LLX News

The Israeli prime minister thanked the United States for its friendship and support, and emphasized the need to eradicate Hamas and to counter the Iranian threat.

By: Akiva Van Koningsveld – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received bursts of applause and frequent standing ovations—often from both sides of the aisle—as he delivered an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday afternoon.

In his remarks, which ran about an hour, Netanyahu praised the longevity and closeness of the U.S.-Israeli relationship; called for a decisive victory over the Hamas terror group; and urged the United States to help defeat the Iranian regime that, he said, continues to threaten both the Jewish state and the rest of the world.

He also said it was a “profound honor to address this citadel of democracy for the fourth time.”

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https://www.jns.org/netanyahu-our-victory-will-be-your-victory

The nation is on high alert in this dangerous phase.

By: Yossi Aloni – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

Israel expects a major attack by the Houthi rebels in Yemen soon, in response to the successful Israeli airstrike on the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah. About 25 warplanes bombed the heart of Yemen, 1,800 km from the Israeli border. The port of Hudaydah is the Houthis’ very lifeline for supplies. Will the Houthis drag Israel and Iran even further into a multi-front war? All this is happening during the week that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the US. That is why Netanyahu has postponed his flight.

The Houthis could use everything they have, and that is not a small amount: the Iranians have equipped them with hundreds of suicide drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. They have turned Yemen into their weapons testing ground, and Israel is therefore expecting a swarm attack to be launched towards Israel.

The Israeli air defense system is on high alert. With the help of Israel’s allies – the US, the UK and possibly Saudi Arabia – a large scale defensive is being made to repel any attack from Yemen and possibly simultaneously from the Shiite militias in Iraq that are synchronized with the Houthis. If the Houthis launch hundreds of missiles and drones, this defensive operation could be reminiscent of the April 13 defensive operation in which Israel and its allies repelled an Iranian attack with a 99 percent success rate. That time, it was a retaliatory strike for the killing of an Iranian general in the Iranian consulate in Damascus.

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The motion opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state “on any piece of land west of the Jordan River.”

By: Israel Today Staff – israeltoday.co.il

The Knesset plenum voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday in favor of a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The resolution, put forward by MK Ze’ev Elkin of the New Hope-National Right party with support from the Yisrael Beiteinu Party and the Land of Israel Caucus, passed by 68 to 9.

The Land of Israel Caucus, the mission of which is to strengthen Israeli control of Judea and Samaria, includes members from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition as well as Benny Gantz‘s centrist National Unity Party.

The caucus is co-chaired by MKs Simcha Rothman, Yuli Edelstein and Limor Son Har Melech.

“The Israeli Knesset opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state on any piece of land west of the Jordan River. The existence of a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel will pose an existential threat to the State of Israel and its citizens, will further extend the Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict and be a source of destabilization for the entire region,” the resolution states.

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Some 14,000 fighters have been killed or arrested in over nine months of combat operations in Gaza, according to the Israeli military.

By: Joshua Marks – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

Israeli forces have killed half of Hamas’s military leadership in Gaza and killed or arrested around 14,000 of its fighters since the start of the war over nine months ago, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday.

Among Hamas’s losses are six brigade commanders, over 20 battalion commanders and roughly 150 company commanders, according to the IDF.

“The IDF continues the important task of pursuing the top leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization as part of the goal of dismantling the organization’s capabilities,” the military said.

On July 13, an Israeli airstrike in the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis targeted the Hamas second-in-command in Gaza, leader of the Qassam Brigades Mohammed Deif. His death has not been confirmed, but the IDF did confirm that Deif’s deputy, Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, was killed.

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President Biden said that he has “done more for the Palestinian community than anybody.”

By: World Israel News Staff; worldisraelnews.com

President Joe Biden said that he is a strong supporter of Israel, identifying himself as a “Zionist” in an interview on Monday.

“If there weren’t an Israel, every Jew in the world would be at risk,” Biden told Complex magazine, a US news outlet with a mostly black readership. “And so, there is a need for it to be strong and the need for Israel to be able to have, after World War II, the ability for Jews to have a place that was their own.”

When asked by the journalist directly if he is a Zionist, the president answered “yes.”

Biden added that “you don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and [being] a Zionist is about whether or not Israel is a safe haven for Jews because of their history, of how they’ve been persecuted.”

However, Biden also said that he has “done more for the Palestinian community than anybody,” emphasizing the pressure he put on Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

“I’m the guy that opened up all the assets. I’m the guy that made sure that – I got the Egyptians to open the border to let goods through, medicine and food,” Biden said.

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Abdel Qader Sabbah photographed himself with a senior Hamas leader and served in a Hamas-run body to which he also provided video work.

CNN will no longer accept work from a Gaza-based freelance journalist who was previously employed by Hamas and boasted about his ties to the U.S.-designated terrorist organization on Facebook, according to the HonestReporting media watchdog.

Abdel Qader Sabbah “provided material used in stories for us and other outlets over the past nine months, during which time our own journalists have been barred from entering Gaza independently,” a spokesperson for CNN said on Wednesday, in a statement cited by the pro-Israel NGO.

“We have reviewed this material carefully and are comfortable that it meets our standards,” the spokesman continued. “We were not aware of this individual’s historical social posts and recognize that they are highly offensive,” he added, saying that CNN would no longer use his work.

On Tuesday, HonestReporting published an investigation that showed Sabbah photographed himself with a senior Hamas leader, served in a Hamas-run body to which he also provided video work, praised murderous terrorists and shared anti-Israel propaganda.

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The assailant was shot dead, according to police.

By: Israel Today Staff – Israel Today; israeltoday.co.il

One Israeli was killed and another seriously wounded in a terrorist stabbing in a shopping center in the northern city of Karmiel on Wednesday.

Magen David Adom paramedics treated the two victims, both males in their 20s, on the scene before evacuating them to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, where one of them died of his wounds.

The terrorist was shot dead by one of the wounded victims, the commander of the Israel Police Northern District, Maj. Gen. Shuki Tahauko, told local media following a situational assessment.

Tahauko told reporters that the terrorist arrived at the mall on foot before stabbing the two civilians, one of whom managed to “keep it together and immediately neutralized the terrorist.”

Police identified the terrorist as an Arab with Israeli citizenship from the nearby town of Nahf. Tahauko was said to have ordered the arrest of his relatives, with local media reporting a large police presence in Nahf.

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New centrifuges and machinery could potentially triple Fordow’s capacity to produce enriched uranium.

By Adi Nirman – IsraelHayom.com

According to confidential reports and analysis from nuclear experts cited by The Washington Post, Iran is undertaking a substantial expansion at its heavily fortified Fordow nuclear facility. This development could potentially triple Fordow’s capacity to produce enriched uranium, providing Tehran with the means to rapidly assemble nuclear weapons if its leadership decides to pursue that path.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have verified new construction activities at the Fordow enrichment plant, just days after Iran formally notified the nuclear watchdog about plans to significantly upgrade the underground site located in a mountainous region of north-central Iran.

The Post’s reporting, based on a technical evaluation, indicates that the expansion at Fordow alone could enable Iran to stockpile enough nuclear fuel for several bombs every month. While smaller than Iran’s main enrichment facility near Natanz, Fordow’s underground location makes it virtually impervious to airstrikes, heightening its strategic significance.

“Iran would gain the capability for a rapid breakout at this deeply buried site, an ability it has not possessed before,” David Albright, a nuclear weapons expert and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based non-profit, told The Post.

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Scant attention to the real savagery.

By: Hugh Fitzgerald – Front Page Magazine; frontpagemag.com

There is much about the war against Israel to which the mainstream media pays scant attention. That journalistic failure is discussed here: “What mainstream media isn’t reporting during the Israel-Hamas war – opinion,” by Andrea Samuels, Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2024:

In general, from watching MSM [mainstream media], we have the impression that the IDF is killing innocent children, unopposed, and there is no mention of the ongoing rocket attacks on Israel apart from the Iranian attack which was portrayed as a harmless gesture,” explained Paul Martin Gurnett from Britain….

The rocket attacks launched by Hamas into southern Israel, and by Hezbollah into northern Israel, are seldom mentioned on the mainstream media. But we are shown people in Gaza running for cover, just before the IDF’s airstrikes hit, and then the aftermath of bloody corpses who, we are assured — no evidence need be presented — are almost entirely those of “women and children.”

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Israel previously denounced demands by Hamas to end the war in return for the freedom of some of the hostages as “delusional.”

By: Israel Today Staff; israeltoday.co.il

The Hamas terror organization reiterated on Thursday night that it intends to end ongoing negotiations with Israel, which would see the hostages being held in the Gaza Strip released in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of terrorists in Israeli custody, unless the Jewish state first ends the war in Gaza.

Hamas “will not accept to be part of this policy by continuing negotiations in light of the aggression, siege, starvation and genocide of our people,” the organizations said, according to Reuters.

“Today, we informed the mediators of our clear position that if the occupation stops its war and aggression against our people in Gaza, our readiness (is) to reach a complete agreement that includes a comprehensive exchange deal,” the terror group said.

Of the 252 people whom Hamas and other terrorists kidnapped on Oct. 7 and took to Gaza, 125 remain in the Strip.

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