“Oct 7 2023”

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold at the Gaza Strip on Sunday, ushering in an initial six-week period of calm and raising hopes for the release of dozens of hostages and an end to a devastating 15-month conflict. A last-minute delay by Hamas put off the start of the truce by nearly three hours and highlighted its fragility.

Israel said the first three hostages have been handed over to the Red Cross and are on their way back to Israel. The truce, which started at 11:15 a.m. local time, is just the first step toward ultimately ending the conflict and returning nearly 100 hostages abducted and still held by Hamas terrorists.

The decision by the Israeli government to make significant concessions to the Hamas kidnappers should never be called a “deal.” It was an extortion. Would you call it a deal if somebody kidnapped your child and you “agreed” to pay ransom to get her back? Of course not. The kidnapping was a crime. And the extortionate demand was an additional crime.

So the proper description of what occurred is that Israel, pressured by the United States, capitulated to the unlawful and extortionate demands of Hamas as the only way of saving the lives of kidnapped babies, mothers and other innocent, mostly civilian, hostages.

Israel’s security cabinet voted Friday afternoon to recommend the government approve the outline for the hostage deal after “understanding that the proposed deal supports the achievement of the objectives of the war,” the Prime Minister’s office announced.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir voted against the deal. Likud MK Dudi Amsalem also expressed his opposition.

Israel-Hamas ceasefire welcomed but protests in Canada will not stop, groups say

Pro-Palestinian groups in Canada say a newly negotiated ceasefire deal to pause the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip will not end their regular demonstrations in cities like Toronto, while a national Jewish advocacy group says it “will not rest” until every hostage held by Hamas is released.

While a ceasefire in the 15-month war is welcome news, “there will be no pauses, no breaks, no rests” in protests that have endured for more than a year, said Gur Tsabar, a spokesperson for the Jews Say No to Genocide coalition.

“We’re all praying that this deal comes through for the sake of the people on the ground in Gaza who have been suffering one of the most horrific and brutal atrocities,” Tsabar said Wednesday.

h/t Patti Jo

Here’s a pretty good rule for international affairs: if a deal pleases neo-fascists, it’s probably a bad deal. If an agreement gets an army of anti-Semites dancing in the streets, it’s likely a poor agreement. That was my first thought upon seeing the Jew-killers of Hamas emerge from their tunnels in Gaza last night to celebrate the ceasefire deal struck with Israel: if they like it, then those of us who side with civilisation over the regressive tyranny of such merciless Islamists probably will not.

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a “last-minute crisis” with Hamas was holding up Israeli approval of a long-awaited ceasefire that would pause the fighting in the Gaza Strip and release dozens of hostages. Israeli airstrikes, meanwhile, killed at least 72 people in the war-ravaged territory.

Netanyahu signaled there were issues with the deal shortly after U.S. President Joe Biden and key mediator Qatar announced it was complete. That created a dual reality: War-weary Palestinians in Gaza, the relatives of hostages held there and world leaders all welcomed an agreement, expected to begin Sunday, even as Netanyahu said it was not yet finalized.

Hamas jihadis and their supporters are out in force on the streets of Gaza, celebrating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal as a massive victory for the jihad terrorist group over Israel and the United States. And they have ample reason to believe that the deal is indeed a victory for them.

Another day, another deal.

This has been going on since I’ve kept score…and it is usually Hamas that gets the final say.

All this time I thought, proudly, that Israel is the power-house of the Middle East. I still think so. But something is cockeyed.

Hasn’t Hamas already been defeated? Our IDF guys…heroes all…have gone cave to cave, tunnel to tunnel and emerged victorious.

Anyone who happened to amble by the downtown Manhattan courthouse in early December, just after a jury acquitted Daniel Penny—the former Marine who put Jordan Neely, a deranged and threatening fellow subway passenger, in a chokehold that led to his death—would have noticed something peculiar.

It wasn’t that the sidewalk was filled with protesters, or that they were chanting slogans that ignored the facts of the situation, presenting Neely—a mentally ill man with 42 previous convictions, including for violent assaults on the subway—as an innocent lynched by a malicious white vigilante for no reason other than his being black. It was, instead, that many of the protesters were wearing keffiyehs, the traditional Arab headwear popular with the pro-Palestine crowd, as well as pins or t-shirts featuring the Palestinian flag.

A ceasefire and hostage deal has been agreed upon by Hamas and Israel, a US official told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

An Israeli official later informed Israeli media that the differences in negotiations have been resolved and a deal has been reached.

Details are still sketchy

Israel and Hamas agree to hostage release, Gaza cease-fire deal after 15 months of war: reports

Israel and Hamas have reached a deal to halt the fighting in the Gaza Strip and free more than a third of the Israeli hostages, who have had to endure more than 15 months of captivity, officials say.

The breakthrough deal is the first of its kind in more than a year. It will create a 42-day cease-fire in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

The pause in fighting will allow Israel and the terror group Hamas to negotiate the terms to release the 97 hostages remaining in Gaza.

Attempts by the Royal Air Force to recruit graduates have been prevented by activists at universities, it has emerged, as a government adviser said “protests have gone beyond peaceful assembly”.

Footage posted on social media showed that RAF personnel were among those targeted at university careers fairs in recent months as protesters attempted to prevent students from signing up.

In one case, the RAF was forced to shut down its recruitment stall early and in another leave it temporarily amid security concerns, video footage and posts show.

Nothing a little carpet bombing couldn’t fix.

The Palestinians have finally discovered that Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television network — which has long been serving as a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and virtually all other Islamic terrorist groups — is “broadcasting inciteful content, spreading misinformation, and interfering in internal Palestinian affairs, which [the Palestinian Authority Ministerial Committee] claimed stirred division and instability.”

Two Toronto area Kosher restaurant and caterer locations were broken into, ransacked, and one vandalized with antisemitic graffiti on Friday and Monday night, according to law enforcement, Jewish community groups, and Canadian politicians.