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Death of IDF Singer Shows Israel’s Heart — and What We Lost
Like many of us, I have had trouble sleeping since October 7. Our lives have been thrown into an uproar. Every morning we wake up to the “cleared for publication” list of IDF soldiers who were killed the previous day, and whose names and faces we are now permitted to see. Their families have been informed, and we all scan the list for names we know.
There is fear and pain every day. We also think of our hostages who are being held in Gaza, and the war for our very survival that we are currently engaged in.
I was in despair when I learned that 26-year-old Shaul Greenglick was killed in Gaza, only a few weeks after he auditioned for The Next Star show singing “Blind Bat,” which is a song about finding courage and happiness.
I sat in my living room in Tel Aviv watching him a few weeks ago, after a long evening with a friend who returned home from a month of fighting in Gaza.
As The Algemeiner reported, he later said he was putting singing on hold to defend his beloved homeland:
Greenglick uploaded on Dec. 14 an Instagram post that included a clip of his performance on HaKokhav Haba. In the caption, he talked about putting his passion of singing on hold to help defend Israel in its fight against Hamas terrorists.
“I imagined this year differently, a year of ambitions and fulfilling dreams. Now I am living an old dream to fight for the country … a new dream and another will have to wait a little,” he wrote in Hebrew.
In reading his post, and also watching his performance on Israeli TV, we see the true character of Israel. While Palestinian terrorists (and Palestinian society at large) are glorifying the death of Jews — here was an Israeli soldier who wanted to bring peace, light, music, and happiness to the world — but was returning to battle in order to save his family, friends, and fellow Jews.
The difference between the two sides could not be more stark — but of course, the world will never note or appreciate the difference.
After his death was announced, a video made the rounds, which showed him being hugged by his mom as he was home for a break from reserve duty while his family sang Shlomo Artzi’s “Teta’aru Lachem,” a song of longing for a world without sadness or fear. His mother was holding him; I can’t imagine what she is going through now.
This beautiful soul was killed because of a war started by a Palestinian society that produced and still supports Hamas — which seeks not to build and celebrate life, but to destroy it.
He is dead because this time, the Jewish people are choosing to live.
While Shaul Greenglick is dead, we will never ever quit. We will fight, and the Jewish people will live. Hamas and our enemies will be eliminated and the Jewish people will endure. We shed tears for the dead because we value life, but we must fight on for them. We will show strength and we will win, as our people have throughout history.
Shaul Greenglick’s father wore his son’s uniform, and saluted his fallen son at his funeral. A final salute for our fallen hero. Heartbreaking. May his memory forever be a blessing.
Ronn Torossian is an American-Israeli entrepreneur, author and philanthropist.
The post Death of IDF Singer Shows Israel’s Heart — and What We Lost first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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