Situational Update
The Jerusalem Post and YNet report: At least four people were stabbed during a terror attack on Tuesday evening on Nahalat Binyamin Street in Tel Aviv. Israeli media reported the he has been identified as Kaddi Abdelaziz, a 29-year-old Moroccan man with a U.S. green card. He arrived in Israel just three days prior to the attack, and raised suspicions at Ben Gurion Airport. According to a border control officer, Abdelaziz could not provide a clear reason for his visit, failing to explain his purpose and say whom he was meetin or whether he intended to work in Israel. His evasive responses led to an immediate referral to the Shin Bet for further interrogation. Despite the concerns raised, security officials ultimately approved his entry. He was shot dead at the scene by a civilian. Four people were wounded but there were no fatalities.
The Times of Israel reports: In bombshell announcements on Tuesday, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and the head of the IDF Southern Command said they would both be resigning from the military over their roles in the failures that led to the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught. Text from his letter includes:
On the morning of October 7, under my command, the IDF failed in its mission to protect Israel’s citizens.
The IDF was able to rise from an extremely difficult starting point and wage an intense campaign for over a year and three months across seven different fronts. The military achievements of the IDF have altered the Middle East.
These achievements, first and foremost, belong to the IDF’s commanders and soldiers—my subordinates.
In recognition of my responsibility for the IDF’s failure on October 7, and at a time when the IDF has recorded extraordinary achievements and restored Israel’s deterrence and strength, I request to conclude my tenure on March 6, 2025.
Israeli journalist Marc Schulman writes: Air France has announced that as a result of the ceasefire, it would resume flights to and from Israel beginning February 25th. British Airways also plans to restart its services, but not until April 5th. We are still awaiting announcements from US airlines regarding their return to the route. Air France will operate a daily flight to Paris, complementing the five daily flights provided by El Al.
Hostages (4 to be released this weekend)
There are now currently 91 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 94 hostages in total)
Hamas confirmed that four living Israeli female hostages would be freed this coming Saturday as part of the next release.
There are seven female hostages remaining from the original list of 33 to be released in the first phase of the hostage ceasefire deal.
Two Civilians: Arbel Yehud, 29, and Shiri Silberman Bibas, 33 (Bibas’s two young sons Ariel and Kfir, now aged 5 and 2, are also held and are on the list, as is her husband, Yarden Bibas. It is assumed that the children are not alive, but this has not been confirmed)
Five Female Soliders: Liri Albag, 19, Karina Ariev, 20, Agam Berger, 21, Danielle Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20.
For each of the female soldiers, Israel will release 50 Palestinian prisoners, 30 of them convicted terrorists who are serving life sentences.
In total, there are now 30 remaining hostages on the list for release during the first stage of the ceasefire. The women and children will be released first, followed by men over the age of 50. The release of those kidnapped by Hamas will be spread out over 42 days, six weeks, with at least three hostages being released each week.
Two civilian woman: Shiri Silberman Bibas and Arbel Yehud
Shiri’s children, Ariel (4 years old when taken hostage) and Kfir (9 months old) are also on the list and are the only remaining children in Gaza. It is assumed that they are not alive, but this has not been confirmed.
Five female IDF soldiers: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa, and Naama Levy
Men over 50: Ohad Ben-Ami, Itzhak Elgarat, Yair Horn, Tsahi Idan, Ofer Kalderon, Oded Lifshitz, Shlomo Mansur, Gadi Moses, Eli Sharabi, Keith Siegel, Ohad Yahalomi.
7 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
On October 7th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
During the ceasefire deal in November, 112 hostages were released.
161 hostages in total have been released or rescued
The bodies of 40 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
Of the 91 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
At least 35 confirmed bodies are currently being held in Gaza
28-46 hostages are assumed to be dead and held in captivity.
Thus, at most, 45-63 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015 (civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held in Gaza for a decade), as well as the body of 1 IDF soldiers who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)
Released Hostages Recount Their Time in Captivity
"I Didn't Believe I Would Get Out Alive": The Testimonies of Romi, Emily and Doron from Captivity from Israel’s Channel 13 and Channel 12 (translated to English)
The three said that since they were kidnapped, they have been in both tunnels and apartments.
…although none of the three were held alone, they were separated at various points and at times kept in underground facilities with little exposure to daylight.
Emily Damari, who had both fingers of her left hand amputated during her abduction, also said that Romi treated her serious injury. Romi, trained as a medic, treated her wounds and provided vital care.
The two were held together from the 50th day of their abduction until their release, and Doron stayed elsewhere.
The women said they were occasionally allowed access to television and radio, through which they saw their families and the public campaigning for their release.
Like the testimonies of other abductees who returned, they said they were forced to learn Arabic in captivity.
Despite intermittent provisions from Hamas, one of the hostages endured a medical procedure without anesthesia, underscoring the terrorist group’s cruelty. Emily Damari recounted spending extended periods with Romi Gonen, during which they were repeatedly moved between locations, including both underground tunnels and residential apartments.
Link: "לא האמנתי שאצא בחיים": העדויות של רומי, אמילי ודורון מהשבי | חדשות 13
Link: Moved dozens of times, kept in darkness: Inside Romi, Doron and Emily's captivity
Listen
Call Me Back with Dan Senor: COMING HOME - with Yossi Klein Halevi & Wendy Singer
I highly recommend listening to this week’s episode as you really get a true sense of what Israelis felt on Sunday as the girls were released and returned to Israel.
Casualties
1,844 Israelis have been killed including 841 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+1 since Sunday)
Sgt. First Class (res.) Eviatar Ben Yehuda, 31, was killed when he was hit by a roadside bomb in the West Bank. The Times of Israel reports that according to an initial IDF probe, the soldiers were in a David light armored vehicle part of a convoy during a patrol in the town of Tamun, in the northern West Bank, when a large explosive device was detonated. The explosion killed Ben Yehuda, who was the driver, and seriously wounded his battalion commander, a reservist officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel, who was sitting next to him.
The South: 405 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed (no change since Sunday)
The North: 131 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel (no change since Sunday)
Additional Information (according to the IDF):
2,570 (+1 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 495 (no change since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
5,652 (+8 since Sunday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 838 (+1 since Sunday) who have been severely injured.
The Gaza Casualty Count:
According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 47,107 (+400 since Sunday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 111,147 (+1,487 since last Wednesday) have been injured during the war.
[MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society
On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
Read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled "Gaza Health Ministry." The analysis found that "9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data" and that "an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates."
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.
Watch
Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students: On the first day of classes, anti-Israel protestors interrupted Columbia’s “History of Modern Israel” class and handed out flyers showing a boot crushing a Star of David. Columbia is out of control. And to be clear, there is no “academic freedom” to disrupt classes.
Brian Cohen, the Lavine Family Executive Director of The Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life at Columbia, writes:
In addition to potential Title 6 violations, this is a clear violation of University rules. Columbia must act quickly and strongly to hold these individuals accountable: (8) (serious) continues for more than a very short period of time to physically prevent, or clearly attempt to prevent, passage within, or unimpeded use of, a University facility, and thereby interferes with the normal conduct of a University function;
Statement from Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong condemning the classroom disruption:
[WATCH] Absolute moral clarity from Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, President Trump’s nominee to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, during her confirmation hearing:
“The United Nations is an antisemitic organization. The world needs to hear about the importance of standing with Israel, and that is what I will do at the United Nations.”
“If you look at the antisemitic rot within the United Nations, there are more resolutions targeting Israel than any other country, any other crisis combined”
Link to Watch: Confirmation Hearing
Celebrating Israel here in Houston!
Many of us watched as Haimro Alame won the Chevron Marathon here in Houston this Sunday, finishing with a 2:08:17. Born in Ethiopia to an Ethiopian-Jewish family, he represents Israel internationally. The Houston Chronicle wrote: Alame celebrated after breaking the tape with unmitigated joy while proudly waving a flag of Israel.
Antisemitism
Destroying the Illusion of Israel-Hamas Equivalence by Seth Mandel in Commentary
As the Israel-Hamas ceasefire went into effect on Sunday, one image stood out: a picture of the Israeli women surrounded by Hamas gunmen and a rabid mob of Gazans maniacally taunting them as they were handed over to the Red Cross.
Meanwhile the images from the Israeli side showed people in the streets hugging and crying and cheering and comforting and expressing gratitude and hope.
The incongruity brought to mind a specific tactic of Hamas’s online army of rapid-response spin doctors whose craft we might call “Hamasbara.”
Those numbers prove the opposite point from the one the Hamasbarists were trying to make, but it was curious to see how many people fell for this kind of thing. These folks wanted, they needed, to believe the worse about Israelis.
On Sunday, this trend was no longer puzzling. If you were going to support Hamas in the war against the IDF, you had to perform the following mental gymnastics: The worse Hamas behaved, the worse you thought of Israel—or you’d be forced to face your own twisted depravity for instinctively siding with Hamas.
The world got to see a very different Gaza on Sunday. “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahood” they chanted, a popular refrain commemorating a famous Muslim massacre of Jews.
Israelis are going into this deal with eyes open; they are not naïve. They just believe that life is valuable, though their enemy does not. The asymmetry has clearly inspired some in the pro-Hamas camp to manufacture a false equivalence. The cease-fire has made fools of those who believed it.
The results of the latest Harvard-Harris poll, conducted Jan 15-16, 2025, were just released.
79% of 18-24 year olds American support Israel in the conflict, compared to 21% for Hamas. Just a few months ago, it found 18-24-year-olds were split 50/50 on support for Israel or Hamas
66% agreed that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties in its war against Hamas.
Link: Full Poll Results
Harvard University Reaches Campus Antisemitism Settlements by Jacob Gershman in the WSJ
Harvard University settled legal claims alleging the Ivy League school didn’t do enough to protect Jewish students against a wave of antisemitism on campus.
As part of the settlements announced Tuesday, Harvard agreed to make clear in its harassment policies that targeting Zionists isn’t permitted.
The agreement didn’t resolve damages claims brought by one of the plaintiffs in the case, Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum, a recent Harvard Divinity School graduate who declined to join the settlement and is represented by new counsel.
He said Tuesday that he planned to gather more evidence against Harvard in discovery and to depose Gay and Harvard’s current president, Alan Garber.
As part of the agreements, Harvard said it would incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (known as IHRA) definition of antisemitism into its nondiscrimination and antibullying policies. The definition includes examples linking Jew hatred to anti-Zionism, such as denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.
Under the agreement, Harvard said it would, among other measures, post online examples of prohibited anti-Zionist conduct. The guidance would clarify that calling for the death of Zionists, banning Zionists from open events and Harvard activities and spreading tropes, stereotypes and conspiracies about Zionists wasn’t permitted.
Harvard also agreed to provide “additional resources” to the study of antisemitism, establish an official partnership with a university in Israel and to host an annual academic symposium on antisemitism.
Link: Harvard University Reaches Campus Antisemitism Settlements - WSJ
Link to Shabbos Kestenbaum’s statement on continuing the fight against Harvard
Why did Israel release so many murderers? By Jake Wallis Simons
Three innocent Israeli women. Ninety Palestinian terrorists. Such were the terms of the grim human transaction that took place last weekend.
In truth, the number of terrorists released in the bargain was far from the biggest compromise agreed by Jerusalem. Hamas, which has been teetering on the brink of annihilation, is mainly concerned with ending to the fighting, so that it can survive, rebuild and fulfil its vow to repeat the October 7 atrocities again and again.
The fineprint reveals no end of concessions. The fresh aid shipments are to be overseen by Hamas, enabling them to consolidate their control over the population. On day 20, the IDF will withdraw entirely from the strategically significant Netzarim corridor, which bisects the territory from east to west, allowing troops to battle in the north while preventing reinforcements from the south. No meaningful checks will be carried out on the people surging back to the north, allowing terrorists to freely re-establish themselves close to the Israeli communities on the other side of Gaza’s northern fence. There are also restrictions on aerial surveillance of the Strip, blinkering Israeli intelligence to Hamas movements. For Israel to recommence the war would require fresh evacuations of more than a million people.
Why did Benjamin Netanyahu do it? …the underlying reason for this lopsided deal is rooted in the Israeli social compact. The Jewish state is forced to place more demands on its citizens than any other democracy in the world and – as we have seen vividly in the past 15 months – its doughty people rise to the occasion. Deep in the DNA of many Israelis, for instance, is the drive to bring up a family in the borderlands, defying the risk of marauding Arabs in order to secure the boundaries of the state. Such an instinct is almost unimaginable to people in the cosseted West.
The impulse to live along a dangerous frontier is just one expression of Israeli patriotic sacrifice. The most dominant and widespread, of course, is national service, which is embraced by the majority of citizens.
The people of Israel send their sons – and often their daughters – into harm’s way on the understanding that if the worst were to happen, the state will move heaven and earth to get them back. This helps secure the bond between citizens and their neighbours and between the people and the government. It binds millions of individuals into a family.
Hamas’ failure to understand this was the precipitant of its demise. This may seem counter-intuitive; after all, although it has been defeated militarily, Hamas has won a decisive victory when it comes to the battle for hearts and minds.
For all the cognitive empathy that allowed Hamas to build a model of the Western mind, their absence of emotional empathy proved their fatal flaw. If they had been able to feel what Israelis were experiencing, they would have understood that the fires of anguish they had stoked would only burnish the steel of resilience in the Israeli heart. Their failure to do so was what enabled the IDF to drive them relentlessly to the brink of the abyss, in defiance of international pressure.
Israel’s willingness to release so many prisoners for a single civilian is best understood as part of the glue that binds an unbreakable nation. Israel will long outlast the savages of Hamas, just as it outlasted the Nazis, the Romans, the Babylonians and the Greeks. The humanity of Jerusalem is not a weakness. It is a strength.
Replacing UNRWA Is an Opportunity Trump Should Not Miss by Robert Satloff with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
UNRWA was established by a General Assembly resolution in December 1949 to provide “direct relief and work programmes” for the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the just-ended regional war, which Arab states and local Palestinian militias had launched to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state authorized by the UN two years earlier. Originally, the displaced included Arabs and Jews; although Israel soon took care of the latter, no Arab state wanted responsibility for the 700,000 Arabs.
In its early years, UNRWA’s mandate included resettlement as an objective, but this provision was deleted by the late 1950s under pressure from Arab states. Ever since, UNRWA has operated on the principle that Palestinian descendants of those original refugees are refugees too, with the “right of return” to present-day Israel—even generations after their original displacement, and regardless of whether they started a new life elsewhere or became citizens of another country. In practice, this means UNRWA now counts some 5.9 million Palestinians as registered refugees, though only one-third still live in refugee camps, mostly in Gaza. This inherited refugee status plays a huge role in perpetuating the mentality of victimhood that partly drives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It is important to underscore how differently UNRWA operates from the body established to address the fate of all other refugees around the world, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Beyond providing emergency relief, UNHCR’s core mission includes promoting the resettlement and integration of refugees into countries where they have sought refuge. For the past seven decades, however, UNRWA’s mission has been the exact opposite—to oppose their resettlement and integration. Indeed, there is an inherent contradiction in support for UNRWA (given its anti-resettlement posture) and support for a two-state solution (or any negotiated resolution) to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Providing relief to millions of Palestinians based on the argument that their legitimate, rightful home lies inside Israel is deeply counterproductive to the search for peace.
In line with this posture, UNRWA long ago shed its identity as an impartial provider of emergency relief to become a Palestinian advocacy agency—and a sometimes hostile one at that. For example, according to numerous independent assessments, UNRWA schools that serve hundreds of thousands of children have often taught curricula suffused with anti-Israel, even antisemitic, messages that have no place in UN institutions.
Under the first Trump administration, these problems were enough to convince the U.S. government—traditionally the world’s largest contributor to UNRWA—that the agency was “irredeemably flawed.” U.S. support was therefore suspended in 2018—only to be restored in 2021 by the Biden administration, which promised to seek substantial reforms. Yet UNRWA’s fundamentally problematic mandate is controlled by the UN General Assembly, where an automatic anti-Israel majority makes reforming said mandate a Sisyphean task.
UNRWA acknowledges that at least nine of its staff likely took part in the [October 7th] attack, but their punishment was apparently limited to termination of their work contracts.
With Trump’s inauguration… The political winds are all blowing in the opposite direction—with Trump having already cut off UNRWA funding once, his likely inclination to cut it off again will only be reinforced by the complicity of agency personnel in the horrors of the past fifteen months. There is no way his first major initiative in the Middle East will be to twist Israel’s arm to save UNRWA.
Specifically, President Trump should do the following upon coming to office:
Announce the suspension of all U.S. support to UNRWA.
Authorize his new UN ambassador to threaten specialized agencies with an across-the-board funding cut of 40 percent if they refuse to assume UNRWA’s Gaza responsibilities (matching the percentage of UNRWA’s budget that Washington currently provides).
Some have argued that a U.S. threat to cut funding would open the door for greater Chinese influence over these agencies, but this is highly unlikely. Even with a 40 percent cut, U.S. support would still be 238 times larger than China’s paltry $11 million contribution to the WFP and 212 times larger than its minuscule $5.8 million support to UNHCR—massive funding gaps that Beijing will not be willing to fill simply in order to score political points.
Zeroing out U.S. support to UNRWA and cutting 40 percent from just two agencies (WFP and UNHCR) would yield nearly $3 billion per year in windfall savings.
Link: Replacing UNRWA Is an Opportunity Trump Should Not Miss
Trump Executive Orders Reverse Sanctions on Israelis, Suspend Aid to Palestinians by David Swindle in the algemeiner
In a series of executive orders signed during his first day back on the job, US President Donald Trump rescinded a Biden administration policy sanctioning Israelis living in the West Bank and put a hold on foreign aid for 90 days, a decision which will impact support for Palestinians.
Trump revoked former President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14115, signed on Feb. 1, 2024, which imposed sanctions on “persons undermining peace, security, and stability in the West Bank.”
The executive order stated that Biden felt “the situation in the West Bank — in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction — had reached intolerable levels and constituted a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region.”
Trump also signed an order on Monday declaring a goal of “reevaluating and realigning foreign aid,” a move which will impact support for Palestinians.
Trump’s decision will result in a 90-day suspension of all foreign aid in order to conduct an “assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
The move puts a hold on a Biden administration decision from November which would provide $230 million to Palestinians
Link: Trump Executive Orders Reverse Sanctions on Israelis, Suspend Aid to Palestinians
Israel/Middle East Related Articles
The Institute for the Study of War provides a situational update on the Gaza Strip
As agreed in the ceasefire agreement, the IDF withdrew from areas in the northern and southern Gaza Strip on January 19. The IDF 84th and 933rd Infantry Brigades (162nd Division) withdrew from Jabalia and Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli forces simultaneously withdrew from some areas of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to footage posted by a Palestinian journalist. The IDF remains in other, designated areas of the Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi corridor.
The Hamas-run government media office reported that Hamas deployed “thousands” of fighters to “preserve security and order” in the Gaza Strip on January 19. The existence of these groups of fighters does not inherently imply that these fighters are part of an organized military force with a clear chain of command.
Is Hamas back? By Heba Saleh, Neri Zilber, and Mai Khaled with The Financial Times
Within hours of the Gaza ceasefire starting on Sunday, dozens of masked fighters from Hamas’s armed Qassam Brigades emerged in their distinctive black balaclavas and green headbands to deliver three hostages to Red Cross vehicles taking them back to freedom in Israel.
“We are working according to an emergency plan,” said Ismail al-Thawabta, a spokesperson for Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government. “We cannot leave our people in a vacuum to please Netanyahu.”
Thawabta said the Hamas-led authorities were planning meetings to restore education, reopen mosques for prayers and upgrade health services in hospitals that have been repeatedly bombed.
“Hamas has not ended despite its military losses,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist from Gaza at Northwestern University in the US.
“The way the hostages were handed over was a display of force and an act of defiance towards Israel,” he said. “The ceasefire agreement has left vague arrangements for the day after and for the governance of Gaza.”
In Israel, the images of Hamas fighters back above ground and asserting their authority shocked the public, and raised serious questions about the effectiveness of the ferocious campaign unleashed on the strip.
While some Israeli analysts cautioned that the procession of masked militants was a public relations stunt obscuring the group’s enormous losses, others saw it as proof of the lack of strategic planning by Netanyahu’s government.
Youssef Labad, who was displaced from the north to the Mawasi coastal strip in the south, said his joy at the ceasefire was increased “by the reappearance of Qassam Brigades and the police to reassure us about the resistance and to crush Israel and show its failure”.
“Gaza is destroyed, but Hamas is still on its feet,” said Avi Issacharoff, an Israeli Middle East analyst and co-creator of the television show Fauda. “The reason for that is the lack of interest by the Israeli government to discuss any other option for an alternative regime in Gaza.”
Hamas too has suffered devastating losses and been left a weakened force. Many of its senior commanders, including its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, were killed along with an estimated thousands of its fighters.
Israel has refused to consider a postwar role in Gaza for Hamas’s rivals the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank.
Other Gazans, however, bitterly resent the group for the devastation they believe Hamas’s October 7 attack — which Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people, and triggered the war — helped bring upon them.
Link: Is Hamas back?
Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, The Free Press, and the Times of Israel