Staff members at the pediatric ward of the Poriya Medical Center were deeply moved this week after receiving a handwritten letter of brocha from the tzaddik of Tiveriah, Rav Dov Kook.
The letter, sent via the rov’s aide, was addressed to hospital management and the doctors and nurses of the children’s department. In his message, Rav Kook offered words of encouragement and chizuk to the medical staff caring for young patients.
The letter read: “Shevat 5786. To the honorable doctors and nurses of the children’s department at Poriya Hospital, may you receive Heavenly assistance to be good emissaries for the healing of the children of Yisroel. And whoever sustains one soul of Yisroel, it is as if he sustained an entire world.”
Hospital officials expressed great appreciation for the letter and the spirit behind it. It was also learned that over the past winter, families who required treatment at the hospital shared their experiences with Rav Kook, speaking about the care and attention they received. In recent months, representatives close to the rov and the hospital’s leadership have been working cooperatively to bridge gaps and provide a more effective and compassionate response to patients, as well as to additional communities in the city of Tiveriah.
{Matzav.com}
Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for captives and missing persons, has revealed new and deeply troubling details about Hamas’s strategy regarding the Israeli hostages, saying that arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar ym”sh intended to keep them as a long-term bargaining asset for up to a decade.
Speaking in an interview with Amit Segal in Yisroel Hayom, Hirsch said Sinwar viewed the hostages as an investment designed to generate leverage over “10 years of negotiations.” Hirsch described how Israeli authorities internally categorized the captives based on intelligence assessments and rescue prospects. “We classified the hostages as Ron Arads, those with concern they may never be found; Wachsman cases — hostages in a known location but with low chances of rescue; Regev and Goldwasser — fallen soldiers; or Shalits, those who are returned in a deal,” Hirsch said.
Hirsch recounted the scale of the crisis in the immediate aftermath of October 7. “On the evening of October 8 I realized we were missing 3,200 people. In the second week, 1,060. Later, 400,” he said. During the second week, Israeli officials even considered granting American citizenship to all hostages, after Hamas hinted it might prioritize releasing captives with foreign nationality.
According to Hirsch, there was often an unbearable gap between the quality of intelligence and the slim chances of a successful rescue. “There were cases where one of our units was at the door, but we knew we wouldn’t achieve the vital seconds needed for extraction, so we gave up,” he said.
Hirsch also described how Qatar became the central mediator. He said he called a senior Qatari official, who offered his country’s mediation services. When asked how he could prove he could deliver results, Hirsch recalled replying, “Take out hostages.” The Qatari official then went south to Gaza to supervise a pilot release. The following day, Yehudit and Natalie Raanan were freed, followed later by the release of Yocheved Lifshitz and Nurit Cooper via Egypt. From that point on, Qatar formally assumed the role of mediator.
Addressing the issue of disarmament in Gaza, Amit Segal wrote that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff noticed skeptical looks during meetings in the Prime Minister’s Office — looks that conveyed doubt over the idea that Hamas would ever disarm voluntarily without direct Israeli military action. “I was born at night,” Kushner told them, “but I wasn’t born last night.” American officials stressed that they had no illusions about Hamas or Gaza’s population, noting that not a single person had called the IDF hotline established for turning in hostages. They added that even in Nazi Germany there were Righteous Among the Nations — and that was without the promise of a $5 million reward.
Still, a senior American official said the most likely outcome remains the destruction of Hamas by Israeli forces. “Still, most chances are that the destruction of Hamas will ultimately be carried out by IDF soldiers,” the official said. “But what do you care if we start the demilitarization peacefully? It’s clear Hamas is stalling, and it’s clear it will want to keep weapons, but what happens if, for example, only 10,000 Kalashnikovs are handed over and only 50 tunnels are destroyed without fighting — how does that hurt? You and we are not in a rush anywhere. It will only save work for the IDF.”
{Matzav.com}
An atzeres chizuk for yungeleit was held this week at Bais Medrash Govoha’s Bais Medrash Ateres Esther in Lakewood, NJ, focused on encouraging yungeleit to consider moving out of town to help build and enhance kollelim, mekomos haTorah and communities there.
The gathering featured divrei chizuk from Rav Yisroel Neuman, rosh yeshiva of Bais Medrash Govoha, and Rav Elya Chaim Swerdloff, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Gedolah of Paterson.
WATCH:
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s administration is preparing to launch a statewide online system that would allow residents to submit reports, videos, and other documentation of encounters with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, an initiative modeled on similar efforts used by activists to monitor federal immigration activity.
Sherrill, a Democrat who was sworn into office earlier this month, revealed the plan Wednesday during an interview on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”
“We are also going to be standing up a portal so people can upload all their cellphone videos and alert people,” Sherrill said. “If you see an ICE agent in the street, get your phone out. We want to know.”
ICE did not immediately provide a response when asked to comment on the governor’s remarks.
In addition to the reporting system, Sherrill said her administration intends to bar ICE from conducting operations on state-owned property. Several local governments, including Jersey City, have already enacted similar prohibitions at the municipal level.
“They have not been forthcoming,” Sherrill said of ICE operations. “They will pick people up. They will not tell us who they are.”
The governor, who has frequently clashed with Republican President Donald Trump, argued that ICE routinely withholds information about arrests and conducts itself in a manner comparable to a clandestine law enforcement agency.
“They’ll pick up American citizens. They picked up a 5-year-old child. We want documentation, and we’re going to make sure we get it,” Sherrill said.
Following her television appearance, the governor’s office said more information about the reporting portal would be released soon. The administration said the rollout is being coordinated with Jennifer Davenport, who was recently appointed acting attorney general of New Jersey.
“Keeping New Jerseyans safe is Gov. Sherrill’s top priority, and in the coming days she and Acting Attorney General Davenport will announce additional actions to protect New Jerseyans from federal overreach,” the governor’s office said in a statement.
New Jersey’s plan comes after comparable action in New York, where Attorney General Letitia James announced a program in October to gather photos and videos of ICE activity following a widely publicized enforcement operation on Canal Street in New York City, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population.
State officials said any submissions to New Jersey’s system would be reviewed by the Office of the Attorney General to determine whether there were potential violations of state law.
Officials elsewhere have also signaled a willingness to challenge ICE through the courts. In Pennsylvania, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has said he is prepared to pursue state-level charges against ICE agents in certain situations.
At the federal level, members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation said this week that they are organizing legal observer training sessions to teach the public how to document immigration enforcement actions.
U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey said continued scrutiny of ICE is necessary.
“Their crimes must be recorded for the day when those who have violated our rights face justice,” Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., said. “It’s up to us to serve as witnesses now.”
{Matzav.com}
A suspect charged in a violent rock-throwing attack on a school bus on the New Jersey Turnpike that seriously injured an 8-year-old student has been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials said.
Authorities identified the man as Hernando Garcia-Morales of Teaneck. The Department of Homeland Security described him as an illegal alien from Mexico with a lengthy criminal record accumulated while living in New Jersey.
According to DHS, Garcia-Morales was arrested in 2023 on burglary charges. Records also show a 2006 arrest for weapons possession and theft.
The attack occurred at about 2 p.m. on January 7 as a school bus was returning to Yeshivat Noam, a Jewish day school, after a class trip to the Liberty Science Center, officials said.
As the bus approached the area near Exit 70A-B in Teaneck, Garcia-Morales allegedly hurled a baseball-sized rock at the vehicle. The impact shattered a window and caused a fractured skull to a third-grade girl, who later required surgery, authorities said.
Two days after the incident, New Jersey State Police arrested Garcia-Morales. He was charged with aggravated assault, unlawful possession of a weapon, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal mischief, resisting arrest by flight, and hindering apprehension, police said.
Investigators said Garcia-Morales was located at a makeshift campsite he had set up inside Old Croaker County Park in Bergen County following a state police-led investigation.
State police also said the investigation connected him to several other rock-throwing incidents reported in Bogota Borough, also in Bergen County.
DHS said Garcia-Morales entered the United States at an unknown time and location.
“Violently targeting a school bus full of children is extremely wicked and heinous,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Hernando Garcia-Morales should have never been in this country, let alone released after multiple arrests into New Jersey communities.”
{Matzav.com}