News Digest — 4/30/24
Airstrikes Target Gaza Tunnels, Launchpads After Rocket Fire On South, Army Says
Following rocket fire from Gaza at the southern cities of Sderot and Ashdod on Monday (29th), the IDF says its fighter jets struck tunnel shafts, anti-tank missile launch posts, and additional infrastructure that were spotted in the area where the rocket fire originated in the northern part of the Strip.
One rocket fired at Sderot had been intercepted by the Iron Dome and two projectiles launched toward Ashdod fell in the sea near the coastal city, according to the IDF.
Several more airstrikes were carried out over the past day in the Gaza Strip
A terror cell of gunmen and a weapons depot in central Gaza were struck by fighter jets after being identified by troops operating in the area, according to Israel’s military.
The IDF said another cell that had been launching rockets at troops inside Gaza was struck and killed after being spotted by reservists of the Carmeli Brigade.
In another incident, the IDF said reservists of the Yiftah Brigade spotted a “terrorist observing the troops from a military building,” before calling in a drone strike against him and the structure.
Two more operatives moving toward the troops were killed in a separate strike, the military added.
Meanwhile, in Northern Israel, the military said Israeli fighter jets struck several Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon’s Kfar Kila and Khian early Tuesday (30th).
Also overnight, two anti-tanks missiles were fired from Lebanon at the Dovev area, striking open areas according to the IDF.
The IDF said no damages or injuries were caused, and troops shelled the launch sites with artillery.
Hamas Official: We Will Move To Jordan If Forced To Leave Qatar
Moussa Abu Marzook, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, denies reports regarding the Hamas leadership leaving Qatar calling them ‘media propaganda with no basis in reality.’
In an interview with the Iranian channel Al-Alam, Abu Marzook said that the reports were intended to pressure Hamas in the context of indirect negotiations on a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange (hostages in exchange for security prisoners).
He said that most of the people in Hamas’ leadership have Jordanian passports, and if they are forced to leave Qatar, they will move to Jordan, with whom Hamas has good relations and no problem staying in that country.
Abu Marzook claimed that it was the USA that forced Qatar to host the Hamas leadership, and were it not for American pressure, the Hamas leadership would have moved to its natural place in Jordan.
He noted that “Hamas is taking part in a global war against the USA, other Western countries, and the Zionist entity and We (Hamas) will determine the fate of the war, not the Zionist regime or the USA, who thought they could destroy Hamas in a week and redraw the map of Gaza as they wished.”
He also claimed that Israel and the United States had to come to terms with the fact that Hamas manages the Rafah crossing and failed to create chaos through their mercenaries under the guise of securing humanitarian aid, and now they must coordinate with Hamas, as Hamas is the one who will shape the future.
Poll: Majority Of Americans Think Israel Should Press On With Rafah Op…Finish The War
A strong majority of American voters believe that Israel should move forward with a military operation in the southern city of Rafah to finish the war against Hamas, according to a HARVARD CAPS/Harris poll published on Monday (29th).
Survey takers responded to a prompt asking, “Should Israel move forward with an operation in Rafah to finish the war with Hamas, doing its best to avoid civilian casualties even though there will be casualties, or should it back off now and allow Hamas to continue running Gaza?”
While willingness to support an Israeli operation in Rafah correlated with age (older respondents viewed such an operation more favorably than younger respondents), even among the youngest respondents, those aged 18-24, 57% said Israel should move forward with a Rafah operation.
Older respondents overwhelmingly support an Israeli operation in Rafah. In contrast, 84% of respondents aged 65 and above said the same.
Additionally, respondents who reported that they followed Israel closely were far more likely than not to support a Rafah operation. Among these survey respondents, 77% said that Israel should move forward with an operation in Rafah.
The support of a majority of young people for further Israeli military action seems to represent a departure from previous HARVARD CAPS/Harris polling.
In January HARVARD/CAPS Harris poll, 63% of 18-24 year olds said they favored an unconditional “ceasefire that would leave everyone in place.”
Additionally, mere weeks after Hamas’ massacre in southern Israel, an October HARVARD/CAPS Harris poll revealed that only a slight majority, 52% of 18-24 year olds sided with Israel over Hamas.
The recent poll sampled 1,961 registered voters and was conducted online within the United States from April 24-25.
Most Seasoned Active Air Force Pilot Breaks Flight-Hours-Record Amid War
From the early days of the war, Lieutenant Colonel S. has been flying missions over the Gaza Strip, despite being almost 56 years old and having two young children at home. Since October 7, there hasn’t been a week when he hasn’t been airborne, providing real-time intelligence to ground forces.
Now, S. from the 100th Intelligence Squadron (also known as the “Flying Camel”) has surpassed 1,000 flight hours since October 7.
According to the Israeli Air Force, this milestone makes Lieutenant Colonel S. the leader in flight hours during the war. Previously, he had accumulated tens of thousands of operational flight hours over the three decades of his active service – first as a squadron deputy commander 12 years ago, and since then in reserve duty.
The war caught Lt. Col. S. on vacation in Thailand. When news from home started coming in he was already on the first flight back to Israel. “At my age before the war, I was supposed to stop flying,” he said (the maximum age for operational flying stood at 51). “But at 4:00 in the morning, between Saturday and Sunday, I landed in Israel, and by 11:00, I was already flying over Gaza. It wasn’t easy leaving my family abroad.”
“I feel like I have to be in the air because we have soldiers on the ground who need us and hostages who haven’t returned yet,” said S. “There are limitations on pilots, but at the peak of tension and for the benefit of the fighters on the ground, they stopped arguing with me: I explained that I know my body well enough to know if i”m fit to fly again. The issue of the hostages doesn’t let up on me.”
“I didn’t track my flight hours; they told me about it when I landed after the flight that crossed the 1,000-hour mark in the war. For me, it’s just a number, and it’s hard to compare it to previous, shorter wars,” he said.
S.’s longest flight during the war lasted 7 hours. “For me, age 60 is the next limitation. I undergo periodic medical tests like all pilots, and as long as I’m healthy and performing my duties properly, I don’t see why age should be a problem.”
Pro-Israel Camp Screens Footage Of Oct. 7 Massacre To Counter Pro-Hamas Protest At UCLA
Pro-Israeli activists set up a large screen and loudspeakers at UCLA to play a taped loop of images from the Oct. 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel. The video aimed to counter pro-Hamas chants that seeped into pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests on campus.
Meanwhile, Columbia University on Monday (29th) began suspending pro-Palestiinian student activists who refused to dismantle a protest camp on the New York City campus after the Ivy League school declared a stalemate in talks seeking to end the polarizing demonstration.
University President Nemat Minouche Shafik said in a statement that days of negotiations between student organizers and academic leaders had failed to persuade demonstrators to remove the dozens of tents set up.
The crackdown at Columbia, at the center of Gaza-related protests roiling university campuses across the US in recent weeks, occurred as police at the university of Texas at Austin arrested dozens of students at a pro-Palestinian rally.
Columbia sent a letter on Monday morning (29th) warning that students that did not vacate the encampment would face suspension and become ineligible to complete the semester in good standing.
“We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus,” said Ben Chang, a university spokesperson, at a briefing on Monday evening (29th).
“The encampment has created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning and preparing for final exams,” Chang said.
Earlier, Shafik said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel, a key demand of the protesters. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.
Jewish groups have said that anti-Israel rhetoric frequently delves into or feeds overt forms of anti-Jewish hatred and calls for violence, and thus should not be tolerated.
Protests and arrests flared anew on the Austin campus on Monday (29th). Campus police backed by Texas State Troopers attempted to break up a large student protest using pepper spray and flash-bang charges, arresting at least 43 people, according to defense attorney George Lobb, who said he confirmed the number with court and jail staff processing the detentions.
At Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, police and protesters clashed as officers moved in after nightfall to break up an encampment. Local TV aired footage of police in riot gear dousing demonstrators, many of whom the university said were not students, with what appeared to be pepper spray, and making arrests.
Some 150 miles to the west, officials at Virginia Tech said on Monday (29th) that 91 protesters arrested on Sunday night (28th) at a student-led encampment had been charged with trespassing.
“We Will Rise From The Ashes:’ Holocaust , October 7 Survivors To Go On March Of The Living
In the first such event since October 7, the International March of the Living, a global Holocaust remembrance education organization, will hold two significant marches in May 2024 under the title “Together We Remember,” according to a Thursday (25th) press release.
The March of the Living is an educational program that brings students from different places to Poland to learn about and commemorate the Holocaust. The eponymous march takes place on Holocaust Memorial Day – in Hebrew, Yom HaShoah – where thousands of people march in silence from Auschwitz to the Birkenau Death Camp. Since it started in 1988, over 300,000 participants have taken part in the march.
On Monday, May 6, 2024, for the 36th march, fifty-five Holocaust survivors from different countries, including those who were also victims of Hamas’ October 7 attacks, will take part in the march.
A second march will take place in Budapest to commemorate eighty years since the destruction of Hungarian Jewry.
The march will begin at Dohany Synagogue, next to the birthplace of the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, and will be led by eighty Hungarian Holocaust survivors and joined by thousands more.
The march will conclude with a ceremony at the Keleti Train Station, the site of the first deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau. After the ceremony, the “Train of the Living” will head to Auschwitz, replicating the route of the original death transports from Hungary to Poland.
According to Yad Vashem, at the time of Germany’s occupation of Hungary in 1944, the Jewish population was over 800,000 strong. In just eight weeks, between May and July 1944 over 434,000 Hungarian Jews were deported, mostly to Auschwitz, where about eighty percent were gassed on arrival.
In total, more than 550,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, according to Yad Vashem. Around 15,000 were murdered per day and tens of thousands were executed on the banks of the Danube in Budapest.
Dr. Shmuel Rosenman, Chairman, and Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, President of the International March of the Living, jointly stated, “This year’s March of the Living holds profound significance, as the horrors of the past intertwine with the present ongoing nightmare faced by the State of Israel. The recent incomprehensible massacre on October 7 serves as a constant reminder of the persistent threat posed by anti-Semitic hatred. This year, more than ever, we understand why preserving the memory of the Holocaust is still essential. We will strenuously continue to teach about the history of the Holocaust, and we will continue to stand together against anti-Semitism.”
Among the 55 Holocaust survivors leading the march are 21 Holocaust survivors from Hungary and seven survivors who were personally impacted by the October 7 attack in Israel.
“The link between the Holocaust, experienced by Jews 80 years ago and the horrors of the onslaught of October 7 underscores our collective obligation as a nation and society to remain resilient, to defend ourselves and to continue shaping the remarkable narrative of our people,” said Haim Taib, Founder and President of the Menomadin Foundation and leader of the October 7 delegation to the March. “I take pride in marching alongside the courageous individuals of the October 7 delegation.”
“Together, we will rise from the ashes of this horrific attack and foster prosperity and abundance in the years ahead.”
