F No Antisemitism

This morning, 15 minutes after the break in fighting was supposed to begin, Hamas fired two rocket barrages into southern Israel. This is what we mean when we say that Hamas has broken every ceasefire ever. The only reason why this didn't lead to the hostage deal falling apart, is because Israel chose to "contain" Hamas' violent rocket attack. But remember this when we explain why we can't accept Hamas' existence anymore.

Israel confirmed that the 13 hostages being released have arrived in Egypt, and there are already Israelis there, taking care of them. IDK when we'll get their names, and images of them safe back in Israel, but as you can imagine, everyone here is holding its breath for that. Still, their well being comes first, they're being taken to a hospital first, to see their families, and only then (and based on whatever they prefer) will there be anything more public. There will not be interviews, however, 'coz something they say might risk the other groups of hostages meant to be released in the upcoming days.

Hamas is also releasing some of the Thai nationals they've kidnapped (I heard 12 of the 23 taken hostage), which are being let go of unconditionally. Before anyone tries to make out this shows Hamas is humane, I'll just point out that Hamas terrorists murdered at least 33 Thais on Oct 7.

Some of my fave commentators recently on what's going on here since Hamas' massacre aren't Jewish, or even Israeli. Here's a few of their tweets:

Regarding the last one, I just wanna say that most Israelis will continue to trust most Arabs. That's just how we have always lived, despite the on going terror attacks. The day after Oct 7, I mentioned that I went to my hospital treatment. The guard there is an Arab guy. He carries a gun. I couldn't help but think about it. And then I did what I always do, I thanked him for his work (being a guard is difficult), and wished him a good day. He smiled big and wished me the same. He's lovely. What Hamas did on Oct 7 is not his fault. But the mistrust of survivors, and some of those who care about them, is also very human and understandable, as much as I'll continue to call on everyone not to generalize about Arabs, or any group.

Especially when some of Hamas' victims are themselves Arabs. Here's a young Israeli Muslim Bedouin woman, who has been speaking up on behalf of her friend, 17 years old Aisha al Ziadna, who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct 7.

A Sky News reporter was particularly shameful the other day. She tried to use Israel's willingness to release 3 convicted terrorist per just 1 innocent civilian hostage to vilify Israel. Here's the reply she got:

Just a reminder, once again, that when you listen to western media, which is supposed to be objective, these are often their info sources on this conflict:

Speaking of lack of objectivity, an Israeli newspaper found out that the International Criminal Court has appointed a Danish lawyer to investigate the Israel-Hamas war, and it's a man (I'm not sure I'm transcribing his name from Hebrew correctly, but it should be something like Andreas Laursen) who has worked in the past for a Palestinian "human rights organization" which has been outlawed in 2021 for having ties to terrorist organizations, who was involved in 2018 in trying to make the case that Israel had committed war crimes, who has lived in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, and who is married to a Palestinian woman. This Israeli newspaper has contacted the ICC, asking why the person appointed to this investigation isn't someone who would at least appear to be unbiased. The answer was (I'm translating from the Hebrew article): "We maintain confidentiality about anything that pertains to specific subjects that are related to our employees. Every personal decision made by the head prosecutor fits the policy and relevant procedures that oversee the court's human resources matters."

Because there are still people denying the Hamas rapes:

I've spoken before about Liel, and how long it took to identify her body, but this tweet kind of broke me all over again.

by Rinat Harash

In recent days, the Israeli army has exposed evidence of Hamas terror activity inside and underneath Gaza’s Shifa hospital. But instead of simply reporting it, media outlets have downplayed the evidence in various ways: By hinting that it has been faked, by claiming that it did not prove the existence of a Hamas “command center,” by quoting unreliable Hamas officials, or simply by burying the story.

By doing so, media have diverted attention from Israel’s just war against a murderous terror organization and turned it into a parallel war of narratives suggesting that Israel lacks credibility and therefore the war on Hamas loses legitimacy.

Here is the evidence revealed by the army so far:

27/10 – A phone call between two Gazans confirming that Hamas headquarters is located underneath Shifa hospital

28/10 – An interrogation of two Hamas terrorists confirming the organization’s use of hospitals, including Shifa

03/11 – A phone call with a Gaza medical official confirming Hamas holds half a million liters of fuel reserves under Shifa hospital

15/11 – Weapons, military gear with Hamas insignia, and technological assets found in Shifa’s MRI building

15/11 – A tunnel shaft and a a booby-trapped vehicle carrying a weapons arsenal are found at Shifa hospital

19/11 – A fortified terror tunnel, 55 meters-long and 10 meters deep, is exposed underneath Shifa hospital

19/11 – CCTV footage from October 7 showing two hostages taken into Shifa hospital

And here are some “highlights” from media outlets that preferred to choose wilful blindness over the facts.

CNN and BBC’s ‘Investigative’ Efforts

CNN and the BBC have both invested what seems to be a significant effort to debunk the Israeli army’s video showing weapons and ammunition at the MRI ward of Shifa.

The two networks have gone to great lengths to hint that Israel may have manipulated evidence. They have checked details like the time on the wristwatch of the Israeli army’s spokesman and the number of weapons he displayed in comparison to a larger amount shot later by international media. As the BBC reported:

And what we see in the two videos doesn’t precisely match. For example, there’s one gun in the IDF video, two, by the time of the BBC footage. Israel has told ‘BBC Verify’ this is because more weaponry and terrorist assets were discovered throughout the day. Israel also says its video is a single shot with no edits. But this appears to be an edit. We don’t know the reasons for that edit nor how significant it is. The IDF though says suggestions it’s manipulating the media are incorrect.

They did include the army’s claim that more weapons had been found later, but the urgency to debunk IDF evidence is astonishing and one-sided. No such effort was made to debunk the claims of Hamas, which denies operating from the hospital.

do not stop talking about Palestine!

“OMG they did it this weekend because of Thanksgiving!”

After Hamas were the first to say yesterday that the break in fighting will start today at 10 in the morning, as part of the hostage release deal, it turned out that wasn't possible, since they didn't sign the agreement. Then it was reported that Hamas didn't, because they wanted to negotiate some of the details. According to one report, Hamas suddenly insisted the hostages will leave Gaza in Egyptian ambulances rather than Red Cross ones. Getting into bed with the devil surely feels like this. Despite the delay, Qatar has now announced that the break in fighting will begin tomorrow at 7, and the hostages would be released at 4 in the afternoon.

I saw people wondering regarding yesterday's daily post, whether Hamas really doesn't know where all of the hostages are held. So obviously I can't tell for sure, but keep in mind these two things. First, Hamas' rule of Gaza is dictatorial. If they want to find out something, they can and they will. If there's something they don't know, it can only be if they aren't interested in finding out. Second, a part of the deal says that the hostages that won't be released, will get Red Cross visits (finally. They should have had those all along). But how would Hamas take the Red Cross representatives to see the hostages, if Hamas doesn't know where they are?

Hamas has been using civilians to lure Israeli soldiers into ambushes. Despite that, there have been several incidents reported here, about IDF soldiers risking their lives to help Gazan civilians. Today was an especially moving incident, when the soldiers rescued an old woman from underneath rubble, and she asked them to find her autistic daughter, too. Here the two are, after their rescue:

After the president one of the Belgian parliament refused to screen the 40+ minutes of footage showing Hamas' crimes, calling it propaganda, a Belgian party did so instead. Twenty seven members of the Belgian parliament watched the footage. One of them said she was expecting the worst, but what she saw was beyond that.

This vid is 9 mins long, and isn't the full one (which is 15 min long), but it gives you an idea of how developed the system of terror tunnels and bunkers under the Shifa hospital in Gaza is, and how closely tied the tunnels are to the hospital. For example, the hospital was providing the tunnels with electricity, which means there's no way the people running the hospital didn't know about it.

Charges against a Palestinian man and his three sons were filed today, for having tried to kill a Jewish man about a month ago in the Binyamin region.

This is 26 years old Arnon Benbenisti-Vespi.

His mom lost her father in the 1973 War, when Israel was attacked by 3 Arab armies on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews, when most of us fast. She then lost her brother in the 1982 First Lebanon War, when Israel went to fight the Palestinian terrorist organization the PLO, which was attacking Israeli civilians from Lebanon, including a notorious terrorist attack where they infiltrated Israel, and took over a Children's House in a kibbutz, targeting the kids inside. She named her son after her brother, but the other day, Arnon was killed in Gaza. May his memory be a blessing.

The biggest news out of Israel today is of course that late last night, the government approved a deal with Hamas to release some of the hostages. Here are the details as reported on the news:

50 hostages will be released in 4 groups over the course of 4 days, during which there would be no fighting. Hamas said they will be women and kids, Israel will only be told who's being released the day before. Not all kids are being released. Israel in exchange will release 150 people convicted for terrorist activity. Hamas says it will use these 4 days to try and locate 20 more hostages to be released. Hamas says that some of the hostages are in the hands of smaller terrorist organizations, and some are also being held by civilian families. Just a reminder that some civilians from Gaza followed the terrorists into Israel once the border fence was torn down. Most probably just to loot the houses attacked by terrorists, but at least some partook in the killing of Israeli civilians. Here is a vid of one such man, riding a bicycle stolen from a murdered Israeli, bragging about having killed 3 family members...

For every additional hostage Hamas finds and releases beyond the 50 agreed upon, it will get 3 more convicted terrorists released. For every 10, it will get one more day without fighting, for a total possible break of 6 days. In addition, Israel will not be flying over Gaza, not airplanes and not drones, for 6 hours daily.

It's reported that the stop in fighting will start tomorrow (Thursday) at 10 in the morning. Based on past experience, you can expect Hamas to fire rockets at Israel even past 10, just to show it got the "last word" and Israel will have to contain this, in order to keep the whole deal from falling apart.

The ambivalence about the deal that I tried to express in yesterday's daily post is what I'm hearing almost across the board. People want the hostages who will be freed, they're afraid for the fate of those who won't be, and they're scared of how Hamas might use this break in the fighting.

I think the most infuriating thing Israelis have come across is people describing the deal as "hostage exchange." Multiple Israelis have posted to make the same point: the hostages kidnapped from Israel were all innocent. The prisoners that will be released were all convicted for violent activity. They did not murder, but they tried to.

I saw an interview with one Israeli mother who had survived an attempted murder by a terrorist. She discovered that the woman who committed that crime is one of the prisoners who might be released. The thing is, they used to live in the same neighborhood. The mother asked, "Why should my kid have to see every day the woman who tried to kill me?" Almagor, an Israeli organization for victims of terrorism, has petitioned the Israeli supreme court against the deal. It's not likely to work, as the supreme court has indicated in the past it has no jurisdiction over political decisions, only legal ones.

And of course there's the fear that more Israeli soldiers might pay the price for the fact that Hamas will use the break in the fighting to re-arm and learn from its failures so far. That's the better scenario. There's also the possibility that Hamas would do what they did on "The Black Friday" in 2014. On Aug 1, a ceasefire with Hamas was supposed to start at 8 in the morning. At 9:05 Hamas terrorists used a terror tunnel to attack Israeli soldiers, murder them and kidnap the body of one of them, Hadar Goldin. Nine years later, the body has not yet been returned.

Today is not a day of relief in Israel.

The UK has announced it would allocate 7 million pounds to fighting antisemitism, which is welcome news. Switzerland said it will pass legislation that would prohibit Hamas activity through it.

A uniquely Israeli moment that happened yesterday... Jewish first sergeant Mordechai Shenvald, who was seriously injured in Gaza, playing with his Arab physician, Doctor Darwashe, a song by famous Arab singer Um Kultum, called Inti Umri:

Israel has torn down today a Jewish settlement established illegally in the disputed territories. You'll always hear about when Israel takes down Arab houses built illegally, but I bet most people here havne't heard about it when Jewish Israeli civilians get the exact same treatment for this exact same offense.

This is part of the testimony of a father to a girl with special needs, whose family has survived the Oct 7 massacre:

This is 25 years old Shani Gabai.

She was considered missing since the Oct 7 massacre. Today, her body was identified among the other victims of the music festival.

every day rockets are being targeted at Israel. Most of them fail to meet their targets. Others don’t.

These Hamas rockets have hit hospitals and schools.

I don’t want to hear jack shit about “hamas freedom fighters.”

how do you call for a ceasefire against this??

do you need these rockets to kill jews israelis in order to understand what is happening?

hamas is trying to commit genocide regularly.

As Hamas is losing its military grip on northern Gaza, more people begin to voice their criticism of it publicly. It's not a tsunami by any means, but it's more than most people dared to do before. Here are just a few examples:

I keep mentioning Hezbollah attacking Israel from Lebanon. This is the damage caused to one Israeli army post guarding our northern border, when it was attacked yesterday:

There's talk about a hostage deal, but it's still not clear if it will be approved by Israel's war cabinet. I'll say this, the initial talk was about Hamas releasing 100 hostages. Then it dropped to 70. Now the deal seems to be about 50 hostages (Hamas claims it would need to find out and gather the hostages it's not holding itself for it to be more). Israel asked for all the kids and mothers to be released, it was its own demand. There are 39 kids in Gaza, they will not all be released in a deal for the exchange of just 50 people.

How do you leave kids behind, in captivity? How do you release babies without their mothers? Mothers without their kids? Grandmothers without their families? But that's what Hamas is forcing Israel to choose.

In exchange, Israel is said to be releasing somewhere between 200 and 300 prisoners. And I can't help thinking about the fact that all of the death and destruction that has befallen both Israelis and Palestinians since Oct 7 has been under the leadership of Yahya Sinwar, a man who was in an Israeli prison in the past, and released in 2011 in a hostage exchange deal. He's aided by others who were also released in the same deal. Who knew back then that by freeing one Israeli hostage, we were dooming so many people in the not too distant future?

And of course, there's the question of how reliable Hamas is. Everyone estimates that it might employ tricks, to try and force the temporary stop in the fighting to continue? The one thing I've heard practically everyone agree on, even the families of the hostages say this, that they don't want the release of hostages to come at the cost of Hamas staying in power, and continuing to endanger every single Israeli civilian, meaning every single women, every single elderly person, every single kid in Israel.

Impossible choices.

Here's the story of Hamid, an Israeli Muslim Arab, whose wife was murdered on Oct 7, and who chose to risk his life, and the life of his baby boy, in order to save several soldiers from Hamas terrorists.

The IDF has been releasing a lot of incriminating intel on the Shifa hospital in Gaza being used by Hamas. There's footage of a drone going into a terror tunnel underneath it.

There's pics of the weapons found there. There's the results of an investigation into the fate of 19 years old Noa Marziano, who was kidnapped by Hamas, lightly injured in an IDF strike, which killed the terrorist who was guarding her, another terrorist took her into the basement at the Shifa hospital, and killed her there, then Hamas tried to stage "evidence" that she was killed in the IDF strike. And most recently, there's CCTV footage showing Hamas bringing in hostages (one man from Nepal and one from Thailand) into Shifa, with the terrorists being armed, and all of this was done in broad daylight, and right in front of the medical staff.

Of course anti-Israelis, including the Hamas, said it was just bringing hostages in to get treatment.

But here's the thing, Shifa is on the Western side of Gaza, while Hamas breached the Israeli border in the east. On the way between the border and where this hospital is located, there are plenty of other medical facilities on the way. Any of them would be preferable if the goal was to give the hostages medical treatment as soon as possible. But they took these kidnapped men all the way to Shifa instead. Because that's Hamas' headquarters.

I've known for years, like most Israelis, that Hamas is using medical facilities like hospitals and ambulances for its terrorist activity. This evidence does not surprise me. But I think it didn't really sink in for me until yesterday, just how many people knew and kept silent. I'm not even talking about the Gazan medical staff. They live under the constant threat of Hamas, I don't blame them. But the UN, the Red Cross, all of those "noble" NGO's operating from Gaza (and getting a lot of donations to do so), all of those foreigners with access to Gaza, who knew the situation on the ground, and chose to lie, and continued to do so even after the Oct 7 massacre... WTF is wrong with these people? By keeping quiet, they endangered both Israeli civilians (who Hamas could continue to target with impunity when operating from inside medical facilities), and Palestinian ones that Hamas endangered by using them as human shields.

Who is going to hold these people accountable? Who is going to make them pay for their complicity in endangering so many people, millions altogether, on both sides of the border, so that they never dare do this again?

Have ANY of them come forward, apologized, taken responsibility for their long complicity? I've heard of no such thing. In fact, I assume that they will only raise the volume of their accusations against and vilification of Israel, to drown out the voices asking these questions.

In this tweet you can hear an interview (starting at around 35 seconds in) with one of the few foreign doctors, who had worked at the Shifa hospital, and who after Hamas' massacre, did not come forward with his testimony about what he'd seen and experienced while he was there, but did agree to have it recorded once he was asked to. If Hamas is finally taken down, we might get to hear more of these, and I guess... better late than never.

In the midst of all of this, Israel has helped evacuate babies from the Shifa hospital to ones in Egypt, and the equipment to established a second Jordanian field hospital has entered Gaza today.

Israel continues to be attacked by Iran-funded rockets from the south, from the north by Iran-funded Hezbollah, as well as from Syria, by the Iran-funded Houthis in Yemen, by independent terrorist attacks, and online from cyber attacks, by Iran-funded and even Iranian hackers. I kind of tend not to talk about these that much, because they're on going. It's happening every single day, and Israel, in the middle of the fight to destroy Hamas, has to also defend its people on these fronts.

The anger and hurt over the denial of rapes that happened as part of Hamas' massacre continues, and more people are trying to speak up against it:

This is 15 years old Itay Cohen.

He's a triathlete, and was in the middle of a training session, cycling in the south, when Hamas terrorists shot him. He was taken to a hospital without any family by his side, because his parents were locked inside a bomb shelter in their kibbutz. Itay took a bullet to the head, and lost his eyesight, but somehow survived. So did his parents. He vowed he won't stop training, despite his new disability. This terror attack has changed countless lives, from among the survivors as well.

Live reporting stated the Israeli army had announced "Operation Swords of Iron," its retaliatory attack against Hamas in Gaza, in the hours after this.

Accounts from the survivors of the attack and recollections pieced together from footage posted online do not show evidence of airstrikes at the time of the Hamas invasion. A quote attached to the post on X with the video, describing Israeli pilots as being unable to distinguish between civilian and military targets, cites no sources or evidence.

Others have provided compelling evidence demonstrating the claim's flaws. In a post on X from November 10, 2023, viewed 2.5 million times, OSINT investigators GeoConfirmed and contributors provided a series of coordinates, images, and map printouts that it said corresponded with locations in the film.

The locations it cited were near the Gaza border fence, three miles from the festival site, which matches reporting of where the IDF response was concentrated following Hamas' attack.

Furthermore, it makes no sense that the Israel Defense Forces would put out a film showing their murdering of fellow citizens, let alone two days after the deaths.

The article clearly states that "Hamas likely had no ADVANCE knowledge of the music festival."

You dropped the word "advance," making it seem as if Hamas didn't know about the party at all.

The implication is clear. If Hamas didn't know about the festival, they couldn't be present there, and couldn't have killed anyone at this scene. And who cares if there actually are countless testimonies and footage that show differently?

That's why dropping 'advance' makes a huge difference in the meaning. Hamas didn't know about the party ahead of the attack, but the article's byline clarifies that Hamas DID learn about it as they began their infiltration of Israel.

You don't need me to analyze this article.

The intentional dropping of a meaningful word, and dismissal of the byline, is a continuation of this massacre denial attitude that I addressed here:

Because once more, the implication is clear. If Hamas didn't know about the party and wasn't there, but there were over 360 Israelis murdered at the scene, someone had to kill them, right? So why not blame the Israeli soldiers that got there? Why not victim blame the Israelis, accuse them of having perpetrated their own massacre, regardless of endless testimonies and video footage to the contrary?

This is also done with the one other line you referred to, the one saying that it's possible some were killed by an IDF helicopter that arrived to rescue Israelis, and was firing at the Hamas terrorists. Of course it's possible, it sadly happens when trying to rescue people under fire. But it's that rescue that remains the main context, which is being ignored here. In the words of Suleiman Maswade, an East Jerusalem Arab journalist who I got to hear talking about this, what people have done is to take one line, blow it up, generalize from it, and ignore the rest, which does amount to a distortion of the article.

No one needs me to analyze the article in order to not focus on one sentence in it, while ignoring everything else.

The one line that the massacre deniers focus on says this:

I emphasized 'apparently,' which indicates that while this is a possibility, this has not yet been confirmed beyond a doubt, and also the word 'some,' which implies a small number. For sure, it wouldn't be the word used to describe the killing of 364 people.

But I'll do more than this, I'm gonna add here a quote from another article, one that deals with the rapes that took place at the music festival. I'll point out the second paragraph, where the ripping of clothes of the victims, piles upon piles of bodies, is mentioned. They were raped and then shot with one bullet in the head.

Helicopters don't do that.

Since no one needs me in order to not be a massacre denier, I'm not sure I would have addressed this, except Suleiman Maswade's comment (about the distortion of this article) was made in the context of Hamas AND the Palestinian Authority (for which Mahmoud Abbas, its chairman, is responsible) are doing this.

So I'm posting this, because it should be clear to everyone, that any person denying the massacre, or trying to shift the blame onto those who tried to rescue the victims, has a part of their soul missing.

(I'm not getting into whether a cease fire would work. I want to point out the polarization and threatening behavior of US organizations that are punishing Jews for not supporting its policies)

I saw mourning. I saw pleas for peace. I heard calls for the destruction of Hamas, for antisemitism to end in the United States, for an end to both Israeli AND Palestinian suffering, and many, many calls for Hamas to release the 200 hostages they still have. I heard a Pakistani womans rights activist say that she believes peace in the Levant is possible because it was possible in South Asia.

Know what I didn't see? I didn't see signs calling for the deaths of Palestinians the way Pro-Palestine demonstrations have had signs with swastikas and "gas the jews" on them. I didn't see any hate symbols.

But if you don't see the issue with comparing the antisemitic DSA to the ADL, the biggest Jewish advocacy NGO...

Or if you have an issue with JVP being called out on their antisemitism; they don't simply want peace, they associate with Jew-murdering terrorists and with Holocaust deniers. The ADL should be calling them out on their antisemitism. They're also perpetrating the lie that Israel is committing a genocide which I called out as false. They call for a ceasefire without asking for the hostages to be released; and without caring about providing Israeli citizens with security after the October 7th massacre. That's an antisemitic demand if it ignores Jewish hostages and Jewish Israeli civilians.

https://theintercept.com/2023/11/11/palestine-israel-protests-ceasefire-antisemitic/

The number of murdered victims at the music festival was thought to be over 260. It has now been confirmed to be over 360. IDK if this updates the total figure of victims in the massacre, but if it doesn't (meaning, if this is just identifying which victims were killed at which scene), it means almost a third of the civilians slaughtered by Hamas, were killed at that party. Young people who just wanted to dance, enjoy life and celebrate peace.

This picture from Gaza yesterday shows Hamas terrorists (you can see the RPG one of them is carrying) walking down the street escorted by kids, who are being used as human shields.

And another Hamas terrorist admitting that this is an intentional tactic used by the organization:

A Brit reporting from Israel:

The Iran-funded Houthis in Yemen have kidnapped a ship for being "Israeli." It's likely rented by an Israeli company, but it's been confirmed that there are no Israelis on board this ship. This incident is a clear escalation from Iran's proxies. The ship was traveling from Turkey to India with an international crew of 22 people, meaning all of their countries are now involved.

UEFA refused to hold a minute of silence for the Israeli victims at the start of a match between the Israeli and Polish youth national teams in soccer, despite the fact that it's customary to do so when terror attacks take place. The youth teams decided on their own not to play during the first minute of the game. Might I add, the Israeli national teams include Arabs.

You might remember that I posted about 12 years old Liel Hezroni being pronounced dead a few days ago. It happened after the evidence showed there was no chance for her to survive what the Hamas terrorists did in the murder scene where the rest of her family's bodies were found (when it's known that she was with them), and despite no body of hers having been identified. Today, remains of a body found by archeologists (employed to help with the ashes of the massacre victims) were confirmed to be hers, and now she can at least be given a proper funeral. May her memory be a blessing.

In case you still think the world is treating Israeli victims fairly, here's a small reminder of how much our lives don't count... When we're putting up posters of our kidnapped women and kids, people feel comfortable ripping them down.

Hamas is claiming the death of a third Israeli hostage in captivity. They claim he died of a heart attack. Yeah, that might happen to an 86 year old kidnapped and tortured. And if that's what happened, then it's still murder.