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Lone Soldiers
Yahya al-Sinwar, head of the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, attends a meeting with people at a hall on the seashore in Gaza City.
JNS.org – “Israel Alone” was the headline on the cover of the March 23 issue of The Economist, the British weekly. The illustration shows an Israeli flag buffeted by a sandstorm.
I wonder if Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, is sitting in a tunnel under Rafah gazing at that image, and if it’s brought a smile to his lips.
Perhaps, when he was planning the Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, one of his deputies advised that their fighters target only soldiers and spare Israeli civilians, at least children and babies; that they not rape women and mutilate corpses; that they conduct themselves, in short, as honorable warriors rather than barbarians.
And perhaps Sinwar replied: “No. The United Nations, the Red Cross, most diplomats and much of the media will support us—no matter what we do.
“When the Israelis counterattack, we will hide underground, shielded by hostages. Above us, the body count will mount. There will soon be demands for a ‘ceasefire.’ We’re fighting Jews—support for them will not last long.”
Indeed, less than two weeks after Hamas’s invasion, Brazil put a ceasefire resolution before the U.N. Security Council. The Biden administration vetoed it, explaining that it would “leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7.”
A second resolution was proposed by U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres himself in December. Again, the United States vetoed it.
A third resolution came from Algeria in February. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said it would extend “the fighting between Hamas and Israel,” “the hostages’ time in captivity” and “the dire humanitarian crisis Palestinians are facing in Gaza.” She vetoed it.
Last Friday, Washington offered its own resolution, calling for “diplomatic efforts” to secure a ceasefire “in connection with the release of all remaining hostages”—134, with roughly 100 believed still alive, including five Americans. It also condemned Houthi attacks on shipping.
That language was tough enough on Israel to win 11 of Security Council’s 15 votes. But Moscow and Beijing vetoed it, for which Hamas expressed its “appreciation.”
No doubt Iran’s rulers were appreciative, too. Hamas is their client, as are the Houthis. And Tehran, whose intentions toward Israel are openly genocidal, has become Moscow and Beijing’s strategic partner in a strengthening anti-American axis.
Another resolution, backed by Moscow, Beijing and 22 Arab countries, was put forward on Monday. It called for a ceasefire until April 9, the end of Ramadan, “leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire,” and the release of the hostages.
But it didn’t make the ceasefire contingent on the hostages’ release. Nor did it condemn Hamas. Indeed, it didn’t even mention Hamas or the Oct. 7 massacre. This time, the United States abstained, allowing the resolution’s passage—which Hamas welcomed.
I expect that, following the conclusion of Ramadan, the hostages will still be in chains and the Israel Defense Forces will proceed with what could be the last major battle of the war.
President Biden has said Hamas shouldn’t be left with a “safe haven anywhere in the Gaza Strip.” But he’s also said he doesn’t believe achieving that requires a “major ground operation.”
“The key goals Israel wants to achieve in Rafah can be done by other means,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan asserted last week, without elaboration. Military experts I’ve spoken with are skeptical.
The Israel Defense Forces estimates that there are up to 8,000 Hamas fighters in Rafah. In addition to defeating them, the Israelis need to shut the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt through which Tehran supplies Hamas with an enormous quantity of weapons and ammunition.
The Israelis have agreed to provide “humanitarian enclaves” for non-combatants away from the battlegrounds.
Of course, if Sinwar were to release his hostages and lay down his arms, no one else would be killed. That needs to be said repeatedly and emphatically.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the U.S. abstention a “retreat” that suggests moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. He canceled a visit of Israeli officials to Washington, where Sullivan and his colleagues were to suggest specific “other means” that could lead to Hamas’s defeat with fewer non-combatant casualties.
In the final analysis, Israelis are unlikely to be persuaded to let Sinwar emerge from the tunnels, one hand holding a weapon, the other flashing a V sign.
Perhaps he’d then whisper to his deputy: “Now do you understand? We don’t obey the infidels’ rules. We make the Jews bleed, and then the infidels obey our rules.”
There’s one flaw in this reasoning. In 1967, when all the Arab states surrounding Israel were mounting what they expected would be an annihilationist war, President Lyndon Johnson told the Israelis to hold their fire. Rejecting that advice, the Israelis fought and won what became known as the Six-Day War.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan advised the Israelis not to bomb a nuclear reactor in Iraq, and in 2007, President George W. Bush advised the Israelis not to bomb a nuclear reactor in Syria. In those instances, too, the Israelis did what was necessary—as anyone with a shred of strategic sense now knows.
“Better to stand alone than to live at the mercy of others,” Rachel Gur, an Israeli attorney—and, more importantly, a mother of four—noted above an image of The Economist’s cover appearing on X last week.
“We are the first Jews in 2,000 years who refuse to die quietly. We will continue to stand, to prosper and thrive. We have survived exile, the inquisition, crusades, pogroms and the Holocaust. We will prevail.”
If Sinwar saw her comment on his laptop in the tunnels beneath Rafah last week, I don’t imagine it brought a smile to his lips.
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Iran Is ‘Pressing the Gas Pedal’ on Uranium Enrichment, IAEA Chief Says
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi arrives on the opening day of the agency’s quarterly Board of Governors meeting at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, Nov. 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
Iran is “pressing the gas pedal” on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday, adding that Iran‘s recently announced acceleration in enrichment was starting to take effect.
Grossi said last month that Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would “dramatically” accelerate enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, closer to the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade.
Western powers called the step a serious escalation and said there was no civil justification for enriching to that level and that no other country had done so without producing nuclear weapons. Iran has said its program is entirely peaceful and it has the right to enrich uranium to any level it wants.
“Before it was [producing] more or less seven kilograms [of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent] per month, now it’s above 30 or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration. They are pressing the gas pedal,” Grossi told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
According to an International Atomic Energy Agency yardstick, about 42 kg of uranium enriched to that level is enough in principle, if enriched further, for one nuclear bomb. Grossi said Iran currently had about 200 kg of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent.
Still, he said it would take time to install and bring online the extra centrifuges — machines that enrich uranium — but that the acceleration was starting to happen.
“We are going to start seeing steady increases from now,” he said.
Grossi has called for diplomacy between Iran and the administration of new US President Donald Trump, who in his first term, pulled the United States out of a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that had imposed strict limits on Iran‘s atomic activities. That deal has since unraveled.
“One can gather from the first statements from President Trump and some others in the new administration that there is a disposition, so to speak, to have a conversation and perhaps move into some form of an agreement,” he said.
Separately, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at Davos that Iran must make a first step towards improving relations with countries in the region and the United States by making it clear it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.
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Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons From Gaza in West Bank Operation
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel’s defense minister said on Tuesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed terrorist groups in the volatile West Bank city.
A military spokesperson declined to give details but said the operation was “relatively similar” to but in a smaller area than one last August, in which hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drones and helicopters raided Jenin and other flashpoint cities in the West Bank.
It was the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime major stronghold of terrorist groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which said its forces were fighting Israeli troops.
At least four Palestinians were wounded on Tuesday, after 10 were killed a day earlier, Palestinian health services said, and residents reported constant gunfire and explosions.
Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said the militants’ increasing use of roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices were a particular focus of the operation, which included armored bulldozers to tear up roads in the refugee camp adjacent to the city.
Before the raid, which came two weeks after a shooting attack blamed by Israel on gunmen from Jenin, roadblocks and checkpoints had been thrown up across the West Bank in an effort to slow down movement across the territory.
As the raid began, Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces pulled out after having conducted a weeks-long operation to try to reassert control over the refugee camp, dominated by Palestinian factions that are hostile to the PA, which exercises limited governance in the West Bank.
The operation came just two days after the launch of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, with Israeli troops pulling back from their positions in many areas of the enclave.
LEARNING FROM GAZA
Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Jenin raid marked a shift in the military’s security plan in the West Bank and was “the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza.”
“We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of [Israeli] settlers [in the West Bank] and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel,” he said in a statement.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by thousands of Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists. The military has said it has refined its urban warfare tactics in the light of its experience in Gaza, but Shoshani declined to provide details of how such lessons were being applied in Jenin.
Israel considers Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that are backed by Iran as part of a multifront war waged by an axis that includes Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.
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Trump Envoy Says He’ll Go to Gaza to Monitor Ceasefire
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
US President Donald Trump‘s Middle East envoy said on Wednesday he would travel to the region to be part of what he described as an inspection team deployed in and along the Gaza Strip to ensure ceasefire compliance.
In an interview with Fox News, the envoy, Steve Witkoff, also said he believed all countries in the region could get “on board” to normalize ties with Israel. Asked to identify specific countries, he singled out Qatar, saying the Gulf country was a critical player in reaching the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Qatar, Egypt, and the United States brokered the multi-phase deal between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, and the two Arab countries have set up a communications hub in Cairo to head off new clashes between the foes.
Witkoff told Fox that implementation of the deal, which took effect on Sunday, would be more difficult than its execution.
“I’m actually going to be going over to Israel. I’m going to be part of an inspection team at the Netzarim corridor, and also at the Philadelphi corridor,” Witkoff said.
Netzarim is an east-west strip Israel cleared during the war that divides north and south Gaza. Philadelphia is a narrow border strip between Gaza and Egypt.
“That’s where you have outside overseers, sort of making sure that people are safe and people who are entering are not armed and no one has bad motivations,” Witkoff added.
His comments appeared to be the first public confirmation of US involvement on the ground in Gaza to help keep the deal on track. Witkoff did not say who else might be part of the inspection teams.
Witkoff was also asked which countries in the region might join the Abraham Accords, a series of agreements struck during the president’s first term that saw Israel establish ties with Arab countries including the United Arab Emirates.
“I think you could get everybody on board in that region. I really do. I think there’s a new sense of leadership over there,” Witkoff said.
Asked to name a specific country, Witkoff said: “I mean, Qatar … Qatar was enormously helpful in this. Qatar’s [Prime Minister] Sheikh Mohammed, [his] communication skills with Hamas were indispensable here.”
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