Important Takeaways:
- No final answer was given from Hamas regarding a hostage deal, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
- Earlier, the Associated Press reported, citing two officials involved in the negotiations, that Hamas has agreed to the proposed ceasefire deal in Gaza and the release of numerous hostages.
- According to the report, an Israeli official noted that while progress had been made, the final details were still under discussion.
- “We have handed over drafts of the ceasefire agreement to both sides, and talks are now ongoing on the final detail,” the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced on Tuesday.
- “We have overcome the major differences. This is the closest point we have been to a deal over the past months,” the statement added.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Both the outgoing Biden administration and President-elect Trump’s people are pushing hard for a hostage deal and ceasefire agreement in Gaza. Many in Israel see reports about this possible deal as excruciating.
- The ceasefire-hostage deal is still up in the air, but the U.S. is talking optimistically.
- Media reports indicate 33 hostages would be released at the start of the deal, but Israel’s government is not sure how many of those will be live hostages.
- The release of more would be negotiated in later stages. Israel appears ready to sign the deal, but whether Hamas will is unknown.
- Some hostage families and their allies have marched in Jerusalem to protest any deal that doesn’t free all the hostages at once and in which Israel gives up hope of crushing Hamas in Gaza.
- Protester Tamar Gesundheit appealed, “Please President Trump, do not pressure us to give into Hamas. Pressure them to give into us.”
- Meanwhile, the fighting continues in Gaza, and the Houthis fired missiles at Israel again overnight.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- After all the talk about hostage talks over the past year, it appears that a deal may really happen before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated.
- Trump is repeating for emphasis what he’s said will happen if Hamas doesn’t free all the hostages.
- “If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East and it will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out,” the president-elect said on a podcast Tuesday with conservative Hugh Hewitt.
- Steve Witkoff, Middle East envoy in the next administration, remarked about Trump, “What he said, he expects. The red lines he’s put out there – that’s driving this negotiation.”
- Trump expressed anger about how Hamas has treated the hostages.
- “That beautiful girl where they (Hamas) threw her in the car, pulled her by her ponytail, and threw her in the car like she was a sack of potatoes,” he recalled. I said, what happened to her? So, she’s dead. Like a 19, 20-year-old beautiful girl.”
- Trump added, “They should have never taken them. There should have never been the attack of October 7th.”
- Witkoff’s taking part indirectly in the hostage talks in Doha, Qatar.
- “I think that we’ve had some really great progress,” Witkoff stated. “And I’m really hopeful that by the inaugural we’ll have some good things to announce.”
- Israel is taking part in the task force, and the only hold-up seems to be the unreasonable demands by Hamas.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- IDF is continuing to find weapons depots, Hamas terrorists, and tunnels. Hamas’ military abilities cannot be defeated as quickly as critics of the IDF strategy would like to believe.
- The Israeli military announced it had carried out airstrikes against over 100 targets, including Hamas terrorists and rocket launching sites.
- For over a year, Israel has staged a massive military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Its stated goals are to remove Hamas as a governing power in the territory and release all the hostages.
- Thousands of Israelis rallied on Saturday evening to protest the government and pressure it to reach a deal with Hamas.
- …The IDF also continued to operate in the north of the territory.
- “The area consists of structures overlooking Israeli territory and serves as a central terror hub containing anti-tank firing positions, booby traps, shafts, numerous explosives, and launch sites for targeting Israeli territory,” read a statement by the army.
- In addition, the army continues to control the Philadephi and Netzarim corridors in southern and central Gaza, respectively, aimed at blocking Hamas from being able to re-arm and re-position itself.
- …according to Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University
- “Hamas had over twenty years to accumulate a massive amount of firepower, dispersing it in many areas, including in its widespread underground tunnel network,” Shamir told The Media Line. “Combined with other terrorist organizations, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), it had approximately 30,000 fighters. This could take two to three years to get rid of.”
- “There is an estimated 40% of the tunnels still remaining, hundreds of kilometers of tunnels the Israeli intelligence was not aware of,” said Yoni Ben Menachem, an expert of Middle Eastern affairs from Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told The Media Line. “There are still very long tunnels that Israel has yet to have located, some of them with hostages inside. This requires a very big operation and a massive amount of explosives that Israel currently does not possess.”
- Hamas stunned Israel on October 7th, 2023, when it attacked the south of the country in a rampage that killed approximately 1200 Israelis and wounded thousands more. It also took approximately 250 people hostage, 100 still in captivity.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- With Hezbollah in Lebanon disabled and Hamas’ strength waning, Houthi rebels in Yemen have been launching missiles at Israel, and Israel is striking back.
- Israeli airstrikes pounded the rebel regime in Yemen early Thursday after the Houthis launched another missile at Israel – one of several fired at the Jewish state in recent days.
- Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to huddle with top officials to discuss a hostage deal that may be fast approaching.
- A Palestinian negotiator told the BBC the talks are in the final stage. Though issues remain, it may include a six-week ceasefire, during which Hamas would free 30 of the remaining 100 hostages.
- IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said from Gaza that Israeli troops continue to do their part there.
- “We are exerting pressure on Hamas daily, driving it into greater distress, to ensure the return of the 100 hostages,” Halevi said.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The supreme leader of Iran, which backs the Hamas and Hezbollah militants fighting Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, said Monday that death sentences should be issued for Israeli leaders, not arrest warrants.
- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was commenting on a decision last week by the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense chief and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri.
- “They issued an arrest warrant. That’s not enough. … Death sentence must be issued for these criminal leaders,” Khamenei said, referring to Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant.
- In their decision, the ICC judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
- The decision was met with outrage in Israel, which called it shameful and absurd.
- Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies committing war crimes in Gaza.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- How long will it take to unwind the Biden-Harris Middle East policy? About five minutes, according to Mike Huckabee.
- The former Arkansas governor-turned-U.S. ambassador to Israel nominee suggested that President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office would signal a dramatic change, bringing unwavering loyalty to Israel while “taking the money tree” away from terrorist groups.
- “To be fair, sometimes Joe Biden has been very supportive of Israel, and we’ve heard often he and Blinken and others talk about the ironclad relationship [between Israel and the United States], and then the next day, we would hear pressure on Israel not to continue their efforts against Hamas. You’re thinking, ‘well, why wouldn’t you continue your efforts against people who massacred innocent civilians and just had a bloodthirsty attitude about it?'”
- “The fact remains that the real problem here is not Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. It’s Iran,” Huckabee told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Monday.
- “They’re the ones who fund it [terrorism], and when the Biden administration reversed the maximum pressure campaign that was effectively shutting down Iran’s ability to have money to fund this nonsense, that’s what changed everything, so I expect the president [Trump] will put the maximum pressure back on Iran, and that’s going to take the money tree away from some of these terrorist groups and make it much harder for them to do their incredibly horrible and dastardly deeds of murdering civilians.”
- More shakeups will come with the changing of the guard, Huckabee insisted, as he weighed in on Trump’s Cabinet nominees thus far.
- “[They are] disruptors, people who don’t come just to oil the machinery of DC, and if there ever was a time when this country needed a disruption in the ebb and flow of the unit party, the deep state, the establishment, call it what you will call it, the swamp, the sewer [it’s now]… this president has putting together a team that is going to be disruptive to Washington, but restorative to the American families living out here in the middle of the country. That’s why he was overwhelmingly elected, and it’s why there is a solid mandate that he carries into office on January 20th.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Our world is on fire. That which was ignited one year ago on October 7, when Hamas, backed by Iran, invaded Israel and massacred over 1,200 Israeli men, women, youths, children and babies now rages throughout the Middle East. Israel has struck Hezbollah. Iran has struck Israel. And the world now watches on edge in fear of the beginning of a regional war, if not a world war.
- What is happening? Is the world spiraling out of control?
- It was a Friday night when I was led to speak at Beth Israel, the congregation I lead in northern New Jersey on an ancient mystery. The mystery was over three thousand years old. It went back to the Bible, to the Book of Leviticus. It wasn’t what I fathomed would happen, but the mystery itself ordained that a calamity would come to the nation of Israel. More specifically, the mystery determined the following:
- Israel would be invaded. The invasion would catch the nation off-guard. It would result in calamity.
- The invasion would take place in the year 2023.
- It would happen in the autumn of that year.
- It would take place in the month of October.
- It would happen on a Saturday, the Sabbath, the Jewish holy day of rest.
- It would take place on an ancient Hebrew holy day, one that went back to Mount Sinai and the Book of Leviticus.
- It would lead to war.
- It would take place on the first Saturday of October of 2023.
- The first Saturday of October 2023 fell on October 7. On October 7, Israel was invaded, and the nation was caught off guard. The result was a calamity that would lead to war. It happened on the Sabbath and on a Hebrew holy day, Shemini Atzeret, that was given on Mount Sinai and went back to the book of Leviticus. In fact, it happened the very next day after I shared the mystery.
- It was this mystery and these events that led me to preempt the book I was about to write and begin working instead on what would become The Dragon’s Prophecy: Israel, the Dark Resurrection, and the End of Days. Something happened as I wrote the book that I never before experienced — what I was writing would come true in the world right after I wrote it — so much so, that I had to keep rewriting and updating the book up until now when it was released.
- In fact, after I finished the manuscript, three other events came true that were ordained in the same mystery. In fact, this single mystery may enable us to know what is coming, future events and exactly when they are to happen. For there is more to the world than meets our eyes. What is now taking place in the Middle East and threatening the peace of the entire world is all part of these mysteries. Yes, the world is at a most dangerous moment — but it is not out of control. In fact, the conflagration we are witnessing, from Israel to Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis and ultimately to Iran, is all part of a prophetic mystery that sits in the bookcases or night tables in our houses — the Bible.
- The ancient biblical and end-time prophecies foretell that in what is called “the last days,” the Jewish people will be gathered from the ends of the earth and brought back to the land of Israel. On that day, the nations of the world will be strangely focused, obsessed, with the tiny Jewish state the size of New Jersey. The world will rage against that stage. The Bible also speaks of the nation of Iran. One of the things it foretells is that in that time when Israel is back in the world, the nation of Iran will turn against the Jewish nation — will come against the Jewish nation — will attack the Jewish nation.
- There is so much more that was foretold and that is now unfolding literally before our eyes, far more than I can put here. Perhaps I was led to write books. But the takeaway is this — while we live in the most perilous times — there is a plan, there is a destiny. We can even know where it is heading, what the future holds and how to survive, stand and prevail in what is yet to come.
- But for that we must return to what the world around us, our culture, and our nation have forgotten — God is real. His word is true. And He remains the only answer to the crisis of our world — and of our lives. For there is more to the world than meets our eyes — and if we seek with our all hearts — we will find it.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The IDF announced on Wednesday that six journalists actively working for Al Jazeera were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
- The IDF says that due to intelligence recovered from the Gaza Strip during military operations, they can reveal that Anas Al-Sharif, Alaa Salama, Hossam Shabat, Ashraf Saraj, Ismail Abu Amr, and Talal Aruki are all affiliated with the military wings of either Hamas or PIJ.
- Ismail Abu Amr was injured several months ago in Gaza by an IDF attack; during that period, Al Jazeera denied his membership in Hamas. Documents recovered by the IDF showed this was untrue.
- Some of the documents include personnel tables, terrorist training courses, phone books, and salary documents for terrorists.
- The IDF said that this “unequivocally proves that they function as military terrorist operatives of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.”
- The IDF also said that these documents prove Al Jazeera has employed them simultaneously.
- The exposed journalists are part of Hamas’s military wing operating as the vanguard of Hamas’s propaganda war against Israel.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had “settled the score with him,” but stressed that “the task before us [Israel] is not yet complete.”
- Netanyahu said Israel’s focus was on securing the return of the roughly 100 hostages still in Gaza, taken during Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack last year, of whom a third are believed to be dead.
- “This is an important moment in the war,” Netanyahu said to the families of the hostages, according to the Reuters news agency. “We will continue full force until the return home of all your loved ones, who are our loved ones, too. This is our supreme obligation. This is my supreme obligation.”
- President Biden said Sinwar’s death after almost two decades of Hamas rule in Gaza was good news, “for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.” Along with other senior U.S. officials, he indicated that it should bring new hope for a cease-fire in the year-long war.
- But Hamas did not mention any renewed push for a cease-fire agreement with Israel after the killing of its leader.
- Deputy Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya confirmed Sinwar’s death Friday in a televised speech, and said the group would continue on the same path it’s been on. Al-Hayya said Hamas would not release the remaining hostages without a cease-fire deal and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Read the original article by clicking here.
