News Digest — 10/9/24
Netanyahu To Lebanese People: ‘Do You Remember When Lebanon Was The Pearl Of The Region?’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released the following message to the people of Lebanon on Tuesday evening (8th):
“This is a message to the people of Lebanon.
Do you remember when your country was called the Pearl of the Middle East? So what happened to Lebanon? A gang of tyrants and terrorists destroyed it – that’s what happened. Lebanon was once known for its tolerance, for its beauty. Today it is a place of chaos, a place of war.
Israel withdrew from Lebanon 25 years ago. But the country that actually conquered Lebanon is not Israel. It’s Iran, which finances and arms Hezbollah to serve Iran’s interests at Lebanon’s expense. Hezbollah has turned Lebanon into a stockpile of ammunition weapons and a forward Iranian military base.
Just one day after the October 7th massacre a year ago, Hezbollah joined the war against Israel. It launched an unprovoked attack on our cities and on our citizens. It has fired over 8,000 missiles at Israel, killing civilians without distinction – Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze.
Israel has decided to put an end to this. We decided to do whatever is necessary to return our people safely to their homes. Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel has a right to win! And Israel will win!
We have degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, we took out thousands of terrorists, including Hassan Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement. Today Hezbollah is weaker than it has been for many years.
Now you, the Lebanese people, stand at a significant crossroads. It is your choice. You can take back your country. You can return it to a path of peace and prosperity. If you don’t, Hezbollah will continue to try to fight Israel from densely populated areas at your expense. It doesn’t care if Lebanon is dragged into a wider war.
Christians, Druze, Muslims – Sunnis and Shiites – all of you are suffering because of Hezbollah’s futile war against Israel.
Today, I ask every mother and every father in Lebanon a simple question: Is it worth it? Because it doesn’t have to be this way. I know you want a better future for your children. So I’m speaking to all of you today – there is a better way. A better way for your children, for your cities, for your villages, for your country.
You deserve to restore Lebanon to its days of tranquility; you deserve a Lebanon that is different: one country – one flag – one people.
Don’t let these terrorists destroy your future any more than they’ve already done. Stand up and take your country back. You have an opportunity that hasn’t existed in decades. An opportunity to take care of the future of your children and grandchildren. You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Each one of you can take a step for your future. Even a small step. You can make a difference.
I say to you the people of Lebanon: Free your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end. Free your country from Hezbollah so that your country can prosper again, so that future generations of Lebanese and Israeli children will know neither war nor bloodshed, but will finally live together in peace”
Israeli Strike In Syria Said To Target Top Hezbollah Official In Arms Smuggling Unit
An alleged Israeli Airstrike On Damascus Tuesday (8th) targeted a top Hezbollah official who is part of a unit tasked with delivering weapons from Iran and its proxies to the terror group in Lebanon, according to a Saudi report.
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency claimed 7 were killed and 11 were wounded in the strike, which hit a residential and commercial building in the Mezzeh district of the capital a few hundred meters from the Iranian Embassy.
Multiple reports said the targeted building is linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
SANA cited a military source who said the strike also caused “significant material damage.” It added that rescue forces were still working to extract people from the rubble.
The Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath reported the target of the Damascus strike was a member of Hezbollah’s Unit 4400. The IDF has overseen efforts in recent weeks to stop the unit’s arms smuggling to Hezbollah.
Last week, the commander of Hezbollah’s Unit 4400, Muhammad Ja’far, was killed in a strike in Beirut, while his brother was reportedly killed days later in an alleged Israeli strike in Damascus.
On Friday (4th), the IDF said that fighter jets struck a two-mile-long tunnel that crossed between Lebanon and Syria, and which the military said was used by Unit 4400 to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Last month, it was reported that Israeli special forces carried out a massive raid on an Iranian weapons facility in the Masyaf area of Syria, killing at least 14, wounding 43 and sparking fires.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel – which rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria – is believed to have carried out hundreds of strikes, mainly targeting army positions and Iranian-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
Since Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 massacre last year, which saw some 1,200 people killed in Israel and 251 kidnapped, Israel has escalated its strikes on Iranian-backed terror targets in Syria and has also struck Syrian army air defenses and some Syrian forces.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel since it started launching attacks from Lebanon a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas’ terror onslaught, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Report: Hamas Leader Ordered Return Of Suicide Bombings
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has ordered that suicide bombings be restarted, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday (8th).
The order comes after Sinwar took full responsibility for Hamas following the deaths of Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh. A few days after the order was given, a terrorist entered Tel Aviv with a backpack loaded with explosives. The bag exploded before he could carry out an attack, killing only the terrorist.
Suicide attacks were a main feature of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. The attacks did not force the Israeli government to make concessions, however.
Arab intelligence officials who said they communicate “regularly” with Sinwar told the WSJ that although there were misgivings within Hamas, no one was willing to speak out against suicide bombings.
Matthew Levit, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank, told the WSJ, “Under Sinwar, Hamas can be expected to be a much clearer-cut, hard-line fundamentalist organization.
Meanwhile, Hebrew media reports that flyers have emerged in the Gaza Strip, warning Hamas leader Sinwar that his fate will be the same as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and slain top Hamas officials.
“No tunnel is too deep, Sinwar. Ask Sayyed Hassan…” one flyer says, referring to Nasrallah.
It includes an image of Sinwar near the bottom of the top half of an hourglass, indicating his demise is nearing, while the faces of assassinated Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh, Muhammed Deif and Salah al-Arouri are in the lower part.
Rafael To Unveil Short Range Laser Defense For Ground Force
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. announced on Tuesday (8th) that it will be showcasing its latest defense capabilities at the defense AUSA exhibition October 14-16 in Washington D.C., including a new Lite Beam laser-based interception system integrated into the Trophy multi-tasking defense platform.
While not as much of a watershed moment as when Israel can finally deploy its Iron Beam laser defense system, the Lite Beam is still a powerful example of Israel succeeding in using layers, at least for short-range defense.
Defense sources told the Jerusalem Post that the Lite Beam’s operational capabilities have been proven, though they declined to disclose exactly when and how the IDF has used such capabilities in the field in Gaza and Lebanon.
The implication was that the Lite Beam would be effective against drones and possibly against mortars but would not shoot down most rockets or long-range missiles, which Israel eventually hopes the Iron Beam will do.
In general, laser defense technologies are viewed as a major part of future air defense because they would end the arms cost race in which Israel and other wealthy countries constantly waste huge amounts of money to protect themselves from weaker adversaries using low-attack cheap forms of threats.
The sources added that the Lite Beam has hard kill neutralization capabilities which can be integrated on any vehicular platform and operational capabilities, and that it also can be a component of the drone dome which utilizes both soft kill and jamming.
Rafael said that Lite Beam “offers advantages such as engagement at the speed of light, an unlimited magazine, and negligible cost per interception.”
“This latest presentation at AUSA highlights RAFAEL’s ongoing commitment to delivering advanced battlefield solutions. As global threats evolve, we continue to equip armed forces with cutting-edge technologies to ensure their operational superiority in diverse and challenging environments,” said Mr. Tzvi Marmor, EVP & General Manager of the Land and Naval Systems Division.
Oct. 7 Forever Altered Jewish Life Worldwide – Sharon Nazarian
October 7 and its aftermath forever altered the daily lives of every Jewish person around the world. For nearly a century, Jews in places like America, Canada, Great Britain and Australia took for granted their connection to and comfort within their homes and nations. Even if anti-Semitism still dwelt at the fringes of society, Jews in these places felt as though they had finally been woven into the very fabric of society and shared history. We found homes and places where we could let our collective guard down.
It took a single day last year for that comfort and confidence to shatter. Our homes, businesses and places of worship suddenly became targets of hateful acts, slurs, screams of “go home,” graffiti, assaults, gunshots and murder. At no point since World War ll have so many Jews in so many places felt so insecure and untethered from the Western democracies in which they live. We have lost our basic sense of normalcy.
Oct. 7 and its aftermath demonstrated to Jews around the world that the lessons of the Holocaust have not been learned effectively enough to prevent the replay of those very horrors. We learned that “Never Again” is not real.
We learned that blacklists of Jewish authors, musicians and artists can sprout up again; that Jewish businesses can again be targeted, vandalized and destroyed; that Jewish schools and institutions must yet again rely on their own security to keep their children and community safe, while Jewish university students fear walking across campus alone.
What 4,000 years of Jewish history have taught us is that if it starts with the Jews, it never ends with the Jews. It is an American, Canadian, French, British, Australian, Argentinian and South African problem.
The writer is a former senior vice president for international affairs at the Anti-Defamation League. (The Hill)
Tales Of Infanticide Have Stoked Hatred Of Jews For Centuries, They Echo Still Today – Howard Jacobson
In 1955, the Church of England put up a plaque in Lincoln Cathedral, apologizing for the harm it had done by falsely accusing Jews of the ritual slaughter of Little Hugh in 1255. That Jews habitually murdered gentile children for blood with which to make Passover matzoh was a popular superstition throughout Britain and Europe in the Middle Ages. The “blood libel,” as it became known, set the Jews apart from the entire human family; depraved accomplices of the devil – and, of course, justified hunting them down and massacring them.
There could hardly have been a more unlikely crime to charge Jews with, given the strict taboo on blood sacrifice and the extreme laws against blood contact and consumption laid down in the Torah. It is hateful to be accused of what you haven’t done, but more hateful still to be accused of what you would never dream of doing.
Night after night, our televisions have told the story of the war in Gaza through the death of Palestinian children and a recital of the numbers dead. Here we go again, the same merciless infanticides inscribed in the imaginations of medieval Christians. Even when there are other explanations for the devastation, no one really believes them. Reporters whose reports are proved wrong see no reason to apologize. What is there to apologize for? It could have been true.
Ask how Israel is able to target innocent children with such deadly accuracy and no one can tell you. Ask why they would want to target innocent children and no one can tell you that either. Hate on this scale seeks no rational explanation. Hate feeds off the superstitions that fed it last time around.
Compare reporting from Gaza with reporting from Ukraine. Bombs have fallen there, too, but how often is the burial of Ukrainian children the lead story? (Observer-UK)
