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The Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic Countries issued a statement saying: “We are shocked and saddened by the desecration of the tomb of Rabbi Chaim Vital, z”tl this Thursday in Damascus.” “Jews have lived in Syria for thousands of years and are an integral part of its history. We urgently call on the Syrian government to immediately secure Jewish holy sites, synagogues, and cemeteries and ensure their safety, security and well-being.”

Vandals broke into the Jewish cemetery in Damascus overnight Wednesday and vandalized the kever of Hamekubal HaRav Chaim Vital, Z’tl, one of the talmidim of the Ari, z’tl. The intruders dug a pit near the kever. Bakhour Simantov, one of the few remaining Jews in Syria, shared a picture of the desecrated kever and said that local authorities promised to find those responsible for the incident.

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FRIDAY NIGHT: Three people were struck by a vehicle in Lawrence at the intersection of Broadway & Rockaway Turnpike at around 10:00PM. They were transported to the hospital by Rockaway Lawrence Hatzalah. Sources tell YWN that Bichasdei Hashem, all three are in stable condition.

India and Pakistan engaged in a firefight in Kashmir’s Lipa Valley, following the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu condemned a protest in Tel Aviv where demonstrators displayed masks of his face surrounding a protester wrapped in faux-bloody bandages during an anti-government rally.

“This needs to be said in a clear voice. The severed heads, as well as the protests today, have nothing to do with the hostages. On the contrary, these are people who decided to sacrifice the hostages in an attempt to overthrow the government,” the conservative Tikva Forum wrote in a post that Netanyahu’s official Twitter account shared.

“In a civilized country, there would already be dozens of people arrested for inciting murder. It is unclear where the Shin Bet is when it comes to these clear and dangerous representations of murder,” the group added, expressing hope that the tensions between Netanyahu and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar “do not affect the Shin Bet’s positions on everything related to the prime minister’s security.”

In a separate statement, a spokesperson for Netanyahu’s Likud party called the demonstration “madness” and insisted that it “represents incitement to murder the prime minister and behead him.”

“Where is the enforcement of the attorney general and Ronen Bar?” the spokesperson asked, sharing a photograph showing a shirtless protester covered in bloodied bandages lying motionless on the street, clutching an Israeli flag.

Around the protester’s head, multiple Netanyahu masks were placed on the ground, each bearing a sticker with slogans like “guilty” and “danger.”

Netanyahu and his supporters had long voiced concerns about what they described as ongoing incitement against him and his family, repeatedly blaming the justice system, law enforcement agencies, and the attorney general for allowing violent rhetoric from the public to go unchecked.

The prime minister’s March 21 decision to fire Ronen Bar, which took place during an active Shin Bet investigation into the conduct of Netanyahu’s close aides in the Qatargate affair, led opposition parties and watchdog groups to file petitions with the High Court of Justice in an effort to block the dismissal.

Petitioners accused Netanyahu of acting to obstruct the investigation and firing Bar for political reasons, urging the court to cancel the decision on the grounds that it was motivated by a conflict of interest and improper intentions.

During a press conference last Sunday, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded that Netanyahu end his attacks against Ronen Bar, warning that such rhetoric could soon result in “political murder.”

{Matzav.com Israel}

WATCH: IDF forces operating across different areas on the Gaza Strip.

US CENTCOM air strikes on Houthi terrorist positions in Sanaa, Yemen.

By preventing the enlistment of chareidim, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government had been holding Israel back from achieving a decisive victory over Hamas in Gaza, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett charged.

In a detailed tweet, Bennett argued that Israel’s persistent military “stumbling in Gaza stemmed directly from government policy that deprived the IDF of the main tool required for victory: fighters.”

Bennett harshly criticized the “bombastic declarations from ministers [most of whom have never held a gun]” who had called for the complete conquest of Gaza, while “these same ministers were literally depriving the IDF of the soldiers needed to carry out the same mission,” stressing that “the IDF has been stretched beyond the limit” since October 7.

Stating that the IDF “is short 20,000 soldiers,” Bennett contended that continuous emergency mobilizations of reservists could not compensate for the lack of a broader enlistment base.

The military itself acknowledged facing a shortage of personnel and stated it required about 12,000 additional soldiers, with around 7,000 needed for combat units.

According to Bennett, the “solution” would have been to draft one-fifth of eligible chareidim, which “would free up our reservists to breathe so that when we really need them for a large-scale operation, they would be fit.”

However, Bennett lamented that no meaningful action had been taken, asserting that “the orders being sent are a bluff,” and accusing Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of “putting politics above the good of the country.”

At the time, around 70,000 chareidi men between the ages of 18 and 24 were eligible for military service but had not enlisted. Since July 2024, the IDF had issued 18,915 initial draft notices to members of the chareidi community, but according to the IDF, only 232 of those served had actually enlisted — just 57 of them in combat roles.

Last Wednesday, speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Lt. Col. Avigdor Dickstein, who headed the chareidi branch of the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, acknowledged that although the army had set a goal of recruiting 4,800 chareidi soldiers during the 2024–2025 draft cycle, only 1,721 had joined so far.

“We set ourselves a target of 4,800 and we will not reach that. There is an upward trend here, but it is not sufficient and does not correspond to the very large operational need,” Dickstein admitted.

{Matzav.com Israel}

Israel has employed artificial intelligence on a scale never seen before in its military campaign in Gaza, with many of the systems created through partnerships between active-duty intelligence soldiers and reservists employed at major tech companies, The New York Times reported Friday, citing sources from European, American, and Israeli defense circles.

Although Israel’s integration of AI into military operations was already known, the latest revelations outline a broader range of tools, including a chatbot trained across multiple Arabic dialects to assess public opinion, an AI-enhanced audio detection system that identifies targets based on sounds like bombings and airstrikes, and a facial recognition technology capable of matching obscured or injured individuals to known identities.

Israeli officers who spoke to the Times said that AI has been useful in locating hostages and streamlining operations but admitted that the systems can sometimes fail. According to the Times, “some officials have struggled with the ethical implications of the AI tools” because of concerns over surveillance expansion, the risk of civilian casualties, and mistaken arrests.

Responding to a Times inquiry, the IDF said it could not comment on the specifics of the technology in use, but stressed that Israel “is committed to the lawful and responsible use of data technology tools.”

According to four Israeli officials cited by the Times, the military rapidly approved the use of these AI systems following the Hamas-led assault on October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists attacked southern Israel, murdering roughly 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.

Some AI applications previously reported include a virtual reality platform designed to assist soldiers navigating urban combat zones. The Arabic-language chatbot was first brought to light by the Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972, which also reported on a system called Lavender that allegedly helped the IDF compile a list of 37,000 human targets based on connections to Hamas. The military has denied relying on AI to create any such kill list.

The majority of these AI capabilities were reportedly developed in an innovation center under the Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 8200, known as “The Studio,” which, according to the Times, linked serving soldiers with reservists employed by firms like Meta, Google, and Microsoft.

Avi Hasson, CEO of Startup Nation Central, which fosters ties between investors and Israeli startups, told the Times that the reservists “brought know-how and access to key technologies that weren’t available in the military.”

Meta and Microsoft chose not to comment on the matter, while Google confirmed that it employs reservists in many countries but said their military service activities were unrelated to the company’s work, according to the Times.

Citing three Israeli and American sources familiar with the matter, the Times reported that the IDF incorporated AI into older surveillance systems in October 2023 to track Ibrahim Biari, the commander of Hamas’s Central Jabalia Battalion.

The enhanced system reportedly enabled Israeli forces to monitor Biari’s communications at a Hamas tunnel network beneath the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp. A strike was approved despite internal warnings that several residential buildings would need to be hit to ensure Biari’s elimination. The resulting attack, which allegedly caused dozens of civilian deaths, is under military investigation. The IDF told the Times it “was unable to provide any further information until the investigation is complete.”

The audio surveillance tool used to locate Biari has since been refined to more accurately pinpoint individuals, and it has reportedly helped the IDF in efforts to locate hostages, Israeli officers told the Times.

Following the October 7 attacks, Israel set up temporary checkpoints between northern and southern Gaza, equipped with cameras capable of sending high-definition images to an AI facial recognition system, the Times reported.

However, two Israeli intelligence officers told the Times that the technology occasionally struggled to recognize obscured faces, resulting in the mistaken detention and questioning of innocent Palestinians.

According to three Israeli officers, “The Studio” also produced a large language model trained to handle spoken Arabic across various dialects — a challenge since most training materials are in classical Arabic, while the IDF had access to decades’ worth of intercepted texts, phone transcripts, and social media content written in spoken dialects.

The Times reported that the AI language model was developed during the early months of the war and became part of the military’s multimedia analysis platforms, enabling complex searches across image and video databases.

Despite its capabilities, the chatbot had issues with modern slang and English transliterations, at times producing incorrect results, such as “returning photos of pipes instead of guns,” according to the Times. Intelligence officers fluent in the dialects had to review the output manually.

Even so, two Israeli intelligence officials cited by the Times said the chatbot dramatically improved the speed of intelligence gathering and analysis.

Three Israeli officers said the technology was instrumental in assessing whether public sentiment in the Arab world would demand retaliation after Israel’s September assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

{Matzav.com Israel}

Tonight, Israel Police and the Border Police announced the death of Sergeant Neta Yitzchok Kahana, an undercover officer with the Border Police’s Southern District, who was killed during a confrontation with terrorists in southern Gaza on Friday.

Authorities confirmed that Kahana’s family had been notified and pledged that both the Israel Police and Border Police would offer their full support to the grieving relatives throughout this difficult time.

“Israel Police bows its head and mourns the fall of the brave fighter who fell while defending the security of the State of Israel and its citizens,” the police said in an official statement.

Separately, the IDF reported the death of another soldier: “Captain Ido Voloch, 21 years old, from Yerushalayim, an armored corps officer and platoon commander in the 46th Battalion of the 401st Brigade (“Iron Trails”), fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip.”

As fierce battles continued throughout Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz on Friday acknowledged that the Israel Defense Forces were making progress but also suffering heavy losses, noting the death of a reservist on Thursday and another soldier who was critically injured by RPG fire on Friday afternoon.

“The achievements are great, but still, the dangers are great and the prices are heavy,” Katz posted on X.

His remarks were made as reports surfaced of intensified Israeli strikes targeting both northern and southern areas of Gaza.

“Thousands of IDF soldiers in the standing army and reserves are now heroically fighting in Gaza for the release of hostages and to destroy Hamas terrorists,” Katz emphasized, noting that the military was operating “intensely” to safeguard its ground forces.

“All Israeli citizens must embrace and strengthen IDF commanders and soldiers and pray for their safety and success,” he urged.

About an hour after Katz’s message, the IDF issued a warning instructing Palestinians to evacuate the Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City ahead of planned Israeli military operations in the area.

In a message posted on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, Col. Avichay Adraee, shared a map highlighting the evacuation zone and explained that the warning was prompted by recent terrorist attacks targeting Israeli troops. He advised civilians to move westward within Gaza City.

Meanwhile, Mohammed al-Mughayyir, a senior official in Gaza’s Hamas-controlled civil defense agency, told AFP that the number of casualties from Israeli strikes on Friday had climbed to at least 40.

WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news outlet, reported that an elderly couple was killed by Israeli artillery fire near Zeitoun. In addition, one Palestinian reportedly died in an airstrike on Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, and three others were killed when an airstrike hit a school sheltering displaced civilians in central Gaza City.

WAFA also claimed that two Palestinians lost their lives in drone attacks in Jabalia and Beit Hanoun, both located in northern Gaza.

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency further reported that a family of five — a husband, wife, and three children — were killed when their tent was struck in the Al-Mawasi area near Khan Younis. Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal stated that the pregnant mother was among the deceased.

The IDF did not issue an immediate response regarding these specific incidents. The army has repeatedly said it strives to avoid civilian casualties and blames Hamas for operating within civilian areas, such as schools, to launch attacks against Israeli forces.

The military stated that on Friday afternoon, its fighter jets conducted airstrikes in Rafah’s Tel Sultan neighborhood, aiming to eliminate gunmen who had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an Israeli Humvee and potentially opened fire with light weapons as well.

According to the IDF, the RPG attack left a soldier from the 205th Reserve Armored Brigade’s 5250th Battalion critically wounded and caused minor injuries to two additional soldiers.

{Matzav.com Israel}

In his first televised interview aired Friday, former hostage Ron Krivoi opened up about his time in Hamas captivity and shared chilling details about the abuse suffered by another hostage, Matan Angrest, who remains imprisoned in Gaza, Times of Israel reports.

Krivoi, who holds dual Israeli-Russian citizenship, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival and later freed during the November 2023 ceasefire, reportedly as a gesture by Hamas toward Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“As a person, I’m a quiet man, I live my life. That’s why I didn’t give interviews, I just continued my life as it was before – that’s what I asked for, to return to my life,” Krivoi told Channel 12 news during the interview.

At the time of the attack, Krivoi was working as a sound technician at the Nova festival, where terrorists unleashed a brutal massacre, killing hundreds, committing atrocities, and dragging dozens into captivity in Gaza.

Initially, Krivoi was confined to an apartment in Gaza. When the building was struck by Israeli forces, he managed to slip away and wandered through the war-torn area for several days before he was recaptured.

“When I was alone, no one saw me. Once someone did – it ended badly. The people who caught me beat me up. It wasn’t simple. I went through something there… When they caught me and brought me back, the people who beat me were ordinary Gazans who took out all their frustration on me,” Krivoi recalled.

Krivoi’s aunt was the first to disclose that he had made a daring escape attempt — without being killed — making him the only known hostage to do so before he was recaptured.

Describing the conditions in the tunnels where he was later held, Krivoi said, “These aren’t the tunnels you see in pictures. We were in something really small, deep underground. There wasn’t even a floor – we were on sand, and the mattresses were all moldy. We were inside a very, very small cage. Honestly, about a meter and a half by a meter and a half, and we had to lie down and rest in it – you couldn’t stand. No height, no toilets, no food. We were five people, we ate one small dish with some canned food.”

Krivoi explained that Matan Angrest arrived the day after him and was visibly traumatized. Angrest had been part of a tank crew attacked by terrorists on October 7, with all his fellow soldiers killed in the assault.

“The interrogations he went through happened while still in Israeli territory – that’s where it started. They already connected him to a car battery on the way and tried to revive him. Using car batteries, they electrocuted him,” Krivoi revealed. “They weren’t able to interrogate him. He probably wasn’t even in a condition to speak because he was badly injured. His injuries were very severe.”

Krivoi added that Angrest faced severe abuse throughout his captivity, enduring brutal mistreatment because of his status as a soldier. Earlier this month, Angrest’s mother said her son had been left permanently disabled from his injuries. She quoted testimonies from other released hostages saying that “he is starving and being held in a little cage in the dark. He doesn’t see the daylight. He is exposed to torture and violence and never sees the Red Cross.”

Speaking about his own experience, Krivoi said, “This is something that even if a person tries to imagine – they’ll never be able to truly understand what it’s like down there.”

Krivoi also reflected on the circumstances of his release, saying, “I know that if I didn’t have Russian citizenship, I could still be in that tunnel with Matan to this day. I’m here because of a miracle – it was Putin who brought me home. If not for him, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Hamas has freed several other hostages holding Russian citizenship as goodwill gestures toward Putin, including Elena Trufanova, who, along with her son Sasha Troufanov and his girlfriend Sapir Cohen, recently visited Putin at the Kremlin.

Just days before Troufanov’s release in February, a deputy Russian foreign minister met with a top Hamas leader in Moscow, pressing the terror group to fulfill its “promises” to free both Troufanov and Maxim Herkin, another Israeli hostage from Ukraine’s Donbas region with Russian family ties.

Earlier this month, Hamas issued a propaganda video showing Herkin and fellow hostage Bar Kupershtein — the first public confirmation that they were still alive since being seized from the Nova festival near Re’im.

Herkin, who was 35 years old when abducted, has a three-year-old daughter and was the main provider for his mother and young brother. He had only gone to the Nova festival after receiving a last-minute invitation from friends, and it was his first experience at a rave.

In February, a senior Hamas leader indicated that Herkin would be among the top priorities for release during the second phase of the hostage deal, intended as a favor to the Russian government. However, after the initial stage of the agreement, negotiations fell apart and Israel resumed its military operations in Gaza.

Today, of the 59 hostages still believed to be alive in Gaza, 24 have confirmed signs of life, including both Herkin and Kupershtein.

{Matzav.com Israel}

The Israel Prison Service (IPS) recently initiated an unusual move of hanging posters of the extensive destruction in the Gaza Strip inside the cells and wings in security prisons, Yisrael Hayom reported. Among other places, a large photo was hung in the Rakafet underground wing, where Nukhba terrorists who participated in the October 7th massacre are held. “This is a conscious step designed to make clear to them the consequences of October 7,” Northern District Commander Shmulik Lavi told Yisrael Hayom. “We aren’t fooling ourselves that it will arouse a sense of responsibility or regret in them, but this picture that reflects what is happening to the enemies of Israel will seep into their minds.” Lavi added that the IPS sees the move as part of a series of measures aimed at undermining the feeling of “heroism” and identification with terror organizations among security prisoners. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Sixteen years after suffering life-threatening wounds during Operation Cast Lead, Aharon Karov has officially returned to the IDF, this time as part of a new effort to establish the Disabled Soldiers Department.

Karov, who became an enduring symbol of perseverance and recovery, spent recent years working with at-risk youth, aiming to inspire them to believe in themselves and their potential.

In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, Karov helped launch the “Continuing Life” initiative, a military program pairing wounded veterans with soldiers recently injured in combat.

“I understood that rehabilitation does not end in the hospital, but continues throughout life,” Karov shared, reflecting on the lessons he learned from his own recovery journey.

In his latest assignment, Karov will oversee the area of placement and employment for injured IDF soldiers within the new placement division of the Disabled Soldiers Department.

“Our goal is clear: To allow anyone injured who is interested in doing so to put his uniform back on, contribute, and turn his injury into a mission,” Karov emphasized.

With deep emotion, Karov added, “I am proud to once again don a uniform, to be part of a system which chooses to turn pain into action and rehabilitation into hope.”

The IDF warmly welcomed Karov’s decision to join this groundbreaking department, explaining that the new Disabled Soldiers Department and its placement program are designed to create new opportunities for wounded soldiers who want to return to active service.

Karov first gained national attention when he was critically injured as a company commander in the Paratrooper Brigade during the early stages of Operation Cast Lead. His call-up came just a day after he celebrated his wedding.

Less than 72 hours after being called to duty, Karov was gravely wounded when terrorists detonated explosives in a house in Gaza. He was urgently evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah, where he underwent six life-saving operations on his head and chest in a span of 12 hours, along with an orthopedic surgery.

Against all odds, Karov made an astonishing recovery, waking up within days and moving out of the Intensive Care Unit shortly thereafter, defying grim expectations.

{Matzav.com Israel}

Tonight, the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) appointed Hussein al-Sheikh, the Secretary-General of Fatah, to serve as deputy to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Al-Sheikh, regarded as a close confidant of Abbas, is set to celebrate his 65th birthday this coming December.

Between 1978 and 1988, al-Sheikh spent a decade imprisoned in Israel.

In December 2022, a Hamas-affiliated news outlet published recordings of al-Sheikh, which captured him expressing frustration toward Abbas and criticizing other figures seen as potential successors to the Palestinian Authority leadership. The full circumstances of the recordings were not fully clarified.

According to the Associated Press, throughout the leaked audio, al-Sheikh repeatedly uses vulgar language when referring to Abbas.

At one point during the over three-minute recording, al-Sheikh accuses Abbas of being complicit in perpetuating instability, stating that Abbas “is a partner in the chaos and has an interest for it to remain.”

In June 2023, al-Sheikh urged Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to speed up the review of cases submitted to the court concerning alleged Israeli offenses against Palestinian Arabs.

{Matzav.com Israel}

Pakistani soldiers fired at Indian posts along the highly militarized frontier in disputed Kashmir for a second consecutive night, the Indian military said Saturday, as tensions flared between the nuclear-armed rivals following a deadly attack on tourists last week. India described the massacre, in which gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Indian tourists, as a “terror attack” and accused Pakistan of backing it. Pakistan denies the charge. The assault, near the resort town of Pahalgam in India-controlled Kashmir, was claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance. It was the restive region’s worst assault targeting civilians in years. In the days since, tensions have risen dangerously between India and Pakistan, which have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir. The region is split between them and claimed by both in its entirety. The Indian army said Saturday that soldiers from multiple Pakistani army posts overnight opened fire at Indian troops “all across the Line of Control” in Kashmir. “Indian troops responded appropriately with small arms,” the statement said. There were no casualties reported, the statement added. There was no comment from Pakistan, and the incidents could not be independently verified. In the past, each side has accused the other of starting border skirmishes in the Himalayan region. Markets and bazaars were open in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on Saturday, and there was no sign of evacuations from villages near the Line of Control. Tit-for-tat measures and a spike in tensions After the tourist attack, India suspended a crucial water-sharing treaty and closed the only functional land border crossing. It revoked visas issued to Pakistanis with effect from Sunday. Pakistan retaliated by canceling visas issued to Indians, closing its airspace to Indian airlines, and suspending trade with its neighbor. Nationals from both sides began heading to their home countries through the Wagah border near Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Friday. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday vowed the government would respond “with full force and might” to Indian attempts to stop or divert the flow of water. He also said Pakistan was open to participating in any “neutral, transparent and credible investigation” into the tourist attack. On Saturday, a Pakistani official from the disaster management agency, Saeed Qureshi, accused India of suddenly releasing large amounts of water into the Jhelum River, raising fears of flooding in parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Authorities told residents living along the riverbank to evacuate, Qureshi said. A spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry was not immediately available for comment. New Delhi describes all militancy in Kashmir as Pakistan-backed terrorism, a charge Pakistan rejects. Many Muslim Kashmiris consider the militants to be part of a home-grown freedom struggle. Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989 for uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country. Iran offers to mediate, while Trump declines to engage With tensions high, Iran offered mediation, while U.S. President Donald Trump said he expected them to work out their differences. “Tehran stands ready to use its good offices in Islamabad and New Delhi to forge greater understanding at this difficult time,” Iranian Foreign Minister Syed Abbas Araghchi said on Friday. “India and Pakistan are brotherly neighbors of Iran. Like other neighbors, we consider them our foremost priority,” Araghchi wrote in a social media […]

Sergeant Neta Yitzchok Kahana, a member of the undercover Border Police Southern District unit, was tragically killed during an intense clash with terrorists in southern Gaza on Erev Shabbos, Israeli police announced late tonight.

Authorities confirmed that Kahana’s family has been personally notified of his death. The Israel Police and Border Police emphasized their commitment to offering full support to the grieving family during this difficult time.

“Israel Police bows its head and mourns the fall of the brave fighter who fell while defending the security of the State of Israel and its citizens,” the official police statement declared.

In addition, the IDF reported another devastating loss: “Captain Ido Voloch, 21 years old, from Yerushalayim, an armored corps officer and platoon commander in the 46th Battalion of the 401st Brigade (“Iron Trails”), fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip.”

{Matzav.com Israel}

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