https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/there-is-a-frightening-defect-in-the-israel-hamas-deal-the-terrorists-live-to-fight-on/ar-AA1xpuZa?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=3ff8207ea26c41a4edbb93a2a0de580d&ei=102 On October 7 2023, Hamas murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel and abducted 251. The deal which begins its enactment tomorrow, provides for the release, in phases, of the estimated 94 hostages still held by Hamas, of whom, the Israeli government calculates, 34 are dead. In return, Israel will let hundreds of Palestinian […]
https://nypost.com/2025/01/16/opinion/douglas-murray-it-is-time-to-eliminate-hamas-and-bring-our-hostages-back-home/
“Bring them home” has been the slogan of the hostage families in Israel since October 7, 2023.
But when Hamas murdered 1,200 people, including 46 Americans, and when it took 254 people hostage, including 12 Americans, there should have been a different slogan: “Give them back. Now.”
Since that day, so many opportunities have been missed.
On October 8, Joe Biden could have called up the governments in Qatar, Iran and other rogue states and told them to get their friends in Hamas to hand over the hostages now.
Or else.
With the leverage the US has in the Middle East, a hardball approach against the Qataris, Iranians and Turks could have solved this mess 15 months ago.
Instead it has taken the pressure of the incoming Trump administration to get a deal agreed to.
It is still a bittersweet moment.
On the one hand, everyone except Hamas and its goons in the West must feel their hearts lift at the idea of the remaining hostages being released.
These are men, women and babies who did nothing wrong but have spent 15 months in the hell of Hamas captivity.
On the other hand, the deal includes the release of Palestinian prisoners, including murderers.
In the first round of releases, nine ill and wounded hostages will be exchanged for 110 Palestinian prisoners who are serving life sentences.
Just think about that.
An Israeli baby could be released in exchange for a dozen grown murderers.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/16/is-this-peace-or-appeasement/
Here’s a pretty good rule for international affairs: if a deal pleases neo-fascists, it’s probably a bad deal. If an agreement gets an army of anti-Semites dancing in the streets, it’s likely a poor agreement. That was my first thought upon seeing the Jew-killers of Hamas emerge from their tunnels in Gaza last night to celebrate the ceasefire deal struck with Israel: if they like it, then those of us who side with civilisation over the regressive tyranny of such merciless Islamists probably will not.
Of course there’s a thinness to Hamas’s bravado. Its crowing disguises the profound losses it has suffered in this war it started with its pogrom of 7 October 2023. Thousands of its militants are dead. Its leaders are too. Its allies in Hezbollah have been pummelled into insignificance. All Hamas has to show for its fascistic onslaught against the Jewish nation a year-and-a-half ago is the depletion of its racist army and the ruination of vast swathes of Gaza.
And yet its instinct to laud the deal is not wholly wrong. For it does seem to benefit Israel’s foes more than Israel. The Associated Press has seen a draft. It will be enacted in three phases. In the first phase, which will last for 42 days, hostilities will cease and Hamas will release just 33 of the 94 hostages it still holds. In return, Israel will set free around a thousand Palestinian prisoners, including hundreds of terrorists. As AP says, Israel is required to release ‘30 Palestinian prisoners for each civilian hostage and 50 for each female soldier’. Anyone who thinks it is a fair deal to swap 30 detainees, many of whom will be terrorists, for one child stolen from his home almost 470 days ago is in urgent need of a moral compass.
Israel will also commit to removing its troops from ‘populated areas’ and staying on the ‘edges of the Gaza Strip’. It is in those populated areas, of course, that Hamas militants are gathered. The overnight withdrawal of the opposing army will benefit them enormously. In Phase 2, which will also last 42 days, Hamas will release the remaining hostages in return for a ‘yet to be negotiated number of Palestinian prisoners’ and the IDF will initiate a ‘full withdrawal’ from Gaza. In Phase 3, the final act of the deal will take place: the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages will be returned to their grieving families.
We have to be honest: for those of us who support the Jewish nation against the medieval militants that wish to destroy it, this is a bad deal. It is hard to see it as anything other than a boon for Hamas and a blow to Israel. Over the next month, Israel will secure the return of 33 hostages, but Hamas will secure immeasurably more from the deal. Alongside the release of dangerous prisoners, Hamas will watch the IDF withdraw from Gaza’s fighting zones. It will win the breathing space to regroup, rearm and refortify after 15 months of war. Is this peace or appeasement?
Of course, we should not belittle the joy of the Israeli families who will finally have their loved ones returned. Or the sweet relief Gazans will enjoy once the hostilities that Hamas ignited are brought to a halt. These are good, human developments. Yet it is undeniable that the war aim of eliminating Hamas, a noble goal, has not only been temporarily halted but reversed. It seems that Israel must, after all, suffer a genocidal terror army on its doorstep. Can you think of any other nation that would be told to leave be a neighbouring army of racists that slaughtered its civilians and longs to slaughter more?
For a sense of how risky this deal is, consider that in 2011 Israel likewise agreed to the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in return for one IDF soldier abducted by Hamas. And among the released was Yahya Sinwar. He went on to become leader of Hamas in Gaza and a chief architect of the butchery of 7 October. Who is Israel releasing this time? What might they go on to do? The moral dilemma faced by the Jewish nation is almost unimaginable. Should it secure the return of its citizens even if that means releasing men who will plot the future slaughter of its citizens? That the Jewish State, alone among the nations, must make such a tragic calculation is nothing to celebrate.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21320/hamas-deal-crime
The decision by the Israeli government to make significant concessions to the Hamas kidnappers should never be called a “deal.” It was an extortion…. The kidnapping was a crime. And the extortionate demand was an additional crime.
When a terrorist group “negotiates” with a democracy, it always has the upper hand. The terrorists are not constrained by morality, law or truth. They can murder at will, rape at will, torture at will and threaten to do worse. The democracy, on the other hand, must comply with the rules of law and must listen to the pleas of the hostage families.
Especially complicit, with blood on their hands, are supporters of Hamas on university campuses who chant for intifada and revolution. Also complicit are international organizations, such as the International Criminal Court, that treat Israel and Hamas as equals.
[L]et us put the blame for ALL the deaths in Gaza where it belongs: on Hamas and the useful idiots and useless bigots who support murderous terrorists.
The decision by the Israeli government to make significant concessions to the Hamas kidnappers should never be called a “deal.” It was an extortion. Would you call it a deal if somebody kidnapped your child and you “agreed” to pay ransom to get her back? Of course not. The kidnapping was a crime. And the extortionate demand was an additional crime.
So the proper description of what occurred is that Israel, pressured by the United States, capitulated to the unlawful and extortionate demands of Hamas as the only way of saving the lives of kidnapped babies, mothers and other innocent, mostly civilian, hostages.
https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/the-deal-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=
The emerging ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is a perplexing document, because the strongest argument in its favor is that the agreement will earn Israel President-elect Trump’s gratitude. Since the value of that goodwill is by definition unknowable, the deal should be judged on its own terms.
Here’s what to expect, barring last-minute changes, and what it means for the future of the conflict.
The ceasefire would begin with Hamas releasing three Israeli hostages (likely to be American citizens) and Israel beginning to remove its troops from populated areas of Gaza. A week later, Hamas is expected to release four more hostages—at which point Israel will begin allowing Gazans to return to north of the Strip. According to the BBC, cars, animal carts and trucks would pass through an Egyptian-Qatari-operated scanner, while the people would go on foot.
The rest of the first phase would see, over the course of about a month, Hamas release another 25 or 26 hostages, most of whom are believed to be alive. Israel would continue facilitating the return of Gazans to the north of the strip while redeploying its troops out of Gaza—save for a half-mile buffer zone on its eastern and northern borders and in the Philadelphi Corridor in the south. Israel would also release about 1,000 Palestinian security inmates in Israeli jails. Of those, nearly 200 are in prison for murder or serving long-term sentences for violence. These would be sent to live outside of the Palestinian territories.
Israel and Hamas are supposed to negotiate the second phase of the deal as they implement the first phase. In the second phase, Hamas would release the remaining hostages in return for another to-be-determined number of Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails. Israel would withdraw from the rest of Gaza. A third phase would see Israel trade the bodies of deceased Hamas fighters in return for the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages.
https://pdavidhornik.substack.com/subscribe?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email-subscribe&r=
In the war ignited by the October 7 massacre, Israel set two goals that were incompatible: retrieving all the hostages and destroying Hamas. I’ve only recently, with the help of a couple of analysts who have pointed this out, come to grasp the incompatibility. I was among those who kept believing Israel could achieve both those goals in tandem with each other.
In the 15+ months of this war so far (it’s still being waged as, at the time of writing, I hear explosions from Gaza 25 miles away), Israel has managed to militarily rescue seven hostages. An eighth was found by troops after his captors had abandoned him.
All of the seven who were military rescued were being held in apartments. Reportedly, after the rescue of four hostages from two apartments in June, all the hostages still being held in apartments were moved to tunnels. There, all of them are closely guarded by terrorists, possibly suicide terrorists. These captors can hear Israeli troops approaching and, if they do, will kill the hostages (and possibly themselves as well). That was what happened to the six Israeli hostages murdered in a tunnel in August.
Some say that, instead of prodding Israel into the current hostage deal at this stage, President Trump should have waited a few more days to take office and then have supported Israel in “starving out” Hamas. But “starving out” Hamas would mean the hostages—already on near-starvation diets and in very weakened condition—would get “starved out” too, and would be in further acute danger from a desperate and vindictive Hamas.
In other words, for those who want to see the hostages freed, something like the current deal is the only option.
https://www.city-journal.org/article/anti-israel-protests-pro-palestine-activists-columbia
The post-October 7 conflict on U.S. campuses has been framed as a battle between free speech and hate speech. Anti-Israel protesters claim that universities are stifling their right to expression, while many Jewish and other pro-Israel students respond that “pro-Palestinian” activism has led to violence, intimidation, and a general disruption of educational programs—and they note as well that before October 7, universities had often censored politically incorrect speech.
This framing is mistaken. “Pro-Palestine” advocates are not consistent proponents of free and open debate. Instead, they want to express crude and often menacing sentiments, as Columbia University’s example shows. Columbia students last April insisted that “Zionists” weren’t welcome on campus, even as they denounced other groups’ attempts to air alternative views.
Consider in this light Columbia Law Students for Palestine. The group, which has complained of being censored, also fires off emails to its members intended to discourage them from attending events hosted by pro-Israel students. These so-called SpeakerWatch messages undermine any notion that CLSP is interested in the open exchange of ideas. Ahead of Israeli historian Benny Morris’s Zoom event with Columbia Law students last January, for instance, CLSP lambasted the talk as “justification for Israel’s ongoing crimes against humanity.” The group labeled Morris a racist and Islamophobe and urged its members not to support the Zoom meeting and to instead attend events hosted by CLSP.
In March, when Columbia Law School’s Center for Israeli Studies invited a panel of Israeli legal scholars to speak, CLSP sent a long SpeakerWatch decrying Israel’s alleged crimes and disparaging each member of the panel, describing one as “enabling violence against Palestinians.” Instead of suggesting that its followers attend and express their views, CLSP denounced the Center for Israeli Studies for merely hosting the event.
The group’s insistence that its members not attend pro-Israeli speeches, along with its baseless accusations of violence, undermines respectful campus dialogue. In its place, CLSP helps create a climate of fear—one reason why students still feel more comfortable shouting down a professor than expressing an unpopular opinion.
https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/
POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
800 French teenagers volunteer. A delegation of some 800 French teenagers traveled to Israel, thanks to the Jewish Agency’s Israel Experience program and Mosaic United’s Shalom Corps. They have been packing food packages for the poor, helping MDA and Yad Sarah, volunteering at IDF bases and working in agriculture.
https://www.jns.org/800-french-teens-in-israel-to-volunteer-bolster-ties-with-europe/
NFL Legends love Israel. (TY UWI) NFL legends Nick Lowery (ex-Chiefs & Jets) and Tony Richardson (Cowboys, Chiefs, Vikings & Jets) touched down in Israel last week on a solidarity visit. After meeting hostage families, Lowery told President Herzog, “We’re here to say we love and support you – no matter what.”
https://www.jns.org/we-love-and-support-you-nfl-legends-pay-solidarity-visit-to-israel/
600 international students at BGU. Despite the war, 600 students from 64 countries have come to Israel to study at Ben-Gurion University. BGU’s International Academic Affairs Office offers personalized support for students worldwide, from visa assistance to organizing social activities.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-836625
Surge in Haredi recruits. (TY UWI) The IDF reported that 338 Haredim enlisted in the past week – 211 as combat soldiers, and 127 as combat supporters. The IDF also successfully inducted the inaugural cohort of the “Hashmonayim” (Hasmonean) Brigade, plus a second Haredi cohort for the Border Guard.
https://tps.co.il/articles/israeli-army-reports-surge-in-haredi-soldiers-338-recruited-in-past-week/
$100 million recovery. Itamar Ben Hemo, co-founder of Israel’s Rivery (see here previously) was serving in the reserves in Gaza when he was shot in the chest by Hamas terrorists. He was rushed to hospital in 45 minutes where despite almost dying, he recovered and eventually sold his company to Boomi (US) for $100 million.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/an-israeli-tech-founders-journey-from-a-near-fatal-injury-in-gaza-to-a-100m-exit/
THAAD intercepts Houthi missile. U.S.-supplied THAAD air defense system successfully intercepted its first ballistic missile, launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen. “18 years waiting for this” says one of the American soldiers operating the system. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401411
Semiconductor giant bets on Israel. Great article detailing how computer giant Applied Materials has been investing in its Israeli R&D center, despite the war. Having 15% (300) of its workforce in the IDF, it brought back retirees, rented a hotel for displaced families and gave financial and psychological help to employees.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/y4hfl2v34
$150 million for PR. In the new budget, Israel’s Foreign Ministry will receive an extra $150 million for public diplomacy – more than 20 times that typically allotted in past years. One focus will be US college campuses, in cooperation with US Jewish groups and the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/foreign-ministry-to-receive-massive-budget-for-public-diplomacy-abroad/
Gaza desalination plant restarts. (TY Yanky) I don’t know why this has not been widely reported (oh yes I do!). The Deir el-Balah desalination plant in central Gaza has resumed operations. Since being reconnected to Israel’s electricity grid last month, the plant has produced thousands of cubic meters of drinkable water per day.
https://www.voanews.com/a/desalination-plant-quietly-resumes-operations-in-gaza/7914345.html
https://www.timesofisrael.com/rights-group-claims-gaza-water-scarcity-is-act-of-genocide-israel-blood-libel/
Galilee forests will regenerate. 20,000+ dunams of Galilee forest have been consumed by fires ignited by Hezbollah rocket strikes and interceptor fragments. But KKL-JNF’s chief forester Gilad Ostrovsky is sure that once burnt trees have been removed, the forest will regenerate naturally. Just as Israelis will return to the North.
https://www.jns.org/restoring-the-galilee-forest-a-five-year-journey-of-renewal-and-hope/
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Treating cerebral aneurysms. Israel’s EndoStream Medical, which has just been acquired by Japan’s Kaneka, specializes in developing an innovative implant for the treatment of cerebral aneurysms. EndoStream’s “Nautilus” has been used in hundreds of patients globally to block blood flow to the aneurysm.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bkdyeeaikg https://endostream.com/
https://vimeo.com/727320916 https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/16800-brain-aneurysm
Microsensors for the heart. (TY TPS & WIN) Israel’s Microtech (part of Medinol – see here previously) has begun human clinical trials of their microsensor platform, to measure atrial pressures, vital for the treatment of heart failure. The tiny device is implanted and uses ultrasound to communicate, reducing hospitalizations.
https://medinol.com/news/microtech-announces-first-human-case-of-implantable-microsensor-for-heart-failure-2/ https://medinol.com/microtech-2/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QxgazSF_U
HBOT for PTSD. At the Shamir Medical Center, hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – breathing pure oxygen in pressurized chambers – is proving to be a game-changer for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sufferers, with 70% reporting lasting relief. See here previously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZYhLJfeCWU
How bacteria resistance can be neutralized. A study by Tel Aviv University reveals how plasmids – small circular DNA fragments – neutralize bacterial defense mechanisms. It opens a door to combating antibiotic resistance. Plasmids could also break down pollutants, fix carbon dioxide, and improve gut bacteria.
https://en-lifesci.tau.ac.il/news/foreign_dna/news/sbcr https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07994-w
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07994-w
Milk fat is good for you. Researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Israel’s Agriculture Research Organization have discovered that the fat globules in milk deliver beneficial pro-biotic bacteria and prevent the formation of harmful bacteria. The finding can lead to better infant milk and healthy milk products.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/israeli-research-reveals-new-possibilities-for-custom-dairy-products-to-boost-gut-health/ https://en.huji.ac.il/news/small-milk-fat-globules-promote-good-bacteria-study-reveals
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963996924007506
Miracles at Schneider. In 2024, Israel’s Schneider Children’s Medical Center treated 55,000 children in its Emergency Rooms; 1,500 in intensive care; 874 babies in neonatal intensive care; six children received a new heart; 39 had organ transplants; 60 had cochlear implants; plus 3,000+ dialysis and 270,000+ outpatient visits.
https://www.fos.org.il/en/donate (Israelis) https://chaischneider.org/donate/ (USA)
https://system.smartgiving.org.uk/charities/8530/make-donation (UK)
Distinguished investigator. Ben Gurion University Prof Assaf Zaritsky has been honored with a 2024 Allen Distinguished Investigator Award. It includes $1.5 million for a project exploring how cellular structures called organelles form dynamic networks during the process of stem cell differentiation into neurons.
https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/news-and-articles/zaritsky-allen-distinguished-investigators-award/
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21310/palestinian-statehood-denied
Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution….
The Jews accepted the [1937] Peel partition plan, while the Arabs categorically rejected it, demanding that all of Palestine be placed under Arab control and that most of the Jewish population of Palestine be “transferred” — ethnically cleansed — out of the country…
The Jewish leadership [in 1948] declared statehood in the area allocated to it by the UN. The Arab leadership responded by declaring a genocidal war against the new state of the Jewish people. They did not want a Palestinian state. And they wanted there to be no Jewish state.
No one, therefore, should believe that it was Israel that has made the Palestinian people stateless. It was the Palestinians themselves… The current anti-Israel protesters in the West are not calling for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. They, like the failed Palestinian leadership, just wants to end Israel’s existence. It is not going to happen. Until the Palestinians recognize this reality, they will be denying themselves any possibility of statehood.
One of the most pervasive myths of the Palestinian protest movement is that Israel has denied statehood to the Palestinian people. To the contrary, Israel agreed to Palestinian statehood in 1937-1938, 1947-1948, 1967, 2000-2001, and 2007. In each case, it was the Palestinian leadership that refused to agree to the two-state solution that would have created a Palestinian state, alongside a state for Jewish inhabitants.
In 1937 – in the midst of the terrorist revolt inspired by Adolf Hitler’s ally, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – the British published the Palestine Royal Commission Report (also known as the Peel Commission Report).
https://www.frontpagemag.com/idf-closes-down-kamal-adwan-hospital/
The reports about the IDF’s operation to capture the several hundred Hamas combatants hiding out in Kamal Adwan Hospital — “the last hospital in northern Gaza,” is how it is now formulaically described — make the IDF out to be villainous, indifferent to the wellbeing of innocent patients and medical personnel. The truth is quite different.
The media will report this: “The IDF has attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last working hospital in northern Gaza. The patients and medical personnel have been forced to evacuate. The Israelis have set fire to the hospital. The IDF claims that Hamas fighters were inside the hospital, hiding both themselves and their weapons. Hamas flatly denies using the Kamal Adwan Hospital.” The real story can be found here: “IDF completes raid on north Gaza hospital, says some 240 terror suspects arrested,” by Emanuel Fabian, Times of Israel, December 28, 2024:
The Israeli military said on Saturday that it had completed an operation against Hamas at northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital and the surrounding area.
Some 240 suspected terror operatives were detained, including the medical center’s director and 15 terrorists who participated in the October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces, which last operated against Hamas at Kamal Adwan in October, said the operation was launched because the hospital had “once again become a key stronghold for terrorist organizations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives.”
The army said the hospital was still used by Hamas “despite repeated calls to refrain from allowing [terror operatives] to exploit hospitals for military activities.”
The operation was led by the IDF’s 162nd Division. At the start of the raid, the IDF said troops of the 401st Armored Brigade surrounded the hospital, detained several terror operatives, and killed additional gunmen.
Members of the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit then carried out “precise activities” inside the hospital, during which they located and captured weapons, including grenades, handguns, ammunition, and other military equipment, according to the IDF.
