Screams Before Silence

"Hamas is a political force."

"When you think of Hamas, you should not necessarily think of cutthroats, people armed to the teeth, or fighters. It's not like that." 

"Our collective obliviousness to what led, 100 years ago, to the Third Reich’s expansionism and the genocide of people not in conformity with the 'pure race' is asinine. And it is leading to the commission of yet another genocide..."

"Fellow Europeans, Italians, Germans: after the Holocaust, we should instinctively know that Genocide starts with dehumanizing the Other. If Israel's current attack agst [sic] Palestinians doesnt [sic] prompt our strong reaction, the darkest page of our recent history has taught us nothing."

"...Many Jewish people worldwide, unconditionally in love with Israel, live a lie. Premised upon the invisibilization/erasure [sic] of the Palestinians, Israel's founding ideology [and lie] is now leading to a genocide. What a disgraceful epilogue."

"Time to #UNseatIsrael from the UN."

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese  

A general view shows the assembly during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Iran, at the United Nations in Geneva. (Valentin Flauraud/AFP)

  

After two years of conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, following hard on Palestinian terrorism committing unspeakable atrocities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, the guns are silent. Almost. The guns are still there. But the full-blown assaults one on the other have been stilled. Hamas deliberately and with malice aforethought planned a devastatingly traumatic event in an orgy of hate and blood-lust, when it dispatched four thousand operatives, mostly representing Hamas, but also Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, with orders to commit mass rape, torture, a wide arc of killing, and the abduction of Israeli children, civilian men and women, and foreign farm workers as hostages.

 

Matters were too silent for too long as far as Hamas, which had signed a ceasefire/hudna with Israel, felt, and matters were proceeding that disturbed their agenda of isolating Israel, demoralizing its population and finagling the Jewish state's elimination, when important Arab/Muslim countries like the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, joined Egypt and Jordan in signing a peace agreement with Israel  under the Abraham Accords, with signals that more would follow. The atrocities the Palestinian terrorist groups, joined by two thousand ordinary Palestinian civilians, wrought in Israel that day were flagrant examples of sadistic savagery meant to traumatize the Israeli population and shock its government. It did all of that.

 

 

And then the enormity of the event, the depth of the depravity in mutilating girls and women while raping and murdering them, of burning entire families alive in their homes, of killing anyone the marauding terrorists found in the streets unaware of a vicious armed invasion taking place, and hunting down thousands of fearful young Israelis at a music festival  to rape, murder and abduct, galvanized the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces into a response, where the military following government orders set out to destroy Palestinian terror, its infrastructures, its weapons depots, its hiding places, while searching for the hostages.

 

The Gaza population was offered as a sacrifice to terrorism's goals with the deliberate intention on the part of Hamas leaders, to have as much collateral damage as possible inflicted on their populace to serve as a springboard in presenting Israel as a genocidal aggressor, augmenting their general representation of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of an oppressor that had nothing better to do than target Palestinians for death, a complete inversion of the Hamas covenant that bound it to the complete eradication of the Jewish state from the Middle East, and the death of Jews anywhere.

 

Screams Before Silence, presents testimonies from victims, rescuers, and researchers about the violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7

 

Latent antisemitism comes alive when Israel is portrayed as a heartless aggressor, and those in any society that seem to have Jew-hate imprinted in their DNA are always eager to take such charges at face value, justifying their own beliefs about Jewish intentions to rule the world. The United Nations, the international institution whose stated goal is world peace, assigned an arm to oversee conditions and give aid to Palestinians in Gaza through UNRWA, and like the UN's Francesca Albanese, its appointed heads have always been thorough antisemites, while their employment of local Palestinians featured members of the various terrorist groups; neutrality is an unknown concept there, as is fairness and decency.

 

The people of Gaza have been ruled for the past several decades by an Islamist totalitarian government. Funded by the international community, overseen by the United Nations which has never had a problem defending the ongoing violence that Palestinians perpetrated over the last 80 years on Israel, while their leaders refused time and again to lay down arms and malice and agree to recognizing Israel's right of existence and establishing a state of their own alongside Israel. Their solution was a one-state settlement; a Palestinian state and no room for the presence of a Jewish state.

 

Armed fighters in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Monday.  Abed Rahim Khatib / DPA via Getty Images

 

Now that the conflict has been paused, settled, awaiting results, plans are afoot to reconstruct Gaza once Hamas has surrendered its arms and faded into history. Hamas has no intention of doing either, despite its agreement to the ceasefire and its conditions, and the anxiety of the Middle East (with the exception of the Iran axis) to cement peace between Israel and 'Palestine'. In foreign parts across the world, Europe and North America, the massed protests supporting Palestine (and Hamas) calling for a ceasefire, should rightly see a mass sigh of relief, but those who were dedicated to achieving a ceasefire, were also firmly dedicated to opposing Israel's existence.

 

That hasn't changed, thanks to a massive influx of Muslim supporters of Palestine having over time infiltrated Western society, finding common cause with Western homegrown socialists, Marxists, 'progressive' academics and unions and just plain old closet Jew-haters, feeling free now to exit their dank basements to rally alongside fellow antisemites. 

 

And Gaza? How's it faring? If you're a member of Hamas, very well. As a civilian Palestinian who desperately wants an end to endless conflict, to repression, to threats and violence, not so good. Because, no longer distracted with shielding itself from Israeli fire meant to destroy the presence of terrorists, Hamas can now devote all its time to rebranding itself as the rightful governance of the territory they plotted to be the recipient of an Israeli response. Now Hamas is free to 'identify' those Palestinians they claim opposed their rule, and chose to collaborate with Israel or with Palestinian clans opposed to Hamas.

 

The order of the day now in Gaza is threats, beatings, public executions and full-blown violence between Hamas operatives charged to destroy family clans that reject Hamas as the ruling power in Gaza. Hamas once again rules that part of the territory where the IDF has no presence. Insisting they are implementing law and order, and executing the 'criminals' in Palestinian society. The population of Gaza once again faces the threat of death from its leaders, now that Hamas gangsters have emerged fully uniformed from their tunnels. Score-settling has turned a war zone into a death zone.

 

Masked gunmen prepare to execute a group of men in Gaza City.  via Reuters

 

  

Hamas Reasserting Its Authority in Gaza

"It became clear, and we can see this from the Gaza City incursion, that Hamas largely abandoned confrontation with the IDF in favour of strengthening its foothold internally for the day after: saving weapons, preserving manpower and planning reprisals against clans who either co-ordinated with Israel or threatened Hamas during the war."

Shlomo Mofaz, director, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

 

"How many families have received threats from Hamas? Now these families are demanding weapons to defend themselves."

"This is the expected scenario in a few weeks: civil war."

Tawfik Tirawi, former head, Palestinian Authority Intelligence Service 

 

"Are they obtaining new cards for bargaining after the hostages are handed over? Perhaps."

"Hamas could manoeuvre on this issue and say, 'We are present, we are indispensable for imposing control'."

Mustafa Ibrahim, political analyst, Gaza 

 

"[Hamas is comfortable with the guarantees provided by mediators that Israel will not restart the war, but the] gangs are an issue in Gaza."

"[Hamas's argument is that negotiators] should differentiate between weapons that can still be held for personal protection, while heavier weapons should be given up." 

Rashid al-Mohanadi, fellow, Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Qatar

 

"[The Sahem {piercing arrow, special unit of Hamas} are] commanders, intelligence people, drug enforcement captains -- all of them experienced." 

"They are scattered around Gaza, usually in plainclothes, holed up in hospitals or in tent-cities among the refugees." 

"The [captured injured Hamas fighter] gave us names, locations, directives and showed us the two separate communication lines used for unit operations." 

Ali Mujaida, senior Mujaida clan leader

 

"[Most Mujaida clansmen] are not affiliated with Hamas and indeed many lean toward Fatah."

"Hamas feared that, either of their own accord or else in co-ordination with the PA, these families would revolt against their rule, and so Hamas needed to nip this in the bud."

Anwar Rajab, Palestinian Authority security official

Hamas-affiliated security forces have been deployed across Gaza to oversee the transition following Israeli withdrawal    Anadolu via Getty Images

 

Byzantine, a labyrinthine as the tunnels that Hamas built under Gaza, are the competing, adverse, historically suspicious family clans with their regional power bases and antipathy toward one another. When Hamas first entered Gaza in 2007 it was two years after Israel's unilateral decision under Ariel Sharon to leave Gaza as a conciliatory gesture to the Palestinians. At that time the Gaza Strip was under Fatah (Palestinian Authority) control. A time during those two years when family clans' vendettas and criminal activity was rampant. Hamas's entry soon changed all that; the group brutally challenged Fatah and brought order of a kind to the Strip, installing their brand of Islamist rule and policing gang activity.

 

Ordinary Palestinian citizens in Gaza were impressed, as gang violence decreased and order -- of a totalitarian nature, acceptable and expected in Palestinian society -- prevailed. Some of the clans sided with Hamas and accepted their rule, and some retained their animosity toward Hamas, but forbore from challenging them, daunted by their formidable power. Since the Israel Defense Forces invasion of the Gaza Strip following the terrorist horde's incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, eliminating Hamas leaders and commanders in the Strip, the clans have grown restive and their hatred of Hamas has resulted in violent armed clashes.

 

Hamas has responded with brutal efficiency, tracking down and killing their opponents, and executing them in the streets. Israel had armed some of the Hamas-opposing clans. Hamas in confronting them as the terrorist group seeks to reassert its commanding control of the territory, condemns them as traitors, rounds them up, and executes them in the streets. The Astal militia whose leader co-ordinated with Israel, taking up arms, were among those targeted by Hamas.

Satellite imagery over Sabra in Gaza City taken earlier this month.  (Planet Labs PBC)

 

A family clan, the Mujaida, diminished following a violent gun battle decided to pledge fealty to the 'government' of Gaza -- Hamas. In the ceasefire agreed to, Hamas has grasped the opportunity to launch a campaign of violence in reasserting its control over the local families in Gaza, along with the militias challenging its power throughout the years of the war since 2023. Gaza City has seen public executions, and armed raids have been carried out in the central Gaza Strip, Hamas sending its message of return to authority.

 

Hamas is thus engaged because President Donald Trump who engineered the ceasefire in a triumph of muscling regional Arab countries into agreeing that Hamas must be disarmed and its dominant role in Gaza broken for good, charging Qatar, Turkey and Egypt to work out the details (all three of which have supported Hamas as a legitimate opposition to Israeli 'occupation' of 'Palestine). In the interim, while the 20-point plan is worked on and implemented with all players in discussion and coordination, allowing Hamas the time to reassess their situation, rearm, reposition themselves, recruit and reclaim their power base.

Armed groups clash in what is claimed to be the Sabra neighbourhood, Gaza City. (Supplied)

 

That may not have been the intention of the U.S. negotiators and President Trump, but what they recognize as a ceasefire is in fact in the parlance of the region, a 'hudna'; a temporary ceasefire allowing the aggressor terrorists time to reorder its priorities. For the moment those priorities are to confront and murder those Palestinians whom they regard as opponents of their ongoing rule of Gaza. 

 

While publicly Hamas 'officials' claim their willingness to relinquish Gaza governance, they contend as part of the social fabric of Gaza their administration should continue as a rebranded political party. Hamas explains its crackdown on the Palestinian clans as normal, since they have returned to Gaza as the commanding authority. Announcing the appointment of five new governors to administer the Strip's urban centres; they circulated videos on social media of its operatives directing traffic.

 

The Hamas social media accounts describe clashes with rebel clans as a duty to bring criminals to justice. The rebellious clans were accused of engaging in smuggling, gunrunning, extortion and looting of humanitarian aid trucks. A number of factions including a primary tribal council voiced support for Hamas enforcing the law, while condemning those who collaborated with Israel. This is Palestinians being Palestinians, embracing their 'victimhood' and exercising their hatred for Israel, seated on its ancestral land, claimed by Palestinians as their own. 

Armed fighters in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Monday.   Abed Rahim Khatib / DPA via Getty Images

 

Clan and militia leaders experienced the methodical efficiency of Hamas moving against them. Before the ceasefire was announced, one of the first major clashes erupted on October 3 when hundreds of Hamas uniformed operatives entered a Khan Younis neighbourhood in control of the Mujaidas, a prominent family, historically affiliated with Fatah. Hamas operatives armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades advanced in formation from four directions and an intense firefight ensued. When an Israeli drone noticed the attack it fired on Hamas and they were beaten back.  

"[Hamas is now] cleaning up their own territory, forcing the clans into submission and deterring the public."

"When that is over, they will move into the less secure areas to root out the militias."

"Abu Shabab will be last in line."

Doghmush clan member  

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"It was a pre-emptive strike."

 

 

 

The 'Peacemaker-in-Chief'

"This was the granddaddy of them all. And frankly, I thought this was probably going to be the toughest, and maybe in many ways, it was."

"The prayers of millions have finally been answered. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East." 

"I've been involved in a lot of success. I have never seen anything like what's going on today." 

"Today, for the first time anyone can remember, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us -- and to declare that our future will not be ruled by the fights of generations past." 

"Israel, with our  help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You've won. I mean, you've won. Now it's time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East." 

"The total focus of Gazans must be on restoring the fundamentals of stability safety dignity, and economic development so they can finally have the better life that their children really do deserve after all these decades of  horror."

"I intend to be a partner in this effort." 

U.S. President Donald Trump 

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, on Monday. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

 

The final release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Hamas hands in Gaza is indisputably a diplomatic tour de force, and no one can take that credit away from Donald Trump, the self-lauded master of the deal. From the unitary height of his position as the most powerful, influential man on this planet he exerted the weight he wields to convince all those involved in this ageless saga of suspicion and hatred, sectarian and tribal, to agree that terrorism cannot be permitted to destabilize an entire region, the tremblors of which may threaten the very peace of the entire globe.

 

That accomplished, the equally large challenge of future prospects in that tiny segment of the Middle East was addressed on the surface with the attendance of world leaders from Europe and the Middle East attending the global summit on the future of Gaza, in Sharm el Shiekh. In the absence of  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who declined to attend on a Jewish holiday, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Emir Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani of Qatar, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged their commitment to a future Gaza. 

 

Twenty living Israeli hostages, young men to middle-aged men, captured by Hamas terrorists marauding through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, from kibbutzim and from the Nova Music Festival, were finally freed from the shackles of captivity after two years of starvation, shackles, privation and torture. The exchange price for their release was steep, the freeing of 1,700 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, among whom were murderers of Israelis. The disparity in numbers represents the usual fare paid by Israel for the release from captivity of their nationals from the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Experience has proven that the vast bulk of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons return to the very lethal predations that saw them imprisoned to begin with.

 

Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli hostage released from the Gaza Strip holds an Israeli flag after coming off a helicopter at the Ichilov Hospital, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

 

Now the issues at hand relate to the future of Gaza, to the vital  necessity of having Hamas disarm and surrender their weaponry, which they adamantly refuse to do, much less to vacate the Strip where they have over their years of governing it, transformed the land underground to a labyrinthine maze of tunnels for haven/escape from retaliatory attacks by the IDF following rocket strikes into Israel. Tunnels under hospitals, schools, private homes, apartment blocks, and mosques, where command posts, headquarters, weapons depots, communication stations and more were located. And more recently, subterranean dungeons for Israeli hostages.

 

There are pledges from Middle East nations and Western nations to help fund civic infrastructure, from the West, along with the ME nations to send peacekeepers to Gaza. No one has any solution how best to force Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to depart Gaza, to disarm, to disown their death charters for the destruction of Israel, for the deadly elimination of Jews everywhere. For his part, President Trump is 'confident' that the ceasefire he personally oversaw would be permanent. Skepticism abounds, however, among those with the experience of decades of conflict. 

 

It took no time at all for the realization to sink in that although the living hostages were restored to Israel and to their own lives as free men with a future ahead of them, Hamas failed in its signed obligation to transfer the 28 bodies of those whom they had murdered while in their custody; one woman and the rest Israeli men with the misfortune not to have been able to endure the hardships and psychological deadening of their inhumane incarcerations. The agreement was for the wholesale restoration of all Israelis, alive and dead. That old adage 'time will tell', certainly will. 

 

A crowd gathers around a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners who were released from an Israeli prison as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, upon his arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

 

 

 

Gaza: Terror-Free Zone?

"Gaza will be a deradicalized  terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours."

"[Hamas members  who commit to] peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons [will be given amnesty]."

"[In time] conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood."

U.S. President Trump's peace plan

 

"[The] pride heroism, and honour [of the Palestinian people had] thwarted the Israeli occupation's plan for subjugation and displacement."

"[Hamas] will not abandon our people's national rights: to achieve freedom, independence, and self-determination."

Hamas' reaction to ceasefire plan

 

"With the approval of the first phase of the plan, all our hostages will be brought home."

"This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Thousands gather at Hostages Square to celebrate the return of the hostages, October 13, 2025.

 

If the nature of Hamas as a dedicated death-cult led to a preordained barbaric assault against Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023 for which Israel was unprepared, and the targets of the murderous rampage might never have imagined that such savagery would be launched against them, since those that lived in the kibbutzim and farming communities regularly employed their Gaza neighbours as farm labourers and were in total sympathy with their plight under Hamas, it follows that the government of Israel was preordained to respond with a full, all-out invasion and corresponding assaults on the Hamas terrorists.

 

The leaders of Hamas had long planned the details of the impending incursion into southern Israel. On the surface it appeared that their cult mission to destroy the Jewish state had abated with the weight of government in Gaza shifting to civic infrastructure, when the extent of the underground maze of tunnels under the Strip had not yet been fully realized by Israeli intelligence and its military. Only to discover their numbers and sophistication with the understanding that Israeli children, women and men were incarcerated there as hostages, abducted from their homes on October 7.

 

Hamas command posts and weapons depots established in Gaza hospitals, rocket launchers placed in the midst of crowded civilian enclaves, and Hamas operatives along with those of Islamic Jihad doffing uniforms to meld into the civilian population, leaving little option for the Israel Defense Forces but to bomb identified terrorist posts, buildings used as headquarters, communications, and planning centers with associated and unpreventable civilian Palestinian harms.

 

People wrapped in US and Israeli flags stand around a portrait of US President Donald Trump as they wait for the release of hostages from Gaza at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv early on October 13, 2025.

 

All of which fell as planned by Hamas; documenting the rising death toll among Palestinians as fodder for their public relations machinery geared to Western news media, gullible populations and governments, while destabilizing the Middle East and preventing Sunni Muslim governments from the momentum gained by Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco, continuing to swell the ranks of those making peace with Israel through the Abraham Accords. Hamas called upon its sister terror groups in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon as well as their mentor-state Iran to swell their own Israel-demolishing ranks.

 

So, now, the world celebrates a ceasefire, hoping for a lasting peace between Israel and its Middle East neighbours and for the immediate moment, a cessation of military hostilities  between Israel and Gaza. Despite the serious losses sustained by Hamas in the two years since the  horrors of October 7's mass murder of innocent lives in Israel, the terrorists continued their rocket fire, joined by Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis. Hamas glories in its supposed fighting prowess, lusts after Jewish blood, takes pride in its death mission.

 

Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/

 

There will never be peace in the Middle East while Hamas persists. And while Israel and Jews everywhere are joyful and relieved at the return of the still-living hostages, awaiting the full return of those who died in captivity along with the dead taken from Israel to Gaza, expectations that the ceasefire plan's points of Hamas surrendering its weapons, and leaving Gaza are not remotely credible. Much less the ease with which deradicalization of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank under the PA can be accomplished.

 

Palestinian culture is based on clan loyalties, and while Hamas still reigns in Gaza however temporarily, an orgy of revenge-killings is on overdrive. Prominent Palestinian clans that ordinarily prey on each other and on the wider Palestinian populations who rival Hamas in its dominant role, are engaged in wholesale armed conflict with Hamas, even as Hamas hunts down those Palestinians it claims to be disloyal to their cause. Bloodshed is the order of the day. Public executions of Palestinians by Hamas as traitors become events enjoyed by other Palestinians assembled to witness the cold-blooded murder of fellow citizens.

 

How likely is it that this culture is prepared to become entirely civilized and accepting finally of a Jewish state, one they have violently opposed for 70 years and more? In a realm where Israel's population is accepting of over a million Palestinians as citizens, and where, should an Israeli Jew venture into Palestinian territory, it would mean instant death. How possible is it to wean millions of people taught from the cradle to infancy, teen years to adulthood to despise Jews and consider martyrdom in the act of murdering Jews to represent the highest point to which anyone could aspire? 

 

 

Cuban Missile Crisis Redux...

"Based on the highly provocative statements of the former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that."

"Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances."

"Medvedev said some things that are very bad, talking about nuclear. When you mention the word nuclear my eyes light up and I say we better be careful, because it's the ultimate threat."

"A threat was made and we didn't think it was appropriate, so I have to be very careful. So I do that on the basis of safety for our people. A threat was made by a former president of Russia, and we're going to protect our people."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine USS Maine transits Puget Sound during routine operations, March 18, 2025.   Specialist 1st Class Ryan Riley/U.S. Navy

 

"Trump's playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10… He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn't Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war."

"Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country."

"Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!"

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, currently deputy chair, Russia's security council

 

"[The Patriot transfer to Ukraine was made possible by an agreement with the U.S. that Germany would be] the first nation to receive newly produced, latest-generation Patriot systems at an accelerated pace [which Berlin would pay for]."

"[The delivery to Ukraine would also include] additional system components within the next two to three months."

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius 

Dmitry Medvedev (right) has sparred with Donald Trump on social media in recent days. Getty Images

 

After Trump shortened the timeline for his ceasefire-or-sanctions ultimatum, Medvedev responded Monday by warning him that was a step towards war. He added, "Don't go down the Sleepy Joe road!"

• Trump responded in a post on Truth Social calling Medvedev a "failed former President" and warning him to "watch his words" as he's entering "dangerous territory."
• On Friday morning, Medvedev fired back with an allusion to Russia's "Dead Hand" automated strike system — which purportedly could unleash a full-scale nuclear response in the event Russia was struck first.
• Medvedev also mocked Trump, saying "if a few words from the former President of Russia can provoke such a jittery reaction from the mighty President of the United States, then Russia must be completely in the right."

Axios

 More bodies pulled from under rubble in yet another aerial bombardment from Russia, with numbers of dead doubling, to reflect the deadliest strike so far this year on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. While recovery operations commence, Germany has stepped in to announce it plans to provide two Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, in coming days. Berlin is poised at the top of a list to obtain new-model replacements of the Patriot systems from the United States in an exchange agreement.

 

Ukraine desperately needs more air defences to stave off strikes from unrelenting Russian missile and drone attacks, and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded with Ukraine's western allies to provide them. In July alone, stated President Zelenskyy, Russian forces launched some 3,800 drones, 250 missiles -- including 128 ballistic missiles and 5,100 guided bombs. Ukrainian forces are using outdated equipment in attempting to intercept the drones and missiles; whatever they have in their antiquated arsenal is clearly lacking effectiveness.

 

The "vile blow" of the Thursday overnight attack demonstrated that additional pressure on Moscow was required, stated Mr. Zelenskyy, going on to say that Ukraine's allies in the west should tighten their sanctions regime against the Kremlin, something that U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening to do. "No matter how much the Kremlin denies their effectiveness, [the sanctions] are working and must be stronger -- to hit everything that allows such strikes to continue."

 

President Trump is preparing to slap additional sanctions on Moscow to place pressure on Russia to accept a ceasefire. Trump characterized the Russian airstrikes on civilian targets in Ukraine as 'disgusting' and 'a disgrace', even while himself questioning the effectiveness of further sanctions to convince Russian President Putin to agree to a ceasefire. "I don't know that sanctions bother  him. I don't now if that has any effect, but we're going to do it", said the U.S. president.

 

He also said on Friday that he had ordered two nuclear submarines positioned "in the appropriate regions" after former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev reminded the U.S. that Moscow still has robust nuclear strike capabilities. President Trump had earlier in the week tightened the deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire from the previous stated 50 days to ten days, for Russia to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face new sanctions.

 

Explosions seen in Kyiv during Russian attack   Still from video

 

Ukrainian air defences have been overwhelmed by the numbers and frequency of cruise and ballistic missiles, along with drones fired at Ukrainian targets by Russian forces. The missile clusters in combination with waves of drones have been devastating for the ill-equipped, overworked Ukrainian military teams, with no relief in sight. Expectation of the receipt of the Patriot missile systems will substantially boost both Ukrainian morale and the functionality of Ukraine's response to the bombardments.

 

Thursday's overnight attack saw over 300 drones across Ukraine, with 21 drones striking  targets, the brunt borne by Kyiv, stated Ukraine's air force. Of the eight cruise missiles fired, five penetrated Ukraine's air defences, according to the Ukrainian military. 

 

Sputnik/Alexei Maishev and REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

 

 

 

Turning the Hamas Screw

"Recent evidence from those released, as well as the shocking conditions of the hostages released last Saturday, leaves no room for doubt -- time is of the essence, and all hostages must be urgently rescued from this horrific situation."

Hostages and Missing Family Forum

 

"Hamas' announcement of a halt to the release of Israeli hostages constitutes a complete violation of both the ceasefire agreement and the hostage release deal." 

"I have directed the IDF to maintain the highest state of readiness for any possible scenario in Gaza and for the defense of our communities."

"We will not allow a return to the reality of October 7." 

Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz 

Released Israeli hostages Or Levy (L), Ohad Ben Ami (C), and Eli Sharabi (R). Photo credit: Arab media

The murderously sadistic savagery of October 7 was an unprovoked terrorist decision by Hamas 'officials' to engage in a pre-prepared, well-orchestrated pogrom breaking a longstanding ceasefire agreement between the terrorist body and the State of Israel. It was a devastating break of an agreement that neither Israel nor Hamas would commit to mounting any large-scale incursion to break the tension of a tendentious ceasefire, one that Hamas decided to set brusquely aside in its intention to storm southern Israel, its operatives instructed to maim, dismember, rape, murder and abduct Israeli citizens in an obvious declaration of war.

 

Hamas did this, knowing full well what the repercussions would be, given their proclivity to sudden attacks and swift withdrawals where their members would integrate themselves with the general Gaza population whose dense presence would act as a deterrence on Israel's military response. Batteries of rockets shot off from launchers adjacent to schools, mosques, apartment buildings would be returned by the Israel Defense Forces to the sites which launched them, feeding into the Hamas larger scheme of publicity, geared to convince the international community that Israel's reaction is one of genocide against Palestinian civilians.

 

The world of the West reacts predictably, censuring Israel for responding to deadly attacks and creating casualties among the population while attempting to rout out the terrorists. Gaza's tunnels, providing haven for Hamas operatives and as communication and weapons storage sites, are located throughout Gaza, and typically under and accessible through mosques, crowded civilian communities, schools and shopping centres. World opinion forces Israel to react more circumspectly than the occasion demands making it difficult to attain its objective of destroying Hamas and counter its intent to conduct more and greater October 7s.

 

 

The ceasefire and agreement brokered by Hamas sponsor Qatar, and the United States took place with Israel's consent only because Israelis are desperate to rescue the hostages still in the hands of the terrorists and their civilian allies in Gaza. The abysmal condition of the last three hostages, starved and tormented, augurs ill for the condition of the remaining hostages, making it increasingly urgent for Israel to secure their release, whether alive or dead.

 

The Israeli government, under intense pressure from the families of the hostages, is anxious to clear the issue of those Israelis imprisoned in Gaza under life-threatening conditions, as exchange material for Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli prisons, to enable the Israeli military to return to its pledged mission of destroying Hamas. To the present there have been five exchanges of handfuls of Israelis who have suffered torture and deprivation of the basic elements of vital nutrition, suffering critical health crises in disproportional exchange for hundreds of Palestinians.

 

Ohad Ben Ami, Eli Sharabi and Or Levy are presented on a stage before being handed over to the Red Cross.   Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

 

The hostages are Hamas's trump card, knowing full well the Jewish tradition of loyalty to all their members' welfare, with the objective of rescuing every one. They serve a trade function, but also a living example of how malicious maltreatment of Jews can stop the government from tasking the IDF with confronting and destroying Hamas members, a vow that will continue until that promise of eradication of Palestinian terrorism feeding off Israeli lives takes final place. 

That the United States, under returned-to-the-White-House President Donald Trump, is exerting its power on behalf of the return of the hostages, and itself pledging to bring about a change in the situation where Israel has neighbours intent on obliterating it, represents both a help and a hindrance. In recognition of the aid the United States has traditionally offered Israel in all fora and forms, Israel is handicapped in acting fully in its own interests. Israel does, however, recognize that whatever it commits to, it will always fail to satisfy the demands that the international community expects of it, when none among them would ever themselves be the least bit restrained in responding to a bloody act of war.

 

As though to convince the world that the Palestinian Authority under Fatah's President Mahmoud Abbas can be relied upon to be a better choice to command both the 'West Bank' and the 'Gaza Strip', a promise was made to end the controversial 'Pay for Slay' system the PA uses to financially reward the terrorists that the PA itself has groomed to violence against Israel. A move, in fact, to placate President Trump, that the PA is prepared to no longer enrich their own terrorists committing deadly attacks on Israel. The incentives to kill Jews through the 'Martyrs Fund' will henceforth proceed in a more discreet manner.

 

"The resistance leadership has closely monitored the enemy's violations and its failure to uphold the terms of the agreement", said Hamas spokesman Obeida, claiming that Israel had violated the terms of the ceasefire by not permitting the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, instead carrying out strikes across the Strip, and failing to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid. As for President Abbas's promise, the families of prisoners will remain eligible for government 'assistance'.

 

Hamas terrorists seen before a hostage release in Gaza City, February 1, 2025

(photo credit: Ali Hassan/Flash90)

 

The Ceasefire That May or May Not Be

 

The UN Security Council resolution ended the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 and stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces (UN Interim Force in Lebanon – UNIFIL). The so-called Blue Line was set by the UN in 2000 after the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and now serves as a de facto border between the two countries. Resolution 1701 also prohibits Israel from encroaching on Lebanese territory by land, sea or air.

United Nations Resolution 1701

A view of destruction caused by the Israeli army in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kela, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, November 27, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Under this agreement Hezbollah was to disarm and turn their weapons over to the Lebanese military, as well as blend their members with that of the military, under Lebanese Army control. That never happened. UNIFIL was also ordered to ensure that no build-up of weaponry was to take place, to ensure that a cache of weapons that would be used again against Israel did not eventuate. That too failed, because it was never enforced, the result being that the Islamic Republic of Iran was able by stealth to continue arming its creature Hezbollah with more sophisticated missiles in huge numbers, stockpiled to be used at a time when a well-planned attack was to take place with Israel confronted on all sides.

 

Hezbollah had entered the fray the very day following the infamously savage attack on southern Israel by thousands of terrorists led by Hamas, October 8, 2023. The Hamas attack from Gaza on Israel's border kibbutzim took place on the 7th of October and it was still ongoing on the 8th when Hezbollah first began sending rockets into Israel to open a northern front in Israel, to join in the carnage and spell relief for Hamas. This, at a time when Israel had yet to invade Gaza, necessitating that the Israel Defense Forces deploy both in the country's south and the north.

The assaults from Hezbollah were at first desultory and haphazardly intermittent, with Israel firing back in similar vein. Until the attacks reached a momentum where it became necessary for Israel to order towns and communities in the north to evacuate and leave for the Israeli interior, leading to tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes. 

 

Israel's response to the Hezbollah assaults saw Lebanese living in Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon forced to leave as well. Israel's pounding by air of southern Lebanon, where Shiite villages comprised the area that held Hezbollah's headquarters and military barracks along with weapons stockpiles resulted in the Lebanese terror group's critical loss of commanders along with weapons depots.

 

Residents of northern Israeli communities who were evacuated from their homes due to the war protest against a ceasefire, in Tel Aviv, November 26, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

 

Now, a 60-day ceasefire is in effect which Israel's security cabinet agreed to under pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden, mindful of a legacy project as he leaves office. Israel, pressed by the Biden White House to reach a ceasefire agreement with both Hamas and Hezbollah when its existential goal is to destroy both terrorist groups' capacity to ever again threaten, attack and violate the Jewish State's sovereignty and Jewish right to life, has been constrained time and again under threat of withholding U.S.-supplied arms and munitions to Israel in its struggle against its enemies' intention of annihilating Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces are to be deployed to the border region between Israel and Lebanon, while Hezbollah is to withdraw for a "transition period" which would see Israeli troops return to Israel. Hezbollah has agreed under the ceasefire to relocate its "heavy weapons" to north of the Litani River, 30 kilometres north of the border with Israel. No sooner was the ceasefire implemented, than did Hezbollah betray expectations, some of its operatives appearing in areas meant to be off-limits.

Israel's pledge was to deal immediately and harshly with any violations by Hezbollah should the Lebanese army fail to neutralize any conceivable threats that could arise. The stipulation under the agreement continues to hamstring Israel, since it must consult over any actions taken beforehand with Washington. Air Raid sirens have now gone silent, but they were constantly activated across the Galilee and Haifa areas to warn of thousands of incoming rocket and missile fire from Lebanon.

Hezbollah, briefly relieved of the presence of Israeli ground forces and the pounding of their strongholds has vowed to "remain active" once the conflict comes to a formal conclusion. Lebanese lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, representing Hezbollah's March 8 Alliance, spoke of rebuilding the areas destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and presumably picking  up where they had left off. Two days prior to the ceasefire, over 240 projectiles had been fired by Hezbollah into Israel. 

Over 60,000 internally displaced residents of Israel's northern boundaries await return to their homes with the cessation, however temporary, of Hezbollah missiles during the ceasefire. At least 76 Israelis were killed, 31 IDF soldiers among them, along with six foreign nationals, and 700 people wounded during the airborne assaults from Lebanon. For the time being the IDF has withdrawn its ground forces that had conducted "limited, localized and targeted raids" into Lebanon.

Israeli authorities wait and remain on alert. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adhered to Joe Biden's pressure, he has made no secret of his intention to continue battling Hezbollah until its vicious menace recedes completely. As for the northern Shiite Lebanese and their Hezbollah heroes, they are all celebrating their heroic 'victory' over Israel, having 'forced the enemy' to declare a ceasefire, a situation that they interpret as having gained the upper hand over Israel. 

Israeli soldiers seen on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, November 27, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

 

Malicious Advice by Antisemitism-Embracing Progressives

"[Israel must] ensure accountability for ongoing acts of violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers, reverse the record expansion of settlements in the West Bank which are illegal under international law, and work towards a two-state solution." 

"Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community."

"The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end."

"We call on parties to the conflict to agree to the [proposed Biden] deal. Any delay will only see more lives lost."

Joint statement from Canada, Australia, New Zealand

"The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land -- not in our eternal capital Jerusalem and not in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria."

"No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth and likewise the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be contested."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Protesters holding a banner "From the river to the sea" at European March organized by a coalition of organizations including the ABP to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Brussels, Belgium, May 19, 2024. (Photo: Sophie HUGON / Hans Lucas)

The more often and more horrendously Israel is attacked by those whom the international community view as entitled, despite their inhumane, sadistic and savage atrocities, to 'share' geographic space with the very state those attacks target the more isolated Israel becomes. Needless to say, those in the forefront of encouraging Israel to restrain its response to barbaric onslaughts on its civilian population, have never themselves been forced by circumstances beyond their control to confront the reality of a savage neighbour for whom slaughter of innocents is viewed as a right by 'oppressed' people.

 

Oppressed simply as a result of the neighbour endlessly targeted for bloodshed, forced by those circumstances to maintain a military vigil to apprehend terrorist attacks in a never-ending effort to protect its population. A neighbour whose leaders have never missed an opportunity to spurn opportunities to have a state of their own which would call upon them to recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state and an obligation to put a halt to assaulting it in efforts to pry the state loose from its geography.

 

For four thousand years evidence links Judaean life with the ancestral lands that have become a controversial international concern. The plan for Partition allotted both Jews and Arabs their own particular portions on what was traditionally Jewish geographic territory. Jewish leaders were willing to surrender their quest for the greater proportion of the land that represented their heritage, while the Arabs who took on the mantle of 'Palestinians' (nomenclature dating from the Roman Era to identify land dedicated to ancestral Jewish land) spurned the opportunity to accept their portion.

 

They have spurned it ever since. The West speaks of the solution inherent in the 'two-state' condition of Partition, as a fair division of land enabling two states to live side-by-side. Palestinians speaking to the West agree, while conspiring among themselves, adhere to a 'one-state' solution; envisioning Israel absent the land that would revert in its totality to their sponsorship as 'Palestine' engulfing both areas, with a Jewish state no longer a reality.

 

Yet the prime minister of Canada and his Australian and New Zealand counterparts feel justified in pressing Israel to agree to a 'compromise' reflecting their idea of a solution. In reality what they impress upon Israel is their agenda that the Jewish State set aside the horrors of October 7 in favour of supporting an official, internationally approved Palestinian State to be established as a neighbour, one which will inevitably return to its 'resistance' mode against the presence of Israel to fulfill its larger scheme of the one-state solution.

 

The International Court of Justice non-binding opinion representing condemnation of Israel's supervision of lands captured 57 years ago, handily neglects to consider that this was accomplished in defending the state from a series of  neighbourly military attacks to unseat it from the region, and all failed. In no other part of the world, by no other country, would it be seen as 'illegal' internationally when a country in defending itself from military aggression takes possession of disputed land; borders historically have seen alterations and have never been internationally challenged.

All three Western countries are adamant in their renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. So in that event, Hamas can reconstitute itself, rearm, recruit, and repeat -- as it promised was its intention -- the Satanic acts of unrestrained inhumanity that it demonstrated on October 7, 2023 it was so capable of, and revelling in, an extent of bloodletting that was never sufficiently repugnant to satiate the terrorists' appetite for torture, mutilation, excruciating pain and ghoulish acts of sexual depravity before murdering their victims.

These three lily-livered leaders of once-credible countries outperform themselves in the depths of their concern for humanity expressed toward a nation whose dedication to human rights far exceeds their own, whose system of justice is more than fully capable of punishing miscreants of its own in the event of their civilly-unapproved actions, and whose military has done more to protect civilian lives than any other nation's military in history. 

"Israel will continue to defend itself against hostile attacks on seven fronts, all directed by Iran through its proxies in the region."

"We call upon Canada, as a nation that values international law and institutions that uphold it, to do all it can to prevent those who try to disrupt global order from achieving their goals."

Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed

Declaring 'Victory'

"Hamas can't hide anymore. That's a great achievement for Israel."

"We eliminated an important part of Hamas's and Islamic Jihad's command echelon."

"And whoever was not killed knows today that our long arm can reach him anywhere, above ground or underground."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 

"We will rebuild what the occupation [Israel] destroyed and restore our capabilities."

"And we will not abandon our obligations and duties to the families of martyrs, the wounded and those whose homes were destroyed."

"[We are grateful to Iran] which has not given up on providing the resistance with money, weapons and technology."

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh

Palestinians wave national flags in front of the Dome of the Rock in the al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem, Friday, May 21, 202, as a cease-fire took effect between Hamas and Israel after an 11-day war. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

 

Israel is determined and prepared to defend itself against any and all violence perpetrated by state actors or terrorist groups against its sovereignty and its population. This is a country which, since its return to its heritage geography 73 years ago, has been forced to build and to weaponize a military for the sole purpose of defence. A country surrounded by neighbours for whom irredentism is as much a part of their shared culture of the Middle East, as striving for peace is for Israel. Israel has been forced time and again to mount defences against armies of its neighbours joining in a military offensive to destroy its presence.

And while following one decisive battle after another where Israel has won its defence, or seen fit to withdraw when it was given little option but to pursue those who constantly challenged its sovereignty and killed its people, its purpose has always been defence, never offence. Those successful defences finally delivered the message to its tormentors that the Jewish state was entrenched for good where it belonged, and no amount of military conflict forced upon it to defend itself would serve to extricate it from its inheritance in the Middle East.

It is no longer the purpose of Arab Muslim countries in the Middle East to destroy Israel. That goal is left only with Aryan Muslim Iran, where its theocracy continues to conspire, threaten, and launch attacks against Israel through its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza. The Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas (along with other terrorist Palestinian/Arab militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Fatah) whose charters specify directly that their goal is the destruction of Israel and its Jewish population, dream of 'victory' over the Zionist state; a pejorative in their sense, a point of pride in Jews.

 

Palestinians pray by the bodies of members of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas movement, who died in Israeli bombardment of a tunnel, during their funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Friday, May 21, 2021.  (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

 

Israel speaks with the relief of having, in the tribal, sectarian, clan and ethnic-sect language of the Middle East, demonstrated amply that it will not absorb the violence meted out by the vicious trifecta of Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas. Attack Israel and there's a steep price to pay. Israel's attackers, on the other hand, know nothing beyond the crude, barbaric violence of threat and assault to gain the advantage they seek to destroy Israel. For Israel it is survival motivating its action, for the others it is a wargame of death delivery to those they deem an enemy.

A resident of Gaza, surveying the damage done to his neighbourhood by aerial bombardment when Israel responded to the barrage of thousands of missiles and rockets shot from neighbourhoods exactly like his, and his included, comes the rhetorical question: "How can the world call itself civilized?" Far more to the point were he to mull over the reality that the terrorist group that rules his neighbourhood uses his crowded civilian enclave and all others as convenient shields behind which it mounts its attacks clearly inviting a response in kind precisely where civilians in Gaza live; their schools, hospitals, their mosques.

 

People walk by a residential building covered with Israeli flags last week after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Ramat Gan, central Israel, Friday, May 21, 2021.  (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

 

The death toll during the destructive air attacks is greater in Gaza than it is in Israel because this is how Hamas plans their strategy; the higher the Palestinian death toll the more sympathy can be extracted from the international community over the dire fate of Palestinians, in the line of fire of the Israeli Defense Forces. A death toll of 243, resulting from one thousand air strikes and buildings bombed is nothing short of miraculous, since it also includes largely the number of Hamas 'fighters' Israel managed to target. The civilian toll would have been far higher had Israel not, at every opportunity, forewarned people to evacuate buildings it meant to bomb because of links with Hamas.

Hamas builds networks of extensive underground tunnels. There are no bomb shelters built by Hamas to protect the population of Gaza whom Hamas constantly places in direct danger. Israel, the recipient of Hamas violence and well over four thousand rockets and missiles in the past eleven days, builds bomb shelters everywhere because it must, to protect its population; Jews, Druze, B'hai, Arabs, Muslims, Christians and any others who live in the country, including foreign workers.

U.S. President Joe Biden declared his intention that humanitarian aid would be sent to Gaza coordinated with the Palestinian Authority which governs the West Bank "in a manner that does not permit Hamas to simply restock its military arsenal". An interesting statement when in reality it is Israel and Israel alone to which the task of prevention of restocking of military arms prevention for Hamas rests with, along with some assistance from Egypt. Both Israel and Egypt know the tunnel network Hamas so diligently constructs carries smuggled weaponry along circuitous international routes from Iran through to Egypt and into Gaza.

Of the 4,350 rockets fired at Israel from Gaza, an estimated 640 fell short of their targets, landing back into the Gaza Strip, while 90 percent of the remainder that crossed the border were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system. Of the 640 that fell back into Gaza, a number were involved in killing Palestinians and wounding many others. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are guilty of war crimes, firing weapons purposely at civilians, both in Israel and indirectly in Gaza itself. With the ceasefire, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards issued a warning to Israel to expect "deadly blows".

Rubble of the al Jalaal building in Gaza, after a ceasefire   AP