News Digest — 5/8/24
Gallant: Operation Will Continue Until Hamas Is Destroyed Or Hostages Returned
Tuesday (7th) Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant visited an artillery battery that provides fire support to IDF troops operating in the Rafah area. Minister Gallant spoke with the forces and viewed their activities.
“I toured toward the Rafah area today and met the commanders and soldiers operating there. I want to remind everyone of something crucial – the Hamas terrorist murderers who went to the Israeli communities of Sufa, to Holit, and also targeted Yated, Yevul, Neveh and other local communities, came from the Rafah area. We are targeting the terrorists who murdered our children,” Gallant said.
He added, “On Monday (6th), I directed the IDF to enter the Rafah area, take the crossing, and carry out its missions. This operation will continue until we eliminate Hamas in the Rafah area and the entire Gaza Strip, or until the hostages return.”
“We are willing to make compromises in order to bring hostages back, but if that option is removed, we will go on and ‘deepen’ the operation – this will happen all over the Gaza Strip – in the south, in the center and in the north. Hamas only responds to force. So we will intensify our actions, and the military pressure will result in us crushing the Hamas terrorist organization,” he said.
Suspicious Object intercepted Over Eilat
Residents of the resort city of Eilat on Tuesday evening (7th) reported hearing sounds of explosions as well as seeing what looked like an interception of a rocket overhead.
A short time later, the Home Front Command confirmed that a suspicious target had been destroyed in the area of the Gulf Eilat.
The Home Front Command said the target was destroyed outside the city limits and there was no danger to local residents.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said, “A short while ago, the IDF identified a suspicious aerial target that was on its way from the east toward Israel, adjacent to the area of the city of Eilat. The IDF Aerial Defense Array successfully intercepted the target outside of Israeli territory.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a group of pro-Iranian militias, claimed to have attacked a “vital target” in the Eilat area using a UAV.
This is the third attack from Iraqi territory towards Eilat in the last two days.
‘Hamas Will Not Be Able To Take Over’ With Israel Controlling Rafah Aid Deliveries, Locals Say
As Israeli forces took control of the Rafah border crossing and tanks were seen patrolling the length of the Gaza-Egypt border on Tuesday (7th), residents of Rafah speculated what would happen next.
Some Palestinians told The Press of Service of Israel (TPS-IL) that they believe the Israel Defense Forces will remain for a long time at the border crossing and along the border itself to thwart Hamas weapons smuggling through subterranean tunnels leading into the Sinai.
“In such a case, there is a serious fear that the aid will not arrive, but on the other hand, maybe now that the IDF controls the aid that comes from Rafah, Hamas will not be able to take over,” one Palestinian who found refuge in a hospital told TPS-IL
He added, “In a large part of the displaced persons’ tents in the entire area of southern Gaza, the residents can be heard cursing Yahya Sinwar as the one who brought disaster on them. We are now experiencing the greatest nakba in the history of the Palestinian people.”
Rafah’s Mayor, Ahmed al-Sufi told TPS-IL that around 150,000 residents of the city have fled and worries, “That there is not enough infrastructure and services of medicine, water, shelter and food in the open areas in Mawasi.”
He was referring to a humanitarian zone in southern Gaza’s coastal area where Israel instructed residents of certain Rafah areas to relocate.
Other residents were instructed to evacuate to a humanitarian zone in Khan Yunis.
Israel seized control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt after launching an overnight ground operation in parts of the southern Gaza city.
“Following intelligence that indicated that the Rafah Crossing in eastern Rafah was being used for terrorist purposes, IDF troops obtained operational control of the Gazan side of the crossing,” the army said.
Ground troops and fighter jets struck and eliminated Hamas terror targets in the Rafah area, including military facilities and underground sites.
According to the IDF, 20 Hamas terrorists have been killed and three operational tunnel shafts were found since the operation began.
On Sunday (5th), Hamas fired a barrage of rockets from the area of the Rafah border crossing and near an area where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in tents.
The barrage targeted the Kerem Shalom border crossing, killing four soldiers. Of all the Gaza border crossings, Kerem Shalom is equipped to handle the most humanitarian aid trucks daily.
The crossing has been closed since the attack.
Hamas’ control of the Rafah border crossing allowed it to hi-jack humanitarian aid deliveries from Egypt.
In recent days, residents of certain Rafah neighborhoods received phone calls, SMS messages, air-dropped flyers, and media broadcasts instructing them to evacuate to expanded humanitarian zones in Khan Yunis and the coastal area of Al-Mawasi.
The flyers included maps showing the affected zones, and aid organizations were updated on the evacuation plans.
Also receiving messages to evacuate were displaced Palestinians camping in a strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border known as the Philadelphi corridor.
This buffer zone was created to prevent weapons smuggling after Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2006. But in 2007, Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from the PA.
The Egypt-Gaza border is politically sensitive, technically a demilitarized zone under the terms of the Camp David Accords signed in 1978.
At least 1,200 people were killed and 253 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’ attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Around 30 of the remaining 133 hostages are believed dead.
After 6 Months, Freed Hostage Released Home From Hospital
Elma Avraham, an elderly woman who was released from Hamas captivity during the November 23 prisoner swap, is being released Wednesday (8th) to her home after months of hospitalization.
Upon her release from captivity Avraham was airlifted in very serious condition from Gaza to Soroka Medical Center, where staff fought for her life, Her condition has since improved significantly.
Avraham, who was 84 at the time of her release from Gaza, celebrated her 85th birthday, during her stay in the hospital. Avraham was kidnapped from her home in the community of Nahal Oz, on the morning of October 7. She is medically complex and requires several medications on a daily basis in order to live.
Professor Moti Klein, who heads Soroka’s ICU, said shortly after her arrival at the hospital: “Elma was evacuated in serious condition. She is bring treated in the general ICU, and is still in serious condition, unstable, unconscious and on a respirator. There is a danger to her life.”
“She arrived semi-conscious. From tests we performed, blood tests and other tests, her condition is the result of the fact that she did not receive the medications she was supposed to have – medications that essentially keep her alive. We are familiar, from other places in medicine, with what happens when patients do not receive such medications for one reason or another. We have no doubt that this is the case in this instance,” he told Channel 12 News, at the time of her admission to the hospital.
Tali Amano, Avraham’s daughter, said at the time, “My brother met with a representative of the Red Cross and tried to give them her medications. They told him, ‘No, we can’t take her medications.’ Just a few days later we went to a protest with all of the medical professionals in front of the Red Cross building. We met their representatives again, and again, and we were turned away at the entrance, as they repeated: “you came again with all her medications?”
Anti-Israel Activists Deface WW I And Civil War Memorials, Burn U.S. Flag
Anti-Israel activists vandalized American memorials to veterans of the First World War and a Union Civil War general, and burned an American flag during the New York City Day of Rage protest that coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday (6th).
The One Hundred Seventh Infantry Memorial in Central Park, dedicated to U.S. infantry, who fell in battle during the war, was desecrated with stickers and graffiti that proclaimed “Free Gaza” or “Free Palestine,” according to photographs published by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry.
The statue was also tagged with a red triangle, a symbol used in Hamas propaganda to denote a target. A protester set the United States flag on fire at the base of the statue, according to the New York Post.
The Grand Army Plaza Sherman Memorial honoring Union General William Tecumseh Sherman was also vandalized with similar graffiti as the infantry memorial saw “free Gaza” scrawled, including the Anarchist “A” in the spelling of the Palestinian territory.
Mayor Eric Adams gave a press conference in front of the Central Park memorial on Tuesday (7th) in which he severely reprimanded the “cowards” who vandalized the statue.
“I want to be extremely clear, despite the unpopular notion of what people don’t want to say –I want to say it: I love America,” said Adams. “And I’m proud to be a citizen of America. And the reason we are here is because of men and women like this statue behind us, and we cannot remain silent when our symbols of freedom are desecrated by people who hate our country and hate our way of life.”
Adams recalled the memory of his uncle, who died fighting in the Vietnam War, and said that it was painful for him and many other Americans to see the desecration of the memory of those who fought for the rights that the anti-Israel protesters had utilized during the demonstrations. Free speech is important to democracy” said Adams on X, “but vandalism and hate are not.”
The mayor announced that he offered a $5,000 bounty for tips that would lead to the arrest of the Central Park vandals, adding to a $10,000 NYPD reward for those who defaced the Sherman memorial
Florida Congressman Brian Mast on social media decried the burning of the flag and criticized the protesters.
“I lost both my legs in battle while defending our nation. I’ll never give up fighting for America,” wrote Mast. “These repulsive actions demonstrate just how deeply ingrained hatred for America is with these pro-Hamas protesters.”
Adams said the memorials were cleaned by city workers, despite some difficulty due to the materials.
The “Day of Rage” event, organized by New York University Palestine Solidarity Coalition and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), came in response to reports of Israeli military action against the Hamas stronghold in Rafah. WOL said that protesters were “flooding” the streets of New York City, echoing frequently used rhetoric to mention the Hamas operational name for the October 7 Massacre – Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Advertisement for the event featured a protester engaging in the hand motion for the red targeting triangle. Banners held by the marchers on Monday (6th) called for “Revolution until Victory,” and achievement of aims “by any means necessary.”
A counter-protester with an Israel-themed keffiyeh was punched in the face, mobbed and chased by anti-Israel activists until an NYPD officer intervened, according to Freedom News.
The Ivory Tower Jihad – Melanie Phillips
With “Gaza solidarity encampments” having sprung up on more than 100 U.S. campuses (and with Canadian and British campuses now following suit), Islamists and the hard-left have turned Western universities into a theater of war against Israel, the Jewish people and America. Hamas supporters have burst through inadequate Western defenses to turn the Palestinian cause into a beachhead in their war to bring down a West that refuses to acknowledge the threat it faces.
The proxy campus war against Israel and the Jewish people is based on defamatory lies from start to finish. The U.S. and UK governments are adding fuel to the fire by parroting the same nonsensical Gaza civilian casualty figures, giving credence to Hamas blood libels about the IDF targeting hospitals, and falsely accusing Israel of stopping humanitarian aid. All this reinforces the hysteria against Israel and the Jews.
The enemies of Israel and the West think that they’re winning. They’ve thought as much since October 7, when the terrible blow inflicted upon Israel galvanized them into believing that the destruction of Israel and the conquest of the West were now within their grasp.
The genocidal threats against Israel and psychotic abuse of Jews being chanted by the students is the same language that’s been used by the Palestinian Arabs and the wider Muslim world for the best part of a century. Yet both America and Britain have denied this reality and have appeased and emboldened Israel’s Palestinian and Iranian attackers. While the U.S. has provided Israel with the military support to prevent its annihilation, the Biden administration is doing everything it can to cripple Israel’s war of self-defense and ensure that it doesn’t win against Hamas..
The writer is a columnist for the Times (UK) (JNS)
(jns.org)
