Hamas threat against Ben Gurion Airport proves hollow as fighting resumes
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) With the resumption of fighting in Gaza, Hamas on Wednesday returned to issuing threats—this time, against foreign airlines flying in and out of Ben Gurion International Airport.
“We are warning international airlines and press them to stop flying into Ben Gurion Airport from 6 a.m. (Israel time) Thursday,” Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida said in a televised speech on Wednesday.
Despite the threat, no major disruptions to any flight schedules were reported. The 6 a.m. deadline came and went without any rocket fire or other unusual incidents at the airport.
On failed cease-fire talks in Cairo, Obeida said the Palestinian delegation should come home.
“Leave Cairo and do not return. … Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu missed a golden opportunity for a diplomatic agreement, and now the Zionists will pay for their treachery,” he said.
Netanyahu said Hamas is “mistaken” if it thinks it “can wear us down.”
“The Israeli people are strong,” the prime minister said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “Instead of attrition, Hamas will be crushed—its infrastructure, terrorists, and commanders.”
Farmers in Israel’s south to get 120 new shelters
(JNS.org) Farmers in Israeli communities near Gaza will receive some 120 portable shelters to protect the manual laborers who work the land, officials said on Wednesday.
The decision comes amid renewed hostilities between Israel and Hamas. With fields close to the Gaza Strip border fence, agricultural workers in the south have frequently been the target of close-range rocket and mortar fire.
The shelters are to be placed in open areas where there are large concentrations of workers. These include greenhouses, as well as produce handling and processing facilities.
“We want to protect the Gaza-area communities, which defend our borders,” Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Yair Shamir (Yisrael Beiteinu) said, according to Israel Hayom. “As such, we have begun installing portable shelters that will serve the farmers and help them lead their daily lives and work the land. They will be able to continue farming without risking their lives and their workers’ lives, avoiding adverse economic effects.”
WJC’s Lauder urges world leaders to stand up for persecuted Christians
(JNS.org) World Jewish Congress (WJC) President Ronald S. Lauder blasted world leaders for their relative silence on the persecution of Christians.
“Why is the world silent while Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa?” Lauder asked in an Aug. 19 New York Times op-ed.
Lauder criticized the demonstrations in the U.S. and Europe over Israel’s actions in Gaza against the Hamas terrorist organization, while at the same time the “barbarous slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Christians is met with relative indifference.”
Comparing the Islamic State assault through the Middle East to a “Nazi-like wave of terror,” Lauder called out the United Nations, world leaders, and even celebrities and aging rock stars for their relative silence on the plight of Christians.
“Why doesn’t the slaughter of Christians seem to activate their social antennas?” Lauder asked, in an apparent jab at the slew of celebrities who have criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza.
As the head of one of the world’s most prominent Jewish organizations, Lauder has frequently used his platform to speak out against the persecution of Christians. In a June speech at the Israeli Christian Allies European Summit in Budapest, Hungary, Lauder expressed solidarity with Christians under threat.
“I will speak out across the globe with world leaders and with ordinary citizens, and I will tell them that we will never tolerate any kind of anti-Christian threats, just as we will not tolerate anti-Semitism,” Lauder said. “Your fight is my fight.”
Hamas official claims responsibility for murder of Israeli teens
(JNS.org) Israel’s Channel 2 on Wednesday aired a recording of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri, who is based in Turkey, claiming responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in June. The recording is the strongest evidence to date for Hamas’s involvement in that crime.
“I praise the brave action that the al-Qassam Brigades carried out, the kidnapping of the three settlers to Hebron,” al-Arouri said in the recording, adding that the Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrach were kidnapped and killed in response to the hunger strikes by Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, according to the Times of Israel.
Anti-Israel group JVP targets Jewish federations over Gaza
(JNS.org) Thirty members of the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on Wednesday demanded that Jewish federations take an open stance against the blockade of the Gaza Strip and Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in a visit to the UJA-Federation of New York offices.
In 2013, JVP was listed as one of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in America by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). On Wednesday, JVP delivered a petition signed by 30,000 of its members and supporters to federation staff, asking Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) President Jerry Silverman to speak out publicly against the “siege” of Gaza.
“In the last 22 days, the Israeli army has killed more than 1,200 people in Gaza. There is nowhere safe for people to take refuge. Hospitals, schools, beaches, playgrounds—even U.N. shelters have been attacked. The entire world has reacted with horror and outrage,” the petition’s text states.
After delivering the petition, JVP members dressed in black simulated the blockade of Gaza in a street performance, pretending to be food and supplies attempting to get through the blockade.
JVP said that a federation-affiliated strategic communications representative had rejected its request to meet with Silverman because the group’s “ongoing support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel render any kind of direct communication, beyond this email, impossible.”
Yitzhak Santis, chief programs officer at Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday by JNS.org that JVP “is part of the international NGO ‘soft power’ war, whose unrelenting attacks on Israel’s right to self-defense ultimately aid Hamas.”
“This global political warfare strategy includes sustained delegitimization campaigns, BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions), and promoting a ‘right of return’ for Palestinians, which means dismantling Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” wrote Santis. “It partners with a wide coterie of radical leftist, Islamist, and Arab ultra-nationalist groups to promote its program. When asked, JVP states that they are ‘agnostic’ about a two-state solution. But that is a smokescreen. The group’s actions demonstrate a clear anti-Israel agenda.”
Anti-Semitic incidents in U.K. up 500% during Gaza conflict
(JNS.org) The Community Security Trust (CST), an organization providing security, training, and advice to the Jewish community in the United Kingdom, is reporting that anti-Semitic incidents in the country have risen by nearly 500 percent since the start of the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
CST received more than 240 calls on anti-Semitism in the month of July alone, the organization said, up from around 50 per month earlier this year.
“The actual data is bad enough but cannot convey the mood of the Jewish community, with many people telling us that they have never felt so bad, have been under such pressure, nor worried so much about what the future may hold,” said Mark Gardner, the communications director for the CST, according to The Independent.
“Some of those anti-Israel and anti-Zionist passions found their physical outlet against Jewish targets, as they always do,” he said.
4 decapitated bodies found in Egypt’s Sinai, Islamic State ‘copycats’ suspected
(JNS.org) The decapitated bodies of four men were found in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where the Egyptian military has been fighting jihadists over the past year.
The bodies were found by residents of Sheikh Zaveid, near Rafah, just two days after the men were abducted, AFP reported. Egyptian officials believe they were targeted for their ties to the Egyptian military.
An Egyptian security source told Al-Masry Al-Youm that those responsible for the murders were trying to imitate the methods of execution favored by the Islamic State.
On Wednesday, the Islamic State released a video of the decapitation of American journalist James Foley, who was captured in Syria in 2012, and promised to decapitate another captured American journalist if President Barack Obama does not end its operation against the terror group.
Most of the terrorist attacks in the Sinai have been launched by the Al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which was declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. earlier this year.
Similar Islamic State copycat groups also exist in the nearby Gaza Strip, where Islamic State and Al-Qaeda-linked terror groups have claimed to fire rockets on Israel and said that 13 of their fighters have been killed during Operation Protective Edge, Israel National News reported.
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Hamas targets Israeli offshore gas rig with rockets
(JNS.org) Hamas said it fired two rockets at an Israeli offshore gas rig, in the first such attempt by the Gaza terrorist group since Operation Protective Edge began.
The offshore gas platform called Noa is located approximately 19 miles off the Gaza coast and is owned by the U.S.-based gas company Noble Energy and the Israeli gas firm Delek.
While the Noa platform is within range of Hamas rockets, the rockets largely lack any guidance systems and are highly inaccurate. The Israeli military said no rockets have struck the platforms.
“The gas is flowing, business as usual,” a spokeswoman for Noble Energy said, Reuters reported.
Israel’s eastern Mediterranean gas fields are some of the largest offshore gas finds of the past decade. Numerous international firms have invested heavily in extracting the gas, which Israel hopes to use to become a major energy power in the Middle East and achieve energy independence. In recent years, Israel has beefed up its naval forces to counter any threats to the platforms.
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