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That nine of the 10 Israeli servicemen who died in the counter-terror operation against Hamas Monday, July 28, were killed on Israeli soil was a wake-up call for Israel’s war leaders. It meant that Hamas had used the 22 days of combat to carry the contest from its own home ground into Israel by grabbing the tactical advantage of surprise. The Nahal Oz encounter was a tragic microcosm of the current face of Operation Defensive Edge. The tunnel, from which a band of Hamas infiltrators jumped out – and about whose existence the IDF admits to have known – ran...

IDF chiefs have asked the government for a clear decision on whether to expand their counter-terror operation in the Gaza Strip which entered its 22nd day Tuesday - or terminate it. This was reported by a senior IDF officer Tuesday. He put it this way: “Decide now whether we go in or out.” DEBKAfile: This comment reflects the mounting criticism in the IDF high command of the government’s slowness in reaching a decision about the next stage of the operation against Hamas. This irresolution, they say, exposes the troops to danger and point to the 10 fatalities the IDF suffered...

Israel expands counter-offensive In the past 48 hours, Israel was pressured to accept its fifth “humanitarian” ceasefire in Gaza by President Barack Obama, US Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Chairman of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came close to folding, whereas Hamas saw the truce as applying only to Israel and therefore used it as a call to arms. The slogan Israel broadcast: Quiet will be met with quiet and fire with fire, was seen by Hamas as a sign of Israel weakening. This impression was confirmed on Sunday when...

Miami was the site of a violent, pro-Hamas, pro-terror demo last week tied to the Hamas-tied CAIR. This is the poison fruit of CAIR’s incitement to hate and violence. Signs like this were displayed at the demo. Journalists were attacked shouting “We are all Hamas,” “We are all jihad.” “I’m gonna kill you mother fucker, you and all the Israelis!” “You want a push, I’ll show you a push!” He’s a Zionist, this guy is not one of us, he’s a Zionist!” (code for Jew) On Sunday July 20, 2014, these violent and hateful words were combined with physical assaults...

A Magen David Adom ambulance. Photo: REUTERS Three people were killed and several others were seriously wounded in a mortar attack in the Eshkol Region next to the Gaza border late Monday afternoon. The attack moderately injured a number of other people. Emergency teams were evacuating those hurt to several hospitals. At least four were airlifted to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba. Related: IAF resumes air strikes in Gaza amid rocket attacks None of those killed or hurt in the projectile attack were Eshkol residents, said a spokeswoman for the regional council. Shortly after the mortar shell attack, the...

Israel Monday rebuffed the UN Security Council’s call for an immediate and humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. In a call to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Binyamin Netanyahu said that the text relates only to the needs of “a murderous terrorist organization which attacks Israeli civilians.” It fails to address the harm inflicted on Israeli citizens and Hamas’ misuse of UN facilities for launching attacks on those citizens. Netanyahu delivered his reply as Hamas renewed rocket attacks at noon Monday, with Israeli resuming air strikes on rocket targets towards evening.

The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards vowed revenge against Israel for its ongoing military incursion into Gaza, which has already killed hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis. “You [people of Israel] are trees without any roots which were planted in the Islamic lands by the British,” Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami said at this week’s Friday prayer sermon in Tehran, Fars News Agency reported. That statement referred to the Balfour Declaration, which led to the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the eventual creation of the state Israel in 1948. “We will chase you house...

Israeli ministers, who on Friday unanimously rejected US secretary’s offer, reported to describe him as ‘negligent, incapable of handling the most basic matters’ Israeli government sources on Saturday night accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “completely capitulating” to the demands of Hamas and its champion Qatar in drafting the Gaza war ceasefire proposal that Israeli ministers unanimously rejected on Friday. The unnamed sources, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 TV, said Kerry “dug a tunnel under the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” — which Israel accepted and Hamas rejected last week — and presented the Israeli government with a text that...

Officials have said that more than half of all children initially placed in shelters have gone on to be reunited with at least one parent already living in the United States, and 85 percent of all children have been placed with a close family member.

Paul Joseph Watson July 24th, 2014 The federal government is asking paramedics and firefighters to be on the lookout for “extremists” as part of a program that aims to uncover “suspicious activity.” A bulletin released in March 2014 by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center, obtained this week by Public Intelligence, contains details of a program entitled “Emergency Medical Treatment Presents Opportunity for Discovery of Violent Extremist Activities.” The bulletin, which was sent out to firefighters, emergency medical service personnel and other first responders nationwide, encourages these groups to watch for “indicators of violent extremist...

Associated PressJuly 24, 2014 COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway's intelligence service said Thursday it has received information about an imminent "concrete threat" against Norway from people with links to Islamic fighters in Syria. Benedicte Bjoernland, the head of Norwegian security service PST, said the agency has received "reliable information" from a foreign partner about some kind of attack "within days." "It was unspecific about what the target might be," Bjoernland said, adding PST has no information about how or when such an attack would take place. (snip)

Top U.S. officials warned Wednesday that a Sunni extremist group controlling parts of Syria and Iraq had grown into a threat that is "worse than al Qaeda".

OSLO - An Islamist militant group with ties to Syria may be planning an attack in Norway, possibly within the coming days, Benedicte Bjoernland, the head of the Police Security Service, PST, said on Thursday. "The PST has received information that persons related to an extreme (Islamist) group in Syria may be planning to carry out a terrorist act in Norway," Bjoernland told a news conference.

You can watch the 1-minute video "Paying Zakat to non-Muslims" by Sheikh Assim L. Alhakeem by clicking on the "Enza Ferreri Blog" link above. Published on FrontPage Magazine. By Enza Ferreri It's Islam's holy month of Ramadan, and many advertising boards in the streets of London - or, more appropriately, Londonistan, as it befits a city with such a large, influential and radical Muslim population - invite Mohammedans to pay their zakat (Muslim obligatory charity). Zakat donations in the UK have greatly increased in the last few years, and Ramadan is traditionally a time when zakat giving grows. The posters...

“Why in God’s name does anyone show sympathy, and support for a terrorist organization?” - Former Congressman Allen West

Support for Operation Protective Edge among the Israeli Jewish public remains strong, and a majority say that Israel has racked up more successes than Hamas since the beginning of the campaign, which entered its ground phase last week, a poll conducted by Israel Hayom and the New Wave Research firm shows. When asked if they supported or opposed Israel's ground incursion into Gaza, 80 percent of respondents replied that they supported it, 12 percent said they opposed it and 8 percent said they didn't know. When asked if Israel should expand its current ground operation, 71 percent of respondents said...

In a notably critical interview, Michael Oren emphasizes that Israel would prefer Egyptian, not American, mediation Michael Oren, who until recently served as Israel’s ambassador in Washington, said US envoy John Kerry was coming to the region “to our chagrin.” US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected in Cairo Monday for discussions surrounding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The White House said Kerry would seek “an immediate cessation of hostilities based on a return to the November 2012 ceasefire agreement,” and stressed the need to protect civilian life both “in Gaza and in Israel.” In strikingly outspoken comments...

JERUSALEM – The belt strapped onto the donkey's body was laden with explosives, the Israeli military said in a statement. The animal was urged forward by Hamas militants, the army said, toward troops stationed near Rafah, inside the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces "engaged the donkey and it exploded at a safe distance,” the army wrote in a blog post. The statement condemned the use of “animals as explosives couriers.” Such beast-borne attacks have been seen before within the bitter confines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first such incident appears to have been in Gaza in 1995. But there were frequent...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon ordered the Israeli Air Force to resume strikes over Gaza Tuesday afternoon, six hours after a ceasefire proposed by Egypt, accepted by Israel and rejected by Hamas, was due to go into effect. During those hours, dozens of Hamas rockets raked town after town and village after village. DEBKAfile: The White House called off US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Cairo visit upon finding Tehran’s hand behind the rockets. Netanyahu goes on the air at 8 p.m. to explain what went wrong. Straight after the ceasefire was due to go into...

With just 6 days left to a July 20 deadline, US secretary of state makes a push to overcome major differences in negotiations US Secretary of State John Kerry was due Monday to hold a second day of talks with Iran seeking to overcome major differences blocking what would be a momentous nuclear deal. With just six days until a deadline to strike an accord, the differences appear considerable, however, with Kerry and other Western ministers failing on Sunday to achieve a breakthrough. Such an accord is aimed at ending once and for all worries that Iran might develop nuclear...