News Digest — 2/26/25
A Nation In Tears: Israel Bids Farewell To Bibas Family
In a heartbreaking national moment, thousands of Israelis gathered Wednesday (26th) to pay their final respects to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas – the mother and two young children from Nahal Oz, murdered while in Hamas captivity and whose bodies were returned several days ago as part of the hostage deal.
The brutal kidnapping of the three was captured on video and horrified the world. The painful funeral procession began at 7:45 a.m., from the Hevra Kadisha complex in Rishon Lezion and continued to the Sha’ar HaNegev junction. The coffins’ journey concluded with a burial in Tzobar in southern Israel.
Masses of Israelis lined up along the procession route, paying their last respects to Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas. The three were murdered in Hamas captivity after their kidnapping on October 7, 2023, with the father being the only survivor of the family, having been recently released after more than a year in captivity.
Along the way, the coffins passed through the Rishonim Interchange, the Yavne Interchange Bridge, the Ad Halom Bridge, the Nitzarim Junction, the Yad Mordechai Junction, and the Nir Am Junction.
The Bibas family requested that the funeral ceremony be held in the presence of invitees only. The eulogies were broadcast to the general public at 11:30 a.m. and streamed on the Israel Hayom website.
Ahead Of Ramadan: Hamas Heating Up Battle On Temple Mount
The Hamas terrorist organization has condemned Israel’s plan to limit the number of worshipers allowed to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Friday prayers during the month of Ramadan to 10,000.
Hamas called the plan, “a new escalation against the Palestinian people and the holy sites, and a dangerous precedent designed to harm the freedom of worship at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Hamas stressed that “Israel’s crimes will not succeed in erasing the identity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, because it was, and will be an Islamic holy site only, and there is no place for foreign occupation there. The Palestinian people and the Islamic nation will make many sacrifices in order to completely free themselves from the “impurity of the occupation.”
They warned the “enemy” against implementing their plan, and accused Israel of “full responsibility for the consequences of its policy.”
Hamas has called on the international community to intervene in order to “stop the crimes against the al-Aqsa Mosque and allow freedom of worship for Muslims,” as well as calling on the Muslim public in Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, and the “occupied interior” (Israel) to come en masse to the al-Aqsa Mosque, to stay there, hold prayers there during the month of Ramadan, and to use all means to resist the attempts of Israel and its extremists to desecrate and take over the site.
Ramadan begins Friday the 28th.
220 Pound Bomb Against IDF Forces In Northern West Bank Foiled
The Shin Bet announced Tuesday evening (25th) that it had foiled a shooting attack in Huwara planned by a terrorist cell, and at the same time thwarted an attack on IDF forces in the northern West Bank using a 100-kg (220-lb) bomb.
A joint statement with the IDF noted that Shin Bet operational unit fighters, Yamam – National Counter Terrorism soldiers, and Shonron Brigade soldiers arrested terrorists Ahmed Ali Zakharna and Fariq Abu Zeid on January 11 in Nablus, who were traveling in their vehicle on their way to carry out a shooting attack. Two M-16 rifles were seized from their possession.
During their interrogation by the Shin Bet, it was discovered that the two were on their way to carry out a shooting attack in Huwara, and that terrorist operatives from the Jenin Battalion had received a 100-kg (220 -lb bomb), which they wanted to use against IDF forces.
In light of the information received during the interrogation, additional operatives from the cell were arrested Monday night (24th) in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in the city of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, who were in possession of weapons and the powerful 100-kg (200-lb) bomb.
At the same time, soldiers from the Nahal Brigade, who in recent days joined the counterterrorism operation in the northern West Bank, operated under the direction of the Shin Bet in Qabatiya, Silat al-Hanthiya, and Al-Yamun. The forces searched dozens of terrorist infrastructures, arrested 16 terrorists, located weapons, and destroyed explosives, including the bomb.
Report: Hamas Using Ceasefire Period To Rearm And Rebuild
Far from being deterred, Hamas is using the current ceasefire period to rearm and rebuild so it can attack Israel again, Yediot Ahronot reported Tuesday (25th).
Thousands of terrorists have returned to central and Northern Gaza, where they had been hiding in camps and preserving their weapons on orders from the top command “once they realized Hezbollah had abandoned them,” wrote military reporter Yoav Zitun.
The Lebanese Iranian proxy did not try a mass invasion of Israel after the Hamas massacres of October 7, 2023, contenting itself with showing support by firing over 10,000 missiles, rockets, and UAVs at northern Israel over the 15 months of war.
The terrorists could move freely among the hundreds of thousands of civilians who started walking back to their hometowns right after the ceasefire began last month, since Israel abandoned the Netzarim Corridor that had divided the Strip roughly in half.
According to Zitun, these fighters found “many hundreds of terrorists” who had never left Gaza City and its environs over the course of the year.
Together, they had reconstituted themselves into new companies and battalions and staffed them with new commanders, he wrote.
While the flow of arms from outside has been halted due to the IDF’s presence on all sides of the coastal enclave, especially on the Philadelphi Corridor at the Egyptian-Gaza border, the terror organization has found an “inside “ source, the report added.
“Hamas has gathered, over the last month, a large amount of explosives from the arsenal of the IDF after it left,” Zitun wrote, ”enabling it to create new weapons for its forces.”
In January 2024, it was reported that Israeli investigators had found that military grade contents of Hamas rockets came from unexploded ordnance fired by the Israel Air Force in earlier rounds of clashes in Gaza.
The group is also repairing tunnels that the IDF damaged and preparing those that were not found for offensive purposes, according to the report.
The terrorists have also both set up stationary cameras and begun using drones for observation purposes in many center points in the Strip in an attempt to rebuild its intelligence capabilities.
In addition, the report said, “Hamas has managed to locate and re-aim a few rocket launchers” that the IDF did not find and destroy during the war.
Perhaps to send a message that it is still capable of doing so, they have fired four rockets toward Israel in the last week, although they did no damage, having been shot down or falling within the Strip.
“In another sign that it has not been deterred,” Zitun noted, “Hamas has renewed its civilian governance of the Strip, providing municipal services and collecting taxes from the distribution of food and fuel aid that Israel brings in, in order to pay its members’ salaries.”
“The IDF,” he concluded, “Is finalizing its own preparations for another land and air operation, knowing that while Hamas has been greatly damaged, there is still a lot of work to do to finish it off militarily.”
Hamas Must Meet Its End – Dr. Qanta A. Ahmed
Though I’m not Israeli, and I am not Jewish, the anguish of the Bibas family is mine. This unforgivable crime, perpetrated on infant Jews and their mother, clarifies to the world the depravity of Hamas and the Palestinian civilians who abducted them.
Palestinians appeal for the world’s mercy, aid, intervention, humanity, yet you gather around the tiny Bibas coffins in a ghoulish display. You cheer and gawk and parade, defiling even corpses of babies. Your hatred dehumanizes you.
Hamas was not alone. Countless survivors and eyewitnesses have testified to me that Palestinian civilians joyously participated in this atrocity. And because you are Muslim, you stain me. We have tolerated the intolerable. The violence, debasement, and gratuitous mutilation of the Jewish person in life and even after death, the sexual violence of women, the taking of civilians as hostages and their maltreatment in captivity, all are profound violations of all Islamic values and a stain upon all Islam.
Those Muslims who support Hamas are accomplices. The time for Hamas to meet its maker has arrived.
The writer, a British-American Muslim, is Associate Professor of Medicine at the State University of New York and an Honorary fellow at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
The Crumbling Legitimacy Of “Palestine” – Hussein Aboubakr Mansour
A year ago, I allowed myself the optimistic thought that perhaps a different Palestinian identity might yet emerge: one divorced from anti-Semitic vitriol, revolutionary Third-Worldist fanaticism, and nihilistic death-cult threads. I tried to imagine a future in which Palestinians could somehow find a new identity built on pragmatic coexistence. But by now, it should be clear to all that when your primary currency is kidnapping civilians and parading their remains to public cheers, you forfeit whatever moral capital a national struggle might once have enjoyed.The Palestinians never grasped a viable political path. Instead, an identity was cultivated on an endless cycle of grievance, victimhood, and terror as a method of expression. The repeated wars, , the refusal to disentangle themselves from regional power struggles or global revolutions, the refusal to accept peace deals, and the cultural glorification of martyrdom have created a toxic personality structure that has a flag.
The events we just witnessed – children paraded around corpses are not an isolated atrocity but reflect a deeper moral and cultural collapse: no meaningful leadership capable of guiding Palestinians toward a humane, tolerant society appears to exist. The formal structure called “Palestine” has, in practice, become a source of destruction for themselves and for the region.
Palestinian leadership and outside advocates keep stoking the fires of “resistance” while funded and cheered by narcissistic Western liberal elites and Qatari conspirators, forever condemning Palestinian children to a cycle of violence and perennial displacement.
The writer is an Egyptian-American author and researcher at the Institute for the Study of Global AntiSemitism and Policy (ISGAP) in Washington.
(critiqueanddigest.substack.com)
World’s Oldest Holocaust Survivor Dies At 113
Before her death at age 113, Rose Girone was not just a number in the record books. The world’s oldest Holocaust survivor carried a century of resilience within her and three secrets to longevity: dark chocolate, loving children, and waking each day with a purpose.
Born January 13, 1912, in Poland, Girone’s early years saw her family move throughout Europe. By 1938, she had married and settled in Breslau, Germany, just as Nazi persecution of the Jews intensified.
The writing on the wall was clear by 1939. With options dwindling, the family fled to the only country still accepting Jewish refugees.
After a month-long journey by boat, Girone arrived in Shanghai’s international settlement with her husband and young daughter Reba, briefly finding peace before war engulfed them again.
As Japanese forces occupied Shanghai during World War II, the Jewish community was forced into a ghetto. Her family was confined to what had originally been a bathroom.
Each day became an exercise in survival. Girone would buy water, bathe her daughter, wash clothes and then the floor of their living quarters all with the same bucket.
Even in these desperate conditions, Girone’s resilience shone through. A skilled knitter, she started a small business within the ghetto to earn money for her family.
When visas were finally arranged for passage to America in 1947, refugees were forbidden from taking more than $10 each.
However, after having earned $80 through her knitting, Girone refused to leave her hard-earned money behind, so she cleverly weaved it into her sweater before arriving at Ellis Island.
In New York, Girone reunited with family members who had escaped the Holocaust.
Knitting remained a constant thread throughout Girone’s life. She worked in various shops before opening a knitting concession at the Sagamore Hotel in Lake George.
Eventually, she saved enough to open a shop in Rego Park and another in Forest Hills, Queens. Even after retirement, her passion continued. She volunteered at libraries, teaching others the craft that had once saved her family from starvation.
After a fall at 109, she moved to Belair Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on Long Island for rehab, where she became something of a celebrity among residents and staff.
Although her body gradually failed her, Girone’s spirit for life never waned.
Those who knew her said she had good children and always had a purpose in life. In Rose Girone’s 113 years, she found purpose in survival, in creation, in family, and ultimately in bearing witness to history. With her passing on Tuesday (25th), we lost not just a remarkable Holocaust survivor, but a living connection to a world that sadly grows more distant with each passing day.
