News Digest — 1/16/26
Trump: Hamas Must Return The Last Hostage And Disarm
US President Donald Trump on Thursday night (15th) commented on the start of Phase II of his 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
“As Steve Witkoff announced, we have OFFICIALLY entered the next phase of Gaza’s 20-point peace plan,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, referring to Witkoff’s announcement on Wednesday (14th).
“Since the ceasefire, my team has helped deliver Record Levels of Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, reaching civilians at HISTORIC speed and scale. Even the United Nations has acknowledged this achievement as UNPRECEDENTED. These results have set the stage for the next phase,” he added.
“As chairman of the board of peace, I am backing a newly appointed Palestinian Technocratic Government, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, sponsored by the Board’s High Representative, to govern Gaza during its transition. These Palestinian leaders are unwaveringly committed to a PEACEFUL future,” wrote Trump.
He continued, “With the support of Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, we will secure a COMPREHENSIVE Demilitarization Agreement with Hamas, including the surrender of ALL weapons, and the dismantling of EVERY tunnel. Hamas must IMMEDIATELY honor its commitments, including the return of the final body of Ran Gvili to Israel, and proceed without delay to full Demilitarization. As I have said before,they can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The people of Gaza have suffered long enough. The time is NOW.”
Trump concluded his post with the words: PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
Earlier on Thursday (15th), Trump announced that the ‘Board of Peace for Gaza,’ a key part of his plan, had been created, adding that the names of the members would be made public at a later date.
“It is my great Honor to announce that the BOARD Of Peace has been formed. The Members of the Board will be announced shortly, but I can say with certainty that it is the Greatest and Most Prestigious Board ever assembled at any time, and place. Thank you for your attention to this matter” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Witkoff’s’s announcement on Phase Two was made despite the fact that the body of Ran Gvili, the last hostage, continues to be held in Gaza.
As part of the conditions of the ceasefire, Hamas was to have returned all the hostages it was holding in Phase One, but it continues to hold Gvili’s body, while claiming it does not know where the body is.
Israel has provided critical information on the burial place of Gvili, but Hamas has ignored it.
The Israeli government has maintained its opposition to the implementation of the second phase before Hamas fulfills all of its obligations from the first stage, including the return of Gvili.
Senior Hamas Official Killed In Gaza, Waves Of Israeli Airstrikes Hit Lebanon
IDF airstrikes hit multiple locations in Lebanon Thursday (15th), while Palestinian officials reported a targeted killing in Gaza, a day after US envoy Steve Wirkoff announced what he described as a move to Phase II of President Donald Trump’s proposed framework.
Palestinian sources said Mohammed al-Holy, a local commander in Hamas’ military wing in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, was killed in an airstrike. Al-Holy was considered a senior figure within the terror group.
Al Jazeera reported that al-Holy, also known as Abu Fouad al-Holy, was killed in an airstrike. Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas, said six other people were also killed. The IDF had not commented on the report and did not confirm the killing.
Hamas said the killing was a “violation of the ceasefire agreement” and that the IDF was preparing to renew the war in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier Thursday (15th), Israel carried out a series of strikes in Lebanon, hitting targets both in the country;s south and deeper inland. In a statement, the Israeli military said it struck weapons depots and additional infrastructure used by Hezbollah to advance attacks against Israeli forces and Israel.
Lebanese media reported that the strikes targeted the Hermel area in eastern Lebanon, in the Bekaa Valley, as well as the village of Mashghara. The IDF said that in another strike deep inside Lebanon, it hit an underground weapons storage facility used by Hezbollah. It said extensive measures were taken ahead of the strikes to reduce the risk to civilians, including the use of precision-guided munitions, advance warnings to residents, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.
Hezbollah’s activity at the sites, the IDF said, violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon and posed a threat to Israel.
Kibbutz Be’eri Chooses Single Burned Out House To Bear Testimony To October 7
Kibbutz Be’eri has selected the house that will remain standing as a testament to the horrors of October 7, 2023, a month after residents voted to demolish all but one of the homes destroyed during the Hamas onslaught on the Gaza-adjacent community.
The burned-out house belongs to Yogev and Yael Dvori, who were in Cyprus with their four children at the time of the attack. The fact that the family survived was one factor in the decision to choose their home, as was its location in the Kerem (vineyard) neighborhood on the edge of the kibbutz: where residents will not need to see it everyday.
Be’eri was one of the hardest hit communities during the attack. Of the over 1,200 people killed when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, 102 were residents of Be’eri – around a 10th of the community. Thirty more people were kidnapped to Gaza from the kibbutz (all of whom have since been returned, either alive or dead).
Residents had recently debated what to do with the two worst-hit neighborhoods, and the decision to tear the homes down was controversial – with one government minister indicating he may try to block the move at the urging of bereaved families.
Ultimately. Kibbutz members felt that demolishing most of the homes and buildings, rather than living in a perpetual monument to the devastating attack, was critical in allowing them to move on.
The Dvori house will remain standing for at least the next five years, according to the decision. It will form a part of the community’s testimony, along with documents, visual materials and various items selected as part of a special visual history program at the Yad Ben Zvi research institute.
Yogev Dvori told the Ynet news site, “My position was that we should destroy everything and leave no trace, not turn the kibbutz into Auschwitz or a pilgrimage site for visitors. Simply erase everything and commemorate beloved people, not buildings.
He went on: “From the first day, we didn’t care about people entering our house, because we didn’t go through a traumatic event there. Moreover, after we realized there was nothing to save, we didn’t really care about the house. As far as we were concerned, the door could remain open, and whoever wanted could come in, take pictures, do whatever they wanted. It had become a showhouse anyway. Anyone who wanted to see burned houses entered our house.”
Dvoir said the family had returned from Cyprus with few belongings and received clothes at a hotel to which the surviving kibbutz residents were initially evacuated. He added, “Later we went into the house just to take items that were meaningful to us, such as a family photo album that was covered in soot. To this day, it is impossible to have it at our current home, because it reeks of smoke, so we keep it in storage.”
Around 80 Be’eri residents have returned to the kibbutz, while most are in temporary accomodations at Kibbutz Hatzerim, also in the Negev region of southern Israel.
The Dvoris are also now in Hatzerim. They plan to return to Be’eri next summer to a new house, which is currently under construction.
French Exam Prep Books Pulled Over ‘Revisionist’ Oct 7 Narrative
France’s leading textbook publisher recalled several high school matriculation review books Wednesday (14th) following an uproar over what critics called falsified and misleading descriptions of the October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel.
“Hachette Live announces today, with immediate effect, the recall of three supplementary revision books entitled Objectif Bac Terminal which contains erroneous content on the events of October 7,” the publisher said in a statement, saying it “understands the emotions aroused.”
“I personally wish to apologize to all those rightly offended by this publication,” CEO Arnaud Lagardere added, pledging that Hachette would introduce stricter editorial oversight to prevent similar incidents.
The disputed passage in the history-geography text stated: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers during a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to strengthen its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a large-scale humanitarian crisis in the region.”
Critics objected both to the use of the term “Jewish settlers” and the omission of “key facts.”
The victims of the Hamas-led invasion were residents of Gaza envelope Kibbutzim and Moshavim and towns, and soldiers protecting the border, while the term “settlers” is regularly used in the West as a pejorative term for those who reside in territories liberated by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War – Judea, Samaria, and eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The passage also failed to mention any of the documented war crimes committed during the attack, including mass rape, and torture of victims, and the abduction of 251 men, women and children into Gaza.
LICRA, the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, which revealed Tuesday (13th) the problematic wording that has been part of these review books since 2024, was livid in condemnation, as was Jonathan Arfi, President of CRIF (the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France).
President Emmanuel Macron stressed that the books were not published by the French Ministry of Education, and strongly condemned the “distorted perspective of the facts” they presented.
The Ayatollahs’Anti-Semitism Has Undone Iran – Bret Stephens
A policy of anti-Semitism has a way of eventually destroying the anti-Semite. Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, the regime has had a singular obsession with Jews. Iran;s current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is an avowed Holocaust denier. The vast majority of Iranian Jews have fled the country.
Iran has supported Hezbollah, sworn to Israel’s destruction, with billions of dollars over four decades, and ordered the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. It has repeatedly hosted a conference of Holocaust deniers and anti-Semitic cartoon contests.
All this might be intelligible if Iran and Israel had ancient grievances or territorial disputes. There are none. Iran was among the first predominantly Muslim states to de facto recognize Israel, and Jerusalem and Tehran maintained close ties while the Shah was in power Even today, ordinary Iranians are markedly less anti-Semitic than people in other Middle Eastern states. What ordinary Iranians are revolting against is a regime that would rather pursue a perpetual jihad against the Zionist enemy than feed its own people.
After the attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel systematically dismantled the ring of fire around the Jewish state built by Iran and its proxies. At a stroke, it turned decades of Iranian investment in efforts to destroy Israel to rubble and ash. It exposed to the Iranian people the regime’s military incompetence and helplessness. The knowledge that the regime is brittle is surely part of what is driving Iranians into the streets.
When the regime collapses, it will also signal historic fulfillment: Jews have owed a debt to Persians ever since Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian captivity 2,564 years ago and restored Jews to Zion
Israel Won The Information War- Abe Greenwald
On January 8, a group of anti-Semites descended on a synagogue and Jewish school in Queens and chanted their loyalty to Hamas. On January 10, a man set fire to the oldest synagogue in Mississippi, the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson. The alleged arsonist told FBI agents he set the fire “due to the building’s Jewish ties, “and he described it as the “synagogue of Satan.” Israel’s war has been over for months, but American Jews are facing an increase in naked anti-Semitism.
We’ve heard endlessly about how Israel failed to articulate its side of the story. The problem with that analysis lies in the story it assumes Israel should have articulated. But there’s little point in the Jewish state trying to prove that it’s innocent of all the calumnious charges against it. Because if Israel’s devoted critics could be persuaded that it’s a good and just country under continuous assault by barbaric fanatics, they would have been convinced by the decades of evidence showing just that.
The vital information that Israel needed to disseminate was this: We will not perish. We are fiercer in battle than you could ever imagine, more accomplished in intelligence and operational execution than any nation in history, peerless in the art of war, and unapologetic in our commitment to survival. We don’t bend to public opinion, we stop at nothing to defend our existence. And that message came across loud and clear.
Too many in America spent two-plus years swallowing Hamas propaganda and publicly agonizing over Israel’s actions to varying degrees. And while they explained and apologized, they also bent over backwards to give the Jew-haters the benefit of the doubt. We know exactly how that’s worked out. (Commentary)
