RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/09/israels-critics-will-only-be-satisfied-if-it-loses/

Once again, the nation is held to impossible standards of moral perfection, even when launching a daring preemptive strike that ultimately saves civilian lives in the long run.

In June of this year, when Israel rescued four hostages alive and unharmed from Hamas captivity, I well recall the perversity of the mainstream-media coverage of the event. Instead of celebrating the audacity and bravery of an impossibly complicated mission that freed innocent civilians from the clutches of murderous terrorists, the media narrative instead became about the “collateral damage” the bloodthirsty Israelis had caused.

Fake casualty numbers were immediately announced by Hamas, to be instantly and unquestioningly spread by journalists whose credulity verged on complicity. Israel was castigated for such things as the cruel and senseless murder of Palestine Chronicle journalist Abdallah Aljamal, who happened to be holding three of the Israeli hostages in his own home when the IDF found him. It was then that I concluded that the game was rigged, and that in terms of narrative framing, Israel would forever only be able to do wrong in the eyes of the media. And I am reminded of that sobering conclusion by the emergent reaction to Israel’s latest intelligence coup, which — though more muted — tracks closely along those same lines, with the same complaints levied by precisely the same suspects.

To catch up all those folks who have been out of the loop and away from their communications devices over the past day and a half, let me start by saying: If yours didn’t explode, then congratulations! You are likely not a member of Hezbollah! Because pretty much all of theirs just did: Yesterday, the encrypted pagers of Hezbollah personnel across Lebanon simultaneously exploded, and just a few hours ago, their entire supply of walkie-talkies went up in an even larger series of remote detonations. Several people died outright, and many others have been brutally maimed in an area particularly sensitive to the pride of military-aged jihadists. These explosions were remotely triggered by Israel, of course, which has been fighting an all but declared war with Iran against its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, ever since the October 7 massacre.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/18/opinion/israel-turns-the-pager-on-terror-with-ruthless-psychological-masterstroke-against-hezbollah/

Nobody likes to see humans writhing in agony, but Israel’s daring operation to simultaneously explode pagers in the pockets of Hezbollah terrorists and their associates this week was a ruthless tactical masterstroke. 

In bloody scenes captured on video on social media, men could be seen shopping or sitting on a motorbike one minute and on the ground moaning and covered in blood the next.

At least 12 people were killed and nearly 3,000 people were injured in Lebanon Tuesday, and a similar detonation of Hezbollah walkie-talkies the next day killed another 20 people and injured 450. 

In Hezbollah’s macho culture, the psychological blow of their warriors and officials getting their genitalia blown up is acute, and so is the signal sent to Iran, that no communications devices are safe after Israel managed to kill Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh under the noses of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Tehran by tracking his whereabouts via his cellphone.

Hence the terrorists’ migration to more primitive devices like pagers.  The ingenious “Paging Hezbollah” operation was about as surgical a strike on terrorists as you could get, although Lebanese authorities claimed two innocent children were killed in Tuesday’s attack, more tragic victims of a pointless war that Hamas started on Oct. 7 last year.

Dem sympathizers 

Of course, the Hamas sympathizers in the Democratic Party like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez immediately condemned Israel with a passion that seems to evade them when Israeli civilians are raped and murdered.

There are no circumstances in which Israel is allowed to defend itself.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/israeli-intelligence-is-amazing/

Despite much saber-rattling, Iran has not yet retaliated (as it has promised) for the breathtaking operation that neutralized Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh with a bomb planted in a diplomatic safe house in Tehran. Iran’s reluctance may be at least partly inspired by the regime’s well-founded belief that acting in haste might lead to an explosive device going off uncomfortably close to one’s nether regions.

That is what happened this morning to over 1,000 Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon and Syria. “Pagers carried by hundreds of Hezbollah operatives unexpectedly exploded at about the same time Tuesday afternoon,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “The affected pagers were from a new shipment that the group received in recent days,” the dispatch continued. “A Hezbollah official said hundreds of fighters had such devices, speculating that malware may have caused the devices to explode.”

Ironically enough, Hezbollah reportedly came to rely on pagers rather than more modern communications technologies because they were thought to be safe from “Israel’s electronic eavesdropping,” which is “regarded as among the world’s most sophisticated.” Hezbollah adapted, but so, too, did the Israelis.

There is, as yet, zero confirmation of Israeli involvement in what one Hezbollah official deemed the “biggest security breach” the terror group has experienced since the October 7 massacre. But there have been a lot of security breaches of late.

In July, Israel claimed credit for the successful targeting of one top Hezbollah operative, Fuad Shukr, in a Beirut suburb. Deemed the “right-hand man” to the terror group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, Shukr was also one of the primary perpetrators of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in which 241 U.S. service personnel were killed. According to the Journal’s reporting, Shukr received a phone call, likely from a figure in Hezbollah’s orbit turned by Israeli intelligence or directly tied to Israeli security services, instructing him to head to the seventh floor of the building he occupied, where he was taken out in a pinprick strike.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-uns-desire-to-get-rid-of-the-state-of-israel/

The UN has a three-point program to turn Israel into an international pariah and eventually make it disappear.

When I was a kid, my mother would tell me never to put money into a UNICEF collection box. She said that they don’t give anything to Israel. At the time, I was around six years old, so I did not understand much beyond cookies and baseball cards. But years later, I learned that this “aid” organization, as well as others such as Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders, actively discriminates against Israel in their activities.

The United Nations represents the pinnacle in the failed effort to create transnational governance. The UN is generally associated with scandal, failed missions, bloated budgets, and despicable countries like Iran, Cuba, and Syria sitting on human rights or women’s rights committees. The UN has taken a keen interest in Israel, with more resolutions directed against this country than pretty much all others combined. The UN has a three-point program to get rid of Israel as a nation-state:

1. Inflate the number of Palestinian refugees to overwhelm the number of Jews living in Israel.

2. Provide all forms of support to Palestinian terror groups to help them inflict destruction on Israelis.

3. Rally the countries of the world against the Jewish state.

As I have written previously, the UN, through its criminal UNRWA organization, has performed an extraordinary demographic sleight of hand. Of the millions of refugees who have had to leave their homelands in the past century, only those who actually left were classified as refugees. My grandparents and parents were refugees from Nazi Germany, and the former received some level of restitution from the post-war Federal Republic of Germany. I am not a refugee, and however hard I might try, nobody would accept my trying to be called or treated as one. Not so with the Palestinians. Of the 720,000 Palestinian Arabs who left their homes either due to the encouragement of the approaching Arab armies or under threat from the winning Israelis, there may be 10,000 left alive today. But not according to UNRWA. They count all descendants of those refugees as refugees themselves. So, a Palestinian grandchild born in Beverly Hills is considered a refugee, though he has never physically been to “Palestine” and has no interest in moving there.

https://worldisraelnews.com/4000-hezbollah-terrorists-injured-nine-killed-by-exploding-pagers/

A Reuters journalist saw 10 terrorists bleeding from injuries in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiya, a main stronghold of Hezbollah.

More than 4,000 Hezbollah terrorists were wounded and at least eleven were killed across Lebanon on Tuesday when their communication devices exploded, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad confirmed.

Approximately 200 Hezbollah terrorists were in critical condition in 100 different hospitals, Beirut’s health minister announced about three hours after the explosions were first reported at 3.30 p.m. local time.

A Reuters journalist saw 10 terrorists bleeding from injuries in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiya, which is the main stronghold of Hezbollah. A security source told Qatar’s Al Jazeera that explosions occurred across Lebanon—not only in Beirut but also in the Beqaa Valley and the south.

Senior Hezbollah officials were said to have been wounded in the blasts. Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was also wounded in one of the explosions, Tehran’s semi-official Mehr outlet reported.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20943/biden-israel-hezbollah

“In its boldest move, Hezbollah sent four drones toward the Karish platform several weeks ago, all of which were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces,” reported The Times of Israel on July 31, 2022.

This was exactly what surrendering part of the gas field to Hezbollah was supposed to prevent.

“The proposal for this point involves recognizing it as part of Lebanon, with UN forces deployed there as a neutral party for both sides.” — The Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2024.

United Nations forces are absolutely useless and pull back whenever there’s any conflict. (Nor is the UN remotely neutral.)

Hezbollah will claim any territory it gets and attack anyway because that is what Islamic terrorists do. Hezbollah is backed by Iran. It’s going to attack when Tehran tells it to. As an Islamic terror group, attacking non-Muslims and dominating them is a fundamental religious obligation. So making deals with it won’t work.

Just like making deals with Hamas doesn’t work.

The appeasement lobby only has one big idea when it comes to Islamic terrorists and any other enemies:

Give them land.
When the terrorists attack anyway, explain that it’s because they didn’t get enough land last time.
Give them more land.
When the terrorists attack anyway, explain that it’s because they didn’t get enough land last time.

Israel has been living through this particular “peace process” nightmare for a generation.

https://www.jns.org/hochstein-and-hezbollah/

Amos Hochstein, deputy assistant to the U.S. president and senior adviser for energy and investment, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday, in yet another attempt to block Israel from defending itself against Hezbollah in Lebanon. That’s not how his boss in Washington—whoever that actually is at this point—would characterize the special envoy’s visit, of course.

No, the American administration, now led by out-of-commission figurehead Joe Biden, refers to Hochstein’s efforts as necessary to prevent an “escalation” of tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, and to keep the latter from opening up another front in the current war.

Right.

As though the dominant Iran-backed terrorists in Lebanon didn’t already declare war on Israel on Oct. 8, the day after Hamas launched an assault on the Jewish state the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Holocaust.
As if Hezbollah hasn’t been daily firing dozens of missiles and drones since then on northern Israel, large swaths of which have been evacuated of their imperiled residents.
Golan and Galilee denizens weren’t the only ones bombarded over the weekend by hostile projectiles, however. Early Sunday morning, Israelis all over the center of the country awoke to sirens and loud booms. It emerged that a surface-to-surface ballistic missile from Yemen had hit in an open area, sparking a fire in the Ben Shemen Forest, a few miles from Ben-Gurion Airport.

Naturally, the above was the subject of the weekly Cabinet meeting, which took place mere hours after the Houthis took credit for the assault, and ahead of Hochstein’s latest pointless diplomatic trip.

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

At the site see a photo is of Israel’s Walter Bingham, the world’s oldest journalist, who celebrated his 100th birthday by skydiving over Israel.

Bravo to Walter Bingham! Nothing can match his view, but on the ground, nothing can match the stories of Israeli resilience, creativity, and contributions even during wartime delivered weekly by Michael Ordman. rsk

POSITIVE NEWS IN A WAR
 
He absorbed a bomb but didn’t give up. (TY UWI) Amichay Shindler saved his family by absorbing a bomb planted by Hamas terrorists outside the door to their safe room. Ten months and one prosthetic hand later, it is still not clear how he is alive today. His wife Avital manages a group for the wives of injured Israeli reservists.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/08/07/he-never-gives-up-how-one-israelis-miraculous-oct-7-survival-inspired-support-soldiers-families/
 
Soldier’s recovery and mission. (TY UWI & I24 News) Captain Israel Ben Shitrit, a reservist serving in Khan Yunis, tells his story and future plans. A Hamas terrorist hit his unit with an RPG and he was badly wounded. After three and a half months in rehabilitation, he declares that he is proud to be a Captain in the IDF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1ivSSk2J7c
 
Wounded soldier returns to his tank. In Nov 2023 IDF tank crewman Sergeant Aharon Shmuel Bryce was severely wounded by a Hamas-fired RPG missile that hit his tank. After 10 months of surgeries, reconstructions and rehabilitation, he has returned to serve in Gaza in the very same tank that he was injured in.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/395922
 
Druze girl recovers after Hezbollah attack. Kai Marai, the 11-year-old Druze girl, most seriously wounded in the July 27 Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan Heights, regained consciousness on Aug 13 surprising doctors at Haifa’s Rambam children’s hospital. Kai’s mother thanked the medical team for saving her daughter’s life.
https://www.jns.org/doctors-surprised-by-rapid-recovery-of-11-year-old-druze-girl-badly-hurt-in-hezbollah-attack/
 
Oct 7 survivor receives her medical degree. Elai Hogeg Golan awoke from a coma 51 days after Hamas terrorists firebombed her home on Oct 7. In May she received her medical degree at an emotional ceremony. She is now finishing her medical internship at Sheba Medical Center, while receiving rehabilitation treatment.
https://www.ynetnews.com/health_science/article/bjoe4ijqr
 
A nation of superheroes. Rony Ben-Zvi Elimelech is completing her doctorate at Israel’s Technion Institute. She is also a mother of two boys, ages 6 years and 16 months, and chief executive officer of Wisemama, which supports women who are combining parenthood and academic studies. Then she was called up for reserve duty.
https://ats.org/our-impact/rony-ben-zvi-elimelech-israel-is-a-nation-of-superheroes/
 
Cooking up resilience. Israel’s Technion Institute held a hackathon, attended by 140 science students, who worked with mental health experts to develop solutions to improve mental resilience. The winning team developed a technology to treat post-traumatic stress disorder through cooking, using a virtual reality headset.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2024/07/technology-for-mental-resilience/
 
US doctor volunteered and then made Aliyah. In Nov, cardiothoracic anesthesiologist Dr. Eugene Rapaport volunteered for two weeks at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, treating some unique injuries and diverse patients. Then in June he realized his dream and made Aliyah through Nefesh b’Nefesh. A fascinating article.
https://www.jns.org/us-doctor-makes-aliyah-after-volunteering-to-treat-oct-7-victims/
 
Volunteers make a difference. (TY Yanky) Angie Jacobs and Naomi Frankel write about their experiences as volunteers on Kibbutzim, Moshavim, Army bases, children’s homes and more. They really made a difference.
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/i-needed-to-make-a-difference-why-we-went-to-israel-to-volunteer/
 
Making chocolates under fire. (TY Rhoda) Rhoda’s great-niece Chana Koenig shows typical Israeli resilience by making gourmet chocolates (without preservatives) in Nahariya, northern Israel. For the last 11 months, she has endured near-incessant aerial attacks by Hezbollah from exploding UAVs and rocket fire.
https://davebender.substack.com/p/from-rockets-to-rosh-hashana-an-israeli (link in article is incorrect)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5yO41eBStU  https://www.cacaohagalil.co.il/ (link here is correct)
 
A wish comes true. Miri and her fiancé Roy are both IDF reserve officers and had to postpone their wedding several times due to the war. When they finally fixed the date, they pleaded on Instagram for help getting Miri’s paralyzed, holocaust-survivor grandfather Kim to attend. Thanks to Israel’s Wish Ambulance, he got there.
https://israfan.com/p/wish-ambulance-reunites-holocaust-survivor-at-wedding
https://www.mdais.org/en/activities/wish-ambulance
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Positive early results of heart repair trial. Israel’s Endospan (see here previously) shared good early news from the trial on 22 patients of its Nexus Aortic Arch Stent Graft System. The trial is being extended to 110 patients. 120,000+ patients suffer thoracic aortic arch disease every year in the USA and Europe.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240130700861/en/Endospan-Releases-Early-TRIOMPHE-IDE-Study-Results-at-Society-of-Thoracic-Surgeons
 
Detecting high risk of pulmonary embolism. Researchers at Ben Gurion University and Israel’s Sheba Medical Center used AI to detect nearly 2,000 patients at high risk of developing a pulmonary embolism (lung blood clot). Sheba used the BGU algorithm to analyze the records of 46,000 patients who were admitted to ER.
https://nocamels.com/2024/08/sheba-study-ai-can-spot-patients-at-risk-of-pulmonary-embolism/
https://www.jmir.org/2024/1/e48595
 
Non-invasive cancer treatment. Scientists at Israel’s Technion Institute have developed a sonodynamic cancer therapy – ultrasound that targets sensitive nanoparticles accumulated in the cancerous tissue to treat deep-seated tumors. It destroys tumors without damage to healthy cells.
https://ats.org/our-impact/technion-researchers-develop-promising-treatment-for-tumors/
https://t3.technion.ac.il/technology/drug-delivery-nanoparticles/
 
Valve replacement startup gets approval & funds. Israel’s TruLeaf Medical has received approval from the Helsinki Committee to begin human trials of its minimally invasive Mitral Valve Replacement procedure. The Israel Innovation Authority awarded TruLeaf an additional NIS 1.5 million, to make a total of NIS 11.5 million.
https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/a-new-era-in-heart-surgery–israeli-biomed-company-truleaf-medicals-two-needle-sticks-procedure-for-mitral-valve-replacement-302194644.html
 
Aquatic plant is good for diabetics. An Israeli clinical trial shows that diabetics who drink a beverage with the Mankai cultivated aquatic plant after meals can reduce blood sugar levels by 20%. It confirms the results of initial tests that Israel’s Ben Gurion University scientists conducted five years ago (see here previously).
https://nocamels.com/2024/08/study-aquatic-plant-reduces-blood-sugar-in-diabetics/
 
A better fish farm. Traditional aquatics uses the wastewater from fish farms to grow hydroponic vegetables. Now scientists at Israel’s Ben Gurion University have also made use of the solid waste from fish by means of anaerobic digestion. The new system produces biogas, higher crop yields, using less energy and less water.
https://www.bgu.ac.il/en/news-and-articles/bgu-researchers-offer-proof-of-concept-for-unique-aquaponics-system/   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344924003100?via%3Dihub
 
Real-time medical translator. Current and ex-students from Israel’s Technion Institute have developed CommU – a real-time language translation platform that allows doctors to converse with patients in Hebrew, English, Arabic, Russian, and most other European languages.
https://nocamels.com/2024/08/automatic-translator-breaks-language-barrier-for-doctors-patients/
https://commu.ai/
 
AI devices for the hard-of-hearing. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Bettear provides Auracast-based assistive listening solutions to enhance sound experience. Its B-CASTER streamer integrates with hearing aids and cochlear implants. Other products support tour guides, teachers, entertainers, and museums.
https://www.bettear.com/solutions
 
AI contest for Parkinson’s FOG detection. Tel Aviv University researchers ran an international contest to develop an algorithm to detect “Freeze of Gait” (FOG) in Parkinson’s sufferers, using data from 100 patients. The prize of $100,000 attracted nearly 25,000 solutions from AI researchers in 83 countries.
https://english.tau.ac.il/research/fog-detection-ai  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49027-0
 
Treating and reversing DDD. Israel’s Discure Technologies is developing an implantable bioelectronic device designed to treat and reverse degenerative disc disease (DDD). The Discure System restores fluids and nutrients to the affected discs. DDD accounts for 35% of all lower back pain, at a cost of $100 billion in the US alone.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/sjvw00d62c
https://www.hcs-capital.com/portfolio/discuretechnologies/

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20941/hamas-deal-israel-surrender

Abandoning the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt would enable Hamas to carry on with its decades-long practice of smuggling weapons into the enclave. It would also allow the new head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, to escape – along with many of the hostages with whom he is thought to be surrounding himself for protection — through the tunnels into Egypt’s Sinai Desert.

The most recent statement from Hamas makes it clear that the terror group wants Israel to leave the Gaza Strip before any hostages are freed.

According to some reports, Hamas has stated that it is willing to free the hostages in stages. It undoubtedly wants to hold on to as many hostages as possible as an “insurance policy” that Israel will not resume the war against the terror group and that the terrorist group will be able to have a free hand to attack Israel in the future. This implies that a large number of the hostages remain captive in the hands of the terror group for years. It is important to note that for the past 10 years, Hamas has been holding hostage two Israeli civilians who are believed to be still alive, as well as the remains of two IDF soldiers.

Hamas is willing to fight to the last Palestinian. The terror group does not care if tens of thousands of its own people lose their lives as a result of the war it began. Its No. 1 priority is to hold on to power after the war. Hamas is evidently hoping that a ceasefire-hostage deal will help it achieve its goal of retaining control over the Gaza Strip.

If the Biden-Harris administration wants to understand the real intentions and aims of Hamas, it just needs to look at what the terror group is saying in Arabic. Hamas and its allies are saying in Arabic that the only deal they would accept is one that results in Israel raising a white flag.

If Hamas is permitted to win the war, Iran and its other terror proxies, such as Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Houthis, will gain confidence and feel more empowered. In addition, this will convey to Muslim Jihadis worldwide that Israel and the West are too weak to protect their people and values against Islamist terror organizations. This weakness will lead to more terrorism not only against Israel, but also the US and most Western nations.

Instead of applying pressure on Israel to end the war, the Biden-Harris administration needs to demand firmly that the Hamas murderers and rapists totally surrender, disarm, cede control over the Gaza Strip, and release all the hostages unconditionally.

All this needs urgently needs to take place before Iran breaks out its nuclear weapons and sets about attacking its oil-rich neighbors, such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, again.

The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has repeated its demand that Israel withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip in order to reach a ceasefire-hostage agreement with Israel. Hamas, in other words, is demanding that Israel lose the war so that the terrorist group can regroup, rearm and prepare for more attacks on Israel like the one it launched on October 7, 2023. In that assault, 1,200 Israelis were murdered, with many raped, tortured and burned alive. Another 240 Israelis were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 101 are still being held as hostages, many of them already murdered (see here and here).