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Netanyahu Sets Date for Rafah Offensive: ‘It Will Happen’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Feb. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that a date has been set for an Israeli military offensive in Rafah, the Hamas terror group’s last stronghold in Gaza.
“This victory [over Hamas] requires entry into Rafah and the elimination of the terrorist battalions there. It will happen — there is a date,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem without revealing further details.
The United States has been pressuring Israel not to move forward with a full-scale military operation in the southern Gazan city, where more than a million Gazans are sheltering, expressing concern about the potential for high civilian casualties.
However, Netanyahu has reiterated that “we are determined to do this” regarding a Rafah offensive. Experts recently told The Algemeiner that Israel must operate in Rafah if it wishes to achieve its war objective of eliminating the threat posed by Hamas, which rules Gaza.
US and Israeli officials have been discussing potential options for targeting Hamas in Rafah, where Israel says the Palestinian terrorist group still has four battalions. According to reports, no action is planned until such discussion are concluded, and a potential operation is tied to the resolution of a hostage agreement.
Israel and Hamas sent teams to Egypt on Sunday for talks regarding a ceasefire in Gaza that included Qatari and Egyptian mediators, as well as America’s CIA Director William Burns.
“Today I received a detailed report on the talks in Cairo. We are constantly working to achieve our goals, first and foremost the release of all our hostages and achieving a complete victory over Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
Hamas kidnapped 253 hostages and murdered more than 1,200 people during its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, launching the current war. Israel responded with a military offensive aimed at freeing all the hostages and incapacitating Hamas to the point that it can longer pose a threat to the Israeli people from Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that borders Israel.
Over the past few months, Hamas has rejected all ceasefire offers, while Israel agreed to a deal that would end fighting for six weeks and release 700 Palestinian terrorists from jail, in exchange for 40 hostages seized during Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has said any truce must include the release of all remaining hostages and be temporary, warning that a long-term truce would allow Hamas to regroup and strengthen its position to continue attacking the Jewish state. Hamas leaders have pledged to carry out massacres against Israel like the one on Oct. 7 “again and again.”
Meanwhile, Hamas has demanded that any truce must include a permanent ceasefire and full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
“There is no change in the position of the occupation [Israel] and therefore, there is nothing new in the Cairo talks,” an anonymous Hamas official told Reuters. “There is no progress yet.”
Netanyahu’s latest comments about Rafah came amid rising tensions between Israel and its close ally the US over Gaza.
In a call with Netanyahu last week, US President Joe Biden issued his toughest public rebuke of Israel since its war against Hamas began in the fall, warning that US policy moving forward will be determined by whether Israel takes certain actions to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Other Biden administration similarly threatened to fundamentally change US policy toward Israel and Gaza.
US officials have responded positively to subsequent steps by Israel to increase what was already significant amounts of aid entering Gaza. However, Washington said more aid was needed.
Beyond Netanyahu, other Israeli officials have recently made clear that some kind of operation in Rafah will happen and is essential to achieving the Jewish state’s war aims.
“Hamas has ceased to function as a military organization in most parts of the Gaza Strip,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told an Israeli parliamentary committee last week.
“Their commanders are hiding in tunnels, they have lost command and control capabilities, [and] the battalion frameworks in most parts of the strip have ceased to function,” Gallant added in comments briefing members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on the war in Gaza. “The Hamas brigade in Rafah, however, is still standing, with its four battalions. We will address this soon.”
According to Gallant, continuing to apply military pressure on Hamas is the best way to ensure the release of the remaining hostages in Gaza amid ongoing negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to reach a ceasefire agreement.
“Military pressure was and remains the main and most significant element in ensuring the return of the hostages,” he told Israeli lawmakers. “The advanced stage we have reached in dismantling Hamas and the information that we have gained from terrorists empower us at the negotiation table and enable us to make difficult decisions. I am committed to returning all the hostages to their homes.”
The post Netanyahu Sets Date for Rafah Offensive: ‘It Will Happen’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist
Louis Theroux first visited the West Bank in 2011 to film a documentary titled Louis and the Ultra-Zionists, part of his long-running series for the BBC. Back then, he at least seemed to possess a trace of journalistic curiosity. Even the title signaled a degree of editorial caution — framing his subjects as a small, ideological fringe rather than representative of Israeli society as a whole.
At the time, Theroux made an effort to clarify that he was profiling a narrow segment of Israelis. He showed legally purchased Jewish homes (sold by Arab landowners, no less) and acknowledged the regular — and at times deadly — terror attacks faced by Israeli civilians living in the area, often requiring military protection. There was condescension, certainly. But there was also context.
Fast-forward to 2024, and the curiosity is gone — though the bemused, slightly smug expression remains. His new BBC documentary, Louis and the Settlers, drops even the soft qualifiers. No “ultra.” No nuance. Just “settlers.” And with that, Theroux makes it clear: half a million Israelis living in the West Bank are one and the same — extremists who, we’re told, want every last Palestinian removed from the land.
This time, the documentary doesn’t begin with questions. It begins with conclusions. And Theroux uses a brief, unrepresentative snapshot of life in the West Bank to draw sweeping indictments of the entire Israeli state.
The message is unmistakable: Israel is the problem. Settlers are the villains. And Palestinians are passive, blameless victims of a colonial project.
Within the opening minutes, Theroux plants his ideological flag. He refers to the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and describes every Israeli community within it as illegal under international law — a sharp departure from his more qualified approach 14 years earlier.
And while his personal views seep in throughout the film, they become crystal clear during one exchange at a checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier casually refers to their location as “Israel.” Theroux shoots back: “We’re not in Israel, are we?”
And just like that, the BBC and Louis Theroux have redrawn Israel’s borders. No Knesset debate needed.
2/ October 7 is barely mentioned. When it is, it’s framed as a pretext for settlement expansion. A massacre becomes a motive. Civilians butchered in their homes are brushed aside to serve Theroux’s storyline. pic.twitter.com/3HeZyIfOVq
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 30, 2025
Erasing History to Blame the Massacre
The timing of this return trip is no accident. The film comes in the shadow of the October 7 Hamas massacres — the day 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, families were burned alive in their homes, and children were dragged into Gaza. And yet, Theroux barely mentions it.
The few passing references to October 7 serve not to inform the audience — but to imply that Israel may be exploiting its own dead to justify further expansion. It’s not an investigation. It’s an accusation. And it allows him to skip over thousands of years of Jewish history in order to frame the current war in Gaza as a convenient cover story for Israeli “aggression.”
Take Hebron, for example. Theroux tells viewers that “in 1968, the year after [the West Bank] was occupied by Israel, a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally. They now number some 700.” He fails to mention that in 1895 — decades before the modern state of Israel existed — Hebron had a Jewish population of 1,429.
Jews have lived in Hebron since antiquity — it’s where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. Modern records date the community back centuries, despite discrimination under Ottoman rule and bans on Jewish prayer at holy sites. In 1929, Arab rioters carried out a massacre, wiping out Hebron’s Jewish population. Dozens were murdered; the rest were expelled. Under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, Jews were banned from the city entirely. When they returned after the Six-Day War — not as colonists, but as a displaced community coming home — Theroux picks up the story there and calls it “illegal.”
On the Six-Day War itself, Theroux offers no context. No mention of the Arab armies preparing to destroy Israel. No mention of Israel’s preemptive strike against an existential threat.
According to The Settlers, Israel simply “occupied” — full stop.
A Smear Disguised as a Documentary@LouisTheroux didn’t come to Israel to report—he came to delegitimize. His latest BBC film erases Palestinian terrorism, and casts Israel as the villain in a pre-written script—all while calling it journalism. pic.twitter.com/m4Fs2MJ0H2
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 5, 2025
Palestinian Terrorism? Not Even a Footnote.
Theroux visits Evyatar, a small Jewish community near the Palestinian town of Beita, and uses it as a stand-in for the entire West Bank. Beita is depicted as a symbol of peaceful resistance: a proud, ancient Palestinian village standing firm against violent settlers backed by IDF soldiers.
It’s a neat story. Too neat. Because missing from the story are years of organized, violent riots from Beita — complete with Molotov cocktails, burning Stars of David, and Nazi swastikas. All carefully omitted to preserve the narrative: Palestinians peaceful, settlers aggressive. Facts that don’t fit? Left on the cutting room floor.
Meanwhile, Israeli nationalism is treated as something sinister and unsettling — a moral aberration to be examined. The notion that Jews might want sovereignty or security is met with thinly veiled suspicion. Yet Hamas’ goal of a Jew-free Palestine, explicitly laid out in its charter, is never mentioned. Nor is the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy, which literally incentivizes terrorism by rewarding those who murder Israelis — including women and children.
These aren’t fringe details. They’re central to understanding the region. And Theroux knows it. He just doesn’t care.
The BBC’s Complicity
That The Settlers aired on the BBC — a publicly funded broadcaster once seen as a gold standard of global journalism — says plenty. Not just about Louis Theroux’s agenda, but about the institutional direction of the BBC itself. This wasn’t a rogue filmmaker sneaking bias past the editors. This was bias built into the foundation — signed off, packaged, and broadcast under the banner of credibility.
There is, of course, no problem with scrutinizing Israeli policy, and no issue with questioning the settlement enterprise or highlighting the tensions in the West Bank. But journalism — real journalism — demands context. It demands precision. It demands at least a passing familiarity with the full scope of the story.
Theroux offers none of that. He arrives with a predetermined script and casts his roles accordingly: Hero. Villain. Victim. Oppressor. And when reality refuses to cooperate? It’s left out.
Louis Theroux didn’t return to Israel to understand it. He returned to flatten it. To reduce its complexity to a morality play — and to ensure everyone knows the antagonist is.
The Settlers isn’t a documentary. It’s a hit piece. And the BBC handed him the camera — then applauded the performance.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl

Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Photo: Screenshot
The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military forces had killed “Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist,” who was connected to the 2002 murder of Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.
On Wednesday, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims is targeted at dismantling “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
The operation came after Pakistani terrorists killed 26 Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month amid escalating tensions between the two countries.
In a post on X, the BJP confirmed that during this week’s operation, the Indian army killed Islamist terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, who was involved in numerous terrorism plots, including the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force base attack.
– कंधार प्लेन हाईजैक
– पठानकोट आतंकी हमला
– भारतीय संसद आतंकी हमला#OperationSindoor में मारा गया मोस्ट वांटेड पाकिस्तानी आतंकी अब्दुल रऊफ अजहर। pic.twitter.com/NKuRwptldH— BJP (@BJP4India) May 8, 2025
Azhar’s involvement in the 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member with close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who later was involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 38-year-old Pearl, who was covering the war on terror as a journalist when he was abducted.
In a statement on X, Pearl’s father, Judea, addressed initial reports regarding Azhar’s death and his connection to his son’s murder.
“I want to clarify: Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh — the man who lured Danny into captivity,” he said.
In 2002, the Jewish-American journalist was abducted and killed by a group of Islamist terrorists connected to Azhar’s militant network, which had ties to al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group aiming to separate Kashmir from India and incorporate it into Pakistan.

On Jan. 27, 2002, an email was sent to several Pakistani and US media organizations, which included several photos, stating that Pearl was being held in “inhumane” conditions to protest the US treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba. Photo: Screenshot
Originally stationed in New Delhi as the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl later moved to Pakistan to investigate terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.
After kidnapping Pearl at a restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan, the Islamist terrorists, who identified themselves as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the United States a list of demands for his release.
However, Washington did not meet their demands, and Pearl was ultimately executed after being held captive for five weeks.
His wife, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl, in Paris later that year. On the Daniel Pearl Foundation website, she said, “Adam’s birth rekindles the joy, love, and humanity that Danny radiated wherever he went.”
The post Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete. Photo: Screenshot
A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete just days before the Tunisian island was set to host its annual Jewish pilgrimage, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.
On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men — owners of a jewelry shop in the center of the island, located off Tunisia’s southeast coast — were physically assaulted by a man carrying a large knife.
Although the attack was halted when one of them screamed — alerting members of the local Jewish community who subdued the assailant — one of them was left severely injured.
URGENT !!! Tentative de meurtre dans la
communauté juive de Djerba.
Un homme a tourné hier dans tous les magasins pour demander s’il appartenaient à un Juif et est revenu
ce matin avec une machette tentant, cette fois, de tuer
le propriétaire juif. pic.twitter.com/hxYBvrJFMV— Radio Shalom (@radioshalom94_8) May 8, 2025
According to local media reports, the attacker had surveyed the island the day before, visiting several stores to identify those owned by Jews. Local police arrested him shortly following the assault.
After the attack, one of the owners was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The 50-year-old Jewish man had his fingers severed during the assault and underwent surgery to reattach them.
גורמים בקהילה היהודית בתוניסיה לכאן חדשות: מוכר יהודי נדקר בשוק באי ג’רבה על ידי תושב שאינו יהודי. לפי הגורמים, לפני כשבועיים נדקרה באזור תיירת מצרפת שזוהתה בטעות כיהודייה @kaisos1987 @OmerShahar123 pic.twitter.com/AbG7LA6m97
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) May 8, 2025
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the attack and expressed his wishes for a swift recovery to the victims.
“This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“I call on the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community,” Saar continued.
I strongly condemn the attack on a Jew in Djerba, Tunisia today. I wish a speedy recovery to the injured.
This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration.
I call on the…— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) May 8, 2025
Djerba is home to the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, numbering about 2,000 people, and is also where the renowned El Ghriba Synagogue, one of North Africa’s oldest synagogues, is located.
The attack comes just a week before Jewish pilgrims are expected to arrive on the island for the Lag B’Omer holiday, when thousands gather annually for three days of festivities. The annual pilgrimage to El Ghriba Synagogue, scheduled for May 15 and 16 this year, draws visitors from around the world.
The synagogue has been targeted in multiple terrorist attacks over the years, including in 1985, 2002, and 2023.
Two years ago, a shooting at the synagogue claimed the lives of two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Aviel Hadad, a 30-year-old Israeli goldsmith, and Ben Hadad, a 42-year-old Frenchman who had traveled to join the festivities, were among the victims.
The post Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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