Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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By Sveta Listratov (JNS) - Israeli actor-singer-songwriter Idan Amedi, best known for starring in the hit Netflix show "Fauda," recounted to reporters on Thursday his experience fighting in Gaza and the blast that had him hospitalized for over two weeks. "We are dealing with an enemy that doesn't care about anything. This is a just war and the enemy we are facing is beyond Hamas, we have found weapons in schools, assorted institutions and private homes. The world needs to know that," said...
(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...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Among the 21 soldiers who died in the building collapse in Maghazi, the central Gaza Strip, was Master Sgt. (res.) Elkana Vizel, 35, a resident of Bnei Dekalim in southern Israel. Vizel, married to Galit and a father of four, worked as a teacher at the Naom School in Bnei Dekalim, where his wife also works. On Tuesday, just hours after he was killed, it emerged that he had prepared a letter ahead of time for the event of his being killed in action. "If you are reading...
(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) - "My heart is split in two," said Zvika Mor, whose 23-year-old son Eitan remains captive in Gaza. As Israel on Sunday marked 100 days since Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks, Mor said, "On the one hand, we feel the concern and longing for Eitan, and it's very painful. We miss him so much and want him to be safe with us again." But there's another part of the situation he and the families of captives are trying to come to terms with, he continued. "The other half? The national interest. We are very h...
(JNS) — As the Israel Defense Forces battles Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the country’s Judea, Samaria and Jordan Valley regions are experiencing a parallel rise in terror incidents, according to data published by Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) on Tuesday. Between Oct. 7 and Jan. 15, Rescuers Without Borders first responders recorded more than 2,600 attacks targeting Israeli civilians and soldiers, including 760 cases of rock-throwing, 551 fire bombings, 12 attempted or successful stabbings and nine vehicular assaults. Amo...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces will keep fighting in the Gaza Strip until Hamas’s “significant military and governing capabilities” are eliminated and the 130-plus hostages held captive by the terror group are returned, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday, mere days after announcing a significant reduction in military operations in Gaza. “If the fate of Hamas is not complete dismantlement, we will not be able to live in the State of Israel,” Gallant told members of the Israeli Navy’s Shayetet 13 naval commando unit...
(JNS) — Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday launched over 50 rockets into southern Israel, according to local authorities. The barrage, one of the largest launched from Gaza in recent weeks, appeared to target the southern city of Netivot, setting off sirens there and other nearby towns. Footage shared to social media showed some two dozen interceptions by the Iron Dome air defense system. The rate of rocket launches from Gaza has dropped significantly amid the Israel Defense Forces’ ongoing ground operation in the Strip. On...
(JNS) — Israeli forces continued to target terrorists and infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, over the past 24 hours eliminating a Hamas interrogation chief and destroying a launch site used to fire rockets at Netivot. Bilal Nofal, a Hamas operative responsible for interrogating individuals suspected of involvement in espionage activities against the terrorist organization in the southern Gaza Strip, was killed in an airstrike, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Nofal also played a role in advancing Hamas’s research and...
(JNS) — More than 85 percent of his city has been evacuated as Hezbollah continues to launch rockets across the border from Lebanon, but Kiryat Shmona Mayor Avichai Stern is, without a doubt, calm, cool and collected. “Hezbollah’s Radwan Force is right here on the fence. You can see it from the town. When I see them start to leave their positions, I understand that something must be happening in a short while and there will probably be a rocket attack,” he said matter-of-factly. “They fire anti-tank missiles at our houses, since it is so clo...
(JNS) - Palestinian laborers from Judea and Samaria should not be allowed to return to work across the Green Line inside Israel's pre-1967 territory, a dozen Likud lawmakers wrote in a letter to Cabinet members made public on Wednesday. "The time has come to say explicitly that no more Palestinian workers will be allowed to enter Israel," read the letter, which received backing from Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat and Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli. "Besides our security...
(JNS) — Israeli officials denounced a Hamas propaganda video, which claimed that two hostages who the terror group held captive in the Gaza Strip were killed in an Israeli Air Force strike, on Monday night as psychological terror. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said during a press conference that Israel had not targeted nor attacked the building in which Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, were held. “This is a lie of Hamas,” Hagari insisted. “We do not attack a place where we know there may be hostage...
(JNS) — Israeli forces operating in central Gaza have found the largest weapons manufacturing site discovered since the start of the war, containing rockets capable of reaching north of Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday. The weapons plant was part of a massive tunnel system 30 meters (nearly 100 feet) underneath the Al-Bureij camp, according to the IDF. The rockets produced in the facility had a range of over 100 kilometers (62 miles), the IDF said. Other weapons factories were also found for the production of e...
KIBBUTZ HAZOREA, Israel - Fifteen young men and women, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings and to each other, dance around a bucolic field, twisting their bodies to trance music blasting through their headphones. Beyond their earphones is silence, except for the constant rumble of fighter jets taking off from Ramat David air base in the nearby Jezreel Valley. Yet the aircraft and the dancers are connected. Some of these jets are heading south toward Gaza, to bomb the hideouts and munitions...
(JNS) - A group composed of some 7,000 mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting in the Gaza Strip held up huge posters depicting the children of senior U.S. officials as IDF recruits during a protest in front of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's Tel Aviv hotel on Tuesday. The message: What if it were your children fighting in the Gaza Strip? Would you continue to demand the resupply of the enemy? The group behind the protest, Imahot HaLohamim ("Mothers of Combat Soldiers") is demanding an...
(JNS) — CNN anchor Jake Tapper interviewed Dor Steinbrecher, the brother of hostage Doron Steinbrecher, a nurse and veterinarian from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, who told him that a Red Cross worker had dismissed a concern from their mother for needed medication, rebuking the family that they should be more concerned about Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. On Monday, Steinbrecher described his 30-year-old sister’s experience on the morning of Oct. 7. He told Tapper how she called their mother and cried, saying she was lying under her bed in a safe roo...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces struck some 150 targets across the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, as ground operations continued in Khan Yunis and Al Maghazi, the IDF said on Wednesday. IDF forces uncovered more than 15 tunnel shafts in the Al Maghazi area, and seized rocket launchers, missiles, UAVs and explosive devices during targeted raids on Hamas sites. Israeli troops also destroyed a machine used for manufacturing rockets, according to the military. During operational activity in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, IDF ground forces d...
(JNS) — The musician and actor Idan Amedi, 35, who plays Sagi in the Netflix series “Fauda,” was reportedly injured seriously while serving as a reservist with the Combat Engineering Corps in Khan Yunis in Gaza. “We would like to share with everyone that Idan has been injured in action in Gaza. Idan is one of the kindest, warmest, and most passionate people, loved by all of us. His love of music is a very special part of our set,” the television show posted. “Together let us pray for his ful...
(JTA) — One woman was killed and 17 injured in a terror attack in the Tel Aviv suburb of Raanana on Monday, a rare fatal incident in central Israel amid the country’s war in Gaza. Two Palestinian men carried out the attack on Monday afternoon, stabbing people and ramming others with cars in Raanana, a suburb of about 75,000 north of Tel Aviv with a large population of English-speaking immigrants. The woman who was killed was identified as Edna Bluestein, 79, and two additional victims were seriously injured, including a 16-year-old boy. The...
(JNS) — The families of 132 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas on Tuesday held a protest march in an attempt to disrupt the transfer of aid to Gaza, calling on Israel to halt the flow of aid until their loved ones are freed. “What do we get in return? We think that if we’re talking humanitarian [matters], this aid should be in exchange for our hostages,” said Carmit Itzhaki, whose niece Eden Yerushalmi, 24, was abducted from the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7. “Hamas was under pressure to bring in supplies and therefore went along wit...
(JNS) - The Startup Nation meets the Bible. Israeli technology that measures the Earth's magnetic field has verified an ancient narrative, researchers said on Thursday. A new study scientifically corroborates the conquest of the Philistine city of Gath by Hazael, king of Aram-Damasus, as described in 2 Kings 12:17. The breakthrough technology, which was achieved by researchers at four Israeli universities, enables archaeologists to identify burnt materials discovered in excavations and estimate...
(JNS) — Israel’s Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the government’s “recusal law“—an amendment to Israel’s Basic Law: The Government—from taking effect until after new elections are held. In its 6-5 ruling, the Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, argued the law was “clearly a personal amendment” meant to shield Netanyahu from the consequences of violating a 2020 conflict of interest agreement, and therefore constituted an illegitimate abuse of the Knesset’s power to pass Basic Laws. The delay was supported by former c...
(JNS) - Hamas terrorists murdered about 100 members of Kibbutz Be'eri and visitors on Oct. 7. Of the 30 who were kidnapped from their homes, 19 have been released and the body of Judith Weiss was recovered. As of this moment, 10 kibbutz members are still being held hostage in the Gaza Strip. Members of Be'eri who returned from Hamas captivity, returned to the devastated kibbutz this week to pay their respects to their neighbors and friends who were murdered or are still being held hostage. Oren...
Soldiers serving in Gaza are experiencing unusual infections, including severe foot fungus, Yedioth Ahronoth has reported. Long campaigns with soldiers standing sometimes for hours at a time, and the compromised hygiene in Gaza have increased the risk of serious foot and leg conditions. Medical staff report many reservists are suffering from painful lesions on the feet and legs. Soldiers may not take off their shoes or change their socks for many days which also raises the risks of infections. In addition, many soldiers in Gaza complain of...
(JNS) — Israel accused the United Nations on Wednesday of not doing enough to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry agency responsible for civilian affairs in the territories, responded to a tweet by United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini blaming Jerusalem for subjecting Gazans to “collective punishment with too little humanitarian aid allowed in.” The agency tweeted...
