Fatal Mortar Shell Attack in Eshkol Region At Least 4 People Killed And 10 Injured

The wounded have arrived in the trauma center of Soroka Medical Center in Beersheva a short time ago. Some are listed in serious condition. At least four people have been killed in the mortar shell attack in the Eshkol Regional Council shortly after 6 PM on Monday, Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av.

The information cleared for publication is limited. At least ten people have been injured in the mortar shell attack. Four people have been killed. Chaim Yellin, the head of the Eshkol Regional Council has confirms that none of the dead or injured are residents of that regional council.

Sirens are continuing to wail at this time in the Beersheva and Eshkol Council districts. IAF fighter planes are seen overhead heading back to Gaza.

UPDATE: Israel Police had tens of traffic units blocking area roads to clear a path for ambulances transporting wounded from the mortar attack earlier. While four attack victims were transported by chopper, five were transported in ambulances.
Area roads are closed at this time to anyone without authorization. In essence, the area is a closed military zone. Police instruct well-intending residents not to bring anything to soldiers in the Gaza area at this time as roads remain closed due to the difficult security situation.

Additional information will be provided as it becomes available.

Hackers break into Hamas web-sites, post pro-Israel video

Popular Hamas-affiliated web sites were simultaneously hacked, presumably by Israel, on Sunday.

Visitors who logged on to the web pages expecting to see the usual pro-Hamas content were instead treated to a video showing a split-screen of images from both Gaza and Israel.

On one side of the video, one sees “Ramadan in Gaza,” replete with images of destruction and devastation in the Gaza Strip after three weeks of fighting with Israel. The other side of the split-screen is titled “Ramadan in Israel,” where people are seen leisurely enjoying Ramadan meals.

Among the Palestinian sites that were hacked were paltoday.ps, alresalah.ps, and safa.ps.

Egyptian army destroyed 1,639 Gaza tunnels

Egyptian Army personnel supervise the destruction of tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip at the border, near the town of Rafah, northern Sinai, Egypt,  (photo credit: AP/AP Television)


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Eggypt’s army said Sunday it has destroyed 13 more tunnels connecting the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip, taking to 1,639 the overall number it has laid waste to

Cairo has poured troops into the peninsula to counter a rising insurgency since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year, and its security operation involves the destruction of these tunnels.

The Palestinian terror group Hamas, which rules Gaza, reportedly uses the tunnels to smuggle arms, food and money into the blockaded coastal enclave.

Israel has been waging a military offensive in Gaza since July 8 to halt rocket fire, and it launched a ground operation on July 17 aimed at destroying the network of tunnels that infiltrate into Israel.

Ties between Hamas and Cairo have deteriorated since the Egyptian army deposed Morsi on July 3, 2013. Hamas is an affiliate of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Cairo also accuses of Hamas of being involved in militant attacks inside Egypt, which have multiplied since Morsi was toppled.

Militant groups say their attacks are in retaliation for a police crackdown on Morsi’s supporters which has seen more than 1,400 people killed in street clashes.

Palestinians angry at Kerry

Palestinian officials criticized Kerry for failing to invite representatives of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to last weekend’s meeting in Paris to discuss a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian officials in Ramallah on Sunday launched scathing attacks on US Secretary of State John Kerry and accused him of working to “appease” Qatar and Turkey at the expense of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.

The officials also criticized Kerry for failing to invite representatives of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority to last weekend’s meeting in Paris to discuss a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

Protesting against the participation of Qatar and Turkey in the Paris parley, senior Palestinian officials warned against attempts to “bypass the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”

Walid Assaf, a former PA minister, pointed out that “this was the first meeting to discuss a Palestinian issue without Palestinian participation.”

Qatar has become the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, Assaf said with a tone of sarcasm. “This was the conference of the friends of Israel.”

PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction said in a statement: “Those who want Qatar or Turkey to represent them should leave and go live there.” The statement is directed against Hamas.

The London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper quoted an unnamed Palestinian official as saying that Kerry was trying to sabotage the Egyptian cease-fire proposal by offering his own plan.

The official said that Kerry’s intention was to “appease” Qatar and Turkey.

The official also accused Kerry of working to “exploit the war in order to restore the influence of Muslim Brotherhood in the region.”

According to the Palestinian official, the Americans “wrongly believe that moderate political Islam, represented by Muslim Brotherhood, would be able to combat radical Islam.”

The official said that Abbas was furious with attempts to “tamper with Palestinian blood and make it hostage to regional rivalries.”

Zahira Kamal, secretary-general of the Democratic Union, one of various organizations belonging to the PLO, said that the Paris conference had “non-national goals” because of the absence of Palestinians and Egyptians.

“The PLO is the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinians,” Kamal said. “The PLO is the only decision-maker that reflects the will and interests of the Palestinians.”

Another PLO figure, Ahmed Majdalani of the Front for Popular Struggle, said that the Paris meeting reminded him of meetings sponsored by the US and its allies under the title “Friends of Syria.”

Majdalani said that these meetings have only served to prolong the war and destroy Syria.

Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf was quoted by the PLO’s official news agency Wafa as saying that the Paris gathering was primarily directed against Egypt.

Assaf attacked Kerry’s effort to give Qatar and Turkey a role in solving the current crisis while sidelining Egypt. He also denounced Kerry’s failure to invite Palestinian representatives to the meeting.

Kayed al-Ghul, a senior representative of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that what happened at the Paris conference was “very dangerous and threatens the future of the Palestinian cause, especially following the reconciliation agreement [between Hamas and Fatah].”

Referring to the participation of Qatar and Turkey, al-Ghul said that the Palestinians did not authorize anyone to speak on their behalf at the Paris conference.

Why is John Kerry Trying to Save Hamas?

By Dovid Efune
Hamas is in bad shape.
The terror group’s overseas benefactors are diminishing and rival groups within Gaza are seizing Jihadi market share. The new regime in Egypt is supremely unfriendly and after weeks of relentless targeting, the IDF now has Hamas with its back against the ropes.

All this leaves just about every Israeli wondering why exactly US Secretary of State John Kerry is frantically seeking an “immediate ceasefire” in Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.

The surgery is in full swing and after some 2000 strikes the tumor is half removed. To pull out now would be a ludicrous misjudgement.
Even Israel’s peacenik poster-girl Tzipi Livni was having none of it. “There is no real option for a cease-fire now. This operation is unavoidable,” she asserted on Tuesday morning.

Amazingly, since Hamas rejected last week’s Egyptian ceasefire proposal - which was immediately accepted by Israel - Kerry has been diligently working to secure more favorable terms for the Islamists.
“US officials said they were also looking to see if they could encourage changes in Egypt’s proposal to secure the backing of Hamas, which believes Israel has reneged on previous agreements,” the AFP reported on Tuesday.

Additionally, a bizarrely timed FAA travel ban on Tuesday left Israeli officials fuming, with some speculating that the move was intended to cajole Israel into accepting new, less than favorable, ceasefire terms.

As baffling as this all may be, Kerry was good enough to provide some candid insights into his diplomatic calculus in a rare ‘hot mic’ moment preceding a Sunday interview on Fox News.
“It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry, sounding frustrated, is heard telling an aide.
The aide responds: “It’s escalating significantly and it just underscores the need for a ceasefire,” to which Kerry replies, “We’ve got to get over there. I think we ought to go tonight.”

Obama era foreign policy has an innate aversion to escalations.
It has been withdrawing troops and downsizing the military from its inception. It has downplayed the threat of Al Qaeda, dismissed the terror attack in Benghazi, walked back from its red line in Syria and allowed more flexibility for Putin’s indiscretions.

It is an aggressive ’shove it under the rug’ policy that downplays real threats allowing them to fester, regroup and re-emerge, and it is about as short sighted as a naked mole rat.

But Israel has already seen the inherent risks that come with leaving a job unfinished following its last two Gaza wars, and the public is in no mood to leave Hamas alive to kill another day. Egypt’s al-Sisi has had a similar experience with the Muslim Brotherhood.

But here is the good news. Nobody listens to America nowadays anyway.
The author is the Editor-in-Chief of The Algemeiner and director of the GJCF and can be e-mailed at defune@gjcf.com.
This article was originally published by The Jewish Chronicle.

Satmar says that G-D Sent Message to Car Accident Victim Brenda!

Brenda making fun of Satmar

So if G-D sent a message to Brenda, 
what message did G-D send to Satmar when Menachem Stark was murdered?

From New York Post

God must not have “liked” what she was posting.
Ex-Satmar  Brenda Turtle has been getting a rise out of the Orthodox community for nearly two years by posting racy photos of herself on Facebook and Twitter.

So when Turtle, 23, whose real name is Brenda Rosenberg, was injured in a car accident on the Belle Harbor side of the Marine Parkway Bridge last week, some in the Satmar community said it was divine intervention.
“This is a message from heaven for her to stop making perverse acts,” the Hebrew-language news site Kikar Hashabat quoted one unnamed “learned scholar” as saying.
“We believe there was the hand of God,” reads World of the Orthodox blog. “No wonder she was punished.”
“Are you finally going to listen to that [voice from heaven] and get back on the good side of Hashem?” asked Twitter user @YankyChiller, using the Hebrew word for God.

Some of Turtle’s photos show the saucy Satmar stunner draped in nothing but a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl. Others show her bare leg wrapped in tefillin, the leather straps and boxes used by devout Jews to keep the literal word of God.

Other images show the tattooed Brooklyn bombshell with a lit cigarette dangling from her fingers, sipping on a brew while wearing nothing but a ­bikini — a no-no in the ­Orthodox world, where women are expected to dress with utmost modesty.
“I don’t need permission, make my own decisions, that’s my prerogative!” a posting on Turtle’s Twitter account @Willitzideikis declared on July 11.

Among the dizzying array of Turtle’s scantily garbed selfies are gender-bending snaps of her dressed as a man in a traditional fur hat. There are also dance videos, including one of her appearing to twerk — a far cry from the traditional hora circle dance.
“I don’t do anything illegal or crazy. It’s just that I was [observant] and now I’m not, so whatever I do . . . is considered bad. singing on a video is legal . . . posting bikini pictures is legal. Kissing a guy is legal. Smoking a cigarette is legal,” reads an Oct. 14 Facebook post. “Sex is normal to discuss, doesn’t mean I f–k ­every guy on planet . . . chill out people and let live.”

The brassy Brooklynite has built a legion of fans, whose numbers on Facebook have swelled to nearly 5,000 and on Twitter to nearly 1,500.
“She’s become like a ­celebrity,” said one source in the Orthodox community. “No rabbi has a fan base of daily followers like her!”

But her critics believe she is causing thousands of ­Orthodox Jews to sin by lusting over her photos.
“They say God acted as the bible says, ‘measure for measure’ — that’s why her car accident is a good thing, they are celebrating,” ­explained the source.

He said he’s disgusted by the “hypocrisy” of her critics, who use “fake names” to view her posts on Facebook — which is forbidden by the ultra-Orthodox, who shun aspects of modern life.
Turtle is recovering from her injuries, which are not life-threatening, police sourc­es said. She did not respond to questions.
“She believes in God and is a good person,” said a friend.
“She likes to entertain people, this is her passion. Sometimes she overdoes it.”

Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, ordered Charedim not to attend the Home Front Command's war education sessions held specifically for Charedim in Charedi neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

As the IDF battles Hamas terrorists in Gaza, the ultra-Orthodox battle against drafting yeshiva students is continuing in full force. The Frum world is becoming crazier and crazier!

R' shmuel Auerbach 

R' Auerbach's Charedi Hapeles newspaper is leading the struggle and has called on residents not to turn up for the Home Front Command's guidance sessions in the Jerusalem's Charedi neighborhoods, claiming that the IDF is trying to show the Charedim that some of them do serve in the army and thereby reduce the opposition to the IDF draft law. 

The Home Front command has been sending haredi soldiers, who have been called "Chardakim" (a derogatory term meaning frivolous Charedim) on the ultra-Orthodox street, to instruct the haredi population on how to defend itself against rockets fired from Gaza. But the leaders of the struggle against the draft law are asking residents not to cooperate with them.



The unusual call was issued when Charedi soldiers began showing up at local schools and synagogues to instruct the residents. They have even been offering separate guidance sessions for men and women for modesty reasons.



In the call, published by Charedi daily Hapeles, the public was urged not to cooperate with the Home Front Command soldiers, as the instructions have already been published in the Charedi press and there is no need for further guidance by the soldiers.


Prominent Lithuanian Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach was quoted as saying that he feared young haredi men would be tempted to join the IDF.



According to the leaders of the battle, the IDF is trying to show the young members of the sector that there are haredim who serve in the army and make them enlist too.


"They won't bring a secular soldier, because the entire purpose of the gathering is to show that things are not so bad and that there are haredim who have become soldiers and now have the honor of lecturing in front of yeshiva students," the newspaper claimed.

Meanwhile, the Maayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak has been subject to internal criticism in the haredi society after yeshiva students began volunteering to help the medical staff.


Rabbi Auerbach's students complained that the young men's emergency activity would cause them to neglect their yeshiva studies. Hospital officials said in response that they had consulted rabbis who ruled that the yeshiva students could be asked to volunteer as a life-saving mitzvah. 

Israeli Officials 'Horrified' at Kerry Ceasefire Proposal, 'Complete Cave-In' to Hamas

The ferocity of Friday’s unanimous rejection by the Israeli government of Secretary of State John Kerry’s cease was kept quiet to prevent a formal rupture of relations between the two erstwhile allies, reports Israel’s Channel 2 Television.

The popular and widely-watched Saturday evening newscast quotes several unnamed high officials in the Israeli government who claimed that Kerry’s cease fire proposal represented a “complete cave-in” to Hamas’s demands for an end to fighting in its war against Israel.

The official, and others cited in The Times of Israel, claimed that Israel was “stunned” and “absolutely horrified” that Kerry’s ceasefire proposal, which contained no demand that Hamas dismantle or destroy its terror tunnel network. It demanded that both Israel and Egypt open their border crossings with Gaza, from where all the devastating weapons of war were initially imported. Furthermore, the Kerry plan did not simply call for Hamas to be allowed to build a seaport on its Mediterranean coast; but that Israel and Egypt should help pay for it.

Fearing an open breach in US-Israel relations, Channel 2 reported that Israel’s outraged ministers decided to leak the terms of the Kerry proposal rather than formally respond to them. Israeli officials were enraged not just about the totally unexpected terms contained in the Kerry proposal but deeply offended by what they thought were the underhanded tactics he used to push it.

Kerry flew to Paris and held talks Saturday without representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority or Egypt. The talks instead occurred with Qatar and Turkey, which Israel’s Communications Minister Gilad Erdan said showed “we’re a long way from a political solution.”

It wasn’t just Israel that found itself outraged that Kerry was working secretly with Turkey, a country whose president twice this week called Israel a “terrorist state” whose crimes are worse than Hitler’s and Qatar, the only Arab state that openly allies itself with the genocidal terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the murder of all Jews in it.

Egypt too, according to these Israeli sources, was opposed to Kerry’s position.

Kerry claimed Friday that his ceasefire proposal was not pro-Hamas, but was in fact constructed on top of the Egyptian proposal he submitted last Tuesday. Israel hotly disputes this. They claim Kerry’s latest missive breaks entirely from the Egyptian proposal, which called for an immediate ceasefire after which negotiations would commence, whereas Kerry’s document accepts Hamas’s demands for concessions prior to accepting a cease fire.

Israel’s multi-party security cabinet was so taken aback by the pro-Hamas scope of the Kerry proposal, they initially refused to believe they were real. “It must be a misunderstanding,” the source told Channel 2. Israel’s security cabinet was in fact meeting at this writing late Saturday night in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, inside Israel, pressure is building not to cease operations, but to complete them. Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told Israel radio that the IDF needed to be given more time to insure it could prevent Hamas from waging a “fourth war” against Israel. 

HAMAS WAS PLANNING TO USE TERROR TUNNELS FOR MASS SLAUGHTER ON tHIS COMING ROSH HASHANAH 5775

Terrorists planned a major slaughter of Jews on Rosh Hashanah R”L. Siyata Dishmaya choreographing the chain of events has prevented this from occurring.

Thousands of Hamas-linked terrorists planned to invade Israel on the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), which begins on September 24, according to an Israel security source.

First reported by Ma'ariv, then in English by i24news, “thousands of terrorists were meant to cross over to Israel from Gaza through the tunnels and kill and kidnap as many Israelis as they could. The source added that the army learned about the huge planned attack during the interrogations of Hamas prisoners, captured during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.”

Reports state that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed his cabinet about the foiled plot during a Thursday cabinet meeting. The leader of the Jewish State reportedly expressed to officials that if this attack was not stopped, the number of Israeli fatalities may have been higher than the over 2,200 deaths Israel suffered during 1973 Yom Kippur War.

During Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have set their sights on destroying Hamas’ sophisticated tunnel system. In the past, the U.S.-designated terror group has successfully infiltrated the Jewish State, resulting in the killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. 

The last occurrence was on July 19 when two IDF soldiers lost their lives and the assailants were able to escape back to Gaza through a tunnel. Gen. James T. Conway, USMC (ret.) recently returned from Israel, where he was joined by a dozen retired U.S. generals and admirals, sponsored by Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). While there, the group toured a tunnel from Gaza recently discovered near an Israeli kindergarten.

“Unlike tunnels that I had seen during the Iraq war that were designed for smuggling, this Hamas tunnel was designed for launching murder and kidnapping raids. The 3-mile-long tunnel was reinforced with concrete, lined with telephone wires, and included cabins unnecessary for infiltration operations but useful for holding hostages,” the retired General wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Israel has reportedly destroyed over 30 tunnels during “Operation Protective Edge.” The Jewish State contends that Hamas, which governs Gaza, devotes resources to building tunnels to commit acts of terrorism, instead of building homes, parks, schools and hospitals.

An article published by the Gatestone Institute quotes an Israeli spokesman’s observation that “there are two Gazas, one above ground and one below ground: an underground terrorist city.”

L.A. TIMES PRINTS FRONT-PAGE DEFENSE OF HAMAS TERROR AGAINST ISRAEL, written by Jews

The Los Angeles Times leads Thursday with a story entitled: "Gaza's dilemma: Deadly war or suffocating Israeli embargo." 

According to the story, Palestinians in Gaza are left with no choice but to wage war, because if they do not fire rockets at Israeli civilians, they must accept an Israeli [sic] "embargo." The article omits the obvious point that if Hamas would stop trying to kill Israelis, neither the embargo nor the war itself would be necessary.

The authors, Alexandra Zavis and Batsheva Sobelman, both Jews, accept that Hamas started the war--and even suggest that most Palestinians in Gaza support it, though there is nothing beyond anecdotal evidence to prove that claim. They also describe Hamas's smuggling tunnels to Egypt--which have been used to import deadly weapons--in positive terms, lamenting their supposed closure: "Residents are left to struggle just to get by."

Nowhere--not once--in the entire article do Zavis or Sobelman note the terror tunnels that Hamas has spent the past several years building to attack Israel, diverting humanitarian aid and building materials for that purpose. Nowhere do they mention the fact that Hamas is using Palestinians as human shields, or that Israel has offered many ceasefires, or that the rockets fired from Gaza are intended to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible.

The article presents "war" or "embargo" as a false choice for Palestinians, utterly ignoring the fact that Gazans could choose peace instead of either of those options. The Jewish authors faithfully report the skepticism of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal towards a ceasefire, as if he is a reliable source and his reservations are justified. 

In sum, the article is nothing short of pro-terror propaganda, in other words, presented to readers as front-page news.

Image: Newseum