Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Israeli Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar said on Tuesday that should military operations on the country’s northern front be expanded, the IAF will “enable a change in the security reality in the north.” Speaking at a ceremony for the re-establishment of Battalion 139 of the Air Defense Array, Bar said: “Alongside the iron defense, we are acting offensively and denying Hezbollah’s capabilities, shoulder to shoulder with the Northern Command. Together, we will also know how to expand and intensify the attack if required....
David Isaac (JNS) - While Israeli security officials have requested that the four hostages rescued by the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday keep their experiences secret, some details have nevertheless emerged. The four - Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40 - appeared to be in good health when first seen on camera on June 8, the day of the raid. But two days later, Dr. Itay Pessach of the Sheba Medical Center revealed they were in a "state of severe...
(JNS) — Hamas has rejected the Israeli hostage-ceasefire deal, claiming that it is fundamentally different than the one presented by U.S. President Joe Biden on May 31, the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat reported on Thursday. The Gaza-based terror group sent a clarification memorandum to the Palestinian terror factions on Wednesday, the text of which was seen by the news outlet. It claims that the current proposal “does not promise a permanent ceasefire, the occupation’s forces will remain in Gaza, and when they receive the hostages, they will...
(JNS) — Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Tuesday slammed a reported decision to release 30 Palestinian terrorists who were captured by Israel Defense Forces troops in the Gaza Strip. “The decision by the IDF and the National Security Council to release terrorists back into the Gaza Strip without conditions is unfathomably delusional,” the Otzma Yehudit Party leader told Channel 14 News. “The IDF is expected to withstand the shortage of prison space during a war when there are tens of thousands of detained terrori...
(JNS) — The Jewish state should task a committee with probing the state’s defense budget amid a war that appears poised to cost $67 billion between 2023 and 2025, Amir Yaron, the governor of the Bank of Israel, said on Thursday. Speaking at the College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon Letzion, Yaron said that “a prosperous economy requires security, and security requires a prosperous economy,” Reuters reported. “The war should not bring with it a blank check for permanent defense expenditures, and proper balances have to be found,” h...
(JNS) — “I am very cheerful and full of joy. For the first time since October 7, I feel that I can breathe again,” Aviram Meir, the uncle of Almog Meir Jan, told JNS on Thursday. Meir Jan was rescued during “Operation Arnon” last Saturday along with Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv from two separate locations in Nuseirat Camp in the central Gaza Strip. Hamas terrorists abducted all four from the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Re’im during the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. “We thank all the decision-makers, the planners and the soldi...
(JNS) - Thousands of Israelis converged on "Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, many euphoric over the daring operation to rescue four captives from Gaza even while demanding a deal with Hamas to secure the freedom of the remaining 120 Israelis held by the terrorists. During a complex daytime operation in the heart of a crowded residential neighborhood, Israeli forces recovered from Hamas captivity Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40. "I was so...
(JNS) - Israel will rename Saturday's hostage rescue operation after Chief Inspector Arnon Zamora, a member of the Israel Border Police's "Yamam" National Counter-Terrorism Unit who was mortally wounded during the mission. Zamora, 36, from Sde David, a moshav in southern Israel, leaves behind a wife, Michal, and two children. His wife eulogized him in a Facebook post. "Everything is now filled with the image of the hero Arnon Zamora. Long before he was a warrior and hero, he was a sweet and...
(JNS) - Israeli forces on Saturday rescued four hostages from two separate locations in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip. During a complex IDF/Border Police/Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) daytime operation in the heart of a crowded residential neighborhood, the forces recovered from Hamas captivity Noa Argamani, 26; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40. A fighter from the Border Police's Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit was mortally wounded during the rescue missio...
(JNS) — Israel Ganz, chairman of the Yesha Council and head of the Binyamin Regional Council, is in Washington this week to advocate against a Palestinian state. Ganz met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in an effort counter the push by the White House to establish a Palestinian state in the wake of the Hamas-led massacre of Oct. 7. “There is no room for a two-state solution. [President Joe] Biden cannot appoint conditions for Israel, whether with regard to the Palestinian state or to stopping the war with Hamas. We in the United Sta...
(JNS) — Otzma Yehudit Party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir on Wednesday said he would suspend his role in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition until the premier revealed the details of the ceasefire proposal announced by U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday. “As long as the prime minister continues to hide the details of the deal, Otzma Yehudit will disrupt his coalition,” tweeted the right-wing leader, who also serves as Israel’s national security minister. The proposal was announced publicly by Biden in a televised address o...
(JNS) - "It's a miracle," Liat Ariel told JNS on Monday. Ariel's cousin Shlomi Ziv, along with Noa Argamani, Almog Meir and Andrey Kozlov, was rescued by Israeli forces in a daring daylight raid on Saturday after spending 246 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza. "We are still digesting the news. We don't really quite understand what happened to us. Suddenly, Shlomi is back," Ariel said. "We are so happy and a bit nervous. We want to make sure that he is fine. He looks alright physically but...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented on Saturday on the Israeli military operation that freed four hostages. All three stressed their belief that a ceasefire deal is the appropriate way to secure the release of the other estimated 120 hostages. Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the freed people during a press conference at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Saturday. “In Gaza, we want to obtain the immediate liberation of hosta...
(JNS) - Yossi Jan, 57, died on Saturday just hours before his son Almog Meir Jan was rescued from captivity in Gaza along with three other Israeli hostages. Officials arrived at Yossi's home in the central Israeli city of Kfar Saba around noon to inform him of his son's rescue, only to find him unconscious. Magen David Adom paramedics called to the scene determined his death. The cause of death remains under investigation. "My brother died of grief and didn't get to see his son return. The...
(JNS) — The four hostages rescued on Saturday after eight months in Gaza captivity are in a “state of severe malnutrition,” according to a doctor who treated them upon their return to Israel. “They have been physically and mentally abused for a long time. They are all in a state of severe malnutrition, although it does not appear that way to them,” Dr. Itay Pessach, director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, told Channel 12 on Monday. During “Operation Arnon,” Israeli forces rescued the four...
(JNS) - Around 100 students participated in an anti-Israel protest at the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem on Tuesday, waving PLO flags and chanting inflammatory slogans, according to Hebrew media reports. Kan News shared video of the demonstration to its X account, quoting some of the slogans being chanted, such as "there is no solution but to expel the occupier" and "Al Aqsa has been redeemed in spirit and blood." The students were protesting against "the ongoing genocide...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that there are “gaps” between the ceasefire terms that President Joe Biden laid out on Friday and what he is prepared to accept. “The proposal that Biden presented is incomplete,” Netanyahu said during a closed-door government meeting in which he called reporting about his position on a potential deal “fake news,” according to Israeli media reports. Netanyahu’s comments, as well as growing tension within the government over a potential ceasefire, are muting hopes that Biden’s an...
Sderot, Israel (JNS) - Israel is fighting against the enemies of the United States in a war orchestrated by Iran, helped by Russian intelligence and funded by money from China, said Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, in Israel on Monday. A former Republican presidential candidate known for her stalwart support for Israel, she spoke during a solidarity visit to communities near the Gaza Strip and just days after announcing that she would be v...
(JNS) - Hamas published footage of masked terrorists opening fire with automatic weapons at Bat Hefer, an Israeli village east of Netanya that borders the Green Line with Samaria, Channel 12 News reported. In the footage, two Palestinians wearing Hamas headbands declare their allegiance to the Gaza-based terrorist organization. The video also includes a photo of the weapons they used to carry out the attack. The alleged shooting towards central Israel did not cause any casualties, according to Channel 12. Hamas said it committed the attack in r...
By (JNS) — Evacuees from Israel’s north set up a tent encampment on Tuesday outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem to protest their ongoing displacement due to daily attacks by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. “We’ve been unable to return to our homes for more than seven months. We won’t go back until we know we’re safe,” Raphael Salve, co-founder of Lobby 1701, a group representing displaced people from northern towns and villages, told JNS. Lobby 1701 is named after the U.N. Security Council Resolution that...
(JNS) — The Israel Land Authority notified the U.N. relief agency UNRWA that it must immediately vacate state land and buildings in northern Jerusalem, which it had occupied illegally. The Israel Land Authority is also demanding retroactive compensation of $27 million shekels (~$7 million) for the years the United Nations Relief and Works Agency used the land. Yitzchak Goldknopf, minister of construction and housing, announced the decision on Wednesday afternoon, at the annual meeting of the Israel Bar Association in Eilat. In a letter sent W...
(JTA) — The share of Israeli Jews who believe an Israeli and a Palestinian state can peacefully coexist has plummeted since Oct. 7, according to a new survey. The figure of 19 percent, reported in a study published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, was the lowest since Pew started surveying Israelis in 2013. It is down from 32 percent in a survey released just weeks before the war broke out. In 2013, according to Pew, nearly half of Israeli Jews — and a majority of Israelis overall — supported a two-state solution. In 2005, another polli...
(JNS) - The Meisels did not know that their son was serving in Gaza when he was called up for reserve duty immediately after the outbreak of the war, but when the longtime volunteer medic fell in battle, they knew exactly how best to commemorate his memory: a bullet proof ambulance for Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service. Master Sgt. (res.) Nitai Meisels, 30, served in an elite tank unit. He was killed in December, during a mission to locate hostages in a Palestinian refugee camp in the...
(JNS) — Israel will not engage in a full-scale military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Instead, it will continue its limited operation in the last Hamas bastion, with the blessing of the Biden administration, according to Washington Post analyst David Ignatius. In an opinion piece published on May 20 citing sources familiar with the matter, the newspaper’s senior commentator wrote that the framework for eventually ending the Gaza war became more clear after a just-wrapped trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel by U.S. National Secur...
(JNS) - Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz on Saturday night threatened to leave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition if the premier does not declare a plan for the day after Hamas in Gaza. "I look you in the eyes tonight and tell you: The choice is in your hands. After talking to you again and again, the moment of truth has come. The time for a decision has come," said Gantz. "I have known you for many years as an Israeli leader and patriot, you know very well what needs to be...
