×
We have detected your country as:
Please click here to go to the USA website or select another country from the dropdown list.
We have detected your country as:
Please click here to go to the USA website or select another country from the dropdown list.
Every week, we post seven to ten news stories from Israel with a suggested prayer focus and scripture for each one, guiding readers how to pray for Israel’s most urgent needs. This Prayer Update is also sent to over 18,000 subscribers every Friday by e-mail. Sign up HERE if you would like to receive this Prayer Update by e-mail.
Iron Dome Commander: ‘Hezbollah Is Improving Day by Day; So Are We’
by Elisha Ben Kimon ~ Ynetnews
The Iron Dome continues to protect Israel from Hezbollah’s incoming missiles (illustrative).
Wednesday, 25 September 2024 | As winds of war blow on the northern border, those responsible for Israel’s defense and enabling the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] to strike aggressively are the Iron Dome soldiers, intercepting dozens and hundreds of munitions fired toward Israel from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.
“When I hear sirens, I get into alert mode and know it’s my time to act,” Capt. M., commander of an Iron Dome battery in the north, told Ynetnews on Monday.
At 26 years old, she carries the heavy responsibility of deciding what and where to intercept. “Each shift is managed by several roles, including interceptors and technicians monitoring the screens,” she explained.
“I sit in the central interception supervision vehicle, where we detect the targets. The moment a launch toward Israel is located, we identify the targets and decide what to do with them within seconds—either intercept them or let them fall according to policy. It’s a heavy responsibility and takes rapid decision-making,” she added.
Capt. M. said [she] will never forget the night of August 25, when Hezbollah attacked the north following a preemptive strike against them. “We prepared for their fire and manned our strongest shift,” she recalled.
“After a few hours in the vehicle, it began. Suddenly, we received a barrage image unlike anything we’d ever seen before, with an enormous number of missiles and drones. The northern front hadn’t seen such a barrage in years. And everyone worked quietly, each person focused on their target,” she recounted.
Capt. M.’s twin brother serves as an IDF drone operator. She enlisted in 2017 as an Israeli Air Force’s Air Defense Command soldier and went through a long training process. She was a platoon commander for military recruits and then a battery operations officer, including during Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021.
After several roles, she arrived in the north and has been commanding the Gideon Iron Dome battery for four months. “We’re preparing for various challenges on the northern front, from precise rocket and cruise missile targets to drones. It’s a daily threat. Hezbollah is improving day by day, and so are we.”
Air defense soldiers have faced criticism, some justified, for not having a comprehensive response to Hezbollah’s short-range drones which sometimes explode without warning and are considered particularly deadly.
“As new capabilities are introduced to the systems during the fighting, we improve in this area. The Iron Dome is built with defense layers but it’s important to clarify — we won’t be 100% accurate at all times,” Capt. M. said.
“In the end, we do our best to protect civilians,” she continued. “Hezbollah’s evolving threat, their quantities and the quality of the targets are significant. We’ve been at war for 11 months, with regular and reserve personnel working around the clock and we have very high success rates. Still, civilian adherence to guidelines is key to the defense systems’ success.”
Photo License: Wikimedia
Prayer Focus
Give thanks to the Lord who shields Israel from the attacks of her enemies. Thank Him for the Iron Dome, a defensive weapon that has saved the lives and property of many Israelis since it was first brought into service in 2011. Pray for the young men and women who must make split-second decisions when faced with incoming missiles from neighboring countries. Pray also that Israel will continue to improve its defensive capabilities against the deadly short-range drones.
Scripture
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield.
In Israel’s Targeted North, Quiet Heroism Is Everywhere
by Canaan Lidor ~ JNS
Moshe Aladi and a relative sit outside a public shelter in Haifa.
Thursday, 26 September 2024 | As soon as the fighting with Hezbollah escalated, I began looking for inspiring people to report on. It’s part of the job for a journalist living in a warzone.
There’s the obvious heroism of the Israel Air Force [IAF] personnel and that of Iron Dome crews working tirelessly to save lives. Then there’s the steadfastness of the residents of Safed and other northern cities who have stayed put despite frequent rocket fire. Yet I was looking for the everyday bravery that is often overlooked.
In our quiet neighborhood in northern Haifa, I went down to the municipal bomb shelter, which suddenly looked like an out-of-place cafe. The bunker’s sidewalk had people chatting into the night as they snacked on sunflower seeds at tables laden with food, drinks and ashtrays.
This scene began unfolding this week in Kiryat Haim following the municipality’s decision to open the normally closed bunkers amid an escalation in the fighting with Hezbollah. Its terrorists have targeted Haifa with rockets for the first time in years as Israel hunts them and their assets in hundreds of strikes in Lebanon.
At least one family has moved into the shelter for a few days. Like most Haifa homes, that of Moshe Aladi, 36, has no sheltered area. When warning sirens go off, Aladi and his wife can’t reach the bunker with their three small children within the 60-second safety buffer.
“So we decided to camp out here at night instead of waking them up each time there’s an alarm,” Aladi said outside the bunker where his children, aged 2-9, were sleeping. “It’s a temporary, minor inconvenience until the Israel Defense Forces finish them off and give them what they deserve up there,” he added, referring to Hezbollah.
Aladi’s mix of determination and caution is typical of the 500,000 people who live in Haifa and its environs, where rocket fire has so far wounded several people but killed none. Hundreds have been killed in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to Lebanese media reports. As thousands flee Lebanese cities, Haifa has seen no significant population movement, the municipality has said.
The story of a family moving into a bomb shelter may be relatable, but it’s unrepresentative and not exactly the wartime tale I was looking for. The search continued amid rocket alarms—and logging my children into video conferences. Schools have largely shut down in northern Israel since Sunday in favor of Zoom learning and the scholastic excellence this method is famous for nurturing.
The escalation has done little to diminish everyday chores and complications. My father in the Netherlands needed help booking a plane ticket to Athens. The first rains in Haifa came with a leak in our roof.
Like Aladi, my wife and I also lack a rocket-proof space in the semi-detached that we bought here shortly after immigrating to Israel from the Netherlands in 2021 with our two children, 7 and 8.
Two of our neighbors have invited us to use the mobile shelters that they’d bought and placed in their yards earlier this year after Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas. Their hospitality, typical of how Israelis come together at times of crisis, is heartwarming. But if you, like me, find sharing an elevator awkward, try a small, stuffy shelter at 4 a.m. while wearing slippers and random clothing items.
And so we usually wait out the sirens in a windowless niche that also functions as our home office. Forbidden from leaving the niche, the kids are easy prey to unwanted parental cuddling.
On Monday, I took my son out with me on a reporting assignment in the Kiryon, one of Israel’s largest and oldest malls, hours after a rocket landed about a mile away, damaging several homes and wounding three people. The place was deserted, but not for lack of interested would-be patrons.
Management had limited the mall’s capacity to 100, leading to long lines at the entrance. Security guards asked the crowd queued up to enter to disperse because congregating in the open was unsafe. “That’s right, so let us into McDonald’s already!” replied one man in Russian-accented Hebrew, prompting chuckles.
This imperviousness to terrorism, which has developed in the north over decades of living in Hezbollah’s crosshairs—including during the 2006 Second Lebanon War—is an important aspect of life here, I thought. But are fast food munchies the kind of valor under fire that I was looking for?
My dad called from the airport in Amsterdam, asking whether I had booked him a suitcase and whether he needed the receipt to check it in.
On Tuesday I made preparations to visit Safed, a northern city that is seeing far more rockets than Haifa. It’s remarkable, I reflected, that I get permission to run around in combat zones from my wife, a secular Jewish woman who was born in Amsterdam and moved with me to my native Israel three years ago on something of a whim.
Having despaired with regard to persuading me to return to the Netherlands with her and the kids for the duration of the war, she has accepted a situation she intensely dislikes and understands only superficially, as an outsider. Waiting out the sirens and loud thuds of inbound rockets that reverberate through the neighborhood, she resumes life’s routines, and her demanding job, with inspiring resilience. But one can’t profile one’s wife in a newspaper article.
Meanwhile, the trip to Safed got postponed. I needed to travel south on Wednesday for the one-year anniversary of the October 7 Hamas onslaught, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed or murdered and 251 more were abducted, triggering the ongoing regional war that has just escalated in the north.
It’s an important story, but it won’t help me report on how Israelis are faring up north.
I saw that during one siren I had missed a call from my father. He was born in Poland and made aliyah [immigration] to Israel when he was 10. In the 1990s, he left for the Netherlands. Recently, he returned, settling in Kibbutz Eilon near the border with Lebanon. He had to leave shortly before the escalation because his spouse in Amsterdam got sick.
“I’m here, the bald eagle has landed,” texted my father, whose mother was a survivor of Auschwitz and who has fought in three wars as an Israeli soldier. From Athens, he flew to Israel. He’ll be sleeping at the home of his sister, my aunt, in Samaria for a night or two, he said.
Like the other stayers, my dad is critical of the evacuation of the north, in which some 60,000 moved out of border adjacent communities. He believes it’s a strategic error.
“I’m too old to run,” he said of the prospect of leaving Eilon, “but too young to stay somewhere I don’t really want to be,” he added, referencing Europe. Then he asked me: “How about you? How’s the family, work? Did you find your inspiring wartime hero yet?”
Photo Credit: Canaan Lidor/jns.org
Prayer Focus
Remember the residents of northern Israel, civilians who, along with the soldiers of the IDF, are on the frontlines of the battlefield. Pray that they will continue to experience the peace that comes from trusting the Lord who watches over Israel and does not slumber. Pray especially for the young children whose worlds have been turned upside down, asking that they will know with certainty they are being hidden under the wings of the Lord.
Scripture
He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day.
Israeli Population to Surpass 10 Million in Coming Weeks
by JNS
Crowds of Israelis wave flags at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City during Jerusalem Day celebrations
Thursday, 26 September 2024 | Israel’s population is expected to surpass 10 million in the next few weeks, according to data published by the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
As the Hebrew year 5784 draws to a close, some 7.689 million (78.6%) Israelis identify as Jewish and 2.095 million (21.4%) as Arab.
The Israeli population grew by 118,000 in the past year, a rate of 1.9%.
Some 183,000 babies were born in Israel over the last 12 months, whereas 55,000 people died.
The country welcomed 33,000 Jewish immigrants under the Law of Return. Overall, the immigration balance was negative, with some 10,000 people removed from the population registry.
The two-day Rosh Hashanah holiday begins at sundown on October 2, ushering in the Hebrew year 5785.
Photo Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/jns.org
Prayer Focus
Give thanks that despite the stress and uncertainty of war, Israel’s population still reflects an increase over last year’s figures. Pray for the new immigrants, that they will be firmly planted in the Land and will thrive. Pray also for those who left in discouragement over the past year, that they will be encouraged to return and try again. Proclaim the promise of the Lord to bring His people back to the Land of their inheritance.
Scripture
“I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back, because I have mercy on them. They shall be as though I had not cast them aside; for I am the LORD their God, and I will hear them…I will whistle for them and gather them, for I will redeem them; and they shall increase as they once increased.
Israel Targets Hezbollah Commanders Busy Plotting Another October 7-Style Terror Massacre
by Joshua Spurlock ~ Middle East Update
IDF jets targeted a number of Hezbollah terrorists in Beirut (illustrative).
Monday, 23 September 2024 | Multiple reports have indicated that the Hezbollah senior leadership assassinated by Israel on Friday were killed during a meeting plotting an attack on northern Israel similar to the October 7 terror massacre conducted by Hamas last year. Ibrahim Aqil, the commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, and former Radwan Force commander Abu Hassan Samir, who was also a planner of the “Conquer the Galilee” attack, were among those killed in the Israeli strike according to the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] website.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Sunday the dead terror leaders weren’t just behind the plans to invade northern Israel—they were plotting it in the very meeting where they were killed. Herzog, in an interview with Sky News republished by Israel, said, “All of these leaders were meeting together in order to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7 by Hamas, by burning Israelis, butchering them, raping their women, abducting and taking hostage old people and young, and little babies—so this is exactly the same plan that they’ve been planning for years under the empire of evil of Iran.”
In addition to Herzog, a report in Al-Monitor, cited by Israel Hayom and based on a senior source linked to Hezbollah, said a ground invasion of Israel was the topic of the fateful meeting on Friday. The plot was to use the attack as revenge for the mass exploding pager attack that hit Hezbollah last week.
The precise targeted strike by Israeli jets on Friday in the Lebanese capital of Beirut killed 16 Hezbollah terrorists, per the IDF website report. This included five Radwan Force regional commanders, in addition to Aqil and Samir.
IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, in a separate post to the IDF website, noted on Friday that slain terror commander Aqil “had the blood of many innocent people on his hands: Israelis, Americans, French, Lebanese and more.” This included involvement in the bombing of a US marine barracks in 1983 and kidnapping Americans and Germans in Lebanon. The US had a US $7 million reward outstanding for key information on Aqil, according to the US State Department website.
Hagari noted that Aqil was even endangering Lebanese innocents when he was killed. “At the time of the strike, Aqil and the commanders of the Radwan Forces, were gathered underground, under a residential building in the heart of the Dahieh in Beirut, hiding among Lebanese civilians, using them as human shields. They were in the middle of planning more terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”
The assassination of Aqil is yet another blow to Hezbollah’s leadership. IDF’s official feed on X (formerly Twitter) posted an organizational chart showing six of the top nine military leaders in Hezbollah have been eliminated. Said the IDF post, “Hezbollah’s military chain of command has been almost completely dismantled after a dozen significant terrorists including Ibrahim Aqil were eliminated yesterday.
“We will continue operating against any terrorist organization that poses a threat to our civilians on all fronts.”
Source: (This article was originally published by the Middle East Update on September 22, 2024. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today.)
Photo Credit: Tomás Del Coro/Wikimedia.org
Photo License: Wikimedia
Prayer Focus
Give thanks for the precise and timely intelligence that was used to kill senior Hezbollah leaders as they met to plan an invasion of northern Israel, similar to the Hamas infiltration of October 7. Pray that the identities of all undercover intelligence agents will remain hidden and they will be able to gather more information as to the plans of the enemy. Pray that the Israeli Security Agency will act as the “sons of Issachar” by continuing to correctly interpret all intelligence gathered and know how it is to be used.
Scripture
…of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.
The Jewish Students on the Frontlines of Antisemitism on US Campuses
by Dror Feuer ~ Ynetnews
Jewish students at US universities share their experiences with the daily reality of constant antisemitism (illustrative).
Monday, 23 September 2024 | “A woman ran at me screaming, ‘f*** you, Jew’ and I reported it to the school. I made it very clear how I don’t feel safe on campus. Tulane University’s response was to label ‘f*** you, Jew’ as political speech,” says Yasmeen Ohebsion, a student at Tulane University in New Orleans (one of the universities with the highest percentage of Jewish students in the US—about a quarter of the students there are Jewish).
“So, at Tulane University ‘f*** you, Jew’ is political speech but ‘f*** you, gay’ would probably lead to expulsion. ‘F*** you, black;’ forget about it. You’re not going to have a career. You’ll be kicked out. You’ll be canceled. Your life is over. Goodbye. So that is the difference. If you’re Jewish, people can do whatever they want, including physically attacking you, and still, the university does nothing.
“I watched my friends be beaten with a metal microphone and had all these bones and their faces broken. The ambulance comes, and before the ambulance can even move this Jewish student from the street into the car, there is a group of 10 maintenance people scrubbing the Jewish blood off of the street to make sure that there’s no evidence, there are no pictures [only] I have the pictures of the blood. Same thing as when someone says ‘f*** you, Jew’, they [the university] say ‘here’s a link to three sessions of free therapy. You go fix yourself.'”
“I hope you get gassed out in the basement of AEPi (a Jewish fraternity). P.S. What is your Auschwitz prison number?” Daniella Ludmir, a student at the University of Michigan, shows me a message she received. Signed: Adolf.
“I know that at MIT and also at Stanford, the school administrations paid for safe housing for Jewish students who were threatened and harassed to such an extent that their physical safety was at risk if they stayed in their dorms. They’re putting Jews in separate housing to protect Jewish safety, but they’re not stopping the bullies,” says MIT student Talya Kahn.
“[The University of Michigan] president sent emails to the entire university right after October 7 saying standing up to terrorism should not be controversial at the University of Michigan. There was a protest at his home,” says Ludmir.
“Even though we received public support from our administration, and this is not something that’s common at every university, Jewish students still feel unsafe to walk on campus because they see a giant banner all across the center of campus saying ‘Long live the Intifada.’ What are they doing to make us feel safe?
Chloe Katz, a student at Columbia University, says she’s been told that the sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists against Israelis on October 7 was justified. “I’m a helpline volunteer for sexual violence response at Columbia and I’m also part of all of these Israeli activist groups. And so, when my group had the idea of publicizing the fact that these testimonies of sexual violence from October 7 and in captivity are being denied or pushed aside, I went to my boss in sexual violence response, asked her to collaborate on an event together and gave her our idea. They initially said ‘yes, that’s great,’ And then they stopped responding to me.
“Instead, we did a silent protest. My friends and I joined arms in front of the library, put duct tape on our mouths and held up signs that said ‘Hamas weaponizes sexual assault’ and ‘rape is not resistance.’ They screamed at us, spat at us, threatened us. But we didn’t budge.”
“I want to paint the picture for Israelis of what it’s like to be a Jew on campus right now. It feels post-apocalyptic,” says Columbia student Eli Gelb. “When you walk down the street next to Columbia, you see torn kidnapped posters. You see the pictures with swastikas drawn over them. Penises vandalizing the babies on the kidnapped poster. Every single spot is covered with stickers and posters for Palestine. ‘Free Palestine,’ ‘Zionism is terrorism’ and ‘Zionism is Nazism.’
“When you walk onto campus, it is covered with people wearing keffiyehs [Arabic traditional headdress], it is inescapable. You go onto campus during the encampment, they’re shooting flares, they’re starting fires, they’re rioting and you see the heat in their eyes. And this isn’t a small number. It’s hundreds of people gathered every single day.
“There are specific nights when you walk around and it is anarchy. Zero public safety. The entire area where Jewish students live is smothered with adults running around, ripping the flags off of the backs of Jewish students, spitting at us, throwing liquids at us, and I was physically chased off of campus with the rabbi and told to go back to Poland. I was called ‘Al-Qassam’s next target.’ But this is in the hundreds, and that’s what I don’t think they really understand. We’re small but we’re powerful. We’re not going anywhere.”
“I’ve received a lot of death threats,” says Ohebsion. “We wake up, we walk to campus and people scream at us ‘murderer’ or ‘Zionist pig’ or whatever slurs, and then you go to class and see people with keffiyehs everywhere you go. It’s an everyday problem. You get to class and your partner won’t work with you because you’re a Zionist or you either have to worry about not mentioning Israel in your paper because you’re scared to fail. These experiences impact your grades.”
“It’s exhausting,” adds Ludmir. “Everywhere you go, you see it. Even when you’re in the silent room at the library where nobody can say anything, they then open their laptop and their laptop is covered in stickers about how ‘Zionism is Nazism’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘there is only one solution Intifada revolution.’ I’m a neuroscience student; I want to learn biology and it’s hard when you hear ‘Intifada revolution’ being chanted by hundreds of students inside university buildings.”
Uncle Murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri
Yasmeen Ohebsion, Chloe Katz, Talya Kahan, Daniella Ludmir and Eli Gelb are part of a delegation of about 20 American Jewish students who recently visited Israel. They toured kibbutzim [collective communities] near the Gaza border, visited the Nova music festival site, met wounded soldiers in hospitals, heard stories of heroism and capped off their visit by meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politicians.
This group is made up of activists. Yasmeen launched an initiative of roundtables on antisemitism, organized a shipment of supplies for the displaced and initiated a petition from Jewish students sent to Congress. Two of her cousins are currently fighting in Gaza.
Ludmir’s uncle, Dr. Daniel Levy Ludmir, was murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7. She, too, is a medical student, at the University of Michigan, and organized a war-awareness event attended by 1,000 people, with another 4,000 joining online. In response to her uncle’s death, she says she was met with hateful comments.
Gelb, from Columbia University, regularly stands proudly with an Israeli flag in front of pro-Palestinian protests, often enduring violence. Chloe Katz, also from Columbia, organizes rallies and educational events.
Kahan from MIT was born to a Jewish mother and a Muslim father but was raised and educated as Jewish, never doubting her Jewish identity. “I am a Jew who knows where my land is and who my people are. I may not have family here, but I am indigenous to this land. Read the Bible, man.” She founded the MIT–Israel Alliance and serves as its president.
“My first thought in the morning is Israel and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep is Israel,” says Ohebsion. “There’s no real way to know how the people are doing until you come here to the Land of Israel and see it and feel it. I really pictured Israel as a much more fractured place after October 7 than it is. I think that I felt this incredible unity among Jewish people.
“It’s been hard to go to the kibbutz, to hear people’s stories, but it’s also been reassuring to see that the shuk (market) is still full of people. People are still going to pubs in Tel Aviv, sitting on the beach.”
“When you see things like that, you understand that this land is beautiful. This group of people put their lives on hold and want to give back to this country. It feels like if I’m going to live here, I need to be part of this,” says Katz, who plans to make Aliyah [immigration to Israel] next year.
Kahn: “Being in Israel is the first time since October 7 that I finally felt like I can finally take a breath and like feel comfortable and not have to worry that there’s going to be some crazy rioters. Like when I turn the corner, they’re yelling ‘free Palestine’ and ‘bomb Tel Aviv’ wearing keffiyehs. Even though I obviously didn’t have the same October 7 experience as the people here, I feel so close with everybody, even the people I don’t know…Although the stuff that we’re experiencing on campus is not at all the same level of danger that these people are going through. But we’ve all had our lives totally changed and turned over.”
Photo Credit: cottonbro studio/pexels.com
Photo License: pexels
Prayer Focus
Intercede for the safety of Jewish students on university and college campuses where antisemitism, anti-Zionism and hatred have risen to levels never seen before in the United States. Pray that administrators and legislators will stop giving lip service to equality for all students when, in fact, blatant discrimination against Jewish students is prevalent on many campuses. Pray that the Jewish students who are standing up to the bullies will be protected, encouraged and strengthened.
Scripture
Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
Source: Hamas to Cede Civilian Control of Gaza to Palestinian Authority
by Einav Halabi ~ Ynetnews
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
Thursday, 26 September 2024 | Hamas may have just given up civilian control in the Gaza Strip. Almost a year after the October 7 massacre and the outbreak of war, a Hamas official told the Saudi network Al-Hadath on Thursday that the terrorist organization that controls Gaza has reached an agreement that would make the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responsible for the civil management of the Strip, and the crossings.
According to the same source, these will not be under the supervision of Hamas. The meeting between Fatah and Hamas leaders where this agreement is supposed to be signed is expected to take place next week.
On Wednesday, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa said that this meeting is expected to take place in Cairo, noting that the Palestinian Authority [PA] will manage the Gaza Strip after the war with the participation of “everyone.”
The previous meetings between the Palestinian factions were held in China, and ended with the Beijing Declaration on July 23, in which it was agreed to reach “total national unity,” including all the forces within the Palestinian Liberation Order [PLO], and to form a temporary national consensus.
A senior official in the PA responded to the report and downplayed the possibility of an agreement. He told Ynet that “the PA manages civil affairs in the Gaza Strip anyway—education, health, the water and energy authority. For Hamas, this is a headache, so it will hand it over to the PA in order to continue to control security and military. Hamas understands that Israel will not give up control of the crossings from a security point of view, so it will let the PA face Israel. We will wait and see what happens at the meeting in Cairo, but there are not too many expectations for an agreement.”
Photo Credit: Kremlin.ru/Wikimedia.org
Photo License: Wikimedia
Prayer Focus
Pray for any upcoming decisions made regarding control of the border crossings in Gaza, an important situation that directly affects the security of Israel’s southern residents. Give thanks that the Lord reigns over all the earth and nothing happens apart from His foreknowledge. Pray that the meeting scheduled between Hamas and the PA will not result in additional pressure on the Israeli government from world powers.
Scripture
The LORD reigns; let the peoples tremble! He dwells between the cherubim; let the earth be moved!
Israel Accused of Violating International Law for ‘Incredibly Precise’ Pager Attack on Hezbollah
by JNS
A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display at an undisclosed location.
Friday, 20 September 2024 | The Jewish state has not claimed responsibility for an incident, in which some 2,700 pagers belonging to Hezbollah terrorists exploded in Lebanon and Syria earlier this week. But critics of Israel accused it of violating international law and of being responsible for the attack.
“Israel’s pager attack in Lebanon detonated thousands of handheld devices across of a slew of public spaces, seriously injuring and killing innocent civilians,” stated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the so-called “squad” and frequent Israel critic.
“This attack clearly and unequivocally violates international humanitarian law and undermines US efforts to prevent a wider conflict,” Ocasio-Cortez stated. “Congress needs a full accounting of the attack, including an answer from the State Department as to whether any US assistance went into the development or deployment of this technology.”
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was among the organizations that blamed Israel for being attacked on October 7, called for the Biden administration “to condemn the Israeli government for killing children and maiming numerous civilians in Lebanon by detonating bombs reportedly placed in pagers without any regard for innocent life.”
“The Israeli government reportedly detonated explosives contained in pagers in Lebanon. Two children and a medical worker are reportedly among the victims of the attack,” CAIR said. “The attack could lead to a spread and escalation of the conflict, analysts say.”
It added that the attack was an Israeli “brazen and wanton act of state terrorism that has killed at least two children and maimed countless people who had nothing to do with the cross-border war.”
If the attack targeted 2,700 people with ties to Hezbollah, a US-designated terror organization, and struck three additional civilians, that would mean that the operation had about a 99.89% effective rate of targeting terrorists compared to civilians.
“If Israel was responsible, then on available information these seem to be incredibly precise. Rules on targeting are principally necessity, distinction and proportionality,” Natasha Hausdorff, a barrister in the United Kingdom and legal director of UK Lawyers for Israel, told JNS.
“It is hard to imagine a better means of targeting Hezbollah operatives, whoever is behind the exploding devices,” Hausdorff said. “I would ask these individuals which international law they claim was violated.”
David May, the research manager and a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that “reportedly, there were explosives within thousands of pagers Hezbollah ordered for its key operatives. These were Hezbollah pagers, not devices for the general public. Beyond that, very few civilians carry pagers in the year 2024, so claims that this operation was indiscriminate are disingenuous.”
“Hiding explosives in Hezbollah’s personal devices is the best way to target terrorists who hide among civilians,” May said. “This was a pinpoint operation compared to modern urban warfare. Many of the critics of this operation tailor their analysis to their presupposition that Israel is evil and guilty.”
“Hezbollah launched the current round of hostilities on October 8 while Israel was still clearing Hamas fighters out of southern Israel,” he added. “The Iran-backed terrorist group has since launched more than 8,500 rockets at Israel. It doesn’t get to start a war and demand that Israel conduct it as an eye-for-an-eye campaign.”
‘Outrage Is Illogical’
Erielle Azerrad, an associate at Holtzman Vogel and a senior fellow at the Center for the Middle East and International Law at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School, told JNS that the “outrage is illogical.”
“You would be hard-pressed to design a more targeted campaign designed to reach exclusively terrorists and their communication networks,” she said. “Under the law of armed conflict, proportionality is one of the crucial considerations in order to prevent as many tragic civilian deaths as possible.”
The terrorist-to-civilian ratio in this instance “is almost unheard of,” according Azerrad. “Instead of applauding Israel’s ingenuity, the international community has turned terrorism on its head—by now defining it as eliminating terrorists,” she added.
“Let’s be clear—in its strategic attack on Hezbollah, Israel used innovative methods to carry out a precise military operation, maximizing the elimination of terrorists while minimizing harm to civilians by targeting military communication devices,” stated Rep. Brad Sherman.
“Iran’s ambassador must explain why he had a Hezbollah military communication device, given Iran’s long history of using its ‘diplomats’ to carry out terror. This includes a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and target dissidents abroad, especially in Europe,” Sherman stated. “In war, it’s impossible to fully prevent harm to civilians—especially when Hezbollah operates in Beirut’s densest civilian areas.”
“Some impacted by this operation may be civilians due to Hezbollah’s use of civilians as human shields and their use of soldiers” who are 18, he added.
Photo Credit: AFP via Getty Images/jns.org
Prayer Focus
Pray that the voices accusing Israel before the actual facts are known will be exposed as biased Israel haters. In this particular operation, give thanks for those in the media and government who did point out the ludicrous nature of those accusations. Pray that the general public will stop and consider how illogical this hatred against God’s people and nation has become.
Scripture
For the king trusts in the LORD, and through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved. Your hand will find all Your enemies; Your right hand will find those who hate You.
Is Sinwar Dead?
by JNS Staff ~ Israel Hayom
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s (center) whereabouts and survival remain unkown (illustrative).
Tuesday, 24 September 2024 | Israel Defense Forces [IDF] Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari on Monday morning addressed reports that Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar may have been killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike.
“I can’t confirm it, nor can I deny it. We have one mission: to reach him—and we will,” he told reporters during a briefing focused on the situation on the country’s northern front.
Security sources report that Sinwar has been out of contact for some time, prompting an investigation into the cause of his silence.
Current assessments indicate that Sinwar is alive and using hostages as human shields. However, authorities are exploring other scenarios, particularly given Israel’s recent bombing campaign targeting tunnels in areas where Sinwar was believed to be hiding.
At present, there is no evidence suggesting Sinwar is dead, apart from his prolonged silence.
It’s important to note that throughout the war, there have been substantial periods when Sinwar was incommunicado, either due to being on the move or deliberately choosing to cut off contact for strategic reasons.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 on Monday, IDF soldiers brought several bodies out of Gaza recently to check if their DNA matched Sinwar’s. All tests were said to have come back negative.
Photo Credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images/jns.org
Prayer Focus
Pray for the success of Israel’s attempts to bring Yahya Sinwar, architect of so much misery and suffering in both Israel and Gaza, to justice. Pray that the Lord will deal with Sinwar in the same way He did with Sennacherib, the cruel Assyrian king who besieged Jerusalem millennia ago.
Scripture
Because your [Sennacherib, king of Assyria] rage against Me and your tumult have come up to My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you came.
Israel’s Quandary: Can it Afford to Win in the Face of International Opprobrium?
by Caroline Glick ~ JNS
Israel addresses the “Summit of the Future” on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Wednesday, 25 September 2024 | The life of Israel is a split screen.
The first screen shows the life of a nation and a country fending off a coordinated seven-front assault whose goal is the Jewish state’s physical obliteration with heroism, ingenuity and fortitude that takes your breath away.
And this week, with the UN General Assembly [UNGA] taking place in New York at the precise moment Israel has taken the initiative vis à vis the Lebanese front, the dissonance between the two sides is so glaring that it gives you whiplash.
Over the past week, for the first time since it unilaterally removed its forces from southern Lebanon in 2000, Israel took the initiative in its war with Iran’s largest proxy force, Hezbollah, which controls Lebanon. The threat Hezbollah poses to Israel is orders of magnitude greater than the threat Hamas posed on October 7. Hezbollah’s arsenal, which numbers some 200,000 short and medium range rockets and ballistic missiles, is nearly 35 times larger than Hamas’s arsenal of 6,000. Hezbollah’s missiles are capable of hitting nearly every strategic military and industrial site in Israel. They are capable of laying waste to northern communities and devastating cities and towns throughout the country.
And they are embedded in civilian neighborhoods. After the 2006 war, due to its control over the Lebanese government and military, Hezbollah oversaw the reconstruction of the areas in southern Lebanon that were damaged and destroyed in the war. Hezbollah built the apartments as dual-use structures with missile launchers and missiles in many apartments. Residents received monthly payments for permitting their homes to be for this purpose.
Since the start of the war, Hezbollah shot 8,000 such projectiles into northern Israel. They severely damaged several critical military installations. They destroyed hundreds of homes. They ravaged the landscape of northern Israel, burning forests, as well as destroying nature and wildlife reserves from the Golan Heights to the Upper Galilee.
If the missile arsenals weren’t sufficient to keep Israel’s north depopulated, there is also the conventional threat of Hezbollah’s land forces. Citing US and regional officials, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Those with knowledge of Hezbollah say the group accelerated its war preparations in recent months, expanding its network of tunnels in southern Lebanon, repositioning fighters and weapons and smuggling in more arms. Iran has increased supplies of small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, along with guided and unguided long-range missiles.”
“The south is like a beehive right now,” said a former Hezbollah military officer referring to the military preparations to the newspaper. “Everything the Iranians have, we have.”
Hezbollah’s ground forces number some 40,000 men. Thousands in the so-called Radwan brigades are battle-hardened veterans of Iran’s insurgent wars in Syria and Iraq. They have oceans of American, British, Iraqi and Syrian blood on their hands.
Hezbollah’s operational concept since October 7 (basically since Israel removed its forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000) has been attrition warfare. Hezbollah’s massive and ever-growing arsenal deters Israel from getting into a major war with the terror army. At the same time, the terror group expands its effective control over northern Israel by gradually expanding the expanse of Israeli territory it can strike at will. In the past month, emboldened by Israel’s largely defense posture since October 7, Hezbollah has massively escalated its missile assault on Israel, increasing the number and range of the projectiles its forces shot over daily from a few to a couple dozen to between 60 and 120.
Last week, it was the ingenious decapitation strikes that successfully targeted Hezbollah’s operational leadership attributed to Israel involving the detonation of hand-held communications devices that enabled Israel to seize the operational initiative for the first time since 2000. Its follow-on airstrikes against the commanders of the Radwan Force in Beirut decimated Hezbollah’s senior ranks, leaving Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and his bosses in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps with a largely commander-less terror army.
Israel’s airstrikes on Monday against missiles and missile launchers in southern Lebanon, Beirut and the Beqaa Valley, based on stunning intelligence superiority, reportedly devastated Hezbollah’s strategic missile power. A diplomatic source divulged Tuesday morning that the air force’s 1,400 hits destroyed half of Hezbollah’s precision-guided missiles. The source claimed further that now, Hezbollah possesses only one-quarter of the rockets with ranges up to 40 kilometers [24.8 mi.] it had at the start of the war.
Critically, the source said that Hezbollah’s capacity to launch coordinated missile strikes involving hundreds of projectiles simultaneously has been severely damaged. Hezbollah’s operational concept throughout has been that in the event of an all-out war, it would swarm Israel with hundreds of projectiles simultaneously, overwhelming Israel’s air-defense systems. If Israel has indeed taken out that capability, it means that Hezbollah’s threat to Israeli territory is no longer existential.
By achieving something approaching operational control over Gaza, blocking avenues of resupply by controlling the Philadephi Corridor controlling the 14 kilometer [8.6 mi.] border with Egypt and preventing the reinforcement of Hamas’s terror forces in northern Gaza by controlling the Netzarim corridor, Israel has been able to scale back its force size in Gaza. Israel’s military Division 98, the main maneuver unit in Gaza, was moved to the north, providing the Israel Defense Forces both the means to prevent or defeat a Hezbollah invasion by land, including underground, border-crossing tunnels. Division 98 is also capable of carrying out incursions up to and including an invasion of southern Lebanon if so commanded.
Jerusalem’s intelligence capabilities have enabled it to carry out the most precise airstrikes in history. Almost no ordnance has been wasted or misdirected. Thanks to the experience Israel has garnered in Gaza over the past year, it has developed the capacity to give civilians an opportunity to vacate areas, including their apartments, housing missiles before striking, thus again, bringing the number of civilians killed nearly to zero.
It is hard to ignore the global implications of what is happening on the ground. It isn’t simply that Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s operations commander who was killed at the leadership meeting in Beirut, had a US $7 million FBI award on his head for his role in carrying out the 1983 bombings of the US embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 that murdered some 300 Americans, as well as 64 French paratroopers.
Hezbollah is the most powerful and well-seeded terror force in the world. Its operational and financial tentacles reach throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America. An Israeli victory would mean that Hezbollah’s threat worldwide would be massively diminished.
Then there is Iran. For the past four years, Iran has moved steadily towards completing its nuclear weapons program. It is widely considered a threshold nuclear state. It is suspected of adapting its missile force to carry nuclear warheads. To date, Hezbollah has served as Iran’s protector. By using the prospect of an all-out combined missile strike and ground invasion of Israel from Lebanon as a deterrent, Iran was able to deter Israel from striking its missile and nuclear installations or its oil platforms. Now with Hezbollah in the most vulnerable and weakest position it has suffered in decades—and Hamas effectively defeated as an offensive force—Iran faces the specter of an Israel free to destroy its nuclear and regional hegemonic ambitions.
International Law Turned on its Head
And this brings us to the second half of the screen. As Israel fights the free world’s fight against Iran and its terrorist forces, the nations of the world have congregated at the UNGA for their annual diplomatic lynch mob against the lone Jewish state. The UNGA opened last week by passing a resolution demanding that Israel remove 800,000 citizens from their homes in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria within a year and transfer their communities to the Palestinian Authority [PA], which shares the goal of Iran and its other proxies to annihilate Israel.
If Israel fails to abide by the UN dictate, or even if it does, the resolution calls on the UN member states to enact an arms embargo on Israel. António Guterres, the UN’s Israel-hating secretary-general helpfully proclaimed that he will use his powers of office to enforce the resolution.
It was all downhill from there. At the UN, in Paris, in Washington, policymakers and lawmakers have spared no effort to demonize Israel. President Joe Biden and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan [MBZ], president of the United Arab Emirates, met in Washington on Monday. Rather than congratulate (or thank) Israel for systematically removing the gravest threats to the stability and security of the Middle East, including to the UAE and the US, Biden and MBZ focused their statements on demanding that Israel move to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria—and Jerusalem.
All of those clamoring to declare Israel the enemy of all that is good, and Hezbollah and Hamas as the good guys, predicate their condemnations on an entirely imaginary version of international law that turns morality and the very concept of legality on their heads to punish defenders—or one specific defender, Israel—and reward aggressors.
The dissonance between the reality on the ground and the diplomatic assault on Israel—now joined by nearly every nation on earth at the UN—presents Israel with an epic quandary.
Obviously, it cannot scale back the level or nature of the assault with reason. People cannot be reasoned out of positions they weren’t reasoned into. The international community’s hostility towards Israel owes to a poisonous mix of political expedience, greed, opportunism and prejudice.
And so, we come to the quandary. Can Israel afford to ignore these forces and just fight to victory or not?
The Biden administration and its comrades at the UN are betting that Israel will decide that it cannot afford to ignore these voices. But in reaching this conclusion, they ignore the one overriding factor that has informed Israel’s actions since October 7.
This is a war for Israel’s survival. Israelis back this war because they understand that the lesson of October 7 is that the can has been kicked to the end of the road. Claims that we can stop and pick up where we left off in a year or so fall like artillery duds. No one will accept them because no one can accept them. It is literally now or never.
And so the UN and the US, and their diplomatic lynch mob, will be ignored. Maybe the diplomatic chips falling today can be picked up at a later date. But this war must be won. And after the stunning successes in Lebanon, more and more Israelis are reinforced in their conviction that it is being won.
Photo Credit: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images/jns.org
Prayer Focus
Petition the Lord on behalf of Israel’s government, asking that they would remain steadfast in the pursuit of total victory over their enemies, even as they face opposition from nearly all of the world’s leaders. Pray that they would put their trust in the God of their forefathers and not be moved by the intimidation of the international community.
Scripture
He will not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
Hezbollah Devices Detonated Individually to Spare Civilians
by JNS
Hezbollah has attacked Israel nearly daily since October 8, 2023, firing thousands of rockets, missiles and drones.
Monday, 23 September 2024 | Each of the Hezbollah communication devices that exploded in Lebanon last week was individually detonated, with Israeli intelligence knowing exactly which terrorist operative was being targeted, his location, and whether others were in close proximity, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Saturday night.
Citing Israeli and foreign sources, the channel said that Jerusalem went to great lengths to ensure that only Hezbollah terrorists carrying the devices would be hurt.
Thousands of terrorists were wounded and dozens were killed in the mass pager and radio communication blasts that rocked Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, with the Iranian-backed terrorist organization immediately blaming the Jewish state for both attacks.
The Israel Defense Forces [IDF] has declined to comment on the two waves of explosions—the first of which came hours after the Israeli Cabinet added the return of residents displaced from their homes in the north to the country’s war goals, bringing a major clash with Hezbollah closer.
“Each pager had its own arrangements. That’s how it was possible to control who was hit and who wasn’t,” Channel 12 News quoted an anonymous “foreign security source” as saying.
“They knew who he was with and where he was, so that the vegetable seller in the supermarket would not be hurt” when a device exploded on the Hezbollah man next to him, the source said, in reference to footage in which a terrorist was apparently blown up by his pager in a supermarket aisle.
The report said that Israel manufactured tens of thousands of pagers with the knowledge they would be thoroughly examined by Hezbollah, including through inspections by sniffer dogs searching for explosives.
Ronen Bergman, a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine and Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth, told Channel 12 that the operation started during a previous government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and under the direction of Mossad director Yossi Cohen, who led the intelligence agency between 2016 and 2021.
Bergman said that the entire project was devised by a young female intelligence operative stationed “somewhere in the Middle East.”
Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin, who headed the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate between 2006 and 2010, said Jerusalem’s goal was to cause Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to realize that his attacks on Israel “are costing him more than he’s gaining,” including his support in Lebanon.
For this reason, the outcome where thousands of Hezbollah terrorists were severely wounded rather than killed was regarded as “preferable” by Jerusalem, due to the pressure this placed on Lebanon’s hospitals, which it hoped would raise domestic opposition to Hezbollah.
A foreign source said that the sophistication of last week’s attack was “relatively low-level” and that Israel still has more dramatic abilities.
After the report aired on Saturday night, Eyal Hulata, who was Israel’s national security adviser from August 2021 to January 2023, confirmed that “there are more capabilities like these,” saying that thousands of Israelis had been working for years to thwart Iran’s regional proxies.
Hulata’s comment echoed remarks by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday, when he said that the Jewish state has “many capabilities that we have not yet activated, I repeat, we have not yet activated.”
The IDF is making “excellent achievements together with the Shin Bet [Israeli internal security organization], together with the Mossad,” Gallant said.
“The prime minister, the [IDF] chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet, of the Mossad, and the defense minister, all of them are participating in a joint effort, with one goal in mind, to bring the residents back home,” he added.
Hezbollah has attacked Israel nearly daily since October 8, 2023, firing thousands of rockets, missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 40 people and caused widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain internally displaced due to the violence.
Three people were wounded on Sunday morning when Hezbollah fired 85 projectiles across the border in what it said was in response to the pager attacks.
Hezbollah took responsibility for the launches, stating that it had sent “dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles” at the Ramat David Airbase and a Rafael Advanced Defense Systems facility near Haifa. This reportedly was the first time since October 8 that it has used this type of weapon.
Photo Credit: Maudslay II/Wikimedia.org
Source: Wikimedia
Prayer Focus
Pray that the world will recognize the Jewish regard for life exhibited in this extraordinary military mission which specifically targeted active terrorists while preserving the lives of innocent bystanders. Give thanks to the Lord that He bestowed on His people the creativity needed for this innovative operation.
Scripture
Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.
All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. All other materials are property of Bridges for Peace. Copyright © 2024.
Website Site Design by J-Town Internet Services Ltd. - Based in Jerusalem and Serving the World.
