Israel Update 11.12.25

GAZA

 

Phase 2 of President Trump’s ceasefire agreement includes a requirement for Hamas to disarm.

 

Hamas will not disarm, give up its weapons, rule of Gaza, or permit external oversight in Gaza, including the International Stabilization Force (ISF), terror leader Khaled Mashaal said during a video address to an Istanbul conference on Sunday. Israel’s Foreign Ministry called his comments a “direct contradiction of the core terms of the peace plan itself.” Report here

 

Khalil al-Hayya, one of five members of Hamas’s top leadership in Gaza, said on Saturday that the Islamist movement will not disarm before the creation of a Palestinian state and rejected any deployment of an international stabilization force inside Gaza. He said the group is prepared to accept only a border-monitoring presence, not a force empowered to operate within Hamas-held areas or to dismantle its arsenal, a central requirement in the U.S. plan. Report here

 

According to Israeli officials, Qatar and Turkey are now working to extract Hamas from the (ceasefire deal) requirement to disarm. They are offering alternatives: that Hamas gives up its weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA) or the weapons are transferred to secure storage under oversight. Israel insists that Hamas must remain weapon-free.
Qatar and Turkey reportedly favour a two-year grace period during which Hamas could keep its weapons. The Israeli message is clear: if Hamas isn’t disarmed promptly, Israel will act unilaterally to achieve that end. Report here

 

 Hamas is applying new levels of violence and intimidation in Gaza. In the first weeks following the ceasefire, it murdered at least 80 alleged “collaborators” in ISIS-style public executions.  Hamas has also begun taxing civilians at unprecedented rates, demanding exorbitant fees for cigarettes, food, and tents. Article here

 

Israel says that Islamic Jihad knows the whereabouts of the last murdered hostage still in Gaza,  police officer Sgt. First Class Ran Gvili,  and has delivered new intelligence to Gaza ceasefire mediators in Cairo in an effort to locate and recover his remains. Report here

MURDERED HOSTAGE NOA MARCIANO

 

Avi Marciano, the father of murdered IDF Cpl. Noa Marciano, described how he learned of his daughter’s death in Hamas captivity through a video of her last moments  recently shared with him. He saw footage of a medical professional lethally injecting air into her veins after she was taken to Shifa Hospital  in Gaza. Report here

 

JOURNALISTS?

 

A new study has found that about 60% of the people described as journalists or media workers  who were killed during the Gaza war were Hamas operatives or members of other terror groups. Some allegedly participated in the October 7 attacks. Report here

 

ISRAEL OUTLINES CONDITIONS FOR PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (PA) CONTROL OF GAZA

 

As Arab and international pressure intensifies on Israel to allow the PA to govern Gaza and advance toward a Palestinian state solution, Israel has established a comprehensive list of conditions for PA reforms, including the elimination of refugee status for Palestinians living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza which encompass closing all UN refugee agencies, chiefly UNRWA, while transferring complete responsibility for civilian needs to the PA. Israel further insists on transforming “refugee camps” into standard neighbourhoods or towns… Israel’s requirements include complete Hamas disarmament, comprehensive Israeli security authority with unrestricted military operations even in PA-controlled zones, total demilitarization of Palestinian territories excepting lightly-armed police forces, meaningful curriculum overhauls in PA educational institutions from kindergarten through university eliminating antisemitic and anti-Israel materials, population-wide de-radicalization initiatives, and genuine PA security operations against terror organizations. Report here

 

MORE HAMAS DECEPTION

 

During  the past six months, Hamas deliberately hid tons of infant formula and nutritional shakes for children in clandestine warehouses belonging to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Now, Gaza activists are documenting the waste and deliberate disposal of tons of infant formula, nutritional children’s shakes, and children’s powdered milk, which Hamas had hoarded away.X post here

A video shows thousands of bottles of baby food and other nutritional supplies that were wasted, highlighting the manipulation of civilian suffering. View here

COUNTER TERRORISM

 

IDF troops located three crude rockets in the West Bank city of Tulkarem last month, following the interrogation of several recently detained terror operatives. One detainee had placed an explosive device on an IDF armoured personnel carrier in September, wounding two soldiers; attempted a similar attack on a light armoured vehicle; and in December 2024 was involved in a bombing attack that wounded a brigade commander. Report here

 

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY (PA)

 

One of the less known aspects of the PA’s “Pay-to-Slay” policy that rewards terrorists for their participation in attacks is the tax exemption from import duties and taxes on vehicles for released prisoners who spent 20 years or more in prison – generally, those convicted of murder. As a result of the release of terrorists to secure the release of the kidnapped hostages, 336 more terrorists are now entitled to purchase a tax-free car. PA taxes on the purchase of new cars range from 70% to 100%.   Report here

 

Hamas’ terrorism is considered a Palestinian national achievement and its successes belong to all Palestinians, proclaimed Hamada Farana  a member of the PLO’s governing body on Palestinian Authority (PA) television. Report here

 

HIZBULLAH THREAT

 

Although major military operations between Israel and Hizbullah ended in Nov. 2024, Israeli forces are still conducting focussed operations against Hizbullah targets nearly every day. This is because Israel’s chief war goal – removing the terrorist threat on its northern border so that evacuated residents can safely return home – is still unattained. If Lebanon fails to meet its obligations, Israel is resolved to enforce this goal itself.
Under the ceasefire deal, Beirut agreed to disarm Hizbullah via a mechanism carried out by the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and monitored by the U.S. and France. Recognizing that this effort would be difficult and lengthy, Washington also acknowledged Israel’s right to remove threats by force in the interim as necessary.
Today, Israeli reports indicate that the group is not disarming – in fact, Hizbullah efforts to rebuild its military capabilities have accelerated, including in the south. In response, Western officials have given Beirut multiple warnings about looming Israeli military escalation, giving LAF leaders until year’s end to resume the process of disarming Hizbullah and cutting off the militia’s cash flow. Article here

 

Hizbullah agents have infiltrated the Lebanese army, attaining positions where they can influence public policy and threaten the government, according to IDF Intelligence. Report here

 

SYRIA

Israel’s aggressive posture toward the new government in Syria has emerged as a rare point of disagreement with Washington, where President Trump wants a quick resolution to the two countries’ tensions…The U.S. is brokering talks on a security agreement between Syria and Israel, but they appear stalled. Israeli PM Netanyahu contends that such an agreement is possible only if Syria accepts the demilitarization of land stretching from southern Damascus to the Israeli border – a demand rejected by Syrian President al-Sharaa.
Israel took a lesson from the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks from Gaza that it can’t bargain away its security interests to please its neighbours or even Washington. It now sees withdrawals from Gaza in 2005 and southern Lebanon in 2000 as mistakes that allowed Hamas and Hizbullah to prepare launchpads for cross-border attacks. Report here (paywall)

 

Israel is seeking guarantees to preserve a humanitarian corridor for Druze communities in Sweida province, while Syria opposes any step it views as infringing on its sovereignty.
Officials are looking for a mechanism that would ensure the free flow of humanitarian aid to the Druze. Israel will not withdraw from areas it has entered until it is confident that demilitarization is real and humanitarian access to the Druze is guaranteed. Report here

 

 Israel’s Druze spiritual leader, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, presented new testimony describing rape, torture, executions and kidnappings carried out against Druze residents in Syria’s Sweida province last July. Tarif called on the world to recognize the Sweida killings as a war crime carried out by the regime of Ahmad al-Sharaa, calling it “a deliberate attempt to erase the Druze community.” Report here

IRAN

 

 Iran has resumed large-scale production of ballistic missiles six months after its 12-day conflict with Israel, a senior IDF representative told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. Reportedly, Iran intends in any future clash to launch hundreds of missiles simultaneously. Report here

 

Iran used cyber weapons to try to attack every citizen in Israel multiple times during the June war, with 1,200 social engineering hacking operations…When Iran struck the Weizmann Institute with a ballistic missile, it had taken control of a street camera watching the building just before the missile struck. Report here

IDF

 

There has been a significant increase in military service among Israel’s minority communities, including the (Golan) Druze, Bedouins, and Arab Christians, communities  particularly since the conflicts of the past two years. The Druze of the Galilee have always served proudly and prominently in the IDF. Report here

 

The Defence Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department said Monday it has treated some 22,000 wounded soldiers since October 7, 2023, more than half of whom are suffering from mental health conditions, including PTSD.  Report here

UK

 

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) have formally challenged a senior academic at the University of East Anglia (UEA)  after  he refused a research application from a Hebrew University of Jerusalem Arab-Israeli post-doctoral researcher on the ground that  “ Palestinian colleagues have asked us not to work with Israeli universities”. The UEA has now launched a formal investigation into the allegations. Report here

 

GERMANY

 

Last weekend Chancellor  Friedrich Merz was  the first leader of a major European country to visit Israel following the October ceasefire in Gaza, and the first such leader to make the trip in over a year. Report here

and see Comment & Opinion below

 

Footnote:

At a joint press conference with Chancellor Merz, PM Netanyahu said: “The purpose of a Palestinian state is to destroy the one and only Jewish state. They already had a state in Gaza, a defective state, and it was used to try to destroy the one and only Jewish state. We believe there’s a path to advance a broader peace with the Arab states and a path also to establish a workable peace with our Palestinian neighbours. But we’re not going to create a state that will be committed to our destruction at our doorstep.” Report here

BOLIVIA

 

Israel and Bolivia are restoring diplomatic relations, two years after the South American country severed ties with Jerusalem over the war in Gaza. Report here

 

COSTA RICA

 

 

Israel and Costa Rica signed a Free Trade Agreement on Monday, eliminating over 90% of tariffs, expanding bilateral trade and marking a significant milestone in economic co-operation.Report here

 

SCIENCE

 

 

Israeli scientists have developed a method to accelerate carbon capture, reducing industrial emissions. By running carbon dioxide and seawater through common rocks such as limestone and dolomite, they created a laboratory system that locks the gas in dissolved form before it can escape into the atmosphere. Article here

ARCHAEOLOGY

 

 

In recent days, the uncovering of an impressive Hasmonean (Maccabean) period Jerusalem city wall, built in the late 2nd century BCE, was completed. Discovered on the grounds of the Tower of David, and exposed during an Israel Antiquities Authority archaeological excavation, this wall is one of the most complete and longest sections discovered in Jerusalem to date.

Short video 2 min 46 sec View here

SEASONAL

 

 

Xmas festivities have returned to Bethlehem after 2 years of war in Gaza.  Report here

 

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

Gaza

Ahmed Charai: One of the most dangerous illusions of our time is the belief that the International Stabilization Force for Gaza (ISF)  can bring order, reconstruction, or peace without dismantling Hamas. A force that enters Gaza while Hamas remains armed will not stabilize anything; it will merely stabilize Hamas itself. It will become, in practice, an ISF for Hamas, a shield that protects the very organization that plunged Gaza into tragedy.
No serious strategist can pretend that disarmament is optional. A stabilization force that cannot confront the terrorists who rule Gaza is a political anaesthetic. It buys time for Hamas to rest, reconstitute its battalions, rebuild its tunnels, and prepare for the next war. It allows the group to rewrite the narrative so that its catastrophic decisions appear as heroic resistance.
Some governments now manoeuver to shield Hamas from the consequences of its actions. But Hamas must be dismantled – not tolerated, not reinterpreted, not “managed.” Gaza cannot be rebuilt while Hamas exists. Peace cannot be built while Hamas rules.Article here

 

Dr. Michael Milshtein: Hamas is reasserting governance in Gaza and remains adamantly opposed to disarmament. The central war goal of dismantling Hamas or permanently neutralizing its military capabilities has not been achieved. However, President Trump is blocking renewed combat. Instead, he is pressing for movement into stage two of his Gaza plan…Israelis who expected the war to end with Hamas’s eradication now see it intact, influential, and with no credible substitute.
As stage two approaches, Israel must prioritize maintaining freedom of action to counter emerging threats from Gaza, similar to its posture in Lebanon; ensuring firm U.S.-led oversight of the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah crossing; and retaining veto power over the composition of any future governing body in Gaza, especially if it includes figures aligned with Hamas. Article here

 

Noor Dahri: Hamas is sustained by a public it helped shape. Over decades, Hamas embedded religious and political indoctrination into schools, mosques, charities, youth institutions, and cultural life, producing a population in which jihadist framing became routine and institutionalized. For roughly 1.4 million Palestinians across Gaza and Judea and Samaria, born and raised under Hamas’s ideological influence, Hamas is part of the worldview they inherited.Accordingly, deradicalizing Gaza is measured in decades, not months. Hamas is embedded in a radicalized society. Deradicalization without social transformation is impossible.Gaza’s future turns on whether a non-Hamas authority can emerge that is strong enough to govern, legitimate enough to win public compliance, and capable enough to dismantle the wider militia culture that Hamas helped entrench.

The writer is executive director at Islamic Theology of Counter Terrorism, a UK-based think tank focusing on countering extremist Islamist ideology. Article here

 

Interview with Israel’s President Herzog.

Extracts:

“There are billions of dollars poured into this brainwashing machine which doesn’t want to tell the real truth. And we may be all alone, but we will keep on saying the truth: We did not seek this war. We did not want this war.”

“Millions of Israelis really want to get to peace. What Israelis really want is to change the reality so that there will be a future of peace and tranquillity for Gaza and for Israel; that is what needs to be achieved. It requires everybody not to be naive, because Hamas is still there believing that only terror can achieve this and we have to make it clear to them that it’s out and over for them.” Interview here

 

 

Hamas

 

Dr. Dan Diker: Hamas has evolved into a transnational network that threatens Western security as directly as it does Israel, with operational cells identified across Europe and the Americas. Investigations in multiple European countries have uncovered pre-positioned weapons caches and revealed that Hamas has spent years building terror infrastructure. The group has reportedly cooperated with organized crime networks in Europe to facilitate potential attacks. Western governments must stop treating Hamas as a localized threat and instead coordinate an international response to dismantle its global funding, front networks, and criminal-terror partnerships. Article here

 

NGO Monitor: Internal Hamas documents spotlight the terrorist group’s systematic control of foreign NGOs operating in Gaza.NGOs – including those operating under the auspices of UN projects – are not permitted to provide services or operate projects in Gaza without Hamas’s approval and ongoing coordination. This framework effectively grants Hamas the power to block, reshape, and exploit aid delivery based on its political and military priorities. NGOs operating in Gaza are fully aware of the realities of working under Hamas rule. Instead of disclosing the coercive conditions under which they operate, NGOs consistently downplay Hamas’s violations. The result is an aid sector that, in many cases, no longer acts independently or impartially, but instead functions within a terror-controlled system and becomes an integral part of misinformation and disinformation campaigns.  Article here

 

Germany

 

Amb. Freddy Eytan: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s trip to Jerusalem is significant given isolation on the international stage, particularly in Europe. Merz is strengthening military ties and arrived just after the Germany had acquired the Israeli Arrow 3 anti-missile defence system.
Today, Germany is our closest ally and our most important trading partner after the U.S. More than 7,000 young Germans visit the Jewish state each year.
While differences have existed regarding the peace process with the Palestinians and the future of Gaza, the conversations are conducted respectfully and amicably.    In the fight against Islamist terrorism and the presence of Iranian terrorists in Europe, Germany collaborates closely with Israeli intelligence services; valuable information provided by the Mossad has thwarted dozens of attacks on European soil. Article here

 

Marwan Barghouti

 

Melanie Phillips: Some 200 high-profile actors and musicians have called for his (Barghouti’s) release, claiming that he has been “illegally held by Israel” for more than two decades.
Barghouti was properly convicted in 2002, with overwhelming evidence, for orchestrating multiple deadly terror attacks during the Second Intifada, in which five people, including four Israelis and a Greek monk, were murdered. The court determined that Barghouti also bore moral responsibility for numerous other terror attacks in which many more Israelis were murdered.
Those calling for his release are promoting as a hero someone responsible for heinous acts of murder. The terrorist’s violence is sanitized, and the innocents he has murdered are dehumanized…The Palestinian cause has helped destroy the West’s moral compass. This cause stands for nothing less than the destruction of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs say so repeatedly. They teach their children to hate and murder Jews…The Palestinian cause is the Trojan horse for antisemitism. Article here