IDF Chief Of Staff Visits Wounded Soldiers: ‘Moved By What I’ve Seen’
IDF Chief of Staff LTG Eyal Zamir, accompanied by his wife Orna, visited the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Medical Center on Wednesday (9th) together with the center’s director Dr. Chagai Amir, and met with IDF wounded who were injured in combat across various sectors.
The Chief of the General Staff and his wife toured the various departments, spoke with the wounded and their families, listened to their stories and extended their blessings ahead of the Passover holiday.
The Chief expressed his deep appreciation to the medical teams and Casualties Directorate personnel for their vital work.
“I came here to see you before Passover. I came to give you strength – but I’m the one who is moved by what I’ve seen. There is extraordinary strength here. Here we have all of Israel – from Kfar Tapuach, from New York, from Keshet, from Hod HaSharon, and various other communities and cities. We have religious, secular, and ultra-Orthodox, and we have reservists and active-duty soldiers. You made sacrifices and were willing to give everything, and you were wounded. I believe that is heroism. I want to express my deep appreciation and thanks – first and foremost to you and to the medical teams.” Zamir told the wounded soldiers.
He added: “There are fifty-nine hostages, and we are doing everything we can to bring them back to their homes and families. Everything you have done has contributed to this mission. We have brought many of them back, both those who fell and those who survived. Still, our mission is to bring everyone home, and that is what we are doing. We have lost many troops, many soldiers, and we owe them a profound moral debt. We are committed to their memory, and we will continue to stand by you and your families, supporting you in every way possible.”
The Chief of Staff concluded: “I’m leaving here optimistic seeing you, but I’ll tell you – this is a battle after the battle. After the battle you’ve fought, now you are fighting another one: the battle of rehabilitation.”
Israel Eliminates Senior Hamas Commander In Massive Northern Gaza Attack
Israel assassinated a senior Hamas commander responsible for planning and carrying out attacks in an airstrike in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of northern Gaza on Wednesday morning (9th), the IDF reported.
The IDF told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the strike was aimed at a high-ranking terrorist and that multiple measures were taken to minimize civilian harm. While the ministry did not confirm the identity of the target, Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya reported that the man killed was Haitham al-Sheikh, commander of Hamas’ Shijaiyah Battalion.
Palestinian media reported that dozens of people were killed in the strike, but it could not be verified.
The strike occurred around 11: a.m. according to initial Palestinian reports. A local resident described several missiles hitting a building, with shrapnel flying around.
The IDF has been operating in and around Shijaiyah since late last week amid a stalemate in negotiations to release 59 hostages still held by Hamas. The IDF said the goal of its operations was to deepen control and expand its security perimeter in the area.
Haitham al-Sheikh is the third Shijaiyah Battalion commander to be killed since the war began on October 7, 2023. On March 23, the IDF and Shin Bet announced the killing of his predecessor, Jamil Amar Wadia, who led the battalion for much of the war. He replaced Wisam Farhat, who was killed in December 2023.
According to Israeli security officials, Wadia had overseen the battalion’s operations against IDF forces and was involved in rebuilding its capabilities. He was also linked to a 2011 anti-tank missile attack on a school bus that killed Israeli teenager Daniel Viflic.
US Senate Confirms Huckabee As Next Israel Envoy
The US Senate voted almost entirely along party lines on Wednesday (9th) to confirm the nomination of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to be Washington’s ambassador to Israel.
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania – an ardent supporter of Israel and virtually the only Democratic ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – was the lone lawmaker to break with his party by joining Republicans in backing Huckabee’s nomination.
The final vote tally was 53 to 46 in favor of Huckabee, a passionate evangelistic supporter of Israel and its West Bank settlement movement.
Despite his conservative views on Israel, which include support for Israel annexing the West Bank and opposition to a two-state solution, Huckabee stressed during his confirmation-hearing that he would work to advance the policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration, not his own personal agenda.
He said last month that he hoped to arrive in Israel by Passover, which starts on Saturday evening the 12th.
In the coming weeks, he’ll move into the ambassador’s residence in downtown Jerusalem.
Huckabee has long–rejected the term “West Bank” preferring to refer to the disputed territory by its biblical name, “Judea and Samaria.”
Huckabee, 69, grew up in the city of Hope, Arkansas, and first traveled to Israel as a teenager. He has gone on to regularly lead Christian groups in the five decades since.
“It’s going to be a privilege to be one of those people – not Jewish, but Christian – who will say to our Jewish friends, ‘You will never go through what you’ve gone through alone,” Huckabee said during his confirmation hearing, referring to Hamas’ October 7 onslaught and its aftermath. “We will not stand behind you. We will stand with you.”
Hatred Of Hamas Doesn’t Alter The Endemic Palestinian Hatred Of Israel And The Jews – Melanie Phillips
Some people are misinterpreting the demonstrations against Hamas as a sign that Gazans are people who are fit to produce an alternative form of self-government. That’s a delusion. This is a population that over many generations has been indoctrinated with the myth that their highest calling is to murder Israelis and appropriate all their land.
They have turned into fanatics in the cause of genocidal Islamic holy war by the unremitting transmission of Nazi-style propaganda that the Jews are a demonic conspiracy of blood-sucking parasites that must be eliminated from the world. The fact that some now hate Hamas doesn’t change any of that.
The demonstrators are the same people who, on Oct. 7, poured into Israel across the shattered border fence behind the Hamas stormtroopers and themselves took part in that barbaric orgy of rape, slaughter and kidnapping. They are the same people who jeered at, abused and desecrated the bodies of the Israelis who were dragged into Gaza. The hostages who have returned have said that they were shown no kindness by the ordinary Gazans who held them captive in their houses. Not one Gazan shielded them or helped them escape.
The Arabs living in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria are similarly indoctrinated. Fatah, the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority led by the allegedly “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas, has repeatedly celebrated the Oct. 7 atrocities. Opinion polling has shown that the Palestinian Arabs in these territories overwhelmingly support further “such attacks” against Israeli Jews.
There’s never been another conflict like this, where people who set out to exterminate “another people” and “its homeland,” but lose that war, then become the focus of global sympathy and can dictate the policies of the world. In other conflicts, if aggressors lose the war of conquest they have waged, they are in no position to dictate to anyone. As aggressors, they have forfeited the right to have any say over their future.
Yet, despite the fact that the Palestinian Arabs have waged a campaign of extermination against the Jewish homeland for the best part of a century, they’ve been treated with kid gloves and have dictated the global agenda. They are indeed victims – not of Israel but of the lies with which their own Arab world has enslaved them to a cult of death and destruction.
The writer is a columnist for the Times-UK. (JNS)
(jns.org)
Trump Says That Israel Would Lead Military Action To Thwart Iran’s Nuclear Program, Should Such Action Be Required
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (9th) that if military action is required to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, Israel will be involved and even head the effort.
“With Iran, if it requires a military, we’re going to have a military. Israel will be the leader of that.”
Asked what his deadline would be for Iran to reach a deal, the President replied, “I can’t really be specific, but when you start talks, you know if they’re going along well or not, and I would say the conclusion would be when I think they’re not going well.”
Trump has repeatedly said that he would prefer to reach a deal with Iran rather than have to attack its nuclear facilities, but has left the military option on the table.
Trump announced on Monday (7th), during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that the US would hold direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program over the weekend, beginning Saturday (12th).
Despite the US president’s claims that the talks would be direct, Iranian officials insist the encounter would involve indirect engagement rather than face-to-face talks.
Iran recently rejected Trump’s offer for direct talks, as outlined in a letter sent by the President to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump then warned that “bad things” would happen to Iran if it does not agree to a deal on its nuclear program.
Later, the President warned Iran that “if they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing–and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,”
Iran’s Water Crisis Threatens The Regime – Hugh Fitzgerald
Iran is suffering its worst water crisis of its entire modern existence. Decades of neglect and mismanagement of its water infrastructure by the Iranian government, along with geopolitical factors that have cut off Tehran’s access to the foremost experts in water management – the hated state of Israel – are two of the factors.
So is the steep rise in Iran’s population, which went from 37 million when the ayatollahs’ regime took over, to 90 million today, with the obvious concomitant rise in water use.
The nuclear project that Iran’s rulers insist on continuing has cost the country tens of billions of dollars in both direct costs and from the sanctions imposed on Iran by the West – money that might have been spent on water conservation, advanced water-saving irrigation techniques, desalination plants, and even on the Watergen machines, a recent Israeli invention that produces drinking water from the circumambient air.
Furthermore, the nuclear facilities require a great deal of water to keep them cooled so that there is no danger of meltdown.
“Iran is drying up,” Dr. Sharona Mazalian Levi from The Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University affirmed, painting a grim picture of what she described as one of the most pressing environmental challenges facing the Islamic Republic today.
“Iran is facing an unprecedented water crisis that threatens the nation’s stability,” Mazalian Levi said. She explained that multiple factors have converged to create this critical situation, with several major provinces now reaching what she deemed “a tippling point.”
The water crisis is almost everywhere in Iran, but at its worst in four of the country’s main provinces, including Tehran. The Karaj Dam, on which people in Tehran, the capital, rely, is down to only 6% of capacity. And the water level is still decreasing.
Mazalian Levi referred to reports from Iran’s news media that 94% of the reservoir is empty. “This is not just an environmental issue; it’s a potential catalyst for civil unrest and disorder that could lead to national instability.”
The Iranian regime has decided to rely as little as possible on the outside world for help.
However, it really could use some of the water-saving irrigation methods developed by the Israelis, such as Drip Irrigation, and the advanced desalination plants in whose construction Israel is a world leader.
But none of this is available to the Iranian country since the ayatollahs determine to have nothing to do with the “Zionist entity.”
