Yesterday, the IDF carried out two separate strikes in southern Lebanon within an hour, killing two Hezbollah operatives. The first strike in the town of Deir Aames killed Ali Issa, who served as Hezbollah’s local representative in nearby Kfara and was responsible for coordinating with residents on both economic and military matters, the military says.
The Shin Bet security agency says it recently prevented an Iranian attempt to smuggle significant quantities of advanced weapons to terror operatives in the West Bank for use against Israeli targets.
Authorities in Beersheba are tearing down an apartment complex in the southern city that was directly struck by an Iranian ballistic missile during the closing hours of June’s 12-day war.
The New York Daily News editorial board ripped into NYC mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani for his anti-Israel, antisemitic views, after the candidate’s statement on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre: On today’s two-year anniversary of the horrid Hamas Oct. 7 pogrom against Israel, there will be protests in New York both against and in support of Israel. It’s not hard to guess which protests will have the sympathy of mayoral contender Zohran Mamdani, whose deep animosity towards Israel is a problem for hundreds of thousands of Jewish New Yorkers. While Mamdani says he respects all New Yorkers of all faiths, his stance that Israel does not have the right to exist as a Jewish state strikes at a core belief for many Jews. It is a position that smacks of antisemitism in its rejection of an article of faith held so dearly by so many. Don’t let his rhetoric about what’s going on in Gaza right now fool you: This is not about Bibi Netanyahu and the current policies of the incumbent Israeli government. It’s not about Gaza or the West Bank or the IDF or Jewish settlers. Many Israelis, in fact, oppose Netanyahu and his hard-right coalition. Americans like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer want Netanyahu out of office. But those foes of Netanyahu, Israeli or American, are not opposed to the existence of any Jewish Israeli government, like Mamdani is. Mamdani conflates political disagreement with a stance anathema to many New Yorkers. Those who he supports, who call opposition to a government’s policies “anti-Zionism,” willfully ignore the historical arc that led to the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the 20th century. Mamdani himself endorses the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, to cut off all economic relations with the Jewish state. He has said he discourages use of the phrase “Globalize the Intifada,” but refuses to condemn those who use it — even as it is used as a rallying cry to harm Jews. This is what he said when asked before the June primary about a Jewish state: “I’m not comfortable supporting any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else…. Equality should be enshrined in every country in the world. That’s my belief.” However, with the exception of the United States and maybe France, just about every country in the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is based on ethnicity or religion or both: Ireland for the Irish, Poland for the Poles, Vietnam for the Vietnamese, Kuwait for Kuwaitis. The Jews are certainly a people, an ethnicity, as well as a faith. So should the Jews have a country? That is what Zionism is, national liberation for the Jewish people in their historic homeland. And that was the decision of the United Nations in 1947, that there be a Jewish state in the British Mandate of Palestine, along with an Arab state. Israel as a Jewish state, the world’s only Jewish state, is accepted by its Arab neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, UAE and Saudi Arabia. Even the PLO accepts Israel (that was the core of the 1993 Oslo Accords). Israel is accepted by Russia, by India, by China and just about the whole world. But Israel is not accepted by Hamas, not by Hezbollah, not by […]
The assailant in last week’s attack on a shul in the northwest of England that left two dead pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, police said Wednesday. The attacker, Jihad Al-Shamie, called emergency dispatchers during his deadly attack on Oct. 2. to express his commitment to the terror group, Counter Terrorism Policing North West said in a statement. Al-Shamie, 35, was shot dead by police outside the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Manchester after he rammed a car into pedestrians, attacked them with a knife and tried to force his way into the building. Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said that minutes after Greater Manchester Police were alerted to the attack and as firearms officers were making their way to the scene, Al-Shamie called 999 — the U.K.’s emergency phone number — claiming responsibility for the attack. “He also pledged allegiance to Islamic State,” Potts said. Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, died in the Yom Kippur attack. Police say Daulby was accidentally shot by an armed officer as he and other congregants barricaded the shul to block Al-Shamie from entering. Three other men remain hospitalized with serious injuries. “This has been a week of deep trauma and mourning for the Jewish community at a time when they should have been observing one of the holiest periods in the calendar of their faith,” Potts said. Police have revealed that Al-Shamie was on bail over an alleged assault on a woman at the time of the attack, but hadn’t been charged. However, police have said he had never been referred to the authorities for exhibiting extremist views. Potts said that “at this stage of our investigation, we are more confident that he was influenced by extreme Islamist ideology. The 999 call forms part of this assessment.” As police work to determine whether or not the attacker acted alone, they have arrested three men and three women in the greater Manchester area on suspicion of the “commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.” A court on Saturday granted police five more days to hold four of the suspects: men ages 30 and 32, and women ages 46 and 61. An 18-year-old woman and a 43-year-old man were released over the weekend with no further action, and two further releases are planned for later Wednesday, police said. Police haven’t identified those arrested or disclosed their links to Al-Shamie. The attack has devastated Britain’s Jewish community and intensified debate about the line between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. Recorded antisemitic incidents in the U.K. have risen sharply since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s ensuing campaign against Hamas in Gaza, according to Community Security Trust, a charity that provides advice and protection for British Jews. (AP)
Today, on the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, 1,200 chairs—each bearing a photo of a victim murdered that day—were placed at the center of Columbia University’s campus.
Hundreds of people are stranded on Mount Everest at around 5,000 meters after heavy snowstorms hit the Tibetan side several days ago. While some tourists have been evacuated, roughly 200 remain trapped, suffering from hypothermia and altitude sickness, as rescue efforts continue.
This morning, the Nir Oz community joined the “Riders for the Hostages” group in a unified convoy from their temporary home in Kiryat Gat to the cemetery at Kibbutz Nir Oz, commemorating two years since October 7th. The convoy carried photos of the nine kibbutz members still held hostage in Gaza.
Walking down Avenue J in the day preceding sukkos, seemingly every vacant store is suddenly occupied and the sidewalks teeming with street vendors selling arba minim. From the aspiring bachurim looking to hustle during bein hazemanim to the decades old established esrog centers, everyone has the same goal in mind – hidur mitzvah. Despite the friendly competition, it is beautiful to watch on erev sukkos the achdus as one vendor walks over to another to help him out with some extra lulalivim when one is out. Finally, driving around Midwood in the late hours, the glows of peoples sukkahs emanate as they put the finishing touches ahead of the chag. Photo Credits: PB Photo via Kuvien Images
At almost every street corner and in front of virtually every bank on 13th Avenue, one cannot miss the fact that sukkos is around the corner. While some uninitiated passerby may look on at the bustle in the streets, one can not help but notice the minute details of hachanas mitzvahs chag as one peers down the alleyways and driveways. Photo Credits: PB Photo via Kuvien Images
NEC Director Kevin Hassett: “Right now, we just want a clean Continuing Resolution — and any government worker that loses their job… is going to be because the Democrats are being intransigent.”
The IDF said a drone strike in southern Lebanon earlier today killed Hassan Atwi, a senior Hezbollah terrorist in the group’s air defense unit, along with his wife, when their car was targeted in the town of Zebdine near Nabatieh.
Two people were killed and one was wounded in an Israeli drone strike targeting a car in the town of Zebdine, on the outskirts of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.
The IDF said it demolished the home of one of two Palestinian terrorists who killed seven people and wounded 15 in a shooting and stabbing attack at a Tel Aviv light rail station in October. The terrorists, Ahmad Himouni, and Mohammad Mesek were both shot during the attack — Mesek fatally by a municipal security officer and Himouni seriously wounded by armed civilians.
Amid Israel’s pause in offensive operations in the Gaza Strip, the IDF said it carried out an airstrike that killed a squad of terrorists preparing to launch mortars, while a separate mortar attack lightly wounded an Israeli soldier.
