News Digest — 10/31/25
Bodies Of Slain Hostages Amiram Cooper And Sahar Baruch Returned To Israel
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed on Thursday (30th) that Hamas had returned the remains of two hostages, Amiram Cooper, 85, and Sahar Baruch, 25, both abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
Military representatives informed their families earlier in the day after the bodies were transferred from Gaza to Israel.
Cooper, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was seized from his home and later killed while in captivity. His death was confirmed in June 2024 following intelligence assessments. Baruch, from Kibbutz Be’eri was taken hostage during the same assault and died in December 2023.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office expressed condolences to the victims’ families, saying Israel “shares in the deep sorrow of the Cooper and Baruch families and of all the families of the fallen hostages.
The statement added that Israel remains “determined, committed, and working tirelessly” to bring back the remaining bodies for burial.
Officials said Hamas is obligated under the current ceasefire agreement to return the bodies of all 11 remaining hostages who were killed in Gaza. The government has pressed mediators to ensure the group upholds those terms.
Reports earlier this week said Israel still lacks information on the whereabouts of four of the 11 hostages’ bodies believed to remain in Gaza.
According to KAN public broadcaster, Jerusalem has urged Washington to maintain pressure on Hamas to fulfill its obligations, citing the humanitarian and moral urgency of recovering the remains.
Vice President JD Vance and other senior US officials visited the region in recent days to reinforce the fragile ceasefire and discuss the status of the hostage returns.
During those meetings, IDF Chief of Staff LTG. Eyal Zamir emphasized the importance of the effort, noting Israel’s decade-old struggle to recover the body of fallen soldier Hadar Goldin, missing since 2014.
Lebanon Demands Israel’s Strikes Stop, But Does Not Address Hezbollah Disarmament – Analysis
Lebanon wants Israel’s continued airstrikes to stop. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire last November, after Israel dealt serious blows to Hezbollah. The ceasefire is ostensibly between Israel and Lebanon, and this covers Hezbollah because it should mean that Israel’s airstrikes stop.
However, Israel has asserted that it has a right to continue striking Hezbollah. Now tensions are growing, and according to Reuters “Lebanese President Joseph Aoun instructed the army on Thursday (30th) to confront any Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon after Israeli forces crossed the border overnight in a raid, despite a US-brokered ceasefire.”
The main reason that the airstrikes continue is to prevent Hezbollah from re-grouping and re-growing its tentacles in Lebanon. The airstrikes likely can also pressure Lebanon to finally rein in Hezbollah and disarm it. There was optimism in the spring of 2025 that Lebanon would do the right thing. The new President Joseph Aoun, and the new Prime Minister, Nawaf Salam, have appeared to want to disarm Hezbollah. They ‘talk a good game.’ They also have regional support to disarm the group. The Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, would like to see Hezbollah reduced in its power.
However, the problem with Aoun and Salam is that they have been involved in Lebanese politics and affairs for decades. They are creatures of the state. This means that, even though they may want to do the right thing, they aren’t yet able to think outside the box. In essence, they grew up with Hezbollah – having an illegal terrorist army controlling part of Lebanon as the norm, and they can’t see a way forward.
This illustrates why Lebanon has a hard time facing Hezbollah and making the next move. However, there was a spotlight on Lebanon this week as US envoy Morgan Ortagus was there. She had been in Israel prior to going to Lebanon.
The entire sequence of events illustrates how Lebanon and Israel may be careening toward a new crisis. There had been a year of hope. However, it seems that Hezbollah will not disarm and, in fact, wants to not only resist but also return to control parts of Lebanon. This will take time.
Pro-Hezbollah outlets in Lebanon, such as Al-Akhbar, are writing with approval about Lebanon potentially confronting Israel over the airstrikes. This shows how Hezbollah is playing its cards and trying to wait out the strikes until Lebanon, or perhaps the U.S. , tries to reduce the Israeli attacks.
Israel Re-Arrests Palestinian Terrorist Freed In Hostage Deal Over Explosives Production
A Palestinian terrorist who was released several months ago during the hostage deal agreement earlier in 2025, was re-arrested for production and distribution of explosives, Israel Police announced on Thursday (30th).
The terrorist was arrested after being caught with 25 explosives he had manufactured and distributed to various terrorist groups.
On Wednesday night (29th), Jerusalem Border Police and Yehuda Border Patrol, along with Jerusalem Border Police dogs, raided his home and arrested him for questioning.
“The Israel Police will continue to act with determination, professionalism, and zero tolerance toward terrorism and anyone who seeks to harm human life and the security of the State of Israel,” police said.
In addition to those arrested for committing or planning acts of terror, dozens of suspects have been arrested in Jerusalem alone for incitement and support for terrorism since the Israel-Hamas War began.
Jerusalem’s “Awareness War Room” operates daily, identifying and locating those who incite or support terrorist organizations and terrorists, both in public spaces and online.
‘Mecca Is Ours, This Belongs To The Jews’ – Jordanian Activist Preaches Peace During Israel Visit
A Bedouin tribesman and Jordanian peace activist met with Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset this week during a visit to the Jewish state.
Abedalelah Almaala, a member of the Bani Hassan Bedouin clan in Jordan and leader of the Jordan Coalition for Change, visited Israel this week, including stops in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where he toured the Old City of Jerusalem and spoke with Knesset members.
During his visit to the Old City of Jerusalem, Almaala prayed at the Western Wall for peace, and on behalf of the “oppressed in the Arab world.”
Highlighting his opposition to the Jordanian royal family and reiterating his calls for peace between Arabs and Jews in Israel, Almaala mocked his Arab critics.
”We will not listen to the barking dogs… for the sake of future generations, I will work with all my strength. For more than a hundred years, all we hear is killing, hunger, and poverty. All the demands of the oppressed in the Arab world in general and the oppressed in Jordan, in particular: these I have written and sent to the Western Wall.”
Noting the Jewish historical and religious ties to the Temple Mount, Almaala criticized Muslim opposition to Jewish visitation of the holy site.
“When the Jewish people visit Al-Aqsa, this should not be called an invasion.”
“We need to remove the barriers between us and the Jewish people.”
Pointing toward the Western Wall, Almaala said, “Mecca belongs to us Muslims. This belongs to the Jews.”
Almaala went on to call Israel “their place,” the “place of the Jewish people.” He said, “ The Quran respects Jewish people.”
At the Knesset on Tuesday (28th), Almaala joined with a delegation of Syrian Kurds hosted by MK Akram Hasson, a Druze lawmaker from the ruling coalition.
Almaala met with Hasson and with Likud MK Tsega Melaku.
“Together, hand in hand for the new Middle East,” Almaala wrote after his visit,”
Almaala’s trip to Israel received criticism from the Jordanian press, with the tabloid site Saraya News writing that the visit “provoked the anger of Jordanians.”
In the past, Almaala has expressed support for Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, reposting a map showing all the land west of the Jordan as the State of Israel, with Jordan serving as the Palestinian State.
“This is the only solution but I call it New Jordan and the Kingdom of Israel,” Almaala wrote on X. “New Jordan keeps the rights of Palestinians and east Jordanians as a united family.”
Israel Did What The U.S, Would Have Done Had A Genocidal Enemy Launched An Attack On Us – Robert G. Kaufman
After two years of intensive conflict, Israel is substantially better off than it was on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel confounded its mortal enemies by inflicting defeat after defeat on the revolutionary, virulently anti-Semitic Iranian regime and its primary surrogates – Hezbollah and Hamas
Israel persevered heroically in defiance of the Biden administration’s relentless pressure to restrain the response. The IDF waged a series of brilliant campaigns – decapitating, with surgical precision, Hezbollah’s leadership; degrading its thousands of missiles; and devastating Iran’s air defenses, thereby facilitating U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites that significantly set back its nuclear war program.
Israel also secured the return of the remaining hostages without sacrificing its prerogative to crush the unreconciled remnants of Hamas should they resume violence. The shock and awe of the IDF’s military victory has incentivized more moderate Arab regimes to cooperate with Israel and abandon Hamas. Israel’s resounding victories against Iranian proxies contributed mightily to the weakening of Assad’s bloody tyranny in Syria.
The U.S. and its democratic allies are also substantially better off now that Israel has won its existential war against its genocidal adversaries. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed his gratitude for Israel’s attacks on Iran: “This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us…. This regime has brought death and destruction to the world.”
Thus, Israel did what I hope and pray the U.S. would have done had a genocidal enemy launched a proportionally equivalent attack on us – murdering 40,000 Americans; raping, torturing, and beheading victims; casting babies into ovens – without a shred of remorse. Surely we would and should have vanquished such a perpetrator, settling for nothing less than complete and utter destruction of the regime that perpetrated the attack – just as Churchill and FDR rightly did with Nazi Germany and Japan.
It is rank hypocrisy to begrudge the right of Israel to do what we and any other morally sane nation would have done in response to a comparable attack.
The great scholar of war Geoffrey Blainey instructs us in The Causes Of War that the longest and most durable periods of peace occur when the results of war are most decisive, eliminating the root cause of the conflict. We ignore these lessons at our peril.
The writer is a Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. (Providence – Institution on Religion and Democracy)
How The Country I Was Taught To Hate Saved My Life – Masih Alinejad
Growing up in Iran, I learned to chant “Death to America”at the age of 7, along with all the other schoolchildren. In the ideology of the Islamic Republic, America is the monster, the Great Satan. As a teenager, I was beaten by the regime’s morality police for freeing a few strands of hair and for daring to wear my headscarf a little too loosely. I was jailed for the “crimes” of writing political slogans and handing out pamphlets that questioned the Islamic regime.
I became a journalist covering parliament: When I wrote about corruption among the elected members in 2009, the regime’s intelligence officers called me in, threatened me, and forced me to sign a pledge promising not to report on the election. When I ignored the warnings, my car was vandalized. The perpetrators left a single handcuff hanging from the driver’s side door handle.
I had to choose: Stay in Iran and risk poison or death, or leave and keep my voice alive. I left. Leaving my birth country felt like tearing out a part of my soul. But exile gave me freedom. In America, I could finally breathe. I could speak out without fearing the midnight knock at my door.
In 2021, the FBI informed me that I was the target of a kidnapping plot. Iranian intelligence operatives had hired private investigators to surveil me in Brooklyn. They camped outside my home, followed my movements, and made plans to kidnap me and take me to Venezuela. The FBI foiled the plot just in time.
In 2022, a hitman named Khalid Mehdiyev lurked outside my Brooklyn home, watching me as I watered my garden. By the time he had retrieved his gun from his car, I was back inside, unaware of the danger. When he returned the following day, the FBI arrested him.
It’s ironic that a child who once chanted “Death to America” has, as an adult, been given a second life in the same country she was taught to hate. (Free Press)
