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Current War Exposes a Shocking Reality: Israel Does Not Have True Air Superiority
Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts rockets launched from the Gaza Strip, as seen from Sderot, Israel May 13, 2023 Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, experienced the London Blitz in World War II. Though he was not a military man, he well understood the significance of air superiority — and, in its absence, the weight of an air threat to the Israeli home front. When, as Israel’s first prime minister, he was about to make his historic decision on the Sinai war (1956), he set a condition for the French allies: that they place two fighter squadrons to defend Israel’s skies during the war.
Since then, air superiority has been a fundamental pillar of the Israeli security concept. Absolute control of the skies was intended to prevent the Arab air forces from hitting the Israeli home front and to ensure that in an emergency, reserve forces could be mobilized and reach the front without interruption while the limited regular forces holding the lines were being supported. The regular forces would defend, air superiority would enable, and the reserves would regain the initiative.
Over the years, the Israeli Air Force has become one of the most advanced in the world. Israel’s confidence in its air power, an offensive force at its core, left limited room for a defensive approach. In the 1960s, advanced Hawk missile batteries were purchased from the United States, despite opposition from the Air Force. Considerations of air coordination and flight safety led to the transfer of the anti-aircraft units from the Artillery Corps to the Air Force under the central control method used in it.
In June 1982, the Air Force stunned the world with a brilliant strike operation on Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries (SAMs) in Lebanon. In addition to destroying the SAM formations, the strike shot down dozens of enemy planes. Since then, no Arab air force has challenged the skies of Israel. Absolute air supremacy was achieved.
Gradually, over the following decades, two processes took place. The first was the reduction of tactical anti-aircraft formations, the main purpose of which was to provide mobile protection at the front for ground forces against enemy aircraft. Mobile formations protected the ground maneuver and shot down enemy planes and helicopters in the Yom Kippur War, and also fought in the First Lebanon War. Despite its long-lasting deployment and use against some terrorist airborne attacks from the Lebanese border in the 1980s, the formation was a low priority for the Air Force. After the Second Lebanon War, the last of these units were shut down and the anti-aircraft formation moved in full force to its new mission, which had been evolving since the 1990s: defense of the home front against missiles and rockets.
The second significant process to occur over recent decades was the development and purchase of Arrow interceptors, Iron Dome, and David’s Sling, to protect the home front from the missiles and rockets that were accumulating on the other side. This threat intensified over the years, and the air defense corps, which, in 2011, officially changed its name from Anti-Aircraft to Air and Missile Defense, adapted itself, shifting its focus to the emerging threat that had replaced the anti-aircraft mission. The working assumption was, and remains to this day, that Israel’s Air Force rules the skies. The job of air defense, therefore, is to focus on missiles and rockets.
This assumption is no longer valid.
The “Low Sky” layer
The current war illustrates what military professionals and observers already knew. After all, this development has been observed in all recent wars in the world, particularly in Ukraine.
At the beginning of this decade, a new-old threat layer gradually developed: numerous cheap, small, unmanned aircraft with a low radar signature. The world of drones and unmanned aircraft completely changed the premise of absolute air superiority. The Israeli Air Force does continue to rule the skies — but “under the noses” of the advanced fighter jets, a new air layer has been created. This is the “low sky” layer.
The enemy has found a loophole here. The Air Force (and, within it, the air defense corps) is required to defend against the combined and coordinated threats of missiles, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and rockets (MUR).
The older precision missile threat was already a challenge. The risk of precision strikes applies not only to military and civilian infrastructure but also to the air defense system itself. This array was built over the years under the premise of Israeli air superiority. The air defense itself was not supposed to be hunted. Today, the enemy is able not only to accurately target our air defense elements but to maintain a real presence in our skies. Using UAVs, and even drones in shorter ranges, it can search for targets and strike them in real time. The enemy is able to penetrate deep into Israel and engage the air defense system in one lane while other aircraft take advantage of the diversion and penetrate in another, more covert lane. It can identify targets and strike immediately using armed or suicide UAS. Above all, it strives to locate, endanger, and destroy key elements of the air defense system itself. It is capable of all this and more. We have to defend our Air Defense.
The transition from dealing with piloted aircraft to aircraft with pre-programmed, changing routes that can perform a variety of tricks turns the aerial clash between defender and attacker into a complex professional battle. Such a battle requires additional measures. These consist mainly of finding means of detection, localization, tracking, accurate identification, and above all, faster decision-making that is based on more information in real time. As the challenge of managing the air battle increases, the air defense system, even one that is capable of successfully intercepting thousands of missiles and rockets, can engage fewer air targets at once. The array thus becomes more vulnerable and exposed.
The current war greatly accelerated the development of this threat. The enemy has spotted the breach and is daily improving the means and operational techniques at his disposal. The UAS threat can no longer be seen as separate from the ballistic, missile and rocket threats. The enemy is perfecting techniques by which to use these tools in a coordinated manner to overcome our air defense arrays, destroy them, and continue to hit targets on our front and home front.
This dangerous process, which is accelerating fast, requires quick learning, effective organization and practical preparation on Israel’s part. Here are three practical issues to be addressed, from light to heavy:
Central control
Central control is meant to enable effective, optimal and efficient decision-making. Processing information from all sensors makes it possible to launch the best interceptor from the best location at the best moment.
This approach is designed to deal mainly with quantity, on the assumption that it will be possible to see in real time where the enemy’s missiles are aimed. In a reality in which UAS appear and disappear from radar screens quickly, decentralized processes might also be required, under a central policy. This complexity will affect the scope of the threats the defense system can deal with simultaneously and also the extent of the possible savings in interceptors and management of interceptor stockpiles.
Absolute central control could also prove to be a single point of failure. The air defense control model must adapt and integrate decentralized decisions with a central policy and allow the integration of air assets like attack helicopters and fighter jets, as is the case these days.
The defense of air defense
Anyone who deals with air defense knows what “multi-layered” means. Multi-layered defense is the aerial version of the principle of operational depth in land defense. An attacking aircraft will relatively easily overcome a single SAM battery. But if, while attacking one battery, it is exposed to another one, or to a different type of radar or missile, or possibly even to a third battery, it will have much more difficulty. The principle of layered protection allows different batteries and types of detection and interception systems to back up and protect each other.
If some of the detection and interception means also change location from time to time, defend, and camouflage and scatter dummy targets, the challenge to the attacker is enhanced.
The Israeli air defense system is multi-layered, but the degree of mutual assistance and protection between the layers is relatively limited. The premise, as mentioned, was that of complete air superiority. The main challenge was to optimize the use of interceptors against a tremendous load of missiles and rockets. The result was that each tier was designed to deal with a specific type of missile or rocket. Iron Dome can’t really assist Arrow batteries or support their missions. This limitation is equally true among the other layers.
As noted, the degree of mobility, protection and hiding ability of the Israeli air defense system is inadequate. Unlike similar systems in the world, our air defense system was not built with synchronization as a critical goal. If we expect our air defense system to continue to provide the level of protection we have enjoyed so far or even close to it, it will have to go through a significant series of adjustments, and fast.
The first and most important will be the addition of another interception layer — point protection — which will enable a relatively high level of security for essential sites and assets. This layer would only be launched when it is clear that the other layers have failed and only to protect a critical asset for the country, such as an important power plant or vital component of the air defense system.
Another adjustment would be the shielding, camouflage and mobility of some of the elements of the array to make it difficult for the enemy to acquire these targets in real time. The hiding of air defense components and deception by dispersal of fake systems are common and essential methods of operation around the world.
Tactical air defense system
The air defense system must also adapt to the more demanding combat conditions at the front. This area, where ground troops from both sides are engaged in battle, will face thousands of missiles and rockets and hundreds of UAS and cruise missiles. The front is a smaller and denser area where civilian communities as well as concentrations of forces need to be defended from tens of thousands of short-range rockets, advanced anti-tank missiles, and aircraft and drones in abundance, and all in a very short time frame.
On both the home front and the battle front, our defense will depend on a prior decision on the identification of essential assets and a prioritizing of defense. The complexity will be twofold: the battle picture will be intricate and dynamic, and it will demand real-time prioritizing. Because of this, the air defense batteries will have to change position frequently for protection. The shorter ranges of the threat and defense elements will require closer coordination between the movement of air defense batteries that protect each other. Each location will have to be chosen in view of the risk from enemy ground forces and the need to protect our forces.
At the front, it will be necessary to (re)establish an organization that uses short-term, more mobile tactical measures. This flexible organization will have to be much more coordinated with the picture seen by the ground combat commanders. A tactical air defense system will be required – one not much different from the northern anti-aircraft units that were closed down almost 15 years ago.
The tactical air defense array that operates at the front will have to wear two hats. In one hat, it will protect the forces fighting on land and the vital assets in the sector. It is possible that, thanks to its radars, the array will also be an important partner in locating sources of enemy fire, producing targets for ground forces fire support. In the other hat, the array will serve as the “front layer” of the home-front air defense array. The aerial battle picture – the coordination of air operations for safety and the identification of friends and foes – will have to be managed by the centralized control of the air force.
More importantly, the relative density of the tactical air defense system at the front will make it possible to detect and stop some threats designed to penetrate deep into our territory while they are still in their early stages of flight, above the front. The array will serve as a kind of “front wall” for the defense of the home front. It will reduce the number of missiles and aircraft the home front defense will have to deal with and channel some of them to flight paths that are easier to detect and defend against within the Israeli topography.
Arrange the sky
On the eve of the Battle of France in May 1940, the Anglo-French alliance possessed more tanks and aircraft than were available to the invading force of the German Wehrmacht, and their models were superior and more modern. They were nevertheless defeated. Their defeat was not due to lack of means but to an inferior understanding of mechanized warfare. The Wehrmacht was better organized for the battle and made better use of the tanks and planes it had at its disposal.
The rapid procurement of means is not a sufficient answer to the challenge we now face. If we do not reorganize the battle for the sky, especially at the front, we can’t hope for a real improvement in the results. If we just add more measures without managing the layered defense with the required dynamism, we will experience not only waste but failure. A multi-layered and advanced air defense would not be complete without tactical capabilities for the defense of the front. Such air defense requires significant conceptual, operational and organizational adjustments to the existing structure.
Defending the country’s air space is the first mission of the Israeli Air Force. The recognition that our air superiority is not absolute is dramatic, but it must be acknowledged. Despite our control of fighter jets and traditional air superiority, our forces at the front suffer from a dangerous level of inferiority and lack of protection. The “low sky” has become a real threat.
It is vital for Israel to reestablish a tactical air defense system at the front. Israeli air superiority is incomplete without it. The sky needs to be rearranged.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking. His book, The Battle Before the War (MOD 2022, in Hebrew), dealt with the IDF’s need to change, innovate, and renew a decisive war approach.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Ran Kochav (RanKo) recently retired from the IDF. Among his duties he served as commander of the Air and Missile Defense Corps and IDF Spokesperson, and was a member of the General Staff forum. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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UCLA Faculty Group Denounces School’s ‘Ongoing Silence’ Amid Rampant Campus Antisemitism
Illustrative: Anti-Israel protesters set up camp on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2024. Photo: Alberto Sibaja via Reuters Connect.
A Jewish faculty group at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is sounding the alarm about antisemitism on the campus, issuing an open letter calling attention to a slew of indignities to which they are subjected.
The primary agent of anti-Jewish hatred named by the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) is the Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism (AAAR), a university-created body that has allegedly violated its mission to promote pluralism by lodging defaming accusations at the pro-Israel Jewish community in a series of reports, the latest of which contained what JFrg described as intolerable distortions of fact.
“The [AAAR] has released a deeply misleading report that falsely accuses Jewish faculty, staff, and students of harassment while ignoring the documented, escalating antisemitism at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM),” JFrg’s letter said. “DGSOM and UCLA’s ongoing silence concerning rising antisemitism continues to encourage more antisemitism, as we can plainly see in this report. JFrg unequivocally rejects this baseless and inflammatory report, and calls on the UCLA administration, DGSOM leadership, and the public to confront the reality of antisemitism at UCLA.”
JFRG’s letter went on to enumerate a slew of falsehoods included in the AAAR’s report, including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression, involving university and non-university actors,” align itself with conservative groups, and harm minority students by opposing “racial justice.”
The AAAR report, reviewed by The Algemeiner, even stated that its existence was not spurred by documented incidents of discriminatory conduct but what it falsely called “the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
“One particularly egregious falsehood in the UCLA Task Force report accuses JFrg of attempting to ‘silence advocacy’ since 2021 — two years prior to the groupss formation following the tragic events of Oct. 7, 2023,” JFrg continued, “This claim not only discredits the report but perpetuates harmful antisemitic tropes about covert Jewish influence. This is not just a factual error — it is a textbook example of an antisemitic conspiracy theory: the idea that Jews secretly control institutions, dictate policy, and are responsible for all negative events.”
JFrg added that life for faculty at the Geffen medical school has wreaked demonstrable harm on Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
The group charged that school officials neither condemn the alleged behavior nor take steps the correct the hostile environment it has fostered.
“DGSOM’s continued silence in the face of a sustained and deeply troubling rise in antisemitism within its own institution is not just complicity — it is a failure of responsibility,” the letter concluded. “Without strong and principled leadership, this dangerous pattern will persist. We recognize that previous UCLA administrations … failed to respond to our calls for investigations and education — overlooking critical teaching moments that lie at the heart of a university’s mission. However, we remain hopeful that the new UCLA administration will seize this opportunity to engage meaningfully, foster real education and moral clarity, and lead the campus toward a more inclusive and principled future based on respectful, evidence-based dialogue, and academic integrity.”
JFrg’s letter came after the UCLA campus was devastated by anti-Israel protests during last year’s spring semester, including the creation of a so-called “Gaza solidarity encampment” on campus from which Jewish students were barred entry.
Meanwhile, Jewish health and medical professionals have seen a stark rise in antisemitism in their workplaces, according to a recent study conducted by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group.
The study found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: A Survey Study of Reported Experiences,” the study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom relayed harrowing accounts of overhearing their colleagues within their professional or academic environments say that Zionists should not receive medical care, being subject to “social and professional isolation,” and being doxxed as retaliation for reporting antisemitic behavior. The problem has left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened,” StandWithUs said in a press release which announced that the study has been published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
“This study represents the experiences of health-care professionals from 32 states, offering critical insights into the pervasiveness of antisemitism in our profession,” said Dr. Kelly Michelson, co-author of the study and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s director of the Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities. “It is imperative for medical institutions to incorporate training that confronts antisemitism to ensure the safety and inclusivity of all health-care professionals.”
The researchers also said that the findings necessitate an expansion of diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings to include antisemitism education.
StandWithUs’s study followed a similar one published in Canada in December, in which Jewish doctors reported being chased not only out of the field of medicine but also out of the country. Commissioned by the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario (JMAO), that survey found that 80 percent of Jewish medical workers who responded to it “have faced antisemitism at work” since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7 and that 31 percent of Jewish doctors — 98 percent of whom “are worried about the impact of antisemitism on health care” — have weighed emigrating from Canada to another country.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Hamas-Linked Lobbying Network Expands Political Influence in Europe, New Report Shows
LP4Q Europe network held its first press conference in the European Parliament (April 2024). From Left to Right: MEP David Cormand, MP Malik Ben Achour, Michele Piras, Senator Raymonde Poncet Monge, MP Thomas Portes. Photo: NGO Monitor
A Turkey-based lobbying network with ties to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is working to recruit European politicians to support anti-Israel policies, according to a new investigative report.
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations, published a report last week on the expansion of the League of Parliamentarians for Al-Quds and Palestine (LP4Q).
This political lobby network, which was established in 2015 and includes about 1,500 parliamentarians from around the world, is growing its influence across several European countries.
Vincent Chebat, senior researcher at NGO Monitor, authored the report, which exposes the dysfunction in the ways interest groups operate within European parliaments. He noted that the information about LP4Q’s connections to Hamas and the involvement of highly controversial European representatives in a lobby group backed by Turkey and Qatar was easily accessible.
“The lack of basic vetting is remarkable,” he told The Algemeiner. “It is not surprising that far-left MPs, some belonging to parties that have repeatedly refused to recognize Hamas as a terrorist entity, were involved in establishing this network.”
Since 2023, LP4Q members have met with current and former members of parliaments across Europe and activists in the European Parliament, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Scotland, and Finland.
The organization is also “preparing to expand” its activities to Portugal, the Netherlands, and eastern Europe.
LP4Q describes itself as an organization established “at the initiative of parliamentarians who support Palestinian rights.”
Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken supporter of Hamas and a fierce critic of Israel, said that “the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds has become the voice of the Palestinian issue at the global level.”
Michele Piras, a former Italian member of parliament and current LP4Q board member, leads the group’s expansion in Europe and has reportedly engaged with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization that participated in Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to NGO Monitor.
Last year, LP4Q’s European Network held its first meeting at the French National Assembly, bringing together 20 parliamentarians from several European countries to discuss, as they described, “the pressing need for Europe to take decisive action to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
The New Executive Board of the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds and Palestine Holds its First Meeting (May 2024). Photo: NGO Monitor
“Participants advocated for measures such as the cessation of military cooperation with Israel, an arms embargo, an immediate ceasefire, and the provision of humanitarian aid to civilians,” LP4Q wrote in a statement.
“Additionally, support was voiced for pursuing legal avenues, including actions before the International Court of Justice, to ensure severe condemnation of Israeli crimes,” the statement continued.
During the meeting, members also argued for “the recognition of an independent Palestinian State … and the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people.”
NGO Monitor reported that 160 current and former European parliamentarians signed a petition outlining their positions on the French communist website L’Humanité as part of the European Network’s launch. The signatories included 99 French, 23 Italian, 12 Belgian, and 14 Spanish MPs, senators, and MEPs (member of European Parliament).
Until its expansion to Europe, LP4Q was originally composed of members of parliament from Muslim countries, with at least two of its board members linked to Hamas and having been sanctioned by the US government.
For example, LP4Q President Hamid bin Abdullah Al-Ahmar, a Yemeni businessman, is considered one of Hamas’s most prominent international supporters, according to the US Treasury Department. He also played a key role in Hamas’s investment portfolio, which managed over $500 million worth of assets at its peak.
In 2021, Al-Ahmar met now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to discuss “the political developments related to the Palestinian issue, the dangers facing it, ways to confront them, and the required national, regional, and international work strategies, especially within the parliamentary framework represented by the Parliamentarians for Jerusalem Association.”
Other LP4Q members and officials also have ties to Hamas. For example, board member Sayed Salem Abu-Msameh has been described as “one of the founders of Hamas” and was reportedly sentenced by Israel to 12 years in prison for helping to establish the terrorist group’s military wing.
LP4Q board vice presidents Hasan Turan, a Turkish member of parliament, and Ahmed Kharchi, an Algerian member of parliament, have also been linked to Hamas, with Turan reportedly facilitating high-level meetings between senior Hamas leaders and Turkish political elites.
According to NGO Monitor, LP4Q already has influence in Muslim states, including Qatar, as well as in Africa and South America, through its observer membership in the Parliamentary Union of the OIC Member States (PUIC), the African Parliamentary Union (APU), the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC), and the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union.
As for LP4Q’s finances, NGO Monitor explained that the Turkey-based lobbying network is not transparent about its sources of funding, and the amounts related to its agreements remain undisclosed.
In 2021, LP4Q signed a “protocol cooperation” with a Turkish governmental institution, the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities. That same year, it agreed with the state-run news agency Anadolu “to engage and coordinate in order to serve the Palestinian and the cause of Jerusalem in the media and to confront the disinformation and falsification campaigns of the Israeli media machine.”
The Algemeiner reached out to LP4Q for comment for this story but did not receive a response.
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IDF Confirms Death of Hostage Shlomo Mansour, Murdered by Hamas on Oct. 7
Shlomo Mansour. Photo: courtesy
Israel announced on Tuesday its conclusion that one of the hostages slated for release in the current Gaza ceasefire deal died on Oct. 7, 2023, during the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, recent intelligence confirmed that Hamas murdered Shlomo Mansour, 86, and took his body from his home in Kibbutz Kissufim to Gaza.
In a statement, Mansour’s family called him “the pillar of strength for our entire family” and “a man of high morals and values, a lover of humanity, who always helped others wholeheartedly.” They described Mansour as “a man with a heart of gold, golden hands, and a smile worth gold.”
Born in Baghdad, Mansour survived the 1941 Farhud pogrom which targeted Jews in Iraq’s capital. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says that “during the two days of violence, rioters murdered between 150 and 180 Jews, injured 600 others, and raped an undetermined number of women. They also looted some 1,500 stores and homes. The community leaders estimated that about 2,500 families — 15 percent of the Jewish community in Baghdad — suffered directly from the pogrom.”
Mansour, now the oldest hostage still in Gaza, immigrated to Israel at 13. He and his wife Mazel — who escaped during the Hamas attack — had five children and 12 grandchildren.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that “my wife Sarah and I extend our heartfelt condolences to the family of the late Shlomo Mansour, upon receiving the bitter news of his murder by the terrorist organization Hamas.”
Netanyahu called Mansour “one of the builders of the country and the founders of Kibbutz Kissufim. He survived the Farhud riots in Iraq in his youth. During the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas murderers on Oct. 7, he was murdered and kidnapped to Gaza. We share in the family’s deep grief. We will not rest or be silent until he is returned to the grave of Israel. We will continue to act resolutely and tirelessly until we return all of our hostages — both living and dead. May his memory be blessed.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement that he sends “all my support and strength to the Mansour family and the community of Kibbutz Kissufim, who have received the bitter and painful news of the murder of Shlomo Mansour, who was taken hostage on Oct. 7.”
Herzog stated that “about a month ago, I had the privilege of meeting his incredible family and hearing from them about their beloved Shlomo, who survived the Farhud pogrom against Baghdad’s Jews in 1941, only to be brutally abducted from his home in Kissufim at the age of 86. They fought with all their might for his return throughout a year and four months of hell and pain, clinging in hope and prayer for his fate.”
Describing Mansour as “a talented carpenter, a modest and kind-hearted family and community man who radiated warmth and love to all those around him,” Herzog said that “we will continue to do everything in our power to bring Shlomo home to be laid to rest in dignity, and to bring back all our hostages — both the living and the fallen — until the very last one.”
Mansour’s family advocated in their statement for “decision-makers to make a brave and ethical decision to bring all hostages home immediately — the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial in their homeland.”
The American Jewish Committee said in a statement responding to Mansour’s murder that “we weep with his family, his kibbutz, and all of Israel today. May his memory be a blessing.”
The European Jewish Congress stated that “we will continue doing everything in our power to bring Shlomo home for a dignified burial and to return all our hostages — both the living and the fallen — until the last one is brought back. May his memory be a blessing.”
The Anti-Defamation League responded that Mansour “endured unimaginable tragedies yet was deeply loved by his family and community. For over a year, his loved ones clung to the cruel hope he was alive. We mourn this heartbreaking loss and send our deepest condolences to his family. May his memory be a blessing.”
Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, told Sky News Australia following confirmation of Mansour’s death that “there is no depths, no ends to the depravity, the cruelty and the monstrous evil of Hamas. They spare no one. From a Holocaust survivor, 86-year-old Shlomo Mansour whom they took hostage from his home, to the youngest of hostages, a 9-month-old baby, to women and the elderly — no one is spared by their evil. There is no end to that.”
Hamas announced on Monday its plan to suspend the planned releases of further hostages, accusing the Jewish state of violating the ceasefire agreement — charges which Israel denies.
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