News Digest — 11/19/24
Woman Killed, Several Wounded Following Rocket Strike In Shfaram, Northern Israel
Hezbollah fired over 75 rockets on Monday (18th), with one rocket in the evening striking the primarily Israeli-Arab town of Shfaram in northern Israel and killing a woman in her 50s as well as wounding ten others.
Safa Kat Awad, a resident of Shfaram, was named as the individual killed in the Hezbollah rocket strike in Israel’s North, Israeli media reported.
Magen David Adom (MDA) said the victim was killed while in a safe room in a building in Shfaram. She had been critically wounded, and paramedics who arrived on the scene were forced to pronounce her dead.
There was no initial explanation about what caused her death, being that she was in a safe room, with very few of the war’s deaths having occurred once civilians have been in safe rooms and far more deaths occurring with civilians who are out in the open.
Some ten individuals sustained light wounds from broken glass and were transferred for further medical care, MDA stated.
The Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa said it was treating some 30 people who had been wounded to various degrees in the barrage, including a 41-year-old woman and a four-year-old child in serious condition.
The IDF said that Hezbollah had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel, following the sirens that blared in Tamra, Shfaram, and Kabul, among other places, starting at 6:27 p.m. local time.
A number of other Israelis were hurt in other incidents relating to Hezbollah’s periodic rocket fire throughout the day, though there were no other deaths.
Danon At UN: Ceasefire Without Returning Hostages Is Abandoning Them To The Hell Of The Terrorist Monsters
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon Spoke Monday (18th) at a UN Security Council session and criticized the wording of a proposed resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza. “Any resolution that does not condition the ceasefire on the release of the hostages means abandoning the 101 hostages to the hell of the terrorist monsters.”
The UN Security Council on Monday (18th) met to discuss the situation in the Middle East. Ambassador Danon referred to the wording of a draft resolution being proposed by the Council members regarding a ceasefire in Gaza. The draft resolution is expected to be voted on in the coming days by the Security Council and does not include a condition for the return of the hostages, nor does it reference Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Ambassador Danon added, “The decision being promoted in the Council only strengthens Hamas and terrorism and abandons the hostages. We can not allow the UN to tie the hands of the State of Israel from protecting its citizens, and we will not stop fighting until we return all the kidnapped men, women and children home.”
Netanyahu Says Israel Hit Iranian Nuclear Infrastructure During Strike
Israel destroyed a component of Tehran’s nuclear program while degrading its defense and missile production capabilities during the IDF’s aerial strike on Iran in October, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday (18th) as he pledged to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining atomic weapons.
“There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit in this attack,” he explained, in a wide-ranging foreign policy speech to the plenum, in which he spoke of the centrality of Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons to Israel’s multi-front war.
He did not identify the component but added that despite the success of that hit, Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon had not yet been blocked.
On October 26, Israel fighter jets carried out three waves of attacks on Iranian military targets, a few weeks after Iran had fired a barrage of about 200 ballistic missiles against Israel. This followed a previous round of an attack and counterattack in April between Israel and Iran.
Netanyahu, in his speech, offered a few more details on what Israel had targeted in that April strike, in which the IDF took out one of four Russian-supplied S-300 surface-to-air missile defense batteries around Tehran, the Iranian capital.
In October, Netanyahu said, Israel destroyed the remaining three batteries and caused serious damage to Iran’s ballistic missile production capabilities and its ability to produce solid fuel, which is used in long-range ballistic missiles.
Israel has had a wary eye on the possibility of another Iranian attack and is already planning its response. Among the steps the IDF could take should the Islamic Republic escalate the strength of its direct attacks on Israel, is a hit on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
US President Joe Biden has in the past not supported such a step, but it is expected that President-elect Donald Trump could give Israel free rein to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities.
At the end of the day, Netanyahu told the Knesset that Israel will be tested by its ability to thwart and destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
“If we don’t take care of Iran’s nuclear program, then all the other problems will return,” and Iran’s proxies will be able to rearm and attack Israel once more, he said, adding that the only way to prevent other October 7 style attacks is to prevent a nuclear Iran.
Earlier, he had told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel’s ability to act against Iran’s nuclear program and other threats, “will be tested in the near future together with the incoming administration in Washington.”
During his speech in the Knesset plenum, Netanyahu recalled how he and Trump were in agreement on Iran, speaking of it in conversations they have held since the November 5 election.
“We did not talk about the method of action. For the moment, we did not talk about policy. There is time for that, when the president enters office. But I can say that we see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat,” Netanyahu said.
He hinted that he would be willing to ignore a US dictate on Iran in the last moments of Biden’s presidency, as he listed how he has attempted to navigate his great respect for the sitting president with their policy differences.
“I say ‘Yes’ when possible, and I say ‘No’ when necessary – and that is how we manage it” Netanyahu said.
In describing the last 14 months of Israel’s multi-front wars, Netanyahu said that the central enemy was Iran, which has “engraved our destruction on its flag.”
Tehran’s power is based on three things: its axis of proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis as well as its ballistic missiles and its nuclear weapons program.
In running through a history of Israel’s military decisions in the war, Netanyahu underscored how important it was for the Jewish State to retain its ability to make independent decisions, even if it meant opposing its closest ally the United States.
Iran Secretly Elected Its Next Leader, Report Says
Tehran has secretly chosen Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as the next head of the country, Iran International, a Persian-language international media outlet with ties to Iranian regime opponents reported on Saturday (16th).
According to the report, Mojtaba may assume the role even before the death of his 85-year-old father, who is reportedly suffering from a severe illness.
The report claimed that 60 members of Iran’s Assembly of Experts convened on September 26 in an exceptionally unusual meeting at the elder Khamenei’s demand. They were instructed to decide on the succession immediately, without prior notice and under strict confidentiality.
Despite initial opposition to both the decision and the process, the assembly ultimately reached a unanimous agreement to designate Mojtaba as the successor following the leader’s and his representatives’ insistence, which allegedly included direct threats.
The assembly resolved to maintain maximum secrecy over the decision due to fears of widespread public protests. Members were warned to keep the meeting confidential, with threats of repercussions for any leaks. Indeed, the meeting’s details were kept under wraps for five weeks.
Concerns about protests stem from the undemocratic nature of the process, compounded by Khamenei’s prior designation of his second son for the role. Over the past two years, Mojtaba has been groomed for leadership, taking on a more active and central role in decision-making related to the Iranian regime.
His appointment has thus become a foregone conclusion despite his lack of experience and the absence of any formal positions in the government.
Sources familiar with the meeting indicated that Iran’s Supreme Leader might hand over the reins to his second son during his lifetime, taking steps to prepare for a smooth transition. They believe Khamenei hopes to secure Mojtaba’s leadership and preempt the anticipated opposition that could arise after his passing.
Hamas Publicly Executes Alleged Humanitarian Aid Thieves
Hamas brags about “field executions” of men accused of stealing aid, while the terror group itself regularly seizes and stockpiles aid, preventing basic goods from reaching Gazan civilians.
Members of the Hamas terror group executed 20 Gazan civilians who they claimed were stealing humanitarian aid, claiming that the brutal murders were part of a “security operation” targeting the theft of sought-after goods.
Hamas regularly seizes and hoards humanitarian aid provided by Israel and the international community, stockpiling the goods in warehouses guarded by armed terrorists and charging Gazan civilians exorbitant prices for basic necessities.
Video from the incident circulating on social media showed Hamas firing an RPG at a vehicle carrying several men, who they claimed had commandeered an aid truck.
Some 20 people, whom Hamas accused of being members of a crime ring that stole from trucks carrying goods, were killed.
In a media statement, Hamas acknowledged that it had killed the alleged thieves without arresting them or putting them on trial.
In April 2024, a Palestinian Authority-controlled news station reported that Hamas murdered workers who were providing humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians.
“Hamas’ persecution of any party who is a source for distributing the [humanitarian] aid or securing it began from the start of the war, as Hamas persecuted well-known figures and teams of volunteers on the ground in mid-October [2023[,” a Fatah journalist said during a broadcast.
Hamas “attacked them and killed some of them…to ensure Hamas control over the aid and its storage, which of course leads to these crazy and unreal prices that no one can pay in the shadow of this destruction.”
Iraq “Terrified” By Potential Israeli Strike On Local Iranian Proxies
Iraqi officials are “highly concerned” about Israel potentially striking the country, after reports indicated that Jerusalem would no longer tolerate ongoing explosive drone launches from Iraqi territory.
Since October 7th, Shia militias in Iraq, funded by Iran, have fired hundreds of drones at Israel, with some striking the Golan Heights and Jordan Valley regions, along with the southern port city of Eilat.
Several of those impacts have killed Israeli soldiers stationed near the northern Lebanon border.
While Israel has so far refrained from launching retaliatory strikes on Iraq, a recent report indicating that Iran may use its Iraqi proxies as part of a widespread attack against Israel has raised fears in the country.
“Everyone is terribly afraid an Israeli response will come against Iraq,”Dr. Ronen Zeidel, an expert on modern Iraq and a researcher at Tel Aviv University, told Hebrew-language outlet Ma’ariv.
When international media reports suggested that Iran was gearing up to launch ballistic and cruise missiles stored on Iranian territory, pressure for local militias to step back from the conflict increased.
The idea that Iraqi territory could be used for a major attack on Israel, caused a lot of noise and resentment in Iraq, along with strong pressure” on the proxy group not to cooperate with Iran,” Zeidel said.
Iraqi officials told the Iranians that they should “not even think” about leveraging Iraqi territory for the attack on Israel,” the professor said.
“The Iraqis were very stressed about this matter. They told the Iranians, ‘Listen, do whatever you want from Iranian territory.’ It seems that the possibility of Iranian military activity from Iraqi territory has been dropped from the agenda for now.”
According to Zeidel, American pressure has also been effective at reining in the Iraqi militias..
Washington reportedly told the groups that should they participate in a large-scale Iranian attack against Israel, the U.S. would be unable to stop a severe response from Israel.
