Friday, May 2, 2025

By Marcy Oster ~ Ynetnews

Wednesday, 30 April 2025 | Wednesday will mark my second Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) as a bereaved parent. And it is a very strange place to be. The war is ongoing, and there were new fallen soldiers in recent days, after three months during which we did not have to see or hear the words "permission to publish the death of an IDF soldier." This, as you might imagine, is very triggering. 

Last year, when my family attended the ceremony in our community of Karnei Shomron marking the eve of Memorial Day, we sat in the front row, joining the four families whose sons had been buried in the military cemetery section of our hometown for many years. Our son Amichai was the first soldier to fall in this war from our small town of about 10,000 residents to be buried in the local cemetery, but by no means the last. On that first Yom Hazikaron, we were joined by the families of two young men from our community who fell in Gaza just three weeks after him. 

Since then, the small military section of our local cemetery has had to be expanded and expanded again. First, the new graves were set closer together and every one of the soldiers was added to the start of the single row of military graves in the cemetery. But when the last man to be buried in our cemetery fell in October 2024, a father of 10, the powers that be started a second row, and horrifyingly dug more graves for the future, which are currently and blessedly covered. 

This year, we are among the "experienced" ones, and we will be joined by the families of five more local soldiers who have fallen in the Iron Swords war since last Yom Hazikaron and the family of a police officer killed in a terror attack on the road near our community. 

But I don't feel like the experienced one. It is still new and sad and awful. The pain is the same as last year, and greater because of the new families (so many of them!) and because we are still in the midst of the war.With Yom Hazikaron approaching, I don't really know where our place is. Our family is old news. Amichai fell just three months into this war. "I thought you'd be over it by now," someone told me. I wish I could, even though I know that I never want to forget my talented son with the wide smile and calm nature. I will never get over it. 

I spent this past weekend at a One Family program with hundreds of bereaved parents, most from the current war, but also many whose children were killed in previous wars and terror attacks. 

I'd like to think that I didn't look as hollow-eyed as some of the most recently bereaved parents, though there were points during the weekend where I felt as lost as ever, right back at square one. I think some of them hoped we could provide them with some words of wisdom, but I sure do not have the answers. 

I appreciated the even more experienced parents, who told us that we would grieve forever, but assured us that we would still experience great joy, though it would always be tempered by the loss of our son. 

We have already felt this. Just six months after our son was killed in Gaza on January 1, 2024, I danced at the wedding of my oldest daughter. I cried when the photographer took the photo of her and her siblings, because he was not there. And we all cried under the chuppah [Jewish wedding canopy] as we remembered Amichai and led our guests in the prayers for the welfare of the soldiers and the hostages.

 And last week we celebrated the birth of our first grandson. A boy who will never know his uncle, except through photos and the stories we tell him. 

But he will be forever linked to this uncle because he bears his name, Adi Amichai.

And even more incredibly, this little boy is also part of a chain that begins with my father, as the first name, Adi (jewel), is in honor of him, a jeweler, whose work is still prized by families who own them.

By: Moran Azulay ~ Ynetnews

Tuesday, 29 April 2025 | Israel is preparing to expand its military operation in Gaza and significantly increase its call-up of reservists, a defense official said Monday. 

Due to the deadlock in hostage deal negotiations, Israeli leadership has decided to act on previous threats and escalate fighting. 

Senior ministers have pushed for immediate approval of expanded IDF action in Gaza, but the decision was delayed due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz’s desire to exhaust diplomatic channels to reach a hostage deal before proceeding. 

A political source on Monday morning said Israel had rejected Hamas's proposal for a five-year truce in exchange for the release of all hostages. Officials in Jerusalem ruled out the possibility that the proposed framework would move forward, saying that currently there is no realistic alternative plan to secure the hostages’ return. As a result, Israel is preparing for an intensified military path. 

"There are ideas being floated by some Arab states, like a five-year ceasefire," said the political source. "There is no chance we will agree to a hudna [truce] with Hamas that would allow it to rearm, recover, and continue its war against the State of Israel with even greater strength." 

The source added: "The reason we didn’t immediately launch intense fighting after the end of the last ceasefire—and instead proceeded gradually—was to allow space for negotiations over the hostages’ release. We still want to exhaust every effort to bring the hostages home, but our patience is not unlimited." 

Last week, ahead of the security cabinet meeting, ministers pressed to set a deadline: if no hostage deal is reached by then, Israel must move to what they termed the "decisive phase." This phase would involve a massive reserve call-up, the deployment of several divisions into Gaza, and the use of heavier firepower than the IDF has employed in recent weeks.

 Such a move would require the emergency mobilization of thousands of troops. According to the latest scenarios discussed, several divisions would operate inside Gaza, including the seizure of significant parts of the Strip as leverage to pressure Hamas. 

The Hostages' Families Forum responded to the military’s preparations, saying: “Why continue doing the same thing and expect a different result? Why sink even deeper into the Gaza quagmire? The time has come to show courage and act wisely—to reach a deal that brings all the hostages home and ends the war. The Israeli government could return all the hostages as soon as tomorrow morning—if it chooses to. The hostages would come home, our soldiers’ lives would be saved, and a heavy toll on hundreds of thousands of reservists would be avoided.”

By: JNS

Monday, 28 March 2025 | Nefesh B’Nefesh, Friends of the IDF (FIDF) and Jewish National Fund-USA have announced the resumption of “Operation Hug,” an initiative that will enable hundreds more families to reunite with lone soldiers serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

Amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, thousands of young men and women who made aliyah and are serving in active combat units remain separated from their families abroad. These lone soldiers face unique emotional and logistical challenges, with their parents sharing in the anxiety and burden from afar.

Launched to ease that hardship, “Operation Hug” provides a roundtrip airline ticket for one parent of any lone soldier serving in an active combat unit, from anywhere in the world. (Parents are asked to make a nominal contribution toward the airfare.) The initiative aims to offer soldiers the unmatched strength and comfort of a long-awaited embrace.

“Lone soldiers make the extraordinary decision to leave everything behind to serve and defend the Jewish homeland, standing on the front lines without family by their side,” said Steve Weil, CEO of Friends of the IDF. “It is our sacred responsibility to ensure these selfless heroes—and their families—receive the support they need.”

Deborah Riegel, chair of the Jewish National Fund-USA Nefesh B’Nefesh Task Force, added: “Operation Hug embodies the very soul of what Jewish National Fund-USA stands for—ensuring that every individual who defends our homeland feels the figurative embrace of a grateful people, and more importantly, the literal embrace of family.

“Having met with some of the remarkable lone soldiers and their families, I have seen firsthand the indescribable impact this initiative has had. In moments of both challenge and triumph, nothing can substitute for a hug from a parent. Operation Hug reminds these young heroes that they are never truly alone—not in Israel, and not in the hearts of those who love and support them around the world,” Riegel added.

Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, co-founder and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, described reuniting soldiers with their families as an incredibly moving experience.

“We’ve witnessed the profound impact of a simple hug since the start of Operation Iron Swords,” Fass said. “The return of ‘Operation Hug’ reflects our continued commitment to Israel’s Lone Soldiers and their families, ensuring that distance does not hinder their connection.”

By Akiva van Koningsvel and Amelie Botbol ~ JNS

Tuesday, 29 April 2025 | If the Islamic Republic of Iran refuses to give up its ambitions to build nuclear weapons, President Donald Trump “won’t be dragged into a war, he’ll lead it,” US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said at the JNS International Policy Summit on Monday night. 

“The president has been very clear that there will never be a possibility for nuclear weapons; he’s been explicit about that,” Huckabee told JNS ahead of his keynote address at Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Speaking at the conference on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said regarding Iran that “the only good deal that works is a deal like the one that was made with Libya, that removed all the infrastructure.”

 While it is “important” that Israel and the US share the same goals, “We have to make sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons,” the prime minister emphasized.

Huckabee said on Monday that the alliance between Washington and Jerusalem was not political. “It is spiritual, because the only explanation for the creation and the survival and the victory of Israel is that God’s hand is upon this land, and it always will be. Let us never doubt that.

“I’m proud of the president for doing some things immediately when he was sworn in,” Huckabee told the conference. “He reversed a lot of the ridiculous policies of the previous administration, one of which was to not give Israel the necessary tools to fight a war against the worst savages that we have seen, not just in our century, but perhaps in human history,” the ambassador said, referencing the Hamas–led October 7, 2023, attacks.

The envoy noted that Trump has “made it very clear that Hamas has no future in Gaza or anywhere else on this Earth,” adding, “Let’s get the hostages home and let’s get them home now. Every last one of them.”

Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and former Arkansas governor, took up his post as Washington’s envoy to Jerusalem on April 21.

Ahead of the ceremony in which he presented his credentials to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Huckabee visited the Western Wall to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and to insert a handwritten note from Trump between the stones of the holy site.

Huckabee, speaking to a group of reporters, told JNS that “Israel is an incredibly important ally to us, and…the United States and its citizens are directly the beneficiaries of some of the extraordinary achievements and accomplishments and innovations of the people here in Israel.

“People sometimes only think that Israel benefits from the United States,” the Trump administration envoy explained. “The truth is the United States benefits a great deal from Israel, and not just militarily.” 

On Sunday, Huckabee attended a ceremony honoring 46 Americans murdered by Hamas terrorists during the October 7, 2023, massacre, as well as 23 dual US–Israeli citizens who have died fighting terrorism since. 

“Together with their families, I pray their sacrifices were not in vain,” Huckabee wrote in a post on X. “May their memories be a blessing.”

By: JNS

Monday, 28 March 2025 | The notion that a Palestinian state will produce peace is “folly, nothing more than folly,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem on Sunday evening.

“I’m saying this for the ambassadors who are here—all of you know this,” he said. “We just tried a Palestinian state in Gaza,” he continued. “You saw what that brought, right?” 

The Jewish state had been “attacked savagely, horribly” on October 7, 2023, said Netanyahu. When German Chancellor Olaf Schultz, who visited Israel early in the war, “saw the film of the horrors and visited the sites, he said there: they’re exactly like the Nazis,” the Israeli premier recalled.

“And I said, well, they’re different. Not in intent, not in savagery—but the Nazis tried to hide their crimes. And these people carry GoPro cameras, live, you know, they’re ecstatic about the blood they shed, the people they butcher, the women they rape, the men they beheaded, the babies they burned,” he continued.

“You cannot build peace and security on lies. If you do so, sooner or later, these lies will crash on the realities of the Middle East,” he said.

The premier spoke for some 30 minutes about the ongoing seven-front war, which he said was “really a one-front war with Iran and its proxies.”

With regard to the Gaza Strip, he said, “There’s still more to be done.” Israel must finish the war in Gaza, “get our hostages back and destroy Hamas. Hamas will not be there and we’re not going to put the PA there,” he said, referring to the Palestinian Authority.

“Why replace one regime that is sworn to our destruction with another regime that is sworn to our destruction?” asked the longtime leader.

Israel will “in any case” control Gaza militarily, according to Netanyahu. 

“So what’s left? Well, quite a few things and many opportunities, but obviously they’ll all go down the tube if Iran gets nuclear weapons,” he added, vowing to work with Washington to ensure that Tehran will not be able to enrich uranium under a possible deal.

Turning to Lebanon, Netanyahu said that the September 27 Israel Defense Forces operation that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist army, “really broke” the axis of evil headed by Tehran.

“It was a terrific blow. Some people are irreplaceable. And so far, he’s been irreplaceable,” he said. “And so having delivered that blow to Hezbollah, we also delivered a blow to [former Syrian dictator Bashar] Assad, because Assad was relying heavily on Nasrallah,” he continued.

With regard to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who on Sunday launched yet another ballistic missile attack on Israel, Netanyahu expressed his appreciation for US efforts to combat the threat.

“We appreciate the fact that the United States is taking action against the Houthis,” he said. “We appreciate the help that we’re getting from the United States. Arms are flowing in. It’s important we share the same goals, but we have to make sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons.”

Israel needs support rather than US boots on the ground, he emphasized. “That support means that the UN Security Council does not make binding resolutions against Israel. It means that Israel is not sanctioned, is not choked by the international community—and that support is being threatened by the systemic public opinion campaign,” he continued.

“And if there’s one thing that has to be done it is to fight back,” the prime minister concluded. “So I ask you to continue to fight for the truth.”

By: Yoav Zitun, Lior Ben Ari ~ Ynetnews

Monday, 28 March 2025 | IDF forces attacked a warehouse where Hezbollah precision missiles were stored in Beirut, according to a joint announcement by the prime minister and defense minister. The statement said that they warehouse and its missiles "posed a significant threat to the State of Israel."

The airstrikes on Sunday came after the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Col. Avichay Adraee, warned residents in Lebanon’s Beirut ahead of the strike, as rocket fire toward Israel continues. Also on Sunday, for the second time in 24 hours, Israeli fighter jets intercepted a drone approaching from the east, likely launched from Yemen. No sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol, according to the military.

Following three warning strikes, the IDF targeted the Dahieh area. Lebanese news outlets also reported the strike hit a warehouse. Sky News Arabia cited an Israeli source who said the target contained Hezbollah missiles. Israeli officials later confirmed that the warehouse stored “significant weaponry” belonging to Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, Lebanese government sources told Qatar’s Al-Araby outlet that "talks are underway with the ceasefire monitoring committee to pressure Israel to stop its attacks."

Saudi outlet Al-Hadath also reported on the IDF’s warning strike in Beirut, noting it came shortly after the military warned residents in the area. Lebanese media reported fighter jets and drones flying over the district, with rescue teams deployed on site.

"Israel will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger and pose any threat to it—anywhere in Lebanon," the statement said. "The Dahieh district of Beirut will not serve as a sanctuary city for the terrorist organization Hezbollah."

The IDF released a photo of the strike alongside its warning, saying: "Anyone inside the building marked in red (in the image) and in nearby buildings is close to Hezbollah facilities. For your safety and the safety of your families, you must immediately evacuate and move at least 300 meters (984 ft.) away."

Lebanese sources claimed the marked building was a warehouse, while Lebanon’s National News agency said it was located near schools and residential buildings.

Earlier Sunday, rocket sirens were activated in Be’er Sheva and surrounding areas following a missile launch from Yemen, which the Israeli Air Force intercepted. Hours later, the IDF reported that another drone approaching from the east had been intercepted. No sirens were activated in accordance with military protocol.

By: Caanan Lidor ~ JNS

Monday, 28 March 2025 | Israel will not participate in upcoming International Court of Justice [ICJ] hearings regarding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced on Sunday.

Sa’ar’s office sent out a statement announcing the decision, and he confirmed it during a Q&A at the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem.

“Instead, Israel’s position on this matter will be delivered tomorrow (28.4) at a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” the ministry’s statement read.

The UN’s top court is set to hear statements by lawyers from more than 40 states arguing that Israel’s ban on all cooperation with UNRWA is a breach of the UN charter.

The five days of hearings at the ICJ in the Hague are expected to focus on whether Israel acted unlawfully when it rescinded the immunities it had afforded to UNRWA.

Sa’ar noted that the ICJ in the Hague had summoned Israel three times before the current hearings.

“I don’t think there is any precedent for a democratic country, or even a non-democratic country, to be brought to the ICJ,” he said. Israel, he added, “will not take the defendant’s stand” before the UN.

Sa’ar accused the Palestinian Authority [PA] and its backers of leading the international legal assault against the Jewish state at the ICJ, where Israel is also facing war crimes charges, and the International Criminal Court [ICC], where it is facing genocide charges. Israel and the United States, as well as Hungary, rejected these allegations.

“They are trying to minimize our ability to fight in the political battle,” Sa’ar said of the PA “For example, they sent the ICJ to deal with the ‘legality of the occupation.’ We say: There is no occupation. It is our land, we cannot occupy that.”

In November, Israel cut all ties with UNRWA operations in Gaza, Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem in accordance with a law passed after evidence surfaced of Hamas’s infiltration of the refugee agency.

In Israel, experts on UNRWA, including former Israeli lawmaker Einat Wilf, dispute claims that Israel’s refusal to work with UNRWA contradicts international law. Israel is not party to any treaty compelling it to engage with the group or allow its activities, Wilf told JNS.

UNRWA provides food, education and medical care to two million people in Gaza. Hundreds of UNRWA workers are believed to have engaged in terrorism in recent years, including on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. At least one of them was filmed loading the body of an Israeli into a vehicle.

According to Israel, over 450 people belonging to terrorist organizations in Gaza, mainly Hamas, are also employed by UNRWA. UNRWA’s chief officer, Philippe Lazzarini, has flatly denied these allegations.

The onslaught of October 7, 2023, in which thousands of terrorists murdered some 1,200 Israelis and abducted another 251, exposed new levels of complicity by multiple employees of UNRWA.

It led to the passing of laws banning Israeli officials from engaging with UNRWA and banning the agency’s activities in Israel.

Through UNRWA, the United Nations employs a unique refugee definition to Palestinians. UNRWA defines as refugees not only those who fled Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, but also their descendants in perpetuity, until a “just solution” emerges for their status. Critics accused the United Nations of insisting on this definition, preserved through UNRWA, to perpetuate the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

By: Ynetnews

Friday, 25 April 2025 | Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa told US Rep. Cory Mills that he is “interested” in joining the Abraham Accords, the normalization framework under which Israel established ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Mills, a 44-year-old Republican from Florida and close ally of former President Donald Trump, relayed the comments to Bloomberg News on Thursday.

Mills said he traveled to Syria last week on a privately organized visit—not an official congressional delegation—and spent roughly 90 minutes meeting with al-Sharaa. Their discussions centered on the terms under which Damascus would normalize relations with Israel and the conditions for Washington to lift economic sanctions imposed during the Bashar al-Assad era.

He plans to brief Trump and White House National Security Adviser Mike Waltz on the talks and to deliver a personal letter from al-Sharaa to Trump, though Mills declined to describe its contents and the White House offered no immediate comment.

According to Mills, he presented the full roster of Trump administration demands for sanction relief. Al-Sharaa’s government faces a deep humanitarian and economic crisis after more than a decade of civil war and an estimated US $400 billion in reconstruction needs. Several Gulf monarchies have signaled willingness to fund Syria’s rebuilding but remain constrained by US restrictions.

One key US stipulation, Mills said, is the complete destruction of all chemical weapons stockpiles from the Assad era and the coordination of counterterrorism initiatives with the United States and Iraq. Al-Sharaa must also address the presence of foreign fighters in Syria and provide security guarantees to Israel—particularly given his background as a former al-Qaida operative who fought US forces in Iraq. Syria has been designated a state sponsor of terrorism since 1979. 

Mills quoted al-Sharaa as saying he “is ready to address US concerns and—under the right conditions—is interested in joining the Abraham Accords,” originally brokered during Trump’s first term. A presidential adviser to al-Sharaa declined to comment on the account.

Overall, Mills described the exchanges as “positive.” He also met with Syrian Foreign Minister Assad Hassan al-Shibani and expressed “cautious optimism” about sustaining an open dialogue. “At one time, Germany and Japan were our enemies, but we overcame that when we decided stability was more important,” Mills said.

By: JNS

Friday, 25 April 2025 | The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court [ICC] on Thursday reversed a November ruling rejecting Israel’s jurisdictional objections to the issuing of arrest warrants for “war crimes” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

“The Appeals Chamber finds that, considered as a whole, the Impugned Decision insufficiently addresses Israel’s central contention that article 19(2)(c) of the [Rome] Statute permits it to challenge the jurisdiction of the Court,” the ruling handed down in the Hague on Thursday read.

“Therefore, the Pre-Trial Chamber committed an error of law by failing to sufficiently direct itself to the relevant submissions brought before it in respect of the particular legal basis underpinning the challenge to the jurisdiction of the court,” the international justices stated on Thursday.

The Pre-Trial Chamber I had ruled against the jurisdictional challenges, saying back in November it was too early to consider such arguments.

The Appeals Chamber sent the case back to the Pre-Trial Chamber for a “new ruling on the substance” on challenges of the court’s jurisdiction. 

It did not rule on Jerusalem’s request that the warrants be suspended while the jurisdiction issue is being deliberated, saying that this issue was for the Pre-Trial Chamber to determine.

However, until the lower ICC chamber holds additional hearings on the issue, which could take several months or longer, the legal proceedings against Netanyahu and Gallant will effectively be frozen.

“The ICC Appeals Court instructed the Court today to do what it should have done from the start: to make a determination with respect to jurisdiction,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar responded. 

“There is only one correct answer: the Court has no jurisdiction over Israel. The warrants were issued unlawfully. They are null and void,” Jerusalem’s top diplomat tweeted. “We said it from the start: The ICC in the Hague doesn’t have, and never had jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister and its former Minister of Defense.”

The warrants, which Israel and the United States, along with other countries, have rejected and dismissed, accuse the Israeli leaders of having committed “crimes against humanity” and “war crimes” between October 8, 2023, and May 20, 2024, in the Gaza Strip. One of the allegations concerns “starvation.”

Israel’s appeal focused on the jurisdiction of the ICC, which operates under the Rome Statute. Israel is not a party to the Statute and is not a member of the ICC, and therefore cannot be tried by it.

The court is basing its jurisdiction on the fact that the Palestinian Authority, registered as “The State of Palestine,” acceded to it in 2015.

By: Etgar Lefkovits ~ JNS

Tuesday, 29 April 2025 | Saudi Arabia needs the war against Hamas in Gaza to conclude—and some framework for a Palestinian state to be articulated, however unrealistic—before it can finalize a normalization deal with Israel, the chairman of a nonprofit promoting Israeli–Arab diplomacy said on Sunday.

“When Saudi Arabia signs a normalization deal with Israel, that will mark the end of the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East,” said Dan Feferman, chairman of Sharaka, speaking at the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem. “At least a dozen other Arab countries will follow.”

Feferman cautioned, however, that Riyadh [capital of Saudi Arabia], as the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, cannot be seen as abandoning the Palestinian cause—even if Saudi leadership acknowledges that a two-state solution may no longer be realistic.

 On Friday, US President Donald Trump said that the kingdom may very well join the four Arab countries that signed the Abraham Accords with Jerusalem during his first term.

“I think Saudi Arabia will go into the Abraham Accords… We had four countries in there, it was all set. We would have had it packed. Now we’re going to start it again,” he said, referring to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan that normalized ties with the Jewish state in 2020.

 Although Trump did not say when this diplomatic development might occur, he alluded to a time frame after his trip to the Middle East next month, where he is slated to visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

“There are seismic changes underway in the Middle East, and we will only see them advance under Donald Trump,” said Victoria Coates, vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy and a former US deputy national security advisor, during a panel discussion on “The New Middle East.”

“The best thing Israel can do is win this war—then peace with these countries will follow,” said Bobby Rechnitz, chairman of the Abraham Accords Roundtable and a Los Angeles–based entrepreneur. He added that economic cooperation would cement regional peace.

“You don’t need to wait for Saudi Arabia; eventually, they will come along,” Rechnitz said.