News Digest — 8/30/22
Gun Battle Between IDF Forces, Arab Terrorists In Samaria Tuesday
Arab terrorists in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Shechem (Nablus) in Samaria opened fire on Israeli soldiers Tuesday morning (30th), as Israeli security forces operated in the area in a bid to capture terrorists linked to a string of recent terror attacks.
Israeli forces returned fire, sparking a gun battle as Israel Police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), backed by the IDF, lay siege to a building where two wanted terror suspects were hiding. The suspects were finally captured and taken into custody by Israeli security officials.
“The two were wanted in connection with a number of recent terrorist shootings in Samaria, including an attempted attack in the Israeli town of Shavei Shomron.
The operation was launched Tuesday morning (30th) after terrorists opened fire on five Israeli civilians who entered Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem overnight.
Two of the five were wounded, including a resident of Modi’in Illit and a resident of Jerusalem, and their car was set on fire.
The five Israelis hid in a nearby street until IDF troops arrived at the scene and rescued them. Two were injured.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that one of the victims was evacuated by military helicopter.
(isnn.com)
Ex-Mossad Head: Israel Struck Nuclear Targets In ‘Heart Of Iran’
Former Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen Monday (29th) said that under his tenure Israel had carried out “countless operations” in the heart of Iran against its nuclear program, adding that the Islamic Republic was “lying to the whole world” when it said its program was for peaceful purposes.
“During my term as Mossad director, countless operations were conducted against Iran’s nuclear program,” he told an audience of 1,500 Jewish leaders at the World Zionist Organization anniversary event in Basel, Switzerland.
“Without going into too many details, I can tell you the Mossad had many successes in the fight against Iran’s nuclear program,” Cohen said. “We operated around the world and on Iranian soil itself, in the very heartland of the ayatollahs.”
“The Iranian regime is lying to the whole world and we proved it when we brought thousands of documents from the Iranian archives, documents that proved that the Iranians lied to the IAEA,” he said, referring to the UN nuclear watchdog.
“This regime calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and wiping it off the map. We can never allow a regime that calls for our destruction to get its finger on the nuclear trigger,” he said.
“Iran seeks to encircle Israel, from Gaza in the south to Lebanon and Syria in the north. It funds, trains and arms terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, enabling them to shoot thousands of rockets at Israel’s civilian population,” Cohen said.
“This fanatical regime must never obtain the ability to accelerate its weapons of mass destruction that would be used against the Jewish state,” he added.
Cohen’s successor, Mossad director David Barnea, was last week quoted in Hebrew media outlets as saying the emerging nuclear deal is a “strategic disaster.”
“The agreement is a bad deal that gives Iran a license to manufacture a bomb,” Barnea reportedly said.
“The Mossad is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, any nuclear agreement does not apply to Israel, and our freedom to act and continue operating will remain,” Barnea added.
‘Israel Can’t Hurt Iran – Don’t Jeopardize Your Lives By Trying’
Iran’s president made a thinly veiled threat against Israel Monday (29th), as talks in Vienna inch closer towards a final agreement renewing the 2015 nuclear deal.
President Ebrahim Raisi spoke at a press conference Monday (29th), dismissing Israel’s ability to carry out attacks on Tehran’s nuclear program, and threatening the Jewish state should it attempt any military operation against Iran.
“Look at the gap between decision and action – if they decide to act against Iran, they won’t set a deadline to act. The gap between decision and action will show if there is anything left of the Zionist regime or not.”
“The Zionist entity knows very well that it cannot attack Iran. And we warn them against making any rash decision which could jeopardize their existence.”
Turning to the spate of suspected assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and missile engineers, Raisi said the killings “won’t make us stop and will not impact our determination and our efforts in the area of nuclear development. We have acquired nuclear technology despite our many enemies.”
“From the beginning the Zionist regime did not want Iran to have access to this knowledge. But today, against their will and arrogance, this knowledge has become indigenous and cannot be taken from Iran.”
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid spoke out Sunday afternoon (28th) on the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, criticizing the current draft under consideration and urging the US to force Iran into accepting a “better” agreement with “tighter” oversight.
Lapid also argued that the deal should bar Iran from support of terrorism and terrorist organizations.
(isnn.com)
PA Postal Service Replaces Outlawed Bank Accounts As Vehicle For Terror-Funding
No longer able to pay terrorists by transferring funds to their bank accounts, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has come up with a new system to fund the murder and maiming of innocent Israelis.
In April 2020, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) informed the banks operating in the Palestinian Authority that provisions of Israel’s 2016 Anti-Terror Law had been incorporated into the law in Judea and Samaria.
Therefore, if the banks continued to hold the bank accounts of terrorists receiving funding from the PA, “they would potentially expose themselves to both civil and criminal liability,” Maurice Hirsch, Adv., head of the PMW legal department explained in an article published Sunday (28th) on the watchdog’s site.
The banks closed the accounts of 35,000 terrorists but the PA found a new way to fund terrorists via its postal service. Through this system, the PA pays $16 million every month to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and released prisoners as well as an unknown numbers of wounded terrorists and families of dead terrorists (“martyrs”).
Indeed, according to an article published August 11, 2022, in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official Palestinian daily, and translated by PMW, “one of the most important justifications for the postal bank’s existence is the provision of financial services to the prisoners, the wounded, and the families of the Martyrs, as the PA government is paying salaries to more than 11,000 prisoners and released prisoners in accordance with the Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners No. 19 of 2004 – a sum equal to $16 million a month.”
The Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund originated in 1964, when Abbas’ ruling Fatah party, which includes the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terrorist wing, created the vehicle to support widows and orphans of Palestinian “liberators.”
Responding to sanctions against the Authority by Israel and by the Trump administration in 2018, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials vowed to continue their pay-for-slay policy, calling it their “right.”
(worldisraelnews.com; palwatch.org)
French Jewish Organization CRIF: Jewish Man Killed By Muslim Roommate
A 34-year-old Jewish man was allegedly killed by his Muslim roommate in Longperrier, a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. The National Bureau of Vigilance against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA) provided the identity of the man: Eliahou Haddad.
“The BNVCA received requests from many correspondents who saw information circulating online about the murder of a man of Jewish faith, from Djerba in Tunisia and whose family lives in Beer Sheva in Israel,” read a press release from the BNVCA.
“The assassination was committed by a suspect of the Muslim faith. The concern is heightened by the silence surrounding this case,” the organization added, likely referring to the murder of other Jews like Sarah Halimi.
“The CRIF expresses its full solidarity with the family of Eliahou Haddad, killed on August 19 in Longperrier,” Yonathan Arfi, president of the CRIF Jewish umbrella organization in France, tweeted. He added, “We hope for information quickly about the murder and ask that all possibilities be examined at this stage, including the possibility of the aggravating factor of anti-Semitism.”
Some of the reports circulating suggest that Haddad was murdered on August 20, not the 19th.
According to i24News, the suspect allegedly said that the victim, who supposedly lived in the same flat, owed him some money and had not returned it, then confessed that he killed him because he was Jewish.
“According to our information, the assassin smashed his victim’s skull with an ax, then he burned his face and even began to bury the body. He eventually turned himself in to the police,” a BNVCA statement said.
“The BNVCA, which is extremely interested in this case, asks that the facts be examined by considering its antisemitic character and by not dismissing it as a priori,” the statement added.
(i24news.tv; jpost.com)
