News Digest — 1/13/25
IAF Strikes Hezbollah Targets Throughout Lebanon
Israel Air Force jets struck and demolished multiple Hezbollah terror targets throughout Lebanon, the military confirmed in the early hours of Monday (13th).
The military noted it had struck a rocket launcher site, a military site, and routes on the Syrian-Lebanese border, which were utilized to transfer weapons to the Lebanese-based, Iranian-backed terror group.
Before the attacks, “the threat posed by the targets to the Israeli home front and IDF troops was presented to the monitoring mechanism of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon, the IDF statement read.
However, the military emphasized that “the threats were not addressed,”
On Sunday night (12th), the Hezbollah-owned Al Manar TV and the Hezbollah affiliated newspaper Al Akhbar claimed the IDF had carried out strikes, targeting the areas of Deir El Zahrani and Houmine El Faouqa in the Nabatiya region of southern Lebanon.
Additional strikes were reportedly carried out in the area of the Bekaa Valley, near the Syrian border, Al Manar claimed.
IRGC Takes Delivery OF 1,000 New Drones
A thousand new drones were delivered to Iran’s army on Monday (13th), the state-run Tasnim news agency reported, as the country braces for more friction with arch-enemy Israel and the United States under incoming US President Donald Trump.
The drones were delivered to various locations throughout Iran and are said to have high stealth and anti-fortification abilities according to Tasnim.
The drones’ unique features, including a range of 2,000 kilometers, high destructive power, the ability to pass through defense layers with low Radar Cross Section, and autonomous flight, not only increase the depth of reconnaissance and border monitoring, but also boost the combat capability of the army’s drone fleet in confronting distant targets,” the news agency added.
The drones were also manufactured within Iran by the Iranian military, scientists, and “Innovators,” according to the news agency.
This comes after Iran’s defense industry revealed a new suicide drone – the Razvan – last week.
Earlier this month, Iran started two-month-long military exercises, which have already included war games in which the Revolutionary Guards defended key nuclear installations in Natanz against mock attacks by missiles and drones.
Northern Israel Woman Succumbs To Wounds From Hezbollah Rocket Attack
Tamar Edri, 75, a resident of the northern city of Nahariya, succumbed on Sunday (12th) to critical injuries she sustained when a rocket struck her home in November.
The rocket, launched by Hezbollah as part of a heavy barrage targeting the coastal city, hit her building on November 25, just one day before a ceasefire between Israel and the Shiite terrorist group took effect.
In addition to Edri, three other residents of the building sustained minor injuries, and dozens were treated for shock. The attack damaged 54 apartments in varying degrees.
The Nahariya Municipality extended condolences to Edri’s husband, Yossi, her children, Yarden, Sagit, Oshrat, and Liron, and her grandchildren.
“The mayor, city council members and municipal employees send their heartfelt condolences and warm embrace to the family,” the statement said.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office annual terrorism report, approximately 15,000 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward Israel in 2024.
Desert Giants’ Squadron Refuel IAF Jets On The Way To Yemen
Israel Air Force fighter jets, under the direction of the Military Intelligence Directorate and the Navy, struck Houthi targets in the western coastal strip and deep inside Yemen on Friday (10th).
The IDF stated that the attack was carried out in response to repeated attacks by the Houthis against the State of Israel, its citizens, and civilian infrastructure.
This was a joint operation with the United States Air Force and the UK’s Royal Air Force.
The infrastructure at the Hezaz power station, which serves as the Houthi’s central power source for military activities, was among the targets attacked.
Additionally, the IDF attacked infrastructure at the ports of Ras Issa and Hodeidah on the western coast of Yemen.
The IAF’s 120th “Desert Giants” Squadron, previously known as “The International Squadron,” has participated in several historic missions.
They also participated in both the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars.
Planes from the 120th were also instrumental in the famous Operation Entebbe. They operated as flying hospitals to support the evacuation of civilians from Kenya after their initial evacuation from Uganda.
They were also involved in the evacuation of nearly 15,000 Ethiopian Jews during Operation Solomon.
The Desert Giants also dropped humanitarian and medical supplies into Rwanda during the Rwandan genocide, as well as provided aid to the Muslim communities in Bosnia during the Bosnian genocide.
They also provided refueling support during the IDF’s previous major strikes in Yemen.
Israel Seizes $1.1 Billion in Palestinian Funds To Cover The PA’s Electricity Debt
Israel has recovered funds that will pay for a decade-old $1.1 billion Palestinian Authority (PA) electricity debt while diverting money from the Norwegian Fund where money for the PA has been deposited since the beginning of the war, Israel Hayom reports.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the Diplomatic Security Cabinet Sunday (12th) about the process of collecting on the decade-old debt.
The Finance Ministry issued an order to the Norwegian Fund, into which Israel had been paying 275 million shekels monthly deducted from PA funds.
The money from the Norwegian Fund will pay for outstanding debts the PA has owed to Israel for over 10 years.
Half of the funds will be paid to companies that provided fuel to the PA and the other half will go to Israel’s electricity company.
Last spring, when Norway announced that it had recognized a Palestinian state, Smotrich stopped sending money to the Norwegian Fund and accumulated the money separately.
The money that Israel had intended to transfer to the Palestinian Authority after the war will instead go to pay the PA’s debts to Israel.
The process, which is being carried out in coordination with the US, is succeeding in securing the debt payment in full without reducing interest.
Last May, Smotrich refused to extend a waiver to allow Israel’s banks to work with Palestinian banks citing their close association with terror groups.
The Norwegian Fund was created as a way to transfer money between Israel and the Palestinian Authority without forcing Israel to work directly with Palestinian banks.
Who Really Denied Statehood To The Palestinian People? By Alan Dershowitz (Gatestone Institute)
One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people.
To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would have created a Palestinian state, alongside a state for Jewish inhabitants.
In 1937 – In the midst of the terrorist revolt inspired by Adolf Hitler’s ally, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – the British published the Palestinian Royal Commission Report (also known as the Peel Commission Report.)
The Commission recommended a partition plan by which to resolve what it characterized as “irrepressible conflict… between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country.”
Because of the general hostility and hatred of the Jews by the Muslims, “national assimilation between Arabs and Jews is… ruled out.”
Nor could the Jews be expected to accept Muslim rule over them, especially since Husseini made it clear that most of the Jews would be transferred out of Palestine if the Muslims gained complete control.
The Peel Commission concluded that partition was the only solution.
The Peel Commission plan proposed a Jewish state in areas in which there was a clear Jewish majority. Divided into two non-contiguous sections, the northern portion extended from Tel Aviv to the current border with Lebanon.
It consisted largely of a 10-mile-wide strip of land from the Mediterranean east to the end of the coastal plain, then a somewhat wide area from Haifa to the Sea of Galilee.
A southern portion, disconnected from the northern one by a British-controlled area that included Jerusalem, with its majority Jewish population, extended from South Jaffa to north of Gaza.
The proposed Arab state was, on the other hand, entirely contiguous and encompassed the entire Negev, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It was several times larger than the proposed Jewish state.
The population of the proposed Jewish state would have included 300,000 Jews and 100,000 Arabs. Another 75,000 Jews lived in Jerusalem, which would have remained under British control.
The Commission also alluded to how partition would help the rescue of Europe’s Jews from Nazism.
The Jews accepted the Peel partition, while the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding that all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and that most of the Jewish population of Palestine be “transferred” – ethnically cleansed – out of the country, because “this country [cannot] assimilate the Jews now in the country.”
The Peel Commission implicitly recognized that it was not so much that the Arabs wanted self-determination as that they did not want the Jews to have self-determination or sovereignty over the land the Jews themselves had cultivated and in which they were a majority.
They simply could not abide the reality that the Jews of Palestine had created for themselves a democratic homeland pursuant to the League of Nations mandate and binding international law.
Even if turning down the Peel proposal resulted in no state for the Arabs, that was preferable to allowing even a tiny, non-contiguous state for the Jews.
Following the end of World War II, the United Nations also recommended partition of the area into two states – one for the Arab population, the other for the Jewish population.
Once again, the Arab leadership rejected the two-state solution, while the Jewish leadership accepted it. The Jewish leadership declared statehood in the area allocated to it by the UN.
The Arab leadership responded by declaring a genocidal war against the new state of the Jewish people. They did not want a Palestinian state. And they wanted there to be no Jewish state.
As soon as Israel declared its independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon invaded it, with the help from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya. Arab armies, with the help of local Arab terrorists, determined to destroy the new Jewish state and exterminate its population.
After the Six Day War of 1967, which resulted in Israel capturing Judea and Samaria, the Gaza Strip, and east Jerusalem, Israel signaled its willingness to negotiate land for peace.
However, the Arab League met in Khartoum and issued the famous “Three No’s:” no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.
This led Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, to quip: “I think that this is the first war in history that has ended with the victors suing for peace and the anguished calling for unconditional surrender.”
According to former US President Bill Clinton, the Israelis in 2000-2001, offered to withdraw from approximately 96% of Judea and Samaria and 100% of the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace.
Again, the Palestinians were offered large land swaps from Israel in exchange for the small amount of land that would remain under Israeli control. But Palestinian Authority Chief Yasser Arafat rejected that offer and – presumably to change the subject and deflect the blame – initiated a wave of terrorist attacks that left thousands dead.
In 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered an even better deal. Once again, the Palestinian leadership did not accept the offer. As one Israeli leader put it, “The Palestinians don’t know how to take yes for an answer.”
It is therefore not correct to claim that Israel denied the Palestinians statehood. The Palestinian leadership did.
The Palestinians may deserve to have a peaceful state, but their claim is no greater than that of the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Chechens, and other stateless groups.
These other groups, unlike the Palestinians, have never been offered statehood, let alone repeatedly turned it down.
No one, therefore, should believe that it was Israel that has made the Palestinian people stateless. It was the Palestinians themselves, through their anti-Jewish leadership.
The current anti-Israel protesters in the West are not calling for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. They, like the failed Palestinian leadership, just want to end Israel’s existence.
It is not going to happen. Until the Palestinians recognize this reality, they will be denying themselves any possibility of statehood.
Change The Map Of Gaza To Signal That Terrorism Doesn’t Pay – Amit Segal
Hamas sees the suffering of the Gazan people as a benefit, not a cost. Terrorists who locate their headquarters in hospitals, schools, and kindergartens do so not only to protect themselves from possible attacks but also to exploit the inevitable killing of civilians for propaganda: More killing equals more world empathy.
In the Middle East, nothing hurts more than the loss of territory. The worst outcome of a war meant to conquer Israel would be Israel’s ending with more territory than when it began. The world demands that Israel withdraw to its original borders after every conflict it wins. Is it surprising that aggressors repeatedly try to destroy the Jewish state, knowing that they face little to no threat of loss of territory? This status quo must change.
There is nothing sacred about Gaza’s borders, which were created in 1949 to mark the line of separation between Egypt and Israel. There is a clear security justification for shrinking Gaza’s borders: Annexing a 1-mile perimeter around Gaza would create a buffer zone between Hamas-governed territory and the Israeli communities that Hamas brutally attacked on Oct. 7. The zone should also include a 3-mile stretch along the northern border of Gaza, an area Hamas converted into terrorist bases. Changing the map of Gaza would signal that terrorism doesn’t pay, and could represent a significant advancement toward peace in the Middle East.
The writer is chief political commentator on Israel’s Channel 12 News. (Wall Street Journal)
(wsj.com)
