RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.jns.org/hezbollah-no-longer-strategic-threat-but-israeli-determination-key/

 Badly battered by Israel’s military operation in Lebanon, Hezbollah has been beaten, but not eliminated, analysts tell JNS. They paint an optimistic picture, saying that Hezbollah’s days as a strategic threat to Israel are over.

Within 24 hours of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel’s south, the Shi’ite militia launched a rocket strike on the Jewish state. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the group’s goal was to stretch Israel’s resources and force it to fight on two fronts.

Seeking to avoid that scenario, Israel played defense for nearly a year as Hezbollah fired more than 10,000 missiles from Lebanon, forcing 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes in the north for temporary shelter elsewhere. (Residents are expected to return in early March.)

Israel finally struck back in a series of remarkable operations starting on Sept. 17 and 18, 2024, detonating explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies used by the Iranian-backed terror group. On Sept. 27, Israeli airstrikes killed Nasrallah. On Oct. 1, Israel invaded Lebanon, laying waste to much of Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure.

“Hezbollah has been hit dramatically. Its leadership has been toppled, its command structure decimated. Seventy percent of its strategic capabilities have been destroyed,” IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi told JNS.

Hezbollah had been a serious threat, but in two weeks Israel brought it to its knees, he said. Hezbollah was further weakened when Sunni Islamists took over Syria, depriving Hezbollah of a major resupply route from Iran.

https://www.19fortyfive.com/2025/01/does-the-world-care-about-gazas-future-under-hamas/

The Palestinians of Gaza were the overwhelming focus of international concern during Israel’s 15-month-old war with Hamas, and their plight was the driving force behind global pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

But lest anyone believe that Israel’s detractors in the region and across the world really care about innocent Gazans, events on the ground since the ceasefire took effect show that’s truly a farcical notion.

Remember all that talk in Washington and elsewhere – as then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed the other day – of ensuring that the genocidal terrorists of Hamas who ignited the war by slaughtering 1,200 Israelis, and who have ruled Gaza with an iron fist for nearly two decades, never regain a governing role? Remember all the talk of turning Gaza over to a reformed Palestinian Authority that, with international aid, would rebuild the Strip to better serve the Palestinians?

Well, look around, as Hamas and its terrorist allies declare victory, retake control of Gaza’s streets, welcome home blood-stained prisoners from Israel, and promise to resume their terror against Israel – all of which ensures more war and hardship for innocent Palestinians caught in the crosshairs.

Where’s the global outrage over what’s sure to come? Where are the denunciations from UN and Western leaders? Where are the human rights activists who know how Palestinians suffer under Hamas rule? Where are the editorialists and campus protesters who pledge allegiance to the Palestinian cause?

The ceasefire deal, which is supposed to be implemented in three phases but still requires further negotiations for the second and third phases, provides “for the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian Prisoners and the return to a sustainable calm which would achieve a permanent ceasefire between the two sides.”

Sounds nice. But just days into the first phase, as the world chooses to look away, what’s happening in Gaza?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/23/7-october-was-a-war-against-civilisation/

The first three Israeli hostages were freed at the weekend under the terms of the new ceasefire deal struck between Israel and Hamas. Their return is a chilling reminder of the depravity of 7 October 2023, the day those hostages were first taken captive, and when more than a thousand Israelis were massacred and brutalised. In the weeks and months since, not only has this barbarism been largely forgotten in the West – many self-styled progressives have ended up siding with the barbarians.

As broadcaster and Times columnist Melanie Phillips puts it in her new book, The Builder’s Stone, the West failed the moral test of 7 October. Melanie was the latest guest on The Brendan O’Neill Show. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. Listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: What impact did 7 October have on you?

Melanie Phillips: It was a shattering event, because what happened on 7 October was something that very few of us thought would ever happen again. We knew about the hostility in the Arab and Muslim world. As Jews, we live with it all the time, both inside and outside Israel. But we never thought we would see again what can only be described as Nazi-style behaviour.

This was not just murdering Jews or murdering Israelis. This was the seeking out of Jews and Israelis. It was almost like a kind of ritual mutilation. Hamas militants beheaded some of them. They burned some of them alive. They tortured them. They raped them, both men and women. This was bestial and depraved behaviour and a level of sadism that Jews collectively remember from the Holocaust. And while we should not compare anything to the Holocaust, because it was sui generis in both scale and nature, this had very clear parallels and resonances.

The second terrible shock was simply the awfulness of what happened – the murders, the rapes, the beheadings, the burnings alive, the slaughter of children in front of their parents. Then, of course, there was the abduction of the hostages into Gaza. There was the sight of both militants and ordinary – if I can call them that – people exulting over all this and abusing the hostages, whether they were dead or alive.

The next terrible thing that happened was the aftermath. One would have expected, in a civilised world, that the West would have stood with Israel. But it turned on Israel. It represented everything Israel did to defend itself as aggressive, and completely ignored the fact that Israel was going to unprecedented lengths to preserve the lives of civilians. As if that wasn’t bad enough, an absolute tsunami of anti-Jewish hatred swept across Britain and the West.

This had a tremendous effect on me. It brought to a head something that I had long been considering – namely, the decline of the West. When the West turns on itself, what is it turning against? It’s turning against its core, foundational values. Those values were largely embedded by Christianity, but Christianity didn’t come out of nothing. Christianity came from Judaism. If the West wants to stop itself from going off the edge of the cliff, then what it has to do is reconnect itself with those foundational Jewish values.

The West didn’t understand that 7 October wasn’t just a war against Israel. It was a war against civilisation.

https://www.jns.org/why-hamas-still-stands-failed-military-doctrine-drives-idf-thinking/

Ran Baratz, who teaches military doctrine at the IDF’s National Defense College and founded Mida, an online Hebrew-language Commentary-like magazine, raises no objections to the ceasefire deal with Hamas—but not for the reasons one would expect. It’s because the IDF can’t win. At least, not with a General Staff marinated in postmodern military doctrine.

Baratz notes that the army’s rank-and-file is second to none, but the General Staff’s lack of strategy results in endless targeted raids, where the IDF goes in, kills some terrorists, retreats, then reenters the same area to cope with more terrorists—and lose more of its valiant young soldiers.

“When generals don’t have a strategy, they come up with an overarching strategy of attrition, which doctrinally, is achieved by raids,” Baratz told JNS on Jan. 15.

“They have different names for raids. In Vietnam, it was called ‘search and destroy.’ But it was the same idea. You raid a place, you kill the enemy combatants, with some collateral damage, and you pull back. You could see that in the Second Lebanon War [in 2006], and you can see that today. If they had a good operational plan, they wouldn’t be speaking about raids,” he says.

The General Staff didn’t even have a plan in place to invade the Gaza Strip, Baratz says. They thought it wasn’t needed as Hamas was “deterred.” That’s why it took so long for the IDF to go into Gaza after the Oct. 7, 2023, invasion.

So Baratz says of a ceasefire, “whatever the government thinks best.” His focus is on bigger issues, such as how Israel can rebuild its once-vaunted military institutions.

The main problem in his view is postmodern military doctrine, which afflicts not just the IDF, but Western militaries in general. Postmodern doctrine replaced classical military doctrine as a result of two events.

The first was the advent of nuclear weapons.

What could be more positive than pictures of three young women hostages returned to a mother’s embrace? Even those of us opposed and enraged at the disproportionate terms of the cease fire are happy to see them home.

Home, is Israel, often and gratuitously accused of “disproportionate” responses to evil. What is truly disproportionate, is Israel’s dazzling contributions to humanity and all its beneficent endeavors. To his enormous credit, Michael details this in his weekly newsletters.  rsk

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
150 lone soldiers join the IDF. Over 150 young immigrants from the US, Canada, UK, and other countries are currently arriving in Israel as part of the Garin Tzabar Scouts program. After four months in an absorption program they will enlist in the IDF. Garin Tzabar has supported 7,000+ lone soldiers during its 33 years.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-836917
 
US students cheer up wives of reservists. The NGO Israel Resilience together with the OU-JLIC (Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus) has given US students volunteering in Israel the task of giving support to the wives of IDF reservists. They visit, hand them gift cards, and offer them thanks.
https://www.jns.org/us-students-launch-initiative-to-support-wives-of-idf-reservists/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hNL_dBC3us
 
Better than before. On Oct 7 2023, homes, fields and vehicles at Kibbutz Nirim were destroyed by Hamas terrorists and their supporters. Almost immediately afterwards, rebuilding and renovating began. Kibbutniks and external contractors are busy making Nirim bigger and better, safer and stronger than ever before,
https://www.jns.org/bigger-and-better-than-ever-rebuilding-nirim-after-oct-7/
 
Rehabilitating tourism in the North. The Jewish Agency for Israel is establishing a fund to rehabilitate the tourism industry in the north of Israel. Businesses impacted by the war – mainly those in tourism – can receive a low cost loan up to NIS 650,000. Since Oct 7 2023, the Agency has lent NIS 350 million to 8,000+ businesses.
https://www.jns.org/wire/the-jewish-agency-signs-agreement-to-rehabilitate-the-north-of-israel/
 
Northern hospitals come up for air. (TY Yanky) Several hospitals across northern Israel have spent 14 months in fortified underground bunker-like facilities. Now, since the ceasefire, they are leaving the crowded and dark conditions and returning to normal. Staff and patients are delighted to be breathing fresh air again.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/northern-hospitals-move-out-of-underground-bunkers-after-months-of-war/
 
Student of courage. On Oct 7 2023, Coral Hamo Goren – a Ph.D. student at Israel’s Technion, mother of three, and operations officer in the IDF was called to manage a command center near the Gaza border. When she can, she commutes between Gaza and Haifa, submits papers, attends courses, and keeps up with research.
https://ats.org/our-impact/on-the-front-lines-of-war-and-academia/
 
Voices of Iron. (TY UWI) 50 pro-Israel public diplomacy professionals, activists and social-media influencers were presented with the inaugural “Voices of Iron” award in a ceremony held at the Knesset auditorium. They were honored for their “Iron Dome” advocacy “blowing lies out of the sky” during the Swords of Iron war.
https://www.jns.org/voices-of-iron-award-honors-online-israel-advocacy-warriors/
 
Huge post-Oct 7 giving boom. (TY Yanky) Overseas charities bring hope to Israel’s frontline communities. The Diaspora Ministry estimates over $1.4 billion in foreign donations since Oct 7 2023. This article focuses on the Jewish Agency, KKL-JNF, Keren Hayesod, UJIA, Jewish Federations of North America, and the Joint.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/huge-post-october-7-giving-boom-from-overseas-brings-hope-to-battered-frontlines/
 
Yeshiva hosts injured soldiers. Yeshivat Hakotel hosted injured IDF soldiers, members of the Lifros Knaf nonprofit, who came to Jerusalem as part of a rehabilitation trip. They were welcomed by the students and heads and, during Shabbat, they were given a guided tour of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Jewish Quarter.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/402198  https://www.lifroskanaf.co.il/
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Immunotherapy can slow aging process. Israel Prize winner, Weizmann Institute’s Prof. Michal Schwartz and her research team are working on a groundbreaking treatment to boost immune cells relevant to the brain, cure brain diseases, and slow the aging process. Schwartz founded Israel’s ImmunoBrain (see here previously).
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-scientist-in-peer-reviewed-study-immunotherapy-treatment-could-slow-aging-process/    https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(24)00882-1
 
Huge rise in organ donations. Israel’s National Transplant Center has reported that a record number of heart transplants (36) were performed in Israel in 2024. There was also a 6% rise in the number of kidney transplants to 469, including 313 from living donors. Also see article about those who have donated a kidney to a stranger.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/402203
https://www.israel21c.org/why-danny-newman-gave-his-kidney-to-a-stranger/
 
Scientists identify a new blood group. (TY Yanky) In 1972, doctors discovered a woman missing a surface molecule found on all other known red bloods. 50 years later, Israeli and UK researchers have finally identified it as a new blood group, “AnWj-negative”. It will help provide better care for these patients.
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-identify-new-blood-group-after-50-year-mystery
https://ashpublications.org/blood/article-abstract/144/26/2735/517404/Deletions-in-the-MAL-gene-result-in-loss-of-Mal
 
Understanding chronic pain. (TY ATS) Researchers from Israel’s Technion were part of a team that has discovered why only some whiplash injury patients, suffer from chronic pain. It is related to their brain’s memory communication system, plus if they had high anxiety after the injury – literally “painful memories”.
https://technologytangle.com/new-study-identifies-brain-activity-predicting-chronic-pain-after-whiplash-injuries/    https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-024-00329-8
 
Treating cardio-metabolic diseases. Bar-Ilan University’s Dr Sivan Spitzer and EU colleagues won a €22 million EU-IHI grant for CAREPATH – a 5-year project to use cutting-edge tools to ensure diabetic, obese, and heart patients take their medication. It involves international researchers, plus companies led by Novo Nordisk.
https://www.biu.ac.il/en/article/582866
 
OncoHost wins BIG. (TY OurCrowd) Israel’s OncoHost (see here previously) has won a 2025 BIG Innovation Awards for Healthcare. BIG (Business Intelligence Group) CEO Russ Fordyce said,  “We’re thrilled to spotlight OncoHost as a shining example of innovation making a profound impact globally.”
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/oncohost-wins-2025-big-innovation-award-for-healthcare-302351878.html

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21322/hamas-deal-power

The ceasefire-hostage deal does not require Hamas to disarm or cede control over the Gaza Strip…. The terrorist group seems to be convinced that the deal will enable it to keep control of the Gaza Strip and prepare for more massacres of Jews.

Shortly after the ceasefire-hostage deal was announced on January 15, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya made it clear that his group intends to pursue its Jihad against Israel.

The new US administration, to avoid more violence and bloodshed, must insist that Hamas be removed from power.

This can only be accomplished by applying pressure and sanctions on Hamas’s Qatari and Iranian sponsors.

Those who think that the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will abandon its Jihad (holy war) to murder more Jews and destroy Israel in the aftermath of the recent ceasefire-hostage agreement are mistaken.

Although the agreement may put an end to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, it does not, in any way, reflect a shift in the radical and dangerous ideology of the Islamist group, as outlined in its 1988 Covenant. The document quotes Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood organization (of which Hamas is an offshoot), as saying: “Israel will arise and continue to exist until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished what went before.”