Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

[Sixties Fan]

Suddenly it feels as if a very dark history has returned with a vengeance. One video from Makhachkala airport featured angry civilians surrounding one of the Tel Aviv flight’s passengers. It could have come straight from a 1930s newsreel. The passenger protests that he is Uzbek and not Jewish. But the mob refuses to let go of its prey. Those harassing him insist on looking at his passport and his telephone. At this point, he is literally fighting for his life. The desire of these people to kill more Jews is palpable.

It is not an overstatement to say Dagestan is no longer safe for Jewish people. In Nalchik, another Dagestani city, a planned Jewish centre was set on fire on Sunday. And in Khasavyurt, a mob besieged a hotel and searched rooms for Jews. A former chief rabbi of Moscow, Pinchas Goldschmidt, tweeted last night that, ‘We are receiving reports from four different cities in Dagestan… of mobs demanding to kill the Jews’.


(full article online)

‘Never Again’ has rarely rung so hollow

From an airport in Dagestan to the streets of London, anti-Semitism has made a horrifying comeback.

www.spiked-online.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

If you’ve been following the news, you will have noticed that there’s been an escalation on Israel’s northern border. So what’s going on there? And how is it all connected?

We sat down with Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi from the Alma Research and Education Center to understand the threat in detail.

 

[Sixties Fan]

The Gaza ministry of health announced that Israeli aircraft targeted the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital for cancer patients.

Some news reports said it was "destroyed."

So I looked for video or pictures of this destruction.

One video shows "the moment the hospital was hit." I see a lot of smoke, but no visible damage to the building.



Photos from the hospital Facebook page shows minor damage that could have come from a nearby airstrike, or from a terror rocket.. There is no hole in the wall that they show.






Finally, there is a video where an employee walks through the mostly undamaged hospital to show the videographer the major damage: what appears to be part of a wall that fell in, but it did not look like it was an outside wall.


Finally I found a photo that showed some real rubble, and it looks like a window was shattered. This is clearly not the damage from an Israeli missile.




It is certain that Israel didn't "target" the hospital as they claim. It may have been shrapnel from a nearby IDF attack, but it appears at least as likely that this was a Gaza rocket that fell short.

Was the Turkish hospital in Gaza hit by a terrorist rocket?

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Israel stresses that Hamas uses “civilians as a means to an end.” The genocidal terrorist group also wants to present the humanitarian situation as worse than it is. Hamas also uses civilian facilities to shield themselves. In addition, it is important to note that the Health Ministry in Gaza is run by Hamas. “When the Health Ministry makes a report, it is not neutral, rather it is a Hamas-run ministry in close contact with [Hamas’s] military wing.”

The IDF is aware of reports of humanitarian distress in Gaza. COGAT “assembled a team of experts that assess the humanitarian situation on a daily basis – what is in stock and what is missing – and we interface with international organizations in Gaza. Even now in the next room, I have my officers with UN agencies that update our assessment accordingly.”

The IDF monitors the full scope of water, food, energy, and health needs. “We check what is the situation in UN warehouses and shelters, the amount in hospitals and food warehouses, and the condition of water supply wells and desalination facilities,” the IDF said.

Israel asserts that there is no food shortage in Gaza and there won’t be for weeks to come. COGAT also stressed that “90% of drinking water is self-sourced [from Gaza] and 10% comes from three waterlines from Israel.” Hamas struck one of those lines on October 7; Israel has now opened two of them, which supply 28.5 million liters of water a day. The IDF pointed out that Hamas “damaged the water infrastructure and we have to repair it... there is water supply in Gaza; it answers humanitarian needs.”

COGAT also said there is medical equipment available in Gaza. “It is managed by Hamas and they manage what to keep and when to supply to hospitals. When medical equipment goes to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, they decide where it goes.”

In addition, the energy situation in Gaza was also harmed by Hamas on October 7 when they destroyed nine of the 10 power lines that go from Israel into the coastal region under their control. COGAT noted, however, that most of the essential facilities in Gaza, such as sewage treatment plants and hospitals, have generators and solar power, and can operate on locally stockpiled fuel. Solar energy accounts for 70% of the energy needs of one hospital, for instance.

“Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, manages the diesel supplies; hospital administrators in Gaza have been shouting since the beginning of the war that they have diesel fuel for only another 24 hours but they are still operating. Hamas is supplying them the fuel and has an interest in keeping them operational, because hospitals above the ground became Hamas centers underground,” the IDF noted.

On Friday and Saturday, the IDF revealed how Hamas uses Shifa Hospital in Gazaas a command center.

“Hamas only cares about themselves and doesn’t care about residents of the Gaza Strip... yet we still do what we can to protect residents; we are not in a fight against the civilians of Gaza,” COGAT said. Israel has said that Hamas puts civilians in harm’s way and uses people as human shields.


(full article online)

IDF COGAT: ‘We are not in fight against civilians of Gaza’

Israel’s COGAT is closely monitoring the humanitarian needs of Gaza and points out that Hamas is using human shields and exploiting civilian suffering.

www.jpost.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Since Hamas’ October 7 brutal pogrom in southern Israel, NRC has issued numerous statements, almost entirely focused on condemning Israel for its response in Gaza – aside from token mentions of Israeli victims.

This is particularly evident in NRC’s social media posts. From October 7 to October 26, NRC’s main Twitter/X account posted 18 tweets: 16 exclusively mention Gaza and Palestinians, 1 mentions “civilians in Israel & Gaza,” and 1 sharing an “urgent petition calling for a #CeasefireNOW in Gaza and Israel.” Similarly, the NRC Middle East Twitter/X account posted 26 tweets: 24 on Gaza and Palestinians, 1 thread that explicitly mentioned Israeli victims alongside Palestinians killed, and 1 tweet calling “on all parties to stop the violence and ensure civilians are protected.” Similar activity characterizes NRC’s Secretary General Jan Egeland’s Twitter/X account.

Content Analysis​

On October 7, as the massacre was unfolding, NRC posted a statement from its Palestine Country director Ana Povrzenic that did not mention – let alone condemn – the attacks, and euphemistically referred to “unprecedented hostilities.” The short statement ended by blaming the victims: “The only path towards stability and peace is for the international community to finally address the root causes of the conflict including ending the occupation of Palestinian territory.” NRC’s tweethighlighted the focus on condemning Israel: “NRC calls on all parties to stop the violence & ensure civilians are protected in Israel & Gaza. The only path towards peace is for the international community to address the root causes of conflict including ending the occupation of Palestinian territory.”

On October 9, NRC published a factsheet (updated on October 18) titled “The fighting must stop immediately.” The reason given: “This escalation is going to have long-term humanitarian consequences for Palestinians in Gaza.” As part of this webpage, in a “situation update” from October 18, NRC repeats Hamas propaganda, claiming that “Some [Israeli] hostages were confirmed among those killed in Israeli airstrikes.”

Astoundingly, but consistent with NRC’s long-time propaganda, the only allegations of illegality in the context of the pogrom and war are in regard to Israeli actions. Israel’s response to the terror attacks and preparations by Hamas in Gaza are labeled, “The collective punishment of countless civilians…illegal under international law.” Israel encouraging civilians to move to southern Gaza, presumably in advance of intensification of attacks around Gaza City in the north is deemed an “illegal and impossible order” and “forcible transfer, which is a grave breach of international humanitarian law and codified as a war crime.” NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland also repeated Hamas lies about the Al-Ahli Hospital incident and blamed Israel for “war crimes.”

Egeland in general attributes Israeli actions in Gaza to anything but targeting Hamas’ terror infrastructure. Instead, Israel allegedly seeks to “punish an entire population for the actions of extremists”; pursues “the starving of a million children to get concessions from grown Hamas men”; and engages in the “collective punishment of countless civilians, among them children, women, and the elderly, in retaliation for acts of horrible terror undertaken by armed men.”

Norwegian Refugee Council Activities after the October 7 Pogrom » ngomonitor

Since Hamas’ October 7 brutal pogrom in southern Israel, NRC has issued numerous statements, almost entirely focused on condemning Israel for its response in Gaza – aside from token mentions of Israeli victims.

www.ngo-monitor.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

As Arabs, we need to understand that Israel and the West are not our oppressors or enemies.We, Arabs, are our own worst enemies.

We, Arabs, are our greatest oppressors.

We, Arabs, have killed and oppressed a million times more of our people than the West and Israel can ever do.

It is not Israel that married off my mother when she was a child. It is my people who did.

It is not the West or Israel that has been bombing Yemen for the past decade and killed 400,000. It is us, Arabs, who did it.

It is not the Israel that implanted Islamic extremism in the East and the West. It is our mosques, it is the books we worship, it is the Imams we follow, it is what we learn and what we teach.It is not the West that forces us to treat women like commodities. It is our people.

And most of all, it is not the West or Israel that doesn’t value Arab lives.

It is us, Arabs, who do not value human life.

If we do not admit to ourselves that WE are the problem, that WE are refusing to progress, and that WE need to change – then change will never happen, blood will keep flowing, and we will never know peace.

How do we expect the world and the International Community to respect us, when we don’t respect ourselves?

 

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[Sixties Fan]

This interview with Shlomi needs to be translated for the English speaking audience. It starts at around 20 minutes into the video in the link of the quoted tweet.

Shlomi Elder is a peacenik journalist who for over two decades covered the reality of life in Gaza, interviewed senior Hamas officials and even had friendly relations with some of them. In Operation Cast Lead, he became famous when he put on a live news broadcast his friend Ezz ad-Din Abu al-Aish, a doctor from the Gaza Strip who cried for help after his daughters were killed by an IDF strike. The broadcast caused a shock in Israel and was one of the factors that pushed for a ceasefire. For years he made sure to bring the the stories of the ordinary people in Gaza, the human image, and was one of the prominent voices that called to stop fighting and start talking.

In the interview he first mentions how he called a member of Hamas that he had long communications with on October 7th, after hearing about the atrocities. The Hamas member denied the atrocities saying it was against Islam and then hung up the phone when Shlomi said it was confirmed. Later he messaged him begging him to at least release the babies they have hostage. The Hamas member wrote to him, in English, “we can’t talk about it until the Israeli aggression stops.”

In the next part, he mentions speaking with peacenik Palestinian and former member of Fatah. He asked the Palestinian “did you know Hamas was capable of this?” He responded: “yes only you Jews were dumb enough to not think it.” He continued, “you have a generation that’s been brought up to not see you as humans, but as animals. They’ve been brainwashed and all they see is Hamas. So when they saw your babies, all they saw were animals.”

In the end when he’s asked if he would talk with Hamas today he responds: “I’m not the same Shlomi Elder that I was even 3 weeks ago. Did we talk with Nazis? No.”

 

[Sixties Fan]

IDF Spokeperson: '700 Hamas terrorists arrested in Judea and Samaria since start of war'

IDF Spokesperson Hagari said that the IDF is expanding its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

www.israelnationalnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

On October 27, 2023, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal addressed an anti-Israel rally organized by a group of radical Muslim youths associated with Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in the southern Indian state of Kerala. His remarks triggered controversy, and raised concerns that some Muslim groups in India are providing a hospitable environment for terrorist groups such as Hamas.

The event, part of a series of anti-Israel lectures and protests, was organized on the theme of "Uproot Bulldozer Hindutva, Apartheid Zionism" by the Solidarity Youth Movement (SYM), the radical youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, in Malappuram, a Muslim-majority town in the southern state of Kerala. The state of Kerala, ruled by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has attracted news headlines over the past few decades for fostering Islamic radicalism as some Muslims and newly-converted Muslim youths have travelled to Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya from Kerala to join jihadi groups.[1]

Jamat-e-Islami Hind has a student wing, known as the Students' Islamic Organization of India (SIO). In 2003, SIO's Kerala unit transformed itself into the youth wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, though the SIO also exists as a separate entity. Known as Solidarity Youth Movement, it has evolved a global outlook in its methodology, adopting louder stances on major issues. Its activism is aided by a host of leftwing intellectuals and activists in India. The SYM is also seeking to expand to other states, such as Karnataka, to the north

(full article online)

Hamas Leader Khaled Mashal's Address To Anti-Israel Rally And Conference In India Draws Attention To Radical Islamism Of The 'Solidarity Youth Movement';, Mashal Says: 'Take To The Streets… For Palestine Cause In Various Nations, Also To Protest Amer

On October 27, 2023, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal addressed an anti-Israel rally organized by a group of radical Muslim youths associated with Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in the southern Indian state of Kerala. His remarks triggered controversy, and raised concerns that some Muslim groups in India are...

www.memri.org