“Oct 7 2023”

Hamas has declared it will turn Palestinian tragedy into ‘joy’ should the Israeli Defence Forces launch a ground assault of Gaza in a sinister message delivered today.

Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri said that ‘despite the enemy’s crimes… the resistance is well’, adding that Hamas and other Islamist groups ‘will turn your tragedies into joy, in the event of a ground invasion’ in a statement to Palestinians, suggesting Hamas fighters would inflict huge losses on the IDF.

Al-Arouri declared Hamas was preparing for war, telling Hezbollah-controlled al-Manar TV that ‘the battles have not begun yet’ ahead of the much-anticipated IDF assault.

In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza.

IDF tanks & infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.

The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory. pic.twitter.com/oMdSDR84rU

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 26, 2023

Queen Rania of Jordan has been eviscerated today for an extraordinarily outspoken interview in which she attacked the US and Israel for striking Gaza and questioned whether Israeli babies had really been killed by Hamas on October 7.

In the interview with veteran CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour last night, Queen Rania – whose parents are of Palestinian descent but who grew up in Kuwait – said there was a ‘glaring double standard’ around the world when it came to sympathy for the war’s victims.

She made a brief concession that she ‘of course’ condemned Hamas’ killing of Israeli civilians, but spoke mostly of the need for increased support of Palestinians and a halt to Israel’s ground strikes.

There are any number of sobering lessons that might be drawn from the obscene celebrations of mass murder that have erupted across Canada in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacres in Israel, when “special forces” units of the Hamas terrorist organization carried out the bloodiest pogrom in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

Israel isn’t the only target.

In the 18 days since the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas murdered over 1,400 people, the network of terrorist proxies aligned with the Islamic Republic that populate the Middle East have taken similar aim at U.S. forces throughout the region. U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria have come under at least 13 drone and missile attacks. Last week, the Iran-aligned Houthi militia fired off a fusillade of rockets and unmanned vehicles “potentially headed for Israel” that were intercepted by an American Navy destroyer in the Red Sea.

The tunnels in Gaza initially had some basic characteristics in common with other excavation sites in Israel and elsewhere in the world, such as burial caves, mines, and hiding systems. “However,” says Prof. Roskin, “each tunnel system is different and uniquely related to the geological, geographic and geopolitical conditions in place. What is interesting about Hamas is that the rate of growth of the tunnels, not only in size, but also in purpose, complemented the development of the organization’s operational concept. It began with the smuggling of goods, progressed to the smuggling of weapons, and later evolved into attack tunnels. At these stages, the organization’s perception was tactical.

Getting around downtown Chicago is a challenge at the best of times. Weekdays feature a constant flow of carefully and swiftly moving traffic; weekends all the more so.

But it is a city of 2.5 million people, in a tri-state metro area of 9 million. Back in the days when Chicago was known as “The City that Works” – a generation ago, at least – the city fathers took great care to minimize any event that threatened to jeopardize that title.

Two weeks on, are we any closer to explaining the catastrophic failure of Israel’s extremely expensive, high-tech Gaza border defences to stop the Hamas attack? I’ve seen a surprising number of people, on both Right and Left, argue or imply that the swift collapse of these supposedly impenetrable defences, along with the very slow response by the Israeli military to the attack, justifies a conspiratorial explanation — e.g. that Netanyahu, or Washington, or whomever on the inside must have wanted the attack to get through, as otherwise Hamas would have had no chance.

Horrifying footage has come to light of kidnapped Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin being loaded into the bed of a pickup truck moments after Hamas terrorists blew off his left arm.

At gunpoint, Goldberg-Polin and several other young men were piled into the back of a vehicle. They are shown pulling themselves into the truck, including Hersh, who conducted himself calmly despite his calamitous injury.

On Wednesday, Hersh’s father, Jon Polin, said he and his wife ‘have no proof of life’ for their son. For the time being, the Israeli government still lists the young man as ‘a hostage, as taken by Hamas.’

UPDATE: Footage of American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who went missing after Hamas attacked the festival in Israel, has surfaced of him alive with his arm blown off

Hersh’s bone was protruding from his body according to the footage.

The incident happened when 11 grenades… pic.twitter.com/ZlIapaTyOL

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 24, 2023

Sir Tom Stoppard, the British playwright, said what others among us feel about the war between Israel and Hamas. “Before we take up a position on what’s happening now,” he cautioned, “we should consider whether this is a fight over territory or a struggle between civilisation and barbarism.”

If you doubt this is an existential struggle between civilisation and barbarism, look at this week’s reports of the bloodbath bodycam footage gathered from the Hamas terrorists who massacred more than 1,400 Israelis on October 7th.

Last Tuesday, Free Press staffers arrived for work in New York to discover antisemitic graffiti sprayed on hallway walls outside of our office. Fuck Israel and Fuck Jews, read the messages. The graffiti was found on three floors of the building as well as in the freight elevator. At the time of this writing, the police have not identified any suspects, but they are investigating it as a hate crime.

A document from the end of the 15th century features an illustration of a bearded Jew extracting the blood of a Christian child. The adjoining text explains that Jewish law requires that Passover matzoh be baked with the blood of Christian children.

Such documents were widely circulated through Europe during the Easter season and led to frequent pogroms — murder, rape, and destruction — against Jewish children, women and men in revenge for allegedly killing Christian children for their blood to make matzoh.

There was never any actual evidence of such cannibalism. In fact, Jewish law explicitly prohibits the consumption of any blood or its use in cooking.