PM: Israel will destroy Hamas terror tunnels ‘with or without’ cease-fire
(JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces is determined to destroy Hamas’s network of terror tunnels in Gaza “with or without a cease-fire,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday at an emergency cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv.
“Using their tunnel capability, Hamas could have kidnapped and murdered civilians and soldiers by simultaneously attacking from multiple tunnels. It is this capability that we are destroying,” Netanyahu said.
“So far we have neutralized dozens of terror tunnels and we are determined to complete this mission, with or without a cease-fire,” he added.
A delegation of senior Israeli officials traveled to Cairo on Wednesday to discuss cease-fire options with Egyptian defense officials, according to Israel Hayom, which cited Egyptian media reports. The Alyoum Alsabea newspaper reported that the delegation included Netanyahu’s representative attorney Isaac Molho, Shin Bet security agency chief Yoram Cohen, and the head of the Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau, Amos Gilad.
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Latest threat from Hamas: paragliding terrorists
(JNS.org) After Israeli forces captured and interrogated a Hamas terrorist who had been hiding in a tunnel for three weeks, he revealed that Hamas members have undergone training to execute terrorist attacks from the air, Israel Hayom reported. The prisoner told security forces he had been sent to Malaysia to learn how to carry out an attack by paragliding.
The prisoner served as commander of a cell in Hamas’s Nukhba (“Elite”) commando force. He was arrested July 20 and transferred to the Shin Bet security agency for questioning. He told agents he had been waiting in the tunnel three weeks for his orders and received only occasional supplies of water and dates. After three weeks, he turned himself in.
Interrogators discovered that the unit the prisoner belonged to was planning to employ paragliding techniques to commit a terrorist attack in one of the Israeli communities bordering Gaza. According to the Shin Bet, the prisoner also provided information about instructions to carry out kidnappings that had been handed down to Hamas members when it appeared that the IDF was preparing to enter Gaza. The prisoner said the group had set up anti-tank traps for the Israeli forces, and even pointed out a sniper’s position on the 10th floor of the Red Crescent building in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
Suspect in Brussels Jewish museum shooting charged with murder
(JNS.org) Mehdi Nemmouche, the suspect in the fatal shooting of four people (including an Israeli couple) at the Brussels-based Jewish Museum of Belgium in May, was charged with murder on Wednesday after being extradited back to Belgium by French authorities.
“Since his arrival, he has been interrogated by the counter-terrorism unit of the federal judiciary police of Brussels, as well as by the investigating judge,” the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said, according to DPA.
“He has been charged with murder in a terrorist context and an arrest warrant has been delivered on his behalf,” the office added.
Nemmouche, a 29-year-old dual French-Algerian national, has also allegedly fought with jihadist terror groups in Syria.
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Global flag football tournament in Jerusalem canceled due to Gaza conflict
(JNS.org) The World Championships of the International Flag Football Confederation, set for Aug. 12-15 in Jerusalem, were canceled due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. The event would have hosted nearly 30 teams and more than 600 athletes from 20 countries.
“We were so close to fulfilling a dream that took about 10 years of hard work to achieve. It was so hard to convince the International Federation of American Football to have the tournament in Israel, but they finally agreed,” said Steve Leibowitz, chairman of American Flag Football in Israel, in a statement.
The tournament would have been “the largest team world championship ever held in Israel in any sport,” according to Leibowitz.
“From the time the fighting began, pressure began to build to move the tournament because teams do not want to come to what they perceive to be a war zone,” he said. “The rockets landing in Israel and specifically rockets aimed at Jerusalem caused great concern among the teams.”
The flag football tournament will instead be held in Grosseto, Italy, from Sept. 11-14.
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Irish parliament to debate Gaza conflict, calls for expulsion of Israeli envoy grow
(JNS.org) The upper house of the Irish parliament, known as the Seanad or Senate, is set to be recalled from summer recess to debate the Israel-Hamas conflict amid growing calls to expel the Israeli ambassador to the country.
A number of politicians from the minority left-wing Irish Labor party have called for the government to consider expelling the Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Boaz Mondai, over the growing number of Palestinian civilian casualties, the Irish Examiner reported.
But the Irish government, controlled by the center-right Fine Gael party, also recently decided to abstain from a U.N. Human Rights Council whose eventual outcome was to approve the launching of an investigation into purported Israeli human rights violations in Gaza.
Despite the growing anti-Israel sentiment in Ireland, nearly 175 Irish Christians and Jews turned out for a pro-Israel rally outside the country’s Israeli Embassy last Sunday.
“Ireland is very pro-Palestinian, mainly because [the Irish people] identify with the plight of those who are suffering and images of wounded children and adults that have appeared on the news every night. I think the Palestinians are winning the propaganda war,” Paddy Monaghan— president of Irish Christian Friends of Israel (ICFI), a group that helped organize the rally—told JNS.org.
“Israel is too slow about highlighting the impact on their communities of the rocket fire from Gaza. They tend to share statistics rather than show suffering,” Monaghan added.
Ahead of the debate in the Irish Senate, the ICFI has issued an action alert to its members, encouraging them to write to their politicians to oppose calls for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.
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Hamas leader calls on Hezbollah to open up second front against Israel
(JNS.org) A Hamas leader is calling on the Lebanese terror Hezbollah to open up a second front against Israel in the north.
“We hope the Lebanese front will open and together we will fight against this formation [Israel],” Hamas deputy political chief Mousa Abu Marzouk told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
“There’s no arguing that Lebanese resistance could mean a lot,” Marzouk added.
The Lebanese border has been largely quiet since Israel and Hezbollah last fought in 2006. It is unclear if Hezbollah, which is allied closely with Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, would support Hamas, after Hamas broke with the Shi’a alliance in 2012.
At the same time, Hezbollah has been heavily engaged in Syrian civil war, where the Lebanese terror group has reportedly been stretched thin amid heavy fighting and high casualties.
Nevertheless, in a recent speech, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said he stands by the Palestinians in their fight.
“Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance will stand by the Palestinian people’s uprising and resistance in our heart, willpower, hope, and destiny,” Nasrallah said.
Meanwhile, the mayor of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shimona, which sits along the Lebanese border, says that he is “certain” there are terror tunnels underneath the Lebanese border running into Israel as well .
“The IDF is doing a good job in the war in Gaza, and should know it must deal with the tunnels here in the north as well,” Mayor Nissim Malka told the Israeli radio station Kol Rega.
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Hamas reportedly executing suspected Israeli collaborators
(JNS.org) Hamas has been summarily executing suspected Israeli collaborators, Palestinian media reports say.
Over the past week, Hamas has executed more than 30 civilians in different parts of Gaza for collaborating with Israel, anonymous Palestinian security sources in Gaza told the Palestine News Agency.
According to the report, several suspected spies in the northern Gaza neighborhood of Shejaiya—where Israeli forces had been operating to root out Hamas terror tunnels—were summarily executed after Hamas forces found them in possession of weapons, cellphones, and SIM cards from the Israeli cell phone company Orange.
Since Operation Protective Edge began, numerous reports in the Palestinian media have emerged of suspected collaborators helping the Israel Defense Forces locate and target Hamas operatives.
On July 15, Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Iyad Al-Bozom threatened potential collaborators on his Facebook page, saying that “any betrayal or cowardly act against our people would be met with the harshest punishment under Palestinian law,” the Times of Israel reported.
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