Israel Update 3.10.25

THE NO-AID FLOTILLA

None of the 40 vessels participating in the Global Sumad Flotilla, which Israel intercepted on Yom Kippur, was carrying humanitarian aid, according to the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry.

The ministry also released a video by the Israeli Police spokesman showing the empty interior of one of the flotilla’s largest vessels, in which he points out that the complete lack of aid explains why the organisers refused Israel’s and multiple countries’ offer to hand over the aid and avoid entering an active war zone and breaking the law. He added “It was never about bringing aid to Gaza. It was about the headlines and social media followings”. Report here

The naval operation lasted approximately 12 hours. The Navy first called on the activists to turn around, and about an hour later gained control of six large vessels. Ultimately, 41 boats were escorted to the port of Ashdod, where the activists were handed over to Israel Prison Service authorities. The final vessel was later secured. The Israeli Foreign Ministry described the peaceful operation as ending the “provocation of Hamas-Sumud,” saying no yacht managed to breach the legal naval blockade or enter an active combat zone. Report here

Footnotes

The flotilla had rejected an Italian proposal to unload its aid in Cyprus and let the Vatican distribute it to Palestinians, instead vowing to keep sailing towards Gaza.
Israel had offered permission to dock in Ashkelon, just north of Gaza, so that the aid on board could be delivered by land, but the proposal was rejected by the activists. Report here

The Gaza flotilla crisis shook major Italian cities as the country’s largest trade union declared a nationwide strike on Friday in response to Israel’s interception of a vessel carrying 22 Italian nationals bound for Gaza.

In the UK, posters shared on social media urged pro-Palestinian activists to converge on 19 locations around the UK between 5.30pm and 6pm on Thursday. Services at several major railway stations were disrupted. The locations included Manchester Piccadilly (mere hours after the synagogue attack), Parliament Square, Cardiff Central, Sheffield railway station, Liverpool Lime Street, Glasgow, Edinburgh & Brighton stations.

Reports here here (paywall)& here

Irony

Spanish media reported that a Spanish Navy vessel deployed to protect the Gaza flotilla is equipped with Israeli-made weapons systems, including a cannon and automatic machine guns, developed jointly with the UK’s BAE Systems. Report here

Finally

The international media (but not the Israeli media) have ignored the flotilla’s obvious plan to arrive in Israeli waters on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

TRUMP PLAN TO END THE WAR IN GAZA

The main points: Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours. If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned. Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1,700 Gazans who were detained after October 7, 2023.
Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee. No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. The IDF will progressively withdraw from Gaza, except for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat. Text of 20 point plan here

“The foreign ministers of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the Republic of Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Republic of Turkiye, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Qatar, and the Arab Republic of Egypt welcome President Donald J. Trump’s…efforts to end the war in Gaza, and assert their confidence in his ability to find a path to peace,” according to a joint statement on Monday. Report here

According to two senior Arab officials a half-dozen countries – including Italy, Indonesia and Azerbaijan – have volunteered troops for the stabilization force. An informal Arab oversight group would include Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Individual countries have committed to oversee various aspects of Palestinian reform, such as education and finance. Report here (paywall)

HOUTHI THREAT

Israeli security officials say the Houthis in Yemen have made significant advances in recent months, developing longer-range missiles and explosive drones and moving much of their production and storage underground. Israeli intelligence has also been watching a Houthi plan to train militias for a large-scale incursion modelled on Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
While the training takes place in Yemen, any actual operation would likely be launched from Jordan or Syria. Report here

Meanwhile more missiles and drones were fired at Israel this week including a ballistic missile with cluster bomb warhead, targeting central Israel including Tel Aviv, which was intercepted around 1 am on Monday morning. Report here

THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

The PA is still paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners, contrary to Western media reports that these payments have been stopped. While a PA presidential decree on Feb. 10, 2025, technically changed how the funds are paid, numerous social media posts indicate that most of the prisoners continue to receive their salaries at PA post offices.
After his decree, PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Fatah’s Revolutionary Council on Feb. 20, “I will not allow [anyone]…to remove any commitment, interest or penny that is given to them [the prisoners]. They must receive everything they did in the past.” Report here

THE UN

When PM Netanyahu addressed the UNGA last Friday, 77 delegations were either absent from the hall altogether or left at the start of his remarks. Among them were all four of Israel’s immediate neighbours—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria—as well as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran. The 77 non-attendees are listed in this article. Article here

Text of Mr Netanyahu’s speech here

COMMENT & OPINION

Trump Peace Plan

Wall Street Journal Editorial:
When will the Gaza war end? The answer remains: As soon as Hamas releases the hostages, lays down its arms and gives up power. Those are the core demands of the deal President Trump put on the table and Israel agreed to on Monday.
The Trump deal is better understood as a way to move the region past the Gaza war and shift pressure onto Hamas. But there’s ample reason for skepticism. Hamas needs the hostages to manipulate Israelis. It needs weapons to stay relevant. Even under Qatari pressure, which U.S. officials believe was generated at last by Israel’s Sept. 9 strike in Doha, Hamas is unlikely to surrender all of its leverage up front. The deal, then, rests on a hopeful fiction.
Mr. Trump has offered Israel a potential end to its war, a plan embraced by regional Arab powers. Mr. Netanyahu said he now has his “day after” plan for Gaza, with Israel’s war aims satisfied. Full editorial here (paywall)

Herb Keinon: The U.S. and Israel have come to an agreement on a plan to end the war in Gaza – but what about Hamas?
The assumption is that Qatar, Turkey, and the other Arab and Islamic states can deliver Hamas. That will now be tested.
If they can’t – if Hamas rejects the plan, which essentially calls for its surrender by giving up its arms and any power of governance – then Trump said Israel will have his full backing to “finish the job.” Full article here

Col. (ret.) Richard Kemp: The Trump plan for ending the war in Gaza has completely turned the tables on Hamas. With Israel and Arab countries on board, the ball is now entirely in Hamas’s court and their response will show the world that it is not Israel that has kept this war going but Hamas. War or peace is in their hands, as it has been from the start.
Now is the time not just for Arab countries but for Western nations to step up. Those that are in a position to do so need to pile the pressure on to Hamas. We need to hear no more encouragement of Hamas, no more rewarding them by recognizing a Palestinian state, and no more unjust lashing out against Israel. Instead, Hamas need to be forced to understand they are isolated and no longer have any friends. Even if they do go along with it, we can also expect Hamas to procrastinate and renege on whatever they do agree to. Full article here (paywall)

Andrew C. McCarthy: The proposal assumes that the culture and population that produced these people (Hamas) are now going to lay down their arms and commit to peaceful coexistence or, in the alternative, voluntarily leave the territory that their fundamentalist tenets – as mediated by the region’s most influential scholars – tell them is Allah’s land over which they are obliged to wage jihad until Israel is no more.

What has happened in the last two years to make anyone think that’s a possibility? We now have European nations and Canada claiming to recognize “Palestine” (its lack of borders or a real government notwithstanding). Why would Hamas and its sharia-supremacist support network surrender now when they have reason to believe the barbaric October 7 attack, far from turning them into pariahs, has advanced their cause?

There isn’t always an ideal solution available just because we’d like there to be one. There is no deal with people who will be satisfied with nothing less than one’s annihilation. The fact that there may be many rational Palestinians who would be willing to live in peace does not mean they are anywhere close to being able to force their will against the region’s dominant, entrenched sharia-supremacist adherents.

Unless and until Israel’s mortal enemies (and ours) are conclusively defeated, any peace negotiations are just a strategic pause that allows the jihadists to regroup and rearm. Full article here

Gaza

Ken Isaacs (vice president of programmes and government relations for the humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse):

I recently returned from Gaza, where I witnessed the humanitarian catastrophe that has resulted from Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The main provider of food assistance in Gaza today arguably is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an organization backed by the U.S. and Israel. GHF has faced harsh criticism for its work in Gaza. I arrived in Gaza a sceptic of GHF but left an advocate. Simply put, the common portrayal of this organization radically distorts reality.
I observed GHF’s relief operations firsthand. While no textbook exists for a war zone such as Gaza, where terrorist combatants hide among civilians, I saw GHF using unconventional means to successfully deliver food to civilians on a staggering scale under nearly impossible circumstances. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good.
Many of GHF’s staff are former military personnel. They travel in armoured vehicles, maintain security protocols and are provided needed access by the IDF. I see this as realistic. Relative to most other aid distributions around the world, GHF’s job is especially dangerous, requiring tenacity and elaborate planning from people who know how to conduct themselves calmly in a volatile setting. I watched GHF teams, along with their Palestinian staffs, manage huge crowds with total professionalism.
There is no way to revert, as the UN has suggested, to the distribution systems used for humanitarian aid in Gaza before the Oct. 7 slaughter. UNRWA is no longer allowed to operate in Gaza after Israel found that many of its staff were members of Hamas and/or participants in the Oct. 7 attack. GHF is putting food into the hands of hungry people and has distributed more than 167 million meals to date. The people of Gaza would be better served by the UN coordinating with GHF to expand the delivery of humanitarian assistance effectively. Full article here (paywall)

The UK

Jake Wallis Simons: Last week, Sir Keir Starmer was basking in the adulation of Hamas after he recognised a Palestinian state without any preconditions. While this week’s Trump peace plan boxed the jihadis in, Starmer’s policy did the same to Israel.

Trump was clear: he wants Israel to win. He demanded the release of the hostages and the surrender of Hamas as a precondition for any ceasefire. As for Starmer, well, he may have not wanted Hamas to win, but he certainly wanted Israel to lose.

This was part of an overall stance that condemned Israel as the guilty party, rather than the jihadis of Hamas – the group, that is, who started the war and is refusing to release the hostages and stop the ‘genocide’ to which it is supposedly being subjected.

Does this make Starmer a ‘friend’ of Hamas terrorists? From their celebratory response to his decision to recognise a Palestinian state, it would certainly seem like they see it that way. So spare us your condolences, prime minister. Stay away from our synagogues. You, I’m afraid, are part of the problem. Full article here