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PURE HATRED: BBC Committed 1,533 Editorial Breaches In Anti-Israel War Coverage, Report Finds
Slain Hostages Struggled With Their Killers In Final Moments, IDF Probe Said To Find
Several of the six Israeli hostages executed by Hamas in Gaza approximately ten days ago reportedly fought back against their captors, according to information relayed by the Israel Defense Forces to their families.
IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari has informed the relatives of the victims—Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Ori Danino, Eden Yerushalmi, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Carmel Gat—about the harsh conditions in which they were detained and their bravery during their final moments, as reported by Channel 12 and Channel 13.
Hagari, who met with the families recently, provided them with what Channel 12 news described as preliminary results from the army’s investigation into the event. This included details of the severe conditions endured by the hostages and evidence from the tunnel where they were executed.
The IDF suspects that the hostages were killed a day or so before the IDF reached the tunnel on August 31, according to the report.
“Several of the six are assessed to have defended themselves and struggled with those who shot them,” the report stated.
Channel 13 reported “forensic” findings indicating that “Hersh, Ori, Alex and Almog defended Eden and Carmel.”
The hostages were confined in a cramped tunnel, so narrow that it could barely accommodate two people side by side and too low for them to stand fully upright, as detailed in the Channel 12 report.
The tunnel lacked air vents, making breathing difficult for the hostages, the families were informed.
There were no restrooms or showers in the tunnel. The hostages had to clean themselves using water from the bottles they had.
Protein bars were discovered in the tunnel, but the hostages had very limited food, causing them to lose significant weight; Yerushalmi, for instance, weighed only 36 kilograms (80 pounds) before her death.
The tunnel contained a generator and a small flashlight that was often malfunctioning, a chess set, writing tools, and notepads. The IDF has returned the notepads to the respective families, as reported by Channel 12.
A family member, who chose to remain anonymous, told Channel 12 that the hostages “did everything to survive in impossible circumstances… and in the end Hamas murdered them… Their only demand was that the government save them, and the government failed in its mission.”
The IDF recovered the bodies of the six during the night of August 31 to September 1. An initial autopsy performed on September 1 revealed that they had been shot multiple times at close range two to three days prior.
Last week, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu condemned the murderers, stating that the hostages had been killed “in cold blood. They riddled them with bullets… They shot them in the back of the head.”
{Matzav.com Israel}
SNOOZER-IN-CHIEF: Joe Biden Has Racked Up 48 Years’ Worth Of Vacation Time During His Presidency
Watch: How Do I Know Which Online Speakers Are Legitimate?
Question: How Do I Know Which Online Speakers Are Legitimate?
Stick to Orthodox rabbis who remain steadfast to the Torah. Give a list of the speakers you are interested in to a rabbi you trust, and he will tell you which ones are authentic.
WATCH:
FLATBUSH: Overturned Vehicle On Ave P And Ocean Pkwy [VIDEOS & PHOTOS]
Listen: The Daily “Bitachon 4 Life” Burst of Inspiration on Matzav.com: How Do I view The Situation?
LISTEN:
https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Bitachon4Life-Shiur-1311-Tikvah-Part-106.mp3For more info, email bitachon4life@gmail.com.
4 Waves Of IDF-Attributed Strikes In Syria Destroy Iranian Missile Facility, Kill 14
Hezbollah Drone Hits 14-Floor Apartment Building in Nahariya
Listen: The Daily Tefila4Life Shiur On Matzav.com: Who Is the Source?
Reports in Syria: Extensive Israeli Strikes in Several Areas
On Sunday night, Syrian media reported a series of assaults allegedly carried out by Israel across multiple regions, including Hama, Homs, Tartus, and Damascus.
According to these reports, the attacks inflicted significant damage on a “scientific research institute” located in the Masyaf area of Hama’s countryside, which was struck by multiple missiles.
The reports also mentioned that various military positions were targeted during the strikes.
The Saudi Al-Hadath channel stated that a total of 15 missiles were launched in the attacks.
The reports suggest that this wave of Israeli assaults represents the most intense offensive in Syria in several years.
A Syrian military spokesperson informed local TV that “around 11:20 p.m., Israel launched an air strike from the direction of Lebanon against several military sites in the central area of Syria.”
The spokesperson added that Syrian defense systems engaged the incoming missiles and managed to intercept some. The reports indicated that the strikes resulted in the deaths of five Syrians and injuries to 15 others, with damage reported at the targeted locations.
Israel has yet to provide any comment on these reports.
In late August, Syrian media reported an air raid in Homs, which was attributed to Israel.
These reports claimed that the country’s air defense systems were activated in response to “hostile targets”. Al-Hadath further reported that the strike was aimed at a Hezbollah military installation.
Earlier that month, Syrian state media disclosed that four military personnel sustained injuries in an air raid on Homs, also attributed to Israel.
The reports mentioned that the assault originated from northern Lebanon and resulted in “some material damage.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group affiliated with the Syrian opposition, reported seven injuries from the strike, including three members of pro-Iranian militias.
{Matzav.com Israel}
Little Debate That Pennsylvania Is Key As Harris And Trump Prep For Philly Showdown
Blistering House Report: Biden Was Bent On Leaving Afghanistan – Ignoring Military Advice, NATO Objections and Afghan Pleas
President Joe Biden was so determined to leave Afghanistan that he disregarded advice against it, ignored requests from the Afghan government, and dismissed concerns from American allies.
This was one of the key conclusions drawn from the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s over two-year investigation into the disorderly and tragic Afghanistan withdrawal, according to a damning report published on Sunday.
“Throughout his lengthy service as a US senator from Delaware, his eight years as vice president, and nearly four years as president, Mr. Biden has shown distrust toward military experts and advisors. He has prioritized politics and his legacy over the national security of the United States,” the roughly 350-page report declared.
The Biden administration repeatedly misled and deceived the American public in an attempt to garner support for his unwavering belief that the US should quickly conclude its 20-year conflict in Afghanistan, the investigation revealed.
The prior administration, under President Donald Trump, had negotiated the Doha Agreement with both the Afghan government and the Taliban to bring an end to the US war in Afghanistan.
However, Biden moved forward with minimal regard for the agreement’s terms—regardless of the potential consequences—despite later blaming the same agreement for his decision, the report concluded.
The Doha Agreement, which was signed in 2020, outlined that the US would withdraw its forces from Afghanistan if the Taliban fulfilled specific obligations.
These included cutting ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, halting attacks on US and coalition forces, reducing violence against Afghan forces, and initiating negotiations with the Afghan government, the report stated.
But Biden’s unwavering determination pushed aside these critical provisions, according to the document.
Purely for Appearances
On February 4, 2021, then-State Department spokesman Ned Price announced that the US would begin reviewing the Taliban’s compliance with the Doha Agreement to assess whether a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan was appropriate.
Yet “during his testimony before the committee, contrary to his public remarks, Mr. Price admitted that the Taliban’s compliance with the Doha Agreement was actually ‘irrelevant’ to the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to leave Afghanistan,” the report found.
The administration’s “deceptions” and “false statements” only continued, according to the review.
“Press releases lacked crucial information about the Taliban’s non-compliance with the Doha Agreement, the ongoing terrorist presence in Afghanistan, the capabilities of the Afghan government and military with and without U.S. support, and NATO allies’ disagreements with the US withdrawal plan,” the report said.
“The Taliban violated key parts of the Doha Agreement, but the Biden-Harris administration insisted it was evaluating the group’s compliance,” the report said.
“In reality, the conditions were completely irrelevant to them.”
Expert Advice Dismissed
Biden made the decision to withdraw entirely despite the near-unanimous opposition from military leaders, according to the findings.
“Contrary to President Biden’s public statements, our investigation has uncovered that the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the commander of US Central Command, the secretary of state, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission and US Forces-Afghanistan all advised against withdrawing all US forces from Afghanistan—both during and after the interagency review,” the report said.
The Biden administration also disregarded the concerns of the international community, charging ahead despite objections from NATO nations that had supported the US effort in Afghanistan.
Afghan leaders themselves also pleaded for more time, arguing the country wasn’t ready for a complete US departure.
“General Haibatullah Alizai—former Afghan Army general—informed the committee staff that he begged American commanders on the ground for additional time, saying, ‘Just tell your leadership to stay with us for two more years. … We’re going to take the initiative … it’s in our favor and we can defeat the Taliban,’” the report noted.
Lack of Preparation
The report painted an image of an administration that was far more concerned with the political optics of the withdrawal than with planning for foreseeable events.
In a particularly pointed section, the report highlighted that Biden didn’t officially authorize a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO)—the largest such effort in US history—until August 16, 2021, a day after Kabul had already fallen to the Taliban and just two weeks before the last US troops left the city.
“The failure to plan for a NEO had consequences not just for Americans and allies in Afghanistan, but also for US personnel on the ground who were forced to evacuate desperate civilians in a dangerous setting,” the report explained. “These concerns were sidelined by the Biden-Harris administration in favor of optics.”
“Rather than acknowledge their failure, US service members and foreign service officers were told to prioritize evacuating as many individuals as possible, regardless of the risks to their own lives.”
Implications for Harris
Vice President Kamala Harris was mentioned only sparingly in the report, a detail that led former committee senior investigator Jerry Dunleavy to resign from the investigation in protest.
“Harris was the last person in the room when President Biden decided to pull out all US forces from Afghanistan; she even boasted about this shortly after Biden gave the go-ahead,” the report emphasized, referring to earlier media coverage.
She was among 15 administration officials the report urged Congress to formally condemn for their role in the Afghanistan debacle.
The report’s publication comes just two days before Harris’s televised debate against Trump in Philadelphia. Some, like Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, have accused the committee of timing the release for political gain.
But the committee’s chairman, Michael McCaul (R-Texas), defended the timing in a Sunday appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” saying, “It’s taken me two years to get to this point because of obstruction—I’ve had to issue subpoena after subpoena.”
McCaul did fault Trump for excluding the Afghan government from the Doha Agreement negotiations, which took place under his administration.
Ongoing Investigation
Despite the committee’s release of its expansive report, its inquiry into the Afghanistan withdrawal is far from finished.
“There are still many unanswered questions regarding the [Department of Defense] … [concerning] what happened on the ground,” McCaul said.
The committee, which conducted 18 transcribed interviews, reviewed over 20,000 pages of documents, and held seven public hearings, is also pushing for reforms to the National Security Council and the State Department.
“Chairman McCaul’s report is riddled with cherry-picked details, inaccurate portrayals, and preconceived biases that have tainted the investigation from day one,” said Sharon Yang, a White House representative for oversight and investigations.
{Matzav.com}
Opposition Presidential Candidate González Flees Venezuela For Asylum In Spain
Search Underway For Man Possibly Linked To Kentucky Highway Shootings That Wounded Five
Top Abbas Adviser Calls Terrorism ‘Resistance’
Mahmoud al-Habbash, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas adviser on religious and Islamic affairs, recently hailed terrorist attacks against Israelis as “resistance” in an interview with Egypt’s state-linked Al Qahera News television channel.
“What happened in Tubas, Tulkarem, Jenin and Nablus and Chevron is an Israeli continuation of the war of annihilation and expulsion against the Palestinian people and an attempt to empty the Palestinian homeland,” al-Habbash said in the interview, which aired on Sept. 3 but was discovered by the Palestinian Media Watch NGO on Thursday.
Al-Habbash’s comments referred to ongoing Israel Defense Forces’ counterterrorism operations throughout Palestinian Authority-controlled cities in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
“Is there fighting in the literal and traditional sense of the word? Not at all,” he said. “Yes, there is Palestinian resistance, and this is our right, and it is the right of every Palestinian to defend himself. There is a unilateral war against the Palestinian people, and there are Palestinian attempts to respond and carry out self-defense.”
Al-Habbash, the Palestinian Authority’s top Sharia judge and a former minister of awqaf (“endowment”) and religious affairs, spoke days after terrorists linked to Abbas’s Fatah movement carried out a twin car bombing in the Gush Etzion area of Judea, wounding two Israeli soldiers and a security guard.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a “military” arm of the Fatah party, also claimed responsibility on Sept. 2 for a terrorist drive-by shooting that killed three Israeli police officers near the city of Hebron in Judea.
The IDF has confirmed that terrorist Muhannad al-Aswad had links to the Palestinian Authority and had served in Abbas’s presidential guard.
The U.S. State Department told JNS last week that Fatah and Abbas have “consistently” proven their commitment to peace with the Jewish state.
“The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which the U.S. designated as a terrorist organization decades ago, has claimed responsibility for these attacks,” a State Department spokesperson stated. “Despite some historical linkages in the past, it is important to note that this group is separate from the Fatah party,” the spokesperson claimed.
Arab media routinely describe the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as Fatah’s “military wing,” and the ruling Palestinian faction has long expressed support for the terrorist organization, which Ramallah pledged to disband under an agreement with Israel brokered in July 2007.
In a statement issued during the 2014 Gaza war (“Operation Protective Edge”), the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said that “Fatah’s Central Committee, Fatah’s Revolutionary Council and the regional Fatah leadership are supporting us, and they praised our Brigades’ efforts to attack the oppressing enemy [Israel].” JNS
{Matzav.com Israel}
Israel Committed To Har Habayis Quo, Herzog Tells US Envoy
Israel is committed to upholding the status quo on the Har Habayis, President Isaac Herzog assured U.S. Ambassador Jack Lew on Sunday after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir issued a call for the construction of a shul at Judaism’s holiest site.
Herzog stressed his “unequivocal commitment to preserving the status quo at the holy site—in accordance with political agreements laid down since 1967 [with Jordan], and in the spirit of the rulings by leading rabbis and religious figures over the last 100 years,” an official told reporters.
Earlier on Sunday, Israeli lawmaker Yitzchok Kroizer, a member of Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party, ascended the Har Habayis in prayer.
According to a readout from the President’s Residence, Herzog in his meeting with Lew also touched on Sunday morning’s deadly terrorist shooting at the Allenby border crossing to Jordan, saying that “the peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors are a cornerstone of stability in the region, and we trust all parties will thoroughly investigate the incident and work to prevent future attacks.”
The Israeli head of state added, “This horrific act reinforces our resolve to stand firm in the face of terror, and we will continue to fight with determination against terrorism and extremist elements which seek to undermine our security, and the stability of the whole region.”
Herzog “expressed his concern for the stability in the region, with Iranian-backed terror continuing to threaten Israel on many fronts—especially over the upcoming period of Jewish religious festivals, and the year anniversary of the Hamas massacre of October 7,” per the readout.
Under a status quo arrangement reached with Jordan in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, Jews may visit the Har Habayis but not pray there.
Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, told reporters the following day that the proposed Jewish house of worship “on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount” would “demonstrate blatant disregard for the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem.” JNS
{Matzav.com Israel}
Two NATO Members Say Russian Drones Have Violated Their Airspace
UPDATE: Five People Shot on Kentucky Highway; Suspect Still at Large in Woods
Kentucky authorities intensified the search for a man accused of opening fire on Interstate 75, naming him as an official suspect Sunday in a shooting that injured five people from gunshots, three from car crashes and shut down a major highway the day before.
The search for Joseph Couch, 32, has continued for 24 hours in southeastern Kentucky after authorities came upon a chaotic scene Saturday, where they found cars riddled with bullet holes and sheriff’s deputies taking some injured to the hospital. The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office warned Sunday that Couch is considered “armed and dangerous,” as they continued a difficult backwoods search with the help of federal agencies.
The search has been grueling, said Laurel County Sheriff John Root (R). Officials say they are focused on an area off Exit 49 of I-75, where Couch’s vehicle was found.
“That’s probably one of the most remote exits along I-75,” Root said during a news conference Sunday afternoon. “It’s a big task.”
The shooting occurred around 5:30 p.m. Saturday on I-75, according to Root. At least five people and nine vehicles were shot near Exit 49 of the highway, about eight miles north of the city of London, Root said. London, a city of about 7,600 people, is roughly a 75-mile drive south of Lexington.
An additional three people were injured in crashes around the shooting, Gilbert Acciardo, a spokesperson for the Laurel County Sheriff’s office, said in a news conference Sunday afternoon. All injured victims are expected to survive. The exact reason for the shooting is yet to be determined, Acciardo said, adding that it was not a road rage incident.
Authorities found “an AR-15” rifle and several loaded magazines in a wooded area near the interstate, Acciardo said. Authorities believe this is the weapon used Saturday evening.
Authorities also found a compact SUV off a service road. The car is registered to Couch, officials said.
Authorities are focusing the search on top of the hill in the remote wooded area overlooking Exit 49 of I-75.
“We are still going on the premise that he is up there in the woods,” Acciardo said. “The woods are so thick there, and it’s such a remote area – it’s slow-going.”
Authorities paused the search Saturday night and resumed Sunday morning, the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook.
The interstate was shut down in the early hours of the search but was reopened late Saturday night, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said on X.
In a video update Saturday night, London Mayor Randall Weddle thanked the sheriff’s office, state police and FBI for their assistance in the search. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was also involved, the agency said on X.
“There is no immediate danger here in the city,” Weddle said. But “if you’re out and about, be vigilant.”
(c) Washington Post