Israel Update 31.7.24

Circulating this Update Wednesday afternoon  due to commitments tomorrow. HRG 

 

OVERNIGHT DEVELOPMENTS TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY

 

 

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the early hours of the morning in Iran, hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for the country’s new president. Hours after the assassination, there were scant details of what exactly killed him or how the attack was launched. Report here  and here

 

The IDF struck a building in southern Beirut on Tuesday evening, killing the Hezbollah terror group’s most senior military commander, Fuad Shukr who Israel said was responsible for Saturday’s deadly rocket attack on Majdal Shams.Report here

 

 

CONTEXT: HEZBOLLAH’S WAR ON ISRAEL

 

 

A Hizbullah rocket struck a football field in Majdal Shams, a Druze town in the Golan Heights, killing 12 children, and injuring 29 others on Saturday during a Hizbullah rocket barrage on northern Israel, which included the rocket that hit Majdal Shams, comprised over 100 rockets and lasted for over an hour. This is the highest casualty incident involving civilians in northern Israel since the beginning of the war, and the highest number of civilians killed in any single event after the Hamas attack on the Gaza border communities on October 7. Report here

 

 

IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that the rocket that hit Majdal Shams was a heavy Falaq 1 model with a 50 kg. warhead manufactured in Iran that is held only by Hizbullah. The rocket was fired from the village of Chebaa in southern Lebanon by Hizbullah operative Ali Mohammed Yahya.Report here (paywall)

 

 

After the Hizbullah attack, U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adriane Watson and Vice President Kamala Harris’s national security adviser both spoke on Monday of the “horrific attack” that took place in “northern Israel.”
When asked if the Biden administration considered the Golan Heights part of Israel, National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby replied, “Yes.”Report here

 

 

 

Nir Popko, 28, was killed in a Hezbollah rocket strike on Kibbutz Hagoshrim  in northern Israel on Tuesday afternoon. The IDF said that 10 rockets were fired from Lebanon in the attack, and most were intercepted by Iron Dome. Report here

 

 

 

A Hizbullah drone launched from Lebanon and believed heading towards Israel’s offshore Karish gas field was shot down by the Israeli Navy on Saturday. Then, for the second time in two days, the Israeli Navy again intercepted a UAV launched from Lebanon heading towards an Israeli gas rig. Reports hereand here

 

 

Since Oct. 7, when Hizbullah launched its “solidarity campaign” after Hamas made its brutal attack on Israel, the IDF has picked off some two dozen Hizbullah commanders.Report here

 

 

SOLIDARITY

 

 

Israelis have rallied in support of their Druze community. As at Tuesday, close to $530,000 had been donated for the 12 bereaved families from Majdal Shams

The Jewish Agency, the Jewish Federations of North America, and Keren Hayesod have announced immediate emergency assistance of $160,000 to the leaders of the Druze community in Majdal Shams, “to demonstrate solidarity on behalf of the Jewish people and to help provide immediate relief to the circles of trauma they are dealing with in these difficult hours.”

Microsoft and its employees in Israel also announced on Sunday that they would donate more than $70,000 for the grieving families and the Majdal Shams community.

Residents of the Jewish communities in northern Golan plan to set out in a massive car convoy to the heart of the village in a show of support on Wednesday. The cars will fly the Druze community flag and a flag that reads in Hebrew and Arabic, “The Golan community is one heart.” Report here

 

 

HOSTAGE

 

Former Hamas hostage Maya Regev has shed light on the cruelty of Gazan doctors who treated her after she was shot in the leg and kidnapped on October 7, in a tearful interview.

“They would really hurt me,” she said “When changing bandages, when they wanted to see the wounds, they would purposely cause pain. [The doctor] would take chlorine, alcohol, and sometimes even something like apple cider vinegar, and would pour it in [the wound] and apply pressure.”Article here

 

ASHKELON

 

For the first time in a month, Ashkelon was targeted Friday by rocket fire from Gaza in an attack claimed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Of the three rockets fired, one was shot down by Iron Dome, while the other two struck open areas.  Report here

 

 

THE UN

 

 

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Friday: “There is no place for antisemitism from UN-affiliated officials tasked with promoting human rights. While the United States has never supported Francesca Albanese’s mandate, it is clear she is not fit for this or any position at the UN.” Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Rights’  had compared Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. Report here

 

 

 

CO-EXISTENCE

 

 

With Hezbollah firing rockets and drones into Israel almost every day since October 8, medical personnel at the two hospitals closest to Israel’s northern border already sense what it’s like to be under siege.

For the past nine months, the staff at Galilee Medical Centre in Nahariya and Ziv Medical Centre in Safed have treated soldiers and civilians wounded by attacks from the Iranian proxy terror group, taken care of babies and children, and performed emergency surgeries in fortified rooms or underground bunkers.

Galilee Medical Centre director Prof. Masad Barhoum, an Arab Christian,  said the hospitals are “preparing for the Third Lebanon War.” Prof. Salman Zarka, director of Ziv Medical Centre is a member of the Israeli Druze minority. Article here

 

 

A SPECIAL WEDDING

 

Ben Binyamin and Gali Segal, who both lost their right legs during the Hamas Oct. 7 attack, were recently married after spending months in rehabilitation together.
The two, who became engaged a week before Oct. 7, were attending the Supernova music festival.
They both now walk with a prosthetic leg. Segal had hers specially decorated with sparkles for the wedding.
Binyamin, who was a professional soccer player, now plays for the Israeli national amputee soccer team. Article here

 

 

 

ISRAELI-ARAB NATIONAL SERVICE VOLUNTEER

 

Nagham Haj Ali from Shefa-Amr located in northern Israel is only 20 but is already a trailblazer. She’s a social media influencer with over 500,000 followers, owns a piercing business, is a second-year national service volunteer at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and dreams of becoming a nurse. She also received a certificate of excellence from President Isaac Herzog for her work in fostering understanding between Jews and Muslims.Article here

 

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

Assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh

 

From Elder of Ziyon blog:

 

Already, some Western media, including the Guardian and Reuters, are  calling Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas head who was eliminated this morning, a “moderate.”

Extracts from some of his “moderate” statements, courtesy of MEMRI:

“Today, we say, in a clear and unambiguous fashion: The armed resistance and armed struggle are our strategic choice and our path to liberate the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, and to drive the usurping invaders out of the blessed land of Palestine….The principles [of Hamas] are definitive and non-negotiable: Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, from the River to the Sea. There will be no concession of a single inch of the land of Palestine. The fact that Hamas, at one stage or another, accepts the goal of gradual liberation – of Gaza, of the West Bank, or of Jerusalem – is not at the expense of our strategic vision with regard to the land of Palestine… we maintain two conditions – as I am sure do many of our people, as well as the factions of the mujahideen and the resistance: first, that we will not concede a single inch of the land of Palestine, and second, that we will not recognize Israel.”

“Yes, we are a people that yearn for death, just as our enemies yearn for life. We yearn for martyrdom for the same goal for which our leaders died”

“Brothers, we should build on this steadfastness. We should hold on to the victory that took place on October 7 and build upon it.”

Article here

 

Editorial Sun.Tel: The West’s Betrayal of Israel Is Shameful

 

When the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli PM Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant, former British PM Rishi Sunak condemned the decision and said the UK would lodge a legal challenge. In a shameful abnegation of Britain’s moral duty to an ally engaged in an existential war, the new Labour Government has now cast this policy aside. It amounts to an appalling betrayal of Israel in its hour of need.
There can be no lasting peace in the Middle East without the destruction of Hamas. The terrorists started this war when they launched a murderous pogrom on Oct. 7, and the extent to which this has been forgotten in the West is shocking. Israel remains under attack, including from Hizbullah. If Western leaders are unable to rediscover their courage, our enemies will be left in no uncertainty about how weak we have become. Editorial here (paywall)

 

Wall St Journal – Opinion article

 

Amit Segal: In the spring, President Biden turned a cold shoulder to Israel as support for destroying Hamas morphed into a call to end the war and a warning against entering Rafah. Strategic weapons shipments were delayed in American ports…
No wonder Hamas refused any deal offered, however generous. If the U.S. president seeks to end the war and the world will soon force the IDF to stop, why give up Israeli hostages?
When Vice President Kamala Harris became the de facto Democratic nominee, she gave Hamas an important gift. After meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, she said the next day, “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the [Palestinians’] suffering. And I will not be silent.” Ms. Harris is apparently unaware that food prices in Gaza are significantly lower than in Israel. In any other war in the past century, has one side regularly supplied food and goods to the enemy’s civilians – and still been attacked by the White House?
By adopting the anti-Israel narrative, Ms. Harris is giving Hamas …every reason in the world to refuse a hostage deal. Why give Israel the hostages without ending the war if there is a possibility the 47th president will force Israel to end it anyway?
Campus protesters “are showing exactly what the human emotion should be as a response to Gaza,” she said recently.

The U.S. administration is taking a similar stance on the Lebanese front. The Iranian proxy Hizbullah has been firing at Israel for months. There is no “siege” and no “occupation,” yet the Biden administration is mediating between Hizbullah and Israel like a real-estate broker, instead of sending Iran an unequivocal, threatening message to halt the rocket fire. Article here (paywall)

 

 

Interview with former Israeli Govt spokesman Eylon Levy

EXTRACTS

“I remember over a decade ago, when I was at Oxford, a BDS motion came up with the student union and we managed to defeat it by a margin of six to one. That’s unthinkable nowadays. I spoke with one of the proponents of the motion and I asked her why she was doing this.”
“She said, ‘I’m left-wing, it’s just part of what we do.’ It’s just part of the bundle of causes that if you support LGBT rights and don’t like oil and you’re a vegetarian, that you also think Israel should die. What has surprised me is just how deeply entrenched and how little resistance that ideology has found.”

Iran’s axis of evil, a network of proxy armies, is something that will have to be confronted and dealt with globally, even after the current round of hostilities comes to a close.”
“We’re outnumbered and outgunned in this battle for global public opinion – there are simply far more people who are automatically primed to believe the worst about Israel and the Jews, and they have politically motivated and biased international officials feeding them information that supports their paranoias.” Interview here

 

“Humanitarian Aid”

 

Robert Williams: A lawsuit, brought in December 2022 and updated in March 2024, by Rep. Ronny Jackson and victims of terror attacks in Israel, alleges that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “knowingly and unlawfully” provided more than $1.5 billion in aid to Gaza and the West Bank since taking office. Biden and Blinken have “known for years” that the US aid is providing “material support” for Hamas’ “tunnels, rockets, weapon procurement, and command and control infrastructure,” among other terror structures, the lawsuit stated… since October 7 the Biden administration has rewarded Hamas with the gift of close to a billion dollars in US taxpayer money, disguised as “humanitarian aid”, most of which clearly ends up in the hands of Hamas…the Biden administration has donated less to Sudan and DRC Congo combined, where a total of nearly 50 million people face starvation, than to Gaza, where 2 million people face no such thing. Article here

 

Wikipedia

 

In a World Jewish Congress report released in March, Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Nir documents numerous ways in which relevant Wikipedia entries have become de facto anti-Israel propaganda. Today, Jewish people and the Jewish story are under an unprecedented global assault, and Wikipedia is being used as a weapon in this war. Article here