Israel Update 18.9.25

Shana Tovah greetings to all my readers who are celebrating Rosh Hashanah this coming week. HRG.

GAZA WAR AGAINST HAMAS

IDF Reservist:

We’ve had necessary military operations aborted abruptly to avoid killing civilians. That’s why we reject “war crime” accusations and the “genocide” libel. Our commanders keep choosing between destroying the enemy’s infrastructure and risking our lives. We buried a 23-year-old newlywed whom a Hamas sniper killed because the army didn’t collapse a six-story building. We wonder how many friends we’ve lost by constantly warning terrorists before attacking.
Yes, we’re tired, aching to return to normal. Yet we know that a just war like World War II didn’t end until the evil instigators surrendered unconditionally. We serve because we recognize the lethal threats to our nation. We serve because if we don’t do it, no one else will. We serve for our comrades in arms because we need each other. And we serve for our children – and our shared future. Article here

The IDF launched its ground offensive to seize Gaza City on Monday night. Over the past month, Israel has been warning the residents of Gaza City to leave and head south. The IDF said that more than 350,000 Palestinians, an estimated 40% of the city’s residents, had left the city by Monday evening. Some 130,000 IDF reservists have been called up, with an 80% response rate. IDF sources said that Hamas has 2,000-2,500 combat-ready forces, but there are also tens of thousands of additional potential younger and less well-trained forces available.Report here (paywall)& here

Operations could pause at any stage should negotiations for the release of hostages progress… New battlefield tactics aim to reduce risks to captives… Commanders do not believe Hamas will surrender even if Israel captures key parts of Gaza City. Large Hamas contingents remain entrenched in central Gaza and in displacement camps around al-Mawasi.Report here

A growing wave of departures from Gaza City, driven by collapsing morale, is eroding a core pillar of Hamas’s war strategy, according to Hamas economy expert Eyal Ofer. Hamas-run authorities have pushed a “do not evacuate” message. Yet the thousands of pedestrians who joined the southbound traffic jams of trucks are signalling that the campaign to keep people in place is losing traction. A continued civilian outflow would further undercut Hamas’s leverage. Report here

Hamas “operatives fear for their own lives and are seeking to leave Gaza,” as the group simultaneously calls on residents to remain, the IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said.
“Two weeks ago, a member of the Gaza City Council, Anwar Atallah, fled Gaza together with his family through the mechanism operated by Israel that allows Gazans to exit via Jordan to a third country. Many other senior officials have submitted requests for their families to leave the Strip, and some have even asked to leave themselves.” Report here

MORE EVIDENCE OF HAMAS ABUSE OF HOSPITALS

Newly-revealed internal Hamas documents prove that the group’s exploitation of medical facilities in Gaza has been systematic.
Hamas ministry documents from 2020 explicitly state that health facilities in Gaza are not neutral spaces, but instead play a critical role in Hamas’s terror network.Report here

Two Hamas documents found by Israeli forces in Gaza indicate that international organizations such as the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders are well aware of the presence of Hamas in Gaza’s medical facilities despite obfuscating or outright denying it publicly. Report here

HOUTHI ATTACKS COMTINUED

There have been several more launches towards Israel this past week, including a ballistic missile which was shot down after triggering sirens in Tel Aviv and other communities across central Israel around 03.45 am Saturday morning. The Houthis, claimed that they launched a projectile carrying a cluster bomb warhead.Report here

TERROR ATTACKS

Two Israelis were murdered by a terrorist, suspected to be a Jordanian working to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, who got out of his truck and opened fire also stabbing the victims, at the Allenby Crossing, near the Jordanian border, on Thursday afternoon. Report here

An East Jerusalem Arab stabbed and wounded two men, one seriously, the other moderately, in a suspected terror attack at a hotel in Kibbutz Tzuba near Jerusalem last Friday. The assailant was hotel employee, with a history of security offences, according to the police.

Three other people have been arrested, suspected of involvement in the incident. The assailant was subdued and arrested by an off-duty police investigator staying at the hotel and 2 others.Report here

EASTERN FRONT

An improvised rocket was recently fired from the West Bank Arab village of Ni’ma and landed in a nearby village, close to Route 443, a major highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. On Monday, the IDF uncovered two more rockets in Ni’ma. Security officials warned that terror groups are persistently trying to develop rocket capabilities in the West Bank, a threat that could endanger central Israel. Report here

THE EU

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday wrote to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen regarding her proposal to put political pressure on Israel by suspending trade-related provisions in the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
“This unprecedented proposal, that has never been implemented against any other country, constitutes a clear attempt to harm Israel while we are still fighting a war imposed on us by the October 7 terror attack… This existential war is being fought against Hamas and the terrorist organizations in Gaza, while we are still being attacked also by the Houthis in Yemen.”
“The war continues because Hamas refuses to release the hostages and insists on maintaining its military power in Gaza. Had Hamas agreed to disarm and release the hostages, the war would have ended long ago. It is profoundly disturbing that you, by advancing such a proposal, are in practice empowering a terrorist organization responsible for and continuing to perpetrate heinous crimes, while Israel, a longstanding partner of the EU, fights an existential war. It also jeopardizes the ongoing efforts to end the war.” Report here

THE UN

The Israel Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denounced the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry’s “fake report” on “Israel’s committing genocide” in Gaza. The ministry said commission chair Navi Pillay, as well as commission members Chris Sidoti and Miloon Kothari, are “notorious for their openly antisemitic positions” and are “serving as Hamas proxies.” The commission’s report “relies entirely on Hamas falsehoods, laundered and repeated by others,” which have been “thoroughly debunked.” Hamas is the party that has attempted genocide, due to its Oct. 7 massacre and “openly declaring its goal of killing every Jew.” Report here

and see Comment & Opinion below

“PALESTINE” RECOGNITION

U.S. Secretary of State Rubio said that Britain and France’s decision to recognize the state of Palestine at the UN General Assembly is “largely symbolic. They have really no impact whatsoever in bringing us any closer to a Palestinian state. The only impact it actually has is it makes Hamas feel more emboldened.” He added that this also made peace negotiations harder.(and see Comment & Opinion below) Report here (paywall)

THE UK

The British government has announced that, Israelis will no longer be admitted to the Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS).
Amir Baram, Director General of the Israel Ministry of Defence and “a proud alumnus of RCDS (2008-9),” called the move a “deeply shameful and discriminatory” decision and “a betrayal of an ally in time of war.”
“Israel is defending international shipping from Houthi aggression, preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of an Islamist regime that chants “Death to England!,” and fighting to bring home 48 hostages from Hamas captivity – and the establishment’s response is to silence Israeli voices.Report here Full text of Amir Baram’s Open Letter?

FIJI

Fiji, the South Pacific island nation, inaugurated its first-ever embassy in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the seventh country to locate its embassy in the capital. Report here

DEFENCE

Israel’s “Iron Beam” is now operational and a full series of cutting-edge air defence batteries will be deployed across the country. It can shoot down not only drones, but also missiles, rockets, and mortars.
Iron Beam will reduce the cost of shooting down aerial threats. Arrow interceptors cost millions of shekels, Iron Dome interceptors cost tens of thousands, but firing the Iron Beam is the cost of the electricity.
Iron Beam also has the capacity to counter barrages of simultaneous aerial threats. Report here

Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) has developed the Arbel system that allows soldiers to use their AR-15 rifles to shoot down drones. Report here

India recently presented its strategic plan to create a multi-layered defence system, which includes the Barak 8 surface-to-air missile system, developed jointly by Israel Aerospace Industries.Report here

MEDICAL INNOVATION

Israeli biomedical firm TruLeaf Medical has completed the first stage of a pioneering human trial of its RoseDoc docking system, a catheter-based device designed to replace diseased heart valves without the need for open-heart surgery.Report here

Israeli health tech startup NeuroKaire has developed a blood test which can measure the responsiveness of a patient with major depressive disorder to common antidepressants. Currently, treatment methods rely primarily on a taxing trial-and-error process to find the right prescription drug, which can take years. Report here

CINEMA

A documentary “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” charts how retired Israeli general Noam Tibon saved his family and others on Oct 7. The film, briefly disinvited from the Toronto International Film Festival, won the People’s Choice Award for best documentary.Report here

Nearly 4,000 figures from the international film and TV industries have pledged not to work with Israeli counterparts. The signatories’ letter justifying their action makes no mention of Hamas, nor the hostages. None of the high-profile boycott signatories appear to have taken similar public positions against the Russian industry (considering the war against Ukraine) or the Chinese industry (given alleged human rights abuses against China’s Uyghur Muslim population).

Major studio Paramount denounced the boycott, urging “more engagement and communication- not less.” Report here Report here

SPAIN

Spanish Prime Minister Sanchez said that his country cannot intervene to stop the war in Gaza because it does not possess nuclear bombs…“A nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv? Is that what he intends to do?” asked a spokesman for the centre-right Popular Party.

The leader of the far-right Vox party commented that the premier “would like to have nuclear weapons… but not to defend Spain. To defend Hamas.”Report here

SPANISH CYCLING EVENT

Riding for the Israel Premier Tech team, Matthew Riccitello, 23, came 5^th overall and won the white jersey for best young rider in the Vuleta a Espana.Reports here & here

Spanish PM Sanchez reiterated his “deep admiration” for the pro-Palestinian protesters who shut down the final, and called for Israel to be banned from international sporting events. However the race organisers defended Israel’s inclusion. Madrid’s Mayor called the chaos an “international embarrassment” and a sad day for the capital city.Report here

and see Comment & Opinion below.

BLUE TECH SUMMIT

The National Centre for the Blue Economy showcased sustainable water and marine technology this week. Among those featured were:

Nobify’s technique for scaring birds away, without touching them. The project aims to stop birds from eating fish and transmitting diseases to fish ponds, and from defecating on solar panels and reducing their energy efficiency.

SenpAI’s virtual swimming trainer that utilizes sensors, algorithms, and an application to help professional and hobby swimmers improve their technique and minimize injury.

Rewind is exploring ways to bury biomass (organic material such as wood) to prevent the carbon dioxide that plants use to grow from escaping back into the atmosphere when they die and decompose.Article here

THE STORY OF THE LALUSH BAKERY OF KIBBUTZ BE’ERI

The heartwarming and moving story of how Yaki Sagi is working to reinstate the bakery to help revive his community devastated on Oct 7. Article here

COMMENT & OPINION

Gaza

Khaled Abu Toameh : How Israel Helped Gaza Before 7 Oct.

Several years ago, Israel came under pressure from many in the international community to ease restrictions on Hamas-controlled Gaza, despite Hamas’s repeated terror attacks against Israel, including more than 31,000 rockets and mortars fired at civilian communities in Israel before 2023. Since then, an additional 19,000 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza. Which European country would tolerate 50,000 rockets, mortars and missiles fired at it – or even one rocket?

Israel went to unprecedented lengths to help the Palestinians in Gaza. It even issued work permits to increasing numbers of workers to enter Israel from Gaza, that reached 18,000 by Oct. 7. Egypt, Qatar, and the UN kept assuring Israel that the best way to achieve calm and stability was by improving Gaza’s economy and issuing more work permits.

Israel had been led to believe that jobs, money and humanitarian aid would bring stability and calm. However, Hamas and many Palestinians viewed these conciliatory measures as signs of weakness on the part of Israel. With or without the funding and humanitarian aid, Hamas anyway would have carried out its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
What the international community fails to understand is that since the establishment of Hamas 35 years ago, its stated goal has been the elimination of Israel. For Hamas, the conflict has never been about improving the living conditions of Palestinians. Hamas regards Israel as one big, illegitimate “settlement” that needs to be uprooted and replaced with an Islamist state. Full article here

Brendan O’Neill: The Battle of Gaza City is already one of the most maligned clashes of modern times. Much of the media coverage leaves one with the wholly post-truth impression that the IDF is raiding Gaza City for sport. Or for land. Or in further, feverish pursuit of its curiously unsuccessful ‘genocide’ of the Palestinian people. The other side in the battle – Hamas’s army of apocalyptic Jew-haters – has been virtually invisibilised. We rarely hear of them. It’s as bizarre as if newspapers had reported on the Battle of Raqqa without mentioning ISIS, or the Battle of Berlin without ever saying the word ‘Nazi’… It’s a kind of wartime censorship to erase the side that started the war in the first place… A UN commission of inquiry reported that Israel is committing genocide. Its proof? That “Israeli security forces were aware that their military operations since 7 October 2023 would cause the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.” By this infantile definition – basically, your military action caused casualties – every war in history has been a genocide. Full article here

“Palestine Recognition.”

William C. Daroff: Hamas learns that obstruction pays: Refuse compromise, hold on to hostages, rain rockets on civilians, and eventually world powers will cave. This is not diplomacy. It is appeasement.

Even worse, many leaders shift the blame from Hamas to Israel. As though the obstacle to peace lies not in Hamas’s charter of annihilation, not in the rockets it still fires at Israeli towns, not in the hostages it still hides in tunnels, but in Israel itself. The absurdity is staggering. The only democracy in the Middle East stands condemned, while the terror group that set off this war receives a diplomatic reward.

Recognition handed out without negotiation… strips Palestinians of the incentive to build institutions and leaders capable of governing responsibly. It denies Israelis the basic assurance that their security will not be bargained away for political convenience abroad. Full article here

Spain

Times Editorial: Not a single life has been saved in Gaza as a result of blocking the cyclists. Sanchez may think he enjoys popular support for the demonization and cultural isolation of Israel. But blocking the path of cyclists in a race is merely an offensive stunt.
Britain, France, Canada, Australia and Belgium – all poised to formally recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN next week – should learn something from Sanchez’s misguided stunts and put their move on hold. This is no time to reward killers and kidnappers. Editorial here (paywall)

UN Commission

Extract of UN Watch Rebuttal to the Pillay Commission’s Paper

Titled: Legal analysis of the conduct of Israel in Gaza pursuant to the Convention on the

Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Salo Aizenberg: The Commission erases the horrors of October 7, the ongoing suffering of Israeli hostages, and Hamas’s systematic exploitation of civilians, while inflating unverified claims into a genocide narrative…

It further assumes that every civilian death in Gaza must be the result of deliberate Israeli targeting, even when no evidence is presented and Hamas’s tactics of embedding fighters in civilian areas are ignored. In place of

actual analysis, the Commission substitutes conjecture, inversion, and erasure.

The Commission turns reality upside down. Nowhere is this clearer than in its treatment of hostages: the abduction and abuse of Israeli civilians by Hamas disappears.. In abandoning evidence and inverting responsibility, the Commission undermines both truth and law. Full rebuttal here

Amb Alan Baker: The Commission abuses the UN Charter. Full article here

Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch: How the UN uses propaganda to support terrorism against Israel.Full article here

Qatar

Michael Doran:In Gaza ceasefire negotiations, the Israelis perceive significant differences between Hamas in Gaza and Hamas in Doha. Gaza’s leaders – second- and third-tier figures elevated by the deaths of their commanders – show greater readiness for compromise than Doha’s leaders, some of whom are close to Iran. Israel’s attack aimed to eliminate this intransigent wing.Full article here(paywall)

JPost Editorial: Israel could have plodded along, sending negotiating teams to Qatar, and continuing to get stonewalled by Hamas intransigence as the hostages continue to languish in Gaza tunnels. That charade is over. The U.S. and Israel’s Western friends would do well to change their tune, back Israel’s actions, and start putting pressure on Hamas and their interlocutors, Qatar. Full article here

Ahmad Sharawi:.What is striking …(is) the folly of Arab states that continue to shelter and facilitate a movement that has brought them nothing but ruin. Hamas has exported conflict and invited chaos into these states. The correct lesson for Arab states to learn from the Doha airstrike is that none of them should welcome Hamas onto their soil. Full article here

Amotz Ala-El: Qatar has been unmasked as a terror sponsor… Qatar helped finance al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Nusra in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza. It served as Iran’s collaborator, and …it sheltered the architects of Oct. 7.
It made believe that in the fight between civilization and jihadism, it was neutral. It wasn’t…it was on the jihadis’ side. Full article here

Mark Goldfeder and Maj. (ret.) John Spencer: Israel’s strike in Qatar was justified.

Turkey has conducted operations in Iraq to go after the PKK. India cited it to justify surgical strikes within Pakistan to go after groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and France applied it to conduct operations against violent jihadist groups in Mali, Niger, and Chad.

After 9/11, President Bush stated: “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” President Obama repeatedly invoked the notion of denying terrorist groups safe havens when justifying U.S. strikes and operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq. Full article here(paywall)