U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reiterated on Thursday Washington’s commitment to upholding Israel’s security, as the IDF continued preparations for an expected Iranian attack on the home front. Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “to reiterate ironclad U.S. support for Israel’s defense in the face of growing threats from Iran and its regional proxies,” according to a Pentagon readout of their call.
“Echoing President [Joe] Biden’s unequivocal message to Israeli Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, Secretary Austin assured Minister Gallant that Israel could count on full U.S. support to defend Israel against Iranian attacks, which Tehran has publicly threatened,” added the statement.
On Wednesday, Biden said his administration was committed to backing Israel amid reports of an imminent Iranian attack.
“As I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad,” said Biden.
“Let me say it again, ironclad. We’re going to do all we can to protect Israel’s security,” he added.
Washington and its allies believe a major attack on Israel by Iran has become a matter of when, not if, following the killing of an Iranian general in Syria on April 1, which Tehran blamed on the Jewish state.
Israel has not officially taken responsibility for the attack in Damascus which killed Brig. Gen. Mohammad Zahedi, but four officials told The New York Times last week that Jerusalem ordered the strike.
On Thursday, Austin and Gallant “discussed readiness for an Iranian attack against the State of Israel, which could lead to regional escalation… [and] require an appropriate Israeli response,” according to an Israeli readout.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees the Middle East, arrived in Israel on Thursday to coordinate with the Israel Defense Forces regarding a possible attack.
Jerusalem is preparing for a strike in the next 24 to 48 hours, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing U.S. intelligence.
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem announced on Thursday that “out of an abundance of caution,” government employees and their family members can only travel for personal reasons in the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beersheva areas “until further notice.”
On Thursday evening, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that Israel was “highly prepared for various scenarios, and we are constantly assessing the situation. We are ready on offense and defense using various capabilities, and also with our strategic partners,” he added.
The Israel Defense Forces has been placed on high alert, resulting in combat soldiers’ weekend leaves being canceled, and the military calling up additional reserve soldiers to the IDF Aerial Defense Array.
Netanyahu said on Thursday that the Jewish state would respond in kind to any attack.
Speaking during a visit to the Tel Nof Air Base, he said, “We are in challenging times. We are in the midst of the war in Gaza, which is continuing at full force, even as we are continuing our relentless efforts to return our hostages.”
However, he continued, “We are also prepared for scenarios involving challenges in other sectors. We have determined a simple rule: Whoever harms us, we will harm them.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Tuesday there was no evidence Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians during the Hamas war in Gaza. Austin, appearing with Defense Comptroller Mike McCord and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. CQ Brown, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the president’s 2025 budget request for the Pentagon.
Pro-Palestinian protesters interrupted Austin several times while the secretary was reading his opening statement. During questioning, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., asked Austin whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being [committed],” said Austin, before Cotton repeated his question.
“We don’t have evidence of that to my knowledge,” Austin replied.
Cotton commended Austin for his answer, saying he was “better than [CIA] Director [William] Burns and [National Intelligence] Director [Avril] Haines did … last month at the Intelligence Committee when they dodged that question.”
Cotton then said Austin has been accused of “greenlighting genocide” and asked the secretary whether he wanted to respond to such accusations.
“What I would say, Sen. Cotton, from the very beginning, we committed to help assist Israel in defending its territory and its people by providing security assistance,” Austin said, “and I would remind everybody that what happened on Oct. 7 was absolutely horrible.
“Numbers of Israeli citizens killed, and then a couple of hundred Israeli citizens taken hostage … American citizens as well.”
“So you deny the accusation that you greenlit genocide,” Cotton asked.
“I absolutely deny it,” Austin said.
The Senate hearing was the first-time lawmakers on both sides were able to question the Pentagon’s top civilian and military leadership on the administration’s Israel strategy following Tel Aviv’s deadly strike on World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid workers in Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen strike led to a shift in tone from President Joe Biden on how Israel must protect civilian life in Gaza and drove dozens of House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to call on Biden to halt weapons transfers to Israel.
“Give me five minutes with a person’s checkbook,” the late Billy Graham remarked, “and I will tell you where their heart is.”
That famous dictum is no longer true because… who uses checkbooks? But a modern corollary is now applicable: “Show me the podcasts you follow in your feed and actually listen to, and I’ll tell you whether you are genuinely informed about ____.”
Podcasts have become an alternative to news programs—network, cable or on the radio—and to newspapers. Sports pods came first as fans of specific franchises are “super consumers” of news and analysis of the clubs they follow. My feed is full of Cleveland sports for example: “Terry’s Talkin’” with Terry Pluto and David Campbell of Cleveland.com, along with “Orange and Brown Talk” and “Buckeye Talk” from the same platform with different hosts who cover the Cleveland Browns and The Ohio State University Buckeyes football have been in my podcast feed the longest.
An Israeli soldier on top of a tank on the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Sunday, March 17, 2024. (AP)
Also on the feed is the relatively new “Kings of the North” pod, hosted by Doug Lesmaires and Bill Landis, which has forged a concept that “northern” college football deserved its own pod—as opposed to, say, dreaded SEC pods that don’t understand that the best college football is played north of Tennessee. It’s quite entertaining, as well as my other regular sports pods. That’s what the best sports pods are: entertaining and informative.
Of political and general news pods, there are now thousands competing with sports pods. I enjoy “Getting Hammered” with Mary Katharine Ham and Vic Matus because it is funny and topical, and I feel like I am listening in to conversations my adult children might be having. It does cover some news, but mostly it provides a dive into the informed perspectives on the news of a different age cohort.
But if the subject you are interested in is Israel’s war in Gaza, and quite likely the imminent, much expanded battle between the IDF and Hezbollah on the northern border of the Jewish state, you have to be much more selective.
Thus, I have become a daily listener to the Times of Israel’s The Daily Briefing (especially when the platform’s senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur is a guest) and it’s “What Matters Now” pod which also often features Rettig Gur, who has become something of a must-listen to interpreter of the war for non-Israelis.
I discovered Rettig Gur on the “Call Me Back” podcast hosted by Dan Senor, a pod on which Senor interviews key observers of the war in Gaza and the likelihood of another front that exploded in intensity in the north. Senor is an American who seems to know pretty much every journalist and many officials in Israel.
Senor’s March 21 interview of Israeli War Cabinet member Ron Dermer was perhaps the first “strategic” pod I have listened to. Dermer quite obviously had many messages to deliver from the War Cabinet to the American public that supports Israel’s war. He picked Senor’s pod because he wanted to speak to that audience specifically. It was a wise choice. Senor is a seasoned interviewer but, in this episode, like almost every other episode, Senor is eliciting information, not dealing out his opinions.
Finally, I’m not Jewish, but I am also not blind to the surge in antisemitism in the United States to truly staggering levels, so I make a habit of listening to every “Commentary” pod that appears as well as relevant ones from The Free Press, the platform pioneered by Bari Weiss which has exploded in popularity as an alternative to legacy media.
The latter is usually a new take with a new voice on most episodes, but the Commentary pod has a recurring format: Editor-in-chief of Commentary Magazine John Podhoretz leads a daily conversation with his Executive Editor Abe Greenwald and two or three of his key contributors—Matt Continetti, Seth Mandel and Christine Rosen—through every aspect of Israel’s war and its impact on Jewish Americans of the antisemitic Krakatoa that went off in the states after 10/7, as well as a good mix of domestic American politics as campaign 2024 heads into its third turn.
Bari Weiss launched The Free Press, an important alternative to the legacy media. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
What “JPod,” as Podhoretz is known online and off, does is simply run through the current developments with his gang of very, very smart voices—say, a focus on the abstention of the U.S. on last week’s Security Council Resolution decoupling a ceasefire from release of the hostages or on the views of American Jewry on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Commentary pod also welcomes guests like Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, Eli Lake or Eliana Johnson. They also welcome—wait for it—the remarkable Rettig Gur now and again.
Finally, I make a point to listen to Donniel Hartman, 66, and Yossi Klein Halevi, 71, on their “For Heaven’s Sake” pod, whenever it appears, because these are two very smart old Israeli friends who are public intellectuals of great reputation in Israel who seem to me to be left and center-left (and both anti-Netanyahu) and thus certain to introduce me to some Israeli thinking that isn’t necessarily going to make it into news reports I ordinarily read. They also represent voices from my age cohort with references throughout to their 50-plus years of Israeli history and politics.
Bottom line, I’d have half as many facts and views of the war if I only listened to two of these four podcasts focused mostly on Israel’s war of survival. If I relied only on American legacy media, I would have a terribly distorted view of the war and would be blind and dumb to vast amounts of crucial data about the war.
Thus, on Friday’s night “Special Report”—Gillian Turner sitting in for Bret Baier—the “Winners and Losers of the Week” segment came up, and I rattled off these pods as the “winners of the week” because of their collective coverage of this terrible but necessary war. I recommend all four of them to you because so much of the coverage of the war in Gaza and what seems likely to be a war in Lebanon requires a lot of information and assessment that most reporters and pundits simply don’t have the time to acquire.
Give me five minutes with your podcast feed, and I’ll know not just your passions, but probably your point of view on politics generally and whether or not you are in a position to even articulate an informed opinion on the war that Israel is waging. Give them all a try. Start, perhaps with Senor’s conversation with Dermer from last week and his latest interview or Rettig Gur which posted early Monday morning in the U.S.
I would be happy to listen to a pod that was news from the Palestinian point of view, but I am afraid there just isn’t anything that can be relied on given Hamas’ stranglehold on Gaza’s Arab population. If you have a suggestion, leave it in the comments. I’ll give any serious pod a chance. But if you are an American journalist or elected official who is commenting on the war without reference to the Israeli point of view—not just the government’s positions and statements but the Israeli public’s almost completely United attitude towards the war—perhaps say nothing until you are least informed of the facts in Gaza and on the northern border. To get those facts, you are going to have to go in harms way and out of your American news comfort zones.
Try it. You may not change your mind, but at least you will be less in danger of holding a risible opinion untethered to the reality of the situation in Israel.
Hugh Hewitt is one of the country’s leading journalists of the center-right. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990, and it is today syndicated to hundreds of stations and outlets across the country every Monday through Friday morning. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and this column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio show today.
American student anti-Israeli protesters need to reflect on their attitude toward Israel and the Jews. The slogan “from the river to the sea” is basically calling for the extermination of Jews. They seem to have more sympathy toward the terrorist organization that murdered 1400 innocent men, women, and children than they do for the victims.
Berkeley: Anti-Israel Protesters Call Jews “Zionist Pigs,” Heckle Holocaust Survivor and Chant “From the River to the Sea” at City Council Meeting (VIDEO)
By Jim Hoft – March 29, 2024
Radical pro-Palestinian protesters heckled Holocaust survivor Susanne DeWitt, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor and called Jews “Zionist Pigs” during a City Council meeting in Berkeley, California this week. The Jew-haters also chanted “from the river to the sea” a famous expression in support of the extermination of Jews in Israel during the meeting.
Susanne DeWitt was speaking in favor of Berkeley’s Holocaust Remembrance Day when the protesters continued to disrupt her and would not let her finish.
The mob action was captured by The Jewish Community Relations Council. READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
President Joe Biden won most of the delegates up for grabs in the Democrat presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, but the sizable number of votes cast against him in favor of an “uncommitted” option confirm how much sway the loudest, most radical wings of the party have.
Anti-Israel Democrats launched a campaign to vote “uncommitted” or “no preference” (casting a vote for no candidate) out of frustration that Biden’s position toward Israel is insufficiently supportive of Hamas-run Gaza. After gaining traction in Michigan last week, the protest vote — which seeks to use “uncommitted” Democrat votes to call for Biden to oppose Israel’s military response following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks — won close to 19 percent of Democrat primary voters in Minnesota and 12.7 percent in North Carolina, according to the Associated Press. The campaign pulled single-digit percentages of voters in states including Alabama, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Tennessee.
“Democrats are really frustrated,” said Jaylani Hussein, co-chair of Uncommitted Vote Minnesota, on ABC News. “Now it’s starting to cost him immensely.”
“The policy of this war is untenable and it will have consequences, not only for down-ballots but hopefully also in the upcoming election,” he added. “We understand the consequences of leaving the party that we voted for, or the president that we voted for.”
Groups like Abandon Biden, formed by Muslim Americans calling Israel’s response against Hamas a “genocide,” and Our Revolution, which sprung up from Bernie Sanders’ failed 2016 presidential campaign, are supporting the effort. Last Tuesday, “uncommitted” won more than 13 percent of Michigan Democrats.
“The ‘Vote Uncommitted’ movement is growing, and voters continue to make themselves heard,” Our Revolution Director Joseph Geevarghese wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, Tuesday. “There is no unconditional support for President Biden, not without an unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.”
The Democratic Socialists of America endorsed the “uncommitted” effort March 3. The group is planning phone banks in support and posted Tuesday night that they have “big pushes coming up in WA, WI and beyond.”
Vice President Kamala Harris called for a ceasefire Sunday, but this was apparently not enough to win over the anti-Israel groups. Meanwhile Democrat and known antisemite Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents Minnesota where the movement gained the most, has been attacking Biden’s policy on the conflict.
Biden’s unpopularity Super Tuesday went even beyond the mainland. He lost the primary in American Samoa to self-described entrepreneur Jason Palmer, who won with 56 percent, according to CNN.
“We are not supporting Donald Trump,” Hussein said. “As far as the consequences of having President Trump, that’s a reality that we’re willing to accept.”
Logan Washburn is studying politics and journalism at Hillsdale College. He serves as associate editor for the school paper, The Collegian, served as editorial assistant for Christopher Rufo, and has bylines in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller.
By Jewish News Syndicate Staff | Tuesday, 27 February 2024 07:43 AM EST
Senior Israeli officials said on Tuesday that they were unaware of any basis for U.S. President Joe Biden’s remarks on Monday that a hostage-for-cease-fire agreement in Gaza is imminent. During an unannounced visit to Van Leeuwen Ice Cream in Manhattan, near Rockefeller Plaza, Biden was asked about when a cease-fire in Gaza might start.
“I hope by the end of the weekend,” Biden said, per the pool report.
“My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. We’re close. We’re not done yet,” Biden said. “My hope is by next Monday, we’ll have a cease-fire.”
Ynet quoted the senior Israeli officials as saying on Tuesday morning that they do not understand “what the American president’s optimism is based on.”
The Hamas terrorist group also weighed in on Biden’s comments, with a source telling Reuters that the statement was premature and did not align with the situation on the ground. “There are still big gaps that need to be bridged before there is a cease-fire,” he said.
A spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that there has been no breakthrough in the negotiations that can be announced, while expressing that Doha is “optimistic” that a deal can be reached, even though Hamas and Israel don’t agree on any of the main issues. He added that Qatar has no intention of responding to Biden’s comments.
Reuters reported on Tuesday morning on the details of the proposal discussed at the Paris summit last weekend and submitted to Hamas for review. Citing a senior official privy to the details of the talks, the news agency reported that the proposal focuses on the first phase of the agreement, would last for 40 days and include the release of 10 Palestinian security prisoners for every Israeli hostage, which is seven more Palestinian terrorists freed per Israeli captive compared to the previous deal last November — 40 Israeli hostages in total for 400 Palestinian security prisoners in the first stage. Further, the Israeli captives include women, abductees aged 19 and under, adults aged 50 and over and sick captives.
Both sides will cease fire for 40 days and the IDF patrol flights over Gaza will stop for 8 hours a day. After the first phase, the IDF will gradually begin to withdraw its forces from dense areas of the Strip. Additionally, displaced Palestinians will gradually be allowed to return to the northern Gaza Strip, except for men of enlistment age for Hamas.
With regard to humanitarian aid, the proposal reportedly includes a commitment to bring in 500 aid trucks every day and to supply 200,000 tents and 60,000 trailers. Also, Gazans will be allowed to rehabilitate bakeries and hospitals.
According to The New York Times, the 40 captives to be released in the first phase in exchange for 15 Palestinian prisoners convicted of terror offenses would include five IDF soldiers and 35 civilians, including seven women who Israel believes should have been freed in the November deal. To release the seven women, Israel offered to release 21 Palestinian prisoners under the previous deal.Republished with permission from Jewish News Syndicate.
A push by President Joe Biden’s administration for a two-state solution is falling on deaf ears because Israel is winning the war against Hamas and could end it in less than a month, retired Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt said Monday on Newsmax.
“The Israelis are winning this war right now,” Holt said on “Wake Up America.” “Even Egypt is backing off. And when you’re winning a war, you don’t tend to look at your ally and say, ‘Oh, we’ll stop fighting now.’ They’re going to victory, and then they’re going on their way to Hezbollah.”
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) rejected the latest Hamas calls for a cease-fire as it prepares for a final invasion of Rafah, giving the terrorists until March 10 to release the remaining hostages, which are estimated to be in the range of 100 that have yet to be confirmed dead.
“I think what the March 10 thing looks like is: We’re going to continue to prepare the battle space and take care of as many civilians as we possibly can in advance of March 10; we’ll get people diverted, replace them as we prepare for this onslaught, because this is the final push,” Holt said of the Israel position.
“This is no more than the IDF just saying we’re going to take care of civilians, and while we do, you should reconsider your position on the hostages.”
Israel has long condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack and taking of hostages as human shields to use as leverage for its long-sought statehood, brought on by acts of barbaric terrorism.
“I’m not certain if Hamas has any ability whatsoever to do a thing about the hostages, whether they have control over them, whether they’re alive, and what that means, because the International Red Cross and other groups have not produced one ounce of proof of life,” Holt said. “But I think March 10 militarily means we’re going to close the curtain on this chapter of this war.”
Holt said Israel and world leaders have little fear in telling the Biden administration to stay out of their war decisions.
“Openly and on the world stage, you’ve got states now telling the United States and this administration in particular: ‘You’re not going to bully us; you’re not going to – just because you have a political problem at home with your own elections doesn’t mean you get to inflict political damage here in our country where we’ve endured horrific, barbaric attacks that are unprecedented in the modern age and that we would somehow reward the Palestinians’ – who three times by the way rejected a two-state solution, because they want a one-state solution where Israel is driven into the sea, in their words only,” Holt said.
“The administration, its academics, it’s nonpractitioners – it’s folks who know zero about warfare and geopolitics – are looking at polls here domestically with the Arab populations that they have lost for voters.
“They’ve certainly lost a lot of the Jewish vote, and they’re looking at how to fix it. And they want to fix it on the backs of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and the Israelis, and it’s quite sick.”
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Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
President Joe Biden’s policies arguably strengthened Iran’s proxies in the Middle East, including the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Pictured: Thousands of Houthi supporters, holding Yemeni and Palestinian flags, gather Feb. 9 at Sebin Square to stage a solidarity demonstration with Palestinians and protest in Sanaa, Yemen, against Israel’s efforts to eradicate the Hamas terrorist group in the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu/Getty Images)
Not only has the president empowered Iran by relaxing former President Donald Trump’s sanctions on the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism, but he has also empowered Iran’s proxies through various geopolitical moves that make war more likely. Biden is not alone; previous administrations have directed funds to ostensible U.S. allies in the region, funds that likely contribute to the proxies’ forces.
Biden’s relaxation of Trump-era sanctions netted Tehran at least $77 billion, some of which Iran directs to proxies across the region. Yet the president’s other policies also emboldened Iran’s proxies, who have attacked Israel, U.S. forces, and global shipping since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel.
“We have enabled and fed our enemies and constricted our friends,” Rob Greenway, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told The Daily Signal. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)
Greenway, who orchestrated Trump’s sanctions against Tehran, warned that Biden’s policies have “strategically appeased Iran.”
Benham Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow focused on Iran at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told The Daily Signal that Iran has propped up proxies that represent “a state within a state,” exploiting instability in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen to “benefit from the largesse of U.S. policy.”
Taleblu notes that this poses a “philosophical problem” for America, which funds Iraq and Lebanon, even though it cannot prevent those governments from funneling that money to Iran’s proxies in their countries. Iran excels at “indigenizing the capabilities” of its allies by partnering with groups that have already arisen in another country.
Neither the White House nor the State Department provided comments for this article.
1. The Houthis
The Iran-backed Houthi movement, a Shiite militant group in Yemen, adopted the slogan “God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam.” The Houthis took control of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital city, in 2014, pushing the country’s then-president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, to the east. Hadi and his successor, Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi, enjoy support from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
During the Trump administration, the U.S. provided billions of dollars worth of arms to the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis in Yemen. Trump vetoed a bill to block this funding in 2019. Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, designated the Houthis a terrorist group in 2021.
Under Biden, however, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reversed the terrorist designation in a move the administration framed as intended to “alleviate or at least not worsen the suffering of the Yemeni civilians who live under Houthi control.”
In February 2021, Biden announced: “We are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales.”
The Houthis have repeatedly fired on international commercial shipping since mid-November, mostly targeting vessels with commercial ties to the U.S., Britain, or Israel. These attacks have prompted many companies to reroute ships to avoid the Red Sea, which offers a quicker, more direct route for global trade; the companies take the longer, more expensive route around Africa.
Since Jan. 11, U.S. and British planes have carried out retaliatory strikes across Yemen to respond to the Houthi attacks.
Greenway, the Heritage expert, warned that “Yemen aid is also invariably being diverted to the Houthis.”
He said the terrorists “create the humanitarian crisis, demand aid, and divert aid,” in a vicious spiral.
Last month, the Biden administration moved to redesignate the Houthis as a terrorist group, though it stopped short of the harsher designation Pompeo had used. Trump’s secretary of state had put the Houthis on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, which bars members’ entry into the U.S. and enables the freezing of any Houthi assets in the U.S., among other things.
Blinken, by contrast, announced on Jan. 17 that the State Department would consider the Houthis a “specially designated global terrorist group” after a 30-day delay in which the U.S. would try to facilitate “humanitarian assistance” to Yemenis.
Edem Wosornu, the United Nations’ aid operations director, warned Wednesday against designating the Houthis as a terrorist group, saying the move may harm “Yemen’s already fragile economy.”
Rich Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies who previously directed a Trump White House program to counter Iran’s development of nuclear weapons, called Blinken’s forthcoming sanctions on the Houthis “toothless,” noting that they include “five broad general exemptions.”
Goldberg mentioned Saudi Arabia’s truce with Iran last year, which he said involved the Saudis “basically buying off the Houthis and the Iranians in exchange for the Houthis stopping drone strikes.”
Goldberg told The Daily Signal that the Biden administration sent Saudi Arabia many signals that it wouldn’t back Riyadh when facing Iran’s provocations.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman “decided there is no U.S. support, the U.S. is pumping money into threats attacking Saudi Arabia, so they need to cut their own deal with the Iranians to protect themselves,” Goldberg said.
The Saudis are pouring an “unknown amount” of money into Yemen, he said.
Ben Taleblu, the other senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, warned that the Houthis have “some of the most damning” missile capabilities of any Iran proxies. He noted that the Houthis launched the medium-range Burkan-3 ballistic missile for the first time in 2019.
2. UNRWA and Hamas
Biden restored funding that may have directly contributed to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, when Hamas terrorists brutally massacred at least 1,200 Israelis, including raping women and murdering babies, and taking hundreds hostage.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East portrays itself as an aid organization, but the Israel Defense Forces provided evidence that 12 UNRWA employees took part in the Oct. 7 massacre. The U.S., Germany, Britain, and seven other countries cut off UNRWA aid after the revelations surfaced late last month.
Israel revealed Sunday that Hamas operated a tunnel right underneath UNRWA’s headquarters in Gaza City. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini insisted that the U.N. agency “did not know what is under its headquarters.” He said the agency left its headquarters Oct. 12, five days after Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel.
In 2014, however, part of the parking lot at the UNRWA headquarters began to sink, likely because of a Hamas tunnel underneath, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“No one talked about what was causing the collapse,” a former UNRWA official said, according to the Journal. “But everyone knew.”
U.N. Watch’s Hillel Neuer revealed what he claimed to be a chat group with 3,000 UNRWA teachers celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Neuer testified that U.N. leaders “could not possibly have been shocked that UNRWA employees are implicated in terrorism,” because his organization sent them reports in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021.
In 2018, the State Department under Trump announced that the U.S. would stop contributing to UNRWA, noting that the U.S. had shouldered a “very disproportionate share” of the burden and criticizing the U.N. relief agency’s “business model and fiscal practices” as “simply unsustainable.”
In 2021, the Biden administration announced plans to provide $235 million to UNRWA, restoring part of the approximately $360 million that the U.N. agency would have expected if the U.S. had not cut off funding in 2018.
It remains unclear how much of this money went to Hamas or to UNRWA employees who may have helped Hamas on Oct. 7.
“Hezbollah is a threat 10 times larger than Hamas, with long-range capabilities, precision-guided munitions, [unmanned aerial vehicles], and the ability to inflict far more damage on Israel than we’ve seen Hamas do even on Oct. 7,” Goldberg, the senior adviser at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told The Daily Signal.
Hezbollah started a war on July 12, 2006, when militants captured two members of an Israel Defense Forces patrol inside Israel and killed the other three. Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel as a diversion. After Israel responded with rockets, a ground invasion, and a blockade, the United Nations negotiated a cease-fire.
The United Nations approved, and both Israel and Lebanon agreed to, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which, among other things, requires Hezbollah to disarm and withdraw its forces north of the Litani River. That river is about 19 miles north of Israel’s border with Lebanon.
The U.S. has spent billions of dollars over decades funding both the Lebanese Armed Forces and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, a “temporary” U.N. peacekeeping body established in 1978. Resolution 1701 states that the U.N.’s Lebanon force must disarm Hezbollah south of the Litani River, yet to this day, Hezbollah has armed forces south of that river.
“The return on investment is quite negative for the U.S. taxpayer in Lebanon these last two decades,” Goldberg said. “The threat has metastasized to such a degree that Israel is almost deterred from action in a full-scale attack on Hezbollah, and potentially deterred from action against Iran and its nuclear program.”
According to leaks following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, Biden warned Israel against launching a preemptive strike against Hezbollah. “Now we see Hezbollah’s ramped up,” Goldberg noted.
Since Oct. 7, Hezbollah has attacked Israeli outposts along the Lebanese border and launched rockets into Israel. The Jewish state has evacuated tens of thousands of civilians from Israeli villages and towns near the border with Lebanon, fearing an Oct. 7-style attack from the north. Israel has demanded that Hezbollah abide by the terms of Resolution 1701.
A Biden envoy, Amos Hochstein, has been negotiating in the region. According to Axios’ Barak Ravid, earlier this month Hochstein presented a peace proposal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The proposal wouldn’t require Hezbollah to move its forces north of the Litani River but only 5 to 6 miles from the Israeli border, with the Lebanese Armed Forces filling in.
Hezbollah has already moved most of its elite Radwan force north of this line. Israel would have to pull forces away from the border and move its jets out of Lebanese airspace. Western powers also would send money to Lebanon to sweeten the deal for Hezbollah.
Goldberg denounced the plan as a “bag of magic beans.” He noted that the plan doesn’t explain how fighters who live in southern Lebanese towns would be forced to leave, or how Israel could verify that missiles had been moved from under schools, homes, and hospitals in southern Lebanon.
“Who would ensure Hezbollah can’t come in to attack Israel?” Goldberg asked. “It will be the LAF and UNIFIL. That’s ludicrous after 17 years of teaching us that they will not do anything to stop Hezbollah.”
He was referring to the Lebanese Armed Forces and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has “taken effective political control of the country,” so the LAF does not represent any sort of check on Hezbollah, Goldberg said.
“In exchange for giving Israel no sense of security, there reportedly will also be a massive bailout of the Lebanese economy, and an Israeli commitment to negotiate giving up territory on the Lebanese border,” he said. “It’s completely insane.”
Israel needs the ability “to give residents of evacuated communities enough confidence to return to their homes” and to “prevent an Oct. 7-type invasion,” Goldberg argued, and this proposed deal doesn’t come close to meeting those goals.
The U.S. has generously funded the Lebanese army for years, with a slight, unexplained pause during the Trump administration.
“A lot of the money we give to the government of Lebanon goes to Hezbollah,” warned Greenway, director of Heritage’s Center for National Defense.
Goldberg noted that Congress knew the UNIFIL funding wasn’t deterring Hezbollah and yet continued to approve it, anyway.
“Going back to 2007, every year members of Congress wrote letters about the enforcement of [Resolution] 1701,” Goldberg said, specifying that many lawmakers demanded answers from the administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump, and Biden. “It has been a bipartisan failure for years.”
Goldberg noted that the Trump administration attempted to “start enforcing congressionally mandated Hezbollah sanctions” and that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the Justice Department reopened investigations into the terrorist group that were closed during the Obama administration.
“You haven’t heard anything on cracking down on Hezbollah since Joe Biden took office,” Goldberg said.
Hezbollah released videos in July 2023 showing how the terrorist group prepared for a multipoint invasion to kill and capture Israelis in Israel, Goldberg noted, adding that these videos “look like Oct. 7, only they’re set in Northern Israel, not on the Gaza border.”
“Hamas executed a plan that Hezbollah created,” he said.
4. Iran-Backed Militias in Iraq
The U.S. launched airstrikes on Feb. 2 targeting al Hashd al Shabi, an Iran-linked militia and part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, following a Jan. 28 drone attack on the military base Tower 22 in Jordan that killed three American service members.
Heritage’s Greenway explained that the government of Iraq “owns” the Popular Mobilization Forces, but Iran effectively controls them. The U.S. has supplied $10 billion or more each year to Baghdad on semimonthly cargo flights carrying massive pallets of cash, drawn from Iraqi oil sales proceeds deposited at the Federal Reserve, The Wall Street Journal reported. It remains unclear how much of this money goes to Iran-backed militias.
Greenway warned that the Popular Mobilization Forces—an umbrella organization of about 67 diverse militias—are often “bigger than the army, and most groups are under Iran specifically and are designated terrorist groups.”
He also argued that when the U.S. allows Iraq to send money to Iran in exchange for natural gas, these electricity payments constitute a form of money laundering. (The State Department in November extended a waiver allowing Iran to sell electricity to Iraq and use the money to purchase goods overseas.)
As of 2022, Iraq was the world’s fifth-largest oil producer, producing 4.61 million barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Yet Iraq imports electricity from its eastern neighbor.
“A major oil producer importing electricity? It’s the stupidest thing in the world,” Greenway previously told The Daily Signal. “Iraq deliberately decides they need electricity and it won’t bring in countries to improve its electric grid.”
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella term for pro-Iran Shiite Islamist insurgents in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the Jan. 28 attack on the military base. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq is an ally of the Popular Mobilization Forces.
Taleblu, the expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, explained that the Iran-backed militias in Iraq started the Islamic Resistance in Iraq as an “umbrella group designed to further hinder attribution” for attacks.
When Islamic Resistance in Iraq takes responsibility for attacks like the one Jan. 28, it prevents the U.S. and allies from identifying which specific militia carried out the attack, Taleblu said. He described the resistance group as a “proxy for the proxies” of Iran.
For his part, Goldberg noted that the Trump administration attempted to start “squeezing Baghdad to stop financing these militias using U.S. cash.” But its efforts largely failed, he said, due to opposition from within the Defense Department, which sees the militias as allies against the Islamic State terrorist group.
Biden’s Vision for Iran
Why does Biden seem intent on helping Iran? Goldberg attributed the Biden administration’s policy to a balance-of-powers mentality that sees U.S. intervention as the major threat to Middle East peace.
“There is a worldview that in order to create an equilibrium in the Middle East that avoids conflict, you have to empower Iran to be an equal of the Sunnis and Israel,” he said. “Once they have a mutually assured destruction going on, the U.S. can pull out of the Middle East.”
“It’s a completely extremist, nonserious, ideologically fringe worldview, driven by the belief that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not an enemy but an enemy we have created,” Goldberg said.
If Biden wants to avoid a wider war in the Middle East, he needs to take action to deter Iran’s proxies. Unfortunately, the president’s policies seem to have done the opposite so far, perhaps even by design.
President Joe Biden’s political rhetoric aimed at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues, but it also is failing to move Israel on ceasing its war on Hamas in Gaza. Despite being an ally locked in war, Biden has been reportedly unkind to his Israeli counterpart, calling Netanyahu an “a**hole” behind closed doors — all while claiming publicly he close, sources told NBC News.
A week after reports saying Biden privately considers Netanyahu a “bad f**king guy,” sources say Netanyahu is “giving him hell.” Late last week, Biden denounced the Israeli war operations in Gaza as “over the top.”
Notably, there has been no reports of Biden cursing out Hamas terrorists or the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror Iran, anonymously or otherwise.
This all comes as the Biden administration continues to press a two-state solution, giving Gaza a Palestinian state after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, while Netanyahu has continued to press forward, vowing “total victory” over Hamas.
Netanyahu is Biden’s “primary obstacle” to keeping Israel from the prime minister’s secondary war objective of eradicating Hamas, officials told NBC.
But, since Israel’s war on Hamas began, Netanyahu has been steadfast in achieving three objectives:
Return all of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas terrorists as human shields and leverage for a Palestinian state, as Israeli officials told Newsmax
Eradicate the Hamas terrorist network and leadership, including worldwide
Demilitarize and deradicalize the anti-Israeli Palestinian population in Gaza
Only after those three objectives are met can there be peace in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, according to Netanyahu, who is also called “Bibi.”
But Biden remains undaunted on Israel’s war objectives, instead facing pressure in the U.S. to get nearly $10 billion in funding for Gaza and far-left agitators calling for sanctions on Israel for its strikes against Hamas.
“He did say, ‘Bibi started off great, but he’s been a pain in my ass lately’ or ‘he’s been killing me lately’ — one of those things,” a source told NBC News. “He goes, ‘But, he’s doing a disservice … of late.'”
Biden’s inability to stop Israel has been a point of contention in private conversations with two-state advocates and campaign officials, sources told NBC.
“He just feels like this is enough,” one source said. “It has to stop.”
The rejection of the Israeli prime minister over political and policy differences could be construed as anti-Israel, so Biden administration officials have tried to tamp down talk of a personal rift.
“The president has been clear where he disagrees with Prime Minister Netanyahu, but this is a decadeslong relationship that is respectful in public and in private,” a National Security Council spokesman wrote in a statement, according to NBC News.
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
Yesterday, a reporter standing outside the Senate chamber told me that after four months of secrecy, The Firm™️ plans to release the text of the $106 billion supplemental aid/border-security package — possibly as soon as today. Wasting no time, she then asked, “If you get the bill by tomorrow, will you be ready to vote on it by Tuesday?”
The words “hell no” escaped my mouth before I could stop them. Those are strong words where I come from. (Sorry, Mom.)
The reporter immediately understood that my frustration was not directed at her. Rather, it was directed at the Law Firm of Schumer & McConnell (The Firm™️), which is perpetually trying to normalize a corrupt approach to legislating, in which The Firm™️:
Spends months drafting legislation in complete secrecy
Aggressively markets that legislation based not on its details and practical implications (good and bad), but only on its broadest, least-controversial objectives
Lets members see bill text for the first time only a few days (sometimes a few hours) before an arbitrary deadline imposed by The Firm™️ itself, always with a contrived sense of urgency
Forces a vote on the legislation on or before that deadline, denying senators any real opportunity to read, digest, and debate the measure on its merits, much less introduce, consider, and vote on amendments to fix any perceived problems with the bill or otherwise improve it.
Whenever The Firm™️ engages in this practice, it largely excludes nearly every senator from the constitutionally prescribed process in which all senators are supposed to participate. By so doing, The Firm™️ effectively disenfranchises hundreds of millions of Americans — at least for purposes relevant to the legislation at hand — and that’s tragic. It’s also un-American, uncivil, uncollegial, and really uncool.
So why does The Firm™️ do it?
Every time The Firm™️ utilizes this approach and the bill passes — and it nearly always does — The Firm™️ becomes more powerful.
The high success rate is largely attributable to the fact that The Firm™️ has become very adept at (a) enlisting the help of the (freakishly cooperative) corporate media, (b) exerting peer pressure in a way that makes what you experienced in middle school look mild by comparison, and (c) rewarding those who consistently vote with The Firm™️ with various privileges that The Firm™️ is uniquely capable of offering, such as committee assignments, help with campaign fundraising, and a whole host of other widely coveted things that The Firm™️ is free to distribute in any manner it pleases.
It’s through this process that The Firm™️ passes most major spending legislation. And it’s through this process that The Firm™️ likely intends to pass the still-secret, $106 billion supplemental aid/border-security package, which The Firm™️ has spent four months negotiating with the luxury of obsessing over every sentence, word, period, and comma.
I still don’t know exactly what’s in this bill, although I have serious concerns with it based on the few details The Firm™️ has been willing to share. But under no circumstances should this bill — which would fund military operations in three distant parts of the world and make massive, permanent changes to immigration law — be passed next week.
Nor should it be passed until we have had adequate time to read the bill, discuss it with constituents, debate it, offer amendments, and vote on those amendments.
There’s no universe in which those things will happen by next week.
Depending on how long it is and the complexity of its provisions, the minimum period of time we should devote to this bill after it’s released should be measured in weeks or months, not days or hours.
The World Court ordered Israel on Friday to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinians and do more to help civilians, although it stopped short of ordering a ceasefire as requested by South Africa. South Africa brought the case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) earlier this month, asking it to grant emergency measures to halt the fighting, which has killed more than 26,000 Palestinians. It accused Israel of state-led genocide in its offensive, begun after Hamas militants stormed into Israel killing 1,200 and kidnapping more than 240. Israel sought to have the case thrown out.
In Friday’s ruling, the judges said Israel must take all measures within its power to prevent its troops from committing genocide, punish and must take steps to improve the humanitarian situation.
While the ICJ did not order a ceasefire, it said it would not throw out the genocide case, ruling that the Palestinians appeared to be a protected group under the 1948 Genocide Convention. It did not decide the merits of the genocide allegations. Israel has called South Africa’s allegations false and “grossly distorted,” and said it makes the utmost efforts to avoid civilian casualties.
“Ninety-one percent of Republicans support the building of the wall…”
That’s the policy and political reality behind the about-to-emerge “immigration compromise” negotiated between President Biden, Senate Democrats and a handful of Republican Senators. But it is the reality the Senate Republicans are about to ignore and not merely ignore, but actually demonstrate contempt for, and for the party that elected them.
The “supplemental” bill about to emerge promises to be a complete disaster for the GOP. One for the books. There is still time for Leader McConnell to lead a retrograde movement away from the fiasco.
McConnell has pulled off many miracles before. He’s the best legislative leader the GOP has had in my lifetime. He saved the Constitution with his refusal to allow hearings on the Supreme Court vacancy following the death of Justice Scalia. McConnell preserved the First Amendment through litigation over decades. He’s put together crucial Senate majorities only to see lesser political talents destroy them with party nominees he told everyone could not win.
McConnell got former President Trump elected because of the Leader’s “no hearings on any nominee” stance which made Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees the key to the upset win in 2016 by the former president. McConnell will work with Trump again for the good of the Republic. McConnell’s two best pieces of advice —”First, you have to win” and “You can start too late but never start too early”— are worth the cost of his brilliant memoir “The Long Game.
We need to get Israel aid. We need to get Ukraine aid. We need to secure the southern border. These are all pressing national security needs. They are of equal importance to America.
If we send the wrong sort of aid to Israel or Ukraine it will not help them win. If we don’t build the 900 miles of fence where it is needed on the 2000 miles of southern border, Americans will continue to die from fentynal, more millions will walk across “UN encountered,” along with the 8 million who have been “encountered” in the three years of the Biden Border Era. The Wall isn’t one of five things that need doing. It is the first thing that must be done if the other things that need to be done are going to work.
The Wall is a necessary but not sufficient national security measure. To repeat: It is the first thing that must be done. Other things are useful —more Border Patrol, more return flights, more detention facilities, more Administrative Law Judges and changes to the actual asylum and refugee law. All of it.
But none of it matters without the Wall. The Wall is the “signal” amid the noise. It actually gets the message to the endless column of millions trudging north. That message is “Closed save by appointment.”
National Guard agents place a barbed wire wall on the banks of the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, on the border with Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua State, Mexico, on March 8, 2023. (HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
This is not a hardliner position. It is the moderate position. Most “moderates” on immigration reform including me are people who want to care for the stranger when they get here. Most of us are aware that only a small percentage of the millions crossing illegally are undoubtedly dangerous, but they are dangerous indeed, and those who engage in human smuggling are depraved while possible terrorists should be understood as 10/7 types. We moderates are also concerned with innocents caught up in this river of misery that has to be damed before those on this side of the order can’t be helped.
If Democrats say “No” to the Wall, then it is no, and the GOP walks away from the talks, explains why, and campaigns on the Wall.
All three of the remaining possible GOP presidential nominees want the Wall. The Senate candidates the GOP needs to win the 2024 elections and thus the 2025 majority all want the Wall. Only a handful of Senators and their staffs have persuaded themselves that the Wall isn’t necessary. Wake up. It is necessary, and the 91 percent aren’t wrong. They are your bosses.
The supplemental without the Wall is far, far worse than a dead end. It’s a cliff. We won’t climb back up to a moment of clarity like this for decades, if ever. And the House GOP should never approve it anyway, and I doubt incumbent GOP senators who support it will in turn find themselves supported by 90 percent of the Party. Who is selling this? On what grounds?
Please, Senate GOP, the momentum of a terrible ride is no reason to stay on the runaway train. Get off. Now. Walk away.
Hugh Hewitt is one of the country’s leading journalists of the center-right. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990, and it is today syndicated to hundreds of stations and outlets across the country every Monday through Friday morning. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and this column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his forty years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio show today.
An Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, medics said early Thursday. The military continued to strike targets in areas of the besieged territory where it has told civilians to seek refuge.
There was meanwhile no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas.
🚨 Breaking: Assisted by @UNRWA, Hamas terrorists again take control of aid trucks today before they reach civilians 👇
Civilians in Gaza are starving despite hundreds of aid trucks entering every day. Meanwhile most Hamas terrorists are obese. pic.twitter.com/YKUcCWFxuY
More than 100 days after Hamas triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack, Israel continues to wage one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, with the goal of dismantling the militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and returning scores of captives. The war has stoked tensions across the region, threatening to ignite other conflicts.
More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 85% of the narrow coastal territory’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and the United Nations says a quarter of the population is starving.
Hundreds of thousands have heeded Israeli evacuation orders and packed into southern Gaza, where shelters run by the United Nations are overflowing and massive tent camps have gone up. But Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets in all parts of Gaza, often killing women and children.
Dr. Talat Barhoum at Rafah’s el-Najjar Hospital confirmed the death toll from the strike in Rafah and said dozens more were wounded. Associated Press footage from the hospital showed relatives weeping over the bodies of loved ones.
“They were suffering from hunger, they were dying from hunger, and now they have also been hit,” said Mahmoud Qassim, a relative of some of those who were killed.
Internet and mobile services in Gaza have been down for five days, the longest of several outages during the war, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks. The outages complicate rescue efforts and make it difficult to obtain information about the latest strikes and casualties.
The war has rippled across the Middle East, with Iran-backed groups attacking U.S. and Israeli targets. Low-intensity fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon threatens to erupt into all-out war, and Houthi rebels in Yemen continue to target international shipping despite United States-led airstrikes.
Iran has launched a series of missile attacks targeting what it described as an Israeli spy base in Iraq and militant bases in Syria as well as in Pakistan, which carried out reprisal strikes against what it described as militant hideouts in Iran early Thursday.
It was not clear if the strikes in Syria and Pakistan were related to the Gaza war. But they showcased Iran’s ability to carry out long-range missile attacks at a time of heightened tensions with Israel and the U.S., which has provided crucial support for the Gaza offensive and carried out its own strikes against Iran-allied groups in Syria and Iraq.
Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas to ensure it can never repeat an attack like the one on Oct. 7. Militants burst through Israel’s border defenses and stormed through several communities that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 hostage.
Israel has also vowed to return all the hostages remaining in captivity after more than 100 — mostly women and children — were released during a November cease-fire in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Family members and supporters were marking the first birthday of Kfir Bibas, the youngest Israeli hostage, in a somber ceremony Thursday in Tel Aviv.
The red-haired infant and his 4-year-old brother Ariel were captured along with their mother, Shiri, and their father, Yarden. All four remain in captivity.
The agreement to ship in medicines was the first to be brokered between the warring sides since November. Hamas said that for every box of medicine bound for the hostages, 1,000 would be sent for Palestinian civilians, in addition to food and humanitarian aid.
Qatar confirmed late Wednesday that the medicine had entered Gaza, but it was not yet clear if it had been distributed to the hostages, who are being held in secret locations, including underground bunkers.
Hamas has continued to fight back across Gaza, even in the most devastated areas, and launch rockets into Israel. It says it will not release any more hostages until there is a permanent cease-fire, something Israel and the United States, its top ally, have ruled out.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 24,448 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, with over 60,000 wounded. It says many other dead and wounded are trapped under rubble or unreachable because of the fighting. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but says around two-thirds of those killed were women and children.
Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas because it fights in dense residential areas. Israel says its forces have killed roughly 9,000 militants, without providing evidence, and that 193 of its own soldiers have been killed since the Gaza ground offensive began.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday, a day after Iran conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan that it claimed targeted bases for a militant Sunni separatist group.
Islamabad denounced the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said it killed two children.
Tuesday’s airstrikes in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province imperiled diplomatic relations between the two neighbors, but both sides appeared wary of provoking the other. Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks.
The attack raised the threat of violence spreading in a Middle East unsettled by Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran also staged airstrikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people earlier this month. Iraq recalled its ambassador from Iran for consultations.
Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, announced that Islamabad was recalling its ambassador to Iran over the strikes.
“Last night’s unprovoked and blatant breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty by Iran is a violation of international law and the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations,” she said in a televised address.
Baloch added that Pakistan asked the Iranian ambassador, who was visiting Tehran, not to return.
Iran did not immediately acknowledge Pakistan’s decision.
Iranian state media reports, which were later withdrawn without explanation, said the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard targeted bases in Pakistan belonging to the militant group Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice.”
Iran’s defense minister also said Wednesday that Iran would respond to any threats against itself, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Without naming any country, Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said: “We will show reaction to threat against the Islamic Republic of Iran from any region. The reaction will be corresponding, harsh and strong.”
Jaish al-Adl, which seeks an independent Baluchistan for ethnic Baluch areas in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, acknowledged the assault in a statement shared online.
Six bomb-carrying drones and rockets struck homes that the militants claim housed children and wives of their fighters. Jaish al-Adl said the attack killed two children and wounded two women and a teenage girl.
Videos shared by the Baluch activist group HalVash, purportedly from the site, showed a burning building and two charred, small corpses.
A Pakistani intelligence report said the two children killed were a 6-year-old girl and an 11-month-old boy. Three women were injured, aged between 28 and 35, it said. The report also said three or four drones were launched from the Iranian side, hitting a mosque and other buildings, including a house.
Iran has fought in border areas against militants, but the air attack on Pakistan is unprecedented.
A senior Pakistani security official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters, said Iran had shared no information prior to the strike. He said that Pakistan reserved the right to respond at a time and place of its choosing and that any strike would be measured and in line with public expectations.
However, there were signs Pakistan was trying to contain anger over the attack. The country’s typically outspoken and nationalistic media reported on the airstrikes with unusual restraint Wednesday. Pakistan is three weeks away from an election, and politicians are focused on campaigning.
Iranian state media did not address the strikes, instead discussing a joint naval drill held by Pakistan and the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. Pakistani officials acknowledged the drill but said it came earlier than Iran’s attack.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian acknowledged Tehran carried out the attack in Pakistan while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He defended the action while repeatedly being told by the interviewer that Pakistan had condemned the attack.
“Regarding Pakistan, none of the nationals of our neighbor, brother and friend Pakistan were the target of Iran’s drones and missiles,” Amirabdollahian said. “We have discussed them with Pakistan’s high-ranking military, security and political officials. Our response is against Iranian terrorists inside Pakistani soil.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani said he received a call later from Amirabdollahian.
Jilani told the Iranian the attack seriously damaged relations and could undermine regional peace and stability, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad. “No country in the region should tread this perilous path,” Jilani said in the call.
Pakistani defense analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said that the government might take some measures in response to the attacks, but that it would weigh any military retaliation carefully. He noted Pakistan’s air defense and missile systems are primarily deployed along its eastern border to respond to potential threats from India.
Jaish al-Adl was founded in 2012, and Iranian officials believe it largely operates in Pakistan. The group has claimed bombings and kidnapped members of Iran’s border police in the past. In December, suspected Jaish al-Adl members killed 11 people and wounded eight others in a nighttime attack on a police station in southeastern Iran. Another recent attack killed a police officer in the area.
In 2019, Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing targeting a bus that killed 27 members of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Iran has suspected that Sunni-majority Pakistan is hosting insurgents, possibly at the behest of its regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia. However, Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a Chinese-mediated detente last March, easing tensions. Pakistan, meanwhile, has blamed Iran for militant attacks targeting its security forces.
It remained unclear why Iran launched the attack now, particularly as its foreign minister met with Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwar ul-haq Kakar, the same day at the World Economic Forum.
Kakar had yet to comment publicly on the attacks.
His predecessor, Shehbaz Sharif, said he was shocked at the breach of sovereignty. Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sharif said that “sincere dialogue and meaningful cooperation” between the two countries was needed.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week outlined three prerequisites for peace in the region following months of war with Hamas. Netanyahu, in an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, outlined the three: the destruction of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza, and the deradicalization of Palestinian society.
“First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group,” Netanyahu wrote.
“Second, Gaza must be demilitarized. Israel must ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack it,” he added.
According to Netanyahu, this will involve creating “a temporary security zone” on Gaza’s perimeter and a border inspection system to prevent weapons smuggling. He also claimed that expecting the Palestinian Authority to demilitarize Gaza “is a pipe dream.”
“Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized,” the prime minster continued. “Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it.”
Netanyahu wrote that once these three goals are achieved, “Gaza can be rebuilt and the prospects of a broader peace in the Middle East will become a reality.”
The U.N. Security Council passed a new resolution that calls for speeding up humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza, but without the original call for an “urgent suspension of hostilities” between Israel and Hamas.
The United States and Russia abstained from Friday’s vote, which was delayed for days as diplomats sought to avoid a veto by the U.S., Israel’s closest ally.
The U.N. says more than a half-million people are starving in Gaza because not enough food has entered the besieged territory as Israel keeps up its blistering campaign of airstrikes and ground operations for over 10 weeks. Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crammed into shelters and tent camps as winter descends, raising fears about the spread of disease.
STOP!!!! Help Israel destroy Hamas and Hezbollah, and the people you’re wringing your hands over will get what they need. Look at the X below.
Hamas terrorists have hijacked yet another humanitarian aid convoy after it crossed over the Rafah border from Egypt.
Palestinian officials said Friday that the death toll has now exceeded 20,000 — around 1% of the territory’s prewar population. The Health Ministry in Gaza does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. Israel says more than 130 of its soldiers have died in its ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking about 240 hostages.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has been on travel excursions to Israel since 1973, said in a new Newsmax interview that his recent tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a location hit by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, really opened his eyes and he’s “witnessed a lot of things, but nothing like this.”
“I wanted to be here to say I stand with Israel,” Huckabee told Newsmax’s Daniel Cohen at the kibbutz in an interview airing on Newsmax Thursday. “I stand with the Jewish people. What happened to them should never again happen to any human beings on the face of the Earth.”
Huckabee and conservative author Joel Rosenberg together led an American evangelical delegation to the kibbutz, with the tour hosted by a Knesset member, Danny Danon, to send a “powerful message of solidarity with Israel,” Cohen reported.
“We walked there for about an hour,” said Cohen. “The bloodstains have all been scrubbed, but nothing can erase the crimes the terrorists committed there on Oct. 7.”
In all, Hamas terrorists murdered 63 people at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and took 18 as hostages.
“It was atrocious, and they knew they were targeting children, babies, women, unarmed men, and elderly [people], Holocaust survivors,” said Huckabee. “It just reeks of the worst kind of human atrocity. I want everyone in America and across the world to say we stand with Israel.”
Cohen also reported on Iris Haim, the mother of Yotam Haim, one of three hostages who were mistakenly killed by Israel Defense Forces soldiers last week.
She sent a voice message to the soldiers who shot her son, telling them that she loves them and that she blames “only Hamas” for what happened to her son, Cohen said.
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A recently released Hamas hostage’s revelation of sexual violence against her fellow captives appears to refute anti-Israel progressives who tend to downplay or dismiss terrorists’ atrocities. Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, was held hostage by Hamas with three of her children for 51 days following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israelis. Her husband and eldest daughter were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the attack.
Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, was held hostage with three of her children by Hamas for 51 days following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on innocent Israelis. (Israel Defense Forces via AP)
Goldstein-Almog and her children were released by the terror group, and the wife and mother gave an interview with the Israeli press on Dec. 11 about her time as a hostage. During her interview, Goldstein-Almog revealed she heard firsthand accounts of sexual violence from other female hostages by their Hamas captors.
“I heard the testimony directly from girls and heard things second hand,” Goldstein-Almog said. “Some of the sexual violence happened well into our time in Gaza, not in the first week.”
“But the way their bodies were desecrated, they don’t know how they will deal with that. It happened weeks into their time in Gaza,” she said.
“If they were released earlier, they would’ve been saved from experiencing sexual violence,” Goldstein-Almog added.
Goldstein-Almog said they “heard three stories firsthand of women saying they were sexually abused and we heard an additional story.” She added that “presumably, there are more instances” of sexual violence by Hamas.
Briahna Joy Gray, a former spokesperson for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, tweeted, “‘Believe all women’ was always an absurd overreach: woman should be heard, claims should be investigated, but evidence is required.” (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
The former hostage also said she “was threatened once when they thought I was wandering around and looking free” in the first apartment they were taken to and that “there was a threat that” she would “be handcuffed, but it didn’t happen.”
“I said I have kids and nothing happened to me,” Goldstein-Almog said. “It was the only time I felt under threat [of sexual violence].”
A spokesperson for the Biden administration State Department noted earlier this month that one of the reasons Hamas does not want to release women hostages is because “they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them.”
Many American progressives have been largely silent on Hamas’ sexual violence against Israelis, while some have downplayed or dismissed the reports of sexual assault.
Briahna Joy Gray, a former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, tweeted earlier this month, “‘Believe all women’ was always an absurd overreach: woman should be heard, claims should be investigated, but evidence is required.”
“The same is true of the allegations out of Israel,” Gray wrote in a Dec. 4 tweet. “But also, this isn’t a ‘believe women’ scenario bc no female victims have offered testimony.”
“Believe all women” was always an absurd overreach: woman should be heard, claims should be investigated, but evidence is required. The same is true of the allegations out of Israel.
But also, this isn’t a “believe women” scenario bc no female victims have offered testimony. https://t.co/a3Ku6gzY8L
“Zionists are asking that we believe the uncorroborated eyewitness account of *men* who describe alleged rape victims in odd, fetishistic terms,” Gray continued in a subsequent tweet.
“Shame on Israel for not seriously investigating claims of rape and collecting rape kits,” she added.
Zionists are asking that we believe the uncorroborated eyewitness account of *men* who describe alleged rape victims in odd, fetishistic terms.
Shame on Israel for not seriously investigating claims of rape and collecting rape kits. pic.twitter.com/zbHfduQnev
Progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., was torched after she clashed with CNN’s Dana Bash over the lack of widespread condemnation of Hamas’ use of sexual violence against Israeli women during the Oct. 7 attacks. The Washington state Democrat suggested that wasn’t true and claimed she had already condemned Hamas’ treatment of women, before quickly turning the conversation back to Israel.
“But I think we have to remember Israel is a democracy. That is why they’re a strong ally of ours. And if they do not comply with international humanitarian law, they are bringing themselves to a place that makes it much more difficult strategically for them to be able to build allies, to keep public opinion with them, and frankly, morally, we cannot say that one war crime deserves another. That is not what international humanitarian law says,” Jayapal said.
“With respect, I was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to Israel. I’m asking you about Hamas,” Bash said.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal was torched after she clashed with CNN’s Dana Bash over the lack of widespread condemnation of Hamas’ use of sexual violence against Israeli women during the Oct. 7 attacks. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The lawmaker said she had already answered the question and added, “We have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians. Fifteen thousand Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, three-quarters of whom are women and children.”
“And it’s horrible,” Bash said. “But you don’t see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women.”
“I don’t want this to be the hierarchies of oppressions,” Jayapal said.
Jayapal has since issued a statement“unequivocally” condemning “Hamas’ use of rape and sexual violence as an act of war.”
“This is horrific and across the world, we must stand with our sisters, families, and survivors of rape and sexual assault everywhere to condemn this violence and hold perpetrators accountable,” Jayapal said.
Neither Jayapal nor Gray immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck contributed reporting.
Houston Keene is a politics writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to Houston.Keene@Fox.com and on Twitter: @HoustonKeene
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Palestinians are expecting a high vote Tuesday for a U.N. General Assembly resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza to demonstrate widespread global support for ending the Israel-Hamas war, now in its third month. After the United States vetoed a resolution in the Security Council on Friday demanding a humanitarian cease-fire, Arab and Islamic nations called for an emergency session of the 193-member General Assembly to vote on a resolution making the same demand.
Unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding. But the assembly’s messages “are also very important” and reflect world opinion, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Monday.
The General Assembly vote is expected to reflect the growing isolation of the United States as it refuses to join demands for a cease-fire. More than the United Nations or any other international organization, the United States is seen as the only entity capable of persuading Israel to accept a cease-fire as its closest ally and biggest supplier of weaponry.
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, told U.N. reporters Tuesday that Arab and Islamic ambassadors have been mobilizing support for the resolution and expect it will get a significantly higher number of votes than their Oct. 27 resolution, which called for a “humanitarian truce” leading to a cessation of hostilities. That resolution was the first U.N. reaction to the Gaza war, and the vote was 120-14 with 45 abstentions.
“I think it will send a message to Washington and to others,” Mansour said, adding that a demand from the United Nations, whether it’s the Security Council or the General Assembly, should be looked at as binding. “And Israel has to abide by it, and those who are shielding and protecting Israel until now should also look at it this way, and therefore act accordingly,” he said. The resolution to be voted on expresses “grave concern over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population,” and it says Palestinians and Israelis must be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law.
It also demands that all parties comply with international humanitarian law, “notably with regard to the protection of civilians,” and calls for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access.”
Mansour said the 22-member Arab Group and 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation will oppose any amendments to the resolution. The resolution makes no mention of Hamas, whose militants killed about 1,200 people and abducted about 240 in the surprise attack inside Israel on Oct. 7 that set off the war.
One amendment proposed by the United States would add a paragraph stating that the assembly “unequivocally rejects and condemns the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas.”
A second amendment proposed by Austria would add that the hostages are “held by Hamas and other groups” and should be released “immediately.”
The war has brought unprecedented death and destruction, with much of northern Gaza obliterated, more than 18,000 Palestinians killed according to the Hamas-run health ministry, 70% of them reportedly children and women, and over 80% of the population of 2.3 million pushed from their homes.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
The FBI interviewed a priest and choir director affiliated with a Catholic church in Richmond as part of an agency probe of “radical-traditional Catholics” as “potential domestic terrorists,” according to a new congressional report out Monday.
The interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government revealed the FBI under President Joe Biden “abused its counterterrorism tools to target Catholic Americans” and “relied on at least one undercover agent to develop its assessment.”
“The FBI even proposed developing sources among the Catholic clergy and church leadership,” House investigators wrote.
The violent rise in antisemitism from supporters of Hamas terrorists’ fight against Israel, meanwhile, has escaped the same “domestic terrorism” treatment that President Joe Biden’s administration applied to traditional Catholics, as well as to parents who protested Covid lockdowns and inappropriate content in their kids’ schools. (A separate interim staff report from the Weaponization Committee in March found the Biden administration had “no legitimate basis” for investigating parents as terrorists.)
The White House was asked in October if the administration that directed counterterrorism resources toward concerned parents at school board meetings would apply the same “domestic terrorist” label to terrorist sympathizers who cheer violence against Jews.
“The people in this country making violent antisemitic threats. Are they domestic terrorists?” inquired Fox News’ Peter Doocy at a White House press briefing.
“I don’t know that we’re classifying people as domestic terrorists for that,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. “I mean, that’s really a question better left to law enforcement. I’m not aware that there’s been such a characterization of that.”
Since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel that killed upwards of 1,200 civilians, violent and explicitly antisemitic demonstrators showing solidarity with Hamas have terrorized Jewish Americans. In late October, Jewish students at a Manhattan science and art school were compelled to take shelter at a campus library as anti-Israel protesters stormed the building. Demonstrators in Times Square even presented Swastikas at a rally celebrating the massacre of Jews.
Jewish students at Cooper Union College have been locked inside the library for their own safety as a mob of anti Israeli protesters block the doors.
Anyone could easily predict what the FBI protocol would be had recent anti-Israel demonstrations been full of right-wingers waving Confederate flags. The federal intelligence agency kicked into high gear six years ago to prosecute those involved in Charlottesville’s “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, even raiding an organizer’s Discord chats.
After carrying a Confederate flag through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a 53-year-old man was sentenced to three years in prison. The presence of a few Confederate banners at the rally that day earned endless headlines in nearly every major publication.
And eight years after the Confederate banner was taken down at the South Carolina state house, the Palestinian flag is now being raised over one town in Massachusetts.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
In the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, there has been an uptick in antisemitic activity on college campuses. Across the country, students, faculty, and administrators have expressed their support for the Islamist slaughter of civilians, participated in pro-genocide marches, and physically accosted Jewish students. Campus antisemitism has gotten so severe — with more than 800 reported incidents as of Nov. 20 — that the Department of Education has opened up a series of investigations.
During the first third of November’s Republican presidential debate, candidates discussed how, if elected, their administrations would handle the ongoing eruption in antisemitism both on and off campus. Each condemned anti-Jewish bigotry, while some — notably former Ambassador Nikki Haley, Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Sen. Tim Scott — offered more nuanced insights as to how they would directly combat the issue. Possible solutions included threatening to freeze federal funding for universities allowing for antisemitism and collaboration with terrorists to go unpunished, deporting foreign students who openly support terrorism, and disbanding student organizations providing material support for Islamic terrorist groups.
All of these would be fantastic solutions. Not a single cent of taxpayer money should be sent to a university that tolerates racial bigotry or allows its membership to collaborate with foreign enemies. No foreign individual hostile to the American nation ought to be granted access to its institutions or resources, let alone allowed entry. And no one should be permitted to provide material support to terrorist organizations, Mohammedan or otherwise.
This is pretty basic stuff.
It appears there is a unified Republican front in opposing campus antisemitism, and this is good. But why can’t Republicans similarly coalesce around the systemic anti-white bigotry that is all too present in higher education?
Since the mid-20th century, leftist academics worked to proliferate and mainstream Marxist theories of social revolution and cultural subversion. Race was often the subject of their studies. In these instances, their goal was to exacerbate already existing resentments while inculcating new ones to overcome sociological and anthropological divides. European Marxists animated the masses by agitating socioeconomic frustrations. In the old world, the social order was rigid and limited economic mobility, but intranational ethnic conflict was generally less of an issue. In the U.S., social mobility was economically achievable while race remained a sore topic into the 20th century, so these academics opted to exploit it, seeing it as their best chance to immanentize the eschaton and bring about revolution.
These leftist ideologues viewed less-affluent black people as an exploitable lumpenproletariat with whom they could form a revolutionary vanguard alongside middle-class liberals. The demographic disparities in social and political outcomes this coalition sought to overturn were said to be the fault of bigoted institutional power differentials. Thus, the coalition pushed for radical change in America’s institutions through protest, subversion, infiltration, and, of course, violence.
Outcomes were not equivalent for people of different races. This was attributed to our no-good-very-bad racist progenitors’ fundamental flaws, so these intellectuals created a framework for revolutionary reconstruction.
It is here we find the genesis of critical race theory, DEI, and cultural Marxism. These ideologies are now thoroughly embedded in every major American institution but have made their home in higher education. For instance, for every 100 tenured faculty members on a college campus, DEI staff hold an average of 3.4 positions.
Universities teach people to think in terms of an “oppressed-oppressor” dialectic. World events and their inherent contradictions and resolutions are increasingly viewed exclusively through this lens. The oppressed are the revolutionary class with whom the intersectional coalition aligns itself, and the oppressors are whichever entity most closely resembles Western civilization and its “colonial” tendencies. In this framework, Western civilization and “colonialism” are further wrongly conflated and used interchangeably with “whiteness” to conveniently lump all the left’s enemies into one category.
In the Israel-Palestine conflict, adherents of this view identify Israel as the oppressor and Jews as its avatar. People opting to justify Hamas’ actions in the name of global revolution subsequently target them.
And this is why Republicans at the national level — and those who seek the highest office in the land — are sounding the alarm. This worldview leads to some pretty dark conclusions. Taken to its natural end, this worldview culminates in people getting killed. Its proponents are explicit about this. They applauded Hamas for slaughtering civilians, and they cheered on the rioters and looters who pillaged the country three summers ago. “Decolonization” is the focus of the intellectual movements justifying both events.
Just look at South Africa where, in August, Julius Malema, leader of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighters Party, led thousands of his followers in chanting “Kill the Boer” amid skyrocketing Boer-murder rates. The corporate press merely brushed off his rhetoric as anti-colonial sentiment. After all, the Boers are the descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa. Therefore, a prominent political figure calling for their slaughter, while they’re already being murdered, is simply a sign of the oppressed sticking it to the oppressor. An ethnically European population that had no active participation in the colonial era is nevertheless wrapped up in a dialectical power struggle. Their existence is associated with “whiteness,” which is associated with “colonialism,” which is associated with Western Civilization, so calling for their annihilation is morally justified within this framework.
While campaigning for the Democratic Party’s 1988 presidential nomination, Rev. Jesse Jackson led members of Stanford’s Black Student Union in chanting, “Hey-hey, ho-ho, Western Civ has got to go.” Since then, millions of people — students, faculty, and staff — have been subjected to virulent curricula and trainings where Western civilization is denigrated as an oppressive and parasitic colonial force, “whiteness” is treated as a malevolent sociological scourge, the history that ought to unite us is dishonestly rewritten to incite racial animus, and students who deviate from this toxic identitarianism are disenfranchised while others are encouraged to shame white students for the sin of their birth.
Leftist student organizations routinely engage in this activism by inviting speakers to peddle hateful anti-white rhetoric, and left-wing luminaries like Ibram X. Kendi use campus facilities while raking in tens of millions of dollars for “antiracist” research to try to “solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice.”
Frankly, there are innumerable examples of anti-white racism on college campuses. An exhaustive list would hardly be worth anyone’s time. We all know it exists, is systemic, and is supported with our tax dollars.
To add to this discussion, check out the following posting.
Blind tribal resentment will always exist to some extent; some people will always hate others merely for the crime of existing — that’s an unfortunate aspect of human nature. But the systemic anti-white racism and the outpouring of antisemitism in higher education are largely outgrowths of the same schools of thought.
It is good that Republicans are willing to take action against antisemitism, but that’s only one part of this problem. Bigotry should be condemned across the board, and universities should suffer for their role in it. But if the GOP is truly serious about tackling campus discrimination, it needs to rip it out at the roots and address anti-white racism as well.
Leftists will play semantic games, they’ll disingenuously moan about freedom of speech, but enough is enough. A smattering of red-state governments have shown how to root out “divisive topics” that install this worldview through public school K-12 curricula, but they must follow up at the college level. This can be done by reorganizing universities with trusted, ideologically aligned allies. And should a Republican win the White House in 2024, the president should direct the Department of Education to withhold federal funds from academic institutions that disseminate this worldview.
It may be impossible to eliminate bigotry from the hearts of man, but Republicans have the power to stop it from being rammed down our throats at taxpayer expense.
Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.
Ignited by Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel, divisive domestic conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have driven a new wave of campus censorship. But the problem of stifled speech on campus for both students and faculty has been around long before Oct. 7.
According to a forthcoming survey developed by our organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, about 1 in 10 college students say they have been threatened with disciplinary action – or worse, actually disciplined – for their speech.
Our 2022 survey of college faculty yields similarly depressing results. About one in six professors report that they have either been threatened with punishment or actually investigated for their academic freedom or free speech.
Students demonstrate in support of Palestinians and for free speech outside of the Columbia University campus on Nov. 15, 2023, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The common, but rarely discussed, thread linking this oppressive atmosphere on campus is college and university administrations. And as long as censorial administrators have disproportionate power over higher education, this problem will continue.
In the student survey, which was conducted by College Pulse between Sept. 5 and Oct. 20, students answered questions about their experiences with speech and the disciplinary process. Three percent said they had been punished for their speech, and 6% said they had been threatened with punishment.
Consider the scope of that number extended out to the larger student population. Given the total undergraduate population of the country, that’s well over a million students being threatened (or worse) by campus bureaucrats for their speech. It means a student is roughly as likely to face disciplinary censorship as they are likely to be left-handed.
And what kind of speech can get you investigated according to the study? For a New York University student, it was participation in a pro-Palestinian group. For a University of Pennsylvania student, it was expressing the opinion that the U.S. was right to have invaded Iraq. And for a Drake University student, it was simply being overheard by fellow students telling a professor about her mental health.
The survey also revealed that students should watch what they say in their most private of spaces. Of those who were threatened or disciplined, a quarter faced punishment for speech in their dorm room. That disturbing focus on living spaces isn’t unusual. For all of FIRE’s 24-year existence, “residential life” administrators who run the dorms have been major enforcers of university speech codes.
While the situation is clearly very bad for students, for professors it’s even worse. Given that faculty political diversity has never been lower, with some departments having left-leaning supermajorities and others having no conservative faculty at all, one would think that professors would not be targeted as often. And one would be wrong.
Since 2014, as Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott explain in their new book “The Canceling of the American Mind,” we know of over 1,000 attempts to get professors sanctioned for their speech or research.
About two-thirds of those attempts were successful, resulting in some form of punishment and almost 200 fired professors. This number dwarfs any period in U.S. higher education history since the early 1970s, when the Supreme Court cemented freedom of speech as a right on college campuses and academic freedom as a special concern within that right.
Facing a cancel culture that targets both students and faculty, how did administrators respond? With transparent political litmus tests that enable and encourage the purge.
More than half of the large universities in the country require “diversity, equity, and inclusion” statements, which are often vague and nebulously defined political litmus tests pressuring professors to adhere to the dominant ideology on campus. Wherever they appear, from student admission to faculty post-tenure review, these requirements reinforce the ideological status quo, suppress viewpoint diversity, and increase the risk that what passes for curriculum today will be dogma tomorrow.
One place those litmus tests appear is in the hiring of more administrators, and make no mistake: At most schools, administrators, not faculty, decide what happens, when it happens, and how much to spend in doing it.
Yale has a one-to-one ratio of administrators to students, with Harvard not far behind. At the U.S. News & World Report’s top 50 schools in the country, there are three times as many administrators and non-instructional staff as there are faculty, according to a recent report from the Progressive Policy Institute.
Once again, one might well think that hiring would slow down, giving the looming “enrollment cliff” – the demographic shift where the college-age population shrinks due to lower birth rates. But that’s never stopped colleges before. From 2015 to 2018, when enrollment and instructional employees declined, administrative staff grew over 6%. The surge in non-teaching positions is one of the primary reasons why the cost of educating a single student has gone up so dramatically over the past several decades.
Making matters worse, many of the new administrators consider policing the speech of students and faculty part of their job. Indeed, DEI administrators have been involved in some of the highest-profile cancellations, including federal Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford this year, Harvard professor Carole Hooven last year, and University of Central Florida professor Charles Negy in 2021.
And if administrators are part of the Bias Related Incident team at a particular college, part of their job is to police speech on campus, often investigating anonymous reports of students or professors engaging in allegedly offensive speech. A study released this year by North Dakota State University found that nearly two-thirds of students favored reporting professors who engaged in “offensive speech,” made up of statements of opinion – or even fact – the students didn’t like.
The situation for free speech on campus has gone from bad to grim over the last decade. It will be no easy task to fix it. But one of the first steps to both a freer and less expensive college experience is to dramatically decrease the campus bureaucracy, eliminate positions that exist to police speech, and make sure every university employee is informed that their job is to protect free speech and academic freedom, not to squelch it.
BBC/Nik Millard “We see women of all ages… We see the bruises, we learn about the cuts and tears, and we know they have been sexually abused,” Captain Maayan told the BBC
The BBC has seen and heard evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks.
WARNING: CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE
Several people involved in collecting and identifying the bodies of those killed in the attack told us they had seen multiple signs of sexual assault, including broken pelvises, bruises, cuts and tears, and that the victims ranged from children and teenagers to pensioners.
Video testimony of an eyewitness at the Nova music festival, shown to journalists by Israeli police, detailed the gang rape, mutilation and execution of one victim.
Videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers.
Few victims are thought to have survived to tell their own stories.
Their last moments are being pieced together from survivors, body-collectors, morgue staff and footage from the attack sites.
Police have privately shown journalists a single horrific testimony that they filmed of a woman who was at the Nova festival site during the attack.
She describes seeing Hamas fighters gang rape a woman and mutilate her, before the last of her attackers shot her in the head as he continued to rape her.
BBC/Nik Millard Hamas fighters stormed the Nova festival on 7 October and killed hundreds
In the video, the woman known as Witness S mimes the attackers picking up and passing the victim from one to another.
“She was alive,” the witness says. “She was bleeding from her back.”
She goes on to detail how the men cut off parts of the victim’s body during the assault.
“They sliced her breast and threw it on the street,” she says. “They were playing with it.”
The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues.
“He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn’t even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates.”
One man we spoke to from the festival site said he heard the “noises and screams of people being murdered, raped, decapitated”.
To our question about how he could be sure – without seeing it – that the screams he heard indicated sexual assault rather than other kinds of violence, he said he believed while listening at the time that it could only have been rape.
A statement he made through a support organisation describes it as “inhuman”.
“Some women were raped before they were dead, some raped while injured, and some were already dead when the terrorists raped their lifeless bodies,” his statement says. “I desperately wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do.”
BBC/Dave Bull Israelis are still grappling with the Hamas attack in October
Police say they have “multiple” eye-witness accounts of sexual assault, but wouldn’t give any more clarification on how many. When we spoke to them, they hadn’t yet interviewed any surviving victims.
Israel’s Women’s Empowerment Minister, May Golan, told the BBC that a few victims of rape or sexual assault had survived the attacks, and that they were all currently receiving psychiatric treatment.
“But very, very few. The majority were brutally murdered,” she said. “They aren’t able to talk – not with me, and not to anyone from the government [or] from the media.”
Videos filmed by Hamas include footage of one woman, handcuffed and taken hostage with cuts to her arms and a large patch of blood staining the seat of her trousers.
In others, women carried away by the fighters appear to be naked or semi-clothed.
Multiple photographs from the sites after the attack show the bodies of women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side, legs splayed, with signs of trauma to their genitals and legs.
“It really feels like Hamas learned how to weaponise women’s bodies from ISIS [the Islamic State group] in Iraq, from cases in Bosnia,” said Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy, a legal expert at the Davis Institute of International Relations at Hebrew University.
“It brings me chills just to know the details that they knew about what to do to women: cut their organs, mutilate their genitals, rape. It’s horrifying to know this.”
BBC/Dave Bull” It really feels like Hamas learned how to weaponize women’s bodies from ISIS in Iraq, from cases in Bosnia,” said Cochav Elkayam-Levy
“I spoke with at least three girls who are now hospitalised for a very hard psychiatric situation because of the rapes they watched,” Minister May Golan told me. “They pretended to be dead and they watched it, and heard everything. And they can’t deal with it.”
Israel’s police chief Yaacov Shabtai said that many survivors of the attacks were finding it difficult to talk and that he thought some of them would never testify about what they saw or experienced.
“18 young men and women have been hospitalised in mental health hospitals because they could no longer function,” he said.
Others are reportedly suicidal. One of those working with the teams around survivors told the BBC that some had already killed themselves.
Much of the evidence has come from the volunteer body-collectors deployed after the attacks, and those who handled the bodies once they arrived at the Shura army base for identification.
One of the body-collectors volunteering with the religious organisation Zaka described to me signs of torture and mutilation which included, he said, a pregnant woman whose womb had been ripped open before she was killed, and her foetus stabbed while it was inside her.
The BBC has not been able to independently verify this account, and Israeli media reports have questioned some testimony from volunteers working in the traumatic aftermath of the Hamas attacks.
Another, Nachman Dyksztejna, provided written testimony of seeing the bodies of two women in kibbutz Be’eri with their hands and legs tied to a bed.
“One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed,” his statement says.
At the festival site, he says small shelters were “filled with piles of women. Their clothing was torn on the upper part, but their bottoms were completely naked. Piles and piles of women. […] When you took a closer look at their heads, you saw a single shot straight to the brain of each.”
Hundreds of bodies were collected from the attack sites by volunteers.
BBC/Dave Bull May Golan: “For the first five days, we still had terrorists on the ground in Israel. And there were hundreds, hundreds of bodies everywhere.”
Investigators admit that in those first chaotic days after the attacks, with some areas still active combat zones, opportunities to carefully document the crime scenes, or take forensic evidence, were limited or missed.
“For the first five days, we still had terrorists on the ground in Israel,” May Golan said. “And there were hundreds, hundreds of bodies everywhere. They were burned, they were without organs, they were butchered completely.”
“This was a mass casualty event,” police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told journalists at a briefing.
“The first thing was to work on identifying the victims, not necessarily on crime scene investigation. People were waiting to hear what happened to their loved ones.”
It was staff at the army’s Shura base, where bodies arrived for identification, who have provided investigators with some of the most crucial evidence.
This evidence emerged from a makeshift hub of tents and refrigerated shipping containers set up at the base to identify the bodies.
When we visited, hospital trolleys, their iron skeletons topped with khaki stretchers, stood neatly lined up in front of the containers that housed the dead; the white plastic overalls of those on shift translucent under the floodlights.
Fighter jets roared overhead, drowning out the cicadas, as Israel’s bombardment of Gaza continued.
Teams here told us they’d seen clear evidence of rape and sexual violence on the bodies coming in, including broken pelvises from sustained violent abuse.
“We see women of all ages,” one of the reservists on the forensic team, Captain Maayan, told the BBC. “We see rape victims. We see women who have been through violation. We have pathologists and we see the bruises, we learn about the cuts and tears, and we know they have been sexually abused.”
I ask her what proportion of the bodies she’s handled show signs of this.
“Abundant,” she said. “Abundant amount of women and girls of all ages.”
BBC/Dave Bull Debris litters the ground at the Nova festival site
The number of victims is hard to define, partly because of the state of the bodies.
“It’s definitely multiple,” said another serving soldier who asked us to use only her first name, Avigayil. “It’s hard to tell. I’ve dealt with more than a few burned bodies and I have no idea what they went through beforehand. And bodies that are missing the bottom half – I also don’t know if they were raped. But women that were clearly raped? There are enough. More than enough.”
“Sometimes we are left only with a very small part of the body,” Dr Elkayam-Levy tells me. “Maybe it’s a finger, a foot or a hand that they’re trying to identify. People were burned to ashes. Nothing was left. […] I want to say that we’ll never know how many cases there were.”
Privately some of those working on this talk in terms of “dozens” of victims but quickly caution that evidence is still being gathered and pieced together.
The civil commission headed by Dr Elkayam-Levy, to collect testimony on sexual crimes, is calling for international recognition that what happened on 7 October was systematic abuse, constituting Crimes Against Humanity.
“We see definite patterns,” she told me. “So it wasn’t incidental, it wasn’t random. They came with a clear order. It was […] rape as genocide.”
Avigayil agrees there were similarities in the violence visited on the bodies that arrived at the Shura base.
“There are patterns in that groups of women from the same place were treated in a similar manner,” she said.
“There might be a set of women who were raped in one way, and we’re seeing similarities in the bodies; and then a different set that were not raped but shot multiple times in the exact same pattern. So it seems that different groups of terrorists had different forms of cruelty.”
“This was a premeditative, systematic event,” police chief Yaacov Shabtai told journalists.
BBC/Dave Bull” Israel on 7 October is not the same country that woke up the following morning”: police chief Yaacov Shabtai
David Katz from Israel’s cyber crime unit which is involved in the investigation, told journalists that it was too early to prove that sexual violence was planned as part of the attack, but that data extracted from the phones of the Hamas attackers suggested that “everything was systematic”.
“It would be reckless to say we can already prove it […] but everything that was one there was done systematically,” he said. “Nothing happened by coincidence. Rape was systematic.”
Israel’s government points to documents it says were found on Hamas fighters that appear to support the idea that sexual violence was planned. It’s released clips of interrogations with some captured fighters in which they appear to say that women were targeted for this purpose.
Last week, UN Women put out a statement saying it “unequivocally condemn[ed] the brutal attacks by Hamas” and was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during those attacks”.
Dr Elkayam-Levy said before the statement that international women’s rights organisations had taken far too long to respond to her call for support.
“This is the most documented atrocity humanity has known,” she told me.
“Israel on 7 October is not the same country that woke up the following morning,” said police chief Yaacov Shabtai.
Amid the horror of what happened to women here, Captain Maayan from the Shura identification unit says the hardest moments are when she sees “the mascara on their eyelashes, or the earrings they put on that morning”.
Israel is considering a plan to pump seawater into Hamas’ tunnel system underneath the Gaza Strip, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing U.S. officials. The Israel Defense Forces has assembled five large seawater pumps capable of transferring thousands of cubic meters of water per hour from the Mediterranean Sea into the tunnels, according to the report. Work was reportedly completed on the pumps around the middle of November. They are located roughly one mile north of the Al-Shati Camp along northern Gaza’s coastline.
Israel first informed the Biden administration of the plans in early November, the officials said, with discussions on the effectiveness of such an operation and the potential environmental impact, including on the Strip’s water supply. The officials said the reaction in Washington was mixed, with some supporting it and others privately expressing concerns, although “there wasn’t necessarily any U.S. opposition to the plan.”U.S. officials said that they didn’t know how close Israel was to carrying out the plans, with a final decision on whether to proceed still pending.
Israel has discovered around 800 tunnels so far during the Gaza ground operation that began on Oct. 27, with 500 of them destroyed or sealed. The IDF has also destroyed hundreds of miles of tunnels in addition to the shafts.
Hamas kidnapped over 200 people during the Oct. 7 massacre, with 137 still being held hostage.
A source familiar with the plan said that a flooding process over weeks would allow for Hamas terrorists and potentially hostages to move out.
“We are not sure how successful pumping will be since nobody knows the details of the tunnels and the ground around them,” the source said. “It’s impossible to know if that will be effective because we don’t know how seawater will drain in tunnels no one has been in before.”
The WSJ reached out to an IDF official, who declined to comment on the report, saying only that “The IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas’ terror capabilities in various ways, using different military and technological tools. “Republished with permission from Jewish News Syndicate.
Hell hath no fury like a leftist woman’s scorn if you’re Donald Trump, but Hamas raping and murdering innocent Israeli women on October 7th, 2023? No outrage and lame justifications.
In the current Through-the-Looking-Glass world, absurdity has become the norm. Israel has been accused of the unspeakable crimes of . . . protecting LGBTQ rights (you can’t do that – that’s #pinkwashing!), substantial participation by Arab citizens in all walks of civil life (you can’t do that – that’s #democracy), and protecting the environment by being a leader in environmental sustainability (you can’t do that – that’s #greenwashing!), all to cover up its alleged crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians.
The absurdity has reached peak levels since October 7 with the timely re-emergence of the Queers for Palestine bloc, marching alongside Hamas supporters who justify terrorist atrocities as a response to the “occupation.” Putting aside the fact that Gaza has been Judenfrei with Israel’s withdrawal in 2005, the lack of self-awareness is staggering.
It is, of course, a well-known fact that Arab countries, and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in particular, are Edenic paradises to LGBTQ-identifying individuals and other minorities…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Rep. George Santos, or, now-former Rep. George Santos, has denied allegations that he moonlighted as a drag queen named “Kitara Ravache.” But maybe he would have been smart to embrace it — no Democrat could have voted to expel a drag queen from the lower chamber!
On Friday, House Democrats voted nearly unanimously along with 105 Republicans to expel the freshman representative from New York. It’s worth noting that Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib, meanwhile, received a mere censure over her antisemitic activism and solidarity with Hamas terrorists.
Santos became the third member removed from the House since the Civil War. Rep. James Traficant of Ohio was removed by the lower chamber in 2002 after a conviction of 10 felonies and Rep. Michael Myers was kicked out in 1980 following a bribery conviction. The New York lawmaker was ostensibly removed over a potential scandal involving fraudulent campaign activity that was detailed in a report from the House Ethics Committee last month. Investigators found substantial evidence that Santos committed federal crimes, and the freshman lawmaker was handed a 23-count indictment in October. To date, however, Santos has yet to be convicted of a single crime after voters elected the Republican to replace his Democrat predecessor.
Tlaib, on the other hand, openly called for the destruction of Israel and spread lies about an explosion near a Palestinian hospital, blaming the Israeli military. The rocket that terrorist officials claimed killed hundreds of civilians at the hospital was actually a Palestinian device that misfired and landed in a nearby parking lot, killing dozens, not hundreds.
“Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,” Tlaib wrote on X. “POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.”
In November, the Michigan congresswoman defended her use of the terrorist slogan “from the river to the sea” demanding the creation of a Palestinian state on Israeli land.
“From the river to the sea,” Tlaib claimed on X, “is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence.”
“‘From the river to the sea’ is the least ambiguous phrase imaginable,” explained Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi last month. “It quite literally and geographically lays out the genocidal aims of its chanters — from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, including all of the Jewish state, not just ‘occupied’ territory.”
That 105 Republicans joined Democrats to expel Santos, in an effort actually led by Republicans, is bad enough. But two of the Republicans who voted to expel Santos simultaneously voted against censuring Tlaib three weeks ago. Retiring Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, who is gunning for a gig at CNN, and freshman California Rep. John Duarte, apparently didn’t think their antisemitic colleague from Michigan deserved censure but voted to boot Santos from Congress despite his reliably red voting record.
Voters: please, Republicans, help the country Republican House: best we can offer is a continuing resolution Democrats love, tons more Ukraine funding, and ousting this liar because corporate media demanded it https://t.co/BZeUTjrRb9
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Why are millions of people around the world supporting Hamas, the reincarnation of the Nazi SS? Hamas targets civilians for murder and rape; uses its own civilians as human shields; and hides beneath hospitals, schools, and churches. Pictured: Members of the Palestinian Youth Movement gather outside of the President’s Park to stage a pro-Palestinian demonstration and demand a ceasefire in Gaza during the National Christmas tree lighting in Washington D.C., on Nov. 30. (Photo: Celal Gunes, Anadolu/Getty Images)
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and author of the book “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won.” You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.
Oct. 7 should have been an open-and-shut case of moral condemnation. During peace and holiday, invading Hamas gunmen murdered, tortured, mass-raped, decapitated, and mutilated some 1,200 Israelis. The vast majority were unarmed women, children, infants, and the elderly. The cowardly murderers proudly filmed their atrocities and then fled back to Gaza—to cheers from the Gaza street.
Before Israel even retaliated, the mass murdering of Jews earned praise from the Middle East, the international hard Left, and especially the faculty and students of elite Western campuses.
When the Israel Defense Forces struck back, the killers dispersed to the safety of their multibillion-dollar subterranean cities. The cowardly elite architects of the mass murder fled to Arab sanctuaries in Lebanon and Qatar. From its headquarters burrowed below hospitals, mosques, and schools, Hamas bartered hostages for a reprieve from the Israel Defense Forces and the release of its own convicted terrorists in Israeli jails. Hamas shot any of its own supporters who refused to shield Hamas gunmen. It continued launching rockets at Israeli civilian centers. It serially lied about its casualties, expropriating intended relief food and fuel for its underground tunnel city of killers.
Abroad, Hamas supporters also emulated the methods of the pro-Nazi demonstrators in Western cities of the 1930s. Unlike their pro-Israel critics, the pro-Hamas demonstrators in the U.S. and Europe turned violent. They took over and defaced private and public property. They chanted genocidal antisemitic slogans calling for erasure of the nation of Israel. They interrupted shoppers, blocked highways, attacked businesses, and swarmed bridges. They assaulted police. The majority wore masks to hide their identities in the fashion of antisemitic Klansmen.
Why did the doctrinaire Left, the youth of the Democratic Party, and the campuses outdo each other in their antisemitic venom toward Israel? For the first time in their lives, many of the ignorant protesters suddenly professed concern about refugees, colonialism, disproportionality, innocent civilians, and the rules of war. But none could explain why the Palestinians who fled Israel in 1947-48 still self-identify as victimized “refugees” when 900,000 Jews ethnically cleansed from Middle East Arab cities about the same time do not.
The 200,000 Greek Cypriots driven out from northern Cyprus by Turkey apparently do not warrant “refugee” status either.
Few protesters knew that Jews have lived in present-day Israel for over three millennia. The longest colonialist presence there was Muslim Turks who brutally ran the Holy Land for 300 years until they lost in World War I and were expelled.
How exactly did it happen that the eighth-century A.D. Al-Aqsa Mosque was built within King Herod’s earlier Second Temple enclosure?
The pro-Hamas crowd has little appreciation that colonizing Arab Muslims have one of history’s longest records of “settling” other countries far from their historic birthland.
They “settled” and “colonized” the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Middle East, Berber North Africa, and southern Spain. Millions of Middle Easterners migrated to—“settled?”—supposedly infidel European cities, where they often self-segregate and do not assimilate fully with their magnanimous hosts.
As far as “disproportionality”—it is the goal of every power at war, Hamas included.
What protesters are furious about is that Israel is more effective at being disproportionate in retaliation than Hamas and its Iranian supporters were in their preemptive mass murdering.
Targeting innocent civilians? Hamas is among the current greatest offenders in the world. It rockets Israeli cities without warning. It mass murders Jews in their beds during peace. It exposes Gazans to mortal danger by impressing them as human shields. Hamas shoots those who refuse.
The “rules of war” are violated by Hamas daily. Such protocols require combatants to wear uniforms so as not to blend in with civilians, not to use them as shields, not to murder noncombatants, not to rape them, not to mutilate them, and not to execute civilians without trial.
Why then would millions ally themselves with this odious reincarnation of the SS?
Are they ignorant of the history of the Middle East?
Are they arrogant since few challenge their hate and threats?
Are they opportunists who feel mouthing anti-Western shibboleths gains them career traction in leftist-run media, academia, and popular culture?
Are they bullies who count on the Western silent majority remaining quiet as they disrupt lives, trash Western tolerant culture, and commit violence?
Like Hamas that they support, do they despise Jews? Why else do they express an existential hatred toward Israelis that they never display to any other group?
Those now on the street utter not a peep about the Sudanese Arab mass killers in Darfur; Chinese oppressors of the Muslim Uyghurs; Russians targeting civilians in Ukraine; or ISIS, Syrian, and Yemeni murderers of fellow Muslims. Yet all of these terrorist killers are guilty of the very charges the protesters falsely attribute to Israel. But they are all not Jewish—and that explains the pass given them by our antisemitic, pro-Hamas street.
According to the corporate media, hundreds of high schoolers are taking it upon themselves to walk out of school to protest Israel’s right to defend itself. In New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and more, the nation’s budding humanitarians are banding together with the hope of ushering in a new era of peace, the stories say. As is the case with so many stories surrounding Palestinian terrorism and Israel’s response, the prevailing narrative is wrong.
These walkouts are not the result of well-meaning teenagers choosing to take a stand. These protests are being conceived of and then planned and executed by radical left-wing groups using children as political props.
The largest of these was the “#schools4Palestine” walkout, which disrupted learning in an estimated 100 New York City public schools on Nov. 9. A coalition of far-left groups, including New York Collective of Radical Educators, NYC Educators for Palestine, Palestinian Youth Movement, and Teachers Unite, authored a “toolkit” — a handbook aimed mainly at adults to show them how to turn students into pro-Hamas activists. The document purports to be for “students, teachers, and parents,” but its content is less relevant for students than for teachers who seek to influence them. Another far-left group in the San Francisco Bay Area created a toolkit of its own, full of the same hateful lies about Israel.
Though the New York City toolkit’s writers claimed, “High school students are organizing walkouts,” they don’t seem to believe their own words. The document, created by left-wing adults, provides a ready-made plan for students, with poster templates, instructions for identifying chant leaders, and even a sample schedule. The students are being organized by adults.
NYC high school students walking out from across the city in the hundreds today to demand a #CeasefireNow in Gaza!
They were showing up, at the behest of their teachers, to support a cause probably very few of them understand. The toolkit contained a sample script for teachers to encourage their students to participate, and it notes that teachers may “show support for their students … canceling tests or major paper deadlines or making the lesson more flexible to accommodate students who walk out.” Teachers who followed this advice placed their own radical politics ahead of learning and committed a major violation of professional ethics. They abused their positions of responsibility for the sake of their own agenda.
The toolkit put words in the mouths of children with a recommended chants list, including “Say it loud, say it clear, we don’t want Zionists here.” When they took to the streets, some of the students chanted, “F-ck the Jews,” thus flaunting their hatred and abandoning the façade that this protest was ever about peace.
Students Aren’t Being Taught the Truth
Students are being taught that it is good and noble to walk out in support of Hamas. What they are not being taught is that there was a ceasefire in place on Oct. 6, and it did not stop Hamas from slaughtering Israelis and taking hostages. They’re not teaching students that so many Palestinians live in poverty, not because of Israel, but because Hamas would rather spend money on rockets and tunnels and their own plush hideaways in Qatar than on basic infrastructure. They’re not teaching that supporting the Palestinian people means opposing Hamas, an enemy of peace and prosperity and the reason that Gazans are suffering today.
Some meager accountability for this indoctrination has come from parents who are angered about what their children are being taught. A principal in Montgomery County, Maryland, emailed the entire school community to “make them aware” of a walkout, noting that all absences due to the protest would be excused. Backlash was so swift and severe that the principal has since resigned.
These protests do not happen in a vacuum. In many schools, Jewish students are seeing their peers cheerlead for terrorism with their teachers’ encouragement. No student should be forced to face this kind of hostility and harassment. No parent should be forced to send his or her child to a school where this sort of teacher-sponsored bullying is allowed or encouraged.
As Hamas tightens its death grip on Gaza, pro-Hamas protesters will desperately attempt to appear thoughtful and mainstream. But not unlike the group these protesters are supporting, they’re experts at using children as pawns.
Angela Morabito is the spokesperson at the Defense of Freedom Institute and a former U.S. Department of Education press secretary.
A temporary cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war has been extended another day, according to mediator Qatar. The announcement Thursday morning came minutes before the cease-fire was set to expire. Hamas released two Israeli women from captivity several hours later, Israel’s military said.
Israel had agreed to extend the truce by one day for every 10 militant-held hostages who are freed. The cease-fire, which began Nov. 24 and was originally set to expire on Monday, has paused the deadliest fighting between Israel and Palestinians in decades.
Israel has vowed to resume the war in an effort to end Hamas’ 16-year rule of Gaza, but it’s facing mounting international pressure to spare southern Gaza a devastating ground offensive like the one that has demolished much of the north.
Roughly 240 hostages were captured by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that ignited the war. More than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants. About 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, mostly during the initial incursion by Hamas.
— Truce in Israel-Hamas war is extended by a day, minutes before it was set to expire.
— Jake Sullivan says the White House is not seeking conditions on military aid to Israel, despite Biden’s comment.
— Israel compares Hamas to the Islamic State group. But the comparison misses the mark in key ways.
— U.S. Senate Majority Leader Schumer warns that antisemitism is on the rise as he pushes for Israel aid.
— A friendship forged over 7 weeks of captivity lives on.
Here’s what’s happening in the war:
The Israeli military said Thursday that two Israeli hostages were released from captivity in the Gaza Strip. In a statement, the army said the Red Cross had transferred the two women to Israeli forces. They were to be taken to an Israeli military base. The two hostages are among a larger group of Israelis expected to be released Thursday as part of the latest extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Israel was to free some 30 Palestinian prisoners later Thursday.
TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reminding Israeli leaders of the need for Israel to comply with international law as it prosecutes its war against Hamas in Gaza. Blinken also said it is imperative that Israel take great care to avoid civilian casualties if it starts major military operations in southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter after fleeing their homes in the northern part of the territory. He said the U.S. places great importance on the resumption of a peace process that would eventually lead to the creation of a Palestinian state, something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes.
Speaking Thursday just hours after Israel and Hamas agreed at the last minute to a third extension of their cease-fire agreement, Blinken told Netanyahu that the U.S. will continue “support for Israel’s right to protect itself from terrorist violence in compliance with international humanitarian law and urged Israel to take every possible measure to avoid civilian harm,” the State Department said.
The message aligned with the Biden administration’s shifting rhetoric on the war, which began as a full-throated embrace of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks but gradually tempered as the number of Palestinian civilian casualties began to rise, prompting widespread international criticism. To prevent a further exponential increase in civilian casualties, Blinken “stressed the imperative of accounting for humanitarian and civilian protection needs in southern Gaza before any military operations there and urged immediate steps to hold settler extremists accountable for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank,” the State Department said Blinken told Netanyahu.
Blinken met with Netanyahu and his war Cabinet in Jerusalem before traveling to the occupied West Bank for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The Israeli army has confirmed that Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli believed to be held hostage in Gaza, is dead. Tzarfati was thought to be among the approximately 240 people taken hostage by Hamas on October 7. He had been celebrating his 27th birthday at a music festival with his girlfriend when Hamas militants stormed into Israel and killed at least 364 people at the festival and kidnapped many others. Tzarfati’s family was originally unclear what happened to him, but a few weeks later, the army notified the family that they believed that Tzarfati was being held in Gaza, according to media reports.
The army did not specify where Tzarfati’s body was identified
TEL AVIV, Israel — Two gunman opened fire on a crowded bus station at the entrance of Jerusalem, killing at least three people and wounding several others, according to Jerusalem police.
Another blatant violation of the ceasefire. A terrorist attack, murdering people waiting for the bus. https://t.co/0Vtbse4CMB
“The bus station was very crowded, which is why so many people were wounded,” said Magen David Adom spokesperson Zaki Heller told Army Radio. According to police, the two gunmen drove toward the bus stop armed with a handgun and an M16 rifle and opened fire. Both were killed at the scene by two soldiers who were near the bus stop.
Jerusalem police chief Doron Turgeman said police believe both attackers were from east Jerusalem. It was unclear if the attack was carried out by a Palestinian militant group or individuals acting on their own, or if it would have any impact on the truce in Gaza.
One 24-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene and another man died later at the hospital.
A year ago, a bomb exploded at the same bus stop, killing a 16-year-old boy and wounding 18.
JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas agreed to extend a temporary truce by another day just minutes before it was set to expire, said Qatar, which has been mediating between the two sides. The truce was set to expire Thursday morning. Negotiations on extending it came down to the wire, with last-minute disagreements over the hostages to be freed by Hamas in exchange for another day of a halt in fighting.
The Qatari Foreign Ministry said the truce was being extended under the same terms as in the past, under which Hamas has released 10 Israeli hostages per day in exchange for 30 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel released another group of Palestinian prisoners early Thursday in exchange for 16 hostages freed hours earlier by the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza. A bus carrying some of the Palestinian detainees arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah before dawn. The releases came on the sixth day of a temporary truce in the Israel-Hamas war.
Most prominent among those freed was 22-year-old Ahed Tamimi, an activist who gained worldwide fame in 2017 after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral on social media. Israeli troops arrested her at her West Bank home on Nov. 6 for “inciting to terrorism” on her Instagram account. Her mother said Tamimi’s account had been hacked.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Supermodel Gigi Hadid—seen here in New York City on Oct. 25, 2022, at the WWD Honors—posted false information about Israel, but later apologized. (Photo: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)
Gigi Hadid, an American fashion model of Palestinian descent, has apologized for sparking outrage last week for making numerous false claims against Israel amid its war with Hamas, claiming Israel abducts, rapes and tortures children.
“Israel is the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war. Abduction, rape, humiliation, torture, murder of Palestinians years and years and years before Oct. 7, 2023,” Hadid claimed in a since-deleted Instagram story to her 79 million followers.
The post included a picture of Ahmad Manasra, a Palestinian who stabbed two Israelis with his cousin in 2015 when he was 13 years old and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, falsely portraying Manasra as a “child prisoner of war.”
But on Tuesday, Hadid posted on Instagram apologizing for this mistake. “I used the wrong example to make that point, and I regret that,” she wrote.
Hadid, 28, faced backlash across the internet, with many claiming her post was spreading false information and was antisemitic.
“Gigi Hadid isn’t shy about spreading lies to the world! … And she writes this while Hamas still holds … children that they kidnapped, including a baby only 10 months [old]!! The Hadid family is a family of liars that instigate hatred!” Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Hadid’s anti-Israel posts came amid a deal between Israel and Hamas to release 50 Israeli hostages in exchange for 150 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails and prisons. Israel said there would be one additional day of cease-fire for every 10 additional hostages Hamas released. Hamas has released about 100 hostages as of this writing.
Hadid’s father, Mohamed Hadid, was born into a Palestinian Muslim family in Nazareth, Israel. However, Gigi Hadid was born in Los Angeles. Her sister, Bella Hadid, also a fashion model, likewise supports the Palestinians.
The state of Israel has previously responded to Hadid’s allegations against the country by writing in an infographic, “There is nothing valiant about Hamas’ massacre of Israelis. Condemning Hamas for what it is (ISIS) is not anti-Palestine, and supporting Israelis in their right against barbaric terrorists is the right thing to do.”
Hadid also reposted an Instagram Reel about Israel supposedly harvesting Palestinians’ organs on Sunday. The video was originally published by a user named Umme Murtaza, on which Murtaza said, “Watch this disturbing video, where health officials admitted that Israeli authorities had harvested the organs of dead Palestinians for years without their consent.” Hadid did not apologize for sharing that Reel.
“Gigi Hadid is the only major supermodel that keeps spreading blood libels about Jews harvesting organs,” Tamar Schwarzbard, the head of digital operations at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on X.
Terrorist sympathizers are out in full force spreading fake news about Israel’s treatment of its prisoners, as the country executes a swap with Hamas for hostages taken by the terrorist group on Oct. 7. Here are four of the most outrageous lies circulating on social media.
1. Israel Is ‘Only Country That Keeps Children As Prisoners’
This week, American supermodel Gigi Hadid shared a post to her more than 79 million Instagram followers condemning Israel as “the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war.” The post, which has been deleted, claimed Palestinian terrorist Ahmed Mansara was “abducted” by Israeli officials at 12 years old and “has endured solitary confinement despite his severe health condition.”
According to the New York Post, Mansara went on a “stabbing rampage” in East Jerusalem with his 15-year-old cousin in 2015 that left a 20-year-old security guard and a 13-year-old boy with critical injuries. Mansara was convicted of two counts of attempted murder after his cousin was killed in the attack by a police officer.
“He initially received a sentence of 12 years in prison, which was later reduced” to nine and a half years, the Post reported. “During his incarceration, Mansara has repeatedly attempted to harm himself and others. He has been in and out of solitary confinement, drawing the ire of Amnesty International, a nongovernmental human rights advocacy group.”
Terrorist sympathizing aside, Hadid’s post claiming Israel is “the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war” is fake news on its face. Roughly 30 children — some of whom still remain in captivity nearly two months later — were taken hostage by Hamas, after the terrorist group slaughtered Israeli women and children in the Oct. 7 massacre which killed at least 1,200.
Unsurprisingly, child hostages held by Hamas have been subject to physical and emotional abuse. A 12-year-old was even reportedly placed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks.
🚨 Hamas forced hostages to watch videos of the 7/10 atrocities.
This is Eitan (13), He spent 51 as a hostage of Hamas. terrorists killed his father in front of him and took him to Gaza.
While held hostage, Hamas forced him to view videos of the 7/10 Atrocities.
2. Israel at Fault for Injuries Sustained by Suicide Bomb
In another episode of terrorist-sympathizing disinformation, anti-Israel pundits spread false narratives online about Israa Jaabis, who was released from Israeli custody in a prisoner swap on Monday. They claimed Jaabis’s disfigured condition was a result of Israeli brutality after nearly a decade of incarceration.
“For those of you who don’t know who Israa is, this is a photo before and after what the [Israel Defense Forces] has done to her,”wrote one user on X. The side-by-side images show Jaabis with a permanently scarred face from severe burns. But the IDF didn’t do that to her; she did it to herself in 2015 when she attempted to kill scores of civilians by detonating a suicide bomb.
3. Hamas Held Hostages in ‘Reasonable Conditions’
Dominic Waghorn, the international affairs editor for Sky News, wrote on X that hostages held by Hamas were “held in reasonable conditions.”
“Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar met with the Israeli hostages a day after they were taken in tunnels under Gaza and told them they would not be harmed and would be returned as part of a hostage deal,” Waghorn wrote. “Undermines the Israeli Hamas = ISIS storyline.”
Testimony from released prisoners, however, has revealed “horrors” endured by those held captive. Hostages were reportedly forced to use plastic chairs for beds and were given irregular meals. One 84-year-old hostage was even hospitalized in critical condition upon being released.
4. Israeli Hostage Looks ‘Thankful’ For Captivity
Maree Campbell, who claims in her bio on X to be an international relations analyst and “journalist,” contended that a released Israeli hostage looked appreciative to her captors.
“I’m not a facial expression expert,” Campbell professed on X, “but judging by the look in her eyes and the expression on her face, I’d say that is a look of appreciation and thanks.”
“Might it be that she is saying thanks for being treated unexpectedly well whilst in captivity?” Campbell asked.
A community note on the platform clarifies that the hostage in the photo, Mia Regev, was shot by Palestinian terrorists before her abduction.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Israel confirms release of 5th hostage group by Hamas as final day of cease-fire nears
Israel confirmed a list of 50 female Palestinian prisoners it is willing to release in exchange for 20 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza over the next two days. Israel and Hamas agreed to a two-day extension to their cease-fire. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is set to return to the Middle East to negotiate the flow of aid into Gaza.
Israel and Hamas entered the first day of a two-day extension to their cease-fire agreement on Tuesday as Israel continues to stay its hand in exchange for hostages.
Israel secured the release of at least 69 hostages since the cease-fire began on Friday, exchanging them for 150 Palestinian criminals held in Israeli prisons
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Israel-Hamas war: IDF announces custody of 12 newly-released hostages
Members of the Red Cross prepare to transport hostages released by Hamas in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on November 28, 2023. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Tuesday night that the 12 newly-released hostages are currently inside Israeli territory.
In a statement, the IDF said that their special forces division is “currently with the 12 released hostages.”
“After an initial medical assessment, the released hostages will continue to be accompanied by IDF soldiers as they make their way to Israeli hospitals, where they will be reunited with their families,” the press release added. “The Israel Defense Forces salutes and embraces the released hostages upon their return home.”
The Israeli military said that they remain determined to bring home all of the hostages that were kidnapped by Hamas from Israel.
“The IDF, together with the entire Israeli security establishment, will continue to operate to bring home all the hostages,” the press release continued. “The IDF Spokesperson reiterates the importance of demonstrating patience and sensitivity during this time out of respect for the released hostages and their families.”
Israel-Hamas war: Mother of hostage says she is concerned for son but ‘thrilled’ at captive releases
The mother of a hostage who was taken captive by Hamas terrorists says that she is overjoyed to see hostages being released during the Israel-Hamas cease-fire.
Rachel Goldberg, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped on October 7, appeared on “America Reports” Tuesday to talk about the latest developments with the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
“I am actually thrilled with the how the progression of these hostages being returned…I just saw that a dear friend of ours, wife and daughter, were released tonight,” Goldberg explained. “I can’t describe how happy these last few nights of seeing these children going back to their families [make me].”
The mother said that while she feels hopeful, she also remains concerned for her son. Goldberg-Polin was reportedly injured by terrorists and lost a limb.
“I worry about my son, who I know was in critical condition…and will now permanently live the rest of his life without a limb,” she explained. “I’m concerned for his health. I don’t know if he’s getting the antibiotics that he needs. I’m hoping that he got the surgery that he needed.”
“But I am thrilled with the releases of all of these hostages,” Goldberg added.
Israel-Hamas war: Iranian drone flies close to USS Eisenhower in Persian Gulf
U.S. maritime posture in Middle East as of November 28, 2023.
A U.S. official told Fox News that an Iranian drone flew near a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Middle East on Tuesday.
The drone allegedly flew near the USS Eisenhower in the Persian Gulf. The ship was in international waters at the time.
The Iranian drone reportedly ignored multiple warnings, according to the U.S. official. The U.S. military is considering the incident unsafe and unprofessional on Iran’s part.
Fox News Digital’s Liz Friden contributed to this report.
Jewish students at Indiana University denounce antisemitism on campus
Entrance sign into campus at Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana. (Photo by: Don & Melinda Crawford/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Jewish student organizations at Indiana University (IU) issued a statement Tuesday denouncing antisemitism on their campus amid the Israel-Hamas war
IU student Ethan Fine posted the statement on X, in response to allegedly antisemitic remarks made by IU’s student government president.
“The Jewish groups who signed onto the letter represent the vast majority of the estimated 4,500 Jewish students at IU,” Fine wrote on X. “After a meeting with the student body president, it was clear to us that she is no longer fit to serve.”
“We are calling on [the student body president] to resign and for the members of her executive branch to be replaced,” Fine added. “We stand together. We stand united against antisemitism.”
Israel-Hamas war: Senator Chuck Schumer to give speech about antisemitism tomorrow
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a news conference following a closed-door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol November 28, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Senator Chuck Schumer announced on Tuesday that he will be making a “major address” about antisemitism on Wednesday, as the Israel-Hamas war continues.
Schumer, who serves as the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senator, called hatred against Jews “a crisis” in the United States.
“Antisemitism is a crisis in the country,” Schumer wrote on X. “As the highest-ranking Jewish elected official, I feel compelled to speak out about it.”
“I’ll be giving a major address on it tomorrow,” the senator added.
The U.S. military on Tuesday delivered its first of three rounds of humanitarian aid intended for the people of Gaza, according to the Pentagon.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Ryder told reporters that the U.S. airlifted 24.5 metric tons of U.N. humanitarian supplies to provide “vitally needed medical supplies, warm clothing, and food and nutrition assistance to the people of Gaza.”
USAID requested that the supplies be transported via a US Air Force C-17 cargo plane, Ryder said. The aircraft arrived earlier Tuesday in Egypt where it was to be transported into Gaza and distributed by U.N. agencies.
Israel-Hamas war: Senator Thom Tillis recalls watching ‘horrific’ video of Hamas attack
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) arrives to the U.S. Capitol Building on September 26, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced on X that he and other Senators watched graphic footage related to Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Tuesday.
“Today, my Senate colleagues and I watched footage of the devastation caused by Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack against Israel,” Tillis wrote on X. “What we saw was not for the not for the faint-hearted. “
The North Carolina Republican then said that Hamas was “pure evil and must be destroyed.”
“Hamas has made it clear that they will stop at nothing to eliminate Israel and its people,” the senator added. “As Israel’s longtime ally and friend, we must do everything we can to support its efforts to defend itself and destroy Hamas.”
DOD says US Navy, Israeli-owned ship not intended target of Houthi missiles
In an undated photo released by Zodiac Maritime, the tanker Central Park is seen. Attackers seized the tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, on Sunday, Nov. 26, 2023, authorities said. (Zodiac Maritime via AP)
The Pentagon said Tuesday that the USS Mason and Central Park, an Israeli-owned tanker, were not the intended target of Houthi missiles that fired from Yemen over the weekend.
The missiles came after five armed assailants attempted to seize the MV Central Park, an Israeli-owned tanker operated by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday. The vessel sent out a distress call and forces from the USS Mason, an American destroyer, responded.
The five assailants attempted to flee in their small boats, but the U.S. forces pursued them and fired warning shots, resulting in their eventual surrender, according to Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder.
Israel-Hamas war: 4-year-old hostage Avigail Idan discharged from hospital
Avigail Idan was held in captivity by Hamas.
Avigail Idan, the 4-year-old girl who was released by Hamas captors on Sunday evening, was discharged from Schneider Children’s Medical Center on Tuesday.
“Avigail aged 4, was discharged from hospital earlier today,” Schneider Children’s Medical Center announced in a statement. “The staff at Schneider Children’s Medical Center were excited alongside her at this achievement.”
“Avigail was discharged today following treatment from the moment of her return to Israel on Sunday, November 26, 2023, in the specially assigned department at Schneider Children’s Medical Center,” the statement continued.
The hospital said that Idan was treated by “psychosocial” providers after being held in captivity for nearly two months. Her parents were killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7 before she was kidnapped.
“Since her arrival, the medical and psychosocial team at Schneider accorded her all-embracing medical and emotional care,” the press release added.
US Dept of Education opens investigation of Harvard over antisemitism on campus
Supporters of Palestine gather at Harvard University at a rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Oct. 14, 2023. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is opening an investigation into Harvard University following antisemitism on campus in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, Fox News has learned.
In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital dated Tuesday, Kristi R. Harris, Chief Attorney for the OCR Boston Office said that the OCR will be opening an investigation into whether Harvard “failed to respond to alleged harassment of students based on their national origin (shared Jewish ancestry and/or Israeli) in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI.”
“Please note that opening the complaint for investigation in no way implies that OCR has made a determination on the merits of the complaint. During the investigation, OCR is a neutral factfinder, collecting and analyzing relevant evidence from you, the University, and other sources, as appropriate,” the letter says.
Israeli doctor gives update on 84-year-old hostage Elma Avraham’s condition: ‘She is conscious’
A Red Cross vehicle carrying newly released hostages drives towards the Rafah border point with Egypt, in the southern Gaza Strip on November 28, 2023. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images)
An Israeli doctor says that 84-year-old hostage Elma Avraham is in better condition after she was rushed to a hospital upon being released from Hamas.
Avraham “suffered from many underlying illnesses and received medication essential to her life on a regular basis before she was kidnapped,” according to Soroka Medical Center director Moti Klein.
“Elma was evacuated in a very difficult condition when all vitals, all her vital signs, level of consciousness, pulse, blood pressure, blood, body temperature and blood sugar were extremely, extremely low,” Klein explained. “This is the reason for the definition of immediate danger to her life.”
Klein added that her condition was “most likely caused by not receiving those essential medications.” He reported that upon arrival, she was “unconscious in a very difficult situation while she was breathing and receiving support for her collapsed buddy system.”
“I am happy to inform that in the last few hours there has been improvement in her condition,” the doctor continued. “She is conscious, she is breathing on her own and does not need the same level of support she needed upon arrival. She was responding well to the treatment given to her and is receiving and still receiving.”
Hamas’ youngest hostage, 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, has been handed over to another terrorist group in Gaza along with his family, according to the IDF, and the news is leaving a distraught relative to plead for her loved ones’ safe return.
“I can’t say we are surprised about the level of cruelty and inhumane behavior from Hamas in this deal, in this cease-fire,” Yifat Zailer, cousin of Kfir’s mother Shiri, told “FOX & Friends” on Tuesday.
“They signed an agreement to release all women and children. Tomorrow is the last day supposedly of this cease-fire, of this agreement as it was signed. And there is still no news about my family, if they’ll be returned or not.”
10 Israelis, 2 others held by Hamas are freed, IDF says
10 Israelis, 2 others held by Hamas are freed, IDF says
The International Red Cross has taken custody of 12 hostages released by Hamas on Tuesday, Israel says.
Israeli Defense Forces say 10 of the hostages are Israeli citizens and two more are foreigners. It did not clarify the nationality of the non-israelis, however.
The announcement marks the 5th group of hostages to be released by Hamas since Israel agreed to a cease-fire with the terrorist group on Friday. The cease-fire is expected to continue through Wednesday.
“A short while ago, Red Cross representatives transferred the 12 hostages to Egypt,” the IDF said in a statement. “The released hostages’ convoy is currently making its way through Egypt to the meeting point with our soldiers at Kerem Shalom. Security representatives will verify the identity of the released hostages at the meeting point. The families of the hostages are being updated by IDF representatives with the latest available information.”
The Israeli hostages released Tuesday have been identified as Ditza Heiman, 84; Tamar Metzger, 78; Ada Sagi, 75; Merav Tal, 53; Rimon Kirsht, 36; Ofelia Roitman, 77; Gabriela Leimberg, 59; Mia Leimberg 17;.Noralin Agojo Babadilla, 60 and Clara Marman, 62.
Jewish groups sue University of California over ‘unchecked spread’ of antisemitism
The Sather Tower on the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California, U.S., on Friday, June 4, 2021. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
A coalition of Jewish groups filed a lawsuit agains the University of California on Tuesday, alleging the institution is allowing the “unchecked spread” of antismeitism across its campuses.
The Brandeis Center and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education, filed the lawsuit in California early Tuesday. The lawsuit comes as antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed across the country and the globe, especially on college campuses.
The lawsuit points to 23 student groups at UC Berkeley Law School that require new members of guest speakers to disavow Israel, according to Politico.
“Conditioning a Jew’s ability to participate in a student group on his or her renunciation of a core component of Jewish identity is no less pernicious than demanding the renunciation of some other core element of a student’s identity — whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual identity,” the lawsuit says. “No such imposition is required — or would be remotely tolerated — of other students.”
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are facing a closing window to approve new funding for Israel and Ukaine as the two countries continue their war efforts.
President Biden’s administration has called on Congress to fund both Israel and Ukraine in a single bill, but many Republicans oppose such an idea. While Republicans overwhelmingly support funding for Israel’s war agaisnt Hamas, the party’s opposition to funding for Ukraine’s military has slowly grown since Russia’s invasion.
UN ‘downplayed’ Hamas violence to perpetuate image of Israel as ‘the aggressor’: Israeli professor
UN ‘downplayed’ Hamas violence to perpetuate image of Israel as ‘the aggressor’: Israeli professor
Israel is attempting to get the United Nations to recognize and condemn Hamas’ sexual crimes against Israeli women and girls, allegedly perpetrated during the Hamas-led terror attack on Oct. 7.
During a meeting at the U.N. in Geneva on Monday, Israeli officials attempted to raise awareness of the alleged sexual violence against women and urged the international body – which often condemns global injustices and human rights violations – not to keep quiet about the issue.
Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, an associate professor at the Bar-Ilan University, who spoke at the event, told Reuters that the U.N. rights bodies have “downplayed” and “minimized” sexual violence to perpetuate Israel as “the aggressor” in the current conflict.
“Among the war crimes and the crimes against humanity that Hamas committed on October 7th were also sexual crimes, sexual assaults, rapes, that were part, that were a systematic part of their attack, of the massacre and we are expecting a strong condemnation,” she said. “We expected recognition of that. We expected a clear and loud statement that says that there is no justification for using the bodies of women as a weapon of war. None of this came until now.”
The professor said she was “deeply concerned, because of the complete lack of acknowledgment, of recognition by United Nations bodies and entities and by the international human rights world, lack of recognition that indeed Hamas committed horrific sexual crimes against women, against women and girls, on October 7th in Israel.”
Israeli hostage briefly escaped Hamas before locals handed him to terrorists
Israeli hostage briefly escaped Hamas before locals handed him to terrorists
One of the recently released Hamas hostages had previously escaped imprisonment and survived for days in the rubble of Gaza before locals recaptured him, according to a report.
“He tried getting to the border. But he didn’t have the capacity to understand where he was or where he needed to go, so he couldn’t navigate through the open field,” Ron Krivoi’s aunt, who spoke about his struggle during an appearance on KAN’s Reshet Bet radio on Monday morning.
Russian-Israeli Krivoi departed Gaza as part of the third group released as part of a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas brokered through Qatar. Both parties agreed Tuesday to extend the cease-fire by two days, conditional on the release of more hostages.
The 25-year-old was working at the Supernova festival on Oct. 7 as a sound technician when Hamas terrorists attacked, according to The Times of Israel. Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally requested Hamas include Krivoi in the second wave of released hostages as part of a separate deal.
Krivoi’s aunt claimed that he had not remained imprisoned the entire time, having briefly escaped and survived for four days in the ruins of the Gaza Strip, The Jerusalem Post reported.
She explained that Hamas had kept him in a residential building during his imprisonment, but then the Israel Defense Force’s bombing had collapsed part of the building and allowed him to escape.
The exchange comes following a tumultuous morning in which both Israel and Hamas accused one another of breaching the cease-fire agreement. Multiple Israeli soldiers were lightly injured when three separate explosions went off in northern Gaza.
Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the cease-fire through Wednesday.
Fox News foreign correspondent Trey Yingst explained Israel’s claim that Hamas violated the temporary cease-fire agreement with three explosions in Northern Gaza that injured a number of IDF troops on Tuesday.
Both Israel and Hamas accused one another of breaching the cease-fire, which has so far held for five days. Israel says the three explosions occurred in close proximitty to IDF soldiers, lightly injuring a number of them.
Both parties say the other instigated a fire-fight that took place at the site of one of the detonations. Neither party has indicated plans to call off the cease-fire, however.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., accused the Biden administration of enabling “gross human rights violations” in Gaza by sending military aid to Israel as it seeks to eradicate Hamas.
The progressive lawmaker held a tele-town hall on Monday evening where she fielded multiple questions on the Middle Eastern conflict, including a constituent who said the U.S. should “just defund Israel and send funding and aid to Gaza.”
She also encouraged pro-Palestinian activists to keep putting pressure on Democratic lawmakers to support a cease-fire, even as heightened tensions around the issue have led to instances of vandalism and threatening behavior.
“Forces that are recipients of U.S. military aid cannot be engaging in gross human rights violations,” Ocasio-Cortez said, citing a set of statutes known as the Leahy law. “And if they are engaged in gross human rights violations, then that aid must be either pulled, reconsidered, conditioned, etc.”
The Leahy law stops the government “from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights,” according to the State Department.
“What we are witnessing is the gross violation of human rights in Gaza, and that is being done with U.S. military assistance,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I don’t think that the American people want to see our public resources going to finance gross human rights violations.”
Israel urges UN to highlight Hamas’ sexual crimes against women on Oct. 7
Israeli diplomats held a meeting at the United Nations in Geneva calling attention to the sexual violence committeed by Hamas during its Oct. 7 massacre in Israel on Tuesday.
Israel has widely documented rape, murder, and other crimes against women committed by Hamas during the attack. While the U.N. has already condmened the Oct. 7 massacre, experts who spoke at Israel’s Tuesday event say U.N. rights bodies “downplayed” and “minimised” the sexual violence.
“We expected a clear and loud statement that says that there is no justification for using the bodies of women as a weapon of war. None of this came up until now,” said Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, an Associate Professor at the Bar-Ilan University. “It turns around the conventional framing of viewing Israel as the aggressor, and Palestinians as the ultimate victim.”
Meanwhile, the U.N. Human rights office says it has not been granted access to visit Israel to investigate the crimes committed on Oct. 7.
“The Office is attempting to carry out remote monitoring of these and other human rights violations reported in Israel and the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories). Lack of direct access to Israel and the OPT has hampered the work,” U.N. spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told Reuters. “We have repeatedly stressed the need for rigorous investigations and accountability for all serious breaches of international human rights and humanitarian law, irrespective of the identity of the alleged perpetrators,” she added.
Top Israeli commander says IDF is ‘prepared’ to continue war on Hamas after cease-fire
Top Israeli commander says IDF is ‘prepared’ to continue war on Hamas after cease-fire
A top Israeli military official delivered an update on the conflict with Hamas and the progress in rescuing hostages in Gaza on Tuesday.
Chief of the General Staff, LTG Herzi Halevi says Hamas has so far released 76 hostages. Herzi said Israel will not be satisfied untill every hostage has returned home, however.
“Each one who is released brings great relief, but there is no ounce of relief in the fact that more remain. We will operate to bring them all back,” Herzi said.
“The IDF is prepared to continue fighting. We are using the days of the pause as part of the framework to learn, strengthen our readiness and approve future operational plans,” he added.
Israel’s cease-fire agreement with Hamas began Friday, and the groups agreed on a two-day extension on Monday. It is unclear whether Israel will agree to further extensions later this week.
Herzi went on to assure Israeli citizens that there will be thorough investigations into how the IDF and Israel’s intelligence community failed to prevent Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.
NYC chancellor denies students who stormed halls demanding Jewish teacher’s ouster are ‘radical’
NYC chancellor denies students who stormed halls demanding Jewish teacher’s ouster are ‘radical’
New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks on Monday staunchly denied allegations that the approximately 400 students who swarmed the halls of Hillcrest High School last week demanding the ouster of a Jewish teacher who supports Israel had been in any way “radicalized.”
“This is a really good school with wonderful young people. And I’m so taken aback by this notion that these kids are terrorists … or radicalized. Even that kind of language is just terrible, and it’s irresponsible,” Banks said at a press conference, confirming that some students had been suspended or faced disciplinary action after the incident. Viral video showed students acting out after the teacher’s social media profile showed she attended an off-campus rally in support of Israel.
Citing privacy and confidentiality laws, Banks declined to say how many students were disciplined or provide more details but said he did not suspend all the hundreds in the hallway.
On November 20, a teacher at Hillcrest High School “was targeted based on her support for Israel expressed in a permissible way outside of school hours and her Jewish identity,” Banks said, outlining how the “safety of multiple of our staff and students were put at risk after approximately 400 students acted disruptively during class changing time, roving the school and calling for the removal of a Jewish educator.” Officials said the Jewish teacher was on a different floor at the time the crowd of students stormed the halls.
Israel has identified 300 Palestinian prisoners who it says are elligible to be released under the current cease-fire exchange agreement with Hamas. Roughly 80% of those prisoners are listed only as “detained,” meaning they have not faced formal charges, according to a report from CNN.
So far, Hamas has released 69 hostages from Gaza and Israel has in turn released 150 Palestinian prisoners. Of those prisoners, 98 were being detained without charges, according to CNN.
Israel says cease-fire terms violated by 3 detonations, gunfire; IDF soldiers injured
Israel accuses Hamas of breaching cease-fire following after explosions, gunfire in northern Gaza
Israeli Defense Forces accused Hamas violating the cease-fire agreement after a trio of explosions and an exchange of gunfire in northern Gaza on Tuesday.
The IDF says the three explosives were detonated in close proximity to Israeli troops, causing some light injuries. While Israel stated that the explosives violated the cease-fire, it did not indicate plans to withdraw from the deal as of early Tuesday morning.
“Over the last hour, three explosive devices were detonated adjacent to IDF troops in two different locations in the northern Gaza Strip, violating the framework of the operational pause. In one of the locations, terrorists also opened fire at the troops, who responded with fire,” the IDF said in a statement.
“A number of soldiers were lightly injured during the incidents,” the statement continued. “In both incidents, the troops were located in positions as per the framework of the operational pause.”
Hamas released a statement saying it remains committed to the terms of the cease-fire, and it in turn accused Israel of violations.
“As a result of a clear violation by the enemy of the truce agreement in the northern Gaza Strip today, field friction occurred and our mujahideen dealt with this violation. We are committed to the truce as long as the enemy has committed to it, and we call on the mediators to pressure the occupation to adhere to all the terms of the truce on the ground and in the air,” Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades wrote in a statement.
Large plumes of smoke could be seen rising over the Gaza skyline on Tuesday, but Israel says they are not the result of airstrikes or any other offensive action.
IDF spokesman Peter Lerner joined Fox News on Tuesday to discuss the issue. He said ISrael has yet to determine a cause for the pillars of smoke. Israel and Hamas are in the first day of their newly-extended cease-fire, with Hamas expected to release 10 additional Israeli hostages later in the day.
Hamas officials accused Israel of a “clear violation” of the cease-fire agreement, claiming an Israeli aristrike occurred.
Mother of Vermont shooting victim says son ‘may have to be in a wheelchair’
The mother of one of the three Palestinian students shot in Vermont over the weekend says her son has a bullet lodged in his spine and doctors overseeing his recovery aren’t sure if he will be able to walk again, according to a report.
Elizabeth Price, whose 20-year-old son Hisham Awartani attends Brown University, told ABC News, “I’m shaking. I’m hollow inside. I’m aching to be with my son” following the incident that happened Saturday night in Burlington.
“He’s lying immobilized in a bed, but he had very high spirits in the beginning. And I think now it’s beginning to sink into him the extent of — the enormity of — the challenge that faces him,” Price reportedly said. “He may have to be in a wheelchair. … I believe that he’ll be able to walk, but his life has been taken away from him as it is, and he’s gonna have to recreate this new life.”
“Justice to me means making sure that the man who shot my son is behind bars,” Price also told ABC News. “Justice to me is making sure that crimes like this don’t happen again. Justice to me is also about my son finding a way to rebuild his life.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday morning said that federal authorities are probing whether the shooting was a hate crime.
Israeli journalists are blasting tech billionaire Elon Musk’s visit to Israel this week as the X owner is facing accusations of antisemitism.
On Monday, Musk met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu, Israeli President Isaac Herzog as well as the families of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. He also toured an Israeli kibbutz where civilians were murdered on Oct. 7 during terrorist attacks.
But his trip wasn’t welcomed by everyone in Israel, particularly members of the media.
“Blatant antisemite & publisher of antisemitism Elon Musk should be persona non grata in Israel,” Haaretz editor in chief Esther Solomon posted on X. “Instead, Netanyahu – plumbing new depths of amoral sycophancy – gifts him a PR visit to the kibbutzim devastated by Hamas. Profane, venal, bilious, both of them.”
“Hard to stomach welcoming someone who just days ago endorsed a virulently antisemitic trope, has dabbled for years in antisemitism and has turned this platform into a cesspool of hate. It’s quite frankly gross,” Times of Israel reporter Amy Spiro similarly wrote.
Israel-Hamas war: US looks to increase aid into Gaza through Egypt, includes warning for Israel
Israel-Hamas war: US looks to increase aid into Gaza through Egypt, includes warning for Israel
The United States will accelerate its humanitarian assistance into Gaza, including food, fuel and medical supplies, with the first of three relief flights beginning this week, Fox News has learned.
The U.S. military will be sending a series of items, which also include supplies to help Palestinians survive the upcoming winter conditions, to North Sinai and Egypt on Tuesday, according to senior administration officials. Additional plane loads of supplies and aid will then be sent in the coming days, the officials said.
Additional talks are in the works with the Israeli government on how to allow even more assistance to the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, many of whom have been displaced from their homes and face unsustainable living conditions in south and central Gaza, where about 80% of the Gaza Strip population now lives.
These supplies and fuel are not linked to the release of hostages, the officials said. As of Tuesday, Hamas has released at least 69 hostages, 51 of them Israeli, while Israel has released roughly 150 Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas is expected to release 10 more Israeli hostages Tuesday as the extended cease-fire between the two sides holds.
Fox News Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst reported on the latest developments as the first day of the extended cease-fire began. Yingst said the majority of the hostages released so far have been women and children. Each of the hostages released on Monday still have fathers and husbands in Hamas custody.
Hamas transfers 10-month-old Israeli hostage, family to separate Palestinian terror group in Gaza
Hamas transfers 10-month-old Israeli hostage, family to separate Palestinian terror group in Gaza
Hamas transfered custody of a 10-month-old Israeli hostage and his family to another terrorist group in southern Gaza, Israeli Defense Forces said Tuesday.
The IDF’s Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee announced the transfer late Monday night. The family consists of the infant, Kfir; his 4-year-old brother Ariel, and their parents. The IDF did not specify precisely which organization they have been transfered to.
“In Hamas prison, infants under one year old who have not seen the light of day for more than 50 days are detained. Hamas treats them as if they were spoils and sometimes hands them over to other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip,” Adraee wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“For example, the Bibas family, the two red-haired children “The Reds,” who were kidnapped from their home in Nir Oz by a member of the Hamas terrorist organization (pictured) and are being held in the Khan Yunis area by one of the Palestinian factions.”
Israel-Hamas war: U.S. Navy says Houthis fired 2 ballistic missiles toward Israel-linked ship
Israel-Hamas war: U.S. Navy says Houthis fired 2 ballistic missiles toward Israel-linked ship
U.S. intelligence officials told Fox News on Monday that the Iran-backed Houthis are the group that fired two ballistic missiles toward the USS Mason.
The assessment was done by the U.S. Navy. Officials believe that the Yemeni Houthis more likely wanted to target the MV Central Park, a vessel linked to Israel, based on the missiles’ trajectory.
One of the two missiles splashed in the ocean, five nautical miles from the MV Central Park and 10 nautical miles from the USS Mason.
Two U.S. officials told Fox News that the second missile exploded midair.
Fox News Digital’s Jennifer Griffin and Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.
Video shows Eitan Yahalomi and his mother BatSheva greeting each other.
The temporary cease-fire agreement includes the swap of hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack against Israel for Palestinian prisoners held in the Jewish State.
More than 15,000 people have been killed in Gaza and Israel since Hamas launched its largest attack against Israel in decades on Oct. 7, leading to a military response from Israeli forces.
Thousands more have been wounded, and many others have been taken hostage by Hamas and raped, tortured and murdered.
California GOP Rep. David Valadao’s office vandalized by anti-Israel protestors
California GOP Rep. David Valadao’s office vandalized by anti-Israel protestors
A California congressman is the latest victim of antisemitism attacks happening across the country as Rep. David Valadao’s (R-Calif.) Hanford office was vandalized Monday morning, according to a post on X from Rep. Valadao.
Rep. Valadao posted a photo of his Hanford office Monday afternoon covered in “Murdered by Israel” posters and fake blood.
“This morning, my Hanford office was vandalized by anti-Israel protestors. I strongly support the right to peaceful protest, but violence and vandalism are never acceptable. In a democracy, harassment and intimidation is not how you make your voice heard,” Rep. Valadao posted.
Hamas has reportedly handed over a fifth group of hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross, according to Egyptian officials, with the report coming after Israel reported the deaths of three soldiers captured during the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7.
The group of 10 hostages was turned over to the Red Cross in Gaza, with Israeli officials expecting them to arrive in the country shortly thereafter, according to The Wall Street Journal, quoting the unnamed Egyptian sources.
Video from southern Gaza on Tuesday showed trucks and vans driving through the streets that were believed to contain some of the hostages, according to Hebrew-language media reports, noted The Times of Israel. Some of the vehicles in the video, which the site said has not been independently confirmed, had multiple gunmen hanging from their sides.
The hostages’ release comes after Israel and Hamas agreed to extend the four-day cease in hostilities for two more days while more hostages are released.
The military Tuesday declared three soldiers as being dead, identifying them as Sgt. Shaked Dahan, 19; Staff Sgt. Tomer Yaakov Ahimas, 20; and Sgt. Kiril Brodski, 19, reported The Times of Israel. They were described as being “fallen soldiers held hostage by a terror group” who were earlier reported as being abducted during the Hamas raids.
The military’s chief rabbi declared their deaths based on various findings obtained by the IDF, but reportedly, only Ahimas and Brodski can be buried according to Jewish law.
Dahan’s mother, Sigalit Gal, said on Facebook on Tuesday that she is not going to observe the traditional seven-day Jewish mourning period until her son’s body is returned to her from Gaza.
“I did for you what I needed to as a mother. I managed to keep you safe and protect you in many situations,” she said. “You’ve been taken from me forever. They took you and didn’t bother to return you, not even your body.”
Meanwhile, The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club on Tuesday published the names of 30 people to be released from Israeli prisons as part of the ongoing hostage release deal, reports Israeli newspaper Haaretz. One of those is Marwat al-Azza, a journalist living in East Jerusalem, who was indicted Monday for statements made on social media including one that mocked an elderly woman abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7.
Al-Azza, a freelancer for NBC News, has been accused of incitement to terrorism and identifying with a terrorist organization.
The latest release of hostages taken by Hamas comes after the Israeli government accused the organization of breaking the cease-fire agreement Tuesday. Several members of the Israel Defense Forces were injured when three explosive devices and gunfire targeted forces in northern Gaza.
“Over the last hour, three explosive devices were detonated adjacent to IDF troops in two different locations in northern Gaza, violating the framework of the operational pause,” said the military, according to the Jewish News Syndicate.
Earlier Tuesday, Israel received a list of 10 hostages that were to be released, with the list being reviewed and the captives’ families being notified, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, reported the Jewish News Syndicate.
So far, 50 Israeli women and children, plus one Israeli man, have been freed since the initial four-day cease-fire started on Friday morning, along with 17 Thais, one Filipino, and one American, a child.
Meanwhile, Israel has vowed to resume the war with the “full force” needed to destroy Hamas once the prisoner releases stop, and the Biden administration has told Israel it must avoid “significant further displacement” and mass casualties among Palestinian civilians if it resumes the offensive.
The administration has also insisted that Israel must operate with more precision in southern Gaza than it has used in its strikes in the north, according to U.S. officials.
The Israeli military says 11 hostages have been released from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip and returned to Israeli territory. Military officials said late Monday that the hostages were on Israeli soil and undergoing initial medical checks before being reunited with their families.
It is the fourth such release under a cease-fire deal with the Hamas military group. Israel is to free 33 Palestinian prisoners later Monday. The cease-fire had been set to expire early Tuesday. But Qatar, which has been mediating between the sides, said they agreed to extend the truce by two more days.
The war broke out Oct. 7 when Hamas militants burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 240 others captive. Israel declared war, and over 13,000 Palestinians have been killed in weeks of Israeli strikes, according to health authorities in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
Israeli media said the hostages included two women and nine children. Two of the children are 3 years old.
The release of 11 Israeli hostages and 33 Palestinians under the original ceasefire agreement, which had been due to end Monday night, dominated the day’s flurry of truce activity. According to a Reuters report, the Israeli hostages released from Gaza on Monday include three French citizens, two Germans and six Argentinians. The news service cited a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman on social media platform X.
The White House said U.S. officials had hoped two American women would be among the latest group to be freed from Gaza, where it believes eight or nine U.S. citizens are being held.
Hamas said it had received a list of Palestinians to be released from Israeli jails. It said these included three female prisoners and 30 minors.
The Israel Defense Forces shared a video of a mosque, alleging that Hamas had been using the
facility to make and store weapons.
“Hamas used this mosque as a weapons storage facility and a laboratory for Hamas’ rockets. Finding dozens of mortars, warhead missiles, thermobaric weapons, RPGs and a tunnel shaft,” the IDF tweet about the facility declared.
The post included a video with English captions as someone walked into the mosque and showed footage of it.
“In the mosque’s basement, there is a weapon storage facility, a Hamas rocket manufacturing lab, and lots and lots of explosive devices as well as explosive materials,” the captions on the video read. “Hamas built entire walls to hide the lab” the captions continued, “we had to destroy them in order to expose the lab.”
Holy places, such as mosques, should not be used as fronts for terrorism.
Hamas used this mosque as a weapons storage facility and a laboratory for Hamas’ rockets. Finding dozens of mortars, warhead missiles, thermobaric weapons, RPGs and a tunnel shaft.
The Jewish state went to war last month after Hamas perpetrated atrocities in Israel, including murders, rapes, and kidnappings. Israel has approved a temporary ceasefire with Hamas that will involve the release of some of the hostages.
“The Government of Israel is obligated to return home all of the hostages,” the Israeli government noted in a statement. “Tonight, the Government has approved the outline of the first stage of achieving this goal, according to which at least 50 hostages – women and children – will be released over four days, during which a pause in the fighting will be held,” the statement added. “The release of every additional ten hostages will result in one additional day in the pause.”
“The Government of Israel, the IDF and the security services will continue the war in order to return home all of the hostages, complete the elimination of Hamas and ensure that there will be no new threat to the State of Israel from Gaza,” the statement concluded.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening, at the start of the Government meeting:
While this meeting is to discuss the return of our hostages, I would like to start with something that should be self-evident: We are at war – and will continue the war. pic.twitter.com/YaICV89yEU
Two journalists working for a Lebanon-based TV channel and a third person were killed by a rocket strike near Lebanon’s border with Israel on Tuesday, the Lebanese state news agency reported. The agency said the incident took place near the town of Tir Harfa, about a mile from the Israeli frontier. The strike came less than a day after Hezbollah hit Israeli Defense Forces’ military positions near the border, according to reports.
“According to Israeli Media, Hezbollah has launched upwards of 40 Rockets and 3 Attack Drones against IDF Positions in Northern Israel this morning causing Significant Damage to at least 1 Military Outpost along the Border, with this being seen as a Serious Escalation,” an open-source intelligence monitor posted Monday on X.
Israeli aircraft Tuesday struck three-armed terror cells in Lebanese territory close to the border, as well as a number of Hezbollah targets, the army said, according to Jewish News Syndicate. Sirens sounded in northern Israel on Tuesday morning due to a potential hostile aircraft intrusion from Lebanon, with the IDF later giving the all-clear.
Three anti-tank missile launches from Lebanon toward the area of Metula near the Israel-Lebanon border were identified by the IDF on Tuesday morning. No injuries were reported, and the IDF struck the source of the launches. Later on Tuesday morning, the IDF reported that terrorists fired mortar shells at a military post in northern Israel.
Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV, which the two killed reporters were working for, said Israel had carried out the attack and deliberately targeted the journalists. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah broke out after Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7. The border violence has escalated, raising Western fears of a widening war in the Middle East that could draw in both the United States and Iran.
It is the worst violence at the border since Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006 and has so far killed more than 70 Hezbollah fighters, 13 Lebanese civilians, seven Israeli troops and three Israeli civilians.
Newsmax writer Eric Mack and JNS.org contributed to this report.
Siblings Ido (left) and Yonatan (right) Lulu-Shamriz say they have not been able to find any peace since Hamas took their little brother hostage on Oct. 7. (Photo: Philip Reynolds/The Daily Signal)
Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz’s daughter was celebrating her 2nd birthday on Oct. 7 in Israel. Inside the safe room of their home one mile from the border of Gaza, Lulu-Shamriz’s little girl was delighted that she was allowed to eat her birthday cake with her fingers as her parents had not had time to grab forks as they fled into the safe room. The child was unaware of the Hamas terrorists outside, and her parents did everything they could to ensure it stayed that way.
“I told her that we were going to play a game,” Lulu-Shamriz said, “the whisper game, that if we whisper, we get the balloons after.”
For the 22 hours he, his 7-month pregnant wife, his daughter, and their two dogs were in the safe room, they tried to remain as silent as possible, and if his daughter started to sing or talk loudly, he reminded her of the game and the prize of balloons if she remained quiet. After being in the safe room for a few hours, Lulu-Shamriz, who is 33 and the oldest among three boys, received a text from his 26-year-old brother Alon Lulu-Shamriz telling the family he heard Hamas terrorists in his house.
“I wrote him that I love him, and he’s strong, and this is the last time we spoke,” Lulu-Shamriz told The Daily Signal during a recent interview.
Lulu-Shamriz’s youngest brother was taken hostage by Hamas during the attack in October. At first, the family thought he was among the 1,200 Israelis killed in the terrorist attack, but later, the Israel Defense Force confirmed that he was taken hostage.
Lulu-Shamriz and his brother Ido Lulu-Shamriz, 32, recently traveled from Israel to Washington, D.C., to share their story and advocate for their little brother and the release of about 240 hostages being held in Gaza.
The oldest Lulu-Shamriz said he and his family have not found any peace since his little brother was kidnapped, but instead said he feels “blame all the time.”
“You wear these clothes, you eat food, you go to bed, you brush your teeth in the morning, and you always ask yourself if Alon get the same conditions,” the oldest brother said. “When you put your blanket at night, you ask yourself, is Alon cold now?”
Alon Lulu-Shamriz was taken hostage by Hamas Oct. 7. Photo compliments of JDA Worldwide.
Ido Lulu-Shamriz, the middle brother, had a different experience on Oct. 7. The middle brother is part of the civilian emergency squad in his kibbutz near the Gaza border in Israel. Every kibbutz near the Gaza Strip has a civilian squad that can respond to threats until the Israel Defense Force arrives, Ido Lulu-Shamriz explained.
Around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7, Ido Lulu-Shamriz received a message from a squad member that someone had parachuted into his kibbutz with a gun. He then started to hear missiles go off and alarms sound and realized that “this is not just the missile attack.”
“This is something unique, something that never happened to us,” he said.
Ido Lulu-Shamriz and the members of his civilian emergency squad were instructed via a group WhatsApp message to go to the shelter in the kibbutz where their guns are stored. He reached the shelter and got his gun and he and the other squad members began to fight “dozens of terrorists around the shelter,” he recalled.
“Seven of my friends were killed,” Ido Lulu-Shamriz added. “Seven of them fought shoulder to shoulder with me, and the other seven guys survived.”
“At the beginning, we thought about attack,” he said, but “then you realize you need to defend because there are so many, they were everywhere. And then you realize it’s self-defense, you know, everyone needs to rescue himself before you’re going to be dead like your friends.”
Ido Lulu-Shamriz and his good friend retreated back to his house, but before they made it to safety, Ido Lulu-Shamriz saw that his neighbor’s door was open. His neighbors, a husband and wife, had two 10-month-old twins.
“When I saw the door open, I realized that they are not with us anymore,” he said, bluntly.
Ido Lulu-Shamriz entered the safe room in his home with his friend and initially believed that Hamas terrorists had killed the parents and their twin babies. Later, however, through the walls of the safe room, they heard the babies crying. “They didn’t stop for 12 hours,” the middle brother said.
He sent a message to Israel Defense Force soldiers alerting them to the twin babies, but “they didn’t reach them for 12 hours, 12 hours that I’m hearing those twins crying nonstop while their parents are dead between their beds.”
Reflecting on the events of Oct. 7, Ido Lulu-Shamriz added, “Nothing can prepare you for those moments, you know, for such a battle, such a sight to fight with your best friends that are now alive and a couple of minutes later, they are dead. It’s terrible. You can’t prepare for those moments in your life.”
When asked what message they have for President Joe Biden and America’s leaders, Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz, the eldest brother, said America needs to put “pressure on Qatar” because the nation has a “direct channel to Hamas” and Qatar could play a role in negotiating the release of the hostages.
Victoria Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that “Qatar does have leverage with Hamas.” But Coates noted that the hostage negotiations are complex and that there is no simple answer to moving negotiations forward. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of Heritage.)
Yonatan Lulu-Shamriz said he hopes U.S. citizens understand that what “happened in Israel on the seventh of October, it’s not aimed only for Jews, for Israelis, and Zionists.”
“They killed everyone,” he said, referring to Hamas. “They kill Thai people, they kill Americans, they killed Russian, and Europe is next. America is next.”
The United Nations Security Council called for a days-long pause in fighting in Gaza on Thursday as Israeli forces continued to strike against Hamas leaders in Gaza City. Israeli forces took control of the Al-Shifa Hospital and are working to “destroy” Hamas in the region.
The Israeli military continues to target Hamas leadership in northern Gaza and has captured several the terrorist groups’ key bases in the region
There remain up to 238 Hamas hostages in Gaza, and 10 of them are believed to be Americans. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 11,200 Gazans have been killed in the fighting, though they do not distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas terrorists.
After weeks of gridlock, the United Nations Security Council voted to call for a days-long humanitarian pause in fighting
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IDF soldiers recover body of Hamas hostage found near Al-Shifa Hospital
IDF soldiers recover body of Hamas hostage found near Al-Shifa Hospital
Israeli Defense Forces say they found the body of a hostage taken in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Thursday.
Israeli forces say they found Yehudit Weiss’ body in a building adjacent to the Al-Shifa Hospital, which Israel says Hamas had been using as a headquarters until early this week. The IDF did not offer any details about Weiss beyond her name, but noted that her family has been contacted.
Soldiers searching the building say they also found military equipment including Kalashnikov rifles and RPG’s inside.
Weiss was one of roughly 240 people taken hostage by Hamas duirng its Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. She is now among a small number of hostages confirmed to have been killed since Israel’s war on Hamas began.
Israeli troops discovered a hidden booby-trapped vehicle inside the complex of a Hamas-run hospital in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday.
In a video posted to X, the IDF said the vehicle contained AK-47 rifles, grenades, RPGs, sniper rifles and other explosives.
“This is what Hamas is trying to hide from you,” an IDF spokesperson said in the footage.
Near the vehicle were weapons, ammunition and other items, including handcuffs and knives displayed on the ground, the IDF said.
“And where they’re hiding all this equipment is in the hospital,” the spokesperson said. “A place that’s supposed to be for humanitarian aid. They have all this evil hidden here.”
“This is where they choose to hide everything because they know the IDF won’t attack, the air force won’t attack here,” he added. “They use the hospital as human shields.”
Israel has long claimed tat Hamas has used hospitals and other sensitive locations as cover to conceal its military operations.
On Tuesday, John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said that intelligence supports Israel’s claims about Hamas activities in hospitals.
“I can confirm for you that we have information that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad use some hospitals in the Gaza Strip, including al-Shifa, and tunnels underneath them, to conceal and to support their military operations and to hold hostages,” Kirby told reporters on Air Force One.
IDF chief of staff says Israel close to ‘destroying’ Hamas’ military system in Gaza’s north
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi talks with troops Thursday in the Gaza Strip. (Israel Defense Forces)
The chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces on Thursday credited his troops with moving closer to destroying Hamas’ “military system” amid its weeks-long campaign against the terror group.
Herzi Halevi visited soldiers on the ground inside the Gaza Strip, where he spoke of Israel’s response to Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israeli border communities.
“As the campaign move forwards, with what you have done here with these battalions, Division 36 and 252, we are quite close to destroying the (Hamas) military system that existed in the north of the Gaza Strip,” he said, according to a press release. “We will complete it, we still have some things to do, but we are getting closer.”
He said the IDF will continue its military operations and that “as much as it depends on us, area after area, we’re going to kill the commanders and kill the operatives and destroy the infrastructure.”
“You have done it excellently so far, take what you’ve learned so far – for almost three weeks, and do it even better,” Halevi added.
Israel has battered Gaza with continuous airstrikes in the weeks since the attack, resulting in thousands dead and an escalating humanitarian crisis.
It’s highly unlikely that Israeli military operations will eliminate the ideology of Hamas, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby suggested Thursday.
Israel has pummeled the Gaza Strip for six weeks with airstrikes as Israeli leaders have vowed to eliminate the terror group.
“What we have learned through our own experiences … through military and other means, you can absolutely have a significant impact on [a] terrorist group’s ability to resource itself, to train fighters, to recruit fighters, to plan and to execute attacks,” Kirby said Thursday during a briefing.
He noted that Hamas leaders have repeatedly said they plan to attack Israel for the foreseeable future.
Military operations against a particular group, no matter how precise and targeted, cannot eliminate an idea, he said, citing the defeat of other terror groups in recent years.
“I mean, look at the shadow of itself that ISIS is right now, look at the shadow of itself that al Qaeda is right now. That doesn’t mean that the ideology also withers away and dies,” he said. “But you can absolutely have a practical, meaningful effect on a terrorist organization’s ability to conduct and execute its attacks.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman contributed to this report.
Israel released video footage that purportedly shows part of a tunnel on the grounds of a hospital complex in Gaza.
The tunnel was near the Al-Shifa hospital, which Israel has said is used by Hamas to plan attacks and military operations.
On Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces released footage showing weapons and military equipment inside the hospital, which has shelter thousands of civilians amid Israeli shelling.
Israeli officials claim that the facility is being used as cover by Hamas terrorists and that the group has set up its main command center underneath the building.
“A few of the most interesting things that we found totally confirms, without any doubt, that Hamas systematically uses hospitals in their military operations, in violation of international law,” IDF Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said as he walked through an MRI building at the hospital.
Shelling ramps up at Israel-Lebanon border with Hezbollah, IDF trading missile strikes: report
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike, left, and artillery shelling, right, on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese border village with Israel in south Lebanon on Monday. Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants and their allies have been clashing along the border since the Israel-Hamas war started five weeks ago with a bloody incursion into southern Israel by Hezbollah ally Hamas. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
The Israel Defense Forces and Lebanon-based Hezbollah have ramped up shelling against each other as both sides continue to trade airstrikes.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said it has struck eight targets so far in Israel on Thursday, including Israeli soldiers and a military barracks, “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” according to Reuters.
In response, the IDF said it hit a site in Lebanon that has tried launching anti-tank missiles toward its territory and that artillery strikes have been directed at other locations, the news agency adds.
Israel’s counterattack has impacted several villages along Lebanon’s southern border, a source told Reuters. There were no reported injuries. Both sides have repeatedly traded airstrikes since Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israeli border communities.
Since Hamas launched its war on Israel, more than 70 Hezbollah fighters and 10 civilians have been killed in shelling in Lebanon, Reuters reports.
Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman contributed to this report.
Pro-Palestinian protesters block bridges in Boston, San Francisco during rush hour
Pro-Palestinian protesters block bridges in Boston, San Francisco during rush hour
Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked traffic on bridges in Boston and San Francisco during rush hour Thursday morning to call for a cease-fire in Gaza as Israel continues to target Hamas leadership more than a month after the militant group’s deadly incursion into Israel.
On the Boston University bridge, the group IfNotNow, which says it represents members of Boston’s Jewish community, chanted “Cease-fire now!” and demanded that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., support an immediate cease-fire and use her influence to stop the Israeli government’s military action in Gaza.
The protest slowed traffic to a trickle on the bridge, which connects Boston and Cambridge, as the group held signs that said, “Let Gaza Live,” and unfurled a banner across the roadway that read, “Jews say: Ceasefire now.”
“We care about Palestinian lives, we only want to hurt Hamas,” one protester on the bridge told NBC Boston, while another said, “There can’t be peace for Jews unless there is peace for Palestinians.”
Meanwhile, Pro-Palestinian protesters also shut down the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, where President Biden was courting world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace contributed to this report
Republicans blast pro-Palestinian protests at DNC: ‘Nation’s capital is under siege’
I am on Capitol Hill right now and it’s on lockdown. No getting in or out of our offices. We have officers that were pepper sprayed by pro-Hamas protestors with a lot of people attempting to break into the Democratic HQ. Anyone else notice how violent the so-called “ceasefire”… pic.twitter.com/UbtMmLe7Ei
The Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., saw fireworks on Wednesday night when pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with police in front of the DNC.
Republicans weighed in on the protests online, with Florida Rep. Kat Cammack posting a video of the protest while she was on Capitol Hill.
“I am on Capitol Hill right now and it’s on lockdown,” Cammack wrote. “No getting in or out of our offices.”
“We have officers that were pepper sprayed by pro-Hamas protestors with a lot of people attempting to break into the Democratic HQ,” she continued. “Anyone else notice how violent the so-called ‘ceasefire’ crowd is?”
Fox News’ Houston Keene contributed to this report
The Guardian removes Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ after TikTok unearths pro-terror screed
The Guardian removes Osama bin Laden’s ‘Letter to America’ after TikTok unearths pro-terror screed
The Guardian removed Osama bin Laden’s infamous “Letter to America” this week as the words of the terrorist mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001, went viral after being unearthed by social media users.
The left-wing outlet had the anti-American and antisemitic letter published on its website since 2002 and was the first Google search result when searching for the document. But the publication deleted bin Laden’s letter amid a sudden spike in traffic.
A spokesperson for The Guardian told Fox News Digital, “The transcript published on our website 20 years ago has been widely shared on social media without the full context. Therefore we have decided to take it down and direct readers to the news article that originally contextualized it instead.”
The Guardian declined additional comment.
The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, with many thousands more injured and suffering from long-term illnesses, after Islamic terrorists crashed four hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania; the latter was forced down by heroic passengers. In the letter to the American people translated in English, bin Laden justified al-Qaeda’s attacks against the U.S. because “you attacked us” and “you attacked us in Palestine.”
“Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation,” bin Laden alleged.
Suspect arrested in death of pro-Israel demonstrator Paul Kessler
Suspect arrested in death of pro-Israel demonstrator Paul Kessler
California police have arrested Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji, 50, in relation to the death of Jewish man Paul Kessler at an Israel protest last week.
Alnaji has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and has a bail set at $1,000,000. The arrest comes roughly a week after Kessler, 69, died in the hospital after striking his head on the concrete during an altercation with Alnaji.
Footage showed Kessler bleeding on the ground following the incident. Alnaji, a pro-Palestinian protester had allegedly manhandled Kessler and caused him to fall.
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department stated last week that they had identified a 50-year-old suspect in the case, but they had not yet identified him nor made an arrest.
AOC leads two dozen Democrats calling for Israel cease-fire over ‘violations against children’
AOC leads two dozen Democrats calling for Israel cease-fire over ‘violations against children’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is leading renewed calls for President Biden to support a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas over the “grave violations” being committed against children in the war.
“We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children, and our fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral ceasefire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life and risk dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East,” the progressive lawmaker wrote.
She and 23 other progressives wrote to Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday, asking for details on the U.S. plan to de-escalate tension in the region.
They cited figures from both Israel and the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza about how many children have been killed or abducted since Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing hundreds of civilians.
Israel has responded by bombarding Gaza with rocket fire and a ground invasion.
“We reaffirm our unequivocal condemnation of the Hamas attacks on Israel that took place on October 7th, in which Hamas killed over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, and captured over 200 hostages, who were subsequently taken to Gaza,” the Democrats wrote.
Massachusetts town flying Palestinian flag sparks backlash from residents, Jewish congregation
Massachusetts town flying Palestinian flag sparks backlash from residents, Jewish congregation
A local Jewish leader spoke out on “FOX & Friends” Thursday after his Massachusetts town approved a permit to allow a Palestinian flag to fly in town.
Marc Freedman, president of Congregation Ahavat Olam in North Andover, said the flag was now a “symbol of antisemitism” following the Oct. 7 attacks.
“It is a symbol to just eliminate the entire Jewish population,” he said.
Town officials approved a permit Monday allowing the Palestinian flag to be flown on the North Andover Town Common.
“I think they’re just a bunch of cowards. They took a legal initiative, a legal statement from council that said you need to follow specific guidelines and must raise this flag, when in their hearts, in their hearts, I know every single one of them did not want to raise their flag,” he said.
He said the council put personal concerns ahead of the town and added, “that’s not what leadership does.”
Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report
IDF footage shows Hamas rockets stashed under child’s bed inside Gaza terrorist’s home
IDF footage shows Hamas rockets stashed under child’s bed inside Gaza terrorist’s home
Israeli Defense Forces released footage of troops searching the home of a Hamas terrorist in Gaza and uncovering a stash of rockets hidden under a young child’s bed on Thursday.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari says the rockets and other weapons found inside the home were destroyed soon afterward. Footage shows an Israeli soldier walking past a pink “baby girl” sign before revealing several rockets inside a compartment in the bed.
“Rockets were found inside a bed in the children’s bedroom inside the house of a Hamas terrorist during operational activity carried out by the troops of the 551st Brigade. The terrorist was a part of a Hamas terrorist cell in Beit Hanoun,” Hagari said in a statement.
“During the operational activity, the troops uncovered a significant amount of weapons including rockets, explosive devices, and dozens of kilos of explosives. The weapons were subsequently destroyed by the forces,” he added.
Rockets were found inside a bed in the children's bedroom inside the house of a Hamas terrorist during operational activity carried out by the troops of the 551st Brigade. The terrorist was a part of a Hamas terrorist cell in Beit Hanoun >> pic.twitter.com/25SneQfOkF
— דובר צה״ל דניאל הגרי – Daniel Hagari (@IDFSpokesperson) November 16, 2023
Information, photos about Hamas hostages found on laptop inside hospital: IDF
Information, photos about Hamas hostages found on laptop inside hospital: IDF
Israeli Defense Forces uncovered information about hostages taken by Hamas on a laptop found inside the Al-Shifa Hospital on Thursday.
Israel says the laptop had photos and videos taken of hostages after the Oct. 7th massacre in Israel. Israeli forces say evidence indicates Hamas was using Al-Shifa Hospital as a base of operations “within the last few days.”
“At the end of the day, this is just the tip of the iceberg,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told the BBC. “Hamas aren’t here because they saw we were coming. This is probably what they were forced to leave behind. Our assessment is that there’s much more.”
Fox News’ foreign correspondent Trey Yings and cameraman Yaniv Turgeman visited the hospital with Israeli special forces early Thursday.
Israel says Hamas took some 239 hostages on Oct. 7, though the U.S. has said there is no way to know how many of those are still alive.
Online personality and pro-Palestinian activist Lynette Adkins urged her over 175,000 TikTok followers on Tuesday to read the words of the terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
“I need everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read- It’s literally two pages. Go read ‘A Letter to America,” Adkins said the video. “And please come back here and just let me know what you think because I feel like I’m going through, like, an existential crisis right now and a lot of people are, so I just need someone else to be feeling this.”
Her video received roughly 800,000 views and over 80,000 likes on TikTok.
Fox News Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst and cameraman Yaniv Turgeman went inside the Al-Shifa hospital with Israeli special forces on Thursday, sharing images of weapons found inside the complex.
Israeli forces say the weapons are evidence that Hamas had used the facility–and tunnel systems under it–as a base of operations.
Footage from Yingst and Turgeman’s visit showed rifles stashed behind an MRI machine as well as other supplies.
President Biden says he thinks Israel’s military operation in Gaza will stop when Hamas “no longer maintains the capacity to murder, abuse, and do horrific things to the Israelis.”
Speaking at a press conference after his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden called on the Israeli military to exercise caution as they pursue Hamas military targets near civilian infrastructure. He said the Israel Defense Forces has “an obligation to use as much caution as they can in going after their targets.”
However, he added, “Hamas said they plan to attack Israelis again and this is terrible dilemma.”
Biden and his administration have remained steadfast in support for Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas. U.S. officials have strongly condemned the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, in which Hamas terrorists infiltrated the Jewish state and massacred as many as 1,200 people, taking some 240 back to Gaza as hostages. Other world leaders have condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza, specifically attacks on hospitals and other civilian infrastructure, pointing to the staggering death toll figures released by the Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry. Israel has said, and the White House confirmed, that Hamas uses Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza City, as a military base to store weapons and plan terrorist attacks.
The U.S. government has rejected calls for a cease-fire in the conflict, insisting that Israel has a right to defend itself. At the same time, the Biden administration has pressured Israel to allow short-term pauses in the fighting so humanitarian aid, including food and medical supplies, can be delivered to the Palestinians living in Gaza.
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report
Israeli military gains ‘operational control’ over Gaza harbor used by Hamas
Israeli Defense Forces have gained “operational control” over the Harbor in Gaza city, previously a Hamas stronghold.
Israeli Defense Forces have gained “operational control” over the Harbor in Gaza city, previously a Hamas stronghold.
The IDF announced its successful oepration in the harbor on Thursday, saying Hamas had used the area to train maritime forces.
“The IDF has gained operational control over the Hamas-operated Gaza Harbor,” The IF wrote in a statement. “Disguised as a civilian area, the harbor was used by Hamas as a training facility for their naval commando forces to plan and execute terrorist attacks.”
“During the operation, conducted by soldiers of the 188th Armored Corps’ Brigade and Flotilla 13, numerous terrorist tunnel entrances and terrorist infrastructures were destroyed,” the statement continued.
Israel has conducted a relentless campaign against Hamas terrorists cells in Gaza City. The terrorist group has maintained a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the population center.
The IDF has gained operational control over the Hamas-operated Gaza Harbor.
Disguised as a civilian area, the harbor was used by Hamas as a training facility for their naval commando forces to plan and execute terrorist attacks.
Hamas has agreed to release dozens of hostages from Gaza under terms of a tentative deal that the Israeli government is now considering, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
While the exact terms of the deal remain unclear, it is believed to involve the release of some Palestinian prisoners held in Israel in addition to a multi-day pause in fighting in Gaza. The deal may already have been rejected, however.
Hamas terrorists took up to 240 hostages during their Oct. 7 massacre inside Israel. That number includes 10 Americans and many other foreign nationals who were in Israel.
UN rights chief calls for international investigation into alleged Israel-Hamas war crimes
UN rights chief calls for international investigation into alleged Israel-Hamas war crimes
UN human rights chief Volker Turk appeared to call for an international investigation into alleged war crimes commited by Israel in its war against Hamas on Thursday.
Turk made the comments after returning from a visit to the Middle East, though he was not allowed to access Israel or Gaza. The official condemned Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and argued that some in Israel have no qualms about killing civilians.
“Extremely serious allegations of multiple and profound breaches of international humanitarian law, whoever commits them, demand rigorous investigation and full accountability,” he said during a U.N. briefing in Geneva, going on to decry the “intensification of violence and severe discrimination agaisnt Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“It is apparent that on both sides, some view the killing of civilians as either acceptable or collateral, or a deliberate and useful weapon of war,” he continued.
Driver rams barrier at Israeli embassy in Tokyo, injures police officer
Driver rams barrier at Israeli embassy in Tokyo, injures police officer
Police in Tokyo arrested a lone driver who rammed his vehicle into a barrier outside the Israeli embassy on Thursday.
Israeli ambassador to Japan Gilad Cohen confirmed the incident in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Japanese police say they arrested the suspect, a 53-year-old man who was suspected to be a member of a “right-wing organization.”
A police officer outside the embassy received minor injuries in the incident.
“Shocked by the suspected vehicular ramming attack on a police officer on guard near the Israeli embassy in Tokyo. This matter is under investigation by the local police. I would like to express gratitude to the Japanese government and Tokyo Police for their commitment to ensuring our security. Wishing a speedy recovery to the injured police officer,” Cohen wrote on social media.
Top media outlet marred by string of retractions and apologies related to Israel-Hamas war
Top media outlet marred by recent string of retractions and apologies related to Israel-Hamas wa
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been blemished with a string of apologies and retractions related to stories detailing developments in the Israel-Hamas war.
England’s premiere outlet, which celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, is the oldest and largest local and global broadcaster and has been heralded as an integral source of worldwide news.
But the broadcaster’s reputation has been questioned in recent weeks after a series of inaccurate news reports led critics and social media users to wonder why the BBC’s mistakes erred on behalf of Hamas and Palestinians.
On Tuesday, BBC News Channel aired a report that claimed Israeli forces had descended on Al Shifa hospital in Gaza and targeted “medical teams and Arab speakers” inside.
While reports did indicate the IDF had entered the hospital, no reports corroborated the claim that soldiers had targeted those inside.
The error led the BBC to issue an on-air apology, retraction and a written statement.
“As BBC News covered initial reports that Israeli forces had entered Gaza’s main hospital, we said that ‘medical teams and Arab speakers’ were being targeted. This was incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report,” the BBC said. “We should have said IDF forces included medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation. We apologize for this error, which fell below our usual editorial standards.”
Fox News’ Nicholas Lanum contributed to this report
Chicago college professor justifies Hamas attack ‘after 75 years of Israeli white supremacy’
Chicago college professor justifies Hamas attack ‘after 75 years of Israeli white supremacy’
A Chicagoland sociology professor sent a mass email to her students and department colleagues attempting to rally support for Palestinians who she claims have faced “75 years of Israeli White supremacy.”
Brooke Johnson, an associate professor and sociology department coordinator at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU), argued “As critical sociologists we are trained to analyze power and inequality in society” and that “this importantly comes with the responsibility to speak up when we witness harm, injustice, and violence,” stressing “What is currently happening in Palestine is one of those moments.”
“After 75 years of Israeli White supremacy, including displacement, human rights violations, and systemic violence, Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th which resulted in 1400 deaths and 240 hostages,” Johnson wrote in a Nov. 8 email obtained by Fox News Digital. “Israel is now collectively punishing Palestinians. The Palestinian death toll from Israeli airstrikes exceeds 10,000, and almost half of these are children. This number increases daily as airstrikes continue; water, food and medical aid are cut off; and demands for a humanitarian cease-fire increase.”
One student who received the email was left “really upset” by what Johnson wrote, calling the accusations she made against Israel including being guilty of “White supremacy” as “just not true.”
“I called my mom and I started crying,” the student, who did not wish to be identified, told Fox News Digital.
The student accused Johnson of “justifying” the Oct. 7 attack.
Fox News Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report
Police in the nation’s capital responded to the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters Wednesday evening as pro-Palestinian demonstrators grew violent while calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
About 150 people were “illegally and violently protesting” near the DNC headquarters building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., according to U.S. Capitol Police.
Six Capitol police officers were injured during the clash on Wednesday evening, according to the agency. Their injuries stemmed from minor cuts, pepper spray burns and punches thrown by protesters who turned violent alongside peaceful protesters.
Videos on social media showed protesters shoving police officers and trying to hold on to metal barricades at the DNC headquarters while officers attempted to remove them.
Capitol police and the Metropolitan Police Department, who also responded to the protest, did not immediately confirm to Fox News Digital how many arrests were made at the event.
Protesters included members of “If Not Now” and “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Both organizations have organized other demonstrations in Washington D.C. since Hamas’ unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Fox News Digital’s Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Adam Sabes, Kelley Kramer and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
Israeli Air Force strikes home of Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ Political Bureau: IDF
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday its air force conducted a strike on the home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Haniyeh, who is the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, is accused of using his residence in Gaza as terrorist infrastructure and a meeting point for Hamas’ senior leaders to direct attacks on Israel.
It’s not clear if anyone was killed in the strike as Haniyeh lives in Qatar, according to the Times of Israel.
Overnight, IDF fighter jets struck the residence of Ismail Haniyeh, the Head of Hamas’ Political Bureau.
The residence was used as terrorist infrastructure and a meeting point for Hamas’ senior leaders to direct terrorist attacks against Israel. pic.twitter.com/kljYYN6O0U
Pro-Palestinian protesters are acting more violently than Israel’s supporters due to “cultural Marxism,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told Newsmax Thursday.
Cruz appeared on “Newsline” while pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the Bay Bridge leading into San Francisco during the APEC summit, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. That followed U.S. Capitol Police officers in riot gear clashing with roughly 200 demonstrators who gathered outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night to demand a cease-fire.
“This week we had a peaceful protest on the mall, 300,000 people came out to stand for Israel,” Cruz told host Bianca de la Garza. “I took part in the March for Israel, and it was peaceful and calm and united.
“You contrast that to these violent protests and it is … these are dangerous, and we’re seeing them. We’ve seen violent attacks on the White House. We’ve seen violent protests at universities, and these are viciously antisemitic protests. We’re seeing Jewish students at universities across the country harassed and all of this is a manifestation of the cultural Marxism that has infused the institutions of our country.”
Supporters of Israel rallied by the tens of thousands on the National Mall under heavy security Tuesday, voicing bipartisan solidarity in the fight against Hamas and crying “never again.”
Cruz, while promoting his new book, “Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America,” was also asked about a standalone Israeli aid bill that passed in the House but failed to pass in the Senate.
“Unfortunately, today’s Democrat Party has been radicalized,” Cruz told de la Garza. “And so what happened this week in the Senate is, I and several other Republican senators forced a vote on Israel military aid on the Senate.
“We used a procedural tool called a rogue closure petition, where basically we took control of the floor from the Senate majority leader and forced that vote. And Democrats were furious. But then, sadly, they … every single Democrat … all of them voted against providing emergency military aid to Israel.
“Israel is at war right now. They’re in a war for their very existence. They are fighting to eliminate Hamas. It is a battle between civilization and terror, and the Democrats, their view, they put partisan politics above everything. And so all of them voted no. I thought it was disgraceful.”
Cruz said Democrats can do what they want because the mainstream media provides them cover.
“Our corporate media has abandoned the role of actually reporting on news, and it is now simply a propagandist,” Cruz said. “And so the Democrats can all vote against military aid to Israel. Why? Because they all know it will not end up on the six o’clock news. They know that CNN will not report on it. They know The New York Times will not report on it, so their voters will never hear about it.
“And it’s why instead they’re more afraid of the radical antisemites on the left. They’re more afraid of the ‘Squad,’ and they also want to use Israel aid to leverage their other partisan objectives. And so it was a really sad moment to see every single Senate Democrat vote against Israel military aid.”
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Israeli soldiers and tanks rolled into al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip and location of a major Hamas terrorist compound, according to Israel. The military is conducting a “precise and targeted operation” inside the hospitals, where hundreds of medical patients and personnel remain. Hamas has denied Israeli accusations it uses the hospital as a shield.
The Israeli military captured Hamas government buildings in Gaza and has fought its way to the gates of the region’s largest medical facility, Al-Shifa Hospital.
The Israel Defense Forces said troops killed Hamas terrorists and encountered explosive devices and terror cells during its “precise and targeted operation” at the al-Shifa Hospital.
There remain up to 238 Hamas hostages in Gaza, and 10 of them are believed to be Americans. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 11,200 Gazans have been killed in the fighting, though they do not distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas terrorists.
Israel-Hamas war: IDF finds weapons inside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released video early Wednesday showing weapons found inside the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
“IDF troops are continuing the precise and targeted operation against Hamas in the Shifa Hospital complex, in which the troops are conducting searches for Hamas terrorist infrastructure and assets,” the IDF said in a statement.
“As the soldiers entered the hospital complex, they engaged with a number of terrorists and killed them,” the statement added. “Following this, during searches in one of the departments of the hospital, the troops located a room with technological assets, along with military and combat equipment used by the Hamas terrorist organization.”
The footage shows Israeli officers sorting through the firearms, ammunition and weapons reportedly left by Hamas fighters.
The IDF says that “technological assets and extensive intelligence information” found in the hospital are being reviewed by authorities.
Biden allies condemn far-left calls for cease-fire in Israel-Hamas war
U.S. President Joe Biden departs the White House November 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
President Biden’s strong backing of Israel and his response to its war with terrorist organization Hamas speaks to the mainstream of the Democratic Party and the majority of Americans, according to supporters of the president, despite progressive Democrats publicly opposing the administration’s rejection of a cease-fire.
Multiple Biden allies told Fox News Digital that the administration’s stance against a cease-fire protects Americans and national security interests at home and abroad.
Nearly a dozen Biden allies defended the president’s policies in interviews with Fox News Digital after more than 400 government officials within the administration signed onto a letter opposing the president’s handling of the war, and demanding a cease-fire.
NYC Columbia University faculty and students protest suspension of 2 far-left groups
A protester holds a sign at a “All out for Gaza” protest at Columbia University in New York on November 15, 2023. (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters stood outside of Columbia University in New York City on Wednesday, holding signs while chanting and demanding the removal of Jewish people from Gaza, while others boycotted the suspension of two far-left student-led groups by the school’s administration.
The “emergency protest” was shared on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, by groups such as WOLPalestine (Within Our Lifetime) and CUNYPalestine, noting the event was scheduled for Nov. 15 at 2 p.m.
“All Out for Gaza at Columbia University,” the post read. “In solidarity with Columbia SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) and JVP (Jewish Voices for Peace) who were recently unjustly suspended by the university administration.
NYU hit with lawsuit for fueling ‘virus of antisemitism,’ ‘abusing Jewish students with impunity’
A New York University (NYU) flag flies outside of the NYU business school on August 25, 2020. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
New York University was hit with a groundbreaking lawsuit, the first of what is expected to be a series against elite universities, for allegedly allowing antisemitism to fester on its campus and also “deliberately” seeking to “make the campus environment even more… frightening for Jewish students,” according to court documents.
“NYU is among the worst campuses for Jewish students, and NYU has long been aware of the festering Jewish hatred permeating the school,” the suit filed by Kasowitz Benson Torres, an influential firm based in New York City, said.
It alleged that NYU was aware of “ongoing and disgraceful acts of anti-Jewish bigotry,” and refused to act in violation of Jewish students’ Title VI civil rights and sought remedial measures and financial penalties. The suit made startling allegations, including that NYU’s administration’s actions, or lack thereof throughout the years, added fuel to antisemitism on campus.
The “Outnumbered” co-hosts reacted to the rise of antisemitism and Tuesday’s March for Israel rally, as the war between Hamas and Israel continues.
Fox News contributor Morgan Ortagus, who is Jewish, thanked the show for lending her support amid rampant antisemitism.
“I’m so grateful to this show, to all of you, to the producers. I’ve never cried on air,” Ortagus explained. “And a couple of weeks ago, just seeing the images and the rampant anti-Semitism, having a daughter, it has been so hard to talk about it. But I’m so appreciative of you guys for for giving us the voice, giving us the opportunity.”
“I never have felt unsafe in this country for my daughter the way I do now,” she continued, adding that she was appreciated for the 300,000 people who showed up to the March for Israel rally.
“Between October 7th and November 7th, there have been 832 anti-Semitic attacks,” co-host Kayleigh McEnany said. “Do the math, that means 28 per day. That means more than one every hour.”
Comedian Jon Lovitz blasts HBO’s John Oliver for shaming U.S. over alliance with Israel
Jon Lovitz arrives at the Mike Tyson Cares and We2Matter’s 100 Women Matter Celebrity Fundraiser Gala on August 17, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Legendary comedian and actor Jon Lovitz blasted HBO host Jon Oliver this week after the British talk show host reprimanded the United States for supporting Israel and the “suffering” it has caused in Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre.
Lovitz replied to a social media post from Oliver’s talk show with an X post noting how the U.S. would obviously support its “democratic ally” Israel over the radical terror group that killed 1400+ people in the country last month.
Pushing back against the British HBO host’s skepticism of America’s alliance with Israel, Lovitz declared, “God bless America. #IstandwithIsrael.”
Netanyahu’s wife writes Jill Biden a letter urging her to save ‘suffering’ Hamas child hostages
Former Israeli Prime Minister and Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu at an election-night event on November 1, 2022 in Jerusalem, Israel.
The wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has written a letter Wednesday to first lady Jill Biden, urging her to call for the “immediate release” of child hostages who are “suffering” in the captivity of Hamas terrorists.
Sara Netanyahu opened her plea by saying that “I’m writing to you not only as Bibi’s wife but first and foremost as a mother.”
“For over a month now, 32 children have been held kidnapped in Gaza, brutally torn from their parents and their homes,” Netanyahu said. “These children are surely suffering from untold trauma, not only by being kidnapped, but having witnessed the brutal murder of their parents and siblings on that horrific October 7th.”
Biden’s favorite columnist urges him to use Trump’s peace proposal for two-state solution
Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist and bestselling author Thomas L. Friedman on February 26, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman, one of President Biden’s favorite writers, is urging him to follow in part former President Trump’s plan for a two-state solution in the Middle East.
After visiting Israel and the West Bank, Friedman came to the conclusion that America needed an active “vision for how the Gaza war must end” in a column published Tuesday.
“The Biden plan — are you sitting down? — could actually use as one of its starting points President Donald Trump’s proposal for a two-state solution,” Friedman wrote, “because [Benjamin] Netanyahu embraced that in 2020, when he had a different coalition. (Netanyahu and his ambassador in Washington practically wrote the Trump plan.)”
‘Will & Grace’ star Debra Messing blasted for speech at pro-Israel rally in DC
Debra Messing speaks during ‘March For Israel’ at the National Mall on November 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images)
Social media users criticized “Will & Grace” star Debra Messing after she gave a speech in defense of Israel during a pro-Israel rally in Washington, D.C., this week.
Users on both sides of the political spectrum slammed Messing for her impassioned speech condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, with pro-Israel conservatives hitting her for voting for Biden, who has given aid to Israel’s enemies, as well as pro-Palestinian leftists accusing her of defending “genocide” in Gaza.
Messing, a Jewish person and Hollywood liberal, gave the speech in front of thousands at the “March for Israel” in D.C. on Tuesday. The Jewish Federations of North America organized the event to support Israel amid its war with Hamas and to call out terror and hatred being shown towards the Jewish community.
Bipartisan lawmakers push Biden to investigate Hamas’ cryptocurrency financing
From left: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, President Biden and Rep. Ritchie Torres (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll, Ting Shen/Bloomberg, Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call)
Top House lawmakers are investigating the breadth and depth of the digital wealth owned by terror groups like Hamas just over a month after the Gaza-based organization’s surprise attack on Israel.
“Reports indicate that Hamas-linked digital wallets received about $41 million and Palestinian Islamic Jihad-linked digital wallets received about $93 million between August 2021 and June 2023. Yet, it remains unclear how much, if any, of the publicly identified digital assets are accessible to or remains in the possession of Hamas,” the lawmakers wrote to President Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
“According to reports, Hamas shut down its digital asset fundraising campaign in April 2023 citing the ability of government officials to identify and prosecute donors.”
The bipartisan letter is led by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., Digital Asset subcommittee Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., and Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y.
“We request the White House and the Treasury to utilize the open blockchain ledger to assess the footprint of Hamas’ digital asset fundraising campaign. In doing this, Congress can better understand the United States’ available tools and capabilities to target bad actors on blockchain and support legitimate digital asset use and innovation,” Emmer told Fox News Digital.
A top United Nations humanitarian aid official is being ripped Wednesday by an Israeli ambassador after sharing an image on X showing him shaking hands with Iran’s foreign minister, who reportedly helped Hamas plan its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths posted that he held a meeting in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian about the “devastating” situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip and the “critical” need to deliver aid to the area.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Amirabdollahian had taken part in at least two planning meetings in Lebanon with the terrorist groups Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad ahead of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which launched the Middle East war.
“Tell me @UNReliefChief, what role do you see Iran playing in such regard?” Israeli Ambassador to Geneva Elion Shahar wrote in response to Griffiths’ post. “What role do you see for the prime sponsors of a terrorist organization who murdered, raped, and tortured over 1,200 Israelis?”
“Did you ask him about the weapons Iran has transferred to Hamas through aid shipments, which were used to kill Israelis on October 7th?” she continued. “Did you ask him about the money Iran has transferred to Hamas, which pays for its leaders’ 5-star hotels in Qatar where they cheered when young Israelis were murdered on TV?”
“Iran is part of the problem, not the solution,” she concluded. “It is about time the U.N. starts to understand this simple truth.”
Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman contributed to this update.
Destroyer USS Thomas Hudner shot down a drone from Yemen in the Red Sea
BOSTON, MA – NOVEMBER 26: The USS Thomas Hudner, named after Concord’s Medal of Honor recipient Thomas Hudner, arrives in Boston for its commissioning ceremony later in the week on Nov. 26, 2018. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
The USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, shot down a drone from Yemen in the Red Sea, two U.S. defense officials confirm to Fox News.
A defense official said the drone was shot down in self-defense. “The drone was heading towards the Hudner,” the official said.
On Tuesday, during the Pentagon news briefing, Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin asked Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh about the lack of U.S. military response to the Houthis in Yemen who downed the $32 million MQ-9 drone over the Red Sea last week.
“Isn’t the lack of response by the US military inviting more actions, aggressive actions by the Houthis?” Griffin asked.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s inviting more aggressive or further response from the Houthis,” Singh replied. “We’ve seen the Houthis do this before.”
“I’m not saying that we’re not going to respond. We always reserve the right to respond at a time and place of our choosing. But I just don’t have anything to forecast for you right now,” she added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops at the Zikim military base near north Gaza and said, “There is no place in Gaza that Israel will not reach.”
Netanyahu was briefed on the fighting that occurred on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel and attacked residences and military posts in southern Israel. Hamas killed more than 1,200 people in the assault, mostly civilians, and took some 240 people hostage back to Gaza.
Standing next to soldiers at the base, Netanyahu said: “Do you remember when we were told that we would not break into Gaza? We broke through. We were told that we would not reach the outskirts of Gaza City – we arrived. We were told that we won’t enter Shifa – we entered.
“There is no hiding, no shelter, no refuge for the murderers of Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “We will arrive and eliminate Hamas and return our abductees – these are two sacred missions.”
Hundreds gathered Sunday at a Ventura County, California, intersection where a week earlier, a 69-year-old Jewish man struck his head on concrete and later died after a confrontation with an unnamed pro-Palestinian protester.
Flowers, wreaths, candles and letters surrounded the spot in front of the gas station at Westlake and Thousand Oaks Boulevards, where Paul Kessler sustained his fatal injuries.
One man held a sign that read, “We want justice for Paul,” per footage shared with Fox News Digital. Others bandied Israeli flags and sang “Oseh Shalom” — a Hebrew song praying for peace for the country, its people and the world.
Blood still marked the ground where Kessler’s head struck the sidewalk in widely-shared footage from around 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 5 showing medics attending to a bleeding but alert Kessler at the scene as police questioned onlookers.
Kessler was pronounced dead at nearby Los Robles Hospital about 10 hours after the incident. Per the Ventura County Medical Examiner during a press conference Tuesday, Kessler’s non-lethal injuries were noted on the left side of his face, while internal injuries included skull fractures, swelling and bruising to the brain.
Kessler’s manner of death was determined to be homicide, Medical Examiner Christopher Young said.
Fox News Digital’s Christina Coulter contributed to this update.
BBC News Channel has apologized for an inaccurate report that claimed Israeli forces were targeting “medical teams and Arab speakers” inside of Gaza’s main hospital.
On Tuesday, a BBC News program reported that Israeli forces were carrying out an operation against Hamas forces inside Al Shifa hospital.
The news anchor then claimed that the soldiers were targeting individuals, including hospital workers and Arab speakers, inside the hospital, which would constitute a war crime. The BBC News anchor cited Reuters as the source of their information. However, reporting from Reuters on Israeli troops entering the hospital contradicted the BBC.
“Israel said its troops uncovered unspecified weapons and “terror infrastructure” inside the hospital compound after killing fighters in a clash outside. Once inside, they said there had been no fighting and no friction with civilians, patients or staff,” an article from Reuters noted.
“Witnesses who spoke to Reuters from inside the compound on Wednesday described a situation that appeared calm, if tense, as the Israeli troops moved between buildings carrying out searches,” the outlet added.
One of the most influential news organizations in the world, BBC issued an on-air apology for its claims about the Al Shifa hospital the following morning.
“BBC News, as it covered initial reports that Israeli forces had entered Gaza’s main hospital, we said that medical teams and Arab speakers were being targeted,” the anchor said. “This is incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report which said IDF forces included medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation. We apologize for this error, which fell below our usual editorial standards.”
The anchor also noted that the correct version of events was broadcast “minutes later.”
Fox News Digital’s Nikolas Lanum contributed to this update.
Pro-Palestinian protesters marched in Staten Island on Tuesday, chanting anti-Israel slogans and burning the Israeli flag.
“From the river, to the sea,” hundreds of people shouted, a phrase that appears in the founding charter of the terrorist group in Hamas and calls for the destruction of Israel.
Protesters were also filmed burning an Israeli flag.
Police arrested six people, including at least one minor, in connection to the pro-Palestinian rally in St. George, SILive.com reported.
The rally was organized by the pro-Palestinian group WIthin Our Lifetime and held outside of Borough Hall. NYPD officers forced the demonstration to relocate onto Richmond Terrace, disrupting traffic, the report said.
Protesters also criticized President Bident and the U.S. government’s support for Israel in th ewar against Hamas. People chanted, “Israel bombs, USA pays. How many kids have you killed today?”
“What other words can be used for this besides ethnic cleansing? Besides genocide? Words that these mainstream media outlets still refuse to use,” Nerdeen Kiswani, founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime, told SILive.com.
“There are Palestinian men, women and children, every day, on our screens begging people to look at the world and tell the world to stop this genocide. But they are not stopping it. In fact, countries like the one we live in, like the United States, are funding it,” she said.
Israeli forces continue operations inside al-Shifa Hospital, Hamas official says
Israeli soldier stands near boxes labelled “Medical Supplies” at the Al Shifa hospital complex, amid their ground operation against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, during what they say is a delivery of humanitarian aid to the facility in Gaza City, November 15, 2023 in this handout image. Israeli Defence Forces/Handout via REUTERS
A senior official with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry told the Associated Press that Israeli forces are still operating inside al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical facility in the territory.
Speaking by phone from the hospital, Munir al-Boursh said Israeli soldiers ransacked the basement and other buildings, including those housing the emergency and surgery departments.
“They are still here … patients, women and children are terrified,” he said. He said doctors vowed to stay with their patients “till the end.”
The White House confirmed Tuesday that Hamas terrorists are using al-Shifa Hospital and the tunnels beneath it as a base for military operations and to hold hostages. The Israel Defense Forces said earlier Wednesday it is carrying out a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas” in a specific part of the hospital away from patients and medical staff. The IDF also said it delivered medical supplies.
Al-Boursh told the AP he spoke with an Israeli official by phone on Wednesday and asked him to join the forces searching the facility, but he refused.
The IDF says it recovered weapons from the basement of the hospital.
The mood in the nation’s capital ranged from somber to jubilant Tuesday, as tens of thousands of people rallied in support of Israel and the Jewish community.
“I feel like it’s my duty right now to be here, to be advocating for my people,” Tal told Fox News.
Demonstrators draped themselves in American and Israeli flags as they congregated at the National Mall for the “March for Israel.”
“We love America, and we’re so happy that America is standing behind Israel,” Elliot from New Jersey said. “It’s really great to all be here together, show support to each other and say thank you to the country.”
A coalition of Jewish organizations planned the march to show support for Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks in which Hamas killed around 1,200 people, primarily Israeli civilians. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its counterattack, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
“I came to stand with Israel during this really crazy time … and stand up for the hostages to come home, and for peace, once and for all,” Cillia from Michigan said.
Fox News Digital’s Hannah Ray Lambert and Jon Michael Raasch contributed to this update.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib is part of a secret social media group in which its members have glamorized Hamas in its war battle with Israel after the terror group attacked and killed hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians last month, Fox News Digital has found.
The Michigan Democrat is a member of the Palestinian American Congress group on Facebook. The group is hidden from non-members and does not appear on the platform’s search engine, though Fox News Digital was able to gain access to it.
The group’s founder, Maher Abdel-qader, who has extensive ties to Tlaib and has also been linked to other liberal politicians, has come under fire in the past for his antisemitic social media posts, including questioning if the Holocaust ever occurred.
The Palestinian American Congress group, of which Tlaib is a member, has featured pro-Hamas posts in the wake of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
On Oct. 12, one group member posted: “We don’t want to throw you in the sea…we want you to ride it back from where you came.” The message was accompanied by a picture of an elderly Israeli woman and a Hamas fighter holding her captive.
Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall and Peter Hasson contributed to this update.
UN official condemns Israeli raid on Gaza hospital, insists Hamas not use it as a ‘shield’
UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Martin Griffiths speaks during an international humanitary conference for civilians in Gaza, at the Elysee Presidential Palace, in Paris, on November 9, 2023. (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The United Nations’ top emergency relief official on Wednesday condemned the Israeli military operation in Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital and said Hamas must not use it as a ‘shield’ for their activities.
“Look, Hamas must not, should not, use a place like a hospital as a shield for their presence,” said Martin Griffiths in a video statement, adding that “hospitals should not become a place of – a war zone – of danger.”
Earlier on X, Griffiths said he was “appalled” by overnight reports of Israeli military operations inside the hospital.
The U.N. World Health Organization says Shifa patients have needs that are “well beyond basic care.” Images reportedly from the facility showed medics trying to keep newborns warm in blankets because power for incubators had failed.
“The babies have no incubators,” Griffiths said. “Some are dead already. We can’t move them out. It’s too dangerous.”
“I understand the Israelis’ concern for trying to find the leadership of Hamas, that’s not our problem,” he added. “Our problem is protecting the people of Gaza from what’s being visited upon them.”
Maryland middle school DEI teacher under investigation for Israel-Hamas comments
A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion teacher at a Maryland middle school is being investigated over social media posts suggesting Hamas terrorists’ attack on Israel was a hoax. (Google Maps)
A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion teacher at a Maryland middle school is being investigated over a social media posts suggesting the Hamas terrorists’ attack on Israel was a hoax and other posts about the war in the Middle East.
Sabrina Khan-Williams, a World Studies teacher and a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion team leader at Tilden Middle School, made a series of posts doubting reports about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack against Israel, according to Facebook screenshots obtained by The Daily Wire.
“Debunked!! No music festival attack. Babies were not burned. Women were not violated,” she wrote in one post.
More than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza and Israel since Hamas launched its largest attack against Israel in decades on Oct. 7, prompting a military response from Israeli forces. Thousands more have been wounded, and many others have been taken hostage by Hamas and raped, tortured and murdered.
Kahn-Williams suggested in another post that Hamas did not start the war against Israel.
“Hamas did not start this. They were just the perfect vehicle for Zionists to continue its apartheid,” she wrote.
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this update.
Turkish President Erdogan labels Israel ‘terrorist state’
ANKARA, TURKIYE – NOVEMBER 15: Turkish President and the Leader of the Justice and Development (AK) Party Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes statements as he attends his party’s group meeting at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara, Turkiye on November 15, 2023. (Photo by Emin Sansar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made incendiary anti-Israel comments on Wednesday, calling Israel a “terrorist state” intent on destroying Gaza and its residents.
In a speech to members of his own political party, Erdogan also vowed to bring Israeli political and military leaders before an international tribunal to be tried for war crimes.
“Israel is implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people,” Erdogan said. “I say openly that Israel is a terrorist state.”
In the same speech, Erdogan referred to Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” trying to protect their land and people.
Turkey recently normalized relations with Israel but its war with Hamas in Gaza has again strained their ties. Israel recalled its diplomats from Turkey last month after Erdogan accused Israel of committing war crimes. Turkey later also recalled its ambassador from Israel.
Turkey has found itself at odds with its NATO allies, most of whom have backed Israel’s right to defend itself following the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, while Turkey has echoed the stances of other Middle Eastern nations in questioning Israel and defending the Palestinians.
Fox News Digital’s Peter Aitken and the Associated Press contributed to this update.
Reports of a potential hostage deal between Israel and Hamas is evidence that the terror group is reeling from the IDF’s barrage of Gaza, a top adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told FOX News Tuesday.
Hamas and Israel are reportedly close to to a deal that would exchange as many as 70 women and children held hostage by Hamas in return for the release of female Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.
Mark Regev, who recently served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and is now a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said one aspect of the deal should underline how evil Hamas truly is.
He cited a figure of 240 people estimated to be held by Hamas, including 32 children and infants.
“I always ask us to remember what sort of people kidnap babies and infants, what sort of people can kidnap a 9-month-old baby. They really are sick. They really are depraved. What more could one say about Hamas?” Regev said.
“But if they are moving towards releasing hostages, it’s not because they have suddenly become humanitarians. It’s because they’ve been on the receiving end of the IDF’s (Israeli Defense Force) military might. And they are feeling the pain, feeling the pressure.”
Regev said he is hopeful for a deal soon, while reiterating the IDF’s pressure campaign must continue in order to expedite the possibility of future prisoner releases by a potentially teetering Hamas.
Fox News Digital’s Charles Creitz contributed to this update.
IDF emphasizes hospital operation targets Hamas, not civilians
An aerial view shows the compound of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 7, 2023, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. (BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The Israel Defense Forces emphasized Wednesday that its forces conducting a “precise and targeted operation” at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza are targeting Hamas.
The White House confirmed Tuesday that Hamas terrorists are using Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, and the tunnels beneath it as a base for military operations and to hold hostages. Both Hamas and hospital officials have denied the allegation.
“Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces. “The IDF has publicly warned time and again that Hamas’s continued military use of Shifa Hospital jeopardizes its protected status under international law.”
Hagari said Israeli forces in Gaza included medics and Arabic speakers to try and provide assistance in the “complex and sensitive environment.”
Israel continues to attack Hamas military targets in Gaza with a relentless campaign of airstrikes. Thousands of Palestinians have moved southward toward the Rafah border crossing into Egypt as the Israeli military has urged civilians to evacuate the warzone in the north.
Fox News Digital’s Brandon Gillespie and the Associated Press contributed to this update.
An Israeli practises using a newly acquired gun, at a weapons distribution point for people allowed to carry arms, at the Ayyelet HaShahar Kibbutz, in northern Israel, near the Lebanese border on October 12, 2023. (Photo by JALAA MAREY/AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli citizens are rushing to arm themselves in the wake of the deadly Oct. 7 terror attacks.
A news release from the Ministry of National Security said more than 236,000 new requests for gun permits have been filed since the attack – a figure equal to the number filed over 20 years, the ministry said.
Israelis feel uneased after Hamas terrorists caught the country off-guard, infiltrating through the south and slaughtering more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, at a music festival and in their homes.
Armed civilian security squads entered the breach in the army’s absence to fight off some of the attackers. Shortly after, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would expand and arm such squads with 10,000 assault rifles that would be distributed particularly in border towns, mixed Jewish-Arab cities and West Bank settlements.
Some 1,700 permits are being issued daily after the Ministry of National Security eased restrictions, the report said. By comparison, an average of 94 were issued daily in November 2022, and an average of 42 a year earlier.
Israeli soldiers killed in war against Hamas rises to 49: IDF
Israel Defense Forces said captains Omri Yosef David(left) and Yedidya Asher Lev(right) were killed in Gaza on Tuesday. (Israel Defense Forces)
The Israel Defense Forces announced two more soldiers were killed on Tuesday as Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists continues.
The fallen have been identified as Omri Yosef David, 27, and Yedidya Asher Lev, 26, and their families have been notified. Both David and Lev were captains, according to the IDF’s memorial page.
As of Wednesday morning, there here have been 49 IDF soldiers killed since ground operations began in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the IDF said its forces have entered Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital after surrounding the facility earlier.
The army said its forces were carrying out “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” at al-Shifa Hospital. It gave no further details but said it was taking steps to avoid harm to civilians.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it had warned “the relevant authorities in Gaza once again that all military activities within the hospital must cease within 12 hours. Unfortunately, it did not.”
Fox News’ Yonat Friling and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Israel ‘will not stop’ operations in Gaza until Hamas destroyed, hostages released: defense minister
ISRAEL – NOVEMBER 11: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visits the 91st Division’s base in northern Israel, November 11, 2023. (Photo by Israeli Defense Minister/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said the Jewish state “will not stop its operations in Gaza” until Hamas is obliterated and hostages are back home with their families during a Wednesday meeting with U.S. Special Coordinator Brett McGurk.
The meeting between Gallant and McGurk, U.S. Special Coordinator for the Middle East, took place at the Ministry of Defense’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. The two discussed operational developments in Israel’s war against Hamas and the complexity of fighting the terrorist group given that it operates in civilian buildings.
Intelligence and additional details related to the hostages being held by Hamas and efforts to bring them home were also discussed.
The two leaders spoke on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and how to overcome the challenges in facilitating aid to the civilian population, as well as the international community’s role in getting more urgent supplies delivered to the area.
Gallant also expressed his appreciation for America’s ongoing support and deep partnership, and the two agreed to remain in close contact.
Medical supplies provided by Israeli forces arrive at Gaza hospital
Israel Defense Forces said medical supplies provided by the force have arrived at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. (Israel Defense Forces/X)
The Israel Defense Forces said medical supplies, including baby food and incubators, have arrived at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza amid the targeted attack on Hamas terrorists inside the building.
“We can now confirm that incubators, baby food and medical supplies, provided by the IDF, have successfully reached the hospital,” the IDF wrote on X.
The supplies arrived Wednesday morning after Israeli soldiers began a “precise and targeted operation” against Hamas, which operates out of the hospital. The operation remains active, according to the IDF.
Arabic-speaking soldiers and the IDF’s medical team are reportedly at the hospital to ensure the supplies make it to those in need.
The Israeli army alleges the main command center for Hamas is hidden inside the hospital, in underground tunnels beneath the structures that house hundreds of patients and medical staff. Both Hamas and al-Shifa Hospital staff deny the allegations.
More than 11,200 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and minors — have been killed since the war began, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. About 2,700 people have been reported missing.
Israel Defense Forces said troops killed Hamas terrorists and encountered explosive devices and terror cells during its “precise and targeted operation” at the al-Shifa Hospital.
The area of the hospital where the operation is taking place was decided upon by intelligence indicating Hamas activity was coming from the area, the IDF said.
Before entering, troops discovered explosive devices and terrorist cells, which prompted an “engagement” that left Hamas terrorists dead, according to the IDF.
A Hamas training camp containing terror tunnel shafts, classrooms, intelligence material and dozens of weapons, including rockets and loaded RPGs, was located in the area on Tuesday by Israeli forces.
In addition, the IDF said it struck two terrorists with a UAV after it identified a terrorist cell exiting a building with an anti-tank missile launching post in the northern Gaza Strip. The terrorists were carrying suspected IEDs, which were planted in the area.
Israeli forces seized the Hamas terror organization’s military headquarters in Gaza this week. On Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces revealed new details about Hamas’ subterranean “pit” command center. Israeli soldiers were reportedly surprised by the level of sophistication of Hamas’ underground high command quarters, drawing comparisons to the IDF’s own “pit” beneath its Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The Hamas subterranean headquarters includes a special shaft with an elevator that can reportedly reach a depth of 30 meters (nearly 100 ft.) and fit seven people inside. The elevator descends to a specially- designed tunnel that is air conditioned and outfitted with oxygen. In addition, the tunnel includes advanced communication equipment, suggesting that top Hamas officials hide in there, including Gaza’s Hamas chief Yahiya Sinwar and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.
The Israeli military doctrine has traditionally focused on deterrence rather than dismantling the Hamas terror organizations. However, following the unprecedented Hamas massacre on Oct. 7 that claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis and foreigners, mostly civilians, Israel has vowed to dismantle Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
IDF Division 162 Commander Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen stressed that the Israeli military is currently implementing the goal of eliminating Hamas’ military and governing capabilities in Gaza City.
“We created conditions which could lead to taking apart the military and governance capabilities of Hamas in Gaza City,” Cohen explained.
“Since the start of the invasion, the IDF and Division 162 have been taking apart the centers of gravity of Hamas and the capabilities that it spent years building. Since the start of the invasion, divisional forces have killed over 1,000 Hamas terrorists and reduced rocket fire from northern Gaza at Israel by around 80%,” the IDF general added.
Earlier this week, Israeli forces from the Golani Brigade seized Hamas’ parliament building in Gaza City, an important symbol of the Iranian-backed terror organization’s political power in the coastal enclave.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a retired IDF general and former commando from the Shayetet 13 naval elite unit, recently said Hamas is unable to stop the Israeli advances throughout the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas isn’t capable of stopping the IDF. The IDF is advancing to every (necessary) location,” Gallant stated.
“The Hamas terrorist organization has lost control of Gaza, terrorists are fleeing south, civilians are looting Hamas bases, and they have no confidence in their government,” he assessed.
The Israeli army announced on Wednesday morning that it had launched “a precise and targeted operation against Hamas” in one part of the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The medical center has emerged as a hub for Hamas activities, including its command centers below the hospital.
“The IDF is conducting a ground operation in Gaza to defeat Hamas and rescue our hostages. Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the civilians in Gaza,” the Israeli military confirmed in an official statement.
Hamas has systematically used hospitals, mosques, kindergartens, schools and private homes for storing weapons and hiding terrorist operatives. The IDF recently revealed that the Rantisi Children’s Hospital, named after Hamas founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi, was being used for weapons storage and has likely been the location where Hamas has been hiding hostages for more than five weeks.
“Piers Morgan Uncensored” host Piers Morgan repeatedly pressed UK member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn to label Hamas a terrorist organization during a heated exchange on Monday.
“Are Hamas a terror group? Yes or no?” Morgan asked Corbyn in a verbal battle that has since gone viral online. “I’ve asked you two questions: should Hamas stay in power and are they a terror group. You’re refusing to answer either of them. That is very telling. And you wonder why people believe you had a problem with Jewish people.”
“That is not very telling at all!” Corbyn yelled back. “What is very telling is your inability to keep quiet for 30 seconds to allow anyone to answer a question.”
“Piers Morgan Uncensored” host Piers Morgan repeatedly asked UK member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn if Hamas was a terror group in a heated exchange on his show Monday. (Getty Images)
“On my show, I ask people questions,” Morgan responded. “Normally they answer them.”
“No, you don’t, you shout at people,” Corbyn said back.
“Only when they don’t answer the question,” Morgan said.
At one point, Corbyn repeatedly asked Morgan “are you done?”
Commentators online weighed in on the verbal battle between Morgan and Corbyn.
Journalist Yashar Ali wrote that the exchange was “extraordinary.”
“A reminder that Corbyn took payments from Press TV in the past. Press TV is funded and controlled by the Islamic Republic,” Ali told followers.
Author Hen Mazzig took Morgan’s side in the verbal battle. “I totally understand why Piers is aggravated, imagine speaking to a politician who cannot condemn a group which beheaded and burned babies alive, and violated little girls. For shame.”
Piers Morgan asks Jeremy Corbyn 15 times whether the former Labour leader thinks Hamas is a terror group.
Morgan referenced previous accusations of antisemitism against Corbyn, which have plagued him and his Labour Party for years. A 2019 poll showed that a whopping 87 percent of Jewish people in Great Britain believed Corbyn was antisemitic, pointing to many incidents and remarks, many of them involving his staunch support for Palestinians and a perceived hostility toward Israel. Recent reports also showed Jewish members of the Labour Party repeatedly expressing concerns of what they saw as growing anti-Semitism within the party.
Corbyn was eventually suspended from the Labour Party from the party over charges of antisemitism. He also once referred to “friends” from Hamas coming to address Parliament.
Corbyn did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
For more Culture, Media, Education, Opinion, and channel coverage, visit foxnews.com/media.
Jeffrey Clark is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. He has previously served as a speechwriter for a cabinet secretary and as a Fulbright teacher in South Korea. Jeffrey graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a degree in English and History.
The world is asking for a cease-fire. We had a cease-fire until the Palestinians slaughtered 1400 innocent Israeli citizens in a barbaric, unprovoked sneak attack.
All people, including Israel, have the right to defend themselves despite what the woke communist brainwashed left in America. How anyone can think this bloodbath of innocent men, women, and children is justified is mind-blowing to any reasonable human being.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Tens of thousands of migrants are expected to flee south from Gaza City in the coming days as Israel continues its campaign against Hamas. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 10,300 Gazans have been killed in the fighting.
The Israeli military continues to tighten its grip on Gaza, working to root out Hamas terrorists in the maze of tunnels beneath Gaza city.
The U.S. says Israel has agreed to daily pauses in fighting to allow aid into Gaza, but both the U.S. and Israel oppose a cease-fire.
There remain roughly 240 Hamas hostages in Gaza, and 10 of them are believed to be Americans. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry claims more than 10,300 Gazans have been killed in the fighting, though they do not distinguish between Palestinian civilians and Hamas terrorists.
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Netanyahu-addresses ‘pause’ in fighting in Israel-Hamas war
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News’ Bret Baier in a “Special Report” exclusive interview about the pauses in fighting planned to help civilians in Gaza.
When asked if he was surprised by by all the pushback happening across the world, Netanyahu did not hold back.
“Well, the river to the sea, from the river to the sea means there’s no Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, which is a tiny area, by the way, that encompasses Israel. There is no Israel. And so what this congresswoman is calling for is Palestine and genocide, the elimination of the Jewish state, the one and only Jewish state of the Jewish people,” said Netanyahu. “That’s absurd. And I salute the Congress for censuring her. But it’s beyond that. I think the protest that you’re seeing, I’m sure it includes some naive people, but there are a lot of people who know exactly what they’re saying.”
FOX News Channel’s chief political anchor Bret Baier will present an exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Special Report (weekdays, 6 PM/ET) on Thursday, November 9th. The pre-taped interview will cover the latest on the Israel-Hamas war, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s relationship with President Biden, the potential of ceasefire and global pressure on Israel, among other topics.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained the reasoning behind sending troops into Gaza and calls for humanitarian pauses from other world leaders in an interview with Bret Baier.
“We don’t want to seek to govern Gaza. We don’t seek to occupy, but we seek to give it and us a better future in the entire Middle East. And that requires defeating Hamas. I’ve set goals. I didn’t set a timetable because, you know, it can take more time,” said Netanyahu.
When asked about the United States and how firm the push has been by President Biden and his administration for the humanitarian pauses, Netanyahu says he has not agreed with everything.
“Well, one thing we haven’t agreed to is a cease fire. A cease fire with Hamas means surrender to Hamas, surrender to terror and the victory of Iran’s axis of terror. So there won’t be a cease fire without the release of Israeli hostages,” said Netanyahu.
Netanyahu further addressed the pause pushed by the Biden administration to allow for hostages to safely exit Gaza.
“The fighting continues against the Hamas enemy, the Hamas terrorists, but in specific locations for a given period, a few hours here, a few hours there, we want to facilitate a safe passage of civilians away from the zone of fighting. And we’re doing that,” said Netanyahu.
FOX News Channel’s chief political anchor Bret Baier will present an exclusive interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Special Report (weekdays, 6 PM/ET) on Thursday, November 9th. The pre-taped interview will cover the latest on the Israel-Hamas war, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s relationship with President Biden, the potential of ceasefire and global pressure on Israel, among other topics.
Two Ivy League students have called out their colleges and are demanding them to stop accepting the hate speech they say is running rampant on their campuses.
“The past few weeks have been incredibly difficult. It started with, you know, the usual, the chants and the terrorist sympathies,” Talia Draw, a junior at Cornell University told Fox News.
Draw says those chants have now become death threats.
“Jewish students were truly afraid to go on campus. Students began using pepper spray to defend themselves, not being able to go to classes. People started doing classes from Zoom. I mean, it’s absurd that Jewish students right now feel like they can’t be part of the campus community,” said Draw.
Gabriel Diamond, a senior at Yale University echoed Draw’s concerns on college campuses across the U.S.
“Everywhere on campus, there are signs that say Israel is committing genocide and it says ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, calling for the elimination of the Jewish state,” said Diamond. “Students are, in some cases, afraid to go to classes. And overall, there’s a really, really bad sense in the air that these campuses are not safe spaces.”
Draw added what’s even worse is that it’s not just students spear heading the hate — it’s also coming from professors.
“When you have professors using their captive audience, professors telling their students these biased narratives and shouting out all of these buzzwords without giving any of the context, they are indoctrinating their students,” says Draw. “Why are we having these professors in our Ivy League institutions? This is absurd. We are having anti-Semites in our classrooms indoctrinating our students. And not only that, we’re paying a fortune for it.”
Diamond and Draw say overall, it’s a tough time on campus, a hostile environment, and many students do not feel safe right now.
“It’s time that universities really step up to the challenge and that they take action, not just issue statements, because it’s long past time for doing that and that we restore our campuses to a sense of civility and decency,” said Diamond.
The Islamic Jihad released two hostage videos showing an elderly Israeli woman and a young boy both kidnaped and taken into Gaza on Oct. 7 where they’ve been held ever since.
Richard Hecht, the lieutenant colonel and a spokesman for the Israeli military said this is psychological terrorism.
“Hamas and Islamic Jihad are trying to basically bend the arm of Israel into getting a cease fire. But we understand that it will be incredibly difficult because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says they’re going to push forward with operations inside Gaza until they destroy Hamas leadership and get rid of all of the weapons inside the strip.”
On the West Bank, the Israelis were seen operating in the city of Jenin and claim they have killed ten militants in different cells that are currently fighting inside the West Bank.
When it comes to the hostages, there is some progress taking place in Doha as Qatari negotiators are meeting with the head of Mossad and also CIA director William Burns.
An official with knowledge of that visit says the talks have been progressing well toward a deal.
As the operations continue on the ground and the fighting inside Gaza escalates, Israel is facing other fronts, and that includes a drone attack and a ballistic missile attack today from Yemen.
The Israelis say the arrow defense system was able to intercept one of those missiles that was trying to target the southern city of Bin Laden.
In his recent briefing, Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel will not back down.
“We will not stop the fighting until we bring the hostages back. We will do what ever it takes,” said Gallant. “As a father I want to ask the world, “I see those kids as my kids, I will not stop the fighting and I will not stop looking for them until I find them,” Gallant emphasized.
Gallant added that the IDF started using new tactics for dealing with Hamas’ tunnels and said those efforts will improve in the coming days.
“We are fighting against evil, we are fighting against an enemy who tries to harm us. We want all Palestinian out of Gaza. This is important in order for us to have freedom of action, we do not want to harm them,” said Gallant.
Gallant said that Israel shares the same goal as America: to eliminate Hamas.
“This phenomenon should stop from exist here and anywhere else. As much as the pressure on Hamas increase, the better the chances we will succeed to release hostages and bring them back home,” said Gallant.
Turkey’s Erdogan, on Israel-Hamas war, says West is ‘too weak to even call for a cease-fire’
Turkey’s Erdogan, on Israel-Hamas war, says West is ‘too weak to even call for a cease-fire’
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is accusing the West Thursday of being “too weak to even call for a cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war, a report says.
Erdogan, who previously has called Israel a “war criminal” for its military actions against Hamas, made the comment during a meeting of the 10-member Economic Cooperation Organization in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, according to The Associated Press.
Erdogan said Western nations and organizations are observing these “massacres by Israel” from afar but are “too weak to even call for a cease-fire, let alone criticize child murderers.”
“If we, the Economic Cooperation Organization, as Muslims, are not going to raise our voices today… when will we raise our voices?” he added.
The Economic Cooperation Organization consists of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Erdogan ripped the West on the same day the White House announced the Israeli military has agreed to honor four-hour daily pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the new Israeli policy began “today.”
Pentagon confirms four new attacks on US forces in Iraq, Syria following airstrike
Pentagon confirms four new attacks on US forces in Iraq, Syria following airstrike
The Pentagon say U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria have faced four attacks in the hours after the U.S. carried out a retaliatory airstrike on a weapons depot in Syria.
The four new incidents bring the total for attacks on U.S. forces since October 17 to 46, the U.S. military says. Three of the attacks occurred in Syria, with two involving rockets and another being a drone attack. The attack in Iraq used drones, the Pentagon says.
The U.S. reported three minor injuries in one of the Syria attacks, but the other three attacks caused no injuries and no damage to infrastructure. The three servicemembers injured have already returned to duty.
The U.S. sough to deter Iran from entering Israel’s war on Hamas, deploying considerable assets to the region. Critics argue the dozens of attacks indicate that the operation is failing, however.
Squad Dem says humanitarian pause in Gaza not enough: ‘Ethnic cleansing’ happening ‘before our eyes’
Squad Dem says humanitarian pause in Gaza not enough: ‘Ethnic cleansing’ happening ‘before our eyes’
Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., held a press conference demanding a cease-fire in Gaza on Thursday, saying “humanitarian pauses” are not enough.
Bush railed against Israel for allegedly commiting “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians in Gaza.
“The idea that we get a break for 4 hours, a break so that we can have food–I saw someone spoke about it and they said, “thank you for giving us raisins for a few hours.” And then do we go back to bombing?” Bush said. “I never personally called for humanitarian pause, and I’m not going to call for a humanitarian pause, and I don’t want to see even though that is what’s happening. A four hour a day humanitarian pause because what we need is to stop the bombing. What we need is what does that what is that mental anguish when you know? Well, we get a break for 4 hours, but as soon as that 4 hours is over, then what? How dare we treat humans in that way?”
The White House says Israel agreed to a 4-hour daily pause in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza on Thursday. Nevertheless, both Israel and the U.S. continue to dismiss the idea of a full cease-fire.
CNN’s Van Jones praises GOP for defending ‘Jewish kids’ on campuses, claims Dems in ‘disarray’
CNN’s Van Jones praises GOP for defending ‘Jewish kids’ on campuses, claims Dems in ‘disarray’
CNN’s Van Jones praised the Republican Party for sticking up for “Jewish kids” on college campuses amid the rash of antisemitism that cropped up after Hamas’ attack on Israel last month.
During his commentary on the third GOP presidential primary debate on Wednesday night, the CNN political contributor remarked that Republicans “forcefully” defended Jewish students while claiming that Democrats found themselves in “disarray” over the issue.
Jones made the comments after complimenting former South Carolina governor and 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s performance on the debate stage that evening.
He began, “I thought Nikki Haley gave a masterclass on foreign policy. I thought she gave a masterclass on abortion. If you just took those two clips, you could teach a course on political communication, conversation. She’s a force. She’s a force.”
He began, “I thought Nikki Haley gave a masterclass on foreign policy. I thought she gave a masterclass on abortion. If you just took those two clips, you could teach a course on political communication, conversation. She’s a force. She’s a force.”
The commentator noted that members of the GOP “came very, very forcefully, saying Jewish kids shouldn’t be scared to leave their dorm rooms in this country.”
“I thought that was an important development in the conversation overall,” he added.
House Republican campaign arm accuses Dems of fueling antisemitism: ‘Cause and Effect’
House Republican campaign arm accuses Dems of fueling antisemitism: ‘Cause and Effect’
The House Republican campaign arm is accusing Democrats of fueling “Jewish hate” and antisemitism in a new ad in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent protests in the U.S.
“Extreme House Democrats’ words promoted hate,” the new ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) says.
The video includes quotes from ‘Sqaud’ Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in addition to top progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., about the Israel conflict, which began after a brutal terrorist attack by Hamas early last month.
Those Democrats, and others, have been supportive of Palestinians and critical of Israel’s military response and have called for a ceasefire. The video shows Omar standing by remarks in which she accuses Israel of committing “acts of terror.”
Meanwhile, the video references a statement by Jayapal in which she said Israel is a “racist state.” She later issued a lengthy statement clarifying those remarks, saying she doesn’t believe “the idea of Israel as a nation is racist” but that the country’s “extreme right-wing government” has engaged in racist policies.
Separately it quotes Tlaib saying that progressives cannot back Israel’s “apartheid government.”
Gen Z House Democrat says he regrets not voting to condemn Hamas support on college campuses
Gen Z House Democrat says he regrets not voting to condemn Hamas support on college campuses
Freshman Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., admitted that he should not have voted against a resolution condemning support for Hamas on college and university campuses.
“After days of reflection, multiple conversations with my constituents and local leaders, and a difficult, but important listening session with students at UCF Hillel’s chapter — I have come to realize that I should have voted differently on H.Res. 798, to send a clear message that I stand against antisemitism,” Frost said in a statement earlier this week.
The resolution, a symbolic piece of legislation, criticized “the support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty and staff.”
It overwhelmingly passed in a bipartisan 396-to-23 vote last week. Only 22 Democrats, including Frost, and one Republican voted against it.
Frost said he was wary of “a few of the falsehoods” he said were in the Republican resolution and that he was hoping to be able to “vote on the Senate resolution condemning antisemitism, that passed unanimously, but didn’t include those falsehoods.”
“I truly worried that this would open the door for Republicans to infringe on the free speech of students and young people. Which is why I chose to support and co-sponsor the House version of that same Senate resolution,” Frost said.
Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report
Hamas adviser tells NY Times he hopes war with Israel is ‘permanent’
Hamas adviser tells NY Times he hopes war with Israel is ‘permanent’
The Hamas terror group told The New York Times that it hopes the war with Israel will “become permanent on all the borders” and the Oct. 7 massacre “succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”
A Times report headlined, “Behind Hamas’s Bloody Gambit to Create a ‘Permanent’ State of War,” featured a subhead that “Hamas leaders say they waged their Oct. 7 attack on Israel because they believed the Palestinian cause was slipping away, and that only violence could revive it.”
The terror group achieved violence, killing at least 1,400 civilians including women, children and the elderly while kidnapping hundreds of civilian hostages. Israel has responded with force, and the Times reported that “carnage is not the regrettable outcome of a big miscalculation” but instead a “necessary cost of a great accomplishment — the shattering of the status quo and the opening of a new, more volatile chapter in their fight against Israel.”
The Times spoke with Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, who told the paper that the terror group “succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”
Actress Gal Gadot’s private screening of disturbing film detailing the crimes in Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack in Israel caused brawls outside the venue on Wednesday.
Pro- and anti-Israel demonstrators clashed outside the screening, which was held at Los Angeles’ Museum of Tolerance. The audience at Gadot’s private screening included multiple Hollywood executives.
The film, which has been shared with the press in Israel and in New York City, is roughly 47 minutes long. It is a compilation of footage from security cameras, cellphones and Hamas’ own recordings showing the brutal atrocities committed on October 7.
White House: Israel expected to begin ‘4-hour pauses’ daily in northern Gaza
White House: Israel expected to begin ‘4-hour pauses’ daily in northern Gaza
The Israeli military has agreed to honor 4-hour daily pauses in fighting to allow humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza, the White house said Thursday.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby announced the move on Thursday. He said the new Israeli policy began “today.”
“We understand that Israel will begin to implement 4-hour pauses in areas of northern Gaza each day, with an announcement to be made three hours beforehand,” Kirby said. “There will be no military operations in these areas for the duration of these pauses.”
The agreement comes after the directors of both the CIA and Mossad met in Qatar for negotiations surrounding such pauses. CIA Director William Burns and Mossad Director David Barnea were in talks with the Qataris for multiple days, an official with knowledge of the visit told Fox News.
Pentagon confirms ‘multi-rocket attack’ on US forces near Baghdad embassy
Pentagon confirms ‘multi-rocket attack’ on US forces near Baghdad embassy
Pentagon officials confirmed that a “multi-rocket attack” targeted U.S. and coalition forces near the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad, Iraq on Thursday.
Military officials say the attack occurred on Wednesday and no injuries or damage to infrastructure has been reported. It was the 42nd attack on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17.
Iran-backed terrorist groups have ramped up aggression toward U.S. forces in the region amid Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. The U.S. has transfered considerable assets to the region in an effort to deter Iran and its terror proxies from joining the conflict.x new
Israeli brigade kills 50 Hamas terrorists in Gaza City operation: IDF
Israeli brigade kills 50 Hamas terrorists in Gaza City operation: IDF
Israeli Defense Forces say a brigade of Israeli soldiers killed 50 Hamas terrorists during an operation in the heart of Gaza City on Thursday.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari says the Israeli division has been operating in Gaza city for several days. The city is the both the heart of the Gaza Strip and a key command structure for Hamas.
“Division 162 has been operating in recent days in the center of Gaza City in the area of the security quarter of the Hamas organization,” Hagari said in a statement. “Givati Brigade combat team forces eliminated over 50 terrorists.”
In addition to the 50 terrorists, Israel says “intelligence documents were found and a number of significant tunnel shafts, factories for the production of anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft launchers were destroyed.”
The IDF says Gaza City played host to Hamas’ central intelligence headquarters as well as its air defense headquarters.
MI couple recounts fearful escape from Gaza during war outbreak
MI couple recounts fearful escape from Gaza during war outbreak
A Detroit-area couple trapped in Gaza like hundreds of other U.S. citizens described the roar of bombs and the fear of not making it home after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
Unable to leave, Zakaria and Laila Alarayshi hunkered down.
“I was crying,” Zakaria Alarayshi, 62, told reporters Wednesday at the Arab American Civil Rights League offices in Dearborn, Michigan. “Everyone was scared. Bombs everywhere. When I go to sleep, we cannot sleep. Maybe I’ll sleep in a chair for 30 minutes a day.”
He feared the bombs eventually would find them.
“If I’m going to die, OK, I don’t care. Die, die,” he said.
The Alarayshis were among the U.S. residents who were able to evacuate from Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas militant group surprise attack on southern Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion.
Some 500 to 600 U.S. citizens had been trapped in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the White House. President Joe Biden said 74 Americans with dual citizenship were evacuated on Nov. 2.
Iran launched waves of cyber attacks against key Israeli companies after Oct. 7 massacre: Report
Iran launched waves of cyber attacks against key Israeli companies after Oct. 7 massacre: Report
Iranian hacking groups launched cyber attacks against key Israeli companies in the wake of the October 7 massacre by Hamas last month, according to a new report.
Hackers linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted Israeli companies with ties to transporation, logistics and technology, according to a Thursday report from the Messenger. The hacks have largely taken the form of site outages, but they have also attempted to wipe data from Israeli computers.
The hacking efforts have yet to yield any major successes for Iran, but it is yet another threat posted by the Middle East power.
The U.S. has sought to deter Iran and its proxy terrorist organizations from joining Israel’s war against Hamas, deploying an array of assets to the Eastern Mediterranean and Iraq and Syria.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejected calls for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war on “The View” Wednesday, instead throwing her support behind “humanitarian pauses.”
“Remember, there was a ceasefire on Oct. 6 that Hamas broke by their barbaric assault on peaceful civilians and their kidnapping, their killing, their beheading, their terrible, inhumane savagery,” Clinton said.
“It did not hold because Hamas chose to break it,” she added.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization,” she said, adding that Hamas has “consistently broken cease-fires over a number of years.”
Also important, Clinton emphasized, was that “Israel should conduct itself by the laws of war and do everything it can to prevent and limit civilian casualties.”
Clinton also argued that a cease-fire would not uphold the laws of war.
“But a cease-fire done prematurely benefits those who do not abide by any laws, by any rules, by any human character value about the value of life,” she said.
Fox News’ Jeffrey Clark contributed to this report
Germany marks 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht with pledge to protect Jews amid antisemitism surge
Germany marks 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht with pledge to protect Jews amid antisemitism surge
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz marked the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht on Thursday, pledging to protect Jews against the current surge in antisemitism.
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, was the anti-Jewish pogrom that preceeded the Holocaust in Germany. Scholz stated in a speech that the time to make good on the promise of “Never Again” is now, according to the Agence France-Presse.
“This is about keeping the promise given again and again in the decades since 1945,” Scholz said.
He then went on to address the rising antisemitism in Germany and the world, saying “It outrages and shames me deeply.”
The U.S. military says it destroyed an Iran-linked weapons depot with an airstrike in Syria on Thursday.
The Pentagon says Iran-backed terrorist organizations in the region had used the depot to carry out attacks on U.S. bases in Syria. Since October 17th, U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria have been attacked 42 times.
Houthi rebels in Yemen shot down a U.S. MQ-9 reaper drone in Yemen on Wednesday, the Pentagon says.
The U.S. military has carried out multiple airstrikes in Syria in retaliation against drone attacks on U.S. bases as well as attacks on Israel. The drone is believed to have been on an intelligence-gathering mission when it was shot down.
US reaper drone shot down near coast of Yemen
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have harried Israel’s war against Hamas alongside Hezbollah.
The U.S. has warned Iran and its proxy terrorist groups not to intervene in the conflict.
Israel says it has no plans to ‘reoccupy’ Gaza after Hamas war
Israel says it has no plans to ‘reoccupy’ Gaza after Hamas war
Israel says it does not plan to “reoccupy” Gaza nor control it for long following the end of its war against Hamas.
A senior Israeli official made the comments to reporters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We assess that our current operations are effective and successful, and we’ll continue to push,” the Israeli official said. “It’s not unlimited or forever.”
“It’s not Israel’s intention to reoccupy Gaza or control it for a long time. The idea behind Israel going in militarily is to destroy Hamas’ ability to threaten us,” the official added. “We understand that will take time and that, even if we complete this phase of our military operation, we’ll still have to take some action against their remaining military infrastructure.”
The statement comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised eyebrows earlier thiis week by stating that Israel would control Gaza’s security for an “indefinite period” following the war.
President Biden had previously warned that a full reoccupation of Gaza would be a “mistake.”
The Israel Defense Forces said Thursday soldiers found a Hamas-operated weapons production and storage facility inside a residential building next to a child’s bedroom.
The facility was used to produce and store unmanned aerial vehicles and weapons, the IDF said, and was located inside a residential building near schools in the center of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza.
Explosives and operational plans were found right next to a bedroom that belonged to children, according to the force.
Fox News Digital’s Yael Rotem-Kuriel contributed to this report.
Head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit killed in Israeli fighter jet strike: IDF
Head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit killed in Israeli fighter jet strike: IDF
Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib, the head of Hamas’ anti-tank missile unit in the Central Camps Brigade, was killed in a fighter jet strike Thursday, Israeli officials announced.
The terrorist is accused of directing and carrying out “many anti-tank attacks” against Israeli citizens and military members, the Israel Defense Forces said.
Intelligence with the IDF and the Israel Securities Authority determined Abu-Maghsib was killed in the strike.
The Israeli Navy also struck Hamas anti-tank missile launching posts used to attack IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip as part of the assistance offered to forces on the ground.
Supporters of Palestinians demonstrate near the Israeli Consulate on May 18, 2021, in Houston. Hundreds of protesters chanted slogans of “Free, free Palestine. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” (Photo: Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle/Getty Images)
Left-wing American Jews feel betrayed by the Left.
It’s the Left that remains anti-Israel even after the greatest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and even though most Palestinians and their supporters explicitly call for the destruction of the Jewish state: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Progressive American Jews are shocked by their fellow progressives. But the only thing that is shocking is their shock. Here’s why:
The Left has been calling for an economic boycott of Israel for decades and has labeled Israel an “apartheid” state.
The Left labels America, the most tolerant, multiethnic society in history, “systemically racist.”
The Left called for “defunding the police,” supports attorneys general who abolish bail for violent criminals, and praised demonstrations against America—including many that included vandalism and violence—for more than half a year.
The Left supports all-black dorms and all-black graduations on college campuses. The Left has almost destroyed every liberal ideal regarding race. The University of California, among many other left-wing institutions, has labeled “racist” the liberal ideal of being colorblind, and labeled “racist” the beautiful anti-racist sentiment “There is only one race, the human race.”
The Left—specifically, schools of education and teachers unions—has ruined elementary schools and high schools. And it has destroyed universities as institutions that allow open dialogue.
The Left affirms the lie that men can become women and women can become men, and it
works to crush the life and career of anyone who denies that people can become the other sex. The Left supports the demise of women’s sports by fighting to allow any man who says he is a woman to compete in women’s sports. The Left supports putting children who say they are the other sex on hormone-blocking drugs and supports allowing girls under the age of 21 (and sometimes under 18) who say they are boys to have their breasts surgically removed.
The Left has been waging the most successful war against free speech in American history. As a result, almost half of America’s young people say they believe in free speech but not for “hate speech,” which, of course, means they do not believe in free speech.
The Left asserts that the human fetus at any stage of development is, literally, worthless, certainly worth less than a dog, if the woman carrying it wants an abortion.
The Left has essentially destroyed mainstream journalism. Mainstream media no longer hold truth as an ideal. They promoted the lie for nearly two years that Russia colluded with the Trump presidential campaign in 2016. (Many still do.) They continue to promote the lie that having to present an ID when voting is “racist.”
The Left has poisoned American medicine. The American Medical Association has announced that birth certificates should no longer list the sex of a child. Medical boards threaten to suspend or even revoke the medical licenses of physicians who question the efficacy of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine or prescribe hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to patients in the early stages of COVID-19.
The Left has enthusiastically supported the America-hating and Israel-hating Black Lives Matter organization and the flag-defaming athletes who refused to stand for the national anthem.
The Left has promulgated the racist doctrine in most American schools and businesses that all whites are racist.
The Left teaches schoolchildren that they should be ashamed of their past and that their future is awful (due to carbon emissions), and that capitalism is bad and socialism good.
The Left, in short, hates the West, the most decent civilization ever created, and hates America, the most decent country ever created.
The Left, for decades, has declared Zionism racist—meaning that Israel’s existence is inherently immoral—and has charged Israel with “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Yet, now Jews on the Left are simply shocked that the people who hold all these contemptible positions either morally equate Hamas with Israel or actually support those who chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is in fact a call to genocide. Specifically, genocide of the Jews.
Unlike the liberal Jew, the left-wing Jew—the professor, the columnist, the teacher—is a destructive fool. But the liberal Jew is inexcusably naive about the Left, nearly all of whose positions have nothing in common with liberalism, not to mention with the Torah.
For the past three years, Biden has been beating the “white-supremacy-is-the-greatest-threat-to-our-Homeland” drum with virtually no evidence that it’s happening. While ignoring Black-on-Black crime and murder, and multiple threats and assaults on Jews, etc.
Though Biden tried to sound strong on the side of Israel, but in typical Biden fashion, he appears to be waffling toward a cease-fire and pushing for humanitarian aid that will eventually be spent on more weapons to be used to kill more innocent Israelis.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on Monday that a three-day fighting pause could help secure the release of some hostages, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing two U.S. and Israeli officials. Citing the U.S. official, Axios reported that under a proposal being discussed between the U.S., Israel and Qatar, Hamas would release 10-15 hostages and use the pause to verify the identities of all the hostages and deliver a list of names of the people it is holding.
In a statement on Monday, the White House said Biden and Netanyahu discussed “the possibility of tactical pauses to provide civilians with opportunities to safely depart from areas of ongoing fighting, to ensure assistance is reaching civilians in need, and to enable potential hostage releases.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Axios report.
Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a Republican effort to win quick approval for a bill providing emergency aid to Israel that passed the House of Representatives last week, but that provides no assistance for Ukraine’s war against Russia.
Republican Senator Roger Marshall said: “Time is of the essence and it’s imperative that the Senate not delay delivering this crucial aid to Israel another day,” he said.
Democrats objected, stressing the importance of providing aid to Ukraine as well as Israel, in addition to humanitarian aid, border security funding and money to push back against China in the Indo-Pacific that was in a $106 billion funding request President Joe Biden sent to Congress last month. They also accused House Republicans of playing politics with the crisis in Israel, delaying aid for the Jewish State by tying support to cutting funding for the Internal Revenue Service, a favorite target for Republicans, rather than writing a bipartisan bill.
The House bill would provide $14.3 billion for Israel as it responds to a deadly Oct. 7 attack by Islamist Hamas militants, but also cut the same amount of money from the IRS. The funds would include $4 billion for procurement of Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling defense systems to counter short-range rocket threats as well as some transfers of equipment from U.S. stocks.
“Our allies in Ukraine can no more afford a delay than our allies in Israel,” said Senator Patty Murray, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The House vote was largely along party lines. Democrats called the proposed IRS cuts a politically motivated “poison pill” that would increase the U.S. budget deficit by cutting back on tax collection. They also said it was essential to continue to support Ukraine.
To become law, legislation must pass the Democratic-controlled Senate as well as the Republican-majority House, and be signed into law by Biden, a Democrat. The White House had said Biden would veto the House bill.
Senate leaders are writing their own supplemental funding bill and hope to introduce it as soon as this week.
Cartoon – Obama is trying to play the middle in the Hamas-Israeli conflict by taking a position that seems to give leniency to Hamas in spite of their subhuman bloody attacks on innocent Israeli citizens. Obama has a lot of blood on his hand from when he gave Iran pallets of cash to Iran in an effort to get a ridiculous nuclear deal that has quite possibly been used in this attack or ones similar to this. At least when Trump eluded that there are “Very fine people on both sides,” he wasn’t referring to the Nazis or white supremacists’ part of the crowd and made that very clear. However, the media leaves that part out.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
A Cartoon that hits Minnesota Teachers who are supporting Hamas terrorism in schools and other evil social topics when they should be teaching things like math, English, and real history in class. This is what happens when students of higher learning graduate and enter our society. They create more woke monsters turning our world upside down.
So many left-wing groups are supporting Hamas terrorists, like Gay and Lesbian groups, LGBTQ+, Transgenders, Liberal Democrat Jews, etc., but don’t seem to understand that if any of them ventured to Gaza, they would be thrown off the top of a building to their death for the lifestyle or politics they have. DEI groupthink and American universities have warped and brainwashed our kids minds to the point they can’t see who is actually on their side—the side of freedom and democracy.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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BBC/Nik Millard “We see women of all ages… We see the bruises, we learn about the cuts and tears, and we know they have been sexually abused,” Captain Maayan told the BBC
BBC/Nik Millard Hamas fighters stormed the Nova festival on 7 October and killed hundreds
BBC/Dave Bull Israelis are still grappling with the Hamas attack in October
BBC/Dave Bull” It really feels like Hamas learned how to weaponize women’s bodies from ISIS in Iraq, from cases in Bosnia,” said Cochav Elkayam-Levy
BBC/Dave Bull May Golan: “For the first five days, we still had terrorists on the ground in Israel. And there were hundreds, hundreds of bodies everywhere.”
BBC/Dave Bull Debris litters the ground at the Nova festival site
BBC/Dave Bull” Israel on 7 October is not the same country that woke up the following morning”: police chief Yaacov Shabtai
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