[IsraelTimes] Yemen’s Houthi rebels signal that they will end their attacks on vessels in the Red Sea shipping corridor, with the exception of Israeli-affiliated ships, which the group says it will continue to target for the time being.
The Iran-backed group announces its decision through its Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center, saying that in light of the ceasefire-hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, it was “stopping sanctions” on other vessels it has regularly targeted since November 2023.
For Israeli ships, it says that the “sanctions” will only end “upon the full implementation of all phases” of the ceasefire deal in Gaza.
Such noble generosity, to be sure. Not that they bother to differentiate between Israeli and non-Israeli shios when something floats into their sights.
The Houthis will also deliver a military statement later today, likely about the decision.
#1
Somehow, I think DJT’s fun meter is just about done with these (insert your favorite word here) and will not be surprised
if he directs the Navy to initiate a ‘stock rotation,’ and dispose of bombs, based on their pull date.
Keir Starmer covered up the Southport killer’s identity, concealing his motives and the fact that he was an Islamist terrorist, prevented the public from seeing his mugshot. This just dropped. pic.twitter.com/YOcDTsBCf3
Axel Rudakubana — more fully Axel Muganwa Rudakubana — is the Wales-born, Moslem son of Christian immigrants from Rwanda who fell prey to previously undiagnosed Sudden Jihad Syndrome and attacked a girls’ Taylor Swift dance party in Southport with a knife last July. It was revealed months later that he’d downloaded an Al Qaeda manual on jihad and made ricin poison before running amok with murderous intent. Hundreds of UK natives were jailed, some with multi-year sentences, for protesting and rioting after Mr. Rudakubna murdered three girls that day.
[IsraelTimes] Executive decree says US government must be ‘vigilant’ in issuing visas and ensure recipients support ‘do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists’
An executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to target, among others, foreign nationals who participated in anti-Israel protests that swept throughout the country since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and which sometimes featured support for the Palestinian terror group.
The Executive Order Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Threats stated that the government must be “vigilant” in issuing visas to foreign nationals and ensure that those approved “do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests.”
The order signed by Trump shortly after his inauguration required the US government to ensure that foreign nationals “not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”
Trump campaigned on cracking down on the anti-Israel protests, particularly those on college campuses, but it was not yet clear how exactly he’d go about doing it, given free speech laws in the US.
Despite the approach taken over the pst four years by the Biden Justice Department and Soros prosecutors, riots, threatening Jewish and Zionist students, and advocating same do not constitute protected speech, and therefore can all be prosecuted under current laws, I believe. Leadership of organizations that support listed terror groups like Hamas and/or organized the riots and threats against Jewish and Zionist students ditto — that should sweep up many of them, and looking at membership cross-tabbed with facial recognition in posted videos and photos will catch even more. A close look at their connections for links to proscribed domestic and/or international terror groups should nicely limit the targets of this EO to those about whom there would be no question of the legality of their expulsion, if not conviction for terror offenses under current laws. I am not a lawyer, of course, but I imagine trained lawyers could find legal ways to accomplish the president’s objective on this.
“When I am president we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals,” Trump said at a rally in May. “If you come from another country and try to bring jihadism or anti-Americanism or antisemitism to our campuses we will immediately deport you. You’ll be out of that school.”
The Republican party also included a commitment to “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again” on a list of 20 promises made in the party platform adopted at its National Convention in July.
The legality of expelling foreign nationals from the United States for participating in a protest has not yet been tested, but the move would likely be extremely controversial.
Only the first few times. Once the courts have tested it, the rest will flow like butter.
It is not clear how many foreign students have been involved in the anti-Israel protests.
From what we’ve seen here, it’s lots.
GOP officials and pro-Israel groups told NBC News last year that they have so far identified only four who were known to have been arrested, expelled, or barred from graduating due to their participation in the demonstrations.
Protests roiled many college campuses, as well as cities and towns, in response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, sparked by the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, committed mass atrocities and took 251 hostages to the Strip.
#1
Foreign students are $$$ for colleges and universities. This appears to be an indirect salvo at those 'institutions'. BTW, foreign students are 'guests' here. Act polite or leave.
[IsraelTimes] Italy is willing to send its troops to Gaza as part of an Arab-led peacekeeping mission, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani says, during a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
“Peace is a political priority for Italy,” Tajani says. “We are ready to support it through cooperation, economic assistance, and also by sending our women and men in uniform to Gaza, if there were an Arab-led international peace mission.”
Italy is one of the top troop-contributing countries to the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon, with over 1,000 soldiers there.
“Italy supports Israel and also maintains very good ties with the Palestinians; for this reason, we believe we can play an important in the region,” Tajani notes.
Speaking of borders and fences ...
[IsraelTimes] Col. Shemer Raviv details challenges on 200-kilometer border for which he is responsible, including the increasing threat of drones
The 200-kilometer-long border Israel shares with Egypt is not considered one of the multiple fronts of the ongoing war sparked by the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Yet, amid the conflict, significant changes have been taking place on the Egyptian border fence. The commander of the regional brigade charged with the border warned in an interview with The Times of Israel last week that there is potential for this “front” to erupt.
“If you ask the IDF chief of staff he’ll tell you we have seven fronts in the war. He doesn’t count this one, despite the situation here,” Col. Shemer Raviv, the commander of the Paran Regional Brigade, said during a tour of the border.
The Israel-Egypt border has been largely peaceful since the two countries signed a peace agreement in 1979, Israel’s first with an Arab state.
By 1982, Israeli forces had withdrawn from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which they had conquered during previous wars, and a border between the countries was established based on an arbitrary line drawn in the sand from Rafah to Eilat, in a 1906 agreement between the British and Ottoman empires.
In 2010, Israel began to construct a large barrier along the border, largely aimed at keeping out African migrants and Islamic terrorists who operate in Egypt’s Sinai.
“In the years before that, there was a lot of smuggling — drug smuggling, prostitution smuggling, human smuggling. The highlight of it all was the infiltrators who come from Africa,” Raviv said, recalling that when he was a company commander in the Paratroopers Brigade he was dispatched from the border with the Gaza Strip to help handle the thousands of incoming economic migrants and asylum seekers by taking them to Beersheba’s central bus station.
By 2013, the 241-kilometer-long barrier (longer than the actual border due to sections that wind through the mountainous terrain) was completed, and the number of people crossing into Israel dropped drastically.
Still, there were frequent attempts to smuggle drugs over Israel’s tall fence. Such operations generally involve a group of smugglers on the Egyptian side throwing packages of heroin, marijuana, or other contraband over the border, where they are retrieved by Bedouin Israelis in trucks.
“In the following decade, a phenomenon of smuggling developed here. It existed before but now on a [larger] scale. Some of the smugglings were violent smugglings,” Raviv said.
In January 2024, a group of some 60 smugglers — most of them armed — came toward the Egyptian side of the border in an attempt to send contraband into Israel. According to the brigade commander, 10 of the smugglers ran toward the border, while the other 50 opened fire both on the Egyptian border guards — to cause them to shelter in their positions — and on Israeli soldiers who had been dispatched to prevent the smuggling.
The Israeli soldiers returned fire, killing five of the smugglers, Raviv said. One IDF servicewoman was injured when she was shot in the stomach in the gun battle.
The fact that Israeli soldiers returned fire in this case was not a given. Until the summer of 2023, in most cases of violent smugglings, the IDF would disengage and not get involved, the commander said.
But on June 3, 2023, an Egyptian border guard infiltrated into Israel via a shared opening in the fence and killed two IDF soldiers manning a guardpost. Another soldier was killed in a later exchange of fire with the gunman, who was also eliminated.
After the deadly incident, “we decided to change our policy because we understood that the criminal smugglings are also a security danger,” Raviv said.
During the war with the Hamas terror group in Gaza that began a few months later, the IDF officially changed its open-fire regulations on the Egypt border, allowing troops to use deadly force against smugglers. Top officers instructed the Paran Brigade to prevent all attempts to cross the border or smuggle contraband over it.
“Following a change in the open-fire policy, the enemy also changes. [The smuggler] no longer reaches the fence, because he understands that we will hurt him,” the commander said. “Another phenomenon develops and this is the phenomenon of the drones, which started more or less in May [2024], and began to gain momentum.”
According to Raviv, smugglers on the Israeli side of the border would arrive quietly at areas between a kilometer and five kilometers (half a mile to three miles) from the fence, “without anyone seeing them.”
The smugglers would then fly drones over the border to Egypt, and land them between one and three kilometers from the fence. There, smugglers on the Egyptian side would load the drone with contraband, usually drugs but also firearms, and the smugglers on the Israeli side would pilot the drone back to their possession, the commander said.
Raviv said that the military didn’t even realize that this was happening at the start. “We had for about two months where we were ‘tipsy’ on defeating the smuggling, because they stopped coming,” he said. “But they came from another way.”
The commander said that the smuggling attempts using drones make his job easier to some extent. “Now it is clear that anyone coming [to the border] plans to carry out a terror attack. If in the past I had a dilemma between criminal activity and terror, today it is very clear what is happening on the fence.”
To prevent drones from being flown over the border, troops are allowed to open fire on them in an attempt to knock them out of the sky. Additionally, the IDF has deployed electronic warfare capabilities that can jam or take control of the drones and bring them down.
“Today we are in a learning competition,” Raviv said. “We understand that the attempts will continue, and our task here is to not allow this phenomenon to develop. We don’t want drugs to be smuggled over. Definitely not weapons, the kind that could harm innocent people.”
The brigade commander said he assessed that Israel’s control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, has led to more smuggling attempts on Israel’s border with Egypt where there are far fewer troops.
But Raviv said he was worried that the smuggling attempts using drones could develop into a far more dangerous threat, such as explosives-bearing drones or aircraft large enough to fly people over the border.
A major challenge for the Israeli side is being able to respond to the attempts, the commander said.
“If someone comes to the fence we can shoot them. But if someone sends up a drone on the other side of the border three kilometers in?” he said, meaning that only Egyptian forces would be able to act in those cases, and not the IDF.
On Israel’s side of the border, a major challenge is being able to use live fire against the smugglers in areas that are not adjacent to the border fence, if attempts to arrest them fail.
“If in the past the answer was to fire warning shots or shoot at the legs, even if it was an Israeli citizen. An Israeli citizen who tried to reach the border, that’s reasonable [to shoot]. But when you go five kilometers deep?” Raviv said.
“There’s a risk of ‘friendly fire’ with my forces here, there are other security forces, and there are hikers. This keeps me awake at night; this is the challenge,” he said.
Raviv said he has enough troops on the border for the current threats, but “it really matters in which direction this front develops.”
The Paran Regional Brigade currently has just two standing army battalions — the mixed-gender light infantry Caracal and Bardelas battalions — with some reservist units and police backup. The Egyptian border is one of the few areas in Israel with a significant permanent presence of female combat soldiers.
“I do think that it could easily become worse and more serious, and that’s also why we’re working hard to build more outposts here, to be prepared to absorb more forces,” he said.
“In the face of the potential threats, there aren’t enough troops.”
[IsraelTimes] Former captives quoted saying they ‘were scared to death’ at Hamas transfer in Gaza City; some hardly saw daylight in 471 days; all of them knew what happened on October
After 471 days in captivity at the hands of Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... Death Eaters in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , three Israeli women who were released on the first day of a hostage release-ceasefire deal with the terror group have begun to share details of their ordeal, according to reports in Hebrew media on Monday.
Romi Gonen, 24, Emily Damari, 28, and Doron Steinbrecher, 31, were handed over to the Red Thingy by masked Hamas button men in Gaza City on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by what appeared to be a chaotic crowd of mainly young men, many of them in Hamas uniforms and masked.
"We were scared to death at the transfer point, from the combination of the armed Death Eaters and the Gazook crowd," one of the women was quoted as saying by Channel 12 news, in comments approved for publication by the Israeli military censor.
The former hostages said that they were only told on Saturday that they were set to be released from Gaza the following day.
The three were the first hostages to be released in the initial stage of the three-phase accord, which provides for a total of 33 captives to be freed over 42 days in exchange for nearly 2,000 Paleostinian prisoners.
Gonen was kidnapped from the Supernova rave near Kibbutz Re’im on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led Death Eaters burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians. Damari and Steinbrecher were both kidnapped from their homes at nearby Kibbutz Kfar Aza, during the terror rampage.
Channel 12 reported that the women said they were not held alone during their time in captivity, and that they were moved to various places in Gaza, including the designated "humanitarian zone" in the south of the Strip.
Some of the hostages said that they hardly saw the light of day over the past 15 months, spending most of their time in captivity underground.
They said that from time to time, they were exposed to television and radio news, including protests calling for the government to secure the release of the hostages held in Gaza.
"We saw your struggle," the former hostages were quoted as saying. "We heard our families fighting for us."
They were also said to have pieced together the details of the brutal Hamas attack that sparked the war, and they knew that their families had survived, though many of their friends were killed during the assault.
"I didn’t think I would come back. I thought I’d die in Gaza," one of the hostages was quoted by Channel 12 as saying.
The report added that while the women sometimes received medicines they required, one of them underwent a medical procedure without anesthesia during her captivity.
Both Damari and Gonen were shot during the terror attack in which they were kidnapped. Damari lost two fingers as a result of her injury.
Other former hostages who were released in a weeklong truce in November 2023 said they underwent surgery without anesthesia.
Also on Monday, parents and siblings of the three released hostages held a presser at the Sheba Medical Center, where the women were airlifted on Sunday evening, and said that they were all doing well. They also extended their gratitude to the government, the negotiators, US President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... , and the Israeli people for their support and assistance in bringing their loved ones home.
Hamas confirmed in an official statement on Monday that the next hostage release under the nascent ceasefire deal will take place on Saturday, January 25, as initially scheduled, despite a previous claim from the terror group’s prisoners’ office.
Four hostages are set to be released this coming Saturday. Over the following four weeks, three hostages will be released each Saturday, until a final group of 14 on day 42 of the ceasefire.
Sucking up in the hope of charming the stupid American into turning his back on Israel.
[IsraelTimes] A senior Hamas leader says that the terror group is ready for dialogue with the US and credits US President Donald Trump with “ending” the war in Gaza.
“We’re prepared for a dialogue with America and achieving understandings on everything,” Qatar-based Mousa Abu Marzouk tells The New York Times.
His comments came on Sunday after the release of three Israeli hostages in the first stage of a hostage-ceasefire deal.
The report notes that it is not clear if Abu Marzouk speaks on behalf of all Hamas leadership, including the hardline terror leaders in Gaza.
Abu Marzouk calls Trump a “serious president.”
“If not for President Trump, his insistence on ending the war, and his dispatching of a decisive representative, the deal wouldn’t have happened,” says Abu Marzouk, referring to new Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Truthfully, Trump gets the credit for ending the war,” he says.
Abu Marzouk says Witkoff is welcome to visit Gaza.
“He can come and see the people and try to understand their feelings and wishes so that the American position can be based on the interests of all the parties, and not only one party,” he says.
“We are ready to work with you to achieve peace during your era, according to the two-state solution based on international legitimacy, the State of Palestine and the State of Israel living side by side in security and peace, and to achieve security and stability in our region and the world,” says the statement on Wafa’s English-language site.
“Gaza, with its great people and its resilience, will rise again to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed and continue on the path of steadfastness until the occupation is defeated,” Hamas says in a statement issued on the second day of a hostage-ceasefire deal with Israel.
#1
While it is true, Trump coming back into office likely is the icing on the cake.
The IDF is the real reason, and Hamas is just trying to avoid stating the truth everyone knows and is slapping Hamas in the face.
Which is the IDF has decimated Hamas' and other area terrorist groups numbers since Oct. 7th 2023. Add to the fact, Iran is losing control of its collection of surrounding controlled Arab nations. Iran, the world's main sponsor of Islamic Terrorism, is having serious $$$$$$ issues, and now a serious growing internal problem with its citizenry openly rebelling.
In short, Hamas has played the usual terrorist game.
Strike, make the news, get their asses handed to them, hint at a peace treaty, make outrageous demands, milked it for all its media worth, play it for months, settle and rebuild to strike again using another name.
#3
This phase ended faster because Trump doesn't give a shit about the Hamas supporters here. They will try to rebuild and go at Israel again in 5 years.
Now if Trump gives Iran a twist, Hamas and Hezbollah are truly fucked.
Yippee — more flammables for the overstuffed Hamas warehouse.
[IsraelTimes] Qatar announces that 12.5 million liters of fuel will be delivered to the Gaza Strip over the first 10 days of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
“Qatar launched a land corridor to provide Gaza with 12.5 million liters of fuel during the first 10 days of the ceasefire” that came into effect yesterday, the Qatari foreign ministry says, adding that the energy-rich Gulf country sent 25 fuel trucks to the Palestinian territory today.
UN reports 915 aid trucks entered Gaza on second day of ceasefire
[IsraelTimes] The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says 915 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Monday, the second day of a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian terrorists Hamas.
OCHA cites information received from Israeli authorities and the guarantors for the ceasefire agreement.
[X] I hope the IDF is saving these photos for future reference, when the world accuses them of deliberately killing innocent civilians.
Aljazeera documented how Hamas's al-Qassam Brigade fighters emerged from the Nasser Hospital complex with their weapons and vehicles in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, as soon as the ceasefire went into effect, similar to how they emerged from displacement tents 3 days ago. pic.twitter.com/7rYftKYBlS
[IsraelTimes] Hamas police and security forces have been operating in Gaza today, the second day of a ceasefire-hostage deal with Israel in the war-battered territory, AFP journalists note.
Hamas’s deputy interior minister for the territory, Mahmud Abu Watfah, inspected armed police, some in fatigues and others dressed in black, before they patrolled the bombed-out streets of Gaza City.
“We care about the comfort and protection of those who sacrificed with the resistance and paid a heavy price for this bloody war,” Abu Watfah says.
He says they also want “to control the situation on the ground in case of any chaos. This was achieved from the first hour of the deployment of the ministry of interior (forces) and the security forces.”
[IsraelTimes] IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi says the military must prepare for “significant operations” in the West Bank.
“Along with the intense defense preparations in the Gaza Strip, we must be prepared for significant operations in Judea and Samaria in the coming days in order to preempt and catch the terrorists before they reach our civilians,” he says during an assessment, in remarks released by the IDF.
Halevi also instructed top officers to “formulate plans for the continuation of the fighting, both in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon,” the IDF adds.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... critics in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... have been sharing on social media a photo of today’s transfer of the three Israeli hostages from the terror group’s fighters to the Red Thingy, revealing that the crowd present was smaller than what may have appeared in Hamas’s footage of the event.
Those posting the zoomed-out photo are arguing that the terror group is far less popular in Gaza following 15 months of war sparked by its October 7, 2023, onslaught, which has left the coastal enclave and its population decimated.
Only several hundred Hamas members and supporters appear to have been present at the transfer.
I was asked several times today about the optics of Hamas’ obvious strength. Here’s the real optics: A few hundred people crammed together to make it look like endless masses. Today the images from the ground were orchestrated by Hamas, they wanted to project power, everything… pic.twitter.com/PDCeIw3zW7
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Hamas and Israel, after nearly 15 months of constant consultations, have reached a consensus on a hostage exchange. Following agreements reached earlier in the Qatari capital of Doha, both sides pledged to ensure the transfer of people on agreed lists and then move on to a more comprehensive settlement of the protracted conflict. However, the implementation of the agreements is still in question.
There are many in Israel who see their military-political defeat in a diplomatic victory and would not mind renegotiating the agreements already reached.
CONTOURS OF EXCHANGE
Tel Aviv agreed to hand over 1,890 Palestinian prisoners to its opponents in exchange for the release of 33 Israeli hostages. Thus, the “exchange rate” of prisoners was 87 to 1 in favor of Hamas, which caused a storm of jubilation among Palestinian factions and protests from the far-right forces in the Israeli parliament.
However, Israeli negotiators still managed to avoid a repeat of the infamous “Shalit deal” (2011), where the ratio was 1 to 1027 in favor of Palestine, and to get Hamas to include all living hostages in the exchange lists.
In addition, Tel Aviv decided to stretch out the hostage exchange process as long as possible, so as not to pander to Palestinian propaganda and not to fuel the belief in the “absolute triumph” of Hamas.
In the first round, 90 Palestinians were exchanged for three Israeli women.
The parties also chose Saturday as a permanent exchange day, agreeing to provide lists no less than a day before the chosen date.
As a result, by the end of the first stage of the deal (tentatively scheduled for March 5, 2025), Hamas and Tel Aviv expect to fully fulfill their obligations.
THE OLD GUARD
In the first exchange, Hamas released only civilians. An exchange of IDF prisoners is planned for the coming weeks.
However, many legendary and significant figures in the Palestinian movement were freed.
Thus, among others, veteran of the resistance and commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (the military wing of Fatah) Zakaria al-Zubeidi was released. He played a leading role in the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and seriously strengthened the potential of the Brigades, and the commanders he trained, in particular Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, caused many problems for the Israeli army and intelligence services.
For the past five years, al-Zubeidi has been held under special conditions in Gilboa prison, which is eloquently called "Israeli Alcatraz." The name of the commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades was erased from the lists by Israeli negotiators until the very last moment.
Also released was the deputy head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khalida Jarrar, a figure well known not only in the Middle East. In the past, she was the official representative of Palestine to the Council of Europe and a fighter for the rights of prisoners. Jarrar, who had been held in solitary confinement for the past year and a half (something that far more seasoned field commanders were not “honored” with), became a symbol of oppression not only for the PFLP, but also for other Palestinian factions.
However, the high-profile names listed are only a small part of the extensive exchange list. And it may include much more odious figures.
Thus, back in May 2024, Arab media wrote that Hamas negotiators were fighting for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the most popular anti-Israeli politician and the founder of the youth militant wing of Fatah (the Tanzim movement).
Barghouti's release could well challenge the political monopoly of current Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, subsequently triggering a drift in Fatah from being a relatively neutral faction towards Israel towards direct confrontation and the formation of a political coalition with Hamas.
Thus, living symbols of resistance, belonging to different groups and movements, have already found themselves at liberty. However, the "common denominator" for them was Hamas, which played a decisive role in their release from captivity. This significantly raises the prestige of the movement and its "political weight" in Palestine, especially in conjunction with the laurels of "the winner of the IDF."
This fact will probably manifest itself in the medium term, setting a trend for all Palestinian-Israeli relations.
THE LINE OF SCHISM
As noted above, the Israeli government's decision to support the deal with Hamas provoked an explosion of indignation among the conservative wing.
Many felt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “publicly capitulated” to the Palestinian forces (and by extension to Iran, which is celebrating the Palestinian victory as its own).
The leader of the far-right party "Jewish Power", Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who throughout the conflict criticized Netanyahu for "indecisive and half-hearted measures" against Hamas, resigned. Along with him, fellow party members - Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu and Minister of Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Yitzhak Wasserlauf - also left their posts in the government. "Jewish Power" distanced itself from the ruling coalition.
Another opponent of the Hamas deal, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also publicly criticized Netanyahu for his cowardice. And, although he did not resign like other "hawks", he demonstratively voted against the Hamas deal at a Knesset session. However, Smotrich quickly realized that he would not be able to gather a protest electorate around himself alone, especially after his recent quarrel with Ben-Gvir over disagreements on judicial reform, and therefore hastened to welcome the return of his fellow citizens from captivity.
After distancing Ben-Gvir's supporters, Netanyahu's government lost at least six votes in the Knesset, leaving the gap with the opposition at a minimum (62 votes to 52). And the deepening conflict with Smotrich threatens the loss of at least seven more mandates and, as a result, the loss of control over parliament (especially if the right-wing parties decide to officially join the opposition bloc).
In this case, the early elections that Netanyahu has so carefully avoided could become a reality. This means that Israeli hawks have a convenient pretext to force the prime minister to torpedo the deal with Hamas immediately after the last Israeli hostage leaves the enclave.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Palestinian movement Hamas will release the second batch of Israeli hostages on January 25. This was reported on January 20 by Reuters, citing a statement from the group.
"Hamas says the second batch of hostages will be released on Saturday as planned," the publication clarifies.
The hostages will be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
Earlier, Regnum news agency reported that Israeli authorities released the first 90 Palestinian prisoners on the evening of January 19 as part of an agreement with Hamas in exchange for the release of three hostages from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli authorities will make efforts to return hostages from the Gaza Strip until they receive all the Israelis who were there, the President of the Jewish state, Isaac Herzog, said on January 19. According to him, this concerns both living hostages and the bodies of those who died after being taken captive.
An agreement on a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip was reached on January 15. It is to be implemented in three stages. First, the IDF will begin withdrawing troops from Gaza. At the same time, Hamas is obliged to release 33 hostages.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
