Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 93
(JNS) — The elimination of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s top military-terrorist and political chief and the architect of the Oct. 7 invasion marks a major turning point in the battle to degrade the Iranian-backed jihadist network surrounding Israel. IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari explained on Thursday that Sinwar had been attempting to flee from house to house, moving between structures in Rafah. Hagari noted that Sinwar “was in flight,” and at one point, after the entourage protecting him had been fired upon by the IDF and split up, Sinwar...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces is pursuing a phased approach in its ongoing offensive against Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah, Gaza. By dividing Rafah into sub-areas and deploying a single division—the 162nd—rather than two, the IDF and the Israeli Cabinet have taken a slower path, but one that has avoided another crisis with the United States. According to Israeli military assessments, Hamas’s final functioning brigade will be dismantled in Rafah within weeks. Its defeat will mark a major milestone in the war that began on Oct. 7 with Ha...
(JNS) — Five days after U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled a multi-stage outline for a hostage release deal and ceasefire, debate within Israel has intensified over the costs and merits of the plan, as well as the extent to which Biden’s claim that this is an Israeli proposal reflects reality. Biden’s three-staged proposal envisages a temporary truce lasting six weeks to enable the release of tens of Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners, and a return of Gaza civilians to the north of the Strip. This would...
(JNS) — Recent moves by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court at the Hague are having no tangible effect on the Israel Defense Force’s ongoing Gaza operation, aimed at dismantling Hamas’s remaining battalions in Rafah city. While the courts have signaled a disturbing willingness to cooperate to varying degrees with “lawfare” initiatives against Israel, aimed at delegitimizing Israeli military actions to defend the country against a genocidal terrorist group, this has had no obvious influence on how the Israe...
(JNS) — An estimated 50 cross-border tunnels link Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai, enabling Hamas to smuggle weapons, funds and personnel, and black-market traders to import a range of goods to the Strip. Yoni Ben Menachem, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said that since the Israel Defense Forces has not yet captured all of Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor, aka the Philadelphi Route or the Saladin Axis (the narrow strip of land along the 8.7-mile border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt), the estimate for the number of...
(JNS) — The decision by Israel’s War Cabinet to order the Israel Defense Forces to seize Rafah Crossing is strategically significant, as it will negatively impact Hamas’s ability to smuggle weapons and people back and forth from neighboring Sinai. The crossing is part of the wider Philadelphi Corridor running along the Gaza-Egypt border, which has for years been a central supply line for Hamas smuggling. The IDF’s entry into Rafah also puts pressure on Hamas’s leadership in the tunnels under the city, demonstrating that Israel is not deterred...
(JNS) — While the Israel Defense Forces is gaining ground against Hamas by the day, destroying it as a military force will take time, according to former IDF officers. Professor Gabi Siboni, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and who holds the rank of colonel (res.), told JNS that the Israeli campaign will be “very long.” In Gaza, Hamas has built up the most fortified terror base in the world, he said, both above and below ground. With so many homes in Gaza containing weapons and being linked to under...
(JNS) — On the eve of the war, Hamas possessed an estimated 30,000 armed terrorists, divided into five territorial brigades and 24 battalions across the Gaza Strip. It had a sprawling weapons production industry, much of it underground, and distributed the weapons through hundreds of miles of tunnels. It had an estimated rocket arsenal of some 15,000 projectiles, and death squads on the border preparing to conduct the worst mass murder of Jews since the Second World War. More than 100 days into the fighting, the Hamas war machine has sustained...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces saw some 50,000 Gazan civilians move from northern to southern Gaza on Wednesday via an Israeli evacuation corridor, a military spokesman said, adding that these are people who refuse to comply with Hamas's demand that they serve as human shields in the current confrontation. IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said: "They understand that Hamas lost control of northern Gaza; in the south, there are safer areas where water food and medicine arrive. We will...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces is intensifying its maneuvers in Gaza City against Hamas, military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stated on Nov. 6, adding that the growing number of Hamas terrorists and field commanders being eliminated is creating pressure on the terrorist army that rules the enclave. Addressing IDF efforts to demolish the underground terror tunnel network dubbed "the metro," Hagari said that Hamas, which deliberately places tunnel shafts under hospitals, mosques, schools...
(JNS) — Israel Defense Forces’ ground forces made significant gains in northern Gaza on Oct. 31, as Israeli Air Force fighter jets, acting on Shin Bet intelligence, launched a large-scale strike on Hamas’s Jabaliya Battalion and killed its commander, along with a large number of other terrorists, the military stated. IDF troops commanded by the Givati Brigade operated in a Hamas military stronghold in the northern Gaza Strip and killed approximately 50 terrorists, while in parallel, ground troops in Gaza are continuing counterterrorism activ...
(JNS) — The Israeli Air Force struck hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza in recent hours, including tunnels with terrorists in them, while infantry and armored corps conducted raids on the ground in the enclave in preparation for a wider ground offensive, the Israeli military stated on Monday. Dozens of operational command centers housing Hamas and PIJ operatives were also hit, according to Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. Strikes were also conducted on targets that posed a threat to f...
(JNS) — Monday’s murderous terrorist attack on Route 60 in Hebron, in which an Israeli woman was shot dead and a man seriously injured, is just the latest indication of the sad fact that Israel is in the middle of a prolonged security escalation in Judea and Samaria—with no end in sight. The incident comes two days after an Israeli father and son were shot dead in Huwara, an attack that may have helped “inspire” Monday’s shooting. So far in 2023, 34 people (33 Israelis and an Italian tourist) were killed in Palestinian terrorism, and almost...
(JNS) — Monday’s murderous terrorist attack on Route 60 in Hebron, in which an Israeli woman was shot dead and a man seriously injured, is just the latest indication of the sad fact that Israel is in the middle of a prolonged security escalation in Judea and Samaria — with no end in sight. The incident comes two days after an Israeli father and son were shot dead in Huwara, an attack that may have helped “inspire” Monday’s shooting. So far in 2023, 34 people (33 Israelis and an Italian tourist) were killed in Palestinian terrorism, and almost...
(JNS) - Monday's murderous terrorist attack on Route 60 in Hebron, in which an Israeli woman was shot dead and a man seriously injured, is just the latest indication of the sad fact that Israel is in the middle of a prolonged security escalation in Judea and Samaria - with no end in sight. The incident comes two days after an Israeli father and son were shot dead in Huwara, an attack that may have helped "inspire" Monday's shooting. So far in 2023, 34 people (33 Israelis and an Italian tourist)...
(JNS) — Iran is working to seize control of an extensive network of Syrian military industry facilities, collectively known by their French acronym of CERS, or the Scientific Studies and Research Center in English, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Alma Research and Education Center. The Alma Center is a defense research group that specializes in security challenges faced by Israel in Lebanon and Syria. The report also warned of the possibility of Hezbollah taking possession of chemical substances present as CERS, which are b...
(JNS) — Palestinian Authority security forces have begun entering Jenin in recent days, following the Israel Defense Forces’ intensive security operation to degrade the terrorist presence in Jenin camp on July 3 and July 4. Israel is watching closely to see whether the P.A. is able to re-establish control in a city where a power vacuum saw Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, localized terror groups and Iranian financing create a terrorist hornet’s nest as well as a budding rocket launch base. The Israeli security establishment appears to be monit...
(JNS) — A day after the Israel Defense Forces completed its extensive security operation, it appears the goal of squashing Jenin’s image as a terrorist safe haven has been accomplished, with some caveats. The IDF, backed by Shin Bet intelligence and Border Police officers, seized more than a thousand pieces of armament in Jenin camp and surrounding areas, including bombs, ammunition and guns. Security forces questioned over 300 suspects; some 120 of them were detained. Fourteen command posts and hideouts used to coordinate terrorist activity we...
(JNS) — Social-media networks are being exploited by Palestinian terror factions to boost the recruitment of minors, an Israeli military source has told JNS. The source noted that although the trend of recruiting minors is not new, its current form and scope are both relatively new phenomena. In 2004 during the Second Intifada, 16-year-old Hussam Abdo, who was stopped at a Huwara military checkpoint wearing a suicide-bomb belt, made headlines across the globe. Since then, however, the smartphone revolution and the arrival of social media n...
(JNS) - On Jan. 26, the historic five-day joint Israeli-American military exercise called "Juniper Oak" came to an end. The exercise saw unprecedented levels of cooperation between the U.S. military's Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East, and the Israel Defense Forces. "Juniper Oak" tested Israeli-American readiness and boosted the operational connection between the two militaries to enable them to deal with "regional threats," according to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, but...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Force's Paran territorial defense brigade is in charge of defending 170 kilometers of the Israeli-Egyptian border and large sections of the Negev desert. As such, dealing with the constant efforts of narcotics smugglers from both Egypt and Israel to push drugs across the border is an inevitable part of its duties. The brigade includes two co-ed infantry battalions that specialize in protecting the Egyptian border against terrorism and drug smuggling-the Caracal...
(JNS) - The United States is applying pressure on the Palestinian Authority to increase security coordination with Israel, as part of a larger effort to reduce violence in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank, a former Israeli defense official tells JNS. A senior P.A. delegation arrived in Washington in early October, headed by Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee. The delegation met with senior American officials including National Security Advisor J...
(JNS) — The Lions’ Den terror group, recently formed in Nablus, comprises dozens of gunmen and is not very well organized. Nevertheless, the group’s activities serve the purposes of established terror factions like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are amplifying its influence, according to a senior Israeli terrorism expert. The group has also been punching above its weight in terms of influence on the Palestinian street due to its shrewd use of social media, according to Dr Michael Barak, a senior researcher specializing in terro...
(JNS) - Russia is deploying Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles in its war against Ukraine, and although it is not yet possible to determine their exact operational effectiveness, the weapons could pose a significant challenge for the Israeli military in a future conflict, a prominent drone and missile expert told JNS. Tal Inbar, former director of the UAV Research Center at Israel's Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, and co-founder of the Ilan Ramon Space Conference, said t...
(JNS) — The current draft of the Iran nuclear deal should “not be signed under any circumstances,” a former Israeli national security adviser has warned. Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, who served as acting national security adviser to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who was the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, told JNS that the best outcome would be a scenario in which divisions between the Iranians and Americans prevent a signature from going ahead. This is due to the weakness of the proposed arrange...
