News Digest — 8/27/24
Hezbollah Resumes Attacks As Fire Breaks Out Across Northern Israel
Sirens warning of an incoming hostile aircraft were activated in several communities across northern Israel Monday evening (26th), marking Hezbollah’s first attack on Israeli territory since launching over 300 projectiles Sunday morning (25th) as part of the terror group’s retaliation for the assassination of its top general.
Warning alerts were issued for Amuka, Hulata, Ayelet Hashahar, Sde Eliezer, Yesod Hama’ala, Mishmar, Hayarden, Gadget, Kibbutz Yiftah and the Mevo’ot Hermon Regional Center in the Upper Galilee.
Additional sirens were sounded in other areas as well.
The Upper Galilee Regional Council reported that three rocket crash sites were identified near Ayelet Hashahar in the Hula Valley with no injuries or damage reported. A fire broke out in the Ayelet Hashahar area following the rocket strikes. In response to the sirens, several interceptors were launched at targets in the Galilee.
The Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that artillery fire was directed at Al-Naqoura in southern Lebanon, north of Rosh Hanikra, shortly after the rockets were fired at the Western Galilee. Earlier, Al-Akhbar also reported attacks in Aalman, Arnoun, Al Qusayr and between Khardali and Deir Mimas in various sectors of southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Office issued a clarification regarding the government’s decision Sunday (25th) to extend the evacuation of residents from northern and southern Israel. The extension of living allowances and hotel stays was approved until September 30 – not December 31, as previously stated. The statement added that another government decision secured funding to extend the evacuations until the end of 2024, if necessary, pending additional legislation in the Knesset.
Earlier, the Prime Minister’s Office had announced that residents evacuated from their homes in the north and south, who cannot return due to security concerns, would be allowed to extend their hotel stays, subject to security recommendations, until December 31, 2024.
IDF Said It Carried Out Drone Strike On West Bank Terror Cell, 5 Reported Killed
The Israel Defense Forces carried out a drone strike Monday night (26th) in the Nur Shams camp near Tulkarem, with the Palestinian Authority health ministry reporting five people were killed.
The military said the target of the strike was a command room belonging to local terror operatives, but did not immediately provide further details.
Palestinian media reported that among the dead was Jibril Jibril, a Hamas member who was released by Israel in a November deal with the Gaza-ruling terror group.
Since the Hamas-led attacks over 10 months ago, the IDF has carried out more than 60 airstrikes in the West Bank, using drones, attack helicopters, and fighter jets.
Also Monday night (26th), IDF troops carried out searches around the Tapuach Junction after reports of a suspected kidnapping, which the military ruled-out hours later.
The incidents came a day after several attacks in the West Bank, including a car-ramming near the Ariel settlement in which a soldier was lightly wounded. Two Palestinian assailants in the vehicle were shot dead.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 630 Palestinians have been killed since October 7. The IDF said that the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 27 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Pentagon: Israel Still Under Threat By Iran And Its Proxies
Israel remains under threat from Iran and its proxy groups, the Pentagon said Monday (26th) as officials from Tehran both stood firm on its right to attack the Jewish state while emphasizing that it would support any Gaza ceasefire deal Hamas agreed to.
“We have to assume that Iran remains postured and prepared,” US National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said.
It is for this reason that the US maintains a “robust” military presence in the region, he said, adding that this is a situation the US does not take lightly.
“It is a dynamic situation, and we have to treat it like that,” Kirby said, just one day after the IDF’s dramatic preemptive strike against drones and missiles in Lebanon as Hezbollah was set to launch them against Israel on Sunday (25th). The Pentagon also said it believed Israel was still under threat by Iran and its proxies.
“I would point you to some of the public comments that have been made by Iranian leaders and others… We continue to assess that there is a threat of attack,” Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder told reporters.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani ignored the success of the IDF’s strike on Sunday (25th), as he explained that Israel had lost its power to deter and that the strategic balance in the region had shifted against it, following attacks by Hezbollah.
“Despite the comprehensive support of states like the United States, Israel could not predict the time and place of a limited and managed response by the resistance. Israel has lost its deterrence power.”
Kanaani wrote on X that Israel “now has to defend itself within its occupied territories” and that “strategic balances have undergone fundamental changes” to the detriment of Israel.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi stressed that the Islamic Republic reserved the right to retaliate against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. It has blamed Israel for the killing, even though Israel has not claimed responsibility for the hit.
“Iran does not seek to increase tensions. However, it is not afraid of it,”Araqchi told his Italian counterpart on the phone, according to a statement about the phone call published on Monday (26th) by Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
Araqchi said that Iran’s response would be “definite, calculated and accurate,” according to the statement.
He later told visiting Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al Thani that Iran would respect a Gaza ceasefire deal, as long as it was backed by Hamas.
Gallant To US Joint Chiefs Of Staff: Iranian Aggression At An All-Time High
On Monday (26th), Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant held a discussion on strategic issues within the framework of the official visit conducted by US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Brown.
Minister Gallant discussed the ‘strategic junction’ that Israel currently faces, as it continues to pursue the goals of of the Gaza war: dismantling the Hamas terrorist organization, ensuring the return of hostages held by Hamas, and changing the security situation along Israel’s northern border so that the region’s communities may safely return to their homes.
In discussing Iran, Minister Gallant highlighted an “all time high” in aggressive activities as well as Iran’s ongoing pursuit of nuclear capabilities. In this regard, Minister Gallant emphasized that Israel and the United States must be prepared at any time to fulfill their joint commitment to prevent Iran from gaining military nuclear weapons.
“Iran’s aggression has reached an all-time high – to counter this, we must work together to achieve and project groundbreaking capabilities in all areas,” Gallant said.
Minister Gallant expressed his appreciation to General Brown for his leadership, his firm stance by Israel’s side and his unequivocal commitment to Israel’s security expressed both in the deployment of US forces to the Middle East and in public support of Israel’s right to self defense.
The forum was led by the IDF Chief of the General Staff Lt. General Herzi Halevi and was attended by the Head of the Operations Directorate Maj. General Oded Basyuk, Head of the Intelligence Directorate Maj. General Shlomi Binder, Commander of the Air Force Maj. General Tomer Bar, Commander of the Navy Maj. General David Sa’ar Salama and additional security officials.
Why A ceasefire Deal With Hezbollah Now Is Bad For Israel – David Daoud
• Preconditioning a cessation of hostilities along the Lebanon-Israel frontier on a prior halt to Israel’s campaign in Gaza would allow Hezbollah to claim an unprecedented victory over Israel and have a deleterious effect on Israeli deterrence.
• When Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, its objective, articulated by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Nov. 3, was to exhaust Israel into accepting a premature ceasefire in Gaza so “the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and Hamas in particular, emerge victorious.” But the war has lasted far longer than the group anticipated or intended. It has trapped Hezbollah between reneging on its commitment to support Gaza, and appearing weak, or continuing a fight it cannot bear indefinitely.
• The current French and American ceasefire proposals offer no solution to Hezbollah’s unyielding enmity towards Israel, which is ideologically based in the belief that the Jews, otherwise divinely ordained to be “stamped with wretchedness and humiliation and anger from God,” had built their state on sacred Islamic and stolen Arab land.
• Hezbollah, therefore, will never be satiated with any Israeli concession, territorial or otherwise, short of the Jewish state’s dissolution. The current deals can only ever achieve a temporary, and ultimately illusory, quiet.
• The cessation of hostilities will give Hezbollah coveted breathing room. This would staunch the bleeding that Israel is currently inflicting, and allow it to resume its military build-up – which will continue unimpeded, as it has since Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, into an ever larger threat to Israeli security.
• If a ceasefire is achieved under the current conditions, Hezbollah’s narrative will be: In May 2000, we expelled the Zionists from south Lebanon. This time, we expelled them from Israel itself. And they were only able to return to their homes with our permission. So stay the course, the method is working.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Where Did The Name “Palestine” Come From? – Amb. Dror Eydar
In 135 CE, the Roman suppression of the revolt of the Jews resulted in many Roman casualties. Emperor Hadrian, angered by the Jews, ordered the “erasure from memory” of the name “Judah” and decreed that the land be called “Palestina,” assuming that the Jews would forget their homeland and cease to rebel. However, the peoples who lived there during history were not referred to as “Palestinians.” Since the Arab conquest in 638 CE, there has never been any mention in Arabic or Islamic literature of a distinct Palestinian people with their own identity or a defined country.
At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, the leaders of the victorious powers of World War I decided to grant 99% of the territory, which had previously belonged to the ottoman Empire, to the Arab peoples. The remaining 1% was awarded to the Jewish people, and Britain was tasked with fulfilling the Balfour Declaration regarding the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in “Palestine – Land of Israel.”
When British Prime Minister Lloyd George was asked about the boundaries of “Palestine,” he opened an atlas and pointed to a map of “Palestine under David and Solomon,” which spanned both sides of the Jordan River. “This belongs to the Jews,” he said. Between 1870 and 1878, British surveyors conducted a detailed “Survey of Palestine.” Jerusalem had a solid Jewish majority. The estimated Arab population of the land at the time was around 100,000.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw (March 1977), the head of the terror group As- Sa’iqa, PLO Executive Committee member Zuhair Mohsen, stated: “The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the ongoing struggle against Israel for the purpose of Arab unity. Realistically, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity, because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism.”
This is the power of propaganda: a recently invented collective can deny the national identity of one of the oldest peoples in the world, who already in the 10th century BCE had a kingdom in their homeland, where Saul, David, and Solomon ruled. Yet the world ignorantly believes that before the establishment of Israel, there was a Palestinian state here.
The writer is a former Israeli ambassador to Italy. (Israel Hayom)
