our repeated warnings about the dangerous repercussions that will result from Israel continuing its crimes amid its feeling of impunity.

Yes, rape and mass murder is a "natural response" to Israel defending Jews from being slaughtered.

This is not an anomaly. As we've noted in the past, there have been consistent poll results from Palestinian. When they are asked in the abstract whether they support "armed resistance," their euphemism for terror attacks on civilians, a small majority usually answers positively. But when they are asked if they support specific, recent terror attacks, the percentage of enthusiastic supporters of murdering Jews skyrockets to over 80%.

Every single time.

There is no reason to think that this will be any different. When the next set of polls come out, we will see that the vast majority of Palestinians -West Bank and Gaza, Hamas and Fatah - overwhelmingly support the cold blooded murder of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

Whenever Israel-haters try to demonize the Jewish state, they will dig out a tiny minority who hold noxious opinions that are opposed by most Israeli Jews. But there is no cherry picking here - a huge majority of Palestinians really support murdering Jews, the more the better, with no regard as to whether they are "settlers" or "soldiers" or just regular Jews trying to live their lives inside the 1949 armistice lines.

Their leaders share this immoral worldview.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/09 Links Pt1: Eyewitness Account of the Rave Massacre; European Union suspends all financial aid to Palestinians in response to Hamas attacks

From Ian:

David Hazony: The horror of Hamas and why we Israelis will finally defeat it

Since Israel’s founding, every military conflict has taken place with foreign governments, especially America’s and Europe’s, holding a platinum stopwatch.

At a certain point — usually just days or weeks into the war — we are told, “That’s quite enough.”

It has nothing to do with military objectives or whether we’ve uprooted the terror.

It’s about what they can handle politically.

After that time, they turn to the UN Security Council and start talking about sanctions. Pressure becomes quite real.

Such premature cessation inevitably sets the stage for further conflict.

Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel

It gives terror organizations, whether Hamas or Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad, the opportunity to regroup, rearm and redouble their efforts to murder civilians.

World leaders need to know this time is different.

If you are our friends, if you are truly disgusted by what you have seen and believe in our right to defend ourselves, you’ll let us get the job done.

Defeating Hamas will take time and patience.

But it must happen, not just because it is right but also because what starts with Jews never ends with Jews.

Hamas glories in its ability to make Jewish children and elderly suffer on camera.

But with every gruesome image, Israeli resolve is further steeled.

This is an enemy of almost unthinkable evil.

Now you have all seen it — and you must not forget what you have seen.

We will bounce back from our shock and horror and defeat Hamas. Stay tuned.

Eli Lake: Delusion in the White House. Bloodshed in Israel.

The Biden administration must now reckon with the fact that it has done a deal with Hamas’s most powerful and important patron. Biden’s efforts to restore a nuclear deal with Iran and its lax enforcement of secondary sanctions have freed up capital for the Islamic Republic to invest in its terrorist proxy.

And let’s not forget Biden’s strategy with Qatar, another backer of Hamas. On January 31, 2022, President Biden named Qatar as a “major non-NATO ally.” This designation was a major diplomatic reward for a country that to this day allows much of the senior leadership of Hamas, including its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, to live there. (That U.S.-Qatari deal did not include conditions to expel these figures.)

On Saturday, Qatar’s foreign ministry issued a statement that said Israel was “solely responsible for the ongoing escalation.”

The U.S. response?

Silence, except for a report that the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani “agreed to remain closely coordinated.”

Considering their many missteps, it’s no surprise the White House is on the defensive. Responding to Republicans who brought up the $6 billion hostage deal, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on Saturday, “These funds have absolutely nothing to do with the horrific attacks today, and this is not the time to spread disinformation.”

Ah yes, another case of “disinformation” misleading Americans into thinking their government’s policy is misguided. In this case, though, the real deception is the one that has led so many in the U.S. foreign policy establishment to think that with enough patience, engagement, and money, fanatical regimes like those in Tehran and Gaza can be enticed to join the civilized world.

Daniel Greenfield: This is Not About Israel, It’s About Islam

This war was declared over 1,000 years ago

Flying planes into skyscrapers, running over French pedestrians with a truck, massacring Indian families, and Israeli concertgoers is the same war.

Islamic terrorists and their allies try to make every attack about the specific context of a situation in a particular corner of the world.

That’s a lie that too many fall for.

Even countries that are the victims of Islamic terrorism often draw lines between the “good” and “bad” Islamic terrorism. We do it ourselves. But there is no such line. Whether a country is good or bad makes no difference. Islamic terrorists come for every country eventually. There is no major nation that has not faced Islamic terrorist attacks as long as it has a significant Muslim population within or near its borders.

America, India, Canada, Europe, Russia, China, Australia, Argentina, and Brazil (a planned Olympic massacre) are just a few of the examples. The smaller countries that have come under attack are nearly endless. If you exist, you’re a target.

Hamas is just an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood which is a global operation. Its Al Qaeda splinter group has carried out attacks all over the world.

What happened in Israel is not about Israel: it’s about Islam.

It’s all too easy to nod along with the propaganda, the claims about “Palestinian oppression”, and ignore the historical context of over 1,000 years of Islamic violence against non-Muslims that follow the same exact model, or the global reach of Islamic terrorism today. The pattern is easy to spot and so people have to be indoctrinated into ignoring it.

HRW and Amnesty's disgusting press releases blame Israel and try to exonerate Hamas

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been on a single-minded jihad against Israel for years. They have written long, detailed reports blaming Israeli Jews for the "war crimes" of living in houses in their ancestral homeland. Their obsessive hate has reached so far that they have written extensively against AirBnB for not discriminating against Jews renting out their houses.

But when it comes to thousands of Hamas terrorists invading Israel, murdering, kidnapping and raping hundreds of people, they aren't nearly as interested in details. There are no condemnations. And they blame Israel for defending itself more than they blame Hamas for their genocidal attacks.

Amnesty tweeted:

@Amnesty is deeply alarmed by the mounting civilian death tolls in Gaza, Israel and the occupied West Bank and urgently call on all parties to the conflict to abide by international law and make every effort to avoid further civilian bloodshed.

No condemnations of Hamas. Just "concern" about both sides.

And after hundreds of man-hours spent blaming Israel for every possible crime, real or imagined, that they can dream up, they cannot even write a single standalone tweet condemning the worst attack on Jewish civilians since the Holocaust.

Amnesty's statement continues on its website and is almost unbelievable, written on the same day as the mass murders:

Deliberately targeting civilians, carrying out disproportionate attacks, and indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians are war crimes. Israel has a horrific track record of committing war crimes with impunity in previous wars on Gaza. Palestinian armed groups from Gaza, must refrain from targeting civilians and using indiscriminate weapons, as they have done in the past, and most intensively in this event, acts amounting to war crimes.

They accuse Israel of war crimes pre-emptively - but only urge Hamas not to target civilians, when that was the entire point of the attack!

If Amnesty is a human rights group, this one press release shows that they do not consider Israeli Jews to be humans who deserve rights. They are bending over backwards to assume Hamas innocence and Israeli guilt.

What a perverted, immoral organization.

Human Rights Watch is even worse. These are their (re)tweets from Saturday:

No mention of Hamas by name. Only a passive voice on how Israelis are being victimized but there is no condemnation. However, Bashi makes sure that even if the attacks aren't justified, they sort of are.

Then, to hammer home the point that Jews are responsible for their being slaughtered, she wrote this:

Yes, just in case HRW's followers might have had a slight bit of sympathy for Jews being abducted, raped and massacred, she takes pains to remind everyone that Israel is the evil party and, by implication, Hamas is the victim here.

This isn't human rights advocacy. This is antisemitism at its rawest and most disgusting.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and Hamas leader Haniyeh meeting in Lebanon in April

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday:

DUBAI—Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.

Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.

Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.

...Leading the effort to wrangle Iran’s foreign proxies under a unified command has been Ismail Qaani, the leader of the IRGC’s international military arm, the Quds Force.

Qaani launched coordination among several militias surrounding Israel in April during a meeting in Lebanon, The Wall Street Journal has reported, where Hamas began working more closely with other groups such as Hezbollah for the first time.

Around that time, Palestinian groups staged a rare set of limited strikes on Israel from Lebanon and Gaza, under the direction of Iran, said the Iranian official. “It was a roaring success,” the official said.

Iran has long backed Hamas but, as a Sunni Muslim group, it had been an outsider among Tehran’s Shia proxies until recent months, when cooperation among the groups accelerated.

Representatives of these groups have met with Quds Force leaders at least biweekly in Lebanon since August to discuss this weekend’s attack on Israel and what happens next, they said. Qaani has attended some of those meetings along with Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Islamic Jihad leader al-Nakhalah, and Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s military chief, the militant-group members said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian attended at least two of the meetings, they said.

“An attack of such scope could only have happened after months of planning and would not have happened without coordination with Iran,” said Lina Khatib, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London. “Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, does not single-handedly make decisions to engage in war without prior explicit agreement from Iran.”

The Palestinian and Lebanese militias’ ability to coordinate with Iran will be tested in the coming days as Israel’s response comes into focus.

Egypt, which is trying to mediate in the conflict, has warned Israeli officials that a ground invasion into Gaza would trigger a military response from Hezbollah, opening up a second battlefront, people familiar with the matter said. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire briefly on Sunday.

Of course Iran was behind this coordinated attack, the worst attack on Israeli civilians since Nazi Germany.

The attack required excellent intelligence, new weapons and methods like drones and paragliders, and an exceptional ability to keep the planning - which in the end involved thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad members - hidden from Israeli intelligence. There is no way Gaza groups could have done this on their own.

It is also obvious this has been planned for months. The recent riots at the Gaza border are seen now as being likely test runs to see how quickly the IDF responds to breaches in the fence, and from there it can be calculated how many simultaneous breaches would overwhelm its defenses.

The Gaza workers who have been allowed to work in Israel for the past several months were also likely employed as intelligence agents, taking note of the defenses (or lack thereof) in the kibbutzim and villages surrounding the Gaza Strip.

Combine this with the history of Iran attacking Israel by proxy, both from Lebanon and from Gaza, while staying above the fray with plausible deniability. But in the end, Iran is ready to sacrifice every last Palestinian (and Lebanese) to weaken Israel.

The only way to break the cycle of endless Gaza campaigns is not only to eliminate major Gaza terror leaders but to - clandestinely - go after Iranian IRGC and other leaders who have been hatching these plans, as well as the Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders who live outside Gaza.

We have seen how terror leaders are afraid for their own lives while they wax poetic on the beauty of martyrdom - for those who are under them. Only a realistic threat against the leaders will dampen their enthusiasm for continuously starting these terror campaigns.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

The so-called "Palestinian Center for Human Rights" always tries to list all the casualties of every Gaza conflict - but they slavishly adhere to Hamas' rules not to list any dead terrorists, only people they can credibly claim to be civilians.

Their report for the first day of fighting says that the Gaza Ministry of Health claimed 256 Gazans killed in Israeli airstrikes.

But they list only about 60 deaths - meaning that they know that 200 of those killed were terrorists.

If that was the ratio of terrorists to civilians, it would already be amazing for an urban war. But that is not the whole story.

Because certainly some of the families killed were human shields for terrorist leaders. And Israel did target Hamas leader houses and offices:

At 12:40 [Sunday] : IOF warplanes bombed a densely populated area surrounding the office of Hamas Chief, Yahya Sinwar, and the vicinity of Palestine Stadium in central Gaza City. As a result, the Office was destroyed.

At 04:15: IOF warplanes bombed the 5-storey house of Hamas Leader Fathi Hammad in Beit Lahia housing project. As a result, the house, which sheltered 5 families, was destroyed. At 08:45: IOF warplanes bombed and destroyed another 2-storey house belonging to him in Jabalia.

At 06:55: IOF warplanes launched two missiles at the house of Hamas Leader Ghazi Hamad in Al-Geneina neighborhood in Rafah and destroyed it.

At 07:00: IOF warplanes bombed and destroyed the house of Hamas Leader Nizar ‘Awadallah in Al-Nasr neighborhood in northern Gaza, killing his son Muhammad.

At 07:00: IOF warplanes bombed and destroyed the 3-storey house of Hamas Leader Salah Bardawil in Al-Qarara, north of Khan Yunis. Also, nearby houses sustained damage.

At 07:30: IOF warplanes bombed the house of Hamas Leader Zakaria Abu Muammar in Ma’an area, east of Khan Yunis. As a result, the house was destroyed, and 5 persons sustained minor injuries.

Meanwhile, IOF warplanes fired two missiles at the house of Hamas Leader Isma’il Barhoum in Al-Geneina neighborhood in Rafah. As a result, the house was destroyed, and several minor injuries were reported.

The same intelligence that knows the Hamas leader houses knows what and who were in the other houses. The IDF is not in the business of bombing random civilian houses, no matter what NGOs like PCHR and HRW claim.

Beyond that, at least one Gazan was apparently killed by a Hamas rocket, based on their description:

At 14:30: a bomb fell in the Indonesian Hospital’s yard in Jabalia, killing Yusra Husni Salha (67) after she sustained shrapnel injuries, and causing damage to the hospital’s oxygen station.

When they don't claim that the bomb was dropped by Israel, that means even they know it was a Gaza rocket.

Between the human shields, Gaza groups choosing to place their military equipment in civilian areas, likely terrorists killed with families and the Gaza rockets that fall short, Israel is once again showing that it is adhering to international law in urban fighting far more than any nation that criticizes it ever has.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

10/08 Links Pt2: October 7th 2023 a day that will live in infamy, Pro-Hamas Pro-Murder rallies around the world.

From Ian:

Douglas Murray: Things Worth Remembering: A Time of War

One of the purposes of great literature, and the need to carry it around with us, is to make sense of the world as it happens. Terrible events occur, but if we have the wisdom of the ages in our heads, we can put them into some form of context.

Recent events in Israel have made me think of the Bible, and I’m sure that’s true of many people right now. After Hamas ambushed Israel in the worst attack against the country in 50 years, leaving more than 300 Israelis dead, I’m particularly thinking of one of the most famous lines from Psalms: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

A prayer that millions of people have uttered down the ages, millions more will utter today.

Unfortunately, some people watching the footage of Israeli women dragged out of their homes and children lying slaughtered on the floors, are engaging in a spot of moral relativism, trying to see this terror from “both sides.” Others are arguing we should view this attack “in context,” as though there can be any context for what happened in places like Sderot yesterday. Still, those are the nobler reactions. Iran rejoiced over the massacre with fireworks. In London, some have been seen celebrating the attacks, waving Palestinian flags and blasting car horns.

Because, of course, Israel is the only country in the world that gets criticized when its citizens are butchered.

Fortunately, ancient civilizations have a long culture and memory from which they can draw strength. And there is no older civilization than that of the Jewish people. For millennia, they have outlived every one of their enemies. They have seen off the Romans, the Assyrians, the Pharaohs, and the Babylonians.

They will see off this enemy, too.

Israel at war: The names and faces of Israel's fallen heroes

Nissim Logasi z"l
Igal Iluz z"l
Alon Barad z"l
Shai Al Kanfo z"l
Roman Gandel z"l
Yehuda Kader z"l
Avi Buzalgo z"l
Michael Lizmi z"l pic.twitter.com/dsV4QmfBi4
— The Mossad: Satirical, Yet Awesome (@TheMossadIL) October 8, 2023