Ukraine's 'Terrorist' Strikes on Russia

"Silence in response to the unbridled barbarity of Ukraine's Nazis and their puppeteers and accomplices from 'civilized democracies' will be akin to complicity in their bloody deeds."

"[Britain and the United States are guilty of encouraging Kyiv to carry out a] terrorist attack."

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova

A firefighter takes a pause as he works to extinguish burning cars following what Russian authorities say was a Ukrainian military strike in Belgorod, Russia December 30, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

Belgorod, located in Russia near the border with Ukraine, on Saturday was the focus of shelling in its city centre, and not for the first time, since Ukraine was forced to defend itself following Moscow's military invasion almost two years ago on February 14. Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced that 110 people had been wounded by the strike and 21 Russian citizens were killed. Russian officials are livid; Ukraine had carried out a terrorist attack on a Russian city.

 

That attack took place one day following an 18-hour aerial bombardment across Ukraine, hitting various cities, with a death toll of 41 civilians. That, of course, was a perfectly logical, legitimate attack, since Russia really was aiming at military installations of a fascist government, and the strikes of missiles and Shahed drones obviously inadvertently were misdirected. In Belgorod, plumes of smoke rose among damaged buildings as air raid sirens blared. A counter-image of what Ukrainian cities have repeatedly undergone.

 

Covered bodies lie on the ground following what Russian authorities say was a Ukrainian military strike in Belgorod, Russia December 30, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

This was a daylight attack; previous hits in Belgorod have taken place at night, resulting in fewer lives lost. Belgorod lies 40 kilometres north of the Ukrainian border, 670 km south of Moscow. Moscow considers its strikes at Ukrainian towns, villages and cities are legitimate issues of a conflict it was forced to initiate in fears of Ukrainian fascists overwhelming Russian democracy. When Ukraine returns the compliment, however, it is clearly terrorism. 

Ammunition used in the strike has been identified by Russia's Defence Ministry as Czech-produced Vampire rockets and Olkha missiles fitted with cluster-munition warheads. No doubt Moscow is planning some future retaliation against the Czech Republic. Iran, on the other hand, producer of the Shahed drones, is the very picture of an honourable collegial nation of humanitarian credentials eager to present itself as an icon of global security. "This crime will not go unpunished", the Ministry stated.

A meeting of the UN Security Council was called, by Russian diplomats, relating to the strike. Moscow reported they had shot down 32 Ukrainian drones earlier on Saturday over the Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions. Cross-border shelling led to two more deaths in Russia. Across western Russia, cities have come under attack regularly from drones since May, Russian officials blaming Kyiv. Moscow feels it has the impunity to regularly bomb Ukrainian cities, but it is outrageous when Kyiv responds in kind.

Ukrainian large aerial strikes against Russia tend to follow heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities, and that makes no sense whatever to the Kremlin. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported ten Iranian-made Shahed drones wee shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi and Mykolaiv regions, with local officials reporting people killed by Russian missiles. 

Moscow's forces launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones across Ukraine on Friday, described by one air force official in Ukraine as the largest aerial barrage of the war in total. That caused 39 deaths and led to the wounding of 160 others, along with an unknown number of victims buried under the rubble caused by the assault, which targeted er, damaged a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools.

 

Kyiv's military targeted the Russian city of Belgorod a day after Russia launched a massive air assault on Ukrainian cities   Image: Russia Emergency Situations Ministry via Telegram/AP/picture alliance

Moscow Winter Aerial Bombardment of Ukraine

"These widespread attacks n Ukraine's cities show [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy."

"We must continue to stand with Ukraine -- for as long as it takes."

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak

 

"Everything indicates that a Russian missile intruded in Poland's airspace. It was monitored by us on radars and left the airspace."

"We have confirmation of this on radars and from allies [in NATO]."

Polish defence chief, General Wieslaw Kukula

 

"Today, millions of Ukrainians awoke to the loud sound of explosions."

"I wish those sounds of explosions in Ukraine could be heard all around the world. In all major capitals, headquarters, and Parliaments, which are currently debating further support for Ukraine."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kubela

A teacher inspects her classroom, which was damaged after a missile attack in Lviv, Ukraine, on Friday. Russia launched missiles as well as drones against Ukrainian targets during the night. (Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP/Getty Images)

Across Ukraine 122 missiles and dozens of drones flew from Russia against Ukrainian targets, considered by air force officials to represent the largest aerial barrage of the two-year-old conflict.

An unknown number of people were buried under rubble during the 18-hour onslaught which hit a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools among other buildings across the country where damage was reported and 27 civilians killed.

 

Most of the ballistic and cruise missiles and Shahed-type drones that hit overnight were intercepted by the Ukrainian air force, according to Valeriii Zaluzhny, Ukraine's military chief. Warning had recently been given by Western officials and analysts that Russia had up to the present limited its cruise missile strikes for months, apparently to build stockpiles for such massive winter strikes, with the intention of breaking the spirit of Ukrainians. 

That strategy resulted in "the most massive aerial attack" since Moscow's February 2022 full-scale invasion was launched, according to Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk. The current onslaught was greater than the previous biggest assault that took place in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles, and March earlier in 2023 when Russia launched 81 missiles, according to air force records.

Local residents stand inside a damaged building after a missile attack in Odesa, Ukraine, on Friday. (Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Winter weather has bogged down fighting along the front line in the wake of Ukraine's summer counteroffensive which failed to produce a hoped-for significant breakthrough along the 1,000-kilometre line of contact. Which has led to Ukrainian officials urging Western allies to provide greater numbers of air defences for the war to turn in Ukraine's favour. Appeals that have as yet garnered little response, while war fatigue strain has led to inaction in support of Ukraine.

Russia on Friday bombarded Ukraine with one of its biggest missile attacks of the war, killing at least 27 civilians and wounding dozens more, officials said. A fire broke out at a maternity hospital in Dnipro, and there was heavy damage in Kyiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and Lviv.  CBC News

Who Knew What and When?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (C) and military chiefs at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv for a security assessment on October 8, 2023. (GPO)

"We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings."

"[Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, spoke repeatedly with the Israelis about] something big."

Egyptian official

 

"[Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally called Netanyahu ten days prior to October 7 that Gazans were likely to do] something unusual, a terrible operation [according to the Ynet news site.

"[Unnamed Egyptian officials informed the news site they were shocked by Netanyahu’s indifference to the news and said the premier told the minister the military was] submerged [in troubles in the West Bank]."

Ynet News

Israeli soldiers patrol near the West Bank city of Tulkarm after clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli forces on October 5, 2023. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

"A month and a half before the war, we saw that in one of the Hamas training camps they had built an exact, scaled model of an observer’s position, like the one we operate. They started training there with drones to hit the [machine gun] shooter."

"In the last two months, they started sending up drones every day, sometimes several times a day, right near the border, some 300 meters from the fence, and sometimes less than that."

IDF early-warning spotter Ilana

 

"[We flagged a lot of worrying border behavior nearby Nahal Oz, where 20 tatzpitaniyot [Israel’s predominantly female border surveillance forces] were killed on October 7. Desiatnik was one of only two surveillance soldiers at the base on the day who was not killed or abducted]." 

"It’s infuriating. We saw what was happening, we told them about it, and we were the ones who were murdered."

Yael Rotenberg and Maya Desiatnik, female surveillance soldiers

Soldiers are telling the media that their superiors did not heed warnings of unusual activity inside Gaza | Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images

 

"The cards they had been holding for a future attack against Israel had been shown by the Palestinians: penetrating inside Israel, airborne [assaults], the element of surprise."  

"[Effectively upstaging a] well-known plan by Hezbollah’s elite al-Radwan to infiltrate the Galilee."

Lebanese source

Smoke rises from inside an Israeli army position which was hit by missiles launched by the Hezbollah terror group, as seen from Tair Harfa village, a Lebanese border village with Israel, south Lebanon, October 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Le Figaro has published allegations difficult to verify that three Hamas elite operatives were the sole individuals that held the intelligence of date and time of the October 7 massacre in southern Israel of 1,200 people; purportedly the plan was shared with allies only about a half-hour before the beginning of the invasion. The plan was solely that of Yahyah Sinwar, a hard-bitten foe of Israel who would never countenance any agreement recognizing Israel that speculation had it was being considered by his superiors in rank.

Hamas terror group leader Yahya Sinwar holds the child of an Al-Qassam Brigades member, who was killed in the recent fighting with Israel. (Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP)

Saleh alArouri, overseeing Hamas activities in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) was informed of the impending invasion a mere half-hour ahead to enable him to alert Hassan Nasrallah the head of Hezbollah. Another top Hamas representative to Lebanon, Osama Hamdan -- he of the oath that Hamas was fully prepared to launch any number of additional October 7 events in its dedication to the destruction of Israel -- discovered from media reports that the assault had taken place, according to Le Figaro.

Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal is quoted in the Le Figaro report as saying: "Only three people knew the exact date, time and details of the plan." The Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamas's sponsor along with Hezbollah, reportedly were taken by surprise on learning of the attack. Tehran characterized the attack as a response to the 2020 targeted killing in Baghdad of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani by the United States.

 

"The Al-Aqsa Flood (name given to the Oct 7 attack) was one of the acts of revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani by the US. and the Zionists", announced Brig.Gen. Ramezan Sharif, IRGC spokesman. Hamas, however, disagreed, insisting that their operation was in response to Israeli 'crimes' at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Mashaal, in an interview published in Le Figaro offered a conciliatory gesture to Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah.

The Islamist group, he informed the newspaper, is prepared to consider a joint P.A.-Hamas-led governing body for the Gaza Strip, and Judea and Samaria. "Rebuilding the Palestinian political scene without Hamas is a move destined for failure, but we are ready for reorganization within the framework of the PLO as part of a national consensus", Mashaal informed the French news outlet. Needless to say there have been attempts in the past to mend the hostile distance between Fatah and Hamas

Sectarian and tribal memories are long and unforgiving. Secular Fatah and Islamist Hamas agree on one thing only; their hatred for Israel and for Jews, not their methodology. Hamas's campaign is up front and readily identified, while Fatah's is more discreet, hiding behind a facade of quasi-democracy where the West is lulled into the fantasy that the PA is longing for a state of its own to live in peace beside Israel. Whereas the truth is neither envision a future for Israel and both plan for a single, 'Palestinian' state.

When Israel left Gaza unilaterally in 2005 at a time when the Strip was in the control of Fatah and mass disorder, chaotic crime broke out at Israel's withdrawal, Hamas moved in, to establish control and in the process wrench the coastal strip from Fatah. In the process of which Hamas operatives in a conflict with Fatah proved victorious in its gruesome slaughter of its competitor terrorist group. Memories are not all that short in a region known to nurse grievances for generations.

 

"Sooner or later, the United States will argue that Hamas is a reality and enjoys legitimacy among the people. We must learn from history. The Americans accepted the Taliban. (PLO founder) Yasser Arafat even won the Nobel Peace Prize" (sharing it with Israeli politicians Shimon Perez and Yitzhak Rabin for 'achieving peace in the Middle East; only two of the trio sincere, the third a risible sham). Like everything else that comes out of the mouths of Palestinians this too is delusional.

And everything plays out while Israeli ground, aerial and naval forces continue their operations across the Gaza Strip in an all-out determination to fully emasculate Hamas as a terrorist threat to Israel -- and Fatah can be accommodated as well as Hezbollah in a fully frontal campaign to rid the area of its death-cult fanatics.

Of course, there is a remaining question: if a mere three individuals only were in possession of the imminent assault against Israel, how is it that Egyptian sources had advance knowledge of a huge attack that was imminent, intelligence which it gamely attempted to pass on as a warning to their neighbour, busy confronting what might have been a ruse coming from that other quarter in Judea and Samaria?

Palestinian terrorists head toward the border with Israel from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023. (SAID KHATIB / AFP)

 

 

Hamas's Delusions of Repeating October 7

"[The war will] continue for many more months [to ensure that] our achievements are preserved for a long time."

"There are no shortcuts when it comes to thoroughly dismantling a terrorist organization except being stubborn and determined in the fighting." 

Herzi Halevi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 

"It was a night of hell."

"We haven't seen such bombing since the start of the war."

"[Warplanes flew overhead, gunfire and explosions echoed from the eastern edge of the Bureij refugee camp]."

Rami Abu Mosab, Bureij camp

Israel adamant there will be no peace until Hamas is destroyed   Reuters

It is not possible that Hamas failed to calculate what the response would be by Israel when its operatives flooded into southern Israel, along with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Palestinian civilians who flocked after the two terrorist groups, to wreak deadly havoc on unsuspecting civilians in towns and villages, farming communities and kibbutzim bordering Gaza, by breaching the separating wall. The extent and breadth of the uninhibited human carnage so profound that even now, months after the October 7 bloodbath, forensic pathologists are still identifying human remains.

 

The terrorist horde were given implicit instructions to impose horrors on the defenceless civilians, to rape and to kill, and to record their triumphs for posterity. And record them they did, the horrendously sadistic savagery imposed on children, the videos of mass rapes of girls and women, the slaughter of entire families; there was no mercy from the butchery. The videos produced by the Hamas terrorists while they were in the throes of committing inhumane acts of deranged violence reflected the pride they took in anguishing their victims with dread and pain. 

The Hamas commanders who ordered this massive loss of life in the space of a day where 1,200 mostly civilians were mutilated and murdered, women and girls violently raped before their deaths, infants killed in their cribs, and over 240 men, women and children, among them a handful of Israeli soldiers taken hostage to experience months of fear and deprivation until half were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, would have known what was in store; a military campaign to respond to the unthinkable. 

They knew also that while the Israeli military focused on carrying out their mission to counter the terrorist groups there would be civilian casualties since Hamas plans for them, too, by installing their weapons depots and command centres in public spaces like hospitals, mosques and schools where the populace is dense and most vulnerable, given the vast underground tunnel system from which Hamas operates and finds shelter for themselves only, from the incoming fire responding to their assaults on Israel.

Israel Defense Forces spokespeople are quite clear; the terror infrastructure was being targeted. And the al-Bureij camp was described as an "established Hamas terror nest". Israeli forces, during the operation, located a tunnel shaft leading to a wide underground route with a Hamas training complex and weapons caches. The IDF announced that 200 Hamas targets were attacked in 24 hours on the 82nd day of the conflict across the Gaza Strip. The Hamas elite leaders are fond of assuring the world that Palestinians are prepared to die for the cause of destroying Israel. 

And so, they are dying in Israel's cause of destroying Hamas. For Hamas repeatedly states that nothing will stop them from imposing as many October 7 events as they deem are required to annihilate Israel. Israel intends to beat them at their own game. Even while Palestinians are suffering in Gaza, from lack of water, food, medicine, Hamas has ample supplies; the humanitarian goods that come through to Gaza to relieve the plight of the citizenry, is hijacked by Hamas for its own needs.

 

About 85% of Gaza's population has been displaced: UN  EPA

 

Even while Israel speaks of the bombing campaign and ground offensive to dismantle Hamas and prevent repeats of the October 7 attack, Hamas continues to send rockets into Israel, from border communities to central Israel. There is no lack of rockets, nor the fuel to send them off. Israel has made it abundantly clear to the outside world its attention fixed on the plight of the Palestinians, that it is Hamas that has imposed this plight, and because Hamas's intention is to destroy Israel and it vows never to surrender, this is a conflict with a long life ahead of it, until Hamas is destroyed.

Just as Israel is adamant that it cannot and will not rest until Hamas is gone as a threat to Israelis, Hamas says no more hostages will be released until Israel ends the war, and the remaining captives will be traded by Hamas for large numbers of Palestinian prisoners including high-profile terrorists imprisoned for mounting deadly attacks in Israel. Hamas feels entitled to dictate any terms related to a conflict that it initiated through terror and indiscriminate slaughter. Terrorists have no sense of conscience at the results of their murderous savagery.

Egypt has presented a proposal to end the war that would include release of all hostages held in Gaza and all Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The fault line there is that Palestinians imprisoned in the past for terrorism and the murder of Jews, have a tendency to return to the very same tactics that brought them imprisonment to begin with, and since the entire point of Israel's intention to destroy Israel is to protect its citizens from any future October 7s, releasing more Hamas operatives opposes the purpose of defanging that serpent.

 

Palestinians displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip set up tents in Deir al Balah, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

 

Some Good News For Ukraine

"[The military had a plan on the number of mobilized conscripts for 2024]."
"As for this number, we have generated it for the next year, it of course takes into account the coverage of the current kit, the formation of new military units, and also the projection of our losses that we may suffer in 2024."

"I can't divulge the numbers for each of these indicators. This is a military secret."

"I cannot predict whether it will be six months, five months, three months. The situation can be completely different."

"If people propose a six-month rotation, they should understand that the amount of ammunition needs to be at least doubled."

"As far as military enlistment offices are concerned, frankly speaking, I'm not satisfied with their work yet."

"In the 21st century, the development of science, weapons, and military equipment will undoubtedly lead to changes in tactics."

"[The war in 2024] must differ [from 2023 because otherwise] we can expect what I wrote about in the article [for The Economist] to happen."

"For about 90% of [the problems of the war] we have found solutions that will help us act more efficiently, and more importantly, save the lives of our people."

"Our enemy is not far behind us, you can see what is going on in the last days especially, that there is a pretty intense competition in terms of the use of technology, but we are not letting up in this effort."

Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief  Valerii Zaluzhnyi

Ukraine's Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhny in Kyiv on Dec. 26, 2023. (Francis Farrell/The Kyiv Independent)

There are mixed messages in the fortunes of both sides in this conflict. The hope for a better outcome with Ukraine's summer counteroffensive remain elusive; the front line has hardly moved. A draft law was submitted by the Ukrainian cabinet to parliament, laying out a new mobilization plan for the army. The latest effort to resolve disagreements between the political and the military leadership over the sensitive subject of conscription.

The draft age lowering is envisaged by the bill during the conflict for men without military experience, to age 25 from the current 27, according to the parliamentary website. Limiting as well grounds for delaying enlistment, proposing the introduction of "basic military training" for citizens under age 25 The army's depleted ranks require replenishing, a matter of importance high on the country's agenda while its forces confront Russian troops during the second winter of the conflict.

Compounding the issue is the reality of a shortage of ammunition on the near horizon; over $110 billion in financial aid has been held  up  for delivery as a result of political infighting between the Republicans and Democrats in Washington and Brussels. The disappointingly small gains realized in Ukraine's counteroffensive weigh heavily, with Russian troops attempting a forward momentum in the eastern regions of Ukraine from occupied and annexed Donetsk and Kharkiv.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while considering the conscription plan has not yet signed it, though it's been sitting on his desk since June. Ukraine's military leaders foresee the need to mobilize up to 500,000 people, according to President Zelenskyy, awaiting a comprehensive package including a blueprint for troop rotations and leaves. An urgency that cannot remain unaddressed as Ukraine counters an adversary with forces that far outnumber Ukraine's; while Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree expanding Russia's armed services.

But there is also good news. While commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi revealed that his troops had retreated from Marinka, leaving it in the hands of Russia, the city Russia has taken control of is in ruins, despite its strategic location. Also news is that the Ukrainian air force shot down 13 of 19 drones that Russia launched at the Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. The several not shot down caused infrastructure damage, but no casualties. 

 

Aftermath of the attack on a Russian ship in Russian-occupied Feodosia in eastern Crimea in the early hours of Dec. 26, 2023. (Photo: Ukrainska Pravda / Crimean Telegram channels)

And there was good news in that Ukraine's military destroyed a large Russian landing ship docked in a Russian-occupied Crimean port in an overnight attack, another major blow on Russia's already limping Black Sea Fleet. Landing ship Novocherkassk was hit at the city of Feodosia's base by guided missiles launched by planes. According to the Ukrainian Air Force the port of Feodosia was attacked around 2:30 am.

The contested peninsula of eastern Crimea was the port's location, in Moscow's illegal possession since 2014. Fire, followed by a massive explosion could be seen from kilometres' distance, verified by Storyful, a social media intelligence firm; shot at the right time and place to coincide with the attack. "The Russian fleet has become smaller", Ukrainian air force Cmdr. Mykola Oleschuk said mockingly, urging Russians to leave Crimea "while it's not too late". 

Designed to land troops and vehicles during amphibious assaults, the 370-foot long ship was capable of carrying ten tanks and 340 personnel, while the regular crew numbered 87. Ukrainian authorities believed the ship was carrying an ammunitions shipment and possibly that included drones. "Photos have already emerged where there is only a skeleton left out of the ship, everything else was burned down", noted air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said President Vladimir Putin had been briefed about the attack.   (Reuters: Sputnik/Alexei Danichev/Pool)

Defending Israelis, Defeating Islamist Death-Cult Hamas

Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

The families of Israelis abducted by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack and currently held in the Gaza Strip wait for the war cabinet ministers  Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, Dec. 25, 2023.

 

"[I am determined to press on with our offensive]."

"We are expanding the fight in the coming days and this will be a long battle and it isn't close to finished."

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu

Avi Ohayon/GPO via AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, wears a protective vest and helmet as he receives a security briefing with commanders and soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip, Dec. 25, 2023.

 

"[Hamas will not negotiate without a] complete end to the aggression."

"Our people want to stop the aggression, and are not waiting for a temporary or partial truce for a short period of time that will be followed by more aggression and terrorism."

Izzat Risq, senior Hamas official

Israel has dispatched its military in response to the October 7 surprise invasion of southern Israel on a day of butchery where 1,200 people were slaughtered, innocent people were made to suffer unspeakable agonies of savage mutilation, Israeli girls and women repeatedly raped, tortured and murdered, 240 infants, teens, the elderly and the infirm along with soldiers and foreign farm workers taken hostage. The very epitome of 'aggression and terrorism'. Israel's pledge to destroy Hamas after it broke a truce and committed the most heinously sadistic acts of inhumanity is precisely what any other nation would do.

In its psychopathic delusion, the Hamas leaders speak of Israel as being the aggressor, inflicting terror on Palestinians in Gaza, when Hamas is the diabolical planner and executioner of undermining civilian life in Gaza by excavating vast mileage of tunnel networks beneath Gaza's towns, cities and 'refugee' camps, using them as weapons depots, command headquarters, havens for Hamas operatives sheltering from return barrages from Israel striking at the launchers of the rockets sent over and into Israel.

Hamas, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad among other terrorist militia groups, most of which are supported, trained and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran, portray themselves as 'freedom fighters', claiming victimization by illegal colonialist Zionists on land consecrated to Islam, in reality ancestral Judaean territory on which present-day Israel has re-established itself after an ancient exile, welcoming the Jewish diaspora to return to the land where they are defended and protected, including the 850,000 Arabized Jews that Muslim countries expelled on the creation of the Jewish state.

 

Atef Safadi/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Israeli soldiers aboard military vehicles at an area near the Israeli-Gaza border in southern Israel, Dec. 25, 2023.

 

The Hamas charter sets out in clear, concise language its mission, to destroy Israel. Its leaders repeat time and again through news media their intention not to stop attacking Israel and slaughtering Jews, yet they appear to have no trouble convincing the outside world that their cause is just, that Israel is an oppressor for responding in kind to lethal aggression, and that as the underdog, Palestinians who have never accepted the presence of a Jewish state in a Muslim geographic enclave are innocent, persecuted people.

The Israel Defense Forces have been bombing the tunnel networks installed under hospitals, schools, homes, apartment blocks, shopping centres, Hamas deliberately making the entire Palestinian population targets and insisting that Palestinians are eager and happy to surrender their lives for the 'resistance'. Used as shields to deter Israel from targeting Hamas operatives and command centres established within dense population bases, the civilians are disposable fodder for Hamas ambitions to destroy Israel.

 

Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

A smoke plume erupts over Khan Yunis from Rafah in the southern Gaza strip during Israeli bombardment, Dec. 26, 2023.

 

The Hamas propaganda and public relations campaigns have convinced foreign media to take up their accusations against Israel for 'disproportionate' responses to the terrorists' death-cult mass bloodbaths, justifying them as a necessary and excusable exercise in liberating themselves from the yoke of Jewish bondage, and the restoration of 'their' Palestinian land. 

 

Everything that had its origins in Judaism, from its religion, to its geography, its ancient prophets to its labelling of 'Palestinian' and the perversion of reality claiming victimization as aggressors, and terrorism and aggression by Israel, when they themselves are the perpetrators is pure Hamas.

Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

Trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter the Kerem Shalom Crossing before being checked and going into Gaza, after arriving from Egypt on Dec. 22, 2023 in Kerem Shalom, Israel.

Where Does Hamas Get Its $2 Billion Annual Operating Budget?

"A good life is a sign of success and power."

"[And it isn't just the Hamas leadership abroad] I have been once or twice to the Kerem Shalom crossing [with Gaza]. You would not believe the number of Jacuzzis going into the Strip."

Israeli Brig.Gen. Yosef Kuperwasser

 

"Hamas's leadership both inside and outside Gaza steals money from Gazans, who live in bad conditions, to build military infrastructure and for private purposes, including to maintain their expensive lifestyles."

IDF Maj.Gen. Yaakov Amidror

 

"It was the Israeli government's policy to allow Qatar to send funds to the Gaza Strip."

"The thinking was that it would buy quiet. [For Qatar], maintaining ... long-standing ties to terror organizations is part of the country's grand strategy."

"Giving terror groups a safe haven is a form of security for Qatar. It insulate the royal family. In the past, terror groups targeted ruling families in the Gulf countries, but never in Qatar."

"It is very unlikely that Turkey would ever expel Hamas. U.S. pressure might even be counterproductive in this scenario."

Brandon Friedman, senior research fellow, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African studies, Tel Aviv University

Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, center left, walks alongside Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani at a welcome ceremony at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt in 2012.  Mohammed Abed / Pool / AFP via Getty Images

 

The top leaders of Hamas; Ismail Haniyeh, Moussa Abu Marzouk and Khaled Mashaal are not going begging for charity, even as hunted, outlawed terrorist leaders, who find haven with sympathetic Qatar and Turkey. Their personal net worth has been estimated at $11 billion. Which does not come as a great surprise to anyone interested in video snippets and photographs that find their way through social media advertising their penchant for living the good life.

 

 Just as Yasser Arafat siphoned off international funding for Palestinian refugees. And the corruption that reigns within the Palestinian Authority with Mahmoud Abbas and other West Bank leaders known to have amassed their own private fortunes. So where does all that lifestyle funding come from? The focus on Hamas alone sees it being recognized as the second richest terror group in the world, with a $2 billion annual budget.

 

Funded itself by the international community, the Palestinian Authority transfers an estimated 33 percent of its total annual budget to Hamas meant in theory to pay salaries of Fatah officials along with goods and services for Gaza residents; staples such as water, electricity and medical treatment. Although

Hamas and Fatah are virulently hostile rivals to one another, by transferring funding  to Hamas the PA extracts a level of influence in Gaza. 

Hundreds of millions are raised by Hamas from taxes it imposes on goods arriving through Egypt's Rafah crossing and Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing, along with tariffs on contraband entering Gaza through its vast network of smuggling tunnels; goods from kitchen appliances to luxury vehicles. The Islamic Republic of Iran is good for an estimated $250 million yearly. Tehran also generously supplies Hamas with weapons and training, and its financial contributions to Hamas coffers is increasing.

 

Members of Hamas security march in a military parade at a graduation ceremony in Gaza City last year.  Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images

 

There are endless sources of ongoing funding for the terrorist group, including hundreds of millions from aid groups alongside its own web of 'charitable' organizations. UN agencies spent close to $4.5 billion in Gaza from  2014 to 2020, over 80 percent of which gets channelled through UNRWA for Palestinian refugees, comprising 3/4 of the population of Gaza. Germany has banned charities with Hamas links, such as the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which is active in less alert countries such as Canada, collecting funds in support of Hamas.

It was revealed through an investigation by Focus on Western Islamism which exposes Islamist extremism and finances, that over $260 million was raised for Hamas by charities in the United States that are aligned with the terrorist group. Qatar has transferred tens of millions in cash monthly to Hamas, reaching close to $400 million annually. Members of al-Qaeda, Islamic State and the Taliban have been hosted by Qatar, along with Hamas executives. Qatar's state-run Al Jazeera network spreads Hamas propaganda.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey defends Hamas as a legitimate fighting force against Israeli 'oppression' and 'genocide': "Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a liberation group, 'mujahedeen' waging a battle to protect its lands and people". Erdogan has provided Hamas leaders with Turkish passports. In early 2023 Israel seized 16 tons of explosive materials originating from Turkey bound for Gaza.

 

Members of the Hamas-led government executive security forces take part in an armed exercise inside their base.  Abid Katib / Getty Images

 

 

In the weeks since the attack, the issue of what domestic and international anti-money laundering (AML), fraud and sanctions teams are doing – and doing differently – to identify terror-tinged or laundered funds tied to Hamas has also been on the minds of top U.S. Treasury agencies and lawmakers.

In rapid succession, over three days – October 18th through Oct. 20th – the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN):

• OFAC acts: Issued a bevy of sanctions against key Hamas terrorist group members, operatives, and financial facilitators located in Gaza and elsewhere, including Sudan, Turkey, Algeria, and Qatar, according to congressional witnesses.
• Virtual value villain: The action “specifically targeted those managing assets within a secret Hamas investment portfolio, a Qatar-based financial facilitator with close ties to the Iranian regime, a key Hamas commander, and a Gaza-based virtual currency exchange and its operator.”
• FinCEN alert: Issued an alert covering refreshed red flag indicators tied to Hamas money movements and terror finance more broadly.
• FinCEN targets crypto mixers: FinCEN also proposed a new regulation to prevent crypto mixers from helping terror groups and their financiers.

The NPRM goes beyond one designated group and seeks to highlight the “risks posed by the extensive use of CVC mixing services by a variety of illicit actors throughout the world.”

If enacted, the new rule would “increase transparency around CVC mixing to combat its use by malicious actors including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” according to FinCEN. 

Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists

 

"No Holiday Atmosphere"

 

"Three quarters of the village  has fled. The people who stayed are in a state of sadness and no one has put up decorations or even a tree in their house."

"As soon as there is a ceasefire, we will re-open the school."

"We've been living war in every sense of the word."

Sister Maya Beaino, head, Saint Joseph des Saints-Coeurs School, Ain Ebel, Lebanon

 

"The people who have children took them out of here, first of all because of their safety and secondly so they don't miss out on school."

"The ones who remained are older, like me."

Wassin Al-Khalil, municipal council member, Rashaya al-Fukhar, Lebanon

 

"[My family is] separated and scattered in different places."

"It's possible if the situation is stable that we'll get together for the holidays."

"I hope there will be peace and quiet, especially on this day of celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who gave peace and goodwill to the Earth."

Marwan Abdullah, village resident

A priest leads mass at a church on the Lebanese southern border with Israel

It's Christmas in Beirut, Lebanon, and its Christian population is celebrating as usual. Restaurants are full of celebrants, hundreds of Lebanese have gone to Christmas markets leading up to Christmas. The mood is completely different in border towns where houses are empty and businesses shuttered, where residents have left their homes to be with relatives or to stay in rented apartments in Beirut; anywhere further from the conflict that has broken out on the border between Lebanon and Israel. 

 

A U.N French peacekeeper, centre, gives a gift to a girl at Saint-Joseph des Saints-Coeurs School in Ain Ebel, a Lebanese Christian border village with Israel, in south Lebanon, on Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

 

Israel is at war on its southern border with Gaza. Responding to the October 7 surprise attack by Hamas  terrorists on Israeli border communities. Where Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives followed by Palestinian civilians flooded through gaps they produced breaking down the protective border wall to enter on foot, by truck or motorcycle Israeli villages and kibbutzim closest to the border. The Nova music festival nearby was another target of the Palestinians, shooting to kill as many Israelis as possible.

Israel responded to the savagery of mutilation, rape, torture and mass murder by sending the Israel Defense Forces into Gaza to destroy the death-cult whose singular purpose of existence is to murder Jews and extinguish the  Jewish state. Palestinians in Gaza have paid dearly for their leadership deliberately placing them in harm's way, by using them as human shields, building tunnels for weapons storage and terrorist activities and attacks in a vast network under the towns and cities of the Gaza Strip.

 

The intentional placing of rocket launchers beside and inside hospitals, schools and dense civilian enclaves is a hallmark of the Hamas strategy to sacrifice the lives of Palestinians to their psychopathic drive to annihilate Jewish life and presence in the Middle East. And while Hamas continues to send rockets into Israeli border towns and reaching into central Israel, the Israel Defense Forces are bombing Gaza, aiming at the tunnels and the command centres of the terrorist group.

 

Hamas's alter ego in Lebanon on Israel's northern border has been busy attacking Israeli communities over the border into Israel, drawing IDF forces to the north and in the conflict there border towns in Lebanon have come under return fire causing residents to empty the villages. Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terror group that holds Lebanon hostage to its similar aspiration to destroy Israel, has emulated Hamas, placing Lebanese lives at risk of injury and death. 

 

Clashes on a near-daily basis on the border have led to the death of around 150 people on Lebanon's border; most representing Hezbollah operatives and allied terror groups, but among them an estimated 17 civilians. Roughly 72,437 Lebanese are estimated to have been displaced. Schools in border communities have been closed as a result of the fighting. Three sisters, aged 14, 12 and 10 were killed with their grandmother when an Israeli strike hit the car they were in, in early November. 

 

It hasn't been a happy time for border Lebanese. Heavy storms flooded roads in Lebanon, cars floated on the floods, and four Syrian refugee children died in northern Lebanon when their home's ceiling collapsed and the building flooded. Smoke rises daily from surrounding hills in the southern village of Remeish, from shelling and airstrikes, leading the village mayor to say, there is "no holiday atmosphere at all". 

Hezbollah is not Christian, but Muslim, and it has no conscience over spoiling the Christmas holidays for Christian Lebanese. And far, far from the Middle East, Muslims that have settled in Europe, and in North America have been busy championing Hamas terrorism as cause for 'liberation' celebration, disrupting life in towns and cities in the West, marching into Christmas markets vociferously shouting 'Palestine will be free from the river to the sea!' and 'gas the Jews'.

 

 

Bewildered children brought to malls and shopping centres decorated with bright Christmas lights, lining up to sit on Santa's knee, become fearful, seeing loud, unruly men and women carrying Palestinian and Hamas flags, shouting and pushing people about. Christmas joy and celebrations are being disrupted everywhere by those claiming their support for Palestinians when what they are really supporting is 'death to Jews!'.

 

 

Justin Trudeau's Truce With Hamas

"In addition to the other calls worldwide demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza Strip -- the last of which was a statement by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand backing [a] sustainable ceasefire in Gaza -- we welcome these developments and consider them in the right direction toward isolating the fascist Israeli government globally and ending the longest ever occupation in our modern time."

"Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country because it constitutes a security military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation and must be finished."

"We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again."

Ghazi Hamad, senior Hamas leader

Leaflets are dropped by the Israeli army over Gaza City telling people to evacuate the area on Nov. 16, 2023.  Jack Guez—AFP/Getty Images

The aspiration may be to 'do this again and again' but there are clear signs that there will no longer be a Hamas presence to fulfill that goal, even though there are no guarantees that the gap in their presence will not be filled by yet another terrorist group to commit themselves to the total annihilation of Israel on its ancestral soil. The nature of humanity deplores a vacuum in its eternal commitment to chaos and disaster. What does seem inevitable from the never-ending assaults that have taken place over several generations is the emergence of such groups for whom the presence of the Jewish state is an abomination.

These Islamofascists with rare exception, are viewed as a threat by Arab, Muslim leaders, for their volatility, their love of violence and murder and determination to Islamic literalism in jihad and conquest that views Arab/Muslim states that accommodate themselves to amicable relations with non-Muslim countries and specifically the West, as traitors to Islam, and target them accordingly. Yet though the terror groups are feared, deplored and outlawed in most of the Middle East, the West, despite attacks on Western soil, finds them less alarming, almost manageable.

There seems to be a degree of tolerance among Western leaders for the nuisance of Islamofascism that they deal with themselves, once a core group of numbers has been established following years of threat-oblivious immigration and refugee intake. Western nations have nurtured the generous view that the presence of Muslims in large numbers can be tolerated, and presumably that exposure to Western values will turn them away from tribalism, sectarianism and violence. However, since Islam as a way of life and politics, not just religion, inspires the faithful to reject non-Muslim laws, justice and values Muslims have demonstrated themselves to be largely immune to democratization, tolerance for others and integration. 

Canada has traditionally in the past honoured a policy of support for Israel at the United Nations, where the Jewish state, unlike any other member of that global institution, comes under criticism from its member bodies to a degree unseen for other nations, and where human-rights-abusing nations have the freedom to charge Israel with the abuses that they themselves carry out, which Israel does not. There are more resolutions shaming Israel in the United Nations than any other nation, and the entire body is complicit with few exceptions.

New Zealand, Australia and Canada had issued a joint statement in support of a ceasefire in Gaza, which plays right into the hands of Hamas. And Hamas was accordingly grateful. Now that's a feather in the cap of three democratic nations whose liberalism the terrorist group applauds for having bought, hook, line and sinker, the anti-Israel propaganda propagated for that very purpose; portraying Israel bent on Palestinian genocide while Hamas pursues its goal of actual genocide against Israel and Jews.

Coincidentally on the very day that Hamas issued its appreciation via a social media video to proclaim Canada complicit in the Hamas goal of exterminating Israel, Canada voted for a resolution calling for a "humanitarian ceasefire" at the UN General Assembly. Which is called in Arabic military circles a 'hudna', where a 'breathing space' to enable a rest, a restocking of arms, a reevaluation of goals and means of achieving victory can take place, a restorative for resuming the conflict. Interrupting, in other words, the Israeli military's momentum in its goal of destroying Hamas's capability.

Appeasing terrorism appears to reflect prime minister Justin Trudeau's view of the appropriate response to the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza, which Hamas deliberately precipitated by breaking a truce on October 7 and inflicting on Israeli civilians a bleak nightmare of mass murder, rape, mutilation, pillage, destruction and hostage taking in a complete abandonment of human conscience. The Trudeau government, thanks to its open immigration and refugee-intake policy, has an over-representation of Muslims in its Liberal caucus. And Trudeau has his eye on the vote from among Canadian Muslims.

Aerial view of the complex housing the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City in the blast aftermath. AFP/Getty Images

 

Mr. Trudeau is ultra cognizant of the voting bloc represented by the considerable number of Muslims now in Canada, as opposed to the much smaller Jewish vote which tended historically to vote Liberal. Canada has never been anti-Israel, but under this administration a clear anti-Israel bias has been revealed. Earlier in the conflict when Hamas claimed Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City killing 500, Trudeau responded with "The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable. International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this, and in all cases".

When Canada's own head of the Canadian military soon afterward confirmed that Israel had nothing to do with bombing the hospital and that in fact it was the hospital parking lot not the hospital which had sustained a hit from a rocket launched nearby meant to hit Israel which had misfired, neither Trudeau nor his foreign minister acknowledged that. Foreign minister Melanie Joly had herself stated: "Bombing a hospital is an unthinkable act, and there is no doubt that doing so is absolutely illegal"; despite that Israel had denied any culpability, both chose to accept the word of a terrorist group.

Human Rights Watch added that of the reported 500 deaths, the body count "appears out of proportion with the damage visible on site". A reporter recently enquired of Joly whether Canada's position on a ceasefire had changed "because you're losing Muslim support and donors in Canada?" She chose to prevaricate, avoiding a response. What is clear is that Canada has no wish to clearly and unequivocally support Israel's right under international, much less moral law to respond to protect its citizens from a flagrant violation of human rights.

The situation for Jews in Canada has grown alarmingly fraught. A steep rise in antisemitism has been accelerated and exacerbated by the outcome of the October 7 invasion by Hamas into southern Israel. The war in Gaza has seen huge crowds of pro-Palestinian supporters march in defense of Gaza, celebrating Hamas's atrocities as a wholly acceptable response to the 'occupation' of an embattled people, when the 'occupation' has been necessitated by Israelis being embattled by continual deadly assaults by Palestinians.

It seems clear now that the Trudeau administration has made their choice, to abandon Canada's traditional role alongside that of civilized countries, and to instead support the actions of a terrorist group that Canada itself has placed on its terror list. Instead, this government has led Canada to approve of the Hamas statement that: "We will only discuss the [Israeli] captives and conclude prisoner exchange agreements after a complete cessation of Israeli aggression and a ceasefire". And that is where Canada stands, complicitly appeasing of terrorism.

Israeli soldiers show the media an underground tunnel found underneath Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023.  Victor R. Caivano—AP