Two Terrorists Eliminated In Jenin
Forces from the IDF’s Duvdevan Unit and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) eliminated two terrorists in Jenin on Wednesday evening (22nd).
The defense establishment is investigating whether the terrorists who were eliminated are the ones who carried out the attack in Funduq two weeks ago, in which Elad Winklestein, Rachel Cohen and Aliza Rize were murdered.
The elimination was part of the IDF’s ongoing operation in Jenin. The two terrorists were eliminated following a “pressure-cooker” procedure (an IDF tactic designed to deal with an enemy barricaded in a house) on a building in Wadi Burqin that lasted about four hours and included an exchange of fire.
An IDF investigation revealed that the terrorists who carried out the Funduq attack came from the Jenin and Qabatiya areas in northern Samaria, with two of them known to defense officials. The military post at the entrance to the village, which is not permanently manned, was empty for about half an hour before the murders.
Following the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a situational assessment in which he approved actions to apprehend the terrorists, including additional defensive and offensive operations in Judea and Samaria.
Winklestein, 35, a father of two, was an investigator at the Ariel police station. He is survived by his wife and two children.
Cohen, 73, was an education guidance counselor and the mother of five daughters. Rize, whose surprise 70th birthday party was planned for next week, was also a guidance counselor and one of the founders of Kedumim. The two women were close friends.
Judea And Samaria Flooded With Iranian Weapons
Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria are heavily armed with weapons smuggled into the territory by Iran, a former intelligence official told Hebrew-language media on Wednesday (22nd).
Yossi Ammousi, who was a senior agent at the Shin Bet Internal Intelligence Agency, told Radio 103 FM that he backs aggressive anti-terror raids in the region.
“We know that northern Samaria is flooded with Iranian weapons, ones that are much more aggressive,” Ammousi said. He noted that many of the weapons include advanced “explosives, as we saw in the recent attack in which an IDF soldier was killed.”
Ammousi warned that residents of Israeli communities on the so-called “Seam Line,” bordering PA-controlled cities, could potentially be subjected to an Oct. 7-style attack.
“If Hamas in Judea and Samaria had the same tools as Hamas in Gaza, what happened in Kfar Aza [a kibbutz targeted by Hamas] would happen in Kfar Saba [ a Tel Aviv suburb in central Israel],” he said.
He encouraged the IDF to adopt tactics used to fight terror in Gaza, including “displacing the civilian population from a certain area, and going from house to house until we reach the last of the terrorists.”
Ammousi said he was concerned that the release of terrorists who are considered ‘folk heroes’ among many Palestinians will likely encourage future attacks.
“Zakaria Zubeidi is supposed to return to Jenin, and he is an inspiring figure for terror,” Ammousi said.
Terrorists could launch attacks simply to celebrate the release of these prisoners, he stressed.
“The IDF and Shin Bet must be working at full strength. If the released prisoners return to terror activity, they will have to be thwarted, eliminated or arrested,” he said.
He said that he supported the recently launched Operation Iron Wall which targets terrorists and their infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.
However, Ammousi noted that “on the surface,” this operation does not appear “significantly different” from previous campaigns that failed to permanently root out the threat.
Amid Ceasefire: Gaza Terror Tunnel Discovered Near Israel
Since the ceasefire began, there have been numerous attempts by Gazans to breach the border perimeter. Some instances were met with warning shots, while in other cases, Israeli forces fired to kill in response to infiltrations.
During the efforts to clear the perimeter, IDF soldiers in southern Gaza located a tunnel shaft. The discovery is particularly concerning given Hamas’ ongoing control over significant parts of Gaza and the presence of hundreds of thousands of Gazans in the southern region of the Strip.
The proximity of the tunnel shaft to the fence shows that despite aggressive IDF operations in Gaza, the threat of infiltration into Israel persists. This underlines the need for continued efforts to neutralize Hamas, which is reestablishing its control over Gaza.
Currently, the IDF is working to establish a series of outposts along the perimeter, which is approximately 200 meters wide in most areas, and as narrow as 400 meters in certain sections.
Joseph Haddad: ‘We Must Speak To Our Enemies In The Language Of The Middle East’
Arab-Israeli activist Joseph Haddad spoke with Israel National News about the growing challenge of advocating for Israel on the world stage.
Haddad explains that BDS supporters have millions and millions of dollars and they outnumber us because they have millions of people from the Arab world and from the Western world, who came from the Middle East to the West.
According to Haddad, the anti-Israel side “prepared themselves for the judgment day, and the judgment day was October 7th. While we only focused on the ground – military force; we didn’t focus on advocacy, or explaining what’s going on – but, today it goes together.”
He said the “Arab world could not defeat Israel militarily so they focused their millions of dollars and programs into the propaganda that they are using and they put their virus everywhere: in politics, in academics, in sports, in television, everywhere. They prepared themselves for exactly this situation and that’s why they are better than us. The only advantage we have is the truth backed up by the facts, and they lie. Every time we expose those lies, that’s when we win.”
To prove the importance of advocating for Israel in hostile locations, Joseph recounts a speaking engagement in New York that only four students attended. “The event organizer came and asked, ‘Do you want to just call it off?’ I said, ‘For four people, I’m going to do a full lecture.’ I did not realize who I was speaking to. At the end of the lecture, a student told me that ‘next week, there is supposed to be a resolution against Israel to boycott Israel. I am the head of the student body – I’m going to block it. And indeed, a week later he blocked that resolution. One student – one big change. Every voice counts and that’s why I will fight for every voice.”
After the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect, the terror organization celebrated it as a victory. Haddad comments on this phenomenon and states: “If we decimated Hamas, and turned Gaza into a parking lot, and one Hamas terrorist would be left, he would get up with a V-sign and say ‘We won.’ This is Hamas. So I’m not impressed by it.”
According to him, while Hamas may be claiming victory, the Arab world and the people of Gaza know that the organization was defeated. He explains that the reason they feel that they won while Israelis feel like they lost despite the IDF having massive successes, is that “we treasure and value life and even if one Israeli was killed, for us it is the whole world. That’s why we feel like this. But the Palestinians lost 40,000 people because of Hamas but they still celebrate it. They do that to try and manipulate the world, but deep down they know that they lost and they lost big time.” He added that the Arab world also understands Israel’s power.
As the main front of the war moves from Gaza to Judea and Samaria, with Hamas calling on residents of the region to fight Israel, Haddad has a message for those residents: “If you don’t want Jenin and Ramallah to become Jabaliya and Khan Yunis – do not fight.”
With a new administration in the White House, Haddad shows strong optimism: “The people who Trump chose to be in his administration are all Zionists – proper Zionists. They speak better than a lot of Israeli Jews here. Donald Trump is a businessman so you can’t know exactly where he will go, but we cannot ignore the fact that he loves Israel and he wants to see Israel secure.”
Joseph said that President Trump also understands the Arab world and relates something an Emirati once told him: “The Arab world loved Barak Obama, but did not respect him. The Arab world hates Donald Trump, but they are afraid of him and that’s why they respect him.” He said that this strength and respect will lead to the expansion of the Abraham Accords between Israel and the Arab states.
He added that he works to get Israelis to understand that “we are a Western country, but we are a Western country in the Middle East. and we’ve got to learn to balance those two things. We have to understand, being part of the Middle East is speaking to our enemies in the language of the Middle East.”
Trump’s Executive Order Allows Deportation Of Foreign Hamas Supporters
President Trump has enacted an executive order enabling the deportation of foreign students and other non-citizens from the US who are expressing support for organizations that the US government has designated as terrorist groups.
According to a key section in the order released by the new administration: “To protect Americans, the United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those aliens approved for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests. More importantly, the United States must identify them before their admission or entry into the United States.”
“The United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes towards its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security,” the document stated.
During his campaign, Trump pledged the deportation of foreign students participating in campus unrest and anti-Israel demonstrations that express solidarity with Hamas and Hezbollah, both organizations designated as terrorist groups by Washington.
Hamas Terrorists Have Stopped Dressing As Women. They’ll Soon Have To Start Again – Col. Richard Kemp
Until Sunday (19th), the survivors of Hamas’ terror army were skulking inside what’s left of their tunnel network, hiding in civilian houses, mosques, schools and hospitals or embedding themselves into humanitarian areas on the coast. They disguised themselves as civilians, sometimes dressed as women and journalists and never daring to openly carry weapons above ground. Today they are out on the streets of Gaza proudly wearing their green bandanas and combat uniforms while flaunting assault rifles and rocket launchers.
Since the ceasefire was agreed upon, the terrorist leaders have been renewing their vows to kill more Jews and launch repeated Oct.7-style massacres. Meanwhile, hordes of Gazan civilians have flooded into the streets, mostly healthy in appearance, well dressed, and many visibly over-fed. A far cry from the picture Hamas, the UN, human rights’ groups and so much of the media have painted for the last 15 months: of disease and famine at the hands of the Israelis. These “innocent“ civilians have been screaming themselves hoarse with an Arabic rallying cry calling for the slaughter of Jews.
The fight will certainly have to be resumed: It is for Jerusalem to calibrate when and how that is done. That equation will also have to be factored into wider strategic imperatives, not least a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear program, which now becomes a more realistic proposition with Donald Trump back in the White House.
The writer, a former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan, was chairman of the UK’s national crisis management, COBRA. (Telegraph-UK)
