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Israel Must Enter Rafah to Defeat Hamas and Prevent Future Terror Attacks
Trucks carrying aid are seen near the Rafah border in Gaza after entering from Egypt, October 10, 2023. Photo: Sinai for Human Rights/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
I almost walked past it, yet it’s been seared into my brain ever since. While visiting a Palestinian town in the West Bank two years ago, my eyes landed on a handwritten memorial to Gazan children killed during the 2014 Israel-Hamas war. Jewish tradition teaches that one life is equal to an entire world. And there I was, staring at a list of entire worlds destroyed far too soon, in the most tragic circumstances.
I say this not to make a grand emotional gesture, but to point out that as someone with countless family and friends in the region — and who visited Israel as recently as December — I’m all-too aware of what’s at stake, both for Israelis and Palestinians. And that is exactly why I believe Israel must carry out its mission against Hamas to the fullest, including in Rafah.
How soon the Israel Defense Forces should move into Rafah is up for debate. So too is how Israel can simultaneously best protect innocent Gazans. (Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly emphasized that a major incursion into the southern Gaza city will come alongside a plan to evacuate civilians from Rafah; on March 13 the IDF announced it would direct displaced Palestinians in Rafah toward “humanitarian islands” in central Gaza.)
But what is clear is that Israel’s mission to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza will be incomplete if it leaves Hamas’ Rafah battalions intact. This would be a disaster for Israelis, Palestinians, and their Arab neighbors alike.
Israel’s conduct in this war has always been motivated by the understanding that, after inflicting the atrocities of October 7, Hamas cannot remain as a ruling military power on the Jewish state’s border.
The rationale was never revenge, nor perpetuating Netanyahu’s rule. (Contrary to misconceptions in the West, Israelis overwhelmingly support the war effort despite their simultaneous disdain towards their prime minister). Israelis recognize, as Amir Tibon of the staunchly left-wing Haaretz put it, that “a country that doesn’t retaliate in the most forceful way after terrorists kidnap an eight year old from her bed, simply won’t exist. Especially not in the Middle East.”
But it’s not just Israel’s future that relies on toppling Hamas. As long as Hamas retains power in Gaza, Palestinians will never have their own state. Israel’s presence in the West Bank, and all its accompanying injustices, will continue, with Israelis refusing to risk the West Bank — which overlooks Israel’s major population centers — being taken over by Hamas. (As a reminder, Hamas has consistently declared its intention to repeat the October 7 massacre until it eliminates the Jewish State.)
As The Times of Israel’s Haviv Rettig Gur recently observed, Israel leaving Gaza without uprooting Hamas from Rafah would prompt a “Taliban retaking of Afghanistan moment” in the enclave, dooming Israelis and Gazans to further rounds of brutal fighting.
As for Lebanon, Hezbollah, whose training and firepower make Hamas look like amateurs, would understand that Israel, lacking the resolve to destroy Hamas, will be similarly unable to prevent Hezbollah from setting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on fire. And if you think Israel’s response in Gaza has been ferocious, just watch what happens to Beirut when Hezbollah begins bombing hospitals and schools in Tel Aviv.
That’s to say nothing of Yemen’s Houthis, and the numerous other terror groups throughout the Middle East — all backed by Iranian ayatollahs who thrive on regional instability. It was not for nothing that, on October 10, US President Joe Biden declared “to any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of the situation. I have one word: Don’t.”
Put simply, Israel’s failure to overthrow Hamas in Gaza has the potential to set the region alight.
While we’re here, it’s worth noting that the intensifying calls for Israel to end its war have little connection to Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and much more to do with society’s preference for dead Jews over Jews who fight back. A quick test: if you’ve only discovered your dismay at the destruction caused by urban warfare now that Jews are involved, ask yourself why.
Indeed, what we are witnessing today is a repeat of the same phenomenon that has occurred in every Gaza war since Hamas took power in 2007: the world has never allowed Israel to unequivocally win. The only way for this vicious cycle of violence to end is to reverse that trend, and let Israel topple Hamas.
Calling on Israel to stay out of Rafah may seem like the humanitarian thing to do. The number of deaths is tragic; the suffering of those still alive is horrible. But as Haviv Rettig Gur explained, “if Hamas remains standing” in Rafah, “then the entire war will have been for nothing.” All those Gazans and Israelis will have died in vain. And the world, having pressured Israel to abandon its war, will be to blame.
Josh Feldman is an Australian writer who focuses primarily on Israeli and Jewish issues. Twitter: @joshrfeldman
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
The post Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
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