News Digest — 2/19/25
IDF Withdraws From Lebanon Border Villages, Keeps Buffer Zone, Lebanese Army Deploys
The Israeli Defense Forces pulled out of southern Lebanese villages but remained in five key positions Tuesday morning (18th), around an hour before the deadline for the withdrawal expired under the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.
The IDF did not officially confirm completing the pullout, but the matter was confirmed by observers on both sides. Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF was remaining “in a buffer zone,” with “five strategic outposts,” and would enforce the ceasefire “against any violation by Hezbollah.”
“The Israeli army has withdrawn from all border villages except for five points, while the Lebanese army is gradually deploying due to the presence of explosives in some areas and damage to the roads,” a Lebanese security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The Lebanese Armed Forces said Tuesday morning (18th) that it had deployed overnight to several villages and towns in southern Lebanon after the IDF withdrawal.
LAF troops entered Abbasiyyeh, Majadieh, Hafr Kila, Marjaayoun, Odaisseh, Markaba, Houla, Mays-alJabal, Blida, Mahbib, Maroun al-Ras, Yaron, Bint Jbeil, and several other locations near the Israeli border, the Lebanese military said in a statement.
The deployment was being carried out in coordination with a US-led committee supervising the November 27 ceasefire with Israel and the UN observer force UNIFIL, the LAF added.
The LAF said engineering units were surveying the areas, opening roads, and safely removing unexploded ordnance left behind from the fighting.
Several local authorities, including Mays al-Jabal’s municipality, have called on displaced residents to wait for the LAF to deploy there before coming back, so as to guarantee their “safe” return.
Israel said it would meet the February 18 deadline to withdraw under a ceasefire but remain deployed in five strategic positions in southern Lebanon.
A spokesperson for the Lebanese presidency said late Tuesday morning (18th) that Beirut would consider any remaining Israeli presence on its lands an occupation and has the right to use all means to ensure an Israeli withdrawal, without mentioning the five posts.
After a meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and parliament speaker Nabih Berri, the three leaders said the Lebanese Army was ready “to assume all its duties along the borders,” according to presidency spokeswoman Najat Charafeddine.
She added that Lebanon would also seek the UN Security Council’s help to “address Israeli violations and compel Israel to immediately withdraw.”
In a statement earlier on Tuesday (18th) Katz said the IDF would “forcefully” enforce the terms of the ceasefire deal in Lebanon and act against any Hezbollah threat.
“Starting today, the IDF will remain in a buffer zone in Lebanon in five strategic outposts and will continue to enforce [the deal] forcefully and without compromise against any violation by Hezbollah,” he said.
“Hezbollah must withdraw fully beyond the Litani River line and the Lebanese army must enforce and disarm it under the supervision of the mechanism established under the leadership of the US,” Katz added. “We are determined to provide full security to all northern communities.”
Under a ceasefire deal brokered by the United States in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group since early October.
Hezbollah operatives were to leave the zone and Lebanese troops were to deploy in the area within the same period. The original deadline was January 26, but was extended until February 18 as Israel argued Lebanese army deployment was not happening quickly enough.
Last week, the US authorized the IDF to remain in the five points, though it was not clear how long troops would stay there.
The troops said on Monday (17th) that it was prepared to stay at the posts for a lengthy period, until Hezbollah fully withdrew beyond the Litani River and the Israeli political leadership instructed it to leave.
At the five positions, the IDF constructed military posts that will be manned by troops.
The IDF also ramped up its defenses on the Israeli side of the border, with several new posts, one in front of every Israeli border community, better surveillance capabilities, including more cameras, radars, and sensors, and triple the number of troops compared to before the war.
The ceasefire deal ended two months of full-scale war that followed months of lower intensity exchanges.
Hezbollah began near daily attacks on northern Israel one day after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by its Palestinian ally Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza. Some 60,000 Israeli residents of the north were displaced by Hezbollah attacks, with rocket fire eventually spreading to the center of the country.
Israel intensified its campaign against Hezbollah in September, launching a series of devastating blows against the group’s leadership and killing its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon aimed at securing the border and enabling the return of displaced Israelis.
Should the ceasefire continue to hold after the IDF withdrawal, tens of thousands of displaced residents of northern Israel will begin to return to their homes on March 2.
Released Palestinian Terrorist Leaves Prison With $633,000
Ahmed Barghouti, who masterminded suicide bombing attacks which killed 12 Israelis, walked out of an Israeli prison on Saturday afternoon (15th) with more than $338,000, in his bank account, courtesy of Palestinian Authority stipends that Israel refers to as “pay for slay.”
Similar sums awaited Mansour Shreim and Ahmed Abu Khader. The latter was a member of the Palestinian Authority security forces who trained terrorists for suicide missions and carried out shooting attacks. Shreim dispatched terrorists who killed nine Israeli teenagers in separate attacks in 2002.
“The Palestinian Authority pays salaries to the terrorists while they are in Israeli prisons. It is not to support their families – it is actually to reward them for what they did,” Itamar Marcus, head of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), told the Press Service of Israel.
“The money is accumulated in the private account of the given terrorist, that is being opened for him immediately after he enters prison.”
The Palestinian Authority (PA) allocates around $279 million annually to pay salaries to security prisoners in Israeli prisons which range from $400-$3,400 per month depending on the sentence.
For comparison, PA welfare benefits to ordinary Palestinians range from $60-$170 per month depending on need. Those who participated in terror attacks killing Israelis – those receiving the most severe sentences – got the highest payouts.
The Palestinian Authority allocates seven percent of its annual budget for its so-called “Martyr’s Fund,” which provides stipends to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons, and the families of terrorists killed in attacks.
Israeli officials say the stipends provide incentives for terror and regularly offset an equivalent amount from taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the PA.
According to Palestinian Media Watch , the total amount of money that awaits the terrorists released as part of the current ceasefire deal with Hamas is around $142 million.
Most enriched by the terror stipends is Muhammed Tus, who was released on January 25 and deported to a third country via Egypt. According to PMW, Tus, who served 40 years for several terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, has amassed $633,000.
The runner-up is Raad Saadi, who served 36 years for killing Israeli soldiers and was deported. His bank account now has $571,000, courtesy of the PA.
PA Leader Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree on Feb. 10 that appeared to end the payments, but Marcus calls the move a pretense to please the US.
“They moved the funds to another bank account, the same that pays welfare benefits, because they need the US money,” Marcus told TPS-IL. “But several PA sources say the salaries to the terrorists will remain very high, identical to what they were. We will only know this in March once the payments are made.”
Israel Forms New Directorate To Help Gazans Emigrate
Defense Minister Israel Katz decided Monday (17th) to establish a new directorate within his ministry to aid Palestinians who would like to leave the Gaza Strip, in line with US President Donald Trump’s proposal last week to resettle them elsewhere so that the Gaza Strip can be rebuilt without Hamas involvement.
The ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) outlined a plan for the directorate to implement which, the ministry said, “includes extensive assistance that will allow any Gaza resident who wants to emigrate to a third state, to receive support that includes special departure arrangements through the sea, air, and land, among other things.”
The new body is expected to include representatives from several government ministries and defense establishment bodies, with the aim of providing a comprehensive framework for the process.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he is “committed to US President Trump’s plan to create a different Gaza.”
He told a conference of the American umbrella group Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations Monday night (17th) that Trump’s “bold new vision” was “the only plan that I think can work to enable a different future for the people of Gaza, for the people of Israel, for the surrounding areas.”
“Why not give the people of Gaza a choice? Everyone said it was the largest open-air prison in the world? It’s not because of us,” he continued in his address. “We allow people to leave. In fact, over the last two years, I think, 150,000 Gazans have left.”
“They left because they bribed their way out,” he noted. “It wasn’t via us… The rich could leave. But if other people want to leave, give them the choice. Not forced deportation, not ethnic cleansing. In wars people leave.” he concluded.
If A Person Experiences Genocide Twice In His Lifetime, He Is Likely A Jew – Eness Elias
Shlomo Mantzur was 3 1/2 when Muslim attackers stormed His home in Baghdad in 1941, beat his parents, and shot his beloved dog before his eyes. He climbed onto his rooftop and watched as the chaos of the Farhud mass pogrom against Baghdad’s Jewish community unfolded. He saw men, women, and children slaughtered, bodies mutilated, women assaulted, synagogues torched, and Torah scrolls desecrated.
“He saw Arabs take a Jewish woman’s infant and toss the baby back and forth between them. She pleaded for them to return her child, but they impaled him before handing him back to her,” his daughter recounted.
Mantzur was among the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim, near Gaza. On Oct. 7 he was kidnapped from his home in the kibbutz, where he had lived with his wife Mazal for more than 60 years. Mazal managed to escape to a neighbor’s house. On Feb. 11, it was confirmed that Shlomo 87 was murdered by Hamas.
Throughout history, Jewish communities in the Middle East faced expulsions, persecution, and massacres. As Arab nationalism emerged alongside Jewish Zionism, Muslim mobs carried out waves of savage massacres against Jews – pogroms in Iraq, Tripoli, Aden, Aleppo, and Morocco’s Oujda and Jerada riots, among others. History shows that horrors at the hands of Muslims such as occurred on Oct 7, 2023 have been part of the Jewish fate for thousands of years. (Israel Hayom)
The Luxury Of Relocation Is A Dream Jews Never Had – David M. Abadie
When hundreds of thousands of Jews, including my own family, were expelled from Arab lands, no one lifted a finger to help. There were no global protests, no international aid agencies keeping us in permanent refugee limbo. We weren’t given the luxury of relocation; we were forced to rebuild from nothing. Now, as Gazans are being handed a golden ticket – the opportunity to escape the war zone their own leaders created – the world suddenly finds its moral courage.
Yet a comparison between Jewish refugees expelled from Arab lands and Gaza today is inaccurate. Jewish refugees didn’t wage war on their host countries. They didn’t launch terror attacks, form death squads, or strap explosives to their bodies. They didn’t raise generations to glorify suicide bombings and mass murder as a path to paradise.
The world deserves to be rid of Gaza as a terror base. If removing this hotbed of extremism means relocating its people elsewhere, then so be it. Because in the end, peace isn’t built on fantasies. It’s built on removing the threats that make peace impossible.
(jns.org)
