JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
COCKROACH DEATH CULT ISLAM SHOOTS 19 ROCKETS AT ISRAEL.THESE LAKE OF FIRE GOERS ARE TESTING ISRAEL-THEY WOULD ALL BE IN HELL ALREADY IF I WAS THE LEADER OF ISRAEL (ITS CALLED NUKES)
WARN THE PEOPLE-WW3
EZEKIEL 33:1-6
1 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman:
3 If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
4 Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head.
5 He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.
6 But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.
DANIEL 11:40-45 (WW3 BREAKDOWN)
40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south( EGYPT) push at him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) and the king of the north (RUSSIA AND MUSLIM HORDES OF EZEK 38+39) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.
41 He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.(JORDAN)
42 He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape.
43 But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.
44 But tidings out of the east(CHINA 2ND WAVE OF WW3) and out of the north(RUSSIA, MUSLIMS WHATS LEFT FROM WAVE 1) shall trouble him:(EU DICTATOR IN ISRAEL) therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many.( 1/3RD OF EARTHS POPULATION)
45 And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
ISAIAH 24:1
1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,(NUKES USED) and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.(WORLD IMMIGRATION)
GENESIS 16:11-12
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael;(ARAB/MUSLIM) because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12 And he will be a wild man;(RIOTS-BURNING-MURDEROUUS RAGE) his hand will be against every man,(ISLAM WANTS WORLD DOMINATION) and every man's hand against him;(DEFENDING THEMSELVES) and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.(ARAB/MUSLIMS LIVE WITH ISRAELIS)
ISAIAH 33:1,18-19 Woe to thee that spoilest,(destroys) and thou wast not spoiled;(destroyed) and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! when thou shalt cease to spoil,(destroy) thou shalt be spoiled;(destroyed) and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee.
18 Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers?
19 Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand.
JOHN 16:2
2 They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.(ISLAM MURDERS IN THE NAME OF THEIR MOON GOD ALLAH)
ISAIAH 14:12-23
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, (SATAN) son of the morning! (HEBREW MEANS CRESCENT MOON ANGEL-ISLAM OVIOUSLY)(SATAN IS THE GOD OF ISLAM) how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
MIGRATING BIRDS IN ISRAEL EATS HUMANS FLESH FOR COMING AGAINST ISRAEL-JERUSALEM
Ecclesiastes 9:10
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
EZEKIEL 31:10-17
10 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;
11 I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.
12 And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.
13 Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:
14To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.(HELL).
15Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
16 I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
17They also went down into hell with him unto [them that be] slain with the sword; and [they that were] his arm, [that] dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.
18To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with [them that be] slain by the sword. This [is] Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
EZEKIEL 32:17-32
17 It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth [day] of the month, [that] the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
18 Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, [even] her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.
19 Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.
20 They shall fall in the midst of [them that are] slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.
21 The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.
22 Asshur [is] there and all her company: his graves [are] about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword:
23 Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living.
24 There [is] Elam (IRAN) and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.
25 They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude: her graves [are] round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of [them that be] slain.
26 There [is] Meshech, Tubal,(RUSSIA) (GERMANY, TURKEY) and all her multitude: her graves [are] round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.
27And they shall not lie with the mighty [that are] fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though [they were] the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
28 Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with [them that are] slain with the sword.
29 There [is] Edom,(JORDAN) her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by [them that were] slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.
30 There [be] the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with [them that be] slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit.
31 Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, [even] Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord GOD.
32 For I have caused my terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with [them that are] slain with the sword, [even] Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.
EZEKIEL 38:1-23
1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:TOBOLSK)
4 And I (GOD) will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY) of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.(AFRICAN MUSLIMS,SUDAN,TUNESIA ETC)
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)
10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought:
11 And thou shalt say,(RUSSIA-ARAB-MUSLIMS) I will go up to the land of unwalled villages;(ISRAEL) I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
12 To take a spoil,(OIL IS IN SPOIL) and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
13 Sheba, and Dedan,(SAUDI-ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(SPAIN) with all the young lions thereof,(ENGLAND,AND ALL ITS ASSOCIATES-CANADA,AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND, USA, AND WESTERN ENGLISH SPEAKING NATIONS) shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?(OIL IS IN SPOIL-I BELIEVE THATS WHY RUSSIA,ARAB/MUSLIMS MARCH TO ISRAEL)
14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
15 And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:
16 And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.
EZEKIEL 39:11-22
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog (RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS) a place there of graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers (EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN JORDAN VALLEY) on the east of the sea: and it shall stop the noses of the passengers: and there shall they bury Gog (RUSSIAN) and all his multitude:(ARAB/MUSLIM HORDE) and they shall call it The valley of Hamongog.(BURIEL SITE OF THE 300 MILLION,RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIMS)
12 And seven months shall the house of Israel be burying of them, that they may cleanse the land.(OF ISRAEL)
13 Yea, all the people of the land (OF ISRAEL) shall bury them; and it shall be to them a renown the day that I (GOD-JESUS) shall be glorified, saith the Lord GOD.
14 And they shall sever out men of continual employment,(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMB EXPERTS) passing through the land to bury with the passengers those that remain upon the face of the earth, to cleanse it: after the end of seven months shall they search.
15 And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man’s bone, then shall he set up a sign by it,(WON'T TOUCH IT) till the buriers have buried it (PROPERLY) in the valley of Hamongog.(RUSSIA/ARAB/MUSLIMS NEW BURIEL SITE)(EAST OF THE DEAD SEA IN THE JORDAN VALLEY)
16 And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Thus shall they cleanse the land.(OF THE ISRAEL-GOD HATERS)
17 And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl,(500 MILLION MIGRATING BIRDS THREW ISRAEL EVERY SPRING,FALL) and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood.(OF THE RUSSIAN/ARAB/MUSLIM ARMIES)
18 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
19 And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
20 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.
21 And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.
22 So the house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God from that day and forward.
REVELATION 19:17-18
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;(AGAINST ALL NATIONS ARMIES THAT COME AGAINST JERUSALEM AND ISRAEL)
18 That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)
REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18 By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)(50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 32:18-29 (NOTICE ALL THE COUNTRIES LAND PROMISED ISRAEL BY GOD ARE IN THE JORDAN VALLEY BURIED)
18 “Son of man, wail for the multitudes of Egypt, and consign her and the daughters of the mighty nations to the depths of the earth with those who descend to the Pit:
19 Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be placed with the uncircumcised! (IN HELL FIRES)
20 They will fall among those slain by the sword. The sword is appointed! Let them drag her away along with all her multitudes.
21 Mighty chiefs will speak from the midst of Sheol about Egypt and her allies: ‘They have come down and lie with the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.’
22 Assyria (SYRIA) is there with her whole company; her graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword.
23 Her graves are set in the depths of the Pit, and her company is all around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who once spread terror in the land of the living.
24 Elam (IRAN) is there with all her multitudes around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who went down uncircumcised to the earth below, who once spread their terror in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit.
25 Among the slain they prepare a resting place for Elam with all her hordes, with her graves all around her. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, although their terror was once spread in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit. They are placed among the slain.
26 Meshech and Tubal (RUSSIA) are there with all their multitudes, with their graves all around them. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, because they spread their terror in the land of the living.
27 They do not lie down with the fallen warriors of old, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were placed under their heads, whose shields rested on their bones, although the terror of the mighty was once in the land of the living.
28 But you too will be shattered and lie down among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.
29 Edom (JORDAN) is there, and all her kings and princes, who despite their might are laid among those slain by the sword. They lie down with the uncircumcised, with those who descend to the Pit.THIS IS RIGHT FROM 93:
SECOND ANGEL: MIDDLE EAST
Then I saw that the second angel had a sickle in his hand, such as is used in harvesting.The second angel said: "Harvest time has come in Israel and the countries all the way to Iran."I saw those countries in a few split seconds."All of Turkey and those [inaudible] countries that have refused me and refused my message of love shall hate each other and kill one another."I saw the angel raise the sickle and come down on all the Middle East countries. I saw Iran, Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, all of Georgia - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, all of Asia Minor - full of blood. I saw blood all over these countries. And I saw fire; Nuclear weapons used in many of those countries. Smoke rising from everywhere. Sudden destruction – men destroying one another. I heard these words:"Israel, Oh Israel, the great judgment has come." The angel said, "The chosen, the church, the remnant, shall be purified. The Spirit of God shall prepare the children of God."I saw fires rising to heaven.The angel said: "This is the final judgment. My church shall be purified, protected and ready for the final day. Men will die from thirst. Water shall be scarce all over the Middle East. Rivers shall dry up, and men will fight for water in those countries."The angel showed me that the United Nations shall be broken in pieces because of the crisis in the Middle East. There shall be no more United Nations. The angel with the sickle shall reap the harvest.
PSALMS 83:1-8 (GODS LAND PROMISED TO ISRAEL)
1 O God, do not remain silent;do not turn a deaf ear,do not stand aloof, O God.
2 See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.
3 With cunning they (ARAB,MUSLIMS) conspire against your people;they plot against those you cherish.(ISRAELIS)
4 “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”
5 With one mind they plot together;(TREATIES) they form an alliance against you—
6 the tents of Edom (JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites, (EGYPTIAN ARABS SO CALLED PALESTIANS) of Moab (JORDAN) and the Hagrites,(EGYPT)
7 Byblos,(HEZBOLLOH) Ammon (JORDAN) and Amalek,(SYRIAN ARABS IN THE SINAI) Philistia,(ARABS) with the people of Tyre (LEBANON).
8 Even Assyria (SYRIA) has joined them to reinforce Lot’s descendants.
GENESIS 6:11-13
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
1 OF 3 GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO
1-PROMISCUOUS SEX AMOUNG EACH OTHER.
ROMANS 1:24
24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: (THE 60S FREE SEX)
2 OF 3 GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO
2-SODOMITES - MEN LUSTING MEN, AND WOMEN LUSTING AFTER WOMEN.
ROMANS 1:26-27
26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
3 OF 3 GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO
3-A DEPRAVED MIND-ANY SIN GOES.
ROMANS 1:28-31
28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER GOD GAVE THEM OVER TO THESE 3 DEPRAVED ABOMINATION SINS?
OH OH NOAHS DAY. WHAT HAPPENED IN NOAHS DAY. THE WHOLE WORLD WAS JUDGED BY WATER.
GENESIS 6:7,17
7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
17 And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
GENESIS 7:4
4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
GENESIS 8:16
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
WELL THE SODOMITES PICKED THE RIGHT SIGN OF A RAINBOW FOR JUDGEMENT. THE SODOMITES TRYED TO STEAL GODS SIGN THAT THE WHOLE EARTH WILL NEVER DIE FROM FLOOD WATERS AGAIN. BUT THE JUDGEMENT THIS TIME IS GOING TO BE BY FIRE.NOT WATER.
2 PETER 3:7
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
EZIKIEL 38:12-13
13 Sheba, and Dedan,(SAUDIA ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(ENGLAND) with all the young lions thereof,(USA,CANADA,AUSTRALIA,NEW ZEALAND,EU,ENGLAND,ENGLISH SPEAKING shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil? (AGAINST ISRAEL)
14 Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, (RUSSIA AND HER MUSLIMS HORDES)Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
5 Hamas leaders killed in recent attack on tunnel -- report-At least 19 rockets fired at Israel from southern Gaza, the largest barrage in weeks-Salvoes set off sirens in communities near border and around Kiryat Malachi, some 65 km from Strip; IDF confirms killing deputy head of Islamic Jihad arms manufacturing unit-By Emanuel Fabian,ToI Staff and Agencies 3 August 2024, 2:04 am
Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip launched several volleys of projectiles at southern Israel on Friday, marking some of the most intensive rocket fire from the coastal enclave in weeks.At least 19 rockets were launched from southern Gaza over a few-hour span, trigger warning sirens around the city of Kiryat Malachi — about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the Strip’s south — and in a number of communities along the border.There were no reports of injuries and all the rockets either landed in open areas or were downed by the Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israel Defense Forces.The IDF later said it carried out drone strokes on the rocket launchers used in the attacks, destroying them.Meanwhile, the army confirmed Friday that it had killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza, as fighting raged in the Strip’s south and center, while an Arabic-language report said the IDF recently killed five Hamas leaders in a tunnel under Gaza City.“We are ready to go far, we know how to make great efforts to bring very accurate intelligence, to attack, kill and also take risks,” said Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi in an overnight visit with troops in Gaza.“We attacked in Beirut and we are attacking in Gaza, and we will be very strong in defense, and then we will also attack very strongly,” he added.An Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday killed Hezbollah deputy leader Fuad Shukr. Hours later, Hamas political chief was killed by an explosion in Tehran, which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied taking part in. And on Wednesday, the IDF confirmed the death of Hamas military chief Muhammad Dief in a July 13 airstrike on southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.Mediators in talks with Hamas have expressed dismay at Haniyeh’s killing, saying it could throw a wrench in progress toward a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized Israeli negotiators to resume talks in Cairo in the coming days.The IDF also said Friday that troops with the 162nd Division killed more than 30 gunmen in close-quarters combat and by calling in airstrikes in southern Gaza’s Rafah in the past day.In the Netzarim Corridor in the central Gaza Strip, where the 252nd Division is deployed, reservists with the division’s Jerusalem Brigade spotted a cell of gunmen emerging from a tunnel, and called in a drone strike, according to the military.In the same area, amid operations by the Harel Reserve Armored Brigade, an attack helicopter struck a building used as a weapons depot, the IDF added.An Israeli airstrike killed Muhammad al-Jabari, the deputy head of a weapons manufacturing unit of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad responsible for the unit’s finances, the IDF said Friday. Palestinian media reports said al-Jabari was killed in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood.According to the army, al-Jabari “was entrusted with the organization’s production of weapons in the northern Gaza Strip, distribution of salaries and money to the organization’s terrorists, and took an active part in the attempt to restore the organization’s rocket production capabilities and infrastructure.”The military carried out “many steps” to mitigate harm to civilians in the strike, including using aerial surveillance and precision munitions, the IDF said.The London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Friday that the IDF killed two Hamas politburo members and three military commanders in a recent airstrike on a tunnel under Gaza City.The report, which cited Hamas sources, named those killed as political leaders Rawhi Mushtaha and Sameh al-Siraj along with three commanders from the group’s military wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades; Abdul Hadi Siam, Sami Odeh and Muhammad Hadid.Mushtaha has served as de facto prime minister of the Gaza Strip and is in charge of financial affairs within the Hamas politburo. He reportedly helped establish the Hamas military wing and was arrested by Israel in 1988 before being released in 2011 as part of the Shalit prisoner swap.He is said to be a close confidant of Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and is seen as one of the terror group’s most hawkish members.Siraj has served in the Hamas politburo since 2021 and is also in charge of internal security within the Strip. He reportedly headed a secret intelligence unit operating out of Turkey.The Hamas sources said the bodies of the assassinated leaders were pulled from the rubble after the most recent bombing in a complicated extraction effort that took several days. They were reportedly buried Thursday night.According to the report, the tunnel was used by the terror group as a command and control center and has rooms for sleeping, where operatives can hide out for extended periods.The IDF said in November that it had targeted Mushtaha and Siraj in a tunnel, but was unable to confirm their deaths.The sources quoted by Asharq Al-Awsat said the strike on the tunnel that killed the Hamas members took place around a week and a half ago, noting the underground hideout was partially damaged in an airstrike at the beginning of the ongoing war in Gaza, sparked by the terror group’s October 7 massacre.The onslaught saw thousands of terrorists storm southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 331.
Al-Aqsa imam eulogizes Haniyeh, is detained on suspicion of incitement, terror support-Interior minister says will revoke residency permit of Ekrima Sabri, a former grand mufti of Jerusalem with history of antisemitism, past accusations of terror incitement-By ToI Staff 2 August 2024, 7:32 pm
Police detained Al-Aqsa preacher Sheikh Ekrima Sabri on suspicion of incitement and supporting terrorism after he delivered a eulogy for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during Friday prayers.In his sermon, the former grand mufti of Jerusalem mourned “the martyr” Haniyeh, saying: “We ask Allah to have mercy on him and place him in paradise.”Footage on social media showed audience members chanting “Allah is great” and “with blood we shall redeem the martyr” during the imam’s sermon.The police said it had begun investigating an “imam suspected of making inciting statements and supporting terrorism during a sermon given today at the midday prayer on the Temple Mount.”Upon securing the state prosecutor’s approval for the probe, officers took Sabri from his East Jerusalem home for questioning at the Jerusalem District Central Investigations Unit, police said.The statement added that another person was detained on the Temple Mount for “shouts of incitement” during the service.Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s Doha-based political bureau, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday. Israel has not officially commented on the assassination of Haniyeh, but Iran, which hosted Haniyeh for the inauguration of its new president, has vowed to exact revenge on Israel.Interior Minister Moshe Arbel wrote to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to inform her he would revoke Sabri’s permanent residency permit.Sabri, 85, does not hold Israeli citizenship. He lives in East Jerusalem, most of whose Palestinian residents hold Israeli residency permits that are relatively easy for the interior minister to revoke.“Sabri holds a permit to reside permanently in Israel, which for many years now has not stopped him from inciting against the state, promoting antisemitism and terrorism and committing serious security crimes,” wrote Arbel, accusing the sheikh of publishing antisemitic literature, serving as a conduit for Hamas funds, and supporting terrorist acts.Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is reportedly the focus of a probe for alleged incitement of violence against Gazans, and who has been convicted of incitement to racism in the past, had called for the probe into Sabri, drawing parallels between the accusations against the two of them.“I hope the state prosecutor, who is seeking to investigate me for ‘incitement against the residents of Gaza,’ will act with the same resolve against a sheikh who incites for the murder of Jews on the Temple Mount,” wrote Ben Gvir on X, formerly Twitter, hours before the prosecutor approved the investigation into Sabri.The police have investigated Sabri for incitement before.In June, he was charged with inciting terrorism for comments he made that allegedly supported an attacker who shot at guards in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, killing a soldier, in October 2022.The imam was also accused of praising a terrorist who killed three Israelis and wounded six others in an April 2022 shooting in Tel Aviv.Sabri was appointed mufti of Jerusalem by late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1994. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas removed him from the post in 2006. He currently heads Jerusalem’s Supreme Muslim Council.In writings and interviews, Sabri has cast doubt on the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust and advocated studying the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an antisemitic tract from the early 20th century.The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound sits on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The flashpoint site is considered the third holiest in Islam and the holiest in Judaism.
Ministers said to be given satellite phones as region braces-Hezbollah moving top staff, equipment out of Beirut for fear of Israeli strike – report-IDF chief: Israel ‘willing to go far’ to hit anyone who attacks; Gallant, Halevi meet with UK counterparts in Tel Aviv; US reportedly yet to see signs Iran readying imminent strike-By ToI Staff and Emanuel Fabian-2 August 2024, 6:29 pmUpdated at 6:48 pm
Hezbollah is evacuating its senior personnel from the terror group’s strongholds in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in anticipation of potential Israeli strikes, Arabic media sources reported Friday.The Iran-backed group has also reportedly moved the military equipment it stored to areas further away from the Lebanese capital.The reported move came as the region braces for a potential escalation after the assassinations this week of top Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, whose killing in Tehran has been widely blamed on Israel.While the IDF has claimed responsibility for killing Shukr, Israel has not officially commented on the assassination of Haniyeh.Iranian and Hamas leaders vowed to take revenge against Israel for Haniyeh’s killing during funeral ceremonies in Tehran and Doha on Thursday and Friday. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said that the war against Israel had entered a “new phase” and Israel should expect “rage and revenge.”However, the US has not yet received any indication that Iran is preparing for a military strike on Israel, the Saudi Al-Hadath news outlet reported, citing unnamed sources from within the Biden administration.According to the report, US intelligence has not detected any significant movement of Iranian forces or equipment in recent days, and for now, there are no signs that the country is gearing up for an imminent strike on Israel.One of the US officials told Al-Hadath that Washington estimated that “Tehran will take time to decide on the type of response it launches, and it will take time to prepare the response.”The unnamed official said that Iran does not want war with Israel any more than Israel wants war with it, and that therefore the attack was not likely to be a large-scale assault.“But,” they said, “you are dealing with the Middle East, and anything can happen.”In Israel, government ministers have been issued satellite phones in preparation for possible retaliation, the Ynet news site reported.According to the report, the satellite phones were distributed due to concerns that a retaliatory attack by either Iran or Hezbollah, or both, could destroy telephone lines and knock out cell service.Some ministries have also provided staff with satellite phones as well, the report added, but stressed that “there should be no panic,” as the step was taken out of an abundance of caution and not because any specific intelligence information indicated that telephone infrastructure will be destroyed or damaged.Meanwhile, the skirmishes on the northern border continued Friday with rocket fire and drones launched by Hezbollah, and Israeli fighter jets struck two Hezbollah operatives in a building in southern Lebanon’s Blida, the IDF said.The military said the operatives had been identified by the 91st “Galilee” Regional Division at an area from which projectiles were fired at the Ramim Ridge earlier Friday.Additionally, a suspected drone that entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon was shot down over the Golan Heights. A fire was sparked in the area as a result of falling shrapnel. There were no injuries in the incident.Hezbollah also took responsibility for launching several rockets at an Israeli military base on the Lebanon border. Sirens had sounded in the community of Arab al-Aramshe, close to the base that Hezbollah claimed to have targeted. There were no injuries.Reservists of the Oded brigade spotted the operative behind the attack, and a short while later a drone struck him, the IDF said.Speaking to troops in Gaza on Thursday evening, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Israel is “willing to go far” to strike those who harm the country.“Those who attack the citizens of Israel, those who attack the State of Israel, we are ready to go far, we know how to make great efforts to bring very accurate intelligence, to attack, kill and also take risks,” Halevi told troops.“We attacked in Beirut and we are attacking in Gaza, and we will be very strong in defense, and then we will also attack very strongly,” he said.The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday said it was on “high alert” as the country braces for a response to the assassinations, but its spokesman pledged that the military knows how to handle any threat.Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that “the IDF is on high alert, both in defense and in attack. IDF troops are deployed in the air, at sea, and on the ground, and are ready for any scenario, and especially with plans to carry out attacks in the immediate timeframe.”He emphasized, however, that Israel’s defenses are “not hermetic.”In addition to increased aerial patrols, dozens of Israeli Air Force fighter jets were waiting on tarmacs, ready to launch an attack or defend against one, a Channel 12 TV report said.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, spoke with US President Joe Biden, who the White House said stressed America’s commitment to defending Israel’s security “against all threats from Iran.” The two discussed new US military deployments to protect against possible attacks from ballistic missiles and drones.The allied leaders’ phone call came as Israeli television reported that Israel was working to finalize the coordination of a regional and international coalition to thwart a potential response by Iran and Hezbollah to the killings of Haniyeh and Shukr, as was the case when Iran fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on April 13-14.And Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with his British counterpart, UK Secretary of State for Defense John Healey on Friday.A readout from the Defense Ministry said Gallant provided Healey with an “operational situation assessment.”The pair “discussed the important defense ties between Israel and the UK, and their shared commitment to maintaining and further strengthening cooperation in a number of strategic and military areas, including the field of intelligence.”“Gallant expressed his appreciation to the secretary for Britain’s ongoing support for Israel’s right to self-defense, and the important defense cooperation that took place when Israel was under attack in April,” the statement continued.“In light of recent developments, Minister Gallant discussed the IDF’s readiness and capabilities to defend Israel on all fronts, and emphasized the importance of establishing a coalition in Israel’s defense against Iran and its proxies. This would have a critical impact on regional and global security and stability,” the ministry said.The two also discussed the war in the Gaza Strip, according to the readout.Meanwhile, Halevi met with his British counterpart, Chief of the Defense Staff Adm. Sir Antony David Radakin.The IDF said the pair “held a situational assessment in which they discussed strategic security issues and cooperation in the region.”The United Kingdom was among several nations that aided Israel in defending against Iran’s attack on the country in April. Healy and Radakin visited Israel along with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.Agencies contributed to this report.
More airlines cancel flights as Israel braces for potential attack by Iran, its proxies-Aegean, LOT, ITA, KLM and Wizz Air are latest carriers to suspend Israel routes; some 400 travelers stuck in Prague for 3 days after foreign crew bails on Arkia-By ToI Staff Today, 9:46 pm-AUG 3,24
Greece’s Aegean, Poland’s LOT, Italy’s ITA, the Netherlands’ KLM and Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air became the latest airlines to suspend their Israel routes Friday, in anticipation of potential attacks by Iran and its regional proxies.The airlines join major carriers including United, Delta and Lufthansa who have canceled flights to and from Israel over the past two days.Wizz canceled all flights until August 4, KLM and Aegean until August 6, LOT until August 9 and ITA until October 26.Meanwhile, about 400 Israelis marked their third day stranded in the Prague airport on Friday, Hebrew media reported, as regional tensions have led at least 15 airlines to suspend their Israel routes, leaving an estimated 20,000 Israelis with no way home.The Prague passengers were supposed to return home Wednesday with Israeli airline Arkia. However, the plane and crew were foreign and refused to come to Israel for security reasons.“Arkia is doing everything to find replacements for the flights that used foreign planes,” the airline said. “The Prague passengers will depart today on two flights, one in the afternoon, in a plane brought specially from Poland, and one at night.”Several Sabbath-observant passengers were unsatisfied.“Unfortunately, we were put on the second flight, which is meant to leave past midnight, which definitely won’t work for us, since we’re Orthodox and the Sabbath begins before that,” a young woman visiting Prague with three other friends told the Ynet news site.The Kan public broadcaster recommended stranded Israelis go to Greece or Cyprus and board Israeli airlines’ flights back home.Hundreds of Israelis stranded in Prague as airline cancels flights amid security concerns. #BNM #Israel #Palestine #aviation https://t.co/AQWJrlTq3z pic.twitter.com/98GL1KIX1J— bne IntelliNews (@bneintellinews) August 2, 2024-The wave of cancellations was sparked by fears the regional conflict could escalate after Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran early Wednesday, hours after an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas have all promised vengeance on Israel.Despite the threats, Civil Aviation Authority chief Shmuel Zakai said Thursday that Israel’s airspace “is absolutely safe,” adding that the United States Federal Aviation Administration and its European counterpart held the same assessment.Many non-Israeli airlines stopped flights to and from Israel after the Gaza war broke out on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed the country’s south to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.Most resumed after several months, though Israeli airspace was briefly closed in April when Iran launched an unprecedented direct strike on Israel.
Netanyahu Meets with Home Front Command, Israelis Prepare after Ayatollah Calls for Strike against Israel-Chris Mitchell-08-02-2024
JERUSALEM, Israel – Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered a direct strike on Israel after the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.In Israel and throughout the Middle East, citizens, foreign nationals, businesses, and military personnel are preparing for the possibility of a regional war on multiple fronts, all at once.Some analysts believe Iran, along with its regional proxies, is preparing an even larger attack than when it launched more than 350 missiles, rockets, and UAVs at Israel on April 13th. Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari announced Thursday that the military is on high alert."Both in defense and in attack, IDF forces are deployed in the air, at sea, and on land and are prepared for any scenario, and especially for the attack plans in the immediate time frame," Hagari stated.With the prospect of an all-out war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Thursday with the Home Front Command."Israel is at a very high level of readiness for any scenario – both defensively and offensively," Netanyahu declared. "We will exact a very heavy price for any act of aggression against us from any arena."Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, now in uniform, reaffirmed to CBN News that Israel is prepared.“We are prepared for every possible contingency, every possible scenario, and anybody who strikes us will pay a very, very high price.”When asked about the state of the military's readiness, Oren responded, "Very high. Very high. I'm talking to you from the north, from the northern border. And the level of alert here is very high."Following a call between Netanyahu and President Joe Biden, the U.S. said it's committed to Israel's security from Iranian threats and announced new U.S. military deployments. Israel is also coordinating with an international coalition to face potential attacks.Iran's Speaker of Parliament, Bagher Qalibaf, blamed both Israel and the U.S. for the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran and vowed a massive retaliation. "The usurping Zionist regime should know that it will pay a heavy price for this cowardly night attack within the secure boundaries of the Islamic Republic – a price that will be beyond their logical calculations, God willing," Qalibaf said.Amid much speculation over how the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran was carried out last weekend, The New York Times reports he was killed in Tehran by a bomb planted in his apartment two months ago.Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned from Lebanon that the war with Israel entered a new phase after the killing, just hours before Haniyeh, of Fuad Shukur, Hezbollah's second-in-command.“The enemy and those behind the enemy must wait for our inevitable reaction, God willing," Nasrallah asserted. "There is no discussion or controversy about this.”U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) sent the terrorists a counter-warning from Washington.“It is time to end the charade that the world is playing when it comes to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. They're one in the same," he said.Graham is proposing a Senate resolution that any escalation by Hezbollah against Israel should be viewed as an attack by Iran, and he believes Israel should take the offensive against the Tehran regime's bread and butter.“It is time to hit the Ayatollah in the pocketbook. His oil refineries are the lifeblood of his regime. Without those refineries, they would not be able to fund terrorism,” the senator explained.Graham is also introducing a resolution that would authorize the use of military force by the United States to stop an Iranian nuclear breakout.Meanwhile, as Israelis prepare to be more prominent targets in the conflict, the nation is widely celebrating the performances of their Olympic athletes, especially the medal winners in judo and their promising prospects in windsurfing. It's a much-needed sign of resilience for a people that just marked 300 straight days of war and counting.
Analysis-Israel has long been good at assassinating enemies. Does it make a difference? Researchers say targeted killings can be effective in sending a message, boosting public morale but caution the blow they inflict on adversaries may not be long-lasting-Ron Kampeas-By Ron Kampeas Today, 5:44 am-AUG 1,24
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For decades, Israel’s leaders have sent a message to their enemies, loud and clear: Hit us, and you will die.It was true when Israel went after the terrorists who directed and carried out the attack that killed 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics. And it is now true of the Hamas terrorists who directed and carried out the October 7 massacre.Just 10 days after Hamas’ invasion, Mark Regev, then a government spokesman, made it explicit.“Our position is anyone in the Hamas command structure who was responsible for the October 7 massacre will pay a price,” Regev said at a Tel Aviv press conference. “We will reach them, and justice will be done.”Early Wednesday morning, Israel reached Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, in Tehran — the most senior Hamas official killed in the war. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the hit, but Hamas and Iran have blamed Israel. Earlier in July, Israel killed another top Hamas official: the commander of its military wing, Mohammed Deif.The United States has also carried out targeted assassinations — notably of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in 2011 and top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in 2020 — but for Israel, they have become a commonplace tool. It has killed at least 13 enemy officials outside the borders of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in the last year, and dozens over the decades.Exactly what such killings — which Israel’s top court ruled in 2006 are legal — accomplish isn’t clear cut, analysts say.Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, said that sometimes, the assassinations kill someone whose knowledge is essential to a group’s operations — setting their cause back in a concrete way, as Israel did by killing weapons scientists in Egypt, Iraq and Iran over the decades.But other times, the victim is quickly replaced.“I believe very strongly that some targeted assassinations make more sense and some make no sense at all,” he said.He cited the example of Fuad Shukr, the Hezbollah military commander whom Israel acknowledged killing in Beirut the day before Haniyeh was killed. Shukr is believed to be behind the missile strike last weekend on the Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams, which killed 12 youths.“[The assassination of] Shukr will be effective because it upsets their whole operational structure, because it affects the command and might inhibit further attacks in that sense in the longer term,” Levitt said. “They’ve taken out someone who just played a very central role in a lot of different things. And he was the boss for a lot of sensitive things.”Haniyeh’s killing, by contrast, is “just supposed to say we’re holding people accountable for those who are involved in October 7,” he said.Most scholarly assessments of targeted killings, or government-directed assassinations, have focused on their legality and morality. The handful that have focused on efficacy are inconclusive. A 2017 analysis by an Indiana University professor concluded that US targeted killings had “negligible effects on countering jihadist terrorism.”Israel’s history of killing high-level Hamas operatives did not prevent the terror group from being able to carry out the October 7 attack. And some of its past targeted killings are understood to have likely strengthened the group, such as the 2004 assassination of Sheikh Yassin in Gaza, which is seen as having removed an obstacle to Hamas’s alliance with Iran.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the outset of the current war that Israel’s main aim was the dismantling of Hamas. That includes the violent removal of Hamas’s leaders, said Michael Makovsky, CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a conservative think tank. By killing Haniyeh and Deif, Israel is making good on that threat.“They said they would go ahead and kill Hamas leaders. That was clear,” Makovsky said. “You know they were going to kill these guys. So they had an opportunity.”An added plus, Makovsky said, is that by breaching Iran’s vaunted security apparatus, Israel dealt a blow to Iran’s deterrence.“They embarrassed the Iranians and there’s no downside, because it’s not as if it’s going to hurt their relations with the Iranians,” he said.Levitt, who previously worked in US intelligence, noted that Shukr and Haniyeh were key interlocutors between their organizations and Iran. Removing them would at least for a time inhibit Iran’s closeness to its proxies.“Iran has now lost two of its key personnel,” he said. “It was comfortable working with Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh.”But while the killings of Haniyeh and Shukr may hinder attacks for now, they won’t dent Israel’s conflicts with the terror groups in the long run, said Levitt, whose think tank has close relationships with Israeli and other Middle Eastern officials.“Long term, even short term, neither of them is going to undermine Hezbollah, or Hamas,” Levitt said about the assassinations. Though for Israel, he added, “They’re trying to change something in the moment.”Human rights groups have raised objections to targeted killings, saying they are gross violations of due process and endanger civilians. Agnes Callamard, now secretary general of Amnesty International, noted such concerns in 2020 after the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist that was attributed to Israel.“State[s] engaged in acts of aggression resulting in deprivation of life violate ipso facto their treaty obligations,” she tweeted. “States that fail to take reasonable measures to settle their int’l disputes by peaceful mean[s] fail to comply with their positive obligation to ensure the right to life.”US governments routinely criticized Israel for targeted killings until the mid-2000s.“This heavy-handed action does not contribute to peace,” Ari Fleischer, president George W. Bush’s spokesperson, said in 2002 after the targeted assassination of a Hamas commander in Gaza. “This message will be conveyed to Israeli authorities, and the United States regrets the loss of life.”Later, the Bush administration adopted the practice — and it has been continued by subsequent US governments.Some assassinations of obscure figures are meant to achieve a goal rather than make a point, said Harel Chorev, a senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. He pointed to the 2010 assassination in the United Arab Emirates of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, an otherwise unknown Hamas operative responsible for smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. Israel did not publicly acknowledge a role in the killing.“He was a nobody,” he said. ”But then we found out that he was a major pipeline to Iran: He was channeling the money and a major player in the connection between Iran and Hamas.”Chorev likened the people ordering assassinations to snipers, who are habituated to taking out the most senior officers in their sightline, under the logic that eliminating the person giving orders is the most effective way of hobbling the enemy on the battlefield.“Nobody will ask, ‘Hey, why did you do this?’” of snipers in battle, he said. “It would be obvious that these are the right targets that snipers should search for.”Another salutary effect of the Haniyah killing, analysts say, is on an Israeli population devastated by 10 months of war, and the massive governmental, military and intelligence failure that took place on October 7.“It’s a huge morale boost for Israelis and reasserts confidence in Israeli intelligence and military capabilities,” said David Halperin, the CEO of the Israel Policy Forum, a group that favors the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.Shira Efron, IPF’s senior director of policy research, said the assassinations send a message — but one that has an expiration date.“They sent a message, that we have intelligence, that we have operational capabilities, that your lives are broken, that you’re very permeable,” she said.“But in the long term, and I’m sorry to say this, it may take more time or less time, but we eventually see that leaders or commanders in those organizations seem to be quite fungible. They’re always replaced,” Efron added. “They don’t say, ‘Oh, you know what, we got it. We’re going to lay our arms down.’ The next person, the next guy — it’s always a guy — is going to be on the same page as the last guy.”
Anti-Israel protester charged with hate crimes for vandalizing NY museum’s heads homes-Woman was among the pro-Palestinians activists filmed vandalizing house of Brooklyn Museum’s director with red paint, symbol used by Hamas for identifying targets-By AP and ToI Staff Today, 6:34 am-AUG 1,24
NEW YORK — A woman who police say helped vandalize the homes of the Brooklyn Museum’s leaders with red paint during a wave of pro-Palestinian protests against Israel has been arrested on hate crimes charges.Taylor Pelton, 28, was arrested Wednesday on charges of criminal mischief and criminal mischief as a hate crime, police said.Police say Pelton was one of six people seen on surveillance video vandalizing the homes of the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak, and its chief operating officer, Kimberly Trueblood, on June 12. The other people seen in the videos were still being sought Thursday.Pasternak is Jewish. The activists left the front of her apartment building splattered with paint and a banner calling her a “white-supremacist Zionist.” An inverted red triangle that authorities say is a symbol used by Hamas to identify Israeli military targets was sprayed onto her door, according to court papers.Pelton was arraigned Wednesday night and released with court supervision, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said.In an email, Pelton’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, didn’t address the specifics of the charges but criticized “the increasing trend of characterizing Palestine solidarity actions as hate crimes.” She said the willingness of prosecutors “to endorse the rhetorical collapse of Zionist ideology and protected religious identity, in order to criminalize criticism of Israel, signals a troubling departure from the principles on which our legal and political systems rest.”This is not peaceful protest or free speech. This is a crime, and it's overt, unacceptable antisemitism.These actions will never be tolerated in New York City for any reason. I'm sorry to Anne Pasternak and members of @brooklynmuseum's board who woke up to hatred like this.I… pic.twitter.com/vi17PumBoM— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) June 12, 2024-The paint splashing happened days after hundreds of pro-Palestinians protesters marched to the museum, occupied its lobby, vandalized artworks and hung a “Free Palestine” banner from its roof. Police arrested several dozen people.The protest group Within Our Lifetime — which hailed the Hamas-led October 7 massacres that started the war in Gaza — and other organizers of those demonstrations said they targeted the museum because they believed it was “deeply invested in and complicit” in Israel’s military actions in Gaza through its leadership, trustees, corporate sponsors and donors — an accusation museum officials denied.Many New York City leaders criticized the protests and noted the museum’s track record of fighting for the First Amendment rights of artists and occasionally angering conservative critics. As recently as last fall, the museum was accused of tolerating antisemitism after hosting an art fair at which one vendor sold material with the slogans “globalize the intifada” and “river to the sea.”Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who lives near the museum, said at the time in a speech on the Senate floor that the vandalism targeting the museum’s leaders was antisemitic.“This is the face of hatred. Jewish Americans made to feel unsafe in their own home – just because they are Jewish,” he said. “This is not even close to free speech. This is intimidation. It is scapegoating. It is dehumanization.”Brooklyn Museum officials said in a statement that “it is crucial to distinguish between peaceful protest and criminal acts.”The officials said the museum’s vision “remains rooted in the belief that art fosters dialogue and mutual understanding among people with diverse experiences and perspectives.”
Saudi leader to host Abbas next week, as talk of Israel normalization deal fades-Crown prince and PA president to discuss impact of Haniyeh assassination on Gaza war, while trying to coordinate on how to approach potential Trump or Harris administrations-By Jacob Magid-Today, 1:36 am-AUG 1,24
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will travel to Saudi Arabia on Sunday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, two senior Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel.Riyadh has intensified its engagement with the Palestinians over the past two years amid negotiations with US President Joe Biden’s administration for the kingdom to sign a normalization agreement with Israel. Bin Salman met twice with Abbas in April.Saudi Arabia has conditioned a deal with Israel on Jerusalem agreeing to establish a pathway to a future Palestinian state — a nonstarter for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, particularly as the Israel-Hamas war drags on.With a normalization agreement effectively off the table until at least the US presidential election, Abbas and bin Salman will try and coordinate their approaches to Washington, preparing for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump to enter the White House in January, one of the Palestinian officials said Thursday.The US has sought to advance the normalization deal alongside a defense pact it has been negotiating with Saudi Arabia, which would require Senate ratification.Two congressional sources speaking to The Times of Israel last month maintained that there is not enough time left in the congressional calendar for the Senate to hold the hearings necessary to approve the bilateral US-Saudi deal.There are less than three weeks in which the US Senate is in session before it recesses on September 27 for the last time until the election. This period includes the month of August, when Congress is only open for two days.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer could theoretically try and call lawmakers back from recess in October, but the two congressional sources acknowledged the unlikelihood of the administration securing enough Republicans support to approve the pact weeks before the presidential election. The administration must also get Senate Democrats who have been highly critical of Saudi Arabia on board, though this appears less of an obstacle.A slightly more realistic possibility would be for the Senate to ratify the deal during the lame-duck period if Harris were to lose to Trump in November, the sources said, noting that a Republican-controlled White House will have a harder time coaxing Democrats to cooperate than visa versa, given the latter’s discomfort with the rights records of both Jerusalem and Riyadh.Abbas’s visit will come less than a week after the alleged Israeli assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and the two leaders will discuss its impact on the ongoing war in Gaza along with efforts to unify the various Palestinian factions, according to both Palestinian officials.One of the officials said Ramallah is hoping that next week’s meeting will move Riyadh closer to resuming Saudi financial assistance, which the PA has long aimed to have restored since drying up in 2016.
IDF says slain Al Jazeera reporter was a Hamas commando, took part in Oct. 7 massacre-Military says Ismail Al-Ghoul was member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force, directed terrorists on how to film, distribute videos of attacks on Israeli troops-By Emanuel Fabian,Agencies and ToI Staff 1 August 2024, 10:09 pm
The IDF confirmed carrying out a strike in Gaza City on Wednesday that killed Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Al-Ghoul, and said he was a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force who participated in the October 7 onslaught.In addition to his participation in the massacres in southern Israel, Al-Ghoul also instructed other terror operatives on how to film and distribute videos of attacks on Israeli troops, according to the military.“This activity is an integral part of the terror organization’s military action,” the army said.“The IDF and the Shin Bet are making every effort to attack and eliminate terrorists who took part in the October 7 massacre and will continue to do so,” the statement added.The airstrike also killed Al Jazeera cameraman Ramy El-Rify.In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas condemned the killings as a “heinous crime” which it said was “aimed at terrorizing and silencing” Palestinian journalists as they reported “the ongoing genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip for nearly 10 months.”Al Jazeera, which broadcasts in English and Arabic, has been the focus of months of criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.In early May, the government banned Al Jazeera in Israel, shuttering and raiding its offices, alleging it was actively harming national security. Last month, the Tel Aviv District Court extended the ban on the network.In January, Israel said an Al Jazeera staff journalist and a freelancer killed in an airstrike in Gaza were terror operatives.The following month, it accused another journalist with the channel, who was wounded in a separate strike, of being a deputy company commander with Hamas.Al Jazeera has fiercely denied Israel’s allegations and accused it of systematically targeting Al Jazeera employees in the Gaza Strip.Thousands of terrorists broke through the border fence from Gaza on October 7, rampaging through Israel’s southern towns and murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while carrying out other atrocities like mutilation and sexual abuse.They also took 251 hostages, 111 of whom are believed to still be held captive in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
After Haniyeh’s death, Jordan says Israel ‘a rogue state,’ undermining hostage deal-Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi calls on UN not to allow Jerusalem to ‘impose more wars and more destruction on the region’By Agencies and ToI Staff 1 August 2024, 9:48 pm
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Israel has turned into a “rogue” state with its “assassination” of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and needed to be stopped.He said the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s politburo, was a clear sign that Israel had decided to undermine the US, Egypt and Qatar-backed hostage-ceasefire talks.“Yesterday, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh. He was the one who was negotiating the exchange deal. So how on earth is a country that wants to conclude a deal killing the main interlocutor in those negotiations?” Safadi said at a news conference.“So when [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu decided and sent his missiles to assassinate Haniyeh in Iran in violation of the sovereignty of another country and bringing escalation to a very high level, is that somebody who wants the deal to work?“And all the work that has been done by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to bring a deal that would have brought a ceasefire, that would have released the hostages, that would have released prisoners — Israel decided to undermine all that.”Israel has not taken responsibility for or commented on the assassination, though both Iran and Hamas have alleged it was the result of an Israeli air strike in Tehran before dawn on Wednesday.The New York Times reported Thursday that Haniyeh was killed by a sophisticated, remote-controlled bomb that was smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse he was staying in.Safadi demanded action by the international community to rein Israel in.“The [UN] Security Council must not allow a state that has turned rogue to impose more wars and more destruction on the region,” he said.The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages. Israel vowed to dismantle Hamas and return the hostages.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.Israel and Hamas were in the midst of negotiations for a deal that would see at least some of the 111 hostages believed to still be in Gaza released in exchange for a ceasefire, the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisoners, and more humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.US officials believed the parties were close to closing the deal, but both sides accused each other of stalling this week and it remains to be seen how Haniyeh’s death will affect the continuation of talks.
Security breach a 'tremendous embarrassment' for the IRGC-NY Times: Haniyeh was killed by bomb smuggled into Tehran guesthouse 2 months ago-US officials assess Israel behind assassination of Hamas chief, which Middle East sources say was months in planning; report says Israel briefed US, allies in immediate aftermath-By ToI Staff 1 August 2024, 7:41 pm
The explosion that killed Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard early Wednesday was set off by a sophisticated, remote-controlled bomb smuggled about two months ago into the Hamas leader’s room at the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, The New York Times reported Thursday.The report cited one American and seven Middle Eastern officials, including two members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It contradicted earlier reports, including by the IRGC’s Tasnim news agency, that a missile had killed Haniyeh. It also cited officials from the United States and the Middle East as saying or assessing that Israel was behind the blast.According to three Iranian officials cited by the Times, the assassination is a “tremendous embarrassment” for the IRGC, which runs the guesthouse where Haniyeh and other dignitaries were staying.Haniyeh was in Tehran for the swearing-in of Iran’s newly elected president Masoud Pezeshkian. Jerusalem has neither confirmed nor denied the assassination, but Iran has vowed to exact revenge on Israel.The IRGC officials cited by the Times noted that while the explosion shattered windows and collapsed a portion of the wall of the compound, there was minimal damage to the building itself. The New York Times said the limited scope of the damage was corroborated by photographs reviewed by the newspaper.According to the Times, this indicated the blast was unlikely to have been caused by a missile strike, as had been reported. A missile would also have difficulty breaching Iran’s air defenses, the newspaper said.The blast did not badly damage the room next to Haniyeh’s, which housed Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nakhaleh, two Iranian officials told the Times. According to the newspaper, this suggested “precise planning” in targeting Haniyeh.Middle Eastern officials told the Times that the blast’s precision required months of planning and extensive surveillance.Two Iranian officials said they did not know how or when the bomb was smuggled into Haniyeh’s room, though five of the Middle Eastern officials said it was planted there roughly two months ago.According to the Times, five Middle Eastern officials said that “Israeli intelligence officials briefed the United States and other Western governments on the details of the operation in the immediate aftermath.”The report also said that several US officials had reached the “assessment” that Israel was responsible for the assassination.The IRGC members cited by the Times said the precision of the hit was reminiscent of the remote-operated machine gun that a Mossad team used to kill top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020. The five Middle Eastern officials said that the explosive that killed Haniyeh had been detonated from afar.Haniyeh was staying in an IRGC compound called Neshat in an affluent north Tehran neighborhood. The compound is said to be used for retreats, secret meetings and “housing prominent guests” such as Haniyeh.According to the report, the compound’s medical staff rushed to Haniyeh’s room after the bomb exploded, at about 2 a.m. local time, and declared him dead on the spot. They also declared his bodyguard dead after trying to revive him.Senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya also came to the scene, where he saw Haniyeh’s body, the five Middle Eastern officials told the Times.The three Iranian officials said that Gen. Ismail Ghaani, the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, was immediately notified of the explosion. He woke up Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and notified him that Haniyeh had been killed.Israel vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas after the Gaza-based terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.The hit on Haniyeh came a month after an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza’s Khan Younis hit Hamas military leader Muhammad Deif, whose death the army confirmed Thursday.It came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah’s most senior commander Fuad Shukr in a missile strike for which it claimed responsibility in Beirut. Israel said Shukry, who was also wanted by the US, was responsible for a Hezbollah missile strike that killed 12 children in the Druze village of Majdal Shams on Saturday.
IDF on high alert, but no change to civilian guidelines-Nasrallah: Israel will ‘weep’ for killing top commander; PM: We’re ready for any scenario-As Israel braces for retaliation from Hezbollah and Iran for deaths of terror chiefs, Nasrallah says it should expect ‘rage and revenge’ as fighting has entered ‘new phase’By Gianluca Pacchiani, Sam Sokol, Emanuel Fabian-and Agencies 1 August 2024, 7:36 pm
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday that Israel had “crossed red lines” in the killing of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, and must expect “rage and revenge on all the fronts supporting Gaza.”Claiming the fighting had entered “a new phase,” he said Israelis “will weep terribly” in the days ahead.Nasrallah spoke as Israel braced for Hezbollah’s response as well as for Iranian retaliation in the wake of Hamas political chief Haniyeh’s death in Tehran early Wednesday. Jerusalem has not taken responsibility for the latter, but has been blamed by Tehran and Hamas.Shukr’s killing on Tuesday evening was the most serious blow to the Iran-backed terror group in nearly two decades and threatened to push the tit-for-tat exchanges across the Israel-Lebanon border in parallel with the Gaza war into a full-blown regional conflict.In a televised address at Shukr’s funeral, Nasrallah said Hezbollah was “paying the price for its support for Gaza and the Palestinian people” but said that the group was now beyond the support phase, declaring an “open battle on all fronts.”Speaking at the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was prepared for any “aggression” against it.“Israel is very prepared for any scenario — both defensively and offensively,” he said. “We will exact a very heavy price for any act of aggression against us from any arena.”Nasrallah said he had ordered Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon to curb the fighting on Wednesday and Thursday but that they would resume with higher intensity on Friday, reiterating that the only way to end the war on the Lebanese front was for Israel to stop its “aggression” in Gaza.Nasrallah repeated Hezbollah’s claim — rejected by Israel and the US — that the terror group was not behind the Saturday rocket attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights in which 12 children were killed.He claimed Hezbollah would have admitted if it had made a mistake and killed civilians, and suggested it could have been an Israeli interceptor that hit Majdal Shams. Weapons experts have said all evidence points to a rocket from Lebanon hitting the soccer field and killing the children.The Hezbollah leader argued Shukr’s assassination was not actually a response to the Majdal Shams incident but rather an act of war.Nasrallah said unnamed countries had asked his group to retaliate in an “acceptable” way — or not at all. But he said it would be “impossible” for the group not to respond. “There is no discussion on this point. The only things lying between us and you are the days, the nights and the battlefield,” Nasrallah added in a threat to Israel.“I’m not saying we reserve the right to respond at the appropriate time and place,” said Nasrallah. “Absolutely not. We will respond. That’s final.”Shukr was considered second only to Nasrallah in importance in Hezbollah, but the terror chief minimized the impact his assassination would have on the functioning of the organization.“When one of our commanders becomes a martyr, he is swiftly replaced. We have an excellent new generation of commanders,” he said.He further denied that military pressure on Hamas, Hezbollah or other Iran-backed groups would cause them to surrender.“The aspiration of Benjamin Netanyahu is that Hamas will tell him: ‘Come, here are the hostages and the weapons.’ This will not happen. We will not surrender, neither in Gaza, nor in Lebanon, nor in Yemen.”Nasrallah predicted that Israelis “will weep terribly, because you do not know which red lines you have crossed.”He also said that Iran considers Haniyeh’s assassination, while he was being hosted in Tehran during the regime’s presidential inauguration events, to constitute “an attack on its national security and sovereignty.”In his comments, meanwhile, Netanyahu highlighted Israel’s confirmation that it had killed Hamas military chief Muhammad Deif.“Deif was responsible for the terrible massacre of October 7 and also for many murderous attacks against the citizens of Israel. He was Israel’s number one wanted man for years,” Netanyahu said at the end of a briefing by IDF Homefront Command chief Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo and Yoram Laredo, director of the National Emergency Management Authority.Netanyahu declared that Deif’s elimination “reinforces a simple principle that we have established: Whoever hurts us, we hurt them.”Israel has not taken credit for or officially commented on Haniyeh’s death. Iranian leaders have regardless vowed revenge against Israel and Netanyahu said on Wednesday night that there would be “challenging days ahead.”At a press conference on Thursday night, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military would know how to handle any threat.“Since the beginning of the war. we have faced various threats that have come from far and near,” he said. “We have proven recently that the State of Israel knows how to deal with threats in defense, and to respond with a mighty attack.”He said the IDF was holding continuous assessments on the situation, but as of Thursday night, there was no change to Home Front Command guidelines for civilians. “We have our finger on the pulse all the time.”“We have very good defense systems, and we have international allies that bolstered their forces in the area to aid us against these threats,” Hagari said.At the same time, Hagari said Israel’s defenses were “not hermetic” and urged the public to “be vigilant and continue to follow the instructions of the Home Front Command.”Asked about the assassination of Haniyeh, Hagari said: “We struck on Tuesday night in Lebanon and killed Fuad Shukr in an accurate aerial strike. I want to emphasize, there was no other aerial strike, not a missile and not an Israeli drone, in the entire Middle East that night, and I won’t comment further.”The New York Times reported Thursday that Haniyeh was killed by a bomb planted in his room, citing American and Middle Eastern officials.Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 25 civilian deaths on the Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists.Iran-backed groups in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria have also launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel during the ongoing war sparked by Hamas’s devastating October 7 terror onslaught. Last month, a man was killed in a drone attack on Tel Aviv by Yemen’s Houthis.Hezbollah has named 385 members who have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria. In Lebanon, another 68 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and dozens of civilians have been killed.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Interview-‘Hezbollah has conquered the north’: New Hope’s Haskel slams ‘incapable’ government-‘I warned of a disaster,’ says ex-Likud MK in wake of Majdal Shams tragedy, accusing her former party of lacking the capacity to govern or prosecute the war effectively-By Sam Sokol-1 August 2024, 7:24 pm
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government is well known for its members’ belligerent rhetoric, with cabinet ministers intermittently suggesting everything from the use of nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip to forcing Palestinians to emigrate.But while the talk is decidedly aggressive, New Hope MK Sharren Haskel believes that the government’s actions represent a “policy of surrender and softness” that has invited both external attacks and internal unrest.Speaking with The Times of Israel this week, the former Likud lawmaker who is now a right-wing member of the opposition mounted a withering criticism of her erstwhile party, alleging that it is “incapable” of handling the challenges facing Israel and has essentially abandoned the field to Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north.Haskel spoke before an Israeli strike in Beirut on Tuesday eliminated Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and a right-hand man to terror leader Hassan Nasrallah, and before Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in a strike attributed to Israel early Wednesday.In a follow-up statement, the rightwing lawmaker said the deaths should send a “clear message” to Israel’s enemies: “If you attack Israel, if you harm our citizens and murder them in the most monstrous ways — you will have nowhere to hide.” She did not say whether the developments had altered her position on the government’s competence.A self-professed devotee of the Revisionist Zionist ideology of Likud’s founders, Haskel quit the party for Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope in late 2020, complaining at the time that there was “a big gap between these ideas and the values and norms that characterize Likud today.”New Hope’s four MKs are “not in the opposition for the sake of opposition,” Haskel told The Times of Israel of her party’s relationship with the current Likud-led coalition.New Hope entered the war coalition in October when conflict broke out as part of its National Unity alliance with Benny Gantz, before ending its union with Gantz and then quitting the coalition in March saying it felt it had no ability to influence the government’s prosecution of the conflict.Its current political future is unclear. Current polling shows New Hope crashing out of the Knesset if it were to run alone in the next election, but it could find itself a part of the Knesset’s largest faction if it allies with other right-wing parties.“We’re in opposition to one of the worst governments that we could have had in such a difficult, challenging time for our country,” Haskel stated. “I mean, from a military and from a security point of view, we oppose what they do because we don’t think they are being determined enough or using a focused strategy to actually eliminate Hamas,”The government argues that only military pressure will bring about the release of remaining hostages in Gaza but “what we’ve seen in the last four-five months is a quiet ceasefire,” she said, adding that “to have an incapable government that cannot manage the situation is our greatest liability.”Haskel linked this “incapability” to this weekend’s rocket attack in the northern village of Majdal Shams, in which 12 children were killed by a Hezbollah rocket, as well as the storming of two IDF bases by far-right activists and lawmakers on Monday over the arrest of soldiers suspected of abusing Gaza detainees.By being able to continue its daily assaults on northern Israel since October, “Hezbollah has conquered the northern area of Israel,” she argued. “The tragedy in Majdal Shams would have been avoided if the government’s policy had not been to give Hezbollah military superiority and hold off on shooting.”Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, displacing tens of thousands of residents. So far, the skirmishes have resulted in 25 civilian deaths on the Israeli side as well as the deaths of 18 IDF soldiers and reservists.Though Israel has been responding in kind to the attacks and has killed nearly 400 Hezbollah operatives, it has been unable to stop the attacks, while leaders have been hesitant to launch a full-on campaign while conducting the war in Gaza.“I warned the Knesset several times that the policy of surrender and laxity should not be continued, I warned of a disaster and explained that every shooting must be responded to,” Haksel said. “Twelve children were murdered in cold blood, there must be a real price. This is not what deterrence nor victory looks like.”Haskel spoke before an Israeli strike in Beirut on Tuesday eliminated Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and a right-hand man to terror leader Hassan Nasrallah, and before Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in a strike attributed to Israel.However, in a follow-up statement, the rightwing lawmaker lauded the strikes, saying that while Israel did not take responsibility for the killing of Haniyeh, his death should send a “clear message” to Israel’s enemies: “If you attack Israel, if you harm our citizens and murder them in the most monstrous ways – you will have nowhere to hide.”Turning to the attacks by far-right mobs on the Sde Teiman and Beit Lid bases, Haskel said “The worst government in Israel’s history lost control, and the chaos that ensued was their failure.”While the arrest of the suspect soldiers during wartime was “difficult,” Haskel argued that “there are ways to handle [it] or change procedures according to law. The steering wheel is in their hands and instead of steering the ship they jump into the water and drag all the passengers with them.”The government knows and states “what needs to happen,” she said, “but the control is in their hands and they’re not doing it. And I think that is the biggest frustration we have — when they say something, and how something needs to be run, but are doing the exact opposite.”According to Haskel, this mismanagement extends beyond the war and affects issues ranging from the economy to judicial reform.“They say we need a reform in the judicial system. We agree,” she said, referencing efforts by party leader and former Justice Minister Sa’ar to, among other moves, split the role of the attorney general into two positions.However, she maintained that the current government’s intensely divisive 2023 efforts along those lines had less to do with fixing what many on the right see as a flawed system than with “trying to take power from the judicial system into the executive branch.”While Haskel and her colleagues in New Hope believe that new elections are necessary to topple Netanyahu, she expressed caution, warning that doing so prematurely, while combat operations are still in progress, could “jeopardize Israel’s security.”New Hope is currently “discussing creating a united front” on the right, but the issue is not just how many seats such a right-wing bloc would receive but who would lead it, Haskel said. She insisted that only Sa’ar, with his experience in coalition negotiations, could head such a list and that “the only alternative to the Likud is New Hope.”Recent polls have indicated a new right-wing alliance that includes Sa’ar, Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman, former premier Naftali Bennett and ex-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen would become the largest Knesset party with 27-32 seats.Cohen has reportedly decided not to enter politics and it is unlikely that any of the others would support the less popular Sa’ar taking the lead of any electoral alliance — a reality which he appears to have acknowledged by stating he would be willing to make “concessions” to create a right-wing bloc opposing Netanyahu.Asked how her party differs from Likud, Haskel said that “we don’t just talk about doing certain reforms or changes. We’re not promising dreams that we cannot fulfill, but we promise things that are in the ideological heart of the right here in Israel, things that we know how to execute.”“We’re going to have to rebuild our security, our deterrence, our economy, our social cohesion.”
Iran to huddle with proxy leaders to discuss retaliation against Israel-Islamic Republic supreme leader, senior IRGC members to attend Tehran meeting with representatives from Hamas, PIJ, Houthis, Iraqi militias-By Parisa Hafezi, Ahmed Rasheed and Laila Bassam 1 August 2024, 6:59 pm
DUBAI (Reuters) — Top Iranian officials will meet the representatives of Iran’s regional allies from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Thursday to discuss potential retaliation against Israel after the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran, five sources told Reuters.The region faces a risk of widened conflict between Israel, Iran and its proxies after Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on Wednesday, which Iran and Hamas have blamed on Israel, and the killing of Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday in an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital Beirut.Representatives of Iran’s Palestinian terror allies Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi movement, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi militias will attend the meeting in Tehran, said the sources, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.“Iran and the resistance members will conduct a thorough assessment after the meeting in Tehran to find the best and most effective way to retaliate against the Zionist regime [Israel],” said a senior Iranian official with direct knowledge of the meeting.Another Iranian official said Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards will attend.“How Iran and the resistance front will respond is currently being reviewed… This will certainly happen and the Zionist regime [Israel] will undoubtedly regret it,” General Mohammad Baqeri, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, told state TV on Thursday.Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of carrying out the strike that killed Haniyeh hours after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran on Wednesday.Israeli officials have not claimed responsibility for the attack that drew threats of revenge on Israel and fueled further concern that the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza was turning into an all-out war in the Middle East.Israeli Air Force chief Tomer Bar, speaking at a military graduation ceremony in Israel late on Wednesday, warned Israel will act against anyone planning to harm its citizens.“We are also strongly prepared in defense. Hundreds of aerial defense soldiers, along with air control personnel, are stationed across the country with the best systems, ready to carry out their mission,” said Bar.Haniyeh and the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziad Nakhaleh, as well as senior representatives of Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi movement and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, attended the inauguration ceremony for Iran’s new president in Tehran on Tuesday.Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassim and lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah were in Iran as well and have remained there for the funeral and meeting, sources familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said.Hamas’s armed wing has said in a statement Haniyeh’s killing would “take the battle to new dimensions and have major repercussions.” Vowing to retaliate, Iran said the US bore responsibility because of its support for Israel.“Iran asked key commanders of the Iraqi resistance groups to travel to Tehran on Wednesday to attend an urgent meeting to discuss retaliation against recent Israeli strikes, including in Lebanon and Iran and the US strike in Iraq,” said an Iraqi militia local commander.Another Iraqi militia source said his group commanders left to attend Haniyeh’s funeral and also to attend a “top urgent meeting” to decide the following steps to retaliate against Israel and the United States.Iranians turned out to mourn Haniyeh on Thursday, a day after he was assassinated.“All fronts of the resistance will take revenge for Haniyeh’s blood,” Ali Akbar Ahmadian, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.The Iran-backed Axis of Resistance includes Hamas — the Palestinian terror that ignited the war in Gaza by attacking Israel on October 7 — Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and various Shi’ite armed groups in Iraq and Syria.On April 13, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel in what it said was retaliation for Israel’s suspected deadly strike on Revolutionary Guard generals in Damascus on April 1, but almost all were shot down.“Iran’s response to the assassination of Martyr Haniyeh will be stronger than before,” former senior Revolutionary Guards Commander Esmail Kosari told state TV.
Court: Israel must enable return of displaced Palestinians to West Bank villages-Villagers fled homes amid settler violence in October; High Court justices upbraid police for investigative failures, insist they are obligated to protect Palestinian civilians-By Jeremy Sharon-1 August 2024, 6:59 pm
The High Court of Justice has ordered the government to make arrangements for former residents of two Palestinian villages in the West Bank to return to their homes, after they fled systematic violence by extremist settlers in the South Hebron Hills region at the end of October.Following a provisional order by the court in May, the state told the court there was no obstacle to allowing the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta and Um Darit to return to their homes. The court on Monday told police, the IDF and the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration to arrange their return in short order.Describing the violence by settlers against Palestinians as “troubling to put it mildly,” the High Court underlined in its ruling that the government and state agencies are obligated by law to protect Palestinian residents of the area from violence, including the villagers of Khirbet Zanuta and Um Darit once they return home.The court also said police had failed to respond fast enough to emergency calls by residents of the villages reporting attacks by extremist settlers, and ordered the state to find an alternative mechanism for the villagers to report such assaults when police do not respond quickly enough.It stressed police were legally obligated to respond to requests for assistance by local residents when dealing with “active incidents of violence” and arrive at the scene “with appropriate speed.”The court further reprimanded police, saying that arrival at the scene was not sufficient and that they had to take effective investigative measures, adding that such a statement “should be obvious.”In a provisional ruling issued by the court on the petition in May, it noted that police almost never go to the site of an attack to collect evidence.The court also noted that despite dozens of violent attacks against Palestinian residents of the South Hebron Hills since October 7 — 175 according to the petitioners — not one indictment has been filed against perpetrators, an apparent consequence of police failure to properly investigate allegations.The decision was made unanimously by justices Isaac Amit, Daphne Barak-Erez, and Yechiel Kasher.Attorney Quamar Mishirqi-Assad, co-director of the organization Haqel: In Defense of Human Rights which has represented the villagers, welcomed the ruling but expressed concern that the court did not issue more detailed orders, and worried that absent such explicit instructions, implementation of the court’s various decisions may be difficult.Following the October 7 invasion and atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel, a wave of violence perpetrated by civilian settlers and those mobilized into IDF regional defensive battalions engulfed the West Bank, directed particularly against vulnerable herding communities in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley regions.In its original petition in November, Haqel wrote that settlers and armed soldiers “arrive almost daily at the residents’ houses, sow destruction and devastation, and in particular destroy essential infrastructure” of the villages.Residents of the region have also complained that when they called the police emergency call center during attacks, cops almost never respond to their request for help and would simply tell them to file a criminal complaint at the Kiryat Arba police station. Even then, police rarely if at all visited the scene to take evidence and testimony, villagers said.As a result of the violence, in which village infrastructure such as critical water storage facilities, solar panels, and agricultural equipment were destroyed, over 1,000 Palestinians from 15 communities fled their homes.Attacks included physical assault and threats of violence and murder, and livestock was harassed.Khirbet Zanuta had some 250 residents but all left by the end of October, as did the three families of the tiny hamlet of Um Darit. Residents found other accommodation in nearby villages and towns, either staying with family or renting.In its ruling on Monday, the court noted that the state had agreed to enable the residents to return to their homes and instructed authorities to facilitate this step “as soon as possible.”Khirbet Zanuta residents who visited the village in late November to see if returning without assistance was feasible were harassed and threatened by extremist residents of nearby settlements and illegal outposts.Just five days later, the village’s EU-built school was demolished in an incident that police said was under investigation, but which no one has been charged over. Stars of David were graffitied on what remained of the structure after it was demolished.Haqel also provided police with the license plate number of a pickup truck settlers arrived in from footage taken by the villagers, and a video taken of the incident showing the settlers making their threats, with their faces clearly visible.The area of the village was declared a closed military zone by the IDF in December, and settlers activists erected a fence around the village to prevent the residents from returning."Israelis” set up a barbed wire fence around “Zanuta” village to prevent Palestinians from returning. pic.twitter.com/gePareN64q — Roya News English (@RoyaNewsEnglish) February 1, 2024-In ordering the state to provide an alternative method of contacting law enforcement authorities beyond the emergency hotline, the court said that it would leave the details to the state agencies to arrange.“We repeat and underline, that on the face of things, the picture painted by the claims of the petitioners is troubling — to put it mildly,” wrote the justices.“The petitioners are protected residents who are entitled to receive a fitting response by authorities in the region, especially when these are claims of repeated violence against them.“Law enforcement agencies in the region are therefore obligated to protect the security of the petitioners and public order even in the complex circumstances of the current period.”
Turkey blocking NATO cooperation with Israel over Gaza ‘massacre,’ officials say-Since October, Ankara has thwarted all collaboration with Israel, which holds partner status in military alliance, sources say, adding Turkey will maintain stance until war ends-By Reuters and ToI Staff 1 August 2024, 5:08 pm
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of its war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said.Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered close relations with the military alliance and some of its members, notably its biggest ally the United States.Before Israel’s offensive in Gaza — prompted by Hamas’s thousands-strong October 7 rampage through southern Israel that left 1,200 people dead and saw 251 kidnapped — NATO member Turkey had been working to mend its long-strained ties with Israel.Since then, Ankara has been fiercely critical of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which it claims amounts to a genocide, and has halted all bilateral trade. It has also slammed many Western allies for their support of Israel.Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Turkey had vetoed all NATO engagement with Israel since October, including joint meetings and exercises, saying it viewed Israel’s “massacre” of Palestinians in Gaza as a violation of NATO’s founding principles.The operation has claimed the lives of over 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. The toll, which cannot be independently verified, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 fighters in Gaza, in addition to about 1,000 inside Israel on October 7, and takes steps to avoid harm to civilians.The sources said Turkey would maintain the block on Israel and not allow it to continue or advance its interaction with NATO until there was an end to the conflict, as it believes Israel’s actions in Gaza violate international law and universal human rights.After a NATO summit in Washington in July, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said it was not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli administration.Earlier this week, Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz urged the alliance to expel Turkey after Erdogan appeared to threaten to intervene militarily in Israel, as it had in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.
Pezeshkian: 'The Zionists will see the consequences' Iran, Hamas leaders vow revenge on Israel at Haniyeh’s Tehran funeral procession-Parliament speaker pledges to carry out supreme leader’s order to exact ‘harsh punishment’ on Jewish state, which has neither confirmed nor denied assassination-By AFP and ToI Staff 1 August 2024, 1:37 pm
Iran held funeral processions on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on Israel.The Islamic Republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a “harsh punishment” for his killing.In Tehran’s city center, mourning crowds carrying posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags gathered for the ceremony at Tehran University, according to an AFP correspondent.Haniyeh’s death was announced the day before by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who said he and his bodyguard were killed in a strike on their accommodation in the Iranian capital early Wednesday.Hours earlier, Israel targeted and killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a retaliatory strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut, spiking fears of a wider regional war amid fallout from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.Iran’s state TV showed the coffins of Haniyeh and his bodyguard covered in Palestinian flags during the ceremony attended by senior Iranian officials.President Masoud Pezeshkian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief General Hossein Salami were present. Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian’s inauguration ceremony on Tuesday.Senior Hamas figure Khalil al-Hayya, the movement’s foreign relations chief, vowed during the ceremony that “Ismail Haniyeh’s slogan, ‘We will not recognize Israel,’ will remain an immortal slogan” and “we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine.”Iran’s conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran “will certainly carry out the supreme leader’s order” to avenge Haniyeh.“It is our duty to respond at the right time and in the right place,” he said in a speech with crowds chanting “Death to Israel, Death to America!”‘Our duty’The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-bedecked truck through leafy streets where cooling water mists sprayed the flag-waving crowds.Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran’s political affairs, said after Haniyeh’s death that it was “our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”The Islamic Republic has not yet officially published any information on the exact location of the strike.Pezeshkian said Wednesday that “the Zionists will soon see the consequences of their cowardly and terrorist act.”The international community, however, called for de-escalation and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza — which Haniyeh had, according to a Hamas official previously, accused Israel of obstructing.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a “dangerous escalation.”All efforts, he said, should be “leading to a ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7 attack, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and kidnap 251, sparking the war in Gaza.Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, a key mediator in the hostages-for-ceasefire talks, said the killing of Haniyeh, who was based in Qatar, had thrown the whole mediation process into doubt.“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” wrote Al-Thani social media site X.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called on “all parties” in the Middle East to “stop escalatory actions.”Earlier he said a ceasefire in Gaza was still the “imperative,” though White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the twin killings of Haniyeh and Shukr “don’t help” regional tensions.Tensions inflamed-While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death. It did, however, claim the killing of Shukr, whom it blamed for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 children in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.The killings come with regional tensions already inflamed by the war in Gaza, a conflict that has drawn in Iran-backed terror groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.One of those groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, “declared three days of mourning” for Haniyeh, with political leader Mahdi al-Mashat expressing “condolences to the Palestinian people and Hamas” over his killing, according to the group’s Saba news agency.The United Nations Security Council convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran’s request to discuss the strike.
Calling to de-escalate, Biden says Haniyeh’s death has ‘not helped’ negotiations-US president says he had a ‘very direct’ conversation with Netanyahu, adds PM should ‘move’ on hostage-ceasefire outline, as Iran vows revenge for terror leaders’ assassinations-By Agencies and ToI Staff Today, 12:52 pm-AUG 2,24
US President Joe Biden said Thursday night he was “very concerned” that violence in the Middle East could escalate, adding that this week’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran has “not helped” efforts to negotiate a hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza, where Israel is at war with the terror group.Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s killing, but has been blamed for it by Iran and Hamas, who have vowed revenge.Biden said he’d had a “very direct” conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day, repeating the phrase “very direct.”In that call, the president promised US support for Israel in the event of an Iranian attack, as the Islamic Republic vowed revenge for both Haniyeh’s death and Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut Tuesday.The killings came days after a Hezbollah rocket attack killed 12 children and teens in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights.Biden urged de-escalation Thursday night and reiterated his call for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza and return those held captive by the terror group.“We have the basis for a ceasefire,” Biden said, speaking on the tarmac of an air base outside Washington after welcoming three Americans freed in a prisoner swap with Russia. Israel “should move on it and they should move on it now,” the president said.Israel and Hamas both assented to a framework presented by Biden in May, which would see the staged release of the Gaza captives in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners and a temporary ceasefire that, through negotiations, could be made permanent in the second of the deal’s three six-week stages.In July, amid Israeli military advances in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued four “non-negotiable” demands that were not specifically set out in the previous proposal, including a mechanism to prevent armed gunmen returning to northern Gaza and ongoing Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border corridor. An updated Israeli proposal was submitted to the US on Saturday, and discussed by Mossad chief David Barnea with mediators in Qatar on Sunday.Biden’s comments on Thursday echoed remarks earlier in the day by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who urged “all parties” in the Middle East to stop “escalatory actions,” warning that the Middle East was on a path “toward more conflict, more violence, more suffering, more insecurity,” and declaring, “It is crucial that we break this cycle.”“That starts with a ceasefire that we’ve been working on,” Blinken told reporters in Mongolia, alongside his local counterpart. “And to get there, it also first requires all parties to talk, to stop taking any escalatory actions, it requires them to find reasons to come to an agreement.”Blinken did not directly respond to Haniyeh’s death, apart from reiterating that the United States had no knowledge of the planning of such a killing and that the US was not involved in it.Western diplomats held urgent discussions after Haniyeh’s death to prevent a full-blown war, and have been putting pressure on Iran not to escalate the situation, according to a report on Thursday in the Financial Times.The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that US officials believe Haniyeh’s killing will make reaching a Gaza deal more difficult, “but insist the talks aren’t dead.”Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani denounced the killing on X, writing, “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”Nevertheless, the Qatari leader told Blinken that he remains committed to the negotiations, according to The Wall Street Journal, and on Thursday night Israel’s Kan news also reported that Qatar intends to remain involved in efforts.In Israel, thousands of protesters, including relatives of the hostages, demonstrated around the country Thursday evening to mark 300 days since the captives’ abduction, calling on the government to arrive at a deal to bring them home.Hundreds marched through Tel Aviv, holding yellow ribbons and photos of hostages, then blocked the Begin intersection near the IDF’s Kirya headquarters before the main rally was held at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square. Similar protests were held around the country, including in Jerusalem, Beersheba and Herzliya.Nissan Calderon, who survived the Hamas onslaught and whose brother Ofer Calderon is still being held in Gaza, charged that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been procrastinating on signing a deal.“Close the deal,” he said. “Again and again, you are not doing what you should have done 300 days ago, to stop everything and do only one thing, to return 115 citizens of the State of Israel, immediately.”It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF. One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.Charlie Summers and Jessica Steinberg contributed to this report.
Outcry as Turkish embassy in Israel lowers flag in honor of Haniyeh; envoy summoned-‘Israel will not accept expressions of participation in the mourning of a murderer,’ says Foreign Minister Israel Katz, as other politicians express outrage-Today, 3:15 pm-AUG 2,24
The Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv lowered its flag to half mast on Friday in honor of slain Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, drawing swift backlash from outraged Israeli officials.“Israel will not accept expressions of participation in mourning for a murderer like Ismail Haniyeh,” said Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who summoned the Turkish deputy ambassador for a reprimand, in a statement published by his office.“If embassy representatives want to mourn, let them go to Turkey and mourn together with their master Erdogan, who embraces the terrorist organization Hamas and supports its murderous acts,” Katz said.Turkey declared Friday as a day of mourning for Haniyeh, who was killed on Wednesday in a blast for which Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility.Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior commander in the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, following a deadly Hezbollah rocket attack on Saturday that killed 12 children and teens in the Golan Heights.MK Avigdor Liberman, of the hawkish Yisrael Beiteinu party, called the flag-lowering “one big disgrace,” and said on X, “It’s unacceptable that the country that has taken the side of terror organizations since the start of the war, and just this week threatened to invade the State of Israel, has an embassy in the heart of Tel Aviv.”Liberman was referring to a statement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday that Turkey must be “very strong so that Israel can’t do these things to the Palestinians,” and that “just as we entered [Nagorno-]Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we might do the same to them. There is nothing we can’t do. We must only be strong.”Turkey has hosted Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, several times since the group went to war with Israel on October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages.Turkey never condemned that attack, but has praised Hamas’s “resistance” and frequently denounced Israel’s conduct in its response, repeatedly accusing the country of genocide in Gaza and comparing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.After months of deteriorating relations, Turkey, which was Israel’s fourth-largest trading partner in 2023, halted all trade with Israel in May, threatening a major hit to both economies.Following Haniyeh’s death on Wednesday, Erdogan denounced what he called the “perfidious assassination” of his “brother” Haniyeh and praised “the glorious Gazan resistance.”On Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who was in Doha for Haniyeh’s funeral, met with Khaled Mashaal, a veteran Hamas official who is a likely successor to Haniyeh, in a meeting attended by several of Haniyeh’s surviving children.The country also blocked the social network Instagram, reportedly over alleged censorship of posts praising the slain Hamas leader.National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, wrote on X Friday, “The representatives of the Turkish embassy in Israel are welcome to lower the flag completely and return home. Shameful.”Yitzhak Goldknopf, leader of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, also shared a photo of the flag at half-staff, writing on X, “Erdogan long ago turned Turkey into an integral part of the axis of evil, and into a state that supports terrorism. Anyone who mourns an arch-terrorist with the blood of innocent men, women and children on his hands has no place in the State of Israel.”
