LLX News

By: Jonathan Feldstein – Israel 365 News; israel365news.com

Reports are circulating in Israel of high-level talks involving negotiations to release more of the hostages brutally kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and held captive in Gaza since. Reports of the hostages’ conditions from the 100+ who have been released are horrifying. They have suffered physical and psychological torture, and starvation, were held in underground cages in complete darkness, and suffered violent sexual assaults including gang-raping women. Speculation is that many are dead, as some of the hostages’ bodies have been found, littered across Gaza as if trash rather than human beings. 

When Israel launched its military operation, it had two goals: to eradicate Hamas and remove it and its leaders from any ability to ever control Gaza and its population or threaten Israel, and to free ALL the hostages. Over a week last month, Israelis were glued to the TV every night as Hamas paraded out more hostages, mostly women and children, under the voyeurism of the world media. But some 130 hostages remain in captivity: Arab and Jewish Israelis, and non-Jews of other nationalities. Still, many of the hostages are women and children, one of whom is 10 months old, doesn’t even know his name, and has spent nearly a third of his life in captivity. 

While Israelis celebrated the return of all the hostages, we were impacted by the psychological warfare that Hamas inflicted. Manipulating the hostages until the last moment, armed and masked terrorists “escorted” the hostages, instructing them to wave for the camera. 

The terrorists handed off the hostages to representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as if batons in a relay race, a scene rehearsed night after night. Israelis who watched the spectacle understood that Hamas was trying to appear humanitarian and that the Red Cross was inept, playing the role of useful idiot or complicit partner to Hamas’ evil. They did nothing until that point to see or assess the well-being of all the hostages, not providing needed medical care, or anything else that is not only their mandate but their responsibility.

cont’d…

https://www.israel365news.com/381003/the-shame-of-the-red-cross/

By: Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

“Has she said anything about rape and sexual violence being used against the Israeli women as a tool of war,” asked journalist Megyn Kelly.

The 2023 Time magazine “Person of the Year,” Taylor Swift, attended a comedy event earlier this month that benefited an anti-Israel nonprofit.

Proceeds from a Dec. 8 performance by stand-up comedian Ramy Youssef went to American Near East Refugee Aid, which NGO Monitor calls “biased” and “anti-Israeli.”

“Its publications erase the context of terrorism and promote the Palestinian narrative while falsely claiming to work with ‘all people living in impoverished communities,’” according to the watchdog group. “Such activity is inconsistent with ANERA’s proclaimed objectives.”

Swift attended the benefit with fellow pop music star Selena Gomez. Model and actress Cara Delevingne, actress Anya Taylor-Joy, and actress and singer Zoë Kravitz were also present.

cont’d…

https://www.jns.org/mum-on-hamas-attacks-on-jewish-women-taylor-swift-attends-anti-israel-benefit/

After Israeli forces eliminated a Hamas cell in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaia, they located a tunnel shaft inside of a classroom, the IDF said.

By: Sam Halpern – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

Israeli forces on Saturday found a teddy bear packed with ammunition and a hidden sniper rifle, the IDF said.

As part of the 551st Brigade’s operations across the Gaza Strip, the teddy bear packed with weaponry was discovered during a raid of a school used by Hamas for terror purposes. In addition, more weaponry hidden in classrooms was found in UNRWA bags in an adjacent school.

The IDF engaged in close-quarters fighting with a Hamas terror cell in the area of a school compound in the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaia, the IDF said on Friday evening.

According to the Israeli military report, the fighting took place between the Hamas fighters and soldiers of the 74th Battalion of the army’s 188th Brigade along with LOTAR special forces, an elite counterterrorism unit.

The IDF said that despite an attempt by Hamas to bait the IDF personnel into an ambush, the Israeli forces successfully eliminated the Hamas attackers.

cont’d…

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-777286

By: Aish.com

Safety first, except when it comes to the Jews.

It’s not a great time to be a president of an Ivy League university. But don’t feel too bad enjoying the slow-mo downfall of these ivory tower bastions because it’s even worse to be a Jew at one of these campuses.

The presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT stumbled over their legalese and lost sight of the big picture that it’s indeed harassment to call for genocide of the Jews.

To her credit, Liz Magill, the president of Penn, resigned, and there is intense pressure for the other two to do the same.

Drawing the line between free speech and harassment is, in fact, tricky. But what is crystal clear is the hypocrisy and maddening double standard that is on full display.

cont’d…

These boys are the real deal.

By: Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

Fifteen American Christian cowboys with their wide-brimmed hats, denim shirts, tight Wrangler jeans, leather belts with large buckles, and well-worn boots have come to Israel to protect the Jewish residents of the biblical heartland – Judea and Samaria.

“We want to live for Israel; that is our goal,” said 24-year-old Yosef Strain from Montanna [sic], his voice carrying a subtle twang.

The young men, mostly in their early 20s, hail from across the South: Tenessee [sic], Missouri, Texas, Arkansas, and Montana. They join other faith-driven volunteers in Israel through Hayovel. For 20 years, this organization has been bringing several hundred Christians to Israel each year to help harvest the grapes of the biblical heartland. These Evangelical Christians are usually focused on restoring Christian-Jewish relations and confirming Israel’s right to their ancestral homeland.

However, after the October 7 Hamas massacre, “we understood the morbid reality that we are facing a serious enemy and the world does not recognize it,” explained Hayovel Director of Operations Joshua Waller. “If we did not say yes [to helping Judea and Samaria], no one was.”

cont’d…

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-772559

By: Renee Ghert-Zand and TOI Staff; timesofisrael.com

Several freed hostages discharged from hospital Monday, including 9-year-old Emily Hand; medical center chief says released captives ‘have a long way to go’ to full mental recovery

Videos and photos shared Monday show the emotional reunions with family members of the hostages released from Gaza on Sunday evening after 51 days in captivity, as doctors say that most are in good shape and have already gone home or will soon do so.

Elma Avraham, 84, remains in critical condition at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, after she was brought straight there in a helicopter Sunday night. Maya Regev, 21, was also taken there to undergo surgery. Regev was shot in the leg before being kidnapped from the Supernova music festival.

Prof. Itai Pessach, director of the Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center, said Monday afternoon that the overall physical health of the latest group of freed hostages treated at the center is good.

cont’d…

https://www.timesofisrael.com/photos-videos-show-emotional-hostage-reunions-as-doctors-say-most-in-good-health/

By: Dr. Yvette Alt Miller

Iran, Russia, China and terrorist organizations are flooding social media with anti-Israel content.

About half of the population receives their news from social media at least some of the time. With the current fighting between Hamas and Israel, posts about the war are in overdrive, being viewed billions and billions of times. We’re drowning in memes, posts, TikToks, videos and hashtags.

Overlooked in this social media frenzy is a sobering fact: much of the content related to Israel, Hamas and Gaza is posted by shadowy government agencies in Iran, Russia, and China, and terrorist organizations like Hamas and militant groups in Iraq as well. Each time you consume social media content you’re opening yourself up to being manipulated by hostile states and actors.

Iranian Social Media Campaigns

A principal sponsor of Hamas, Iran has been championing the terrorist organization online. Iranian accounts “have been spreading particularly harmful content that includes glorification of war crimes and violence against Israeli civilians and encouraging further attacks on Israel” since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks that sparked the current war. That’s the conclusion of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that tracks misinformation and extremism online.

By: Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz – Israel365 News; israel365news.com

All the people at the gate and the elders answered, “We are. May Hashem make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Yisrael! Prosper in Efrat and perpetuate your name in Beit Lechem! – RUTH 4:11 (THE ISRAEL BIBLE)

he Bethlehem municipality announced that there will be no Christmas celebrations next month.

“Bethlehem Municipality crews announced the dismantling of Christmas decorations installed several years ago in the city’s neighborhoods and removing all festive appearances in honor of the martyrs and in solidarity with our people in Gaza,” the municipality wrote on Facebook.

A city spokesperson also acknowledged the campaign to remove Christmas decorations in a statement to the Telegraph.

“The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration, they are sad, angry and upset; our people in Gaza are being massacred and killed in cold blood,” the spokesman said, according to the outlet.

They added, “Therefore, it is not appropriate at all to have such festivities while there is a massacre happening in Gaza and attacks in the West Bank.”

cont’d…

https://www.israel365news.com/379232/the-pa-cancels-christmas-in-bethlehem-to-show-solidarity-with-hamas/

“Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such” but to “completely overthrow the situation.”

By: Joshua Marks – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

Hamas has no interest in governing Gaza but wants a never-ending war with Israel, members of the terrorist group told The New York Times in a feature piece published on Wednesday.

According to the Hamas leaders, that was one of the primary goals of their Oct. 7 invasion of the northwestern Negev, in which thousands of armed terrorists massacred 1,400 people, mostly civilians, wounded over 5,000 others and took back to Gaza more than 200 hostages.

“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher el-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told the US-based newspaper.

Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the terrorist group’s politburo in Qatar, said they planned the Oct. 7 assault to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” adding that “we succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”

cont’d…