Important Takeaways:
- Forty days after the savage Hamas atrocities of October 7, the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire and calling for “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups, especially children.” The resolution did not condemn the Hamas atrocities that started the war
- The resolution passed the 15-member UNSC by a vote of 12-0 on Wednesday. The United States, United Kingdom, and Russia abstained from the vote.
- S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the United States abstained because it could not vote for a resolution that failed to condemn the Hamas atrocities or restate the right of U.N. member states to protect their citizens against terrorist attacks. She expressed approval of the call for Hamas to release its hostages, however.
- “What are they afraid of?” she asked of UNSC members who refused to condemn the October 7 attacks. “Let’s be crystal clear: Hamas set this conflict in motion.”
- UK Ambassador Barbara Woodward supported the call for a humanitarian pause, but also regretted that UNSC still could not bring itself to condemn the Hamas atrocities.
- Tuoro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust director Anne Bayefsky immediately criticized the Biden administration for failing to block a resolution
- “The Council resolution said the hostages were ‘held by Hamas and other groups’ – not that they were raped, mutilated and kidnapped by Hamas. It never mentioned Israel’s U.N. Charter right of self-defense. It refers only to civilians ‘in Gaza’ and never in Israel. It never mentions ongoing rocket attacks against Israelis. And yet the Biden administration refused to veto it,” Bayefsky told Fox News.
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Important Takeaways:
- Turkey cozies up to Iran after praising Hamas ‘mujahideen,’ seeks reconciliation on key issues
- Turkey has found itself at odds with its NATO allies, most of whom have backed Israel’s right to defend itself following the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, while Turkey has echoed the stances of other Middle Eastern nations in questioning Israel and defending the Palestinians.
- Erdogan took things a step further and defended the Hamas terrorists who carried out the attack, calling the group a “mujahideen,” or freedom fighters, “defending their lands.” He has also continued to push for a ceasefire, accusing the West of being “too weak” to call for one — a stance that seems common among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel kills Hamas commander who held 1,000 Gazans ‘hostage’ in hospital
- Israeli forces on Saturday night claimed to have killed a Hamas commander who held 1,000 Gazans “hostage” in a hospital as human shields.
- The Israel Defense Forces said that Ahmed Siam, a leader in Hamas’s al-Furqan Brigade, had blocked civilians from evacuating the Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City earlier this week.
- The IDF said that Siam and several other terrorists were killed while hiding out at a school building in Gaza, following a joint operation with Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iranian Christian Leader’s ‘Absolute Armageddon’ Question: ‘What Happens if Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah, and ISIS Join Forces?’
- Lazarus Yeghnazar, founder and president of Transform Iran, an organization that spreads the Gospel in Iran, told CBN Digital such collaborations are already unfolding
- “What happens if Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah, and ISIS join forces? What will it force the Western countries, and the democracies, and Israel to do?” Yeghnazar asked in the clip. “A conflict, which is catastrophic, will engulf the whole region.”
- He also warned the murderous chaos will eventually come for everyone, not just Israel.
- “This is … a plague that is not only destined to obliterate Israel [but one] that will not stop until they subjugate all of us,” Yeghnazar said.
- With Iran at the center, the faith leader said “only God knows” where the chaos will end, citing a “deep root of bitterness” at the heart of such horrific actions. He also noted that Iranian officials harm, harass, and kill their own people.
- “I think this destruction is going to carry on,” he said. “You cannot get the deep root of bitterness away. You can destroy buildings.”
- And that bitterness and chaos, he said, is “deeply spiritual,” calling it a manifestation of “darkness over light.” Despite terrorists’ diabolical claims and goals, Yeghnazar said Israel won’t be wiped from the map.
- “In this type of Islamic theology, there is no peaceful coexistence, and I think the West has to understand it.”
- “I think this will end in an absolute Armageddon’” he said. “But, believe me, my sadness is not what Satan is doing, because this is already prophesied in the scripture that this will happen. My sadness is what will happen to wake up the church — what will happen to prevent the church into forgetting its own pity … introvert attitude.”
- Yeghnazar encouraged humanity to “wake up and pray together” as God performs “His own will” in the Middle East.
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Important Takeaways:
- Turkey’s Gaza fury deepens splits with EU
- After a bloody October 7 raid by Hamas… Erdogan initially sought to position Turkey as a mediator.
- But this apparent ambition evaporated last month after the Turkish leader portrayed Hamas not as a terrorist group but as “liberators” or “mujahideen” fighting for their land.
- Turkey is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Brussels would prefer Ankara to support rather than compete with its positions.
- “What the president says reflects badly here in Brussels. We always expect Turkey to align with us in foreign policy,” said an EU official who wished to remain anonymous.
- Erdogan, a devout Muslim and fervent advocate of Palestinian rights, toughened his criticism as civilian deaths in Gaza mounted, accusing Israel of committing war crimes and recalling Turkey’s ambassador to Tel Aviv.
- “Erdogan’s stance on Israel-Gaza adds to growing tensions between Turkey and the West over longer-standing issues, including EU accession,” said Hamish Kinnear, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
- Turkish-EU relations have been at standstill since the launch of membership talks in 2005.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas Official: We Will Repeat October 7 Terror Attack Until Israel is Annihilated
- The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the interview. In it, Hamas political official Ghazi Hamad says that attacks on Israeli civilians are justified; that the cost in terms of Palestinian “martyrs” is worth the ultimate goal of ending Israel; and that Hamas will continue to mount such attacks.
- We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again. The Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.
- “The existence of Israel is illogical. The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 – everything we do is justified.”
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Important Takeaways:
- This Is the Final Confrontation Between Israel And Hamas
- Israel is attempting to slowly but surely strangle the terror group out of existence. In fact, it is being reported that the IDF has now “completed the encirclement of Gaza City”
- IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari has said ground and tank forces have at this point surrounded Gaza City. “Our troops have completed the encirclement of Gaza City, the center of Hamas activity,” he said in a late Thursday (local) press conference. The IDF has further announced the deaths of “130 terrorists” in the latest battles.
- Their goal from this point forward is to stay alive in the tunnels for as long as possible as they hope for Hezbollah and Iran to join the war and save the day.
- Sadly, those tunnels will end becoming tombs for many of them.
- Instead of sending Israeli troops into the tunnels, the IDF is using robots and explosive devices to deal with them…
- A senior officer in the Southern Command told the outlet: “Maybe at first they were able to harass us, sting us by firing from tunnel exits, but after we established control of the areas, the engineering operation started.”
- He added: “We are going to collapse the entrances and the tunnels on them. It will become a death zone. They made a mistake, they chose to be in a place they could not escape from. They will die in the tunnels.
- One Hamas terrorist has admitted on camera that he shot innocent young children…
- And one Israeli first responder is telling the world that he personally saw an Israeli baby that had been “baked to death in an oven”
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Important Takeaways:
- BRING THEM HOME Innocent faces of 32 children held in tunnels by Hamas as distraught parents plead with terror group to release them
- The desperate parents of 32 child hostages snatched by Hamas pleaded last night for the terror group to release them.
- The petrified youngsters are being held underground in the 311-mile network of tunnels dubbed the Gaza Metro as Israel battles to crush the jihadists and bring them home.
- AN anguished mum whose two daughters were snatched by Hamas terrorists asked last night in disbelief: “Who kidnaps children?”
- Dafna Eyakim, 15, and her sister Ella, eight, were among 32 child hostages — one just nine months old — taken in the bloodthirsty raid on Israel on October 7.
- Mother Mayaan, 50, laid bare her desperation as a photo emerged of her tearful girls on mattresses in a tunnel under Gaza.
- It was published on social media channel Telegram by Hamas with the Arabic message: “Dress them in prayer clothes” — a taunt as they are in pajamas.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Long Red Shadow Behind Islamic Terrorism
- Decades of communist subversion by China underlie the terror currently witnessed in the Middle East.
- Try searching for “Israel” on China’s biggest search engine Baidu—the nation’s name is no longer on the map, although the names of its major cities are still there.
- The discovery, which caught many in China by surprise on Oct. 30, is the latest twist in a calculated silence by the regime in Beijing, in contrast to other major world powers that have rushed to Israel’s side.
- Positioning itself as a mediator and advocate for peace, the regime has criticized Israel for going too far in its counterattack against Hamas.
- Miles Yu, a China policy adviser at the U.S. State Department during the Trump administration, told The Epoch Times…Beijing’s reticence is little more than a facade. Far from being the peace advocate that it asserts to be, he said, the regime is “giddy about all the crises elsewhere in the world” that divert attention away from its own ambitions.
- Iran hasn’t been shy in demonstrating its support for Hamas. The regime cheered the rampage as a “historic victory,”
- It provides about $100 million annually to Palestinian groups such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, according to a State Department report from 2020.
- “The spider in the web is Iran—had it not been for Iran, then Hamas wouldn’t exist,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, spokesperson for Israel Defense Forces
- But overemphasis on Iran misses the point.
- “China is the ultimate enabler of the Iranian terrorist-sponsoring regime,” Mr. Yu said. “Indirectly, China is responsible for this crisis.”
- China has forged close ties with Iran to counter U.S. influence in the Middle East. Besides being Iran’s biggest trade partner for 10 consecutive years, China in March helped to mend ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran at a time when Israel was seeking to restore relations with Riyadh.
- Eyal Pinko, a retired Israeli navy commander, said it’s “obvious” to him that China, Iran, and Hamas are part of “one gang.”
- “Even in the nuclear program, Iran is involved with China,” he told The Epoch Times. “Their cooperation is definitely strategic and very tight.”
- With the United States increasingly focused on Ukraine and Israel, the CCP has an opening to expand its wings elsewhere, solidifying an anti-Western coalition that could fulfill its pursuit of a new world order.
- “Just watch. Whoever is the biggest benefactor, that’s probably the instigator behind the scenes,” she said.
- A new “axis of evil” is already “quite apparent” between China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea, Cheng Chin-mo, an expert on international relations at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told The Epoch Times. To the communist regime in China, the rule of thumb is simple, he says.
- “As long as you are against America, you are my friend. This is their bottom line.”
- “We’re getting closer and closer to a World War III scenario,” Mr. Loudon said. “Will it go over the edge? I hope not, but that’s what we should be looking at here.”
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Important Takeaways:
- France and the European Union Are No Friends of Israel
- At the recent European Summit in Brussels, the heads of state and government did not make the call for “humanitarian pauses” conditional on the release of the Israeli and foreign hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
- Thirty-five French citizens were murdered by Hamas on October 7, and nine others are being held hostage (among approximately 230 hostages), but France wants to provide aid to those who are holding them?
- Unsurprisingly, according to reports, Hamas has been hoarding the food and medicine intended for the suffering people of Gaza… Cement for “rebuilding Gaza” has instead been diverted to building attack tunnels, and water pipes from the European Union are made into rockets. Hamas has also reportedly hoarded food, water, medicine and fuel, with the fuel being used in their rockets.
- Central, however are the hostages. Their release will not be facilitated by a ceasefire or humanitarian corridors; quite the contrary. France and the European Union should have made their aid to Gaza conditional on the hostages’ release, and stated that no “humanitarian” aid will be provided until Hamas releases them. Hamas has created this situation, not Israel.
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