News Digest — 1/6/25
Three Killed In Shooting Terror Attack Near Kedumim
Two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s were killed and seven others were wounded in a shooting terror attack near Kedumim in the West Bank, Israel’s emergency medical response service Magen David Adom (MDA) said on Monday (6th).
MDA added that its paramedics were providing treatment to the 63-year-old bus driver who sustained serious wounds, and a woman in her 60s who is in moderate condition. Five others suffered light wounds. They were all transferred to the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva and the Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba.
The IDF said that terrorists had opened fire at a bus and vehicles in the area. Security forces are searching for the terrorists, setting up roadblocks in the area and encircling nearby towns.
MDA paramedic Avichai Ben Zuria noted, “This was a severe attack that spread across multiple scenes where vehicles and a bus were hit by gunfire.”
He recounted what he saw upon arrival at the scene. “During our initial searches for casualties, we found two women around 60-years-old in a vehicle, unconscious without pulse or breathing, with gunshot wounds. About 150 meters away, there was an unconscious driver, who also suffered gunshot wounds. After medical assessments, unfortunately , their injuries were severe, and we had to pronounce them deceased.”
ZAKA chief of operations, Chaim Weingarten said ZAKA teams in the area were “on their way to the scene to treat the deceased with respect and handle the difficult findings.”
Hamas Hostage List Reportedly Includes Bibas Children
The BBC reported Monday morning (5th) that the list of 34 hostages confirmed by Hamas includes ten women, 11 adults aged 50-80, and the children of the Bibas family.
The murderous terrorist organization did not specify which of the 34 hostages included in the list are still alive and which are dead.
An Israeli source confirmed on Sunday night (5th) that Hamas did indeed pass on a list of hostages, but did not say which of them are alive.
A senior Hamas source said Sunday night (5th) that the terror organization had approved a list of 34 hostages that was passed on to Israel.
Following this latest report, the Prime Minister’s Office stated, “The list of hostages that has been published in the media was not provided to Israel by Hamas but was originally given by Israel to the mediators in July 2024. As yet Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list. Israel will continue to act relentlessly for the return of all of our hostages.”
The Bibas family, including parents Yarden and Shiri and their children Ariel and Kfir, were among the 250 people who were abducted to Gaza during the October 7 massacre and held hostage by the terrorists. Ariel was just four-years-old when she was kidnapped. Kfir, the youngest hostage , was just nine months old. Both children have had a birthday in captivity and Kfir will soon have his second birthday in captivity if he is not released soon. Kfir has already spent the majority of his life as a hostage, if he is still alive.
Israel Lays Out NIS 3.4 Billion To Return Northern Residents Home In March
The Finance Ministry on Sunday (5th) presented a NIS 3.4 billion ($934 million) compensation plan to help bring thousands of evacuated residents of Israel’s battered northern communities back home in early March after more than a year of fighting with Hezbollah.
“The key to returning home is security and we are not going to compromise on this matter,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, at a press conference in Jerusalem. “Residents of the north are returning to a different security reality, and we will make sure that quiet is maintained for years.”
The announcement of the “Return to Home Plan” comes after extended delays and numerous complaints from residents of Israel’s northern communities, who have been internally displaced for more than a year.
These grants consist of two tracks: a grant to assist with the return home and a grant to compensate returnees for the indirect damage caused to their homes, after they were abandoned for more than a year. Homes that sustained damage from direct attacks, such as a rocket, are eligible for government compensation for reparations by the property tax authority.
The grant to assist with the return home amounts to NIS 15,360 per adult and NIS 7,680 per child. A household with four children will receive NIS 61, 440. In addition, a grant of 10,000 per adult and a 5,000 per child will be allocated as compensation for indirect damage caused to property due to abandonment, including broken electrical appliances or other infrastructure. The grants will be received via payment by the national Insurance Institute.
Families with children will be given the option to remain in their current locations and state-funded accommodation to be able to finish the school year and move back home to the north in June. However, the size of their back-to-home grant will be reduced over time, while the eligibility to their home abandonment grant will not be affected.
Dozens of communities in the north of the country were evacuated after the October 7, 2023 massacre, as the Hezbollah terror group began launching near-daily attacks from across the Lebanese border. Some 60,000 northerners remain displaced following months of Hezbollah rocket fire.
Even after a tenuous Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, which took effect in late November and is set to expire at the end of the month, many residents of the battered border kibbutz communities who are staying in state-funded accommodations, including hotels, have been worried about their safety and are wary that the peace will hold.
Also speaking at the press conference, MK Ze’ev Elkin, head of the Northern Rehabilitation Directorate, said that out of the NIS 3.4 billion budget, funds will also be allocated to local authorities in the north to prepare for the return of residents in March. The funds will partly be allocated to ensure that educational institutions such as schools and daycare centers will be reopened and will operate, even though some residents may decide to defer their return home until June.
Captain Tal Aricha: “We Went Back To Jabaliya To Ensure This Will Be The Last Time”
Captain Tal Aricha, company commander of Brigade 401, spoke to Israel National News from the Jabaliya refugee camp about his injury in an encounter last week with terrorists, and his request to return to combat fighting immediately after being treated at the hospital.
“The day before the encounter, we conducted a very successful ambush. We eliminated eighteen terrorists who attempted to escape from the area of the Kamal Adwan hospital with light weapons, which does not happen often in Gaza. The next day we tried to replicate the success and set out again on a similar operation. I was hit by an anti-tank missile. I felt the very powerful impact, and the entire crew inside the armored vehicle felt the shock. I stuck my head outside the vehicle to check what was going on and I was thrown inside. In those moments, you don’t have much time to understand what is happening and you act like a robot,” Aricha recalls.
Aricha praised the driver of the armored vehicle. “He is the real hero of the incident. The armored vehicle didn’t move and the driver realized that if he switched to emergency gear, it would work. His reaction saved us, because over the next five minutes, all 1,200 liters of diesel fuel drained from the vehicle, while it burned and emitted huge amounts of smoke. We managed to reach a safe area, and in the meantime, the battalion circled the terrorists and managed to destroy them.”
Aricha was taken to Soroka Medical Center for treatment and insisted on returning to Gaza. “I was in the hospital and they wanted me to stay another day. When I was discharged, they told me I had to rest at home for a week. I told them I had combat fighters in Gaza and I was very angry about this. In retrospect, after two days of thinking about it, I’m very happy with my decision. It shows that while we are here fighting, risking our lives, the people behind us are continuing with their daily routines. That’s the victory.”
He explained himself, “The victory is that those behind us feel secure. That there are almost no missiles from Gaza and no fear of raids or infiltration by terrorists. I hope that the heroes living in the surrounding areas feel this and are encouraging everyone to return home. Of course, we have not yet completed the work, but the Gaza envelope is a much safer place.”
Aricha describes the change in fighting since October 7. “I think the method of fighting has changed. We are no longer clearing sites of buildings that were used for terrorist activity and making sure that there are no terrorists there. We are destroying sites so that they have nowhere to return to. We are destroying the infrastructure. Gaza looks like Lego City. We returned to Jabaliya for the fourth time now, our last time. We are not leaving anything standing here. Once the enemy has nothing to rely on, it cannot return. This is what is different.”
How “Pro-Palestinian” Protestors Actually Harm Palestinians – Khaled Abu Toameh
The organizers and leaders of the anti-Israel protests in the U.S. and Canada, including on university campuses, continue to ignore the real suffering of the Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and the Iran-backed Islamist group Hamas in Gaza. We never hear the voices of these protesters when the Palestinian Authority and Hamas commit human rights violations against their own citizens, including ruthless crackdowns on journalists, political opponents, human rights activists, lawyers and university students.
Is there free media in “Palestine?” No. Is there a functioning parliament? No. Are there general elections? No. But as long as Israel can not be blamed for the human rights violations, the “pro-Palestinian” protesters apparently do not care. Foreign journalists as well are only interested in stories if they have an anti-Israel angle.
Did we ever hear a word from these self-righteous protesters when Hamas police officers and militiamen were beating, arresting and shooting residents of Gaza who took to the streets to protest economic hardship? Never. We have rarely heard “pro-Palestinian” groups in the West speak out against the financial and administrative corruption in the PA’s governing institutions.
Deep down, one suspects, these professors and students do not really care about the Palestinians at all, only about hating Jews. These activists should be urging Hamas to release the 100 Israeli hostages it has been holding in Gaza since the atrocities of October 7, 2023. That would be the best and fastest way to end the current war in Gaza.
The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist, is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. (Gatestone Institute)
Iranian Policy And The Future Of The Tehran Regime – Dr. Dan Diker and Brg.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, interviewed by Shoshana Bryen (Jewish Policy Center)
• Brig.-Gen. Kuperwasser: “The Iranian regime’s perception of itself and also the perception of the Iranian people of their regime is in shambles because it was proven that it can not cause the kind of damage to Israel it proclaimed it could. It cannot defend itself and cannot defend its most strategic assets, including the nuclear program.”
• “It was further proven that the Ring of Fire [of Iranian proxy forces] that it has built around Israel is falling apart. It was not built well enough to withstand the Israeli reaction to an attack by one of the members – Hamas. And its economic situation is terrible, and Donald Trump is coming, and ‘maximum pressure’ is going to be imposed again. And the people of Iran can’t stand the regime anymore anyhow because of the economic difficulties which mostly have to do with the corruption and the ineffectiveness of the regime.”
• Dr. Diker: “Israel has always maintained very strong relations with various leaders within the 88 million Iranians, 90% of whom have rejected the regime since the early to mid-1980s. Now is an ideal time because many of the tentacles of the Iranian octopus have been cut off. It leaves a great opportunity for the Iranian people, and they know the Israeli people are aligned in support of the need to change the regime.”
· “The challenge is to get the Americans on board. The major frustration of the Iranian opposition is that American governments have done more to stabilize the regime than they have to destabilize the regime.”
· “Oct. 7 proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that the conflict we face is religiously and ideologically driven. This is not a territorial conflict. We are not witnessing a conflict over borders and territory. We are really facing jihad; we are facing a Holy War, as Iran has reminded us time and again since 1979. There’s really very little difference strategically between the commitment of the PLO and its Hamas opponents to rid the Middle East of Israel.”
• Brig.- Gen. Kuperwasser: “The people in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza learn about hating Israel every day. These are people highly motivated to execute terrible attacks against the Jews. Look at the famous phone call that the guy from Hamas made to his parents on Oct. 7, how he boasts about killing the Jews. He thinks he did an excellent, very admirable deed. These are the people we live next to.”
• “We Israelis learned the lesson. We are not going to go back – we are going to change the situation in Gaza. We’re going to change the situation in Lebanon, and we are going to change our security doctrine. We are going to have many more soldiers deployed along the border in order to face any eventuality.”
Dr. Dan Diker is President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence, is Director of National Security and Middle East Affairs at the Jerusalem Center.
