(JNS)
Israeli security agencies are investigating multiple blasts that occurred in parked busses across the central Israeli city of Bat Yam on Thursday night as suspected terrorist attacks, according to local media reports.
There were no injuries as a result of the explosions, the Israel Police said.
This is a developing story.
Image: Courtesy JNS Article
(JNS)
Israel redeemed on Thursday the bodies of four fallen hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza: the three members of the Bibas family – mother Shiri, infant son Kfir, and his older brother Ariel, and Oded Lifshitz.
Although the Israeli government has made names public, official confirmation of the identity of hostages will only take place upon forensics analysis once the handover is complete. On Wednesday, it emerged that the names were not supposed to be made public, and there was a miscommunication between the IDF and the government.
Israel has released the names of the four bodies being released by Hamas tomorrow:
– Shiri Bibas
– Kfir Bibas
– Ariel Bibas
– Oded LifshitzMay their memories be a blessing to the families they have left behind – our hearts are broken for them. pic.twitter.com/kiJDEghv7C
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 19, 2025
Even before the announcement of the names, The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has urged the public to refrain from spreading rumors about the return of the fallen hostages and from contacting families regarding this matter.
In an official statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, it was announced: “The Coordinator for Captives and Missing Persons, Brigadier General (Ret.) Gal Hirsch, has updated the families of the hostages through IDF representatives. In this difficult hour, our hearts are with the grieving families. We will continue to provide reliable information as required and request to avoid spreading rumors and unofficial information.”
“Do not eulogize until there is final confirmation”
The Bibas family issued a statement urging patience. “If there is to be bitter news, we need to receive it through the proper channels after all identification procedures are completed. We ask not to eulogize our loved ones until there is confirmation after final identification,” it said.
The Lifshitz family released a similar statement, noting that they had hoped things would turn differently but won’t give up just yet. “These hours are not simple for us, after being informed that our beloved Oded is on the list of deceased hostages to be returned to Israel on Thursday, after being taken alive from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz. For 502 days we hoped and prayed for a different ending, but until we receive absolute certainty our journey will not end, and even afterward we will continue to fight until the return of the last hostage. We ask the media and the public not to contact us regarding this matter at present and to respect our privacy.”
Early morning: Handover process to begin
The initial stage involves the Red Cross receiving the fallen from Hamas at a predetermined location before transferring them to the IDF. Following the transfer, a military memorial ceremony will take place inside Gaza, featuring the Israeli flag, a salute ceremony, and a rabbi reciting from the Book of Psalms.
Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer, who heads Mental Health Services at the Ministry of Health, has advised against extended viewing of broadcasts covering the return: “We anticipate an extremely complex day as we receive the fallen hostages, and strongly recommend that the public limit their media exposure and minimize their viewing of Hamas psychological warfare tactics.”
Identification process
Following their return to Israeli territory, the coffins will then be transported under police escort directly to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for identification. There, experts will conduct tests to determine both the cause and time of death.
The institute will employ standard identification methods including imaging scans, DNA sample extraction and laboratory analysis, and comparison with existing medical records such as dental X-rays. Reference samples have already been prepared, including DNA profiles provided by Israel Police containing genetic material from the relevant fallen.
The IDF states that the identification process may take up to 48 hours, depending on the condition of the remains. The military is emphasizing the importance of avoiding rumor spread and urging patience during this sensitive period.
The families of the hostage casualties will be integral to the entire process. At their request, they will remain at home rather than at a designated location, accompanied by IDF representatives. They will observe the military ceremony in real-time, with documentation to be distributed afterward. The IDF will inform the families of the identification results before any public announcement.
Professor Chen Kugel, who directs the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, elaborated: “We will exhaust every possibility to determine the circumstances of death. This isn’t always achievable, particularly with fallen who arrive after an extended period. Our commitment is to do everything possible to provide answers to the families about what happened to their loved ones.”
The confidential clause
Political officials clarify that this represents an unpublicized portion of Phase I, whereby eight hostages who died in captivity will be returned in two stages during the current phase. In exchange, Israel will free women and children detained in Gaza after Oct. 7.
Simultaneously, mediating parties are preparing for discussions about the deal’s second phase. Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari stated Tuesday that negotiations for the second phase haven’t officially commenced, though he confirmed that delegations from both Israel and the Hamas terror organization are present in Doha.
Image: Pictures of Shiri Bibas and her children Kfir and Ariel who are held hostage in Hamas captivity hang outside the protest tent calling for the release of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip, outside the Prime Minister’s residence in Jerusalem, Feb. 19, 2025. Photo by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
(JNS)
The decree by the Palestinian Authority on Monday that it has restructured its terrorist payment program has been widely misrepresented as signaling the end of its pay-for-slay program, long-time observers told JNS, noting that reports of pay-for-slay’s demise are greatly exaggerated.
The announcement, published on the P.A.’s English-language WAFA news site, said the P.A. was transferring its payment allocation system from a ministry to an “independent” foundation.
It didn’t mention ending pay for Slay, or what it calls its “Martyrs’ Fund,” in which Arabs, many of whom sit in Israeli prisons, are rewarded stipends for having carried out attacks against Jews.
Itamar Marcus, founder and director of watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), told JNS of a telling exchange between Fatah, the ruling party of the P.A., and Hamas.
Hamas, criticizing the move, said that Fatah, the ruling party of the P.A., had abandoned the “martyrs,” i.e. prisoners.
“Sons of the Homeland,” a Telegram channel used by Fatah’s Bethlehem branch took umbrage at Hamas for publishing a “truncated version of the news”—that is, mispresenting the report to suggest that the P.A. was, in fact, canceling payments to terrorists.
Marcus quoted the Fatah-aligned channel: “The full news states that the salaries of the martyrs and printers have not and will not be affected, as all families that previously benefited from the law, regulations and systems will continue to be subject to the same standards.”
“Translation: the P.A. continues to fund and reward terrorism,” Marcus said.
‘Three-card Mahmoud’
Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told JNS that the P.A. is merely playing “a shell game, three-card monte, or if you will, three-card Mahmoud.”
The P.A. has tried pulling the wool over Western eyes before, Hirsch said. In 2014, when the pay-for-slay program first made news and the P.A. felt that its funding was threatened, it declared that it was closing the Ministry of Prisons and no longer paying terrorist salaries.
“They announced it with great fanfare,” recalled Marcus. “What we saw internally was that they were opening in its place a PLO Commission of Prisoners. The Minister of Prisoners was going to be the Commissioner of Prisoners, and all the staff, all the buildings and the money were going to be the same but it wouldn’t be from the P.A.
“We’re all convinced something similar is happening now,” Marcus added, noting that Abbas is politically weak and Hamas is very popular because of its mass slaughter of Israelis. Abbas wouldn’t risk appearing to “hurt” the prisoners, he said. (Prisoner payments are extremely popular among the Arab public in P.A.-controlled areas with 91% supporting them, according to a 2017 poll.)
‘A wave of lawsuits’
Driving the timing of the P.A.’s announcement are a number of factors, the first of which is fear of liability.
It’s for this reason that the payment system is being transferred from a P.A. ministry to the so-called Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Foundation, described in the WAFA statement as an “independent legal personality.” Notably, it will be managed by a “board of trustees appointed by the president [Abbas].”
“They don’t want to be exposed to lawsuits in the States, and they would love to get the money that Israel is deducting in Israel,” Marcus said, referring to a 2018 Knesset law that ordered tax revenue Israel collects from the P.A. withheld to an amount equal to that which the P.A. pays to terrorists.
Hirsch agreed that the P.A.’s primary motive is to avoid liability, noting that the P.A. is reportedly seeking behind closed doors that the U.S. repeal the Taylor Force Act, which cuts financial aid to the P.A. until it ends payments to terrorists and their families.
Also on the liability front, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal in the coming months over whether the P.A. and Palestinian Liberation Organization can be sued in U.S. courts, Hirsch said.
In 2015, plaintiffs were awarded $218.5 million, automatically trebled to more than $650 million under America’s Anti-Terrorism Act. (The sum amounted to a significant portion of the P.A.’s annual budget at the time—$4.2 billion.)
That decision was overturned by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. But the U.S. Congress has since changed the law. “They enacted the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act of 2018. which said that if you are a country or a body that receives U.S aid, you cannot deny jurisdiction in the courts,” Hirsch said.
In the last two weeks, a slew of amicus briefs were filed with the Supreme Court, Hirsch noted, “including a position from the Department of Justice supporting the law, saying that it is clearly constitutional and that the court should override the lower court’s decision.”
There have also been recent laws in Israel smoothing the way for suing terror sponsors, including one that went into effect in the summer of 2024 establishing compensation of 10 million shekels ($2.8 million) for someone murdered by terrorists and 5 million shekels ($1.4 million) for a person who suffered a disability due to terror.
“There has been a wave of lawsuits against the P.A. under that law,” Hirsch said.
As recently as Sunday, the Jerusalem District Court put a freeze on $760 million in P.A. funds following a lawsuit filed by hundreds of victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
The P.A. understands that the strategy of bankrupting terrorism is working, Hirsh said.
Image: Palestinian Authority security personnel at the funeral of Ibrahim Jumaa, a member of the P.A. Preventive Security Service, in Nablus, on Dec. 27, 2024. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90.
(JNS)
Or ben Sima Geula. I’ve said that name every time I prayed, three times a day, for the last six months. At some point during Or Levy’s 491-day captivity, my son’s school—in an attempt to personalize the names of the unfathomable 250 hostages—gave each child a person to pray for. Our youngest returned from school with a passport-sized image of Or that has lived in our home since.
“Aba, will you pray for him?” my son asked me. Of course, I agreed. In the latest hostage-prisoner exchange, Or and two others came home—well, what’s left of them.
Seeing the three hostages returned home gaunt, almost unable to walk from the torture they have endured for well over a year, the images of liberated concentration and displaced persons camps from World War II immediately come to mind. As has been done with each hostage release as part of this current three-phase deal, Or Levy, Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi were paraded on stage surrounded by gun-toting Hamasniks just before their handover. Or was dressed in green fatigues to promote the illusion that the innocents were soldiers captured as in war operations. This charade should have had the three donning worn-out striped prison garb, for that’s how the Jewish community saw them.
Everyone who laid eyes on the three men thought the same thing: “Holocaust survivors.” That’s exactly what Hamas intended from the outset of this atrocity. Beyond the sheer number of victims murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, the description of their deaths reopened age-old wounds in the Jewish psyche. From families burned alive, to women raped and mutilated in unthinkable ways, these accounts were intended to break the Jewish will.
But the images of the hostages returning were only the beginning of the story. While Eli Sharabi was on stage, the fanatics who took him captive asked what he was looking forward to upon his release. “I’m looking forward to seeing my wife and daughters,” he replied, having no clue that they, along with his older brother, had been murdered by the same monsters, silently looking through their green and black masks. Or was also unaware of his wife’s murder on that Black Shabbat. When he was finally reunited with his 3-year-old son, Almog, the boy said: “Dad, it took you a long time to come back.” and “Mommy Einav is dead; she won’t come back.”
CNN has come under fire for comparing the plight of the hostages to Palestinian prisoners who were released as part of the agreement. The 183 prisoners, according to the network, were visibly emaciated, in poor health and showed signs of physical abuse and starvation. There was no evidence for any of this. The reason the cable-news network could get away with that is because, unlike Hamas, Israel does not parade these individuals in front of a violent, fomenting mob who wish—and sometimes attempt—to tear them apart. The only celebrations that occur for Israel’s enemies are the throngs that elevate their status upon their return to the Arab world.
The difference between the two captivities is encapsulated in an occurrence from the previous exchange. As Israel was releasing that batch of Palestinian prisoners, one needed to be swapped out to reach the preordained 186. Was the prisoner sick? Unable to walk? The complete opposite. On the eve of his release, this inmate refused to board the bus to return to Gaza. He preferred Israeli imprisonment to Hamas rule.
There is no doubt that Hamas delayed the release of Or, Ohad and Eli for as long as possible. This was not only because they’d leave any Jew languishing in a dungeon for all of eternity. The timing of their release was delayed so that the world wouldn’t be watching. These three were intended for Jewish eyes only. Hamas released those who were in better physical condition first so that the world could once again turn its back on the Jewish state. Only after these swaps had become commonplace and the world was no longer tuning in could the true grotesque underbelly of this animalistic terror group be shown.
The morning after Or was released, I wondered what I should pray for. Should I remove him from my list for healing? In the end, I did not because he, like all the other returned hostages, will be in the hospital for at least a week. Just like those who arrived at the DP camps couldn’t eat to their heart’s content, lest their stomachs explode, these three skeletons must be slowly nursed back to health.
And we said, “never again.”
Just as I began my silent Amidah, an Israeli Air Force jet came screaming overhead. When I reached the words, “Blessed are you God, the shield of Avraham,” I realized what I had to pray for. Our enemies will stop at nothing to viciously murder all of us. Our prayer for “never again” is that no matter who rises up to annihilate our people, we will always defend ourselves and never again be the sheep to the slaughter.
Even though we shouldn’t want vengeance for what has already been done and what continues to be done to our brothers and sisters, we wouldn’t be at fault for taking it out on each and every person who both perpetrated and enabled these crimes against humanity. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe the world must be a moral place.
Image: Hamas terrorist in the Al-Qassam Brigades hand over three male Israeli hostages to the Red Cross, as part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, in Deir al Balah, on Feb. 8, 2025. Photo by Ali Hassan/Flash90.
(JNS)
Many terrorists released by Israel are millionaires, flush with cash from years of receiving monthly Palestinian Authority “pay for slay” stipends, an analysis by a Jerusalem-based watchdog group revealed on Wednesday.
Palestinian Media Watch posted a list of all 734 terrorists scheduled for release from Israeli prisons in the first phase of the hostages-for-ceasefire agreement with Hamas, together with their “salaries”—the dollar amounts each terrorist had received from the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” program, officially the Martyrs’ Fund, while incarcerated.
In total, the terrorists received $141,837,087, or more than half a billion shekels. Of those, 316, or nearly half, received more than a million shekels. (Palestinian Media Watch created a program to crunch the numbers, inputting all the relevant P.A. criteria—crime, marital status, number of children, etc., to determine the size of their stipends.)
“It’s a tremendous force driving terror,” Itamar Marcus, Palestinian Media Watch’s founder and director, told JNS.
First, it signals to Palestinians that these terrorists weren’t working in a vacuum, but were acting in the name of the P.A.
Second, the wealth places the terrorists in an honored position in Palestinian society, in fact, “Palestinian terrorists are the most honored people in Palestinian society,” he said.
“When they’re introduced, and in interviews, even years after they were released from jail, they’re called Asra [“Prisoner”]. That’s their title. It’s like an ambassador. It’s actually similar to POW [prisoner of war]. They have a different word for criminal prisoners. For the P.A., they’re legitimate fighters, even if they killed women and children,” Marcus said.
“In another society, if a criminal goes to jail for murdering someone, he’s ashamed about it. In the Palestinian Authority, they go around with a crown on their heads,” he said.
The P.A.’s ongoing “pay-for-slay” program demonstrates that Israel’s efforts to curtail it have not succeeded. In July 2018, Israel, which collects tax and tariff revenue of behalf of the P.A., passed a law withholding those funds equal to the amount the P.A. paid to terrorists. The law aimed to put an end to the practice.
The P.A. declared that payments would go on. P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas said in October 2019, “The Martyrs and their families are sacred, [and so are] the wounded and the prisoners. We must pay all of them. If one penny remains in our hands it is for them and not for the living.”
Abbas has made good on his pledge. Marcus told JNS that the P.A. has not paid its employees their full salaries—”at one point they skipped a whole month, which they’ve never made up”—to ensure imprisoned terrorists were paid in full.
“What’s outrageous, of course, is a person who’s living at home, working, who’s got five or six kids and needs the money—his salary you’re cutting to 70%. But the prisoner who’s getting everything—all his food and everything taken care of by Israel—that’s the one who’s getting 100%. So it’s just a message of values,” Marcus said.
In response, Palestinian Media Watch spearheaded a campaign in 2020 together with the IDF to effect a change whereby much of Israel’s Anti-Terror Law would be applied to Judea and Samaria, “rendering banks liable to punishment for facilitating P.A. terror salaries.”
It worked to a degree. It sent the P.A. into crisis as it realized its banks would be exposed to international terror financing laws. “According to the official statements that we got, 33,000 bank accounts were closed,” Marcus said.
As a temporary workaround, the P.A. paid the terrorists’ families through the post office. (The families complained about the indignity of having to wait in line to receive their stipends, Marcus noted.)
Then the P.A. opened a special bank dedicated solely to receiving the funds from the P.A. “The only thing that this bank does is pay terrorist salaries,” he said.
Marcus’s suggestion is to arrest anyone in the P.A. involved in the “pay-for-slay” program, even if that means arresting the entire staff at the P.A.’s Ministry of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.
“They should all be arrested, put in jail, charged. And that would stop it very quickly,” he said.
Image: Palestinians rally in support of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Tubas, northeastern Samaria, Sept. 27, 2020. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90.
(JNS)
President Donald Trump’s plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip by relocating its people is being condemned and ridiculed by Palestinian leaders, other Arab leaders and so-called Middle East “experts”—the same people who’ve been pushing the bankrupt “two-state solution” for decades.
But truthfully, Trump is right. To ensure the security of Israel and allow the people of Gaza to build better lives for themselves, Gaza should be “cleaned out.”
Most of Gaza has been reduced to a hellhole—the tragic result of Hamas’s decision to hide among and beneath its population centers after committing the worst atrocities against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Today, as Trump remarked, Gaza looks like “a demolition site,” it is virtually unliveable.
Moreover, any attempt to rebuild Gaza under present circumstances will be co-opted by Hamas—not to repair its ruins but to rebuild its military apparatus with the goal of destroying Israel.
Pundits who believe Palestinian chances for a two-state solution would be harmed by an exodus of Gazans have short memories. In fact, for 20 years, following Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians had a de facto independent state and the chance to build a prosperous country. Instead, Hamas turned Gaza into a cruel dictatorship and a terrorist base from which to attack Israel.
Furthermore, resettling the destitute Gazan population to other nations is consistent with international norms. It’s certainly an improvement to the decades-old practice of trapping the Palestinians as perpetual refugees with no option for a better life other than some unfounded, mythical “right of return.”
While some critics of Trump’s plan accuse him of advocating ethnic cleansing, he’s made no mention of forcing Gaza residents to leave or exiling them permanently. More importantly, many Gazans have expressed their desire to leave the war-torn enclave. Should they be denied this privilege offered to so many other refugees?
Critics of Trump’s plan also risk hypocrisy, since so few voices cried “ethnic cleansing” at the forced removal of Jews from Gaza in 2005. Fewer still would likely apply the term were Jews to be uprooted from Judea and Samaria to enable a two-state solution. Many seem to forgive “ethnic cleansing” as long as Jews are the victims.
Gaza is now unliveable. According to the United Nations, 60% of all buildings in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, including 92% of homes. Social services, like schools and hospitals, are severely crippled. Food is scarce. Gaza’s water and sanitation systems are “almost entirely defunct,” according to the U.N. Environmental Program.
Furthermore, the United Nations’s trade and development arm, UNCTAD, estimates it could take up to 350 years to rebuild Gaza’s economy back to its 2022 level. Forcing Gazans to live under these conditions would be cruel. Trump’s plan to allow them to relocate is much more humane.
Hamas will no doubt hijack rebuilding efforts. Precedent shows that each time Gaza rebuilds following the wars initiated by Hamas before its massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Iranian-backed proxy only gets stronger militarily, largely because they steal much of the aid meant for impoverished Gazans.
If Gazans aren’t given the chance to leave, they will continue to suffer under Hamas’s tyrannical rule. Other than hardcore Hamas supporters—Iran, Qatar, Turkey and radical students on U.S. college campuses—few Americans support Hamas’s continued oppression of the Gazans. Indeed, Trump’s plan gives the Gazans a way to escape Hamas’s brutal dictatorship.
The Palestinians squandered their chance for statehood. Gaza’s 20 years of de facto independence was a litmus test for the two-state solution. Needless to say, it failed miserably. The Palestinians failed to build efficient state institutions or a prosperous economy. Worse still, Hamas used Gaza as a terrorist base from which to attack Israel, starting war after war and breaking one ceasefire after another, ultimately culminating in the Oct. 7 massacre.
There’s zero evidence that a Palestinian state ruled by Hamas—or even the moribund Palestinian Authority—would be anything other than a disaster for Israel, the Palestinian people or future peace prospects. Trump offers a better alternative for everyone—except Hamas since it deprives them of the opportunity to oppress the Gazans who are allowed to leave.
Allowing Gazans to leave would free them from refugee status. Whereas other refugees globally, including 800,000 Jews forced out of Arab countries, were allowed resettlement, Palestinians remain refugees with no option of resettling. Instead, they’re fed the myth of a “right of return” to their ancestors’ homeland once Israel is destroyed. Trump’s plan would allow Gazans to escape perpetual refugee status.
Gazans want to seek a better life elsewhere. Before the war, polls showed nearly a third of Gazans wanted to leave the territory. Israel estimates that 100,000 to 200,000 of them have already left since Oct. 7, 2023. Why not give all Gazans the chance to build better lives abroad, as Trump suggests? Why condemn them to more generations of poverty, dictatorship and the horrors of endless war?
Those who cry “ethnic cleansing” have a clear double standard. No one in the “international community” shouted “ethnic cleansing” when thousands of Jews were forcibly removed from Gaza during Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the territory. To this day, advocates of the two-state solution want Israel to forcibly remove its Jewish citizens from Judea and Samaria. Why is it OK to forcibly uproot Jews from their homes, which is an act of ethnic cleansing, but it’s not OK to give Palestinians in Gaza a choice to seek a better future elsewhere?
Trump brings a fresh perspective to the Gaza conflict. By focusing on the well-being of the Gazans in their current, destitute predicament, Trump offers them a new vision: The chance to seek a better life elsewhere, as millions of other refugees have over the last century. This includes an escape from poverty, from a life sentence as refugees and from an endless war with Israel that the Palestinians will never win.
Although Trump’s outside-the-box suggestion to relocate Gaza’s people may not come to fruition, the president deserves credit for offering the Palestinians an alternative to the failed ideas that have impeded their prospects for a better future.
Originally published by Facts and Logic About the Middle East (FLAME).
Image: An Islamic Jihad terrorist stands inside the ruins of the Netzarim community synagogue after the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Sept. 12, 2005. Photo by Ahmad Khateib/Flash90.
(JNS)
Laws that ban UNRWA in Israel went into effect on Thursday, barring the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians from maintaining a presence or activities in that country, and prohibiting Israeli officials from engaging in contact with it.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel welcomed the development.
“UNRWA lies at the heart of the Arab-Jewish conflict. It has always been a non-neutral political organization, and it actually paved the way for October 7th. Any other country in the world would have shut down such an organization within 24 hours of its employees having massacred civilians. I will continue to do everything in my power to bring about the complete closure of the organization,” she tweeted.
On Oct. 28, the Knesset passed, by large majorities, two laws banning UNRWA following the exposure of UNRWA staff complicity in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and despite pressure from the United States and other countries against the move. Three months later, the laws have come into effect.
The ban is by far the most robust step ever taken by Israel against UNRWA, whose largest donors have been the United States and the European Union. The agency has for decades been accused of providing cover and income to Palestinian terrorists while undermining peace efforts, including via its schools’ curriculum.
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King celebrated the development by uncorking a bottle of sparkling wine outside the shuttered UNRWA office in Jerusalem’s northeastern Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood.
“It’s a happy, special and historic day,” he said, popping open the bottle to cheers from supporters.
Shai Glick from the B’tsalmo human rights group attended the event and spray-painted over the sign of the former UNRWA offices. UNRWA, or the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, “has an impressive-sounding name, but it’s just a terrorist group,” Glick said.
Engaged in terrorism
According to Israel, hundreds of UNRWA workers have engaged in terrorism in recent years, including the killers of Yonatan Samerano, an IDF soldier slain on Oct. 7, 2023, whose body was taken to Gaza. Israel identified one of them as UNRWA social worker Faisal Ali Mussalem al Naami.
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump temporarily suspended U.S. foreign aid to UNRWA, pending reviews of existing development programs. Several countries froze their funding to UNRWA, which usually enjoy a budget of about $1 billion annually. Only the U.S. and New Zealand have not reinstated their funding. Switzerland reinstated it only partially, according to UN Watch, a watchdog group based in Geneva.
On Saturday, Israel notified the United Nations it must evacuate all UNRWA premises by Jan. 30.
UN Watch wrote in a recent report that UNRWA officials meet “routinely” with Lebanese and Gazan terrorist groups, “mutually praise each other for ‘cooperation’ and describe each other as ‘partners.’”
Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of UNRWA, said that the agency will continue to deliver on its mandate until it physically cannot do so.
UNRWA caters to several millions of people it defines as refugees in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Israel’s laws may complicate its ability to bring goods and staff into Judea and Samaria and Gaza.
Through UNRWA, the United Nations employs a unique refugee definition for Palestinians. UNRWA defines as refugees not only those who fled the war in 1948 but their descendants in perpetuity, until a “just solution” emerges for their status. The United Nations has a different definition for all other refugees, who cannot give the title to their descendants and often lose it when they are naturalized elsewhere.
Critics of the UNRWA definition say it’s designed to perpetuate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Image: B’tsalmo CEO Shai Glick (right) and a fellow activist paint over the UNRWA sign at the agency’s former office in Jerusalem’s Ma’alot Dafna neighborhood on Jan. 30, 2025. Photo by Aron Leib Abrams/Flash90.
(JNS)
Jerusalem has frozen the release of terrorists whose sentences were to be commuted under the ceasefire deal with Hamas, after “horrifying scenes” were witnessed during the release of Israeli hostages Arbel Yehud and Gadi Mozes on Thursday, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Israel Katz, has instructed a delay in the release of the terrorists scheduled to be released today until the safe exit of our hostages during the next waves is guaranteed,” the statement said, confirming media reports.
Jerusalem “demands that the mediators work to achieve this,” the PMO added, referring to Qatar and Egypt, who helped negotiate the deal.
A security source told Israel’s Ynet outlet that the political echelon gave the order to halt the 110 prisoners’ release minutes after they had already left Ofer Prison near Ramallah, forcing the bus convoy to turn around.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism Party) hailed Netanyahu’s decision, calling on the premier to “prevent the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons at least until guarantees are received that the harsh and humiliating images from Gaza and the abuse of our hostages right before their return doesn’t happen again.”
Earlier, Netanyahu’s office said that Israel had appealed to Doha and Qatar following the “horrific scenes” of Yehud and Mozes being publicly taunted by their captors and a mob of thousands of Palestinians as they were transferred to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“This is further proof of the unimaginable cruelty of the Hamas terrorist organization,” Netanyahu’s office stated, demanding that Doha and Cairo work to “guarantee the safety of our hostages.”
Among the terrorists who had been scheduled to be released on Thursday were Zakaria Zubeidi, Mohammad Abu Warda and Sami Jaradat, according to Israel’s Channel 12 News broadcaster.
Zubeidi led Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the Samaria city of Jenin and briefly escaped from Israel’s high-security Gilboa Prison in 2021.
Since Zubeidi was not convicted of murder but of other terror offenses, he will not be deported and is expected to be released back to Samaria.
Abu Warda and Jaradat were responsible for terrorist attacks that combined killed 66 Israelis in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Both are scheduled to be deported and banned from returning to Israeli territory.
Image: Courtesy JNS Article
(JNS)
Some of the seven hostages released from Gaza during the current ceasefire had been held in Hamas tunnels for eight consecutive months, deprived of daylight and human contact, an Israeli medical official revealed on Monday.
“Some of them told us that they’ve been in the past few months, that they’ve been through the entire time, in tunnels, underground,” Reuters quoted Col. Dr. Avi Banov, deputy commander of the IDF Medical Corps, as saying.
“Some of them were alone through the entire time they were there,” he continued. “Those who said they were together were in better shape.”
The Israeli military oversees the initial health assessments of the released hostages.
Banov added that the hostages reported an improvement in their treatment in the final days before their release, when they were allowed to bathe and change clothes, and were provided with better food.
Some hostages had not received adequate care for wounds sustained during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and a few showed signs of “mild starvation,” Banov noted.
The three civilian women released on the first day of the ceasefire, Jan. 19, were discharged from Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan on Sunday, while the four female soldiers freed in the second batch on Jan. 25 are still receiving care at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah.
Beilinson reported that the released hostages’ health is improving, with noticeable progress in nutritional and other indicators, though medical tests are ongoing.
Three hostages are to be released on Thursday—civilian Arbel Yehud, IDF soldier Agam Berger and an unidentified man. Three more abductees are to be freed on Saturday.
Eight of the 33 hostages intended for release during the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal are dead, according to a list provided by Hamas.
Eighty-seven of the 251 captives taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack remain in Gaza. This includes the remains of at least 34 hostages, confirmed dead by the Israel Defense Forces. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier killed in 2014. Another soldier’s remains were recovered earlier this month.
Image: Former Hamas hostage Emily Damari, 28, is seen after her release at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan on Jan. 19, 2024. Photo by Maayan Toaf/GPO.
(JNS)
At 7 a.m. on Monday, Israel allowed Palestinians to begin passing into the northern part of the Gaza Strip after the Israel Defense Forces left the Netzarim Corridor dividing the Strip.
In accordance with the terms of the ceasefire deal, Gazans were allowed to pass through the corridor by foot without undergoing security checks.
Vehicles were also allowed to return northward starting at 9 a.m., subject to inspection by an international consortium of security companies.
Hamas hailed the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza as “a victory for our people and a declaration of the failure and defeat of the occupation [i.e. Israel] and its displacement plans.”
Israel’s Channel 12 News aired pictures that purportedly showed armed Hamas gunmen moving alongside the noncombatant population, in an apparent breach of the ceasefire terms.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu briefly held up the return of Gazans to the northern Strip, with his office saying on Saturday that a breach of the ceasefire-for-hostages agreement occurred when Hamas failed to free a female civilian captive, Arbel Yehud.
Under the terms of the deal, Hamas was to have freed female civilians before female soldiers. Instead, the Palestinian terrorist group released four female soldiers on Saturday: Karina Ariev, 20; Daniella Gilboa, 20; Naama Levy, 20; and Liri Albag, 19.
Yehud, who was taken hostage, together with her boyfriend from Kibbutz Nir Oz, on Oct. 7, 2023, is reportedly being held by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. PIJ has falsely classified Yehud as an IDF soldier, according to reports.
A compromise was reached on Sunday night. Hamas agreed to free Yehud later this week, along with IDF soldier Agam Berger and an unidentified male captive.
Image: Palestinians return to the northern Gaza Strip, as seen in Gaza City on Jan. 27, 2025. Photo by Khalil Kahlout/Flash90.
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