News Digest — 8/20/25
Katz Approves Gaza City Takeover Plan, Calls it Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots II’
Defense Minister Israel Katz approved the IDF takeover of Gaza City plan on Wednesday (20th), naming the operation “Gideon’s Chariots II.”
The defense establishment is intensifying preparations for the next stage of the ground maneuver to conquer Gaza City, in accordance with the Cabinet’s directives.
On Tuesday evening (19th), IDF Chief of Staff LTG Eyal Zamir presented Defense Minister Israel Katz with a detailed operational plan, which includes the mobilization of up to 60,000 additional reservists – on top of the 20,000 already called up.
Initial mobilization orders are expected to be issued starting Wednesday (20th). However, the IDF emphasized that these are not immediate call-ups. Reservists will be given approximately two weeks to prepare, allowing for an orderly deployment and gradual integration into operational frameworks.
“The goal is to integrate the forces in a coordinated manner to ensure long-term operational stability,” a military source explained.
Tuesday evening’s (19th) security meeting included Defense Minister Israel Katz, the Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff MG Tamir Yadai, the head of the Operations Directorate, the head of Military Intelligence, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the head of the Operations Branch, representatives from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and other senior officials.
Further discussions on the plan to take control of the Gaza Strip were held Monday night (18th) at the Southern Command. Under the current plan, regular forces will surround Gaza City along several dividing axes, following the evacuation of approximately one million Palestinian Arabs to the southern part of the Strip.
Defense officials stress that the objective remains the full evacuation of northern Gaza. However, they acknowledge the complexity of the task: during the height of last year’s maneuver, an estimated 250,000 Palestinian Arabs remained in Gaza City and surrounding areas despite evacuation efforts.
(israelnationalnews.com) (jpost.com)
IDF, Shin Bet Kill Terrorist Responsible For Kidnapping Yarden Bibas From Kibbutz Nir Oz On Oct. 7
Israeli security forces killed a Hamas terrorist who participated in the abduction of Yarden Bibas on October 7, 2023, in Kibbutz Nir Oz, the IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said in a joint statement, Tuesday (19th).
The terrorist was identified as Jihad Kamal Najjar, who was killed in a military strike on August 10.
The IDF killed the kidnapper of other Bibas family members in April, who was identified as Mohammed Hassan Mohammed Awad, a senior commander in the military intelligence array in the Gaza Strip.
On October 7, Awad infiltrated Nir Oz multiple times. He was one of the leaders of the massacre and was likely personally involved in the abductions and brutal murders of Shiri Bibas and her sons, Ariel and Kfir.
These members of the Bibas family were all killed by terrorists in captivity, with coffins containing their remains returned to Israel in February.
Yarden Bibas revealed, in an N12 interview on May 20, that during his captivity in Gaza, he asked former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to allow him to stay with his best friend David Cunio, a day before Cunio’s 35th birthday.
The interview also featured David’s wife, Sharon Cunio, and his twin brother, Eitan, in an attempt to bring renewed attention to David’s continued captivity.
Bibas was informed about his wife and children’s death by Hamas while he was on camera, he told CBS news in March. The terrorist organization filmed him as it delivered the news to him, then told him that Shiri’s, Ariel’s and Kfir’s deaths were of no consequence.
The Palestinian Authority’s Human “Slaughterhouse” – Khaled Abu Toameh
The Western countries that recently pledged to recognize a Palestinian state have said that their decision is “predicated” on commitments from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to undergo critical governance reforms. However, none of these countries has demanded that the PA halt its human rights violations against its own people.
Ending financial and administrative corruption is pointless as long as the PA continues to crack down on its political rivals and imposes severe restrictions on freedom of speech. These countries, obsessed with Israel, turn a blind eye to Palestinians’ complaints against the PA.
According to the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Britain, the PA’s torture of its own people includes beatings with cables, pulling out finger nails, suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, electric shocks, sexual harassment and threat of rape.
Yet it is hard to remember the last time a respected newspaper or media outlet in the West reported about human rights violations committed by the PA against its citizens. The failure of the international community even to notice such violations allows the PA to continue its crackdown on public freedoms and political activists.
The PA’s notorious Jericho Prison, dubbed “The Slaughterhouse,” is known as a center for extreme abuse. Last week, the Palestinian Committee of Detainees’ families said that “the continued policy of political detention and torture constitutes a crime and a flagrant violation of Palestinian law and international human rights conventions.”
In June, Palestinian human rights groups reported that Ahmed al-Safouri, a Palestinian from the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, died as a result of “horrific torture” in a PA detention center. According to the groups, the death of al-Safouri “was not an isolated incident, but rather represents a stark illustration of the suffering of hundreds of political detainees [in PA prisons} who are subjected to grave violations during their arrest and interrogation.”
The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist, is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs,
The Prime Minister Of Denmark Gets Israel All Wrong – Dr. Emmanuel Navon
• Dear Madam Prime Minister, you have declared recently that your Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, is “a problem;” that the current Israeli government is acting against the interests of Israel; and that you intend to push for sanctions against Israel.
• Imagine the reverse situation. Imagine if Netanyahu had declared that Denmark would be better off without you; that your government is acting against the interests of Denmark; and that it was time, let’s say, for Denmark to grant full independence to Greenland. The Danes would rightly be offended by such chutzpah.
• It is for Israeli citizens and not for you to decide what are the interests of Israel. This is what elections are for. And in the previous elections, Israeli voters gave a majority to the ruling coalition. I personally did not vote for that coalition. But today, I fully support Netanyahu’s commitment to victory. If he had given in to pressures, Iran’s nuclear program would be intact, Sinwar and Nasrallah would still be alive, and Assad would still be president of Syria.
• The problem is not Netanyahu. The problem is the jihadist coalition led by Iran that for years had planned a coordinated attack against Israel with the declared purpose of destroying it. And, thankfully, Israel has mostly dismantled that coalition.
• Israel is half the size of Denmark, It was the one attacked on October 7, 2023, and it is defending itself in accordance with international humanitarian law by allowing civilians to evacuate combat zones and by providing them with humanitarian aid. And Israel is fighting an enemy that is also your enemy; the same jihadists that have made hundreds of victims in Europe in the past two decades. Israel is not only fighting for itself but also for the Free World.
• Why do you think we are still fighting? Because we enjoy it? No. Trust me, our reserve soldiers, our sons, would rather be pursuing their studies, running their businesses, and taking care of their families than blowing up tunnels in Gaza. But we still have 50 hostages there and Hamas has not been defeated yet.
• Hamas would more likely capitulate if it were pressured by foreign powers. But why should Hamas release our hostages and lay down its arms when it sees governments like yours only pressuring Israel?
The writer, who is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, lectures in International Relations at Tel Aviv University.
Russia Missile Hits Jewish Cemetery In Ukraine, Damaging Historic Graves
As President Donald Trump pushes forward with mediation efforts for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, fighting on the ground has not subsided. On Tuesday afternoon (19th), a Russian missile struck the Jewish cemetery in the city of Penvomaisk in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region. Videos from the site showed flames spreading through several areas of the cemetery, though the full extent of the damage to headstones remains unclear.
The missile hit the Bohopol cemetery, the largest of five Jewish burial grounds in the city. Named after the former town of Bohopol – now the neighborhood of Pervomaisk – the cemetery carries deep historical weight. Before the Holocaust, around 30,000 Jews lived in the area, and among those buried there are prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Yisrael the Holy of Bohopol and Rabbi Mordechai of Talna.
In 2024, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and Rebbetzin Chana Perlstein arrived as Chabad emissaries, reopening the city’s synagogue and helping to rebuild Jewish life. Today, about 2,000 Jews remain in Pervomaisk, and next month a new ritual bath (mikveh) is scheduled to be inaugurated.
Rabbi Levi-Yitzchak described the aftermath of the missile strike. “Fire trucks came to put out the blazes, which caused significant damage to gravestones. We are assessing the destruction in order to safeguard the sanctity of the dead. We are here as emissaries, and nothing will deter us from our mission,” he said.
Rabbi Meir Stambler, chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, warned of a broader pattern. “This is the fourth attack on the Jewish community in Ukraine within a month. Just last week a synagogue in Odessa was hit, and three weeks ago, the home of Rabbi Moshe Weber in Dnipro was damaged. Only days earlier, the car of Rabbi Yossi Wolf, rabbi of Kherson, was struck directly by a drone. By God’s grace, no lives were lost in any of these incidents. There must be an end to Russian terror, which is leaving behind death and destruction throughout Ukraine. We pray for peace and redemption.”
New US Postal Service Stamp Honors Holocaust Survivor And Humanitarian, Elie Wiesel
The United States Postal Service announced a new series of stamps honoring Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel, who died in 2016 at the age of 87, is the 18th person to be honored in the USPs’ Distinguished Americans stamp series.
“The 18th stamp in the Distinguished Americans series honors humanitarian Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), a survivor of Nazi concentration camps whose dozens of works bore witness to the Holocaust and whose resilience and compassion continue to be a source of inspiration,”a description for the stamp on the USPS website reads.
As a teenager, Wiesel was sent with his father, Shlomo, to the Buna Werke labor camp in the Auschwitz complex.
He went on to become an international human rights advocate, publishing several books, essays and educational projects, including “Night,” a 1960 memoir about his experience during the Holocaust.
Wiesel was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, the National Humanities Medal and the Medal of Liberty in the United States.
Wiesel joins several other notable Jews featured in the Distinguished American series, including Jonas Salk, who developed the first influenza and polio vaccines, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Edna Ferber and Albert Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine.
Jewish author and illustrator Shel Silverstein and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have also been featured on stamps, and the postal service has issued several stamps marking Hanukkah.
The Wiesel stamp, which is set to be released on September 17, features a 1999 black-and-white-photo of Wiesel by Sergey Bermeniev along with his name and the word “Humanitarian.”
The stamp will be used for a less common category of mail, two-ounce mail, and will always be valid for the rate printed on it, according to USPS. A sheet of 20 stamps is available for pre-order for $21.40.
