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Originally Posted By BM1455:
View Quote More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Originally Posted By michigan66: More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By michigan66: Originally Posted By BM1455:
More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. Make Spain al-Andalus again. |
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Originally Posted By michigan66: More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By michigan66: Originally Posted By BM1455:
More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. We're only seeing larger ripples from the New World Order that people don't think exists. Various nations jump on various bandwagons when they aren't even involved in the dispute directly. It's all "Engineering consensus of opinion" and nothing else. Then CNN can say "13 nations support Gaza and rebuke Israel..." to change minds in more countries. It's the basic Edward Bernays method: "4 out of 5 dentists suggest Trident Gum", "4 out of 5 doctors smoke Marlboro".... etc. |
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The person who complains most, and is the most critical of others has the most to hide.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. |
Originally Posted By voyager3: Make Spain al-Andalus again. View Quote Spain is already becoming al-Andalus again https://gab.com/herbert737/posts/112450470695210361 |
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"Together with my father and my uncle they raped women, my father also killed after that" Very hard to hear - but you still have to remember well why the State of Israel needs to destroy the enemy
Two explosive-laden drones were launched from Lebanon at northern Israel a short while ago. According to the IDF, one of the drones was shot down by a fighter jet, while the second struck the Kiryat Shmona area. There are no injuries in the attack. The terrorist responsible for Hezbollah's strategic weapons production infrastructure in southern Lebanon; A key terrorist of the Hezbollah terrorist organization was eliminated Pray for Northern Israel. I did this video a while ago, that exposes Hezbollah. Incoming rocket sirens sounding near Ofakim in Southern Israel: |
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Originally Posted By michigan66: More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By michigan66: Originally Posted By BM1455:
More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. According to Wiki, Franco made some quiet attempts to establish contacts with Israel after they became independent, but Israel would have nothing to do with Spain due to Spanish cooperation with Germany and Italy in WWII. After Franco died, diplomatic contact was on-again off-again as Spanish governments came and went. Full relations were established in 1986. Leftists will always be leftists though, so now the evil Jews are oppressing the poor Palestinians, according to Spain. Who knows what financial opportunities slid under the surface to whom? |
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Link to liveblog articles below
Israeli forces retrieved the bodies of three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip, according to a statement by IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari. The hostages were named as Michel Nisenbaum, 59, Hanan Yablonka, 42 and Orión Hernández Rado, 30. According to the army, the three were killed during Hamas' October 7 attack in Israeli territory outside Kibbutz Mefalsim near the Gaza border, or before they were taken into the tunnel where they were found. The army says the bodies were retrieved during a joint operation by an IDF special missions unit and the Shin Bet's operations unit in Gaza's Jabalya, after information was obtained while questioning numerous Palestinians arrested in Gaza, according to the spokesperson. Attached File View Quote Reports in Lebanon: Israeli drone struck car in country's south IDF data: Eight soldiers were wounded in the previous day, one seriously Eight Israeli soldiers were injured in the past day, one seriously, according to IDF data. Seven soldiers were wounded while fighting in the Gaza Strip, and another soldier was moderately wounded outside of it. View Quote Here's what you need to know on day 231 of the war ■ CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet with Mossad chief David Barnea in Europe over the weekend in an attempt to restart negotiations for a hostage release and Gaza cease-fire deal, according to The New York Times ■ Reports in Lebanon say an Israeli drone struck a car in the country's south ■ IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari apologized to the family of Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker for providing the British Daily Mail with a video of his kidnapper's interrogation previously unseen by them ■ Israeli forces retrieved the bodies of three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip, according to a statement by IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari ■ The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote Friday on a resolution that strongly condemns attacks on humanitarian workers and UN personnel, and demands that all combatants protect them in accordance with international law ■ Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Israel will prohibit the Spanish embassy from providing services to West Bank Palestinians after the country's deputy prime minister ended a public announcement saying "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" ■ The International Court of Justice in The Hague is set to deliver its ruling on South Africa's request for an order to halt Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip on Friday at 4 P.M ■ The Israeli military says that air force fighter jets intercepted an aircraft that was approaching Israeli airspace from the east. A spokesperson for the IDF said that the drone did not cross into Israeli territory. The statement added that fragments of the interceptor missile fell inside Israeli territory, causing a fire to break out in the Safed area ■ The fiscal situation of the Palestinian Authority, which runs the West Bank, has worsened in the last three months, "significantly raising the risk of a fiscal collapse," the World Bank said on Thursday ■ Republican U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon address a joint session of Congress View Quote
In response to Spain's recognition of a Palestinian state and the antisemitic call by Spain's Deputy Prime Minister to not just recognize a Palestinian state but to 'liberate Palestine from the river to the sea,' I have decided to sever the connection between Spain's representation in Israel and the Palestinians, and to prohibit the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem from providing services to Palestinians from the West Bank. If this ignorant, hate-filled individual wants to understand what radical Islam truly seeks, she should study the 700 years of Islamic rule in Al-Andalus—today's Spain. View Quote IDF: Fire breaks out near Safed after fighter jets intercept incoming UAV The Israeli military says that IDF fighter jets intercepted an unmanned aerial vehicle that was approaching Israeli airspace from the east. A spokesperson for the IDF said that the UAV did not cross into Israeli territory. The statement added that fragments of the interceptor missile fell inside Israeli territory, causing a fire to break out in the Safed area. There were no injuries, the IDF added, and the incident is being investigated. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Institute for Study of War Backgrounder 23 May Key Takeaways Gaza Strip Netzah Yehuda Battalion (900th Kfir Brigade) conducted a raid into Beit Hanoun, killing three militants and destroying military infrastructure both above and below ground. Israeli forces have operated in Beit Hanoun since October 2023. Three IDF soldiers were killed in two separate incidents during the operation. Hamas fighters engaged Israeli forces using small arms, anti-personnel mines, grenades, and an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). They conducted a complex, multi-stage attack targeting Israeli forces. Palestinian militias remain active and combat effective there in Beit Hanoun. 98th Division killed Hamas Beit Hanoun Battalion Commander Hussein Fayyad in a tunnel in Jabalia on May 23. 98th Division is currently operating in uncleared parts of Jabalia. Israeli forces continued clearing operations in Jabalia. 98th Division directed an airstrike on an ammunition storage building in the “heart of Jabalia” and killed several Hamas fighters. 7th Brigade seized small arms, explosive charges, grenades, and combat equipment. An Israeli Army Radio correspondent said that the 98th Division ”has gained operational control over most of the area” after two weeks of operations in Jabalia. The IDF 99th Division continued operations along the Netzarim corridor in southern Gaza City. 679th Reservist Armored Brigade directed strikes targeting several Palestinian militia cells, including a cell moving military equipment. The IDF engaged Palestinian fighters in eastern Rafah on May 23. The IDF Nahal, Givati, and 401st brigades conducted operations in the Brazil and Shabura neighborhoods. The Brazil neighborhood borders the Philadelphi corridor, of which Israeli forces control at least half The Nahal and Givati brigades identified and destroyed tunnel shafts and rocket launchers and engaged Palestinian militias in close-range encounters. An IDF spokesperson said that Israel has temporarily evacuated about one million civilians from Rafah. Commercially available satellite imagery shows that make-shift camps in Rafah have been dismantled and moved to Khan Younis, Deir al Balah, and the al Mawasi humanitarian zone. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) fired rockets at an IDF site near the Gaza Strip border. West Bank Israeli forces have engaged Palestinian fighters in at least five locations in the West Bank The IDF found militia tunnels in Jenin as part of an Israeli effort to destroy militia capabilities and tunnels in the West Bank before they can be used to attack Israel. The IDF announced that hundreds of Israeli personnel participated in the operation to destroy militia infrastructure, including tunnels, and kill Palestinian fighters. The IDF engaged fighters from Hamas and the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Fatah) during the operation. The IDF seeks to prevent Palestinian militias from building tunnels around the Israel-West Bank border that would support offensive cross-border attacks. The IDF discovered and destroyed a tunnel in the Jenin refugee camp in July 2023. Israeli media separately reported in March 2024 that the IDF found tunnel shafts in the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm in March 2024; Tulkarm is close to the border with Israel. Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights Iranian-backed militias, including Lebanese Hezbollah, have conducted ten attacks into northern Israel in the last 24 hours. The IDF killed a Hezbollah weapons expert in an airstrike in Nabatieh, southern Lebanon. Mohammad Ali Nasser Farran was responsible for weapons manufacturing and created “strategic and unique weapons”. The IDF added that Israeli forces have targeted Farran’s manufacturing infrastructure in southern Lebanon in recent months. The IDF detained two individuals attempting to cross into the Golan Heights from Syria on May 23. Yemen The Houthi supreme leader announced that the Houthis attacked international shipping in the Mediterranean Sea in recent days. There is no evidence to support this claim. Houthi rhetoric about the Mediterranean Sea reflects the larger intent of Iran and its Axis of Resistance to extend their military reach into the Mediterranean. Senior Iranian and Houthi officials have discussed repeatedly in recent months the need to project force as part of their effort to impose an unofficial blockade on Israel. Tehran and its allies appear to be operating on the theory that severe economic disruption would coerce Israel to accept defeat in the Gaza Strip. The United Kingdom Maritime Transit Organization (UKMTO) reported an incident 98 nautical miles south of Hudaydah, Yemen, on May 23. UKMTO stated that a missile impacted the water “in close proximity” to a merchant vessel. UKMTO reported that all members of the crew are safe. Iran Iran is capitalizing on the presence of senior Axis of Resistance officials in Tehran for Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral to coordinate and cohere their approaches to the Israel–Hamas war. Tunnels in Gaza, the West Bank, and Southern Lebanon could be part of an operational concept Iranian leaders are developing for future war with Israel. The concept involves surprise ground attacks into Israel from Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. Protracted ground campaigns into Israel would disrupt the Israeli political and social order and compel Jewish citizens to flee. Major General Gholam Ali Rashid, who is a senior Iranian military decisionmaker, asserted on May 4 that a force of 10,000 fighters from Lebanon, 10,000 fighters from the Gaza Strip, and 2,000-3,000 from the West Bank would be enough to destabilize Israel. (Protracted ground operations by irregular troops with rudimentary indirect fire support and no logistical support against Israel is suicide. Quick raids like 7 Oct are feasible. Protracted ground fights in Israel would mean Hezbollah and Gaza forces leaving their extensive defensive structures. Dumb.) View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Originally Posted By voyager3: Make Spain al-Andalus again. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By voyager3: Originally Posted By michigan66: Originally Posted By BM1455:
More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. Make Spain al-Andalus again. They need another Franco |
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"The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction"
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International Court of Justice Orders Immediate Halt to Israel's Operation in Rafah, Citing the 'Disastrous' Humanitarian Situation Link
The International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered Israel to immediately halt its military operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, citing the "disastrous" humanitarian situation there. Reading out a ruling by the International Court of Justice or World Court, the body's president Nawaf Salam said provisional measures ordered by the court in March did not fully address the situation in the besieged Palestinian enclave now, and conditions had been met for a new emergency order. "Israel must immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," Salam said. View Quote
To bring everyone up to speed: On the same morning that IDF reports finding 3 dead hostages under an UNRWA facility, and amidst continued reports of Hamas-UNRWA cooperation, the ICJ rules against Israel… …citing UNRWA reports. You can’t make this stuff up. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Israeli troops continue the fight against Hamas:
IDF Spokesperson on Return of Three Hostage Bodies Home: IDF chasing down and firing at terrorists through the desert in 4x4: Footage from IDF in Southern Gaza: Censored video of kidnapping of IDF female soldiers What you don't see is beating and humiliation and harassment these miserable young girls 18 years old went through and all the dead bodies around them - massacred by HAMAS savages |
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The IDF releases footage showing fighter jets intercepting three drones launched at Israel by an Iran-backed militia in Iraq last night.
Israeli fighter jets struck a building in southern Lebanon's Maroun al-Ras earlier today, where a group of Hezbollah terrorist were spotted by soldiers of the 869th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit |
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A barrage of some 20 rockets was launched from Lebanon at northern Israel about an hour ago, the military says. Several rockets struck Manara and Dovev, causing damage but no injuries. The IDF says it shelled the launch sites. Additional, a "suspicious aerial target" was intercepted by air defenses over the northern community of Dishon, the military says. Separately, fighter jets struck several buildings used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon's Souaneh and Ramyeh, and other infrastructure in Yaroun; and a drone hit a group of Hezbollah operatives in Hanine, the military adds. View Quote
The deputy commander of Hamas's national security was killed in an airstrike in the central Gaza Strip yesterday, the military announces. According to the IDF, Diaa al-Din al-Sharafa was responsible for "managing the mechanism that secures the borders of the Gaza Strip." "During the war, this mechanism prevented the population from evacuating from combat zones," the IDF says. Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas following the October 7 onslaught, including its civil authority and members of its political wing. View Quote Attached File Palestinian tweets inside quote box
Attached File
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Institute for Study of War Backgrounder 24 May Key Takeaways Gaza Strip There is particularly intense fighting between the IDF and Hamas in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, despite the IDF killing the local Hamas commander there in October 2023. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer described particularly intense fighting between the IDF and Hamas in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip. This fighting highlights that Hamas remains active and combat-effective in Jabalia, despite the IDF killing Hamas’ Jabalia Refugee Camp Battalion commander in October 2023. The officer fighters are bolder in Jabalia than in other parts of the Gaza Strip and they have established “fighting compounds” that enable them to rapidly traverse through buildings rather than exposing themselves in the streets. Israeli officers have said in recent days that the fighting in Jabalia has been some of the “most violent” of the war.Palestinian militias have sustained an unusually high rate of attacks there since IDF sent units to Jabalia on May 11 to clear the area. The fighting in Jabalia indicates that Hamas could remain combat-effective in other parts of the Gaza Strip even after the IDF kills local Hamas commanders. Hamas has organized its military wing like a conventional military and has developed a deep bench of experienced military commanders to run it. Hamas therefore has junior commanders that can and are ready to assume command of units after their senior commanders are killed. Hamas uses this conventional military structure to continue fighting, despite intense Israeli military pressure. Israeli forces recovered the bodies of three hostages in Jabalia refugee camp. The hostages were killed in the October 7 attack before and their remains taken to the Gaza. After engaging and killing Hamas militants guarding the tunnel entrance, forces of the 75th Battalion (7th Armored Brigade) located the where Hamas fighters kept the bodies. The tunnel shaft is close to where Israeli forces recovered four other hostages’ bodies on May 16 and May 18. 99th Division continued operations along the Netzarim corridor in southern Gaza City. Hamas fighters mortared Israeli forces along the corridor. The IDF killed the deputy commander of Hamas’ National Security Forces in the Gaza Strip. He was responsible for "managing the mechanism that secures the borders of the Gaza Strip” and prevented Gazans from evacuating combat zones. The Gazan Interior Ministry confirmed his death. Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in eastern Rafah, destroying weapons depots and tunnel shafts. Palestinian militias conducted improvised explosive device (IED), mortar, and small arms attacks in northeastern Rafah and at the Salah al Din gate. The United States is considering appointing a US official to serve as the top civilian adviser to a primarily Palestinian force in the Gaza Strip after the war ends. US officials told Politico that the adviser would be based in the Middle East but would never enter the Gaza Strip. The adviser would be of Arab and/or Palestinian descent and work closely with the commanding officer of the local force. The White House, Department of Defense, and Department of State are continuing private discussions about the adviser's potential role. Palestinian fighters fired two rockets from Gaza City, which landed in open areas in Israel. Alarms sounded in Ofakim for the first time since January 2024. West Bank Israeli forces engaged Palestinian militias in at least three locations across the West Bank. Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights Lebanese Hezbollah conducted at least 12 attacks into northern Israel. Hezbollah claimed that three of the attacks were in retaliation for recent Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon. Iran Iran’s political factions have begun to maneuver and prepare for the presidential election in June 2024 to replace Ebrahim Raisi. Yemen--Iraqi Resistance The Houthis are coordinating their actions vis-a-vis the Israel-Hamas war with Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. The Houthis claimed three separate attacks targeting vessels in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. CENTCOM reported that Houthi fighters launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea on May 23.[58] No damage or injuries were reported from the attack. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq—a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias—conducted two drone attacks targeting Eilat and Haifa ports. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Israeli LOTAR (Counter Terrorism Unit) operate against Hamas in Gaza.
The IDF shelled more Hezbollah launch sites. |
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Israeli troops operating in northern Gaza's Jabaliya killed dozens of gunmen in close-quarters combat and by calling in airstrikes over the past day, the military says. The troops also located and demolished rocket launching sites and buildings used by terror groups, alongside caches of weapons, the IDF says. Among those killed were operatives who had directed attacks on troops, and a Hamas sniper cell that had opened fire at soldiers several times in recent days, according to the military. Meanwhile in central Gaza, several more operatives were killed in clashes with troops and by tank shelling, the IDF says. In Rafah, in the Strip's south, the IDF says a cell that had opened fire at troops was killed, and several tunnel shafts were found and destroyed, alongside caches of weapons. View Quote
An American vessel used to unload humanitarian aid from ships into the Gaza Strip via a floating pier disconnected from a small boat tugging it this morning due to stormy seas, leading it to get stuck on the coast of Ashdod, eyewitnesses say. Another ship was then sent to try and extract the stuck vessel, but also got beached. View Quote Attached File |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
It's all just another indicator of prophecy that in the last days all the nations will turn against Israel.......
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Originally Posted By darkd0r: According to Wiki, Franco made some quiet attempts to establish contacts with Israel after they became independent, but Israel would have nothing to do with Spain due to Spanish cooperation with Germany and Italy in WWII. After Franco died, diplomatic contact was on-again off-again as Spanish governments came and went. Full relations were established in 1986. Leftists will always be leftists though, so now the evil Jews are oppressing the poor Palestinians, according to Spain. Who knows what financial opportunities slid under the surface to whom? View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By darkd0r: Originally Posted By michigan66: Originally Posted By BM1455:
More BS from Spain, the place has been a bad joke since Franco died. This communist jackass is like Baltasar Garzon, the prosecutor who went after Pinochet and a whole slew of Argentine officers. While his kangaroo court was working on prosecuting them for crimes carried out in South America, an honest-to-God Spanish war criminal living in Spain was left alone. Santiago Carrillo killed thousands of Nationalist prisoners when he thought Franco was going to capture Madrid in 1936 and he never had to answer for it. According to Wiki, Franco made some quiet attempts to establish contacts with Israel after they became independent, but Israel would have nothing to do with Spain due to Spanish cooperation with Germany and Italy in WWII. After Franco died, diplomatic contact was on-again off-again as Spanish governments came and went. Full relations were established in 1986. Leftists will always be leftists though, so now the evil Jews are oppressing the poor Palestinians, according to Spain. Who knows what financial opportunities slid under the surface to whom? IIRC, Spain helped Sephardic Jews escape from German extermination efforts. Hitler and Franco also did not like each other and cooperation was more to deal with the communists than anything else. |
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The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion for equality made vain the hope for freedom.
-Lord Acton |
Link for liveblog articles below--here
Syrian opposition: Senior Syrian army officer killed in car explosion in Damascus The Syrian Observatory for Human rights – a Syrian opposition organization based in London – reported Saturday that an officer in President Bashar Assad's army was assassinated in a car explosion in the luxury neighborhood of Almaza in Damascus. The report estimates that the individual was an associate of Hezbollah or an agent of Iran, but no details have yet been found about his role or identity. Rami Abed Al Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said that the explosion occurred around five hundred meters (546 yards) from the Iranian embassy in Damascus, in a compound where officers affiliated with Hezbollah and Iran reside. View Quote Lebanese report: Israel struck a car and truck with a drone in central Lebanon Lebanese news outlet Al Mayadeen and Syrian opposition sources reported Saturday that Israel struck a car and a truck with a drone in the vicinity of the city of Al Qusayr, in the province of Homs, in central Lebanon. View Quote
The Israeli military says a video shared online showing a masked reservist threatening to defy orders if the government doesn’t pursue what he defines as “complete victory” over Hamas, may be a criminal offense. "The behavior in the video is a serious violation of IDF orders and IDF values, and constitutes a suspicion of criminal offenses," the military says in response to a query on the matter. The IDF Spokespersons Unit says the Military Advocate General has ordered an immediate Military Police investigation into the clip. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has also ordered commanders to immediately speak with their subordinates regarding the video, at all ranks, "given the severity of the incident." View Quote
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
The military releases footage and additional details from the operation to recover the bodies of three slain hostages from the northern Gaza Strip late Thursday. The bodies of Orión Hernández Radoux, 30, Hanan Yablonka, 42, and Michel Nisenbaum, 59, who were all killed on October 7, were located in a tunnel in Jabaliya, the same area from which the bodies of another four hostages were recovered a week earlier. The IDF says that troops of the 75th Armored Battalion killed a terror operative who was apparently a lookout over the area where the bodies were held. The soldiers then raided and captured the site. A short while later, troops of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit, Shin Bet agents, and special forces of the Military Intelligence Directorate entered the tunnel and located the bodies. The bodies were extracted from the tunnel in a "complex" overnight operation, the military says. According to the IDF, the location of the bodies was extracted from intelligence obtained in recent days by the military and Shin Bet. The intelligence also revealed that the three were abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Mefalsim area in southern Israel on October 7, and were killed there or a short while later en route to Gaza. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Several Hezbollah operatives were targeted in an airstrike in southern Lebanon's Aitaroun earlier this evening, the military says. The IDF says the operatives were spotted at a building used by the terror group. Also this evening, missiles and rockets were launched from Lebanon at a number of locations in northern Israel, causing damage in Shtula and Metula. There are no injuries. Hezbollah has claimed responsibly for at least eight attacks on the north today. The terror group also named a member killed in an Israeli strike, bring its toll amid the war to at least 314. View Quote
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Even if the talks are resumed, the five months wasted has harmed the hostages deeply so this is obvious. Israel’s leaders claimed military pressure would bring more deals after Hamas ended the first deal in December. But Israel’s leaders then almost immediately began reducing pressure on Hamas and it returned to northern Gaza and Israel began the method of withdrawal and Hamas must have felt it got handed a miracle. It was in the ropes but but got a huge miracle. View Quote
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Institute for Study of War Backgrounder 25 May Key Takeaways Gaza Strip Three IDF brigades continued clearing operations in Jabalia.The IDF Air Force killed a Hamas sniper team in the area who had fired at Israeli forces. Palestinian militias carried out attacks in the Beit Lahia area, north of Jabalia. 99th Division continued operations along the Netzarim corridor in southern Gaza City. Five IDF brigades continued clearing operations in Rafah. The IDF is moving “more deliberately” in Rafah, according to Israeli officers who spoke to the New York Times. The officers said that the IDF is using “less airpower and artillery, and fewer, smaller bombs,” which forces Israeli soldiers to clear urban areas on foot. The officers said that the four Hamas battalions in Rafah ”are not as well trained” as those in the northern Gaza Strip and “are not an urgent problem.” A US Army landing craft and part of the US-constructed pier in the Gaza Strip was swept away by waves to Ashdod, Israel. Palestinian militias did not conduct any indirect fire attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel on May 25. West Bank Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in at least two locations in the West Bank on May 25. Lebanon Lebanese Hezbollah conducted at least nine attacks from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. Iraq The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed one drone attack targeting an unspecified “vital target” in Eilat, southern Israel. View Quote Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Weekly Iran Summary--Link The representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader in the IRGC claimed that Western powers could not prevent the Iranian attack because of the pro-Palestinian stance of world public opinion and that the slogan “Death to Israel” had become global. The IRGC commander claimed that the attack on Israel was a limited operation designed to punish Israel, implying that Iran had more significant capabilities to harm Israel. A Syrian news website reported that the IRGC had begun transferring new shipments of weapons to an underground warehouse set up on the outskirts of the city of Albukamal in eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq (Deir ez-Zor 24, May 21, 2024). According to another report, the IRGC has begun digging tunnels in the town of al-Salehiya in the Albukamal region to connect the sites and headquarters of the pro-Iranian militias There was a decline in the number of attacks carried out by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against targets in Israeli territory. They claimed responsibility for five attacks compared to 13 the week before. The IDF confirmed that it had intercepted three UAVs east of Israel. The US Central Command reported that an oil tanker had been damaged by a Houthi ballistic missile, with no casualties, and that another ballistic missile had been fired. The Houthis claimed responsibility for downing two American drones over Yemen. The Houthi Movement leader claimed they had carried out two actions against Israel in the Mediterranean. However, that has not been verified. IRGC commander Hossein Salami said in a speech in Tehran that the Iranian attack on Israel had been a limited operation against two military bases, using a limited number of missiles and UAVs to punish Israel View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
The Al-Qassam Brigades lured a Zionist force into one of the tunnels in the Jabalia camp and engaged it from zero distance, killing, wounding and capturing all its members. View Quote Attached File IDF spokesman denies any soldiers were captured. Attached File Link to IDF spokesman's twitter (Hebrew). Pictures of body of IDF soldier being moved inside the tunnels. Blurry and not terribly graphic. Click To View Spoiler |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Suppressed EVOs - weird
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Attached File
Attached File
Troops of the 460th Armored Brigade operating in northern Gaza's Jabaliya raided a weapons depot in a school, where they found dozens of rocket and missile parts and other weapons. the military says. "This is further proof of the Hamas terror organization's cynical use of civilian infrastructure for terror purposes, while using the civilian population as a human shield," the IDF says. Meanwhile, in southern Gaza's Rafah, troops killed several gunmen and located tunnel shafts and weapons; and in the central Gaza Strip corridor, several more operatives were killed, according to the military. Over the past day, the Air Force struck more than 50 targets in the Gaza Strip. According to the IDF, the targets included buildings used by terror groups, weapon depots, rocket launchers, observation posts, and other infrastructure, along with armed cells. View Quote Attached File
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Front page article on Yahya Sinwar and the former head of the Israeli prison system who knew him. Longer, better written version of an article published a few months ago in Ha'aretz.
Yuval, the Israeli, recommended against freeing Sinwar in 2011. A sad twist is one of his nephews was killed on 7 October. Article says Sheikh Yassin recruited Sinwar--a Shin Bet officer said last year that happened after Abdullah Azzam, Bin Laden's mentor in Afghanistan, recommended Sinwar join Hamas. It's a very small, weird world. The Hamas Chief and the Israeli Who Saved His Life Link Highpoints PRISON, MR. SINWAR once told an Italian journalist, is a crucible. “Prison builds you,” he said, gives you time to think about what you believe in — “and the price you are willing to pay” for it. His rite of passage had begun in 1989, two years after the first intifada erupted, protesting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was 27, with a reputation for extreme brutality, convicted of murdering four Palestinians whom Hamas suspected of collaborating with Israel. “They wanted prison to be a grave for us, a mill to grind our will, determination and bodies,” Mr. Sinwar once told supporters. “But, thank God, with our belief in our cause we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study.” He was born in a refugee camp in southern Gaza, where his parents had been forced to live after what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when they were displaced from their homes during the wars surrounding the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. In conversations with fellow prisoners, Mr. Sinwar spoke of how his refugee childhood had led him to Hamas. “Something he always remembered is that all the men in the camp would go to one bathroom, and the women to another,” said Esmat Mansour, a fellow prisoner held from 1993 to 2013 for killing an Israeli settler. “There was a daily line and you had to wait. And how they distributed food and the humiliation they would undergo. It isn’t something special to him, but it apparently impacted him a lot.” Mr. Sinwar had been recruited by Hamas’s founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who made him chief of an internal security unit known as Al Majd. His job was to find and punish those suspected of violating Islamic morality laws or cooperating with the Israeli occupiers. In an interrogation after his arrest in 1988, [Sinwar] dispassionately described shooting one man, strangling another with his bare hands, suffocating a third with a kaffiyeh, and choking and punching a fourth before tossing him in a hastily dug grave. Records of the interrogation make clear that, far from being remorseful, Mr. Sinwar saw beating confessions out of the collaborators as a righteous duty. One of them, he told interrogators, had even said that “he realized he deserved to die.” Dr. Bitton saw that, in a sense, everything that had passed between himself and Mr. Sinwar was a premonition of the events now coming to pass. He understood the way Mr. Sinwar’s mind worked as well as or better than any Israeli official. He knew from experience that the price the Hamas leader would demand for the hostages [kidnapped on 7 Oct] might well be one Israel would be unwilling to pay. Mr. Sinwar continued his campaign against informants from behind bars. Israeli authorities believed he had ordered the beheadings of at least two prisoners he suspected of snitching. Hamas operatives would throw their severed body parts out of the cell doors and tell the guards to “take the dog’s head,” Dr. Bitton said. But if Mr. Sinwar was feared by his fellow inmates, he was also respected for his resourcefulness. He tried to escape several times, once surreptitiously digging a hole in his cell floor in hopes of tunneling under the prison and exiting through the visitor center. And he found ways to plot against Israel with Hamas leaders on the outside, managing the smuggling of cellphones into the prison and using lawyers and visitors to ferry messages out. Often, the message was about finding ways to kidnap Israeli soldiers to trade for Palestinian prisoners. Years later, Mr. Sinwar would say that “for the prisoner, capturing an Israeli soldier is the best news in the universe, because he knows that a glimmer of hope has been opened for him.” They would meet back in the cellblocks, two men with strikingly similar features — cropped, prematurely graying hair; dark, quizzically arched eyebrows; high cheekbones. Dr. Bitton, a loquacious, easygoing man, often joshed with the other prisoners, getting them to open up about their families or sports. But with Mr. Sinwar, the talk was all business and dogma. “The conversations with Sinwar were not personal or emotional,” he said. “They were only about Hamas.” Mr. Sinwar knew the Quran by heart, and he coolly laid out his organization’s governing doctrines. “Hamas sees the land we live on as the holy land, like, ‘This is ours, you don’t have a right to live in this land,’” Dr. Bitton said. “It wasn’t political, it was religious.” Was there no chance, then, for a two-state solution? Dr. Bitton would press him. Never, Mr. Sinwar would say. Why not? Dr. Bitton would respond. Because this is the land of Muslims, not for you — I can’t sign away this land. Dr. Bitton was under no illusion about whom he was dealing with. A prison assessment that Dr. Bitton said he helped compile called Mr. Sinwar cruel, cunning and manipulative, an authoritative man with “the ability to carry crowds” who “keeps secrets even inside prison amongst other prisoners.” Still, there was a certain transactional honesty to their conversations. Each man knew the other had an agenda. On Oct. 18, 2011, Dr. Bitton stood in the yard of Ketziot prison, watching as Mr. Sinwar boarded a bus to Gaza. Having witnessed the persuasive power of Mr. Sinwar’s leadership up close, Dr. Bitton said he had urged the negotiators not to free him. But he was overruled, he said, because Mr. Sinwar “didn’t have as much Jewish blood on his hands” as some of the others. “I thought you need to look at the capabilities of the prisoner to use their abilities against Israel and not just what he did — his potential,” Dr. Bitton said. In news video footage from that day, Mr. Sinwar does not look all that pleased either, scowling on a makeshift stage in central Gaza City as Ismail Haniyeh, then leader of Hamas in Gaza, gleefully waves to the thousands gathered to celebrate the prisoners’ release. Hours later, in an interview with Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV, a defiant Mr. Sinwar made a promise. “We shall spare no efforts to liberate the rest of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “We urge the Qassam Brigades to kidnap more soldiers to exchange them for the freedom of our loved ones who are still behind bars.” “He told us what he was going to do,” Dr. Bitton said. “We didn’t want to listen.” View Quote Entire article in spoiler Click To View Spoiler The Hamas Chief and the Israeli Who Saved His Life
In an Israeli prison infirmary, a Jewish dentist came to the aid of a desperately ill Hamas inmate. Years later, the prisoner became a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack. May 26, 2024 This is how Dr. Yuval Bitton remembers the morning of Oct. 7. Being jolted awake just after sunrise by the insistent ringing of his phone. The frantic voice of his daughter, who was traveling abroad, asking, “Dad, what’s happened in Israel? Turn on the TV.” News anchors were still piecing together the reports: Palestinian gunmen penetrating Israel’s vaunted defenses, infiltrating more than 20 towns and military bases, killing approximately 1,200 people and dragging more than 240 men, women and children into Gaza as hostages. Even in that first moment, Dr. Bitton says, he knew with certainty who had masterminded the attack: Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza and Inmate No. 7333335 in the Israeli prison system from 1989 until his release in a prisoner swap in 2011. But that was not all. Dr. Bitton had a history with Yahya Sinwar. As he watched the images of terror and death flicker across his screen, he was tormented by a decision he had made nearly two decades before — how, working in a prison infirmary, he had come to the aid of a mysteriously and desperately ill Mr. Sinwar, and how afterward the Hamas leader had told him that “he owed me his life.” The two men had then formed a relationship of sorts, sworn enemies who nevertheless showed a wary mutual respect. As a dentist and later as a senior intelligence officer for the Israeli prison service, Dr. Bitton had spent hundreds of hours talking with and analyzing Mr. Sinwar, who in the seven months since Oct. 7 has eluded Israel’s forces even as their assault on Gaza has killed tens of thousands and turned much of the enclave to rubble. Now American officials believe Mr. Sinwar is calling the shots for Hamas in negotiations over a deal for a cease-fire and the release of some of the hostages. Dr. Bitton saw that, in a sense, everything that had passed between himself and Mr. Sinwar was a premonition of the events now coming to pass. He understood the way Mr. Sinwar’s mind worked as well as or better than any Israeli official. He knew from experience that the price the Hamas leader would demand for the hostages might well be one Israel would be unwilling to pay. And by day’s end, he knew something else: Mr. Sinwar’s operatives had his nephew. THE DAY HE SAVED Yahya Sinwar’s life, Yuval Bitton was 37, running the dental clinic at the Beersheba prison complex, in the Negev desert of southern Israel. He had taken the job eight years earlier, in 1996, fresh out of medical school, assuming he would be treating guards and other employees. Instead, he’d ended up with a patient roster of some of Israel’s most hardened prisoners, like the Hamas operatives responsible for suicide attacks at a Jerusalem market and a Passover massacre at the Park Hotel, as well as the ultranationalist Israeli who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for his peacemaking with the Palestine Liberation Organization. There were times when Dr. Bitton would be drilling the teeth of one terrorist only to learn that outside the prison walls, another had struck. “During the day you would treat them and at night you come home and cry,” he said. “That happened many, many nights. Once there was a suicide attack near where my parents lived. Sixteen Jews were killed. Who would not cry at night? When you see a small baby being lifted, who wouldn’t cry?” He tried to compartmentalize. He told himself that as a doctor he was bound by his oath to do no harm. And on particularly bad days, he said, he would remind himself of the words that Israel’s primary architect, David Ben-Gurion, had made his mantra in the years after the nation’s founding: “The State of Israel will be judged not by its wealth, nor by its army, nor by its technology, but by its moral character and human values.” While some Israeli historians question whether Ben-Gurion always lived by those words, Dr. Bitton took them to heart. It was, he thought, what differentiated him from the prisoners he treated. PRISON, MR. SINWAR once told an Italian journalist, is a crucible. “Prison builds you,” he said, gives you time to think about what you believe in — “and the price you are willing to pay” for it. His rite of passage had begun in 1989, two years after the first intifada erupted, protesting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was 27, with a reputation for extreme brutality, convicted of murdering four Palestinians whom Hamas suspected of collaborating with Israel. He was born in a refugee camp in southern Gaza, where his parents had been forced to live after what Palestinians call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when they were displaced from their homes during the wars surrounding the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. In conversations with fellow prisoners, Mr. Sinwar spoke of how his refugee childhood had led him to Hamas. “Something he always remembered is that all the men in the camp would go to one bathroom, and the women to another,” said Esmat Mansour, a fellow prisoner held from 1993 to 2013 for killing an Israeli settler. “There was a daily line and you had to wait. And how they distributed food and the humiliation they would undergo. It isn’t something special to him, but it apparently impacted him a lot.” Mr. Sinwar had been recruited by Hamas’s founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who made him chief of an internal security unit known as Al Majd. His job was to find and punish those suspected of violating Islamic morality laws or cooperating with the Israeli occupiers. In an interrogation after his arrest in 1988, he dispassionately described shooting one man, strangling another with his bare hands, suffocating a third with a kaffiyeh, and choking and punching a fourth before tossing him in a hastily dug grave. Records of the interrogation make clear that, far from being remorseful, Mr. Sinwar saw beating confessions out of the collaborators as a righteous duty. One of them, he told interrogators, had even said that “he realized he deserved to die.” Mr. Sinwar continued his campaign against informants from behind bars. Israeli authorities believed he had ordered the beheadings of at least two prisoners he suspected of snitching. Hamas operatives would throw their severed body parts out of the cell doors and tell the guards to “take the dog’s head,” Dr. Bitton said. But if Mr. Sinwar was feared by his fellow inmates, he was also respected for his resourcefulness. He tried to escape several times, once surreptitiously digging a hole in his cell floor in hopes of tunneling under the prison and exiting through the visitor center. And he found ways to plot against Israel with Hamas leaders on the outside, managing the smuggling of cellphones into the prison and using lawyers and visitors to ferry messages out. Often, the message was about finding ways to kidnap Israeli soldiers to trade for Palestinian prisoners. Years later, Mr. Sinwar would say that “for the prisoner, capturing an Israeli soldier is the best news in the universe, because he knows that a glimmer of hope has been opened for him.” “They were formative years,” Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official who serves as an informal spokesman, said in an interview. “He developed a leadership personality in every sense of the word.” He also became fluent in Hebrew, taking advantage of an online university program, and devoured Israeli news, to better understand his enemy. A routine search of his cell yielded tens of thousands of pages of painstakingly handwritten Arabic — Mr. Sinwar’s translations of contraband Hebrew-language autobiographies written by the former heads of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet. According to Dr. Bitton, Mr. Sinwar surreptitiously shared the translated pages so other inmates could study the agency’s counterterrorism tactics. He liked to call himself a “specialist in the Jewish people’s history.” “They wanted prison to be a grave for us, a mill to grind our will, determination and bodies,” Mr. Sinwar once told supporters. “But, thank God, with our belief in our cause we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study.” Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, elects its leaders democratically, and that structure was mirrored behind bars. In each prison, one committee was charged with making quotidian decisions — who slept in the top bunk, what to watch during allotted TV hours — while another meted out punishments to suspected collaborators, and still others oversaw things like divvying up money sent by Hamas leaders that could be used to purchase food at the commissary. An elected “emir,” along with members of a high council called the “haya,” ruled over this structure for limited terms. For much of Mr. Sinwar’s time in prison, he alternated as emir with Rawhi Mushtaha, a confidant who had been convicted alongside him for killing collaborators. It was Mr. Sinwar’s turn in 2004. AT THE TIME, the episode seemed of little consequence. After all, Dr. Bitton said, Mr. Sinwar was supposed to be serving four life terms. As a dentist in Israel, Dr. Bitton had also trained in general medicine, and was often called upon to assist the three other prison doctors, stitching up wounds or helping with a tricky diagnosis. So when he emerged from seeing his dental patients that day in early 2004 to find several clearly perplexed colleagues surrounding a disoriented Mr. Sinwar, Dr. Bitton did what a doctor does. He joined them. “What’s going on?” he asked the prisoner. The two men had met on a number of occasions. Dr. Bitton often wandered back to the prisoners’ wings, partly out of curiosity about how some of Israel’s most fervent enemies thought, and partly because the trust he engendered as a doctor made him a useful intermediary when prison administrators wanted to know what was going on. Just as Mr. Sinwar had learned Hebrew, Dr. Bitton had taught himself Arabic. He became such a regular presence in the cellblocks that some prisoners suspected, wrongly, that he might be an intelligence plant. Israeli and Palestinian watchdog groups have periodically published scathing reports on conditions for Palestinian prisoners — overcrowded cells lacking proper sanitation and ventilation, harsh interrogations and, in some cases, years of solitary confinement and withholding of proper medical care. Against that backdrop, Mr. Mansour said, Dr. Bitton stood out. “He treated us like humans.” “He bought the hearts of the prisoners, truly. He would go into their cells, drink with them and eat with them,” he said. “If there was a problem, he would call and help.” Lately Dr. Bitton had been working to persuade Mr. Sinwar and others to cooperate with Israeli researchers studying suicide bombings. But in the examining room, Mr. Sinwar didn’t seem to know him. “Who are you?” Dr. Bitton recalled him asking. “It’s me, Yuval.” “Wow, I’m sorry — I didn’t recognize you,” Dr. Bitton said the prisoner replied, before describing his symptoms. He would stand for prayer and then fall. As he spoke, he seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. But for Dr. Bitton, the most telling sign was Mr. Sinwar’s complaint of a pain in the back of his neck. Something is wrong with his brain, the dentist told his colleagues, perhaps a stroke or an abscess. He needed to go to the hospital, urgently. He was rushed to the nearby Soroka Medical Center, where doctors performed emergency surgery to remove a malignant and aggressive brain tumor, fatal if left untreated. “If he had not been operated on, it would have burst,” Dr. Bitton said. A few days later, Dr. Bitton visited Mr. Sinwar in the hospital, together with a prison officer sent to check the security arrangements. They found the prisoner in bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV, but awake. Mr. Sinwar asked the officer, who was Muslim, to thank the dentist. “Sinwar asked him to explain to me what it means in Islam that I saved his life,” Dr. Bitton recalled. “It was important to him that I understood from a Muslim how important this was in Islam — that he owed me his life.” MR. SINWAR RARELY if ever spoke to the Israeli prison authorities. But now he began meeting regularly with the dentist, to drink tea and talk. They would meet back in the cellblocks, two men with strikingly similar features — cropped, prematurely graying hair; dark, quizzically arched eyebrows; high cheekbones. Dr. Bitton, a loquacious, easygoing man, often joshed with the other prisoners, getting them to open up about their families or sports. But with Mr. Sinwar, the talk was all business and dogma. “The conversations with Sinwar were not personal or emotional,” he said. “They were only about Hamas.” Mr. Sinwar knew the Quran by heart, and he coolly laid out his organization’s governing doctrines. “Hamas sees the land we live on as the holy land, like, ‘This is ours, you don’t have a right to live in this land,’” Dr. Bitton said. “It wasn’t political, it was religious.” Was there no chance, then, for a two-state solution? Dr. Bitton would press him. Never, Mr. Sinwar would say. Why not? Dr. Bitton would respond. Because this is the land of Muslims, not for you — I can’t sign away this land. In a search of his cell, guards had confiscated a handwritten novel that Mr. Sinwar finished at the end of 2004, after the surgery. “You couldn’t make a Hollywood movie about it,” Dr. Bitton laughed. “But it was about the relationship between men, women and the family in Islam.” At least one copy was smuggled out; The New York Times found a typed PDF in an online library. The novel, “The Thorn and the Carnation,” is a coming-of-age story that limns Mr. Sinwar’s own life: The narrator, a devout Gazan boy named Ahmed, emerges from hiding during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war to a life under Israeli occupation. In their cruelty, the occupiers cause the “chests of youth to boil like a cauldron.” In retaliation, Ahmed’s friends and family attack them with knives, ambush them with Molotov cocktails and hunt collaborators so as to “gouge out the eyes that the occupier sees us with from the inside.” “The Thorn and the Carnation,” a coming-of-age novel that Mr. Sinwar wrote in prison. Woven throughout is the theme of the unending sacrifice demanded by the resistance. At university, where he is recruited to Hamas, Ahmed becomes infatuated with a woman he sees walking to and from class. “I am not exaggerating when I say that she truly surpasses the full moon,” he says. Yet their relationship, chaste and proper according to Muslim values, never develops; the reader never even learns the woman’s name. “I decided to end my love story, if it can even be called a love story,” the narrator says. “I realized that ours is the bitter story of Palestine, for which there is only room for one love … one passion.” But if Mr. Sinwar, unmarried at the time, ever entertained the notion of an alternative path for himself, he did not share his thoughts with Dr. Bitton. (Indeed, even after his release from prison and subsequent marriage, he has said very little publicly on the subject of his own family, except to note that “the first words my son spoke were ‘father,’ ‘mother’ and ‘drone.’”) At Beersheba, Mr. Sinwar was unquestionably a prison chieftain, Dr. Bitton said, but he didn’t put on airs — a humble ascetic who shared cooking duties and other chores with more junior inmates. Every week or so, he would make an improvised knafeh, a Palestinian dessert of sweet cheese and shredded pastry drenched in syrup. The prisoners always awaited his knafeh, Dr. Bitton said. They really liked it — and so did Dr. Bitton, who understood the breaking of bread together as a way to cultivate the relationship. “I tried it,” he allowed. “Listen, they know how to make knafeh.” Dr. Bitton was under no illusion about whom he was dealing with. A prison assessment that Dr. Bitton said he helped compile called Mr. Sinwar cruel, cunning and manipulative, an authoritative man with “the ability to carry crowds” who “keeps secrets even inside prison amongst other prisoners.” Still, there was a certain transactional honesty to their conversations. Each man knew the other had an agenda. Just as Dr. Bitton probed to better understand the schisms between Hamas and the other Palestinian factions inside the prison, Mr. Sinwar returned again and again to the fissures in Israeli society that he read about in the Hebrew news media, between rich and poor and Sephardic and Ashkenazi and secular and orthodox Jews. “Now you’re strong, you have 200 atomic warheads,” Mr. Sinwar would say. “But we’ll see, maybe in another 10 to 20 years you’ll weaken, and I’ll attack.” In 2006, after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas stunned political observers by winning the largest number of seats in the Palestinian Authority’s legislative elections. Israeli authorities, worried that the election would help legitimize a group that the United States and European Union had designated a terrorist organization, devised a plan to remind the world of Hamas’s true colors by giving some of its incarcerated leaders a media platform on “60 Minutes” and in an interview with Israeli television. Dr. Bitton was tasked with selling the idea to Mr. Sinwar, who would have to sign off. “Speak freely, you can say whatever you want about Israel,” Dr. Bitton told Mr. Sinwar and other prisoners. The plan worked, from Dr. Bitton’s perspective. When Abdullah Barghouti, who had organized suicide bombings that killed 66 people, was asked on “60 Minutes” whether he regretted his deeds, he readily answered yes. “I feel bad, ’cause the number only 66,” he said. Mr. Sinwar, for his part, tried to use his first and only interview with an Israeli television outlet to send a savvier message. With Dr. Bitton looking on, he told the interviewer that Israelis should “be scared” about Hamas’s election victory. But, he added in comments that weren’t aired, much depended on what the Israeli government did next. “From our perspective, we have a right that we’re asking from the Israeli leadership,” he said. “We aren’t asking for the town.” The next year, to great alarm in Israel, Hamas wrested full control over Gaza in a violent power struggle with Fatah, a secular rival political party. This was the time, Dr. Bitton decided, to channel the relationships he had built with Mr. Sinwar and other imprisoned Palestinian leaders into a new role, one that would not leave him feeling so conflicted. He applied to become an officer in the Prison Intelligence Service, and after a short course was assigned to Ketziot prison in 2008. The man who “doesn’t understand the motives and roots of their enemy,” he explained, “will not be able to prevent those organizations from doing what they want.” DR. BITTON WAS quickly thrown into a monumental challenge. Two years earlier, in 2006, an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, had been kidnapped in a daring cross-border raid. Among his captors was none other than Mr. Sinwar’s brother. The kidnapping profoundly shook Israeli society, with its credo that not a single soldier should be left behind. As the Israeli government, working through a back channel with a team of international intermediaries, attempted to negotiate a prisoner swap, Dr. Bitton was tasked with using his connections to imprisoned Hamas leaders to glean intelligence on what they would accept. By 2009, Israel had agreed in principle to exchange 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Mr. Shalit. Mr. Sinwar “was managing the negotiations from inside the prison with a group of brothers who were also with him,” according to Ghazi Hamad, the informal Hamas spokesman, who was involved in the negotiations. There was only one problem: Despite being on the list himself, Mr. Sinwar didn’t think the deal was good enough, according to Gerhard Conrad, a retired German intelligence officer involved in brokering the Shalit deal. Mr. Sinwar was insisting on freeing “the so-called impossibles,” Mr. Conrad said. Those were the men serving multiple life sentences, men like Mr. Barghouti and Abbas al-Sayed, who had masterminded the Passover suicide attack that had killed 30 people at the Park Hotel. Saleh al-Arouri, a founder of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, and a leader of prisoners from the West Bank, approached Dr. Bitton. Would he help push against Mr. Sinwar’s obstinacy? Mr. al-Arouri “understood they had to compromise — that we would not release everyone,” Dr. Bitton said. “He was more pragmatic.” Recognizing that the rift between Mr. Sinwar and Mr. al-Arouri could potentially be used to advance the Shalit negotiations, Dr. Bitton got his bosses to sign off on a plan aimed at deepening the division. At Mr. al-Arouri’s request, prison officials brought together 42 influential West Bank inmates from three separate prisons so that Mr. al-Arouri could win them to his side. But pressuring Mr. Sinwar turned out to be much harder. Dr. Bitton saw what he was up against in 2010, when, amid the stalled Shalit negotiations, Mr. Sinwar tried to compel all 1,600 Hamas prisoners to join a hunger strike that would have left many of them dead. The goal wasn’t even to free prisoners, just to release two from long-term solitary confinement. In that moment, Dr. Bitton said, he realized there would never be a Shalit deal as long as Mr. Sinwar remained in the way. “He was willing to pay a heavy price for principle,” Dr. Bitton said, “even if the price wasn’t proportional to the goal.” Even after the Shalit negotiators managed to convince the Israelis in 2011 to release additional prisoners, bringing the total to 1,027 — including some, though not nearly all of the “impossibles” — Mr. Sinwar remained opposed. But by this point, Mr. al-Arouri had been released from prison and was a member of the Hamas negotiating team, led by Ahmad al-Jabari, a top commander who had led the raid that captured Mr. Shalit. Under pressure from Egyptian mediators, the team concluded that this was as good a deal as they were going to get. Mr. Sinwar’s authority had been diluted. But just to be sure, the Israelis put him in solitary confinement until the deal was done. (Mr. al-Arouri was killed in an Israeli airstrike this past January.) On Oct. 18, 2011, Dr. Bitton stood in the yard of Ketziot prison, watching as Mr. Sinwar boarded a bus to Gaza. Having witnessed the persuasive power of Mr. Sinwar’s leadership up close, Dr. Bitton said he had urged the negotiators not to free him. But he was overruled, he said, because Mr. Sinwar “didn’t have as much Jewish blood on his hands” as some of the others. “I thought you need to look at the capabilities of the prisoner to use their abilities against Israel and not just what he did — his potential,” Dr. Bitton said. In news video footage from that day, Mr. Sinwar does not look all that pleased either, scowling on a makeshift stage in central Gaza City as Ismail Haniyeh, then leader of Hamas in Gaza, gleefully waves to the thousands gathered to celebrate the prisoners’ release. Hours later, in an interview with Hamas’s al-Aqsa TV, a defiant Mr. Sinwar made a promise. “We shall spare no efforts to liberate the rest of our brothers and sisters,” he said. “We urge the Qassam Brigades to kidnap more soldiers to exchange them for the freedom of our loved ones who are still behind bars.” “He told us what he was going to do,” Dr. Bitton said. “We didn’t want to listen.” ABOUT 6:30 A.M. on Oct. 7, Dr. Bitton’s nephew, Tamir Adar, woke up in Nir Oz, a kibbutz less than two miles from the Gaza border. Mr. Adar, 38, worked as a farmer, and he normally rose early so that he would have time to enjoy the long summer afternoons, drinking beer as he watched his daughter and son splash around in the community pool. That morning, as air raid sirens blared, rockets pierced the sky and sporadic gunfire ricocheted off walls, Mr. Adar left his wife and children in their house’s small safe room and went out to join the kibbutz’s armed emergency response team. At 8:30 a.m., he sent his wife a WhatsApp message: She should not open the safe-room door, not even if he came pleading to be let in. The kibbutz had been overrun. At 4 p.m., soldiers finally arrived and called residents out of their safe rooms. Mr. Adar was nowhere to be found. His mother, Yael, called her brother, Dr. Bitton: “Tamir has disappeared.” Roughly 100 Nir Oz residents — a quarter of the population — had been killed or kidnapped in the Hamas raid. The world quickly knew that Mr. Adar’s paternal grandmother, 85-year-old Yaffa Adar, was among them, as viral video showed armed militants carrying her to Gaza in a stolen golf cart. It would be three weeks before Israeli officials could confirm that Mr. Adar had been taken hostage, too. Before, his mother worked as the administrator for a school district near the Gaza border. Now she gave herself over to the hostages’ cause, attending marches and demonstrations to pressure the government into striking a deal with Hamas for their release. “One day you’re hopeful and the next in despair,” she said. “One day you’re crying and the next you’re able to gather yourself.” She wondered whether she should ask her brother to leverage his connections, but decided against it. “What could I tell him?” she said. “Call Sinwar?” In the years since the Shalit deal, Dr. Bitton had climbed the ranks of the Israeli Prison Service, becoming the head of its intelligence division and then a deputy commander overseeing 12 prisons before retiring in 2021. Mr. Sinwar had traced a parallel arc. After his release, he was elected to a role akin to Hamas defense minister. And in 2017, he was elected leader of Hamas in Gaza, overseeing all aspects of life on the Strip. It hadn’t escaped Dr. Bitton’s notice that the Hamas assault came at a time of deep division in Israel, the nation wracked by protests over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts, demanded by the right-wing parties crucial to his political survival, to dilute the power of Israel’s Supreme Court. It was precisely the type of schism that Mr. Sinwar had spoken of years before at Beersheba, when he said he would attack at a time of internal strife. Dr. Bitton held small hope for his nephew’s release. For Mr. Sinwar, the hostages were a means to an end — freeing the Palestinian prisoners left behind in the Shalit deal and putting the Palestinian cause back on the world stage. Even if Mr. Sinwar knew who his nephew was, Dr. Bitton said, “at the end he looks at us as Jews.” Still, in one of their last conversations, on the day Mr. Sinwar was freed, the Hamas leader had again thanked him for saving his life. Mr. Sinwar had even asked for his phone number, though Dr. Bitton had to refuse because prison employees are forbidden to communicate with Hamas leaders on the outside. He believed that Mr. Sinwar would feel bound by a kind of code, and that if he was made aware that Hamas held Dr. Bitton’s nephew, he at least would not allow him to be mistreated. “Beyond the fact that we are enemies, at the end of the day there is also his personal outlook,” Dr. Bitton said. “In my opinion, he would treat him the same way I did, saving his life despite being an enemy.” Several weeks after the Hamas attack, in the hope that Mr. Sinwar was still an avid follower of Israeli news media, Dr. Bitton decided to give a television interview. In it, he said only that he had been part of a team that had diagnosed Mr. Sinwar decades before, and that his nephew was among the hostages. (In other interviews, he similarly downplayed his role, because, he said, he was worried about how he might be perceived by a nation in mourning.) In late November, Mr. Adar’s grandmother was released in a weeklong cease-fire deal that saw 105 of the hostages freed, mostly women and children. What Dr. Bitton knew but could not say in his family’s moment of joy was that Mr. Sinwar would hold on to military-age men like Mr. Adar until the very end, to guarantee his own survival. “Can I tell my sister that they’re releasing Yaffa Adar, Tamir’s grandma, and that that will be the last release and Tamir will remain there? I can’t say it, but I know him and I know what he’ll do,” Dr. Bitton said. “That’s why I stayed silent, but I’m eating my heart out.” Yet there was reason to believe that his nephew was still alive. In the wake of Dr. Bitton’s TV interview, Israeli intelligence learned that Mr. Sinwar was asking about Mr. Adar’s well-being, and that subordinates had assured him that he was all right. It turned out the subordinates had asked after the wrong person. On Jan. 5, the government told the family what new intelligence showed: Wounded while defending his kibbutz, Mr. Adar had apparently died not long after being dragged into Gaza, one of at least 35 hostages believed to be dead, among roughly 125 still being held. Dr. Bitton returned to Nir Oz on a sunny winter morning. Blackened buildings peeked out between columnar cactuses, deafening booms from artillery shells interrupted chirping parrots and cooing doves, and an acrid smell still hung in the air. “The smell of death,” Dr. Bitton said, wrinkling his nose. Rounding a corner, he stopped. “That’s his blood,” he said, his face tightening in grief as he pointed toward a concrete wall that once hid the kibbutz’s dumpsters, now a dark-stained marker of his nephew’s last stand. And nearby, a small memorial, a fleet of toy tractors. “Do you see what’s lost?” Dr. Bitton said. “It’s like that here. No one remains, just birds and stories.” These days, Dr. Bitton meets regularly with the hostages’ families, sharing everything he learned about Mr. Sinwar, to help them manage expectations. In recent weeks, international negotiators have pressed Israel and Hamas to accept a deal that, in its first phase, would see some of the hostages exchanged for many more Palestinian prisoners and a temporary cease-fire, according to officials familiar with the process. But Hamas has held out for a total cessation of hostilities that would leave it in charge of Gaza, a red line for the Israeli government. “I tell the families not to get their hopes up,” Dr. Bitton said. “In this situation there is no chance.” Dr. Bitton and his sister have revisited, over and again, that long-ago day in the prison infirmary. Ms. Adar said they try to laugh at the “absurdity” of it all. “On the one hand my brother saved a life, and on the other his sister lost her boy to the same person he saved.” She assures him there was nothing else he could have done. “These are our values. Yuval never would have acted differently, never, and neither would I,” she said. “But in the end we were screwed.” First and foremost by their own government, they said. Hamas is Hamas, as Dr. Bitton put it. “With Sinwar, I know he wants to destroy us,” Ms. Adar echoed. “My greatest anger is that there was no one to defend our borders.” Not everyone in Israel seems to see it that way. Sitting together in a cafe in Eilat, a town on the Red Sea where the survivors of Nir Oz were first relocated, brother and sister were approached by a stranger. The woman fixed her gaze on Dr. Bitton, apparently recognizing him from his interview on TV. She had a question. “Why did you save him?” she asked. “Why?” Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon. Julie Tate contributed research. Jo Becker is a reporter in the investigative unit and a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. She is the author of “Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality.” More about Jo Becker |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Southern Gaza to northern Tel Aviv is a long shot. Those have to be some of there biggest rockets/warheads.
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Originally Posted By GBTX01: Southern Gaza to northern Tel Aviv is a long shot. Those have to be some of there biggest rockets/warheads. View Quote According to the TOI reporter, Rafah /south Gaza is where the last stockpiles of rockets/missiles are. Given all the nasty surprises the IDF keeps finding in north Gaza, I'm skeptical of that claim.
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
More info on Hezbollah militant who was "droned" on his motorcycle in Lebanon earlier today.
The military confirms carrying out a drone strike earlier today against a Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon's Naqoura. According to the IDF, the operative was identified leaving a building previously known to be used by the terror group, A short while later he was targeted and killed. A separate strike targeted two more Hezbollah operatives in Ayta ash-Shab, the IDF adds. View Quote First tweet with video of the scene after the attack.
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Amid recent IDF operations in northern Gaza's Jabaliya, troops demolished Hamas's general security headquarters, raided the home of a top Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander, and battled dozens of gunmen, the military says. The IDF says soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade led an assault in the Jabaliya market area in recent days, killing some 100 gunmen in dozens of close-quarters encounters in the area's narrow alleys, and by directing airstrikes and tank shelling. It describes the fighting in Jabaliya as "high intensity." Several booby-trapped buildings were also neutralized by troops in the area, the IDF says. In a video released by the military, an explosive device is seen planted in a store in the market area. Troops raided and later demolished Hamas's general security headquarters amid the recent operations, the military says. The headquarters had already been raided by the IDF in December, although it was not completely demolished at the time. In the latest raid, the army says the paratroopers discovered documents and Hamas infrastructure at the headquarters. The IDF also says troops raided the home of the commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad's northern Gaza Brigade, where the forces located a cache of weapons and "many intelligence documents." Several more caches of weapons were located in the Jabaliya market area, the military adds. View Quote
Troops of the Givati Brigade operating in southern Gaza's Rafah located an underground weapons depot last week, the military says. The site was found during a raid on a building suspected of being used by Hamas as a meeting point. The IDF says the troops killed several gunmen near the building and then located the weapon depot inside. In recent days, some 30 gunmen were killed by Givati troops in Rafah, the IDF adds. View Quote
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari in a press conference says the site was some 800 meters from where Israeli troops were operating. "As the IDF forces approached [the area of the launch], Hamas fired the rockets from within the [civilian] population. We see this pattern in many places where we operate. Hamas fears [losing] these munitions and rockets, and it fires them when it sees IDF troops approaching," Hagari says. View Quote
The IDF confirms that troops of the Kfir Brigade's Shimshon Battalion killed a Palestinian suspect who alleged attempted to stab troops near the Beit Einun junction in the West Bank. The troops were carrying out routine operations at the junction, when they identified a suspect who "tried to carry out a stabbing attack." The troops then opened fire, killing the suspect. No soldiers were hurt. View Quote They practice stabbing in kindergarten Stabbing for kids : Palestinian girl gives demo |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
The Last-minute October 7 Battle That Saved 12 Lives From the Hands of Hamas. Link
Good article about an Israeli supervisor and how his 12 Thai workers were saved from Hamas when the kibbutz where they worked was attacked and overrun on 7 Oct. Entire article in quote box The last-minute October 7 battle that saved 12 lives from the hands of Hamas After Hamas terrorists captured 12 Thai workers in Kibbutz Mefalsim on October 7, their supervisor went looking for them everywhere. They were finally saved by Israeli security forces, moments before being abducted into Gaza Yisrael Sadi was on his way to the kibbutz entrance when he saw his tractor. In a video he filmed in real time, he is seen asking himself, "I don't get what's happening with the Thais." Shortly beforehand, the orchard operations manager had sent Sadi a worrying message: "What's with the Thais? The Thais called me and said that Arabs had taken them." This, Sadi couldn't ignore. He went out looking for them, as the battle for Kibbutz Mefalsim was raging all around him. "I didn't make any calculations," explains Sadi, the 74-year-old manager of the kibbutz's orchards. "The terrorists didn't bother me – the fact that they took the Thais did. I'm like their father here." Still, this was not Sadi's first foray outside his home on the morning of October 7. Earlier that day, he helped a couple who escaped from the music festival at Kibbutz Re'im and were hiding near the kibbutz fence, taking them to a shelter. While rescuing them, he was almost hit by an RPG himself. That same morning, when rocket sirens began sounding, several of the kibbutz's children were on a picnic in a nearby grove. Sadi's grandson was among them. Within minutes, the kibbutz's civilian security squad set out to bring them back. A quarter of an hour later, the first Hamas terrorists appeared, and the area became a killing field. According to independent investigators Sagi Or and Yuval Harpaz, 51 civilians were killed there, many of them people fleeing the Nova festival to hide in fields and shelters around Mefalsim. The IDF confirmed last week that Shani Louk, Itzhak Gelerenter and Amit Bouskila were among those killed there after their bodies were found in Jabaliya. In the meantime, the terrorists succeeded in penetrating the kibbutz. In a recording from that morning gunshots can be heard as Mefalsim's security chief, Moshe Kaplan, is speaking. "There are gunshots by the generator, terrorists are inside the kibbutz, terrorists inside the kibbutz." In another recording, he is heard saying "four terrorists are still here inside the generator shed – threw a grenade at me that didn't explode." Many of the terrorists had gathered at a junction adjacent to the kibbutz, where the security squad fought them for several hours. "In some ways we were lucky because that kept them busy after 6:45," says one squad member. Another, Ishai Schuster, barricaded himself in a nearby building. Yuval, his son, was fighting in another part of the kibbutz while his brother, National Unity Knesset member Alon Schuster was in the local command center. "They shot at me and I shot back from the area of the dorms," Ishai recounts in an interview with Haaretz. "I was in the stairwell of one of the buildings with 10 guys [terrorists]. I think that's when I said to Kaplan, 'Well, there are too many of them.'" The battle seemed lost. "I waited to get shot." Other terrorists were elsewhere on the kibbutz at that point. One of them was able to enter the safe room of a house, but was foiled by the security squad. Others came to the area where the Thai agricultural workers lived, near the children's house. "When the shelling started, I told them to go straight into the shelter," Sadi says. "The terrorists arrived and started shooting in their rooms." Dozens of bullet holes are still visible there months later. "It's unbelievable – no one was hurt," says one of the squad's members. The 13 Thai workers hid in a shelter, and one used his phone to document what was happening outside. "Here, he's coming in," one of them is heard in the video. "Run, run," calls another. But the terrorists captured them anyhow. One of the Thais successfully hid under a bed. Twelve others were led out with the aim of taking them to Gaza. In a video taken the next day, Serendio, one of the workers, recounted what happened to them: "We were all in the safe room and they shot at it. We said 'Thailand, Thailand.' They said, 'Come, Come Come.'" The terrorists ordered the workers at gunpoint on a trailer attached to a tractor. One of them tried to contact a kibbutz member by phone, but the terrorists shot the phone. They drove to the kibbutz entrance gate, but it was locked because the electric power had gone off. Serendio says the terrorists threatened them with an RPG, demanding that they open the gate, but it was to no avail. The terrorists then exited the kibbutz through the pedestrian gate, and blew up the main gate. The remains of the twisted iron still lie outside the kibbutz archive. In statements given by the workers later to the police, they said that after leaving the kibbutz, the terrorists had them sit on the ground by the road, and one started taking pictures of them on his phone and asked their names. "Everybody had their hands on their heads, he's taking pictures on his phone: 'Name, Name, Name,'" Serendio says in the recorded statement. Just as they were about to be taken into Gaza, one of the workers – a former officer in the Thai army – saw helmets in a distant thicket of vegetation. They were from the Shin Bet's Task Force Tequila and Yamam (the Border Police counter-terrorism unit) that had moved into the area quietly after fighting back terrorists at the Sha'ar Hanegev Junction. In their statements to the police, the Thais said the worker who saw the soldiers recognized them as Israeli, and shouted to his fellow workers to lay on the ground. His resourcefulness allowed the force to open fire on the terrorists. "If that worker hadn't recognized the helmets, they would have been hurt," says a police source who studied the case. "An Arab died and another didn't die," says Serendio. At the same time, Nezek, a member of the security squad who asked not to be identified by his real name, joined the force's attack on the terrorists. "I was in a different position in the wadi, between the road and the industrial area. I saw the terrorists, I saw the tractor, I saw the army opening fire with silencers and the Thais running away," he recalls. The security personnel rescued the workers, took them to a shelter and returned to fight. Later, they were driven into the kibbutz. Two members of the security forces were killed in the fighting, including senior Shin Bet officer Yossi Tahar, who managed to block another infiltration into the kibbutz. Tahar, whose photo has not been published, also saved the life of one of his colleagues before he was hit by terrorist gunfire near the kibbutz gate. Serendio described the incessant crossfire during those hours. "All the time: boom, boom, boom, boom – Arabs and army. We were in the middle. Arabs here, army there. Boom, boom, boom, boom." While the battle was raging outside the kibbutz gate, Sadi was in the safe room in his home with the couple he had saved – parents of one-year-old twins. The man held the door of the shelter, while his wife tried to recover from what they had been through on the way there. Due to cellular phone reception problems at the kibbutz, Sadi only received the message about the workers' attempted abduction about an hour after they were released. He immediately decided to look for them. Fifty years earlier, during the Yom Kippur War, he was a tank driver in the Golan Heights. On October 7, he again traveled under fire, this time in a small and exposed electric mobility scooter. After finding his tractor in an unexpected location, he passed by a long line of cars belonging to those who fled the Nova festival, many of them murdered. He could see fire and smoke around the Kibbutz entrance gate, and in the distance the sound of gunshots. At this point, he explains, he didn't know what was happening in the kibbutz "I saw the members of the security squad fighting, and I asked them where the Thais were. They told me they were in a tall building near the kibbutz. I went in there, looked for them in their residences, and shouted for them. No one answered , not even the one who had hid under the bed." Eventually, Sadi found his workers. They were pale, barefoot and shirtless. "I counted them and there were 12," he recounts. "I said, 'One is missing.' I was worried that he had been killed, but they told me he had gone into hiding. I took them to a house on the kibbutz that had a safe room, and called the grocery store manager and demanded he open it up, because I wanted to bring them some sweets to relieve the tension." Sadi and the Thai workers now realize how lucky they were. Their fate could have been the same as the 41 Thais murdered on October 7 and the 31 who were kidnapped. So far, 23 of the Thai hostages have been released, while six of them are still held in Gaza, as are the bodies of two who were murdered. In addition to the Thais, Hamas kidnapped other foreigners, including Bipin Joshi, a Nepalese who was undertaking agriculture training, and the Tanzanian student Joshua Molal, whose body is in Gaza. It seems that the terrorists did not distinguish between Israelis and foreigners, murdering Thais who begged for their lives and explained that they were not Israelis. Outside Kibbutz Alumim – where a third of all the foreigners who were murdered on October 7 worked – several bodies of bound Thai workers were found, with their passports lying next to them. Dr. Michael Milstein, head of the Forum for Palestinian Studies at the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, says Hamas also holds non-Jews captive for religious reasons. "A non-Muslim is an asset, an object," he says. He says that he talked about this with Gazans, they "were confused, they didn't exactly understand that there were also people from around the world in the the border area [between Israel and Gaza]." Milstein added that in a book of Hamas fatwas (Sharia rulings) he reviewed, it was written that it is permissible to take captive women, the elderly and children. The only ones who have no value are babies and the mentally ill. "They are treated like slaves, servants," Milstein explains. "Everything is written in the fatwas regarding the treatment of infidels." Afterward the attempted kidnapping of the workers, Sadi moved the whole group to Kibbutz Ruhama; a few days later, some of them asked to return to their country. Seven of them left, the others stayed in Israel and are still working in Mefalsim's orchards, while they process what they have been through. Sadi is also still dealing with what he saw that day, but he tries to keep busy at work. Since October 7, he has not left the kibbutz for a moment, and continues to document what takes place. "The hardest thing for me is that the army wasn't there," he says. "After several hours, somebody from the security squad said, 'The army is with me.' What army? It was four soldiers," he says with a bitter laugh. View Quote Intersection/junction he drives by was where many of the Nova festival victims were killed.
Translation: A video that shows the (small) explosion of the Mefalim gate and Israel Sadi's trip to the kibbutz View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
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ETA--beat
This is all over Palestinian twitter. Just a reminder, again, that Hamas and Company see civilian casualties as a bonus.
The Israeli military confirms carrying out an airstrike in southern Gaza's Rafah earlier this evening, targeting what it says was a Hamas compound where senior officials in the terror group were gathered. "The attack was carried out against terrorists who are a target for attack, in accordance with international law, using precision munitions, and based on intelligence indicating the use of the area by Hamas terrorists," the IDF says in a statement. The military says it is aware of reports that the strike caused a fire that spread into a camp for displaced Palestinians, causing causalities among civilians. It says the incident is under further investigation. View Quote Palestinian tweets in quote box
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Click link to see Times of Gaza tweet, videos. Not letting me upload tweet normally https://x.com/Timesofgaza/status/1794819866186371567
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Institute for Study of War Backgrounder 26 May Key Takeaways Gaza Strip 98th Division continued clearing operations in “the heart of Jabalia”. The 460th Brigade located a weapons warehouse containing dozens of rocket components in a school complex. Israeli forces raided the Hamas general security headquarters and a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Northern Brigade headquarters in Jabalia refugee camp. The forces seized weapons and documents from both headquarters. Palestinian militias continued attacks around Beit Lahia, north of Jabalia. Hamas detonated at least two explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) targeting Israel armor. Palestinian militias targeted Israeli forces in Qasib neighborhood with small arms and mortars. Hamas falsely claimed to have captured IDF soldiers in Jabalia on May 25. The IDF denied the Hamas claim. Hamas military spokesperson Abu Obeida said that Hamas fighters lured an IDF unit into an ambush in a tunnel, killing, wounding, and capturing every member of the IDF unit but did not offer substantial evidence. 99th Division continued operations along the Netzarim corridor in southern Gaza City. Hamas targeted Israeli forces along the Netzarim axis with rocket fire. Givati Brigade withdrew from eastern Rafah on May 26, leaving four brigades in Rafah. The Givati Brigade has been in Rafah for three weeks following previous deployments in Khan Younis and Gaza City. Israeli sources linked the IDF’s changing disposition in Rafah to the imminent ceasefire negotiations and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to halt clearing operations into Rafah. The IDF will continue to operate in Rafah in a “restrained fashion.” 162nd Division continued clearing operations in Rafah. Israeli forces located tunnel shafts and seized small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, grenades, and explosive charges. The IDF Sabar Battalion (Givati Brigade) raided a Hamas Rafah Brigade meeting point which was also an underground weapons warehouse. PIJ fighters targeted Israeli armor with a rocket-propelled grenade east of the Salah ad Din border crossing. The Air Force struck over 50 targets in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours. Air strike targeted millitary buildings, warehouses, rocket launchers, observation posts, and Palestinian fighter cells were among. Hamas fired a rocket barrage at central Israel from Rafah on May 26. Hamas last targeted central Israel in late January 2024. Israeli air defenses intercepted several on the rockets. Several rockets landed in uninhabited areas north of Tel Aviv. Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz said that the Hamas rocket barrage on central Israel fired from Rafah demonstrates why Israel needs to continue its clearing operation. The Air Force struck two rocket launchers in Rafah aimed at Kerem Shalom (the main entry point for food aid entering south Gaza; shouldvtell you how much Hamas cares about their own people). PIJ fired a ”surface-to-air missile” at an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip on May 26. West Bank Israeli forces engaged Palestinian fighters in three locations in the West Bank. A Palestinian journalist reported 30 IDF vehicles entered Jenin and isolated Jenin refugee camp from Jenin City. Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and PIJ fighters attacked Israeli forces using small arms IED. The IDF uncovered IEDs buried near Jenin. The Israeli forces detained seven Palestinian individuals; three Palestinians for “incit[ing] terrorism” in Madama and Tel; a Palestinian suspected of “terrorist activities” in al Amari a Palestinian in Bitonia for throwing improvised explosive devices (IED); and two Palestinians in Hosan on unspecified charges. Southern Lebanon and Golan Heights Lebanese Hezbollah conducted 13 attacks into northern Israel. Hezbollah claimed that eight of the attacks were in retaliation for recent Israeli airstrikes into southern Lebanon. Yemen The Houthis fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
🔴Eliminated in the precise airstrike in northwest Rafah: Hamas Chief of Staff in Judea and Samaria and an additional senior Hamas official. Terrorist #1: Yassin Rabia Rabia managed the entirety of Hamas' terrorist activity in Judea and Samaria, transferred funds to terrorist targets and planned Hamas terrorist attacks throughout Judea and Samaria. He also carried out numerous attacks, in which IDF soldiers were killed. Terrorist #2: Khaled Nagar Nagar, a senior official in Hamas’ Judea and Samaria Headquarters, directed shooting attacks and other terrorist activities in Judea and Samaria and transferred funds intended for Hamas’ terrorist activities in Gaza. He also carried out several deadly terrorist attacks in which IDF soldiers were killed. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
About 12 rockets were launched from the Rafah area, from an area that is a few hundred meters from our forces
Israeli fighter jets carried out a wave of airstrikes against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon overnight: The military confirms carrying out a drone strike earlier today against a Hezbollah terrorist in Southern Lebanon's Naqoura: Amid recent IDF operations in northern Gaza's Jabaliya, troops demolished Hamas's general security headquarters, raided the home of a top Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander, and battled dozens of terrorists Troops of the Givati Brigade operating in southern Gaza's Rafah located an underground weapons depot last week: |
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A terror operative who was identified by the IDF at a rocket launching site in southern Lebanon's Aynata was killed in an airstrike, the military says. The site has recently been used to fire rockets at the Malkia area in northern Israel. Fighter jets also hit a building used by Hezbollah in Aitaroun, the IDF adds. View Quote
Two more Hezbollah cells were targeted in airstrikes in southern Lebanon yesterday, the military announces, as fighter jets and drones attacked a series of targets belonging to the terror group overnight. One of the Hezbollah cells was hit by fighter jets after being spotted operating at a building known to be used by the terror group in Yaroun, and the second was hit by a drone after being spotted in the Houla area, the IDF says. Meanwhile, overnight the IDF says the Air Force struck a weapons depot and a building used by Hezbollah in Mays al-Jabal, infrastructure in Khiam, and additional buildings in Houla. View Quote More information on Hamas officers killed in Rafah last night. . The commander of Hamas's so-called West Bank headquarters and another top official in the terror group were killed in the Israeli airstrike in Rafah, according to the IDF. The West Bank headquarters is a Hamas unit charged with advancing attacks against Israel from or in the West Bank. Yassin Rabia, the head of the West Bank headquarters, and Khaled Najjar, another senior member of the unit, were killed in the strike in the Tel Sultan area of northwestern Rafah, the IDF says. The strike, according to Hamas health officials, killed some 50 people. The IDF says the strike was carried out based on "precise intelligence." Rabia, according to the IDF, "managed all of the military arrays of the West Bank headquarters... was involved in the transfer of funds for terror purposes and directed attacks by Hamas operatives" in the West Bank. The IDF also says that Rabia committed several deadly attacks himself, in 2001 and 2002, killing Israeli soldiers. Najjar was involved in directing shooting attacks and other terror activities in the West Bank, and was also involved in funneling funds to Hamas operatives, the military says. Najjar also carried out several attacks between 2001 and 2003, according to the IDF, killing civilians and killing and woungraphiding soldiers. The military says it is aware that the strike and a fire sparked by it caused civilian casualties. It says it continues to investigate. View Quote Palestinian tweet with graphic footage from the attack last night. Warning: a dead baby This was first posted shortly after the attack, and whether true or not, has been shared, spread all over.
Translation: I don't apologize for the harshness of the scene View Quote More video of aftermath of incident in Rafah
Translation from Turkish--We have a score to settle sooner or later View Quote
Britain and the Western world: Ban terrorists; don't turn them into tourists in your cities. The Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization, manipulated democracy to gain power and ultimately failed. Hamas, their militant arm in Gaza, is an enemy, not an ally. By allowing them to operate in London and ignoring the actions of their army (SAF) committing genocide in Sudan, Britain invites the danger of another massacre, like the one on October 7th in Israel, occurring in other cities. Why is the UK ignoring the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan, which is responsible for killing 45,000 people and destroying hospitals and schools? Who is behind this chaos, and why ally with regressive Islamists, handing over Port Sudan to Russia? We understand the Middle East and North Africa; you don't. Listen to us. View Quote
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
On Twitter and some media it's being reported that Egyptian and Israeli forces have exchanged fire at the Rafah crossing.
From Ha'aretz liveblog updated Link. I know it's Haaretz, but same story is being reported elsewhere. An Egyptian soldier was killed, and several others wounded in a gunfire exchange with IDF forces near the Rafah crossing. The army has yet to determine which of the sides opened fire, but according to testimonies of combat soldiers, the assessment is that an Egyptian soldier fired first toward the IDF forces. The IDF Spokespersons' Unit has said "the incident is being investigated alongside a dialogue with the Egyptian side." View Quote
BREAKING: INCIDENT BETWEEN EGYPT AND ISRAEL IN RAFAH Israeli Channel 13: An unusual incident between the Israeli and Egyptian armies in Rafah and Israel is conducting an investigation Hebrew Channel 14: Egyptian soldiers opened fire on Israeli soldiers at the Rafah crossing, without injuries. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
The Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza's Rafah overnight, targeting two senior Hamas officials but also reportedly killing dozens of Palestinian civilians, will be probed by the top-tier General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism, the military announces. The mechanism is an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war. The probe was ordered by Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Yomer, the IDF says. The airstrike in the Tel Sultan area of western Rafah targeted and killed the commander of Hamas's so-called West Bank headquarters -- charged with advancing attacks against Israel in and from the West Bank -- as well as another top member of the unit. Hamas health authorities said some 45 people were killed in the strike, which had also engulfed several tents and shelters where thousands of people were taking shelter in the area. The IDF in its statement says that the strike was carried out based on "intelligence information on the presence of the terrorists in the area," and that before beforehand, it carried out "many steps in order to reduce the chance of harming uninvolved [civilians], including aerial surveillance, the use of precision munitions, and additional intelligence information." It says that "based on [these steps] it was estimated that no harm was expected to uninvolved civilians." A military source says two missiles with a "reduced in size" warhead, which were adapted for such targets, were used in the strike. The IDF adds that the strike did not take place in the designated "humanitarian zone" in the al-Mawasi region on the coast, where the military has called Palestinians to evacuate to. View Quote
The IDF issues a brief statement on the cross-border clash between Israeli troops and Egyptian forces near the Rafah Crossing earlier today. "A few hours ago there was a shooting incident on the Egyptian border, the [incident] is under investigation, dialogue is taking place with the Egyptian side," the military says. View Quote Link to liveblog articles below Israeli army says it took steps to minimize possibility of civilian harm ahead of deadly Rafah strike, didn't anticipate civilian casualties Here are the latest updates on day 234 of the war ■ Gaza's health ministry, run by Hamas, reported that 36,050 Palestinians have been killed and 81,026 wounded in the war in Gaza since October 7. ■ Death toll after Israeli strike in Rafah tent camp climbs to 45, with initial findings of an Israeli investigation into the incident saying an airstrike against Hamas commanders set off a fire which killed Palestinian civilians, Israel's government spokesperson Avi Hyman said on Monday. ■ Several Arab countries, including Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait condemned the strike in Rafah, with Egypt calling it "deliberate bombing of displaced people's tents. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' office called for "immediate international intervention." ■ France's president Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack in Rafah and called for an immediate cease-fire. Italy's Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said the violence against civilians was "no longer justifiable." UNRWA called the reports "horrifying," and the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, said the EU will discuss how to take action to implement the ICJ's ruling on Rafah. ■The IDF, Shin Bet and the military's border police arrested six Palestinians suspected of being involved in terrorism overnight into Monday. According to the army, two of the suspects are affiliated with Hamas. Additionally, Israeli forces seized vehicles carrying cargo, confiscated weapons and other means of warfare in the Jenin area. ■The Air Force attacked a Hezbollah operative in the area where launches were carried out toward Kibbutz Malkia in northern Israel Monday morning. The army also reported that a Hezbollah military structure in the area of Aitaroun, in southern Lebanon, was also attacked. ■Last week's world court ruling on Gaza must be applied, and the EU countries will discuss how to take action to implement the ruling, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said on Monday. ■Several dozens of activists from the Brothers and Sisters in Arms movement are protesting near the home of Transportation Minister Miri Regev against a law to continue the exemption from conscription of the Ultra-Orthodox that the government is expected to approve on Monday. ■The army reported that the Air Force attacked two squads of Hezbollah operatives in the organization's military buildings in southern Lebanon. View Quote UAE condemns Israeli attack in Rafah, foreign ministry says The United Arab Emirates condemned on Monday what it said was Israel targeting tents of displaced people in Rafah, the foreign ministry said in a statement. It stressed the importance of implementing the ICJ's ruling that demanded Israel immediately halt its military operations in Rafah. An Israeli government spokesperson said on Monday the initial findings of an Israeli investigation into a mass-casualty event in the Gazan city were that an air strike against Hamas commanders set off a fire which killed Palestinian civilians. View Quote Fire breaks out in open area in Israel's north, hit by rockets launched from Lebanon Eight firefighting teams are attempting to put out a fire that broke out in an open area near the northern city of Kiryat Shmona after it was hit by rockets launched from Lebanon. Firefighting Service's spokesperson said as of now, the fire is not under control, and its forces are focusing on blocking the fire from reaching residential areas. View Quote Top Israeli military lawyer investigating about 70 possible legal violations during Gaza war Israel's Military Advocate General, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said on Monday that the IDF is investigating about 70 cases of suspected violations of the laws of war. Speaking at the annual Israel Bar Association Conference in Eilat, Tomer-Yerushalmi said that the army's investigations focus on the incarceration conditions in the Sde Teiman detention facility in southern Israel, the deaths of Palestinian detainees held by the IDF, incidents in which civilians uninvolved in the fighting were killed by Israeli forces and other violent incidents that include property crimes and looting committed by Israeli soldiers. "We take these allegations very seriously, and are working to clarify them," Tomer-Yerushalmi said. She also referred to the IDF strike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight into Monday – in which dozens of civilians were reportedly killed – saying that it was "a very severe incident" that will be thoroughly investigated. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
How I Survived the Nova Festival Massacre How I Survived the Nova Festival Massacre |
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Link to liveblog stories below.
Here are the latest updates on day 234 of the war ■ Western diplomats warned on Monday that European countries might strictly interpret the ICJ's decision regarding the IDF's operation in Rafah, following the deadly Sunday night incident in which dozens of civilians died as a result of an Israeli attack on the city overnight into Monday. ■ Firefighting teams are attempting to put out a fire that broke out in an open area near the northern city of Kiryat Shmona after it was hit by rockets launched from Lebanon. ■ An Egyptian soldier was killed, and several others wounded, in a gunfire exchange with IDF forces near the Rafah crossing. ■ Hamas leadership has told the mediating countries that the organization will not participate in the negotiations for a hostage deal as a result of the IDF's latest deadly attack on Rafah, which they described as a massacre, sources in Hamas told Haaretz. ■ Israeli army says it took steps to minimize possibility of civilian harm ahead of deadly Rafah strike, didn't anticipate civilian casualties ■ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech at the Knesset, and said that "from December and up to now, I have received five requests by the negotiating team to widen their mandate, and I approved every single one." He also referred to the deadly Rafah strike as a "tragic error," as family members of hostages protested against him from the Knesset gallery. ■ The police has dispersed a demonstration of around 250 people in Haifa, in Israel's north, who were calling to end the war in the Gaza Strip. Four protesters were arrested. View Quote European diplomats warn: Rafah incident could push to a strict interpretation of ICJ orders Western diplomats warned on Monday that European countries might strictly interpret the ICJ's decision regarding the IDF's operation in Rafah, following the deadly Sunday night incident in which dozens of civilians died as a result of an Israeli attack on the city overnight into Monday. The diplomats who spoke to Haaretz, who represent countries who supported Israel at the start of the war against Hamas, assessed the Rafah incident will lead to harsh condemnations of Israel and would also affect the way their countries treat the ICJ's order, which Israel had hoped would be interpreted relatively lightly. "It's hard to ignore the awful timing of this incident," one diplomat told Haaretz. "Two days after the ICJ said to Israel, 'you can operate in Rafah but don't cause mass civilian casualties,' an airstrike causes mass civilian casualties. This will turn up the pressure for a complete halt of the offensive, in Rafah and of the war in general." View Quote
Two explosive drones were launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon earlier this evening, with the IDF reporting that one was downed by air defenses, while the second struck an area in the Western Galilee. The drones both crossed into Israeli airspace in the Western Galilee. The IDF says it is investigating why it failed to intercept the second device. Hezbollah in a statement claims to have targeted an Israeli military position near Nahariya with explosive-laden drones. Sirens were activated in several Western Galilee communities amid the incident, due to fears of falling shrapnel following the interception. View Quote
A barrage of some 35 rockets was launched from Lebanon at the Mount Meron area in northern Israel a short while ago, the military says. The IDF says the rockets struck open areas, and there are no reports of injuries. The rocket impacts sparked a fire in the area, near the northern community of Safsufa. The IDF says it is shelling south Lebanon's Khiam, Houla, and Shebaa with artillery following the barrage. Meanwhile, Hezbollah claims for an anti-tank guided missile attack earlier today against Metula, which damaged one home. View Quote
Troops of the 460th Armored Brigade operating in northern Gaza's Jabaliya found a cache of weapons, the location of which had been obtained from a captured operative, the military says. The IDF says that as the troops advanced in Jabaliya, a terror operative surrendered and was immediately questioned by a field interrogator of the Military Intelligence Directorate's Unit 504, which specializes in HUMINT, or human intelligence. The operative revealed the location of a weapons cache in the area, which was raided by the troops a short while later, according to the IDF. The site had communications equipment, explosive material, grenades, and guns, the military adds. View Quote Attached File |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
I had never heard of this--Israeli M113s turned into remote contol VBIED, used in Jabalia. Also used for logistics.
IDF remote-controlled M113 "Zelda" seen on Zaruub Hill in Rafah. One like this was seen a few days ago already in Jabaliya, and once before that in February. They explode on impact. I asked an IDF commander familiar with this type of weapon and was told that the IDF has used them since the start of the war. He comments some are even equipped with remote controlled anti tank weapons. Geolocation: The area around 31.2998,34.2367. View Quote
The IDF commander clarifies: He meant that IDF infantry carries remote-controlled anti tank launchers that are placed somewhere and then activated from a few hundred meters away - he didn't mean that they were mounted on remote-controlled M113s, those are just used as VBIEDs sometimes, and primarily for logistics. View Quote
Attached File Attached File Attached File Attached File |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
A terrorist who was identified by the IDF at a rocket launching site in southern Lebanon's Aynata was killed in an airstrike:
Two more Hezbollah cells were targeted in airstrikes in southern Lebanon: Israel Defense Forces DESTROYED Headquarters of Hamas TERRORISTS: Hezbollah Attacks Northern Israel: A direct hit in Kiryat Shmona. A barrage of some 35 rockets was launched from Lebanon at the Mount Meron area in Northern Israel: |
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I'm think that was a tank round. You can see the muzzle flash in the distance, just before Impact.
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Institute for Study of War Backgrounder 27 May Key Takeaways Gaza Strip The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck and killed two Hamas West Bank senior officials in Tel al Sultan, Rafah. The strike targeted the Hamas West Bank chief of staff Yassin Rabia and his deputy Khaled Najjar, they were responsible for directing, financing and supporting militia attacks in the West Bank. Rabia managed all Hamas West Bank militias, directed attacks, and financed operations. Najjar similarly directed small arms attacks against Israeli targets in the West Bank. The Tel al Sultan strike caused a fire that also killed 35 Palestinian civilians. An independent IDF body is conducting a review of the strike, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the strike a “tragic mishap.” 98th Division assesses that it is fighting three Hamas battalions in Jabalia camp, which is an indicator of Hamas reconstitution in northern Gaza. The IDF realized as it began operating in Jabalia in mid-May that two additional Hamas battalions had reconstituted and would participate in the defense. The requirement to re-“dismantle” some Hamas battalions underscores the requirement for a sustainable political and military end state in the Gaza Strip that results in the defeat of Hamas’ military and political wings. The IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in mid-May that current Israeli re-clearing operations are a “Sisyphean task” unless the political echelon established a political end state. Israeli and Egyptian forces exchanged small arms fire at the Rafah border crossing on May 27. A spokesperson for Egypt’s military said that a “shooting incident” killed one Egyptian soldier. Senior Egyptian and Israeli officials are conducting a joint investigation into the incident. Egyptian–Israeli relations have been strained over the last several weeks after the IDF began clearing operations in Rafah and seized the Rafah border crossing. 98th Division continued clearing operations in the “heart of Jabalia” 460th Armored Brigade seized a weapons cache. 460th Brigade have located and destroyed over one hundred Palestinian militia positions, including an improvised explosive device (IED) factory, fighting compounds, and tunnel shafts. 7th Brigade engaged Palestinian fighters at close range and located mortars, small arms and explosives in eastern Jabalia. The IDF reported that Palestinian fighters in UN school.engaged Israeli forces with anti-tank guided missilesJabalia. 99th Division continued operations along the Netzarim corridor. 679th Armored Brigade (Res.) has "significantly damaged” Hamas capabilities in the central Gaza Strip and the Sabra neighborhood and has “deepened [IDF] control” over the areas. The Yahalom engineering unit and 679th Brigade detonated an 800-meter-long, 18-meter-deep tunnel in Sabra. Several Palestinian militias targeted Israeli forces along the Netzarim corridor and east of Maghazi camp with rocket and mortar fire. 162nd Division continued clearing operations in Rafah on May 27. Palestinian militias continued to mortar Israeli forces at Salah Din border crossing. Palestinian fighters targeted Israeli forces with IEDs and rocket-propelled grenades in eastern Rafah. The Air Force struck over 75 targets across the Gaza Strip over the past day, including military buildings and warehouses, rocket launch positions, observation posts, and Palestinian fighter cells. The IDF Air Force struck rocket launchers in Rafah that Hamas used to fire eight rockets at central Israel on May 26. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DLFP), which is a leftist Palestinian militia aligned with Hamas in the war, fired rockets at an IDF site and an Israeli town near the Gaza Strip. West Bank Israeli forces have engaged Palestinian fighters in at least eight locations in the West Bank. Lebanon Likud minister said that Israel will conduct a military operation targeting Hezbollah to return displaced residents from northern Israeli if political efforts to stop Hezbollah attacks into northern Israel fail. This statement echoes previous Israeli statements about the possibility of operations into Lebanon. 146th Division and 205th Reserve Armored Brigade participated in a training exercise for rapid deployment in challenging terrain. The IDF also said that the 551st Reserve Brigade is training on the Israel-Lebanon border for operations in difficult terrain “deep in Lebanon.” The IDF withdrew the 551st Brigade from the Gaza Strip in December 2023. Yemen The Houthis claimed on May 27 five separate attacks targeting vessels in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. US Central Command intercepted a Houthi one-way attack drone over the Red Sea. Iranian Elections The Iranian supreme leader reportedly appointed his policy adviser, Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani, in March 2024 to leader nuclear negotiations with the United States. The publication of this information now may be meant to boost Shamkhani’s political position ahead of Iran’s presidential election. Iranian Presidential Candidates Prominent Iranian hardliner Saeed Jalili announced his candidacy for the Iranian presidential elections in June 2024. Iranian journalists reported that several other prominent political figures are planning to run. Iranian-backed Militias in Iraq Several Iranian-backed Iraqi militias are reportedly considering resuming attacks on US forces days after a meeting between Iranian-backed militia leaders from throughout the region and the IRGC in Tehran. View Quote |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Originally Posted By BM1455:
View Quote Between this IDF-Egyptian Army gunfight and the fire at the tent encampment in Rafah, I fully expect Biden to pull the plug on the IDF this week. Sullivan just got back from "approving" the IDF Rafah plan, so the 30-40 dead are a PR disaster for Team Biden. There has been an emergency session of the UN Security Council scheduled for tomorrow. |
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"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday |
Originally Posted By michigan66: Between this IDF-Egyptian Army gunfight and the fire at the tent encampment in Rafah, I fully expect Biden to pull the plug on the IDF this week. Sullivan just got back from "approving" the IDF Rafah plan, so the 30-40 dead are a PR disaster for Team Biden. There has been an emergency session of the UN Security Council scheduled for tomorrow. View Quote Maybe but that would end his fundraising efforts for the election but IDT Biden is pulling the strings anyway so maybe he's going to get dumped/ exchanged. |
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