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After Brutal Executions, Will IDF Operations to Rescue Hostages Continue?
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on September 1 that they had recovered the bodies of six Israeli hostages from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, including the body of US citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin. According to reports, the hostages were shot at close range multiple times, just days before they were discovered by the IDF.
Since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, when the terrorist group abducted 250 women, children, and men, the IDF has rescued or recovered the remains of 45 hostages from Gaza through military operations. These missions are morally and strategically imperative: Each hostage that Israel brings home weakens Hamas’ grip on the enclave, and brings us closer to the war’s end.
Since the November 2023 US-brokered ceasefire deal that saw the release of 105 hostages, Hamas has repeatedly refused subsequent ceasefire agreements and hostage proposals. Despite feverish diplomatic efforts by Israel and the United States, Hamas has not freed a single hostage from Gaza since the November deal.
With 97 hostages from the October 7 attacks reportedly remaining in Gaza and Hamas’ intransigence, the only way besides a deal to bring hostages back is through military operations. Since the November deal, the IDF has rescued or returned the remains of over a third of the remaining hostages in Gaza. The continued success of IDF rescue missions in Gaza is critical for several reasons.
First and foremost, Israel must bring the hostages home to begin the healing process from the trauma of October 7. The plight of the hostages is a scar on Israeli psyches, and Hamas uses them as weapons to torment Israeli society. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar spent over a decade in an Israeli prison, and speaks Hebrew fluently; he understands Israelis well and knows how to get under their skin. By releasing hostage videos at strategic moments and spreading misinformation about the hostage negotiations, Sinwar is intentionally antagonizing Israelis.
Second, ending the hostage crisis is a strategic imperative for the IDF. Since October 8, the IDF has been fighting an active kinetic war on at least seven fronts. After failing so terribly to save the 1,200 men, women, and children killed on October 7, the IDF cannot fully focus its attention on other fronts — or a potential wider regional war that might be launched by Hezbollah or Iran — until it completes the mission in Gaza and brings the hostages home.
Third, military rescue operations are tactically important because each hostage who comes home deprives Sinwar of physical protection. For 10 months, Sinwar has been hiding in tunnels and terror hideouts above ground, reportedly surrounded by living hostages. The hostages serve as a life insurance policy for Sinwar, who understands that Israel is unlikely to make an attempt on his life while he uses hostages as a human shield.
Finally, the IDF’s return of hostages deprives Sinwar of precious bargaining leverage in the hostage negotiations. Sinwar has demanded the release of Hamas terrorists from Israeli jails in exchange for the hostages — and that Hamas remain in power in the Gaza Strip after the war (something that most Israelis, and even Vice President Kamala Harris now oppose).
Multiple Palestinian prisoners that were released in the November deal have already returned to terrorism. Sinwar himself was released from prison in a hostage for prisoner deal in 2011 when over 1,000 terrorists were released from Israeli prisons in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Without hostages, Sinwar has fewer negotiating chips to make such demands.
There is no denying that a negotiated deal is by far and away the best option for bringing home the hostages. After all, IDF military operations have only returned 8 living hostages in ten months of war. However, in the absence of a deal, the IDF must push forward with intelligence collection and special operations to rescue and recover hostages, as these operations place additional pressure on Sinwar to finally accept a deal that ends the war.
The one complicating factor is that Israel’s past success in hostage rescue operations may give Hamas an incentive to murder Israeli hostages if they feel the IDF is close to freeing them. (Israeli forces were reportedly operating in the area near where the tunnel was found prior to the execution of the six hostages — and just one kilometer away from where a Bedouin Israeli hostage was rescued last week). It’s unclear if those past successes led Hamas to change its strategy, and execute hostages rather than letting them be rescued by Israelis.
But as long as Hamas insists it remain in power — which would put nine million Israelis at risk of kidnapping — and refuses to negotiate a deal with Israel, the US, and the international community, then Israel has no choice but to continue these operations.
To its credit, the Biden administration has reportedly provided Israel with special technology and intelligence for its missions in Gaza. However, the administration has also attempted to significantly limit IDF operations in Gaza, particularly in Rafah, where at least 9 hostages were held.
Any future administration should continue Washington’s support for Israel’s recovery efforts in Gaza and back Israel’s right for full operational freedom in the enclave to return the hostages held by terrorists in Gaza, including several American citizens.
Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X @EKrivine.
The post After Brutal Executions, Will IDF Operations to Rescue Hostages Continue? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Finds Terror Tunnel Next to Hospital in Samaria
Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – Israeli forces discovered a tunnel during a counterterror operation in the Tulkarem camp in the West Bank, the IDF said on Friday.
According to the Israeli military, the underground complex was located adjacent to a hospital in the camp, situated north of the city of the same name, and contained an entrance but no exit, as it was still under construction.
“The forces are continuing to investigate the complex and will dismantle it,” the IDF added.
While Hamas built a vast terror tunnel network in the Gaza Strip over many years that the Israeli army has been working to dismantle since war started on Oct. 7, these types of tunnels are rare in the West Bank, where the IDF regularly operates to locate and destroy terrorist infrastructure.
The tunnel was found as the IDF restarted its major operation in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley on Sept. 10, which has been dubbed “Summer Camps” and was initially launched on Aug. 28.
Since the operation resumed, the IDF has killed more than 10 armed terrorists in ground and aerial attacks, including four in the areas of Tulkarem and Nur Shams, the army said. Three of the latter terrorists were killed in an aerial strike on Sept. 11, and the fourth in close-quarters combat.
One of the three killed in the aerial strike was named by the IDF as Muhammad Abu Ataya. He was suspected of killing Master Sgt. (res.) Maxim Rizkov, 30, from Beersheva, of the Israel Border Police’s Yamas undercover unit, on Oct. 18, 2023.
In addition, the IDF said that it hit another 15 terrorists during the operation, without specifying whether they were wounded or killed or how they were attacked.
During a 48-hour counterterrorism operation in the areas of Tubas, Tamun and Far’ar, Israeli forces killed a terrorist throwing explosive devices during exchanges of fire. The forces also located a vehicle rigged with explosives. Inside, they found explosive devices and a long-range detonation system that was dismantled.
In all the areas of activity, Israeli forces seized large amounts of weapons, including sniper rifles, two M-16s, handguns and additional weaponry.
In Tulkarem, forces located and dismantled four bomb manufacturing laboratories and four operational communications centers equipped with cameras. Additionally, a machine used to manufacture weapons, within which weapon parts were found, and many IEDs in the area were dismantled.
Furthermore, five armed terrorists were killed by an aircraft in Tubas.
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France: Antisemitic Tag at Memorial for Murdered Jewish Women
A postcard campaign calling for justice for Sarah Halimi addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: courtesy of Israelite Consistoire of Haut-Rhin
JNS.org – A memorial garden in Nogent-sur-Marne, France, dedicated to two victims of gruesome antisemitic murders in Paris in 2017 and 2018, respectively, was defaced with a swastika.
The city mayor, Jacques Martin, strongly condemned the act, describing it as “vandalism” and stating that “hatred has no place in Nogent.”
The municipality quickly removed the antisemitic tag and made available to investigators CCTV recordings of the area.
The garden, inaugurated in November 2022, is of particular importance to the community.
Sarah Halimi, born in Nogent-sur-Marne in November 1951, spent some 30 years of her life there as a nursery director before her tragic murder in Paris.
The mayor stressed that, until now, Nogent-sur-Marne had been spared by the upsurge in antisemitism seen nationwide in recent months.
He said he is determined not to let such behavior take root in his city, declaring that ignorance and hatred would not be tolerated. He affirmed the town’s determination to preserve the memory of Sarah Halimi and Mireille Knoll, refusing to see them “murdered a second time.”
In April 2021, the French Supreme Court ruled that Halimi’s murderer was criminally irresponsible. Twenty-five thousand people gathered across France on April 25, 2021, at the call of citizens’ groups and representatives of the Jewish community, to protest the lack of a trial following the murder.
Halimi, 65, was beaten to death in her Paris apartment before being defenestrated by her 27-year-old neighbor, to cries of “Allah Akbar” (“God is the greatest” in Arabic).
Mireille Knoll, who had fled Paris in 1942 to escape the Vel d’Hiv roundup, was stabbed 11 times and her body burned.
Her two killers were convicted in 2021—one was acquitted of murder but sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for theft, and the other was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 22-year security period for murder, with the aggravating circumstance that the victim belonged to the Jewish community.
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Man Who Set Himself Afire in Boston Reportedly Was Anti-Israel Protester
Members of UMass Boston’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine surround, shove and hurl epithets at CAMERA researcher Dexter Van Zile outside the ADL office in the city. June 24, 2021. Source: X
JNS.org – A man set himself ablaze in downtown Boston, not far from the Boylston Street entrance to the Public Garden shortly after 8 p.m. on Wednesday.
It wasn’t clear what the man’s motives were, but the incident occurred at 19 Columbus Avenue, according to a report that the Boston Police Department provided to JNS. That address is in the vicinity of the Consulate General of Israel to New England.
The man was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital with “severe burn wounds,” per the police report. The report stated that the incident wasn’t a suspected hate crime.
Video that circulated on social media purported to be from the man. In the video, a man who identified himself as Matt Nelson said that he would engage in “an extreme act of protest,” and that “we are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The man also spoke in the video of everyone being “slaves to capitalism and the military industrial complex,” and said that Washington must stop supporting the Jewish state and must back the (proposed) International Criminal Court indictment against Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Free Palestine,” the man in the video added. (JNS sought comment from the Israeli consulate.)
A Boston Globe staffer with the same name as the man in the video posted that some had mistaken him for the man in the video.
The post Man Who Set Himself Afire in Boston Reportedly Was Anti-Israel Protester first appeared on Algemeiner.com.