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The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Tuesday that it had launched a controversial  and long-expected major ground offensive in Gaza City, as local medics said dozens were killed and injured in strikes, and the desperate Israeli families of hostages held in Gaza said they were “terrified” for their loved ones.

The IDF said that it had “begun destroying Hamas infrastructure in Gaza City,” confirming the start of a major military push in the area after heavy bombing overnight.

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Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-begins-major-gaza-city-ground-offensive-targeting-hamas-dozens-of-gazans-said-killed/

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The Israel Defense Forces launched mass air raids and a ground operation in central Gaza targeting Deir al-Balah for the first time, the only remaining area of the Strip that has not suffered significant damage from the 21-month-old war.

Its exclusion from Israel’s previous bombing campaign is believed to be because Hamas may be holding some of the remaining 50 hostages in that area, with the captives’ loved ones fearing that the new military operation may put them in danger.

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Source: https://nypost.com/2025/07/21/world-news/hostage-families-alarmed-as-israeli-military-enters-deir-al-balah-for-first-time/

The post Hostage families ‘alarmed’ as Israeli troops push into area where loved ones are believed to be held first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The declassified photos and videos of the operation, which involved 100 Israeli commandos from the elite Shaldag (“Kingfisher”) unit, went viral in Israel.

In a statement, the IDF said:

On September 8th, 2024, during a special operation by the Israeli Air Force, troops from the Shaldag Unit raided and destroyed an underground compound for manufacturing precision missiles in the Masyaf area, deep in Syrian territory.

 

For years, the Intelligence Directorate conducted extensive intelligence gathering and monitoring, confirming the value of the target. In the months leading up to the operation, a plan was launched for the Israeli Air Force to destroy it.

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Source: https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2025/01/02/declassified-idf-raided-iran-backed-underground-missile-factory-in-syria/

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Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, vowed to fight on inside the Strip as three other soldiers were also killed by Hamas on the same day.

All of the Israeli soldiers buried under rubble were reservists, and their deaths come as Israel is meant to be shifting its war to a new “low-intensity phase”.

“Simultaneously, there was an explosion that resulted in the collapse of two two-story structures while most of the forces were inside and nearby,” he said.

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Source: https://news.yahoo.com/24-troops-killed-gaza-during-082122414.html

The post Israel vows to fight on after 24 killed in IDF’s single deadliest day in Gaza first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Israeli Air Force is currently in the midst of preparations for a broad-ranging exercise in which dozens of airplanes will participate, in preparation for a possible attack on Iran.

According to a report on Channel 11, the exercise will take place in the coming spring over the Mediterranean Sea, and will be held openly. Enhanced budgets have been allotted toward this exercise, which involves, among other things, flights of over 1000 kilometers in length, similar to what pilots would be traveling if they were headed to Iran.

Three months ago, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi announced that the IDF was accelerating its plans for scenarios involving attacks on Iran – the announcement was made partly as a message to the world in order to convey Israel’s intentions and the seriousness with which it regards the current situation.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday night Defense Minister Benny Gantz departed for Washington D.C., where he will be holding talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on possible military options for destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, in the event that diplomacy fails. The talks between Gantz and Austin follow an October 25 briefing by Pentagon leaders to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, on the full set of military options available to ensure Iran does not become capable of producing a nuclear weapon.

Gantz is expected to request of the United States that it continue to exert pressure on Iran – via retaining substantial armed forces in the Middle East, as well as taking steps to display its might against the Islamic regime. Israel is working under the assumption that such steps will be seen as more significant if they occur within the timeframe of the nuclear talks in Vienna which are set to resume on Thursday, and that with the talks appearing to have stalled, a show of force could prove effective.

Gantz has also assessed that now is the right time to advance what in the United States is known as “Plan B” – that is, sanctions along with a credible military threat. Prior to leaving for Washington, Gantz met with Kochavi and also with the head of IDF Military Intelligence, in order to be updated on the latest developments with regard to the Iran issue.

Commenting on the aerial exercise, Housing and Construction Minister Zeev Elkin (New Hope) told KanNews, “The aim is for us to prepare for every eventuality. Israel needs to be ready for any scenario; we will not allow Iran to go nuclear. Unfortunately, Israel has shown weakness in the past, and it’s vital that we address the situation alertly now.

“Anyone with eyes in his head can see that the Iranians are trying to entrench themselves in Syria,” Elkin added. “We are doing everything that we can and so far, we have had a large number of successes. I’m not going to relate to anything specific, but Israel has red lines,” he concluded.

Source: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/318342

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Defense Minister says Israel is updating its plans to strike Iranian nuclear sites and Hezbollah terror targets in Lebanon.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned Thursday that Israel’s military is updating plans to strike Iranian nuclear sites and is prepared to act independently.

In an interview with Fox News from his office in Jerusalem, Gantz said Israel has identified numerous targets inside Iran that would hurt its ability to develop a nuclear bomb.

“If the world stops them before, it’s very much good. But if not, we must stand independently and we must defend ourselves by ourselves,” Gantz said.

Gantz also warned that Israel is paying close attention to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, which is financed and armed by Tehran, after intelligence assessments determined that Iran may choose to attack Israel during 2021 using its proxy militias in Lebanon and Syria.

The defense minister showed Fox a classified map of targets in Lebanon showing how many of Hezbollah’s estimated arsenal of almost 200,000 rockets and missiles are placed in the middle of civilians in Lebanon. Hezbollah is known to use the Lebanese population as both as a shield for its weaponry and as an excuse if there are casualties from any Israeli military retaliation against the rockets.

“This is a target map. Each one of them has been checked legally, operationally, intelligence-wise and we are ready to fight,” Gantz said.

In a surprise simulation last month, the Israel Air Force carried out a three-day military exercise simulating a war with Hezbollah in which the Israeli military hit 3,000 simulated Hezbollah targets a day.

Over the past several years Israel has been repeatedly intercepting shipments of advanced weaponry from Iran to Hezbollah by attacking the shipments as they pass through Syria. Since the start of 2020, Israel hit more than 500 Iranian-linked sites in Syria with airstrikes, the Fox report noted.

Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gantz have warned U.S. President Biden against returned to the Iran Nuclear Deal without changing it to eliminate Iran’s repeated threats to annihilate Israel, including restrictions on Tehran’s ballistic missile program that is widely believed to be the delivery system for nuclear weapons and reigning in Iran’s military aggression in the region through the proxy terror groups it supports.

Speaking to Vice-President Kamala Harris by phone Thursday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s determination to stop the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Gantz said the Americans had their own interests to look after, but so does Israel.

“The American policy should be American policy, and Israeli policy should stay Israeli policy,” he said.

Source: https://worldisraelnews.com/gantz-idf-updating-preparations-to-strike-iran-ready-to-fight/

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“We will harm anyone who will try to harm us and who harms us,” he said. “This principle remains intact.”

Source: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/netanyahu-warns-israels-neighbors-637319

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Israeli tanks on the Golan Heights near the Syrian border, July 27 2020Credit: Gil Eliahu

Was the incident overnight between Sunday and Monday near the border with Syria a second attempt by Hezbollah to avenge the death of one of its operatives killed in an airstrike near Damascus two weeks ago? Army officials are not saying explicitly, but there is a good chance that the answer would be yes. And this time too, the attempt failed.

Combat soldiers from the army’s Maglan commando unit, backed by aircraft, lay in wait to ambush the Hezbollah squad, whose four members apparently laid an explosive charge near the border fence and were all apparently killed.

The incident occurred in a Golan Heights salient that is east of the border fence but in an area still under Israeli control. The members of the squad crossed the so-called Alpha line Sunday evening, which is delineated with barrels and is at the edge of the buffer zone. They continued west toward the border fence. According to the military, some were armed and were shot while trying to lay explosives near the fence.

As in the event a week ago in the Har Dov border area with Lebanon, it’s apparent that army spotters had been tracking the squad’s movements before it even reached its destination. And as with the prior incident, troops were prepared for an ambush. Maglan soldiers had been on the scene for several days.

Unlike the first incident, the order was given to shoot to kill. At Har Dov, the decision had been taken at the senior political and military levels not to kill the Hezbollah operatives, but instead to cause them to flee. The consideration behind last week’s unusual policy related to the general situation in the region. It was thought that killing additional Hezbollah fighters could increase the risk of escalation, and the military decided to make do with warning shots and force them to retreat. Hezbollah then completely denied that an infiltration attempt had been made, announcing that it had yet to settle accounts.

The decision this time around to shoot to kill was apparently related to criticism over the prior decision, but also to the geographic setting. In Lebanese border incidents, Hezbollah deploys its own people. But prior experience shows that the group usually uses proxies in operations against Israel on the Syrian border. A group of several of its people, which has been dubbed the Golan File, works to deploy local squads as required for attacks in that area.

The army has hit such squads in several instances along the Golan border over the past seven years. On a few occasions, the heads of local groups acting on behalf of Hezbollah have been killed in air attacks attributed to Israel, including Samir Kuntar, who carried out a terrorist attack in Nahariya in 1978, and Jihad Mughniyeh, whose father, Imad, was considered the organization’s military chief of staff (and died in a targeted killing in 2008). The last time there was a similar incident on the Golan border was on March 2 of this year, which day of the most recent election, when the army foiled a Hezbollah attempted sniper attack against soldiers.

• A Crumbling Lebanon Demands a Lifeline, Not War, and Hezbollah May Have to Change Course
• Israel Tells Hezbollah It Didn’t Intend to Kill Militant in Airstrike, Report Says
• Iran’s Secret Anti-aircraft Weapon

Israel still isn’t explicitly accusing Hezbollah of responsibility for the incident overnight Sunday. And the possibility apparently exists, even if the prospects are slim, that it was a cell with a different ideological affiliation that carried out the most recent operation. Throughout the years of the civil war in Syria, rebel organizations operated in the area. The local ISIS offshoot controlled portions of the southern Syrian Golan until the summer of 2018, when the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad retook the entire Syrian side of the Golan Heights, with Russian assistance.

In fact, for several years the Israeli army operated a field hospital in the area where this week’s incident occurred that treated Syrian civilians from the Golan area, most of whom were Sunni residents of the villages where the rebels operated. The field hospital was closed with the return of the Assad regime.

On Monday morning, in nearly automatic fashion, Israel accused the Syrian regime of responsibility for the latest incident, by virtue of its control of the area. At this point, Israel has not clearly accused Hezbollah. It’s possible that this was deliberate, out of a desire not to corner Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah into promising additional revenge.

For the time being, it appears that Hezbollah has chalked up two failures in two attempts. What military intelligence will seek to ascertain is whether Nasrallah will make do with that or wait for another opportune time in the near future. The sites selected so far – Har Dov and the Golan Heights – reflect Nasrallah’s desire for a limited, controlled operation without a slide into a wider conflict. In any event, the army is prepared for the possibility that the tension in the north will continue in the coming weeks.

Source:

The post Nasrallah Apparently Failed to Attack Israel for a Second Time. He May Try Again first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Fighters from the haredi Netzah Yehuda Battalion on Sunday were able to confiscate a gun that was hidden in a home in the Palestinian Arab village of Al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya.

During an IDF operation in the village, the fighters seized a gun and arrested a man wanted on suspicion of involvement in terrorism and possession of illegal weapons.

The weapon seized by the fighters had been hidden by the detainee under furniture and was wrapped in a number of plastic bags that did not indicate the dangerous and illegal weapon that was hidden inside.

The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said, “The IDF will continue to act against the illegal weapons in Judea and Samaria.”

Last week, fighters from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion stationed near the town of Ofra in Binyamin caught three rock-throwing terrorists.

Following several days of observations, the fighters spotted the three terrorists who were preparing to throw rocks at vehicles traveling on Highway 60, and chased them until they were able to apprehend them. The three were taken for questioning by the security forces.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/283512

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