Category: News

The people of Israel weep as we learn that Oded Lifshitz (84) and the Bibas family will not return alive.

Here are their photos:

Jerusalem Post, 2025-02-20 pg 1.

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Source; . Jerusalem Post, 2025-02-20 pg 1.

Professor resigns, and wonders aloud why another professor who celebrated the Hamas attack on Oct 7 is hired to teach courses on Middle East policy.

Source:  https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-professor-quits-columbia-citing-systematic-anti-israel-bias-on-campus/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-professor-quits-columbia-citing-systematic-anti-israel-bias-on-campus/

Israel, the USA, Russia, and Argentina celebrate the return of their citizens during Shabbat yesterday:

• Argentine-Israeli hostage Iair Horn, yet his brother Eitan is still held POW in Gaza;
• US-Israeli POW Sagui Dekel-Chen, who just learned of his daughter’s name “Shachar Mazal,” she was 7 months in the womb when he was captured on Oct 7;
• Russian-Israeli POW Sasha Troufanov met with the Russian Ambassador to Israel who gifted him with a new Russian passport (the hidden message: “come back to Russia, it’s safer!”); he just now learned that his father Vitaly had been killed Oct 7.

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More details: https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-new-daughter-a-murdered-father-a-brother-captive-joy-and-anguish-as-hostages-released/

Hundreds of terrorist prisoners have been freed by Israel. Civilians must do everything they can to prepare for self defense.

Jerusalem Post Magazine, 7 Feb 2025.

Let us keep praying for civilians’ safety.

Also necessary to pray for these negotiations and how the war will end:

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Related:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-intense-fighting-to-resume-in-gaza-if-hostages-not-released-by-saturday/

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is currently experienced by well over 1/3 of the Israeli population:

The social health programs run by the government are not meeting the need. Not even close. 90% of people who were present at the site of a missile attack have not even sought mental health assistance.

And yet, 38% of the people are suffering one or more symptom of PTSD.  The poll was conducted among Arab as well as Hebrew Israelis.

Shlomo Mantzur escaped Baghdad at age 15 when the Iraqi people conducted a pogrom.  Their Nazi-style government had collapsed, so the people took matters into their own hands, brutally killing and injuring many people simply because they were Jewish.

Jews had ties to the city of Baghdad dating back a thousand years. And yet there are people today who say (1) Jews have no connection to the seed of Abraham, and they also say (2) Israelis are all Europeans, when in fact, the majority of Israel’s current population comes from the Middle East nations such as Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, and so forth. Below is an example of this special type of antisemite who denies the legitimacy of the Hebrew people:

What a clown, who thinks that all Israelis emigrated from Europe; who does not know that Gaza has an ancient synagogue dated to 508 AD; would anyone claim that in 508 AD, the Hebrews that build this synagogue had no link to Abraham? Seriously?

https://JTOD.org/ancient-jewish-synagogue-in-gaza-508-ad/

Two photos above on the far right, a poll shows that almost two thirds of Israelis support Trump’s plan to relocate Gazans while the Strip is rebuilt. Only 6% think there is a better solution (perhaps 1% for each of 6 different options) and only 10% think that solution is immoral.

Israelis continue to suffer greatly and will continue for many years as a result of this unprovoked attack on Oct 7.  Israelis are now aware that Gazan children, women, and men were involved in capturing, torturing, murdering, and holding innocent Israelis as Prisoners of War (POWs) in their own apartments and homes.

Six Israeli bodies found in tunnel under Gaza

Israelis are aware that the majority of Gazans support Hamas 100%.  A percentage of Arabs in Samaria and Judea also support Hamas.

But as for the Gazans,  Israeli already offered them a mini-state in 2007 when Israel uprooted all the Hebrew towns there.  Gazans turned the place into a giant launching pad with a network of attack tunnels.  65% of Israelis who participated in the poll now feel that enough is enough, the experiment has failed, and it’s time to try something new for Gaza.  No workable solution has been proposed other than President Trump’s.  Belatedly, after Trump’s threat, Egypt has just now offered to help rebuild Gaza.  This after Egypt allowed tunnels which armed Gaza while blocking Gazan civilians from seeking refuge in Egypt?  Too little, too late, Egypt:  https://JTOD.org/egypt-refused-all-gazan-refugees/

As for Jordan, who just had a meeting with President Trump in Washington, they have only agreed to take in two thousand sick Gazan children. But at least that’s a start.

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Sources: Jerusalem Post, 12 Feb 2025 pg 1: 
"Comtroller: Gov't not doing enough to help millions with their mental health;"
"Mantzur's murder shows that Hamas keeps Farhud spirit alive;"
"'Post' poll: Most back Trump's Gaza plan;'

Times of Israel:  https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/egypt-to-present-comprehensive-plan-for-rebuilding-gaza-while-palestinians-stay-there/#openwebComments

Their daughter Lianne comes from the UK; she had a Teddy Bear from the age of 10, and years later married Eli Sharabi from Israel. Her parents continue to reside in the UK.

On Oct 7, Lianne lived with her husband Eli in Kibbutz Be’eri with their two teenage girls Noiya and Yahel. Eli left home to go out and fight, and was taken as POW by Hamas, and now that he’s been released yesterday on Day 491 of his captivity, now he learns that his wife Lianne and their teenage daughters were murdered while hiding in the safe room on Oct. 7.

Some months after Oct 7, Eli’s inlaws, his wife’s parents, traveled from the UK to visit the destroyed home in Be’eri and found that exact same Teddy Bear that their daughter had kept since she was only 10. They knew their daughter and grandchildren were dead, while Eli in captivity did not know. As Lianne’s mother and father watched for Eli’s release yesterday,

“…she clutched a teddy bear to her chest.  It was a reminder of everything the family has suffered since the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing their daughter, Lianne Sharabi, and teenage granddaughters, Noiya and Yahel, while taking son-in-law Eli Sharabi hostage. Eli’s brother Yossi was also taken hostage and later killed…”

Yesterday during Shabbat, Hamas traded three emaciated Israeli male civilian POWs, Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami, and Eli Sharabi, in return for hundreds of Arabic killers convicted of serious crimes in a court of law.  Clearly, the Israelis had treated the Arab convicts properly during their legal imprisonment, while Gazans starved these three innocent civilians so they looked like Shoah (Holocaust) survivors.

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Sources: 
Jerusalem Post, 9 Feb 2025 pg 1.
Times of Israel:  https://www.timesofisrael.com/teddy-bear-helps-hostages-family-come-to-terms-with-grief-amid-joy-over-his-release/

Yarden Bibas returned from Gaza, but his wife Shiri and two sons, four-year-old son Ariel and baby Kfir (ages as of Oct 7) are still unaccounted for in Gaza.

This is a case where he left Shir and the kids at home to go out and fight the terrorists, was taken Prisoner of War (POW), and separately his wife and children were also taken as POWs. 

While in prison, Gazans taunted him by saying his wife and children were dead.

Videos posted by the Gazans have shown him taken POW with blood streaming down his face, and his frantic wife being taken hostage with their boys in her arms wrapped in a blanket. 

Former MK/Kibbutz Be’eri resident Haim Jelin phrased it well, describing the impossible horror facing Yarden, who is “…returning not to the warm embrace of his nuclear family, but to a reality so awful that…’the soul cannot absorb it.'”

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Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-yarden-bibas-is-released-relief-dread-and-evidence-that-hamas-is-reviving/

Biden Administration: “We only held up one shipment of heavy bombs.”

Israel: The Biden Administration was already in the middle of reaching agreements with Israel on how those bombs could be used at the time of the halt. 

Also: other necessary weapons were held up too. 

And yet, the Biden Administration stuck to their story that no weapon shipments were halted. 

So then why was Trump able to lift the hold on the 24,000 assault rifles to Israel, if no hold had been in place when he took office? 

Was it not the Biden/Harris US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who issued the directive to halt those rifles? 

(See 1st link)
1st link:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-administration-may-lift-hold-on-delivery-of-assault-rifles-to-israel-nyt/

2nd link (the Biden narrative):

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/blinken-only-one-weapons-shipment-to-israel-withheld-everything-else-moving-normally/

Trump & Vance revoked the ban on assault rifles for Israel, while Biden & Harris pretended nothing was delayed other than the heavy bombs – which also should not have been halted.

All this begs the question: How insane is it that the Biden & Harris administration appeared to make it difficult for Israel to defend herself?  

Israel needs rifles to defend against this (below): Biden & Harris blocked the rifle shipment. 

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So let me get this right: Hamas executes its members if they suspect they might be homosexual. And then Hamas rapes male POWs from Israel. None of the Hamas members see the irony there?!

“Brutal Violence: Secret hamas docs reveal torture, execution of gay terrorists–while some male Oct. 7 Israeli victims were raped in captivity.”

Meanwhile Hamas scoffs at the idea that the USA will rule Gaza:

Hamas official: Trump’s comments on taking over Gaza are ‘ridiculous and absurd’ and ‘capable of igniting the region’

OK, yeah, we heard that threat before. They said Trump would “ignite the region” if he moved the USA Embassy into Jerusalem.  Empty threats as usual – however – caution must be taken “trust but verify.”

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Source:   https://nypost.com/2025/02/04/world-news/secret-hamas-documents-reveal-torture-execution-of-gay-terrorists/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hamas-official-trumps-comments-on-taking-over-gaza-are-ridiculous-and-absurd/