Iran Revolutionary Guards general calls for greater foothold in West Bank and Gaza
(JNS.org) An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general has called for Iran to increase its military power in the West Bank and Gaza.
“We must contain Israel… so that it never dares to speak about a missile attack on Iran, we must reinforce our power in the West Bank and Gaza,” said Brigadier General Iraj Masjedi, who serves as the top advisor to the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ al-Quds Force, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported.
Masjedi added that Palestinians in the West Bank must end negotiations with Israel and increase armed resistance against Israel.
“The Palestine Liberation Organization must know that what brings them victory is not political negotiation but only resistance and (military) power, and this is what Hezbollah and Hamas have been doing,” he said.
The general’s comments come amid reports that Hamas and Iran have restored relations. The two sides had a falling out over the Palestinian terror group’s criticism of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s conduct in the Syrian civil war, and Hamas relocated its foreign headquarters from Damascus to Qatar. But Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, recently told a Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television network that Hamas is prepared to cooperate with Iran “for the sake of Palestine” in order to “destroy the Israeli occupation.”
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Jordan returning ambassador to Israel as Temple Mount tension subsides
(JNS.org) Jordan confirmed that it will return its ambassador to Israel after recalling the envoy from the Jewish state late last year over tension regarding the Temple Mount holy site.
Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said that Israel has taken significant steps to help reduce tension on the Temple Mount and to ease restrictions on Muslim prayer that had been implemented.
“We noticed in the last period a significant improvement in Haram al-Sharif (the Muslim term for Temple Mount), with numbers of worshippers reaching unprecedented levels,” Momani said.
Israel gained eastern Jerusalem and its holy sites from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War. But the Temple Mount is administered by the Islamic Waqf, a Muslim trust overseen by Jordan that limits non-Muslim visitation and bans Jewish prayer.
Jordan recalled its ambassador on Nov. 5, 2014, after Israeli police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians on the Temple Mount. At the time, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh described the Israeli actions as “violations” that had gone “way beyond limits.”
The Temple Mount clashes were part of a broader campaign of Palestinian riots and terrorism during the latter half of 2014. This included an assassination attempt on Rabbi Yehuda Glick, an Israeli activist who calls for greater Jewish access to the holy site.
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Israeli soldiers receive 25-percent pay raise
(JNS.org) On Sunday, Israeli soldiers received a long-anticipated raise of 25 percent in their pay slips. Combat soldiers now receive $271 per month, combat support soldiers receive $199, and Homefront Command soldiers receive $137.
“The decision to raise the soldiers’ salaries was very expensive, since there is a considerable number of conscript soldiers. Nevertheless, [Israel Defense Forces] Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz decided to invest in the soldiers,” said a senior officer in the IDF Personnel Directorate, Israel Hayom reported.
According to an analysis of IDF soldiers’ credit card usage, the average soldier spends about $279 per month, and the pay raise still falls short of that amount.
“[The raise is] not the ultimate solution and it will not provide for soldiers coming from poor families, and there are many of them, but we have many other tools, such as gift vouchers and grants,” the IDF officer said.
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Jewish fraternity house at UC Davis vandalized with swastikas on Shabbat
(JNS.org) Two large swastikas were found spray-painted on the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Jewish fraternity house at University of California (UC), Davis during Shabbat.
“Jewish people still can’t feel safe on their own campuses and in their own houses,” Nathaniel Bernhard, vice president of the UC Davis AEPi chapter, told the Sacramento Bee. “Anti-Semitism still exists today. It’s not a fairy tale.”
Bernhard said the swastikas were spray-painted on the building sometime between 3-9 a.m. on Saturday.
Barry Broad, board president of the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region, called the swastikas “especially heinous” given the recent commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.
“Unfortunately, the lessons that history has taught us about the culture of hate have not been heeded by everyone,” Broad said in a statement.
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Report: 2008 killing of senior Hezbollah terrorist was joint U.S.-Israel operation
(JNS.org) The 2008 killing of Hezbollah’s international operations chief, Imad Mughniyeh, was a joint Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-Mossad operation, the Washington Post reported Friday.
Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus, Syria, by a bomb planted in a vehicle that was detonated as he passed by on foot. Hezbollah blamed Israel for Mughniyeh’s death and vowed revenge, but Israel never officially confirmed nor denied its involvement.
According to the Washington Post report, the bomb that killed Mughniyeh was detonated remotely by Israeli Mossad agents in Tel Aviv, who were in communication with CIA spotters on the ground in Damascus. The U.S. reportedly helped build the bomb, which was tested numerous times at a CIA facility in North Carolina. Former U.S. officials cited in the report said Mughniyeh was directly connected to the arming and training of Shiite militias in Iraq that were targeting U.S. forces.
Jihad Mughniyeh, Imad’s son, was killed along with five other Hezbollah terrorists in the reported Israeli airstrike on Syria on Jan. 18.
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IDF lone soldier who survived cancer promoted to 2nd lieutenant
(JNS.org) Rotem Chiprut, a cancer survivor and an Israel Defense Forces lone soldier (a member of the army without parents in Israel), last week was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant.
Chiprut, 20, arrived in Israel in August 2012 and enlisted in the IDF, becoming an infantry squad leader. But last year, in the middle of a training course, Chiprut discovered she had cancerous cells in her thyroid gland and had to set everything aside to go into treatment. “It simply came out of nowhere, out of the clear blue sky. I had to undergo a series of tests, an operation, and then recovery, but I knew I wanted to continue [army service],” she told Israel Hayom.
Rotem defeated cancer, but the next obstacle came from the IDF itself.
“After three months [in treatment] the army agreed to bring me back as a volunteer in a rear-echelon position,” she said. “But I didn’t relent. It was a difficult time. I’m a strong person, but I had moments where I broke down and cried, but I was determined to succeed. I went to numerous committees and demanded to be placed back in combat duty until they finally agreed, and now I’ve completed my officer’s course.”
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Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah to Israel: ‘Don’t try us again’
(JNS.org) Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel not to “try us again” and said his group is ready to fight Israel in any time and any place.
“The resistance no longer recognizes the rules of engagement and it has the right to respond to the enemy at any time or place,” Nasrallah declared in a speech commemorating the so-called “Resistance’s Martyrs in Quneitra,” in reference to the six Hezbollah terrorists and an Iranian killed in a reported Israeli airstrike in Syria on Jan. 18. A subsequent Hezbollah attack on northern Israel killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded seven others.
“We have the right to confront the enemy at any time, place, or manner,” Nasrallah said through a live video feed before a crowd gathered in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh, south of Beirut.
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