Free Republic

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Friday that it had recovered the bodies of Israeli hostages Amit Buskila, Itzhak Gelerenter, and Shani Louk in a special operation overnight in the Gaza Strip. All three were murdered at the Supernova Music Festival in Re’im, in southern Israel, and their bodies taken to Gaza. Louk was killed and her body abused on the back of a pickup truck in one of the most infamous scenes of October 7. Gelerenter, 58, went missing on October 7 and his phone was later found by the IDF in Gaza. Buskila, 28, a fashion designer, had...

In a fascinating April 13, 2024 interview, Yuval Bitton, head of the Intelligence Division of the Israel Prison Service, recounted his interactions with Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar. Bitton first interacted with the prisoners as their dentist before getting into intelligence work, so he got to know these men on very personal terms.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has found loaded rocket launchers during its operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, now in its second week. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel, which was nearly constant in the days following the October 7 terror attack, has largely subsided. However, in recent weeks, Hamas terrorists have fired rockets at the Keren Shalom crossing, where humanitarian aid enters Gaza near Rafah, and at the city of Sderot, near northern Gaza.

As the weather has warmed, it’s time for that time-honored tradition — protest season. Because everyone knows the plight of the disenfranchised is best solved at 70°F. Setting up winter camp in a college quad seems unpleasant — the revolution will take place at a time, place and temperature that’s convenient for America’s poetry graduate assistants. Campus protests are nothing new in America. They’ve been a feature of university life since at least the Vietnam War and beyond. And sure, it’s fun to get wrapped up in a romantic cause you only just learned about and of which you have...

IDF drone footage shows “a Hamas terrorist firing at Palestinian civilians trying to get aid at an UNRWA compound east of Rafah in the Gaza Strip.” As Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pushes deeper into the Rafah terror stronghold, more evidence of collusion between terror group Hamas and the United Nations’ Palestinian aid agency (UNRWA) comes to light. The IDF on Wednesday released drone footage showing Hamas terrorists using UN marked vehicles, which enjoy protection in a combat zone. The clip also shows Hamas gunmen apparently shooting at unarmed civilians in and around the UNRWA humanitarian aid depot in Rafah. The...

President Joe Biden is backing an internal revolt within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over the fate of postwar Gaza, after defense minister Yoav Gallant publicly declared his opposition to long-term Israeli rule there. Gallant made an unexpected televised address in which he stated that he was opposed to Israeli military rule or civilian rule in Gaza after Hamas, and preferred rule by non-terrorist Palestinians with help from Arab states.

The “floating pier” built by the U.S. Navy off the coast of Gaza was completed on Thursday, and connected to the shore by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops. President Joe Biden announced the port project in his State of the Union address in March to augment land routes to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. He promised that there would be no American “boots on the ground”; the U.S. is relying on the IDF to provide onshore security for the port. Today at approximately 7:40 a.m. (Gaza time) United States Central Command personnel supporting the humanitarian mission to deliver additional humanitarian...

Rafah isn’t just the last stand for Hamas, but for an entire foreign policy establishment.The desperate effort to keep Israeli soldiers from going into the last Gaza stronghold of the Islamic terrorist organization is about more than the sum of the geopolitical parts.After nation building failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and everywhere else it’s been tried, the radioactive ‘Palestinian’ nation building experiment from over 30 years ago is its last hope.Long before George W. Bush tackled nation building after 9/11, his father began the era of turning Muslim terrorist groups into countries with the project to give the PLO a...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shared drone footage Tuesday of terrorists in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) compound in Rafah, near several United Nations (UN) vehicles, including gunfire by the terrorists.Israel's foreign minister, Israel Katz, said that the UN was working with the terrorists, and called on UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini to resign (as Katz has done in the past).The IDF released a statement:During IDF operational activity in eastern Rafah on Saturday, terrorists were identified in UNRWA's central logistics compound alongside UN vehicles.In the footage, a number of terrorists and gunfire can be seen near UN vehicles...

Muslim leaders in the U.S. kept that fact firmly in mind. In Nov. 2023, Nihad Awad, executive director of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who infamously said that he was “happy” about Hamas’ Oct. 7 jihad massacre of 1,200 Israelis, declared at a pro-Hamas rally: “No cease-fire, no votes. No votes in Michigan, no votes in Arizona, no votes in Georgia, no votes in Nevada, no votes in Wisconsin, no votes in Pennsylvania.

I'm at Seatac Airport (SEA) at the gate for my 10:00 A.M. flight LY9468 through Newark to Tel Aviv. I'm volunteering for the IDF through their organization "Sar-El". Usually, volunteers do warehousing work on base, live in the barracks, and eat with the soldiers. I believe in transmogrification. For three weeks, I'm freeing up an 18-year-old Israeli kid with an M16 to go into Gaza and kill ham ass. I'm 62 and fit, and I can do the warehousing work that a soldier would otherwise have to do, and they can go to the front. Through the magic of transmogrification,...

The Biden administration is urging Arab states to join a "peacekeeping" force which would control Gaza once the war ends, the Financial Times reported. The initiative aims to fill the vacuum which would be created in Gaza once Hamas is toppled and until a "credible Palestinian security apparatus" could be established. Among the countries the US has been discussing its plans with are Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco, all of which are "considering" the initiative. The US has also spoken to Saudi Arabia about the plan, but the Saudis are unwilling to deploy their own forces to the...

The Biden administration informally notified congressional committees Tuesday that it planned to move forward with more than $1 billion in weapons deals for Israel, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter, a major transfer of lethal aid that comes a week after the White House paused a single shipment of bombs because of concerns that a planned assault in southern Gaza could cause immense civilian casualties. The arms deals allow for the potential transfer of $700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of...

It turns out that a Gaza based al-Qaeda affiliated group known as Jaysh al-Ummah has joined Hamas in the jihad against Israel. On December 8, Jaysh al-Ummah published a statement saying that its fighters had been clashing with the IDF in the north of the Gaza Strip and in Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City:Al-Qaeda is currently fighting in Gaza as Jaysh al-Ummah on the side of Hamas against the Zionists. A Jaysh al-Ummah-Statement from 8. December, 2023, announcing to have repelled the ‘Israeli’ army in fighting in the north of the Gaza Strip and in Sheikh Radwan in Gaza-City. https://t.co/g3o29r8OJG...

A group of Palestinian rioters vandalized Joshua’s Altar in the West Bank, a site revered by millions of Jews and Christians. The altar, which is located at Mount Ebal, was damaged after the rioters burned tires on its remains and spray-painted Palestinian flags and Arabic inscriptions on the stones last week, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post. According to a report from TPS, the site is under joint control with the Palestinian Authority and has been the target of vandalism on numerous occasions, part of a larger problem of attacks on Israeli archaeological sites under Palestinian control. “Unfortunately,...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continued to attack Hamas terrorists in Rafah and throughout Gaza on Monday, which was Israel’s independence day, despite continued international criticism and caution from the White House. In a statement, the IDF said: IDF troops continue their operations against terror targets in the area of eastern Rafah and on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing. IDF troops eliminated several armed terrorist cells in close-quarters encounters on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing. In eastern Rafah, IDF troops eliminated a number of terrorists and located weapons. An IAF aircraft struck a terrorist cell that...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday that it had killed 15 terrorists, at least 10 of whom were from Hamas, in a strike on a “war room” that they had set up at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school. In a joint statement, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or “Shabak,” or “Shin Bet”) said: Based on IDF and ISA intelligence, the IAF carried out a precise strike on a central Hamas war room commanders embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat. The war room was used by terrorist operatives in...

New data on Gazan fatalities cited by UN agency also separates ‘identified’ deaths in hospitals from some 10,000 alleged deaths based on Hamas ‘media sources’ In a dramatic development, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has sharply revised downward the number of “identified” female and child fatalities in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The data now differentiates between the total number of deaths reported by Hamas (over 34,000) and the number of “identified” fatalities (over 24,000). The new figures reported by OCHA reduce by more than half the number of women and children that it previously...

Turkey’s president has said that more than 1,000 members of Hamas are being treated in Turkish hospitals. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has railed against Israel since the outbreak of war, described Hamas as “a resistance organisation”. “So many Hamas members have been killed. The whole of the West is attacking them with all sorts of arms and munitions,” he said. “Calling Hamas ... a terrorist organisation would be cruel,” Mr Erdogan said, adding that it was a “very important” question. Hamas is classed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union, among others. It is...

A top Biden official said Monday the U.S. does not believe Israel’s “total victory” over the militant group Hamas is “likely or possible.” Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell spoke about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas during the NATO Youth Summit in Miami just days after the Biden administration paused certain arms shipments to Israel. “I think in some respects, we are struggling over what the theory of victory is. Sometimes when we listen closely to Israeli leaders, they talked about mostly the idea of some sort of sweeping victory on the battlefield, total victory,” Campbell said. “I...