Israel's War Against Hamas - Updates

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'Hamas Refused to Cooperate': Egypt Shuts Gaza Border After Agreeing to Free Foreigners

Multiple news outlets reported on Monday that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Hamas-controlled Gaza was closed.

www.breitbart.com

 

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Looks like a US Army Soldier and the Two vehicles are US Military Vehicles ( is that Iraq or Afghanistan circa 2010-15 ?

 

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[gipper]

STFU!

 

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In a compelling video, we witness a common sentiment among Israelis and Gazans: a shared struggle against an enemy that has taken away their dreams and happiness.

Just prior to the tragic events on October 7th, when Hamas committed an inhumane act by attacking innocent civilians in southern Israel, an Israeli journalist journeyed to Europe to hear the voices of young Gazans who had escaped the oppressive reality of Hamas rule.

This heart-wrenching story underscores the urgent need to free Gaza from the grasp of Hamas, for the benefit of both Israelis and Palestinians.

WATCH: Personal Accounts of Gazans Who Broke Free from Hamas | United with Israel

View this impactful video shedding light on the collective struggle faced by Israelis and Gazans, highlighting the pressing need to liberate Gaza from the grip of Hamas oppression.

unitedwithisrael.org

 

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[ This is a protest. No incitement, no attacks, as it should be. Peaceful ]

The protest was organized by the NYC chapter of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a volunteer organization created by Israeli citizens to advocate for the return of the hostages. Over 130 protesters, including children as young as four, sat on the ground wearing black blindfolds while singing quietly while holding a large sign reading “Secretary Guterres, what if Hamas kidnapped your loved ones?”

In the month since Hamas took hostages to Gaza, advocates for their release say their requests have been buried and politicized. Around the world, posters featuring the faces of the kidnapped have been torn down, and the news cycle has long moved on from the terrorists’ brutal slaughter in southern Israel of 1,400 people — largely civilians, including entire families, massacred amid brutal atrocities — that started the month-long war with Hamas.


Omer Lubaton-Granot, the leader of the Hostages Family Forum in New York, said that the rally was meant to call for stronger support from the international community. Speaking at the event, he said that members of his own family had been kidnapped and murdered.

“I think that we feel that the support from the international community and especially from the UN is not as strong as we would expect when we face the biggest hostage crisis ever. And that babies and elderly and women and unassociated civilians are held hostage by a terror organization whose intent and cruelty is well-known,” he told The Times of Israel.

(full article online)

At UN HQ in New York, advocates for release of Hamas’s hostages stage powerful sit-in

Over 130 protesters, including children, sit on the ground wearing black blindfolds and holding posters stating, 'Secretary Guterres, what if Hamas kidnapped your loved ones?'

www.timesofisrael.com

 

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UNRWA accidentally shows tunnel under its schools​

UNRWA tweeted photos showing damage to their schools in Gaza.

Two of them show clear sinkholes - indicating pretty strongly that there are Hamas tunnels directly underneath the schools.

This picture is very clear - the pavement doesn't even appear to have been damaged (much?) by an airstrike, it looks like it simply caved in:

Something destroyed a tunnel underneath.

Let's look a little closer:



Here's another that shows an obvious sinkhole that would not look like that if there wasn't an empty space underneath,.





UNRWA has, in the past, condemned Hamas for placing weapons in its schools. But it only does that when the violation is undeniable. It seems unlikely that they will say anything negative to Hamas about this - because, in the end, they are on Hamas' side.

UNRWA accidentally shows tunnel under its schools

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

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On Sunday, the IDF published evidence that Hamas tunnels were built during the construction of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza.

Indonesia strongly denied the accusation.

In a rare example of real journalism, The Telegraph(paywalled) reports:

Hamas terrorists were making a “last stand” in a hospital in northern Gaza on Tuesday night in a showdown witnessed by a Telegraph reporter.
Israeli warplanes, tanks and infantry cornered the last remains of a 1,000 strong battalion of the terrorist group’s forces holed up in the Indonesian Hospital and a nearby school...in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.
“They talk the talk, but they don’t walk so good,” said Lieutenant Colonel Blick of the Israeli 551 Reserve Paratroop Battalion, which escorted The Telegraph to the front line on Tuesday.
Pointing to the plumes of dust rising about 2km to the south, Lt Col Blick said fewer than 100 Hamas fighters were taking shelter in the Indonesian Hospital, the last survivors of a thousand-strong unit.
“They fought when we came in but folded after a day. Their command lines were cut. Now, where you can see the dust rising, in the hospital, they are making their last stand,” he said.
One of the soldiers took reporters to see a Hamas rocket launcher, dug into the garden of a house just a few yards from a pool where children would have played. The launcher was so hidden that it would have been close to impossible to spot by drone.

Most agree that the Indonesian Hospital is empty now of patients and is simply being used by Hamas to wage war. Taking it down with an air strike to finish the fighting must surely be tempting, but the IDF knows that would hand its enemy a propaganda coup.
At one point on The Telegraph’s embed, the tempo of gun and mortar fire coming from the Indonesian Hospital increased and was answered with a massive blast from a nearby tank.
None of the soldiers flinched. They’re inured to it. “We’re making tapes so we have them to fall asleep with after the war,” joked one.
Lt Col Ido pressed home the asymmetric nature of the war, saying: “They are hiding inside schools. Just 10 minutes ago, we had a serious battle with a group of Hamas inside the school that they built tunnels in. They fill it with the IEDs. Now the leadership of this battalion is hiding inside the hospital”.
The hospital is empty, something Israeli forces have verified with drones and other “tactical measures”, he said, adding: “They are firing on us from this hospital. So I think the world should understand what we are dealing with… they are terrorists. Can you imagine the Israeli state or England or Germany putting rockets inside their cities, in the City of London?”

In this accompanying video, the reporter says that there was fire from a UNRWA school (the subtitles took out the word "UNRWA.")





Clearly, Hamas chooses schools and hospitals as covers for their tunnels - we showed evidence of a large tunnel directly underneath an UNRWA school yesterday.

Yet hardly any reporters even consider that the tunnels are the targets as they report on Israel apparently targeting civilian buildings.

This is not just bad journalism but irresponsible journalism. If reporters did their jobs, Israel could flatten the Indonesian Hospital and newspapers would describe how Hamas cynically turned it into a military target. But because the media tries to be even-handed between a terror group and a democracy, soldiers' lives are endangered by having to exchange fire with terrorists hiding in hospitals and schools.

The only reason Israel bombing the terror stronghold hat formerly acted as a hospital would be a "propaganda coup" is because most media aren't doing their jobs.

Finally, a reporter actually reports about Hamas firing from hospitals and UNRWA schools

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

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Part 1


Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on Demonizing Israel, tweeted:

ON ISRAEL's #SelfDefense

Under Int'l Law Israel's actions in Gaza cannot qualify as self-defense

In int'l law, Self-Defense is a term of art, with a narrower meaning than in common language.

Under Article 51 of UN Charter, self-defense means :
(1) legitimate use of force
(2) by a state to protect itself against an attack
(3) from another state.

Under Article 51, use of force in self-defense is permissible solely to repel an armed attack by another State. Threats from armed groups from within occupied territory give state the RIGHT TO PROTECT ITSELF, but not to wage war against the state from which the armed group emanates.

In line with established ICJ jurisprudence, in the case of the oPt: Israel cannot invoke the right to Self Defense under the UN Charter against threats emanating from the territory it occupies, and against the protected [Palestinian] population (ICJ, 2004).

Indeed, the ICJ ruled (in the advisory opinion on the defensive wall in Judea and Samaria) that Article 51 of the UN Charter doesn't apply because of the technical reason that the Article is only concerned with actions between two states.

But that doesn't mean Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself.

Firstly and most importantly, Israel does not occupy Gaza by any reasonable definition of the term. But even without Gaza being occupied, Albanese and many other antisemites argue that since Gaza is not a UN recognized state, Israel still has no right to self defense.

How bizarre!

It is fascinating that they invoke the non-state status of "Palestine" when it suits their needs. Because by the same criterion, there is no occupation altogether, even in the West Bank, since occupation by definition (which is only defined in the Hague Conventions of 1907) is only of territory belonging to a "High Contracting Party" - meaning a state!

At any rate, while the ICJ decision says that the narrow definition of self defense does not apply to Israel in the West Bank, it states clearly in paragraph 141:

The fact remains that Israel has to face numerous indiscriminate and deadly acts of violence against its civilian population. It has the right, and indeed the duty, to respond in order to protect the life of its citizens.

Israel haters claim Israel has no legal right to "self defense." As usual, the arguments are bogus.

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

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Part 2

The Israeli High Court also discussed the ICJ ruling and stated that it was not only problematic legally, but ultimately irrelevant:

Israel's duty to defend its citizens and residents, even if they are in the area, is anchored in internal Israeli law. The legality of the implementation of this duty is anchored in public international law, as discussed, in the provisions of regulation 43of The Hague Regulations. In The Beit Sourik Case, this Court did not anchor the military commander's authority to erect the separation fence upon the law of self defense. The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice at the Hague determined that the authority to erect the fence is not to be based upon the law of self defense. The reason for this is that §51 of the Charter of the United Nations recognizes the natural right of self defense, when one state militarily attacks another state. Since Israel is not claiming that the source of the attack upon her is a foreign state, there is no application of this provision regarding the erection of the wall (paragraph 138 of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice at the Hague). Nor does the right of a state to self defense against international terrorism authorize Israel to employ the law of self defense against terrorism coming from the area, as such terrorism is not international, rather originates in territory controlled by Israel by belligerent occupation. This approach of the International Court of Justice at the Hague is not indubitable (many sources given - EoZ). It stirred criticism both from the dissenting judge, Judge Buergenthal (paragraph 6) and in the separate opinion of Judge Higgins (paragraphs 33 and 34). .... We find this approach of the International Court of Justice hard to come to terms with. It is not called for by the language of §51 of the Charter of the United Nations (see the difference between the English and French versions, S. Rosenne 291 General Course on Public International Law 149 (2001)). It is doubtful whether it fits the needs of democracy in its struggle against terrorism. From the point of view of a state's right to self defense, what difference does it make if a terrorist attack against it comes from another country or from territory external to it which is under belligerent occupation? And what shall be the status of international terrorism which penetrates into territory under belligerent occupation, while being launched from that territory by international terrorism's local agents? As mentioned, we have no need to thoroughly examine this issue, as we have found that regulation 43 of The Hague Regulations authorizes the military commander to take all necessary action to preserve security. The acts which self defense permits are surely included within such action. We shall, therefore, leave the examination of self defense for a future opportunity.

Of course, the court is correct. The idea that a state can defend itself from another state but not from non-state terrorism is absurd.

But to an extent, the entire discussion is moot - because (as implied here) Israel has not based its legal arguments for Gaza wars primarily on the UN Charter paragraph 51 anyway!

Israel wrote, concerning Operation Cast Lead in 2009, "Israel’s right to use force against Hamas was triggered years ago, when Palestinian terrorist organisations, including Hamas, initiated the armed conflict which is still ongoing."

For Operation Protective Edge in 2014, Israel also said it was part of a continuous war against armed groups, and only mentioned self-defense (without invoking Article 51) as a secondary reason:

The confrontation between Israel and these terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip satisfies the definition of armed conflict under international law. The 2014 Gaza Conflict was simply the latest in a series of armed confrontations, precipitated by the continuing attacks perpetrated by Hamas and other terrorist organisations against Israel. After previous periods of intense fighting (including in 2009 and 2012), Hamas agreed to ceasefires, each of which it later breached, leading to Israel’s resumption of responsive military action to defend its population from attacks. Hamas’s attacks leading up to the 2014 Gaza Conflict were thus part of a larger, ongoing armed conflict. But even if one were not to consider the 2014 Gaza Conflict part of a continuous armed conflict justifying Israel’s use of force both previously and during this time, Hamas’s armed attacks against Israel in 2014 would independently qualify as an armed attack triggering Israel’s inherent right of self-defence.

In short, the right to self-defense is inherent for everyone, not based on Article 51. This is quite obvious. Which just proves that those who obsess over Article 51 to give the impression that Israel cannot defend itself are simply being malicious and antisemitic by claiming that Israel uniquely is not legally allowed to defend itself.

Israel haters claim Israel has no legal right to "self defense." As usual, the arguments are bogus.

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

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

A senior Hamas commander told the UK's Daily Mail that Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar had "destroyed" the lower levels of the terrorist movement by ordering the October 7 attack, according to a report by the British newspaper on Sunday.

The commander, calling himself Abu Mohammed, told the newspaper in an interview over Telegram that originally the plan was to kidnap a few Israeli soldiers, but the orders were changed at the last minute by Hamas military leaders to conduct the massacre which ended up taking place on that tragic Saturday morning a month ago.

"Our reason to speak is that we want to raise our voice to the world. My dear Gaza is under bombardment," he lamented: "The problem is because of our leadership."

The commander pointed to the fact that Haniyeh and other leaders live in splendor abroad while he's sustaining himself on some dates and olive oil.

Abu Mohammed also accused Sinwar of "acting like a street fighter," saying Hamas terrorists were told to "do what they like" when attacking Israel.


(full article online)

Hamas commander: Haniyeh and Sinwar 'destroyed us'

The Hamas commander said Haniyeh and other leaders live in splendor abroad while he's sustaining himself on some dates.

www.jpost.com

 

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he head of Hamas's Weapons and Industries Department, Mahsan Abu-Zina, was eliminated by the IDF in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Wednesday.

Abu-Zina was one of the leaders in Hamas for producing weapons for the terrorist organization and specialized in the production of strategic ammunition and rockets.

The weapons production leader is the latest in a series of senior Hamas members killed amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, sparked by Hamas's massacre in southern Israel on October 7.

Terrorist cells in Gaza hit overnight​

The IDF also struck a terrorist cell which was planning to fire anti-tank missiles at Israeli forces overnight, as well as another cell which was firing rockets toward Israel.

IDF kills Hamas's head of weapons production

The targeted senior Hamas member specialized in the production of strategic ammunition and rockets.

www.jpost.com