Emotional Reunion: Sagi Dekel-Hen meets his wife, Avital, and his parents, Naomit and Yonatan, for the first time since his release.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Emotional Reunions ... Sagi Dekel-Hen and Yair Horn
The PA Continues To Pay Terrorists
The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday that Palestinian Authority’s cabinet minister and veteran terrorist Ahmad Majdalani will head the new Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment, which PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has announced will be in charge of all social welfare payments, including those to terrorists and their families.
Some media reports have claimed that terrorists will now receive payments only if they are in financial need, not according to the longstanding criteria of the length of their prison sentences (meaning, how many Jews they killed).
This is an obvious and outrageous ruse. Majdalani, the Palestinian Authority, and the terrorists will all be able to simply claim that because these terrorists are in jail, their families are in need.
The families of dead terrorists will say they are in need since their breadwinners are no longer alive. Of course, these terrorists are no longer alive because they either blew themselves up or were killed while attempting to commit murder.
Indeed, the fact that the new agency will be run by a veteran terrorist ensures that it will promote the needs of terrorists. The fox will be guarding the hen house.
US Supports IDF’s Continued Presence in South Lebanon as Long as Hezbollah Remains
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, on Thursday, rejected Israel’s decision to maintain an IDF presence in five locations in south Lebanon after next week’s deadline set by the ceasefire agreement.
Berry said the United States, the key mediator of the ceasefire, “informed me that the Israeli occupation will withdraw from villages it still occupies on February 18, but it will remain in five points.” He added: “I informed them in my name and on behalf of President General Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Judge Nawaf Salam of our absolute rejection of this proposal.”
However, a Trump administration official told Al Arabiya on Thursday that the presence of Israeli troops at five locations in Lebanon would depend on the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) along the southern border.
“Israeli presence in the five points directly bears on whether the Government of Lebanon ultimately does what it has promised to do, and unlike the Biden administration we will not be grading on a curve,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to the same official, the first test of newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s leadership will be whether the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which he previously led before becoming president, enforces the ceasefire agreement Lebanon signed in November 2024 and counters Hezbollah’s efforts to reassert itself.
The official also suggested that Aoun has a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to lead Lebanon away from the influence of Hezbollah and Iran, a challenge for which he has a mandate from the people.
Speaker Berri met with US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson and US Major General Jasper Jeffers, who co-chairs a five-party committee, which includes the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel, and UN peacekeepers, tasked with identifying and addressing ceasefire violations.
“I refused to discuss any extension to the deadline for Israel’s withdrawal,” Berri said. “It is the responsibility of the Americans to enforce the withdrawal, otherwise they will have caused the greatest setback for the government.”
The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire has been in effect since November 27, following more than a year of hostilities, including two months of a full-scale war.
As part of the agreement, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as the IDF withdrew at the end of a 60-day period, which was later extended until February 18.
Hezbollah was also to vacate its positions in the south, near the Israeli border, during this time, and move north to the other side of the Litani River, some 28 kilometers from Israel’s border. It hasn’t. Instead, Israel has been forced to violate the ceasefire frequently to attack Hezbollah combatants in the forbidden zone, as well as bomb from the air Hezbollah warehouses with recently-transported weapons and ammunition, care of the Iranian government.
‘Hundreds of miles’ of Hamas tunnels remain in Gaza — and it could take years to eliminate them: Israel consul general
The Gaza strip is still home to “hundreds of miles” of Hamas terror tunnels — and it could take years to eliminate them and vanquish the terrorist organization, Israel’s consul-general revealed to The Post.
“It will take time,” Ofir Akunis said during a sitdown this week. “We can stop [the war] after Hamas is not there — maybe it will take another year or two years.”
“It took six years, six years for the Western world, to defeat Germany,’ Akunis noted.
Despite 15 months of intense bombing before a ceasefire negotiated by President Trump last month, Hamas staged a military parade to mark the temporary cessation of hostilities and has moved to swiftly reassert control over Gaza in recent weeks.
On Saturday the terror group released three more Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails — extending the fragile ceasefire.
Should hostilities resume, the war would “look different” than the last 15 months of fighting, Akunis said, declining to elaborate.
Akunis steadfastly refused to attack President Biden by name but he could not resist a smile when asked to compare the two American leaders’ approaches to the powder-keg region.
“I think that now there is a new attitude in the American administration,” he said.
Both Israel’s invasion of Rafah and control of the Philadelphi Corridor dividing Gaza and Egypt were vociferously opposed by the Biden administration. This time around he had “no doubt” about total American support for whatever was necessary to root out the terrorist threat, he said.
“I don’t think that anyone will say to the Israeli government not to, let’s say, act in Rafah as an example or about the Philadelphi Corridor.”
Many Democrats and Arab nations in the region continue to hold out hope for a two-state solution, President Trump has largely dashed that hope with a new proposal that would allow the United States to take over Gaza and the Palestinian population there to be relocated.
Akunis called it “the first new idea” in the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot agreement — a secret 1916 treaty between the United Kingdom and France which divided the Middle East between them after World War I.
“All of the international community must be open to new ideas,” he added, making clear a two-state solution is no longer viable.
“This is our land,” he said — adding that the West Bank, which Israel calls Judea and Samaria, was part of Israel. Conservative members of Israel’s governing coalition have long vowed to annex the territory which was once earmarked to be part of a Palestinian state.
“Gaza was a Palestinian state,” Akunis thundered, “Do you think that the Israelis should accept the idea of the same terror state in Judea and Samaria and in the Gaza Strip again? The answer is no.”
Though population transfers were often employed to resolve 20th-century conflicts — like between India and Pakistan in 1947, and Greece and Turkey in 1923 — critics have insisted moving Palestinians would be “ethnic cleansing,” something Akunis dismissed out of hand.
“When we asked the Jews to leave the Gaza Strip 20 years ago, what was that?” Akunis said. “It’s not a matter of Jews or Muslims. This is part of a solution.”
Akunis also had sharp words for Qatar — a longtime backer of Hamas, who harbors their leaders and whose Al-Jazeera news network regularly pumps the region with radical Islamic propaganda.
“Qatar has been playing both sides for many years. On one hand, it supports and funds Hamas and its allies in Gaza and around the world, while on the other hand, it hosts negotiations. This double game must end,” the consul said.
“Instead of building tunnels underground in Gaza, it should be building towers and new homes above ground in the Gaza Strip. Also, the support for the violent protests of Hamas supporters on American campuses must be stopped.”
Judge denies reinstatement of inspectors general fired by Trump and rips lawyers
A federal judge denied the immediate reinstatement of eight inspectors general who were fired by President Donald Trump last month, opting for a slower time frame to consider the case.
The inspectors general argued that Trump firing them violated the law because he did not do so without justification or a 30-day notice to Congress and that they should be reinstated. The plaintiffs had petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for a temporary restraining order and to reinstate them immediately as the case proceeded.
Judge Ana Reyes, who was appointed to the federal court by former President Joe Biden, denied the requested restraining order and admonished the plaintiffs during the short hearing Friday, according to the New York Times.
Reyes reportedly raised her voice, cut off one of the lawyers representing the fired inspectors general, and found the plaintiffs' arguments not sufficient for the quick action. She took specific issue with the inspectors general waiting roughly three weeks after they were fired for the emergency relief.
“Why on earth did you not have this figured out with the defendants,” Reyes asked during the hearing, per the outlet, “before coming here and burdening me and burdening my staff on this issue?”
“Are we really here right now on the sixth hearing of this day for me to decide whether to grant a [temporary restraining order] given the circumstances that you guys could not even bother filing a [temporary restraining order] for 21 days?” she added.
Reyes allowed the plaintiffs to continue with a request for a preliminary injunction, a less urgent procedure to halt the president's actions, and gave the government until next Friday to respond to the plaintiffs' motion, according to the docket.
Yair, Sagui, and Sasha are back in Israel
Sagui Dekel-Chen (36), Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov (29), and Yair Horn (46), who were held hostage in Gaza for 498 days, arrived in Israel on Saturday.
All three were kidnapped during the October 7 massacre.
Avital, wife of Sagui Dekel-Chen, shared her emotions ahead of the moving meeting with her husband: "My breath came back, I'm very emotional. He's such a cutie. There's an enormous amount of relief that he's in the IDF's hands."
Ruth Horn, mother of Yair, who was released Saturday, and Eitan, who is still captive in Gaza, responded to Yair's release and thanked those who supported the family since the October 7 massacre.
"Thank you very much, send a huge hug to everyone who is there, who have been supporting me since the first day," she said. "Very soon I will see Yair, and like you said - we are all continuing until Eitan is here. A huge hug to everyone and thanks for all the support."
Yair's family said: "We can breathe a bit. Our Yair is home, after he survived hell and horrors in Gaza. Now, we need to bring back Eitan, so that our family will truly be able to breathe. We thank the IDF soldiers and the security forces who sacrifice their lives and bodies, and we send condolences to the bereaved families who lost their most beloved, for all of us."
Friday, February 14, 2025
UAE Ambassador Backs Trump’s Gaza Plan, Calls It "Unavoidable"
"I don't see an alternative to what's being proposed."
Trump wants Reuters to Return the $9 million they Took from USAID
Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for “large scale social deception”.
Hamas hiring protesters on Craigslist—offering up to $1,000
Hamas supporters are so desperate they’re literally hiring protesters on Craigslist—offering up to $1,000 to prop up their terror-loving tantrums.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 13, 2025
Imagine needing a paycheck to cheer for rapists, kidnappers, and murderers. pic.twitter.com/VRVvNOnvP4
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