News Digest — 11/21/23
Netanyahu To Hostages’ Families: ‘We are Committed To Bringing Them Back’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the War Cabinet on Monday evening (20th) concluded their meeting with the families of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. During the meeting, the members of the Cabinet heard the representatives of the families and responded to their questions.
Netanyahu told the families: “The return of the hostages is a sacred task. We have a deep commitment to it and we deal with the issue every day. We will not let up until we complete the task. I say on behalf of all of us: we are committed to this. I am responsible, along with my colleagues, for the return of the hostages.”
At the conclusion of the meeting he added, “I listened to the pain of the families. We spoke heart to heart, I shared with them as much as I could about the diplomatic, intelligence and operational efforts that we are leading around the clock.”
“I told the families that our hostages are always before our eyes – from the moment I get up in the morning until I go to bed at night – all the time. We will not stop fighting until we return our hostages home, destroy Hamas and ensure that there is no more threat from Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
The representatives of the families said at the conclusion of the meeting that the Prime Minister promised that no steps would be taken that could endanger their loved ones.
Yitzhak Danino, brother of hostage Ori Danino, said after the meeting that “we were not told anything new. I came out optimistic because I felt that the hostages are the War Cabinet’s top priority.”
Houthis Say They Will Continue Attacks Until ‘Demise of Israel’
A member of the political bureau of the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist movement warned that it would continue its attacks until the “demise of Israel” after they seized the Galaxy Leader merchant ship in the Red Sea on Sunday (19th), in statements to the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV on Monday (20th).
Ali Al-Qahhoum, a member of the Houthi political bureau, stated that the organization has been using drones and ballistic missiles with ranges up to 2,000 km.
“We will not stand by in the face of the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people and the international and American outcry in support of the Zionist entity,” said Qahhoum.
Another member of the Houthi’s political bureau, Muhammad Al-Bukhaiti, told Al-Jazeera that the Islamic revolutionary terrorist group has “many options” to attack Israel if the war in Gaza doesn’t end, warning that the conflict would expand if the war continues.
Bukhaiti added that the Houthis were not acting under the directive by Iran and that the group was trying to distract Israel and relieve some of the pressure on Gaza. The senior Houthi member additionally stated that the movement is willing to confront the U.S. as well.
Deputy Chief of the Houthis’ General Staff, Maj.-Gen Ali Hammoud Al-Mushki, warned that the terrorist movement would continue to attack targets both in and outside Israel. “We are with the Palestinian people, and as long as the Zionist enemy continues its crimes and killing the people of Palestine, we will continue to stand against the Zionist entity.”
Meanwhile on Monday (20th) the United States denounced the seizure of the cargo ship in the Red Sea as a violation of International Law and demanded the immediate release of the vessel and its crew.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “We demand the immediate release of the ship and its crew and we will consult with our allies and UN partners as to appropriate next steps.”
Strong Israeli Supporter Elected President Of Argentina In ‘Political Earthquake’
In a development that has been called a “political earthquake,” the ardently pro-Israel libertarian economist Javier Milei has been elected President of Argentina. Milel, who has claimed “my law is Torah” and studies with a rabbi regularly, has won close to 56% of the vote in the decisive run-off, compared to 44% for his center-left opponent Sergio Massa of the Union for the Homeland party.
Milei is considered an outsider with a flamboyant personality and has vowed to move Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Milei has been outspoken in his support of Israel, particularly during the recent war with Hamas in the wake of the October 7 massacre, during which over 1,200 were killed in Israel and 240 were taken as hostages.
Milei’s conservatism includes religiosity. In a candid conversation with a Spanish newspaper, Milei revealed contemplating conversion to Judaism, though he recognized potential challenges if he were to become president.
He explained, “If you’re Jewish by maternal lineage, there is no obligation to adhere to Judaism’s tenets. However, upon conversion, that commitment becomes binding.”
If I’m president, and it’s Shabbat, what am I supposed to do? Am I going to disconnect from the country from Friday to Saturday? There are some issues that would make the religion incompatible. The rabbi who helps me study says I should read the Torah from the point of view of economic analysis.”
Milei, who became fascinated with Judaism after he taught economics to an observant Jew, expressed a desire to “travel to Jerusalem to delve deeper into his studies of the Torah, Talmud, and other Jewish scriptures.”
“My law is the Torah,” he said.
In July, Milei secretly visited the grave of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in New York, the Haaretz newspaper reported.
The IDF Interrogators Providing Life-Saving Intelligence In Gaza
At the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas, the main effort of Unit 504 of the IDF was led by the unit’s soldiers, field interrogators and desk interrogators.
While fighting against terrorists in Israeli communities in southern Israel, dozens of soldiers and field interrogators joined the IDF’s combat battalions with the goal of eliminating terrorists, assisting the evacuation of the residents from the area and extending the findings emerging from the field. In parallel, a temporary field facility was opened in the south to conduct interrogations in real-time, which within a few days became a permanent facility for interrogations.
As part of the terrorist interrogations that have been going on since the start of the war, 300 terrorists of various terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip were interrogated and gave the locations of underground terror tunnels, warehouses, and weapons, along with exposing the enemy’s methods of operation, and the enemy’s assimilation efforts within the civilian population.
Throughout the war, the unit has been operating with a wide variety of tools and methods to achieve four main goals; to support the ground operation, collect intelligence, to confirm targets, and to lead and influence the effort to evacuate the civilian population to the south of the Gaza Strip.
As part of the effort to evacuate the civilian population from the northern Gaza Strip, the unit operated with a variety of operational tools, which helped the unit make over 30,000 phone calls, send over ten million text messages, send over nine million voice messages, as well as distribute about four million leaflets from the air and land, calling on the population to evacuate. The evacuation effort allows the IDF to broadly strike Hamas’ infrastructure in the area.
Using accurate human intelligence provided by the 504 Unit, over 300 newfound enemy targets in the Gaza Strip were confirmed and over 100 targets were struck as part of the target production effort.
Senior Official in the 504 Unit of the Intelligence Directorate (J2) said: “We received thousands of phone calls from Gazans, on a scale never seen before in the unit. It is evident that the residents of the Gaza Strip are not satisfied with the barbaric conduct of Hamas, the ordinary civilian understands that Hamas is bringing disaster to the residents of Gaza that will be difficult for them to recover from. On October 7th, the field interrogators of the unit joined the fighting forces in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip, thus constituting a reliable primary source for the plans of the Hamas terror organization. So far, we have apprehended over 300 terrorists affiliated with the terrorist organizations during the ground operation who were brought into Israeli territory for further investigation. Each and every interrogation leads to the release of new locations and the human intelligence that emerges from the Gaza Strip. The interrogation of the terrorists in cooperation with the ISA are an inseparable layer of the complete intelligence picture. The information that emerges in the interrogations of the terrorists is very valuable, leading to the elimination of operatives and the preservation of the security of our forces.”
Hamas’ Tools Of Terror Put On Display For International Press
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invited members of the international press last Thursday (16th) to a base in central Israel for a view of what Hamas terrorists used against Israeli civilians on October 7.
From the pickup trucks and motorcycles that ferried terrorists into Israel, as well as Israeli hostages back to Gaza, to AK-47s and thermobaric grenades, that the armory collected for viewing, was but a tiny fraction of what was recovered by the IDF in southern Israel’s civilian communities.
Lt.Col. Idan Sharon-Kettler, deputy commander of the IDF’s enemy equipment collection unit explains that the exhibit’s message was twofold. First, to dispel the notion that Hamas is just some militia that targeted legitimate military objectives. Sharon-Kettler said the IDF saw “vast amounts of weapons, and of explosive materials used not against soldiers, but citizens and families in their own houses.”
The equipment included military-grade weapons like the Shawaz anti-tank explosive which was used to break into Israeli civilians’ protected shelters and safe rooms, and thermobaric grenades, which raise the temperature in a given space to 3,000 degrees Celsius.
These grenades were used in houses and civilian cars at the Nova music festival to incinerate everything, and everyone in their vicinity.
Second, the display was meant to put Hamas and the October 7th atrocities into the context of a more global war against Islamist fundamentalist terror.
“There is a general comment about Gaza as being an open-air prison,” Sharon-kettler added. “These weapons can’t be found in a prison. They are the result of organized smuggling into Gaza from many countries. There is a lot of money that goes into this. Someone was funding and planning for a long time, and we see the result – a massacre of civilians.”
Among the contributing countries are these: Iran with UAV attack drones, TNT, and RPG-7 dual warhead rockets. Also, Russia and North Korea provided Hamas with RPG-7 rockets and RPG-7 anti-personnel fragmentation rockets, respectively.
Britain Is The New Capital Of Anti-Israel Hate – Douglas Murray
It amazes most Israelis – as it amazes me – that Britain has witnessed some of the worst scenes of all the anti-Israel marches across the world. The first protests in London happened before Israel had even begun its military response to October 7. Rallies were held within hours of the massacres. What other country, having suffered a set of atrocities hardly superseded in the whole history of violence, wouldn’t get even one day of sympathy? Only the Jewish state. And everybody in Israel knows as much.
Pakistan is currently in the process of forcibly deporting two million Afghans. Nobody cares or protests. Bashar al-Assad is in his twelfth year of killing Muslims in Syria and the world’s cameras turned away long ago. No protests.
Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, and very painfully, in 2005 – removing every Jew. They handed over the land and got rockets in return. Everyone around the Gaza border and across wider Israel was used to running from rockets to the shelters.
It was Hamas who broke what ceasefire existed on Oct. 7 when its legions gunned down young people at a music festival, went door-to-door in small communities, and burned people alive in their homes. I have been to the sites of many of these massacres. Many of the residents of kibbutzim were peace activists. I have seen with my own eyes the peacenik literature that lies among the blood stains and looted remains of their houses.
In my view, Israel can look after itself. Watching the unity of this nation at war assures me of that. (Telegraph – UK)
