Israeli aircraft struck terrorists operating from United Nations schools in the area of Gaza City on Thursday, the Israel Defence Forces said.
Hamas squads were using the “Alqahirah School” and the “Musa School” in Gaza City’s Al-Furqan and Daraj Tuffah neighbourhoods, respectively. The army said Hamas operatives used the schools to plan, direct and carry out numerous attacks against troops.
Both schools are run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees.
“The Hamas terrorist organization systematically violated international law, exploiting civilian structures and populations as human shields for its terror attacks against the State of Israel,” the army said.
The IDF added that it conducted aerial surveillance ahead of the strike and used precise munitions to mitigate the risk to uninvolved civilians.
UNRWA has been under fire for months, with Israeli officials demanding the agency be stripped of its authority in Gaza and defunded amid revelations that members of the agency’s staff participated in Hamas’s October 7 attacks. The Israeli government is bypassing UNRWA in distributing humanitarian aid.
On May 30, the Knesset approved the first reading of legislation authorizing the Foreign Ministry to designate UNRWA as a terror organization and strip it of its diplomatic immunity, tax-exempt status, and other legal benefits. On the same day, the Israel Lands Authority ordered UNRWA to vacate its Jerusalem offices over violations of its lease.
Israel’s largest bank froze UNRWA’s account in February over suspicious financial transfers that the agency failed to adequately explain. That same month, Israeli forces discovered a Hamas complex located directly under the UNRWA’s Gaza City headquarters and connected directly to the agency’s electricity system. The facility included numerous computer servers belonging to the terror group.
Palestinian refugees are the only refugee population with its own dedicated UN agency. The rest of the world’s refugees fall under the mandate of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Israeli officials have called for UNRWA to be closed and for Palestinian refugees to be brought under the responsibility of the UNHCR.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 116 remaining hostages, more than 30 are believed dead.
The Biden administration has held up transfers of seven weapon systems to the Jewish state, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Shannon Bream on the program Fox News Sunday.
“This is what is most disturbing to me—is that we’re withholding weapon systems that I have signed off on and Congress has appropriated with the intent of sending those weapons to Israel,” McCaul said. “Remember the supplemental? They were effectively withholding seven weapon systems.”
“I can’t get into the details,” the congressman said. “That is not helping Israel.”
Bream noted that Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said that the United States would have difficulty defending the Jewish state against a Hezbollah attack.
“I respect him, Gen. Brown. I know him, but the fact is we’re not helping them,” McCaul said of Israel.
Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation, wrote that the Biden administration was holding up the seven arms shipments as Iran reportedly is sending weapons to Hezbollah.
David Milstein, a former adviser to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to release a video stating that it was “inconceivable” that the Biden administration was withholding weapons from Israel.
“Those who criticized him were wrong,” Milstein wrote.
White House aides pointed to U.S. President Joe Biden’s ability to go toe-to-toe with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as evidence of the president’s mental acuity in a New York Times feature questioning the president’s fitness for office, a topic that has taken center stage since the June 27 debate.
Although the Times presented numerous instances of the president’s recent “disorientation,” including his confusion at points during a D-Day anniversary ceremony in France and forgetting the name of his homeland security secretary, Biden’s staff insisted he was still sharp.
However, the only detailed example provided (indeed, the Times presented it twice in the same article) was Biden’s behind-the-scenes handling of Netanyahu following Iran’s April 13 cruise and ballistic missile attack on Israel. Biden warned the Israeli prime minister not to launch a large-scale counterstrike.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East. ‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks. ‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
The Times repeated the very same example later on in the report.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the report said again.
“Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’ Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the paper reiterated.
Israel limited its retaliatory action to launching a missile at an airbase near Isfahan (though it never formally took credit for that strike).
Netanyahu’s reported concerns that failing to strike back hard would lead to future Iranian aggression appear to have been validated by recent Iranian statements.
On Monday, a senior Iranian general said the Islamic Republic was prepared to launch another attack on the Jewish state, similar to the one in April.
“We await an opportunity for ‘True Promise II’ … in which I do not know how many missiles will be fired,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace force commander Brig.-Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said.
Iran’s next attack “will lead to a complete victory for the Palestinian people,” he added.
Incredibly, some individuals and groups still believe that the Arab/Islamic campaign of terror against Israel and Jews only dates from 1967.
That explains how and why the false narratives of “occupation of Palestine,” “illegal settlements” and “colonialist apartheid” have become the default mantras of the mindless mobs and political pundits.
A serious failure on the part of Israeli advocates to demolish these historical lies has resulted in the untruths becoming embedded and becoming part and parcel of the demonization of not only Israel but also Jews.
The terror tidal wave long predates the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in 1948. It is this incontrovertible fact which should have been hammered home at every possible opportunity.
Currently, I am reading a book that details the first-hand account of those who experienced the tumultuous years following the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate of Palestine. It outlines in explicit and horrifying detail the daily massacres of Jews by Arab terrorist gangs.
This extract from the book’s introduction leaves no doubt whatsoever of the lethal state of affairs that confronted the Jewish chalutzim (pioneers) as they struggled to reclaim the desert and drain the swamps of a barren land.
“Throughout the sparsely settled land of Israel, from Safed to Hebron, the Arab attackers were harassing the mostly defenceless Jewish settlers in a war of ambush and pogroms. The marauders slipped through the hills and hid on the trails, they gathered in cities and marched on murderous rampages. A Jewish car was ambushed on a deserted road; a family was murdered in its home; watchmen were stabbed in the fields. They took food, furniture and money. Often they proved themselves adept at raping or dismembering their victims. The worst pogroms were those of 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936 to 1939. The Arabs called it a holiday, a disturbance and an uprising. To the dead Jews it seemed more like cold blooded murder…..”
Where, you may ask, were the British authorities?
Conspicuously absent or more often than not late in arriving and then engaged in arresting Jews for defending themselves.
Three facts immediately stand out from this period.
The first is that what happened on 7 October in all its gruesome and gory bestiality was no aberration. The horrifying spectacles of the massacres and pogroms, rapes, mutilations and kidnapping, followed a well trodden agenda stretching back in time.
The second is the convulsive reaction of the rest of the world to put the blame for these outrages onto the Israeli victims instead of the perpetrators.
The third fact is the universal knee-jerk condemnation when Israel fights back and dares to make the terrorists and their patrons pay dearly for their dastardly deeds.
Much is made of the “magnanimous” act of support enshrined in the Balfour Declaration by its acknowledgement of the inalienable right of the Jews to regain sovereignty in their ancient historical homeland. What is deliberately ignored these days is the avowed intention of the Arab leadership in rejecting each and every claim that Jews had any rights at all.
The perfidious British wasted little time in subverting Lord Balfour’s intent and in 1921 hacked off the territory east of the river Jordan in order to reward the Hashemite tribe with an artificially created country. Notwithstanding the San Remo agreement and the League of Nations decision to have this territory mandated for Jewish settlement the British simply ignored all legal decisions.
When Chaim Weizmann and the Jewish leadership extended hands of friendship and co-operation to King Abdullah of Transjordan the latter was assassinated by Arab terrorists.
Subsequent actions by the British Mandate authorities revealed their true malign intentions towards Jewish aspirations. Restricting immigration, slamming shut the gates against desperate Jews fleeing Europe and denying Jews the means to defend themselves all marked increasingly hostile and antisemitic policies.
A complete cone of silence and a reluctance to “rock the politically correct boat” has meant that all these inconvenient facts are swept under the carpet today.
Backstabbing by erstwhile “friends” in the face of continuing terror is the hallmark of current realities. The leader of the UK Liberal Democrat Party in a recent interview asserted that Israel had the “right to defend itself” but then added that if his party had any influence after the elections it would ban the sale of any weapons to the Jewish State.
This piece of British hypocrisy was followed by a UK Jewish Labour MP declaring that once in power his party would enact an embargo of weapons.
Despite protestations of solidarity, it is obvious that age-old double standards are alive and well in the corridors of power at the British Foreign Office and Downing Street. Listening to the pious pontifications emanating forth one could be fooled into believing that the mandate had never ended.
I listened in vain for a denunciation of these expressions of “friendship.” In the absence of any meaningful rebuttal the lies multiply unchallenged.
This is proven by a recent survey conducted in the United Kingdom. It showed that a majority of those aged 18 to 24 do not believe that Israel should exist. Without a doubt this result can be replicated in many other countries where social media and biased media reporting combined with political double standards is the norm.
France stands poised to possibly give a majority to the most right-wing Party since the shameful days of Vichy. Ironically it is precisely this group of politicians who have become the most fervent supporters of Israel. Thanks to an upsurge of Islamic violence, voters are flocking to those who promise to deal with this. The far-left alliance, which seems to be the only alternative, are rabidly anti-Israel and sympathetic to terror groups. Thus, French Jews face a serious dilemma. Do they support a once semi fascist party now ostensibly purged or do they vote for a collection of leftist parties which will not seriously confront Islamic threats against Israel and Jews and are in fact obsessively anti Zionist?
This situation is not unique to France. The Rabbi of a major Paris Synagogue has already voiced his opinion that there is no future for French Jews. The same can be said for many other countries as well. Some have already purchased a “bolt hole” property in Israel just in case. Far too many others prefer to pretend that it will blow over.
Leaving it too late has always been a hallmark of Jewish life in the Diaspora, very often with fatal results.
Meanwhile, those politicians in the USA and elsewhere who dream of a “reformed” Palestinian Authority should have taken note of the latest manifestations of malodorous messages issuing forth from Ramallah.
In addition to the PA joining South Africa in its war of delegitimization at the ICJ it has again reiterated its demand of a return of all “refugees” to Israel and compensation. In case that message was not clear enough, PMW reported that a senior Fatah official proclaimed “the blood spilled in the Gaza war is fuel for our return to Acre, Jaffa and Haifa; occupation is transient.”
That’s it in a nutshell. Their agenda today has not changed one iota since the days of the Mandate. In other words Jews must be ethnically cleansed from the river to the sea.
The al-Quds Brigades, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s militant wing, is escalating their psychological warfare concerning the Israeli hostages that they have been holding since October 7th.
The terror organization claimed in a statement that several Israeli hostages attempted to commit suicide due to their frustration with the neglect of their matter by the Israeli government and the change in attitude towards them by the operatives who guard them.
The organization noted that the conditions of the Israeli hostages have been made worse in response to the supposed killing of civilians in Nuseirat by the IDF (during the hostage rescue operation), the “torture” of security prisoners in Israel, and the worsening of their conditions.
According to the al-Quds Brigades, the treatment of the Israeli hostages is directly affected by the treatment of the security prisoners and it will continue to get worse as long as the Israeli government continues its current policies.
At the same time, the al-Quds Brigades published a message of condolences to Hezbollah on the death of Muhammad Neamah Naser, the commander of the organization’s Aziz unit.
In the message, the organization noted that the al-Quds Brigades appreciate and are proud of the assistance he gave to the organization, and his elimination will strengthen the determination to continue on the path of Jihad and sacrifice.
Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, known as “Abu Saheeb,” a senior Hamas official and commander of the Gaza Brigade, held a secret meeting with his battalion commanders on October 6, hours before the surprise attack on Israel. He personally handed them a printed page bearing the logo of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
“With faith in crushing victory, the leadership of the brigades has approved the start of the major military operation ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’,” Abu Saheeb declared at the top of the page. “Place your faith and trust in Allah, rely on Him and fight bravely, act with a clear conscience, and let the cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ be the crowning glory.”
The document, captured by the IDF during the ground operation in Gaza and revealed here for the first time in a joint article by Israel Hayom and the German newspaper Bild, outlines the preparations required for the incursion into Israel: “Ensure that no operative leaves the assembly point; ensure that there is no use of mobile phones under any circumstances; conduct battalion meetings underground; forces will receive an explanation (only) in the last two hours.”
The October 7 massacre was not only explicitly directed at Israeli civilians but was deliberately carried out by Gazan civilians who were an inherent part of the grand plan Hamas had devised. According to academic researchers in Germany and Israel, parts of this plan are reminiscent of practices used by the Nazis to exterminate European Jews, such as the use of Einsatzgruppen, the SS “operational units” that advanced in the wake of the German army’s invasion of Eastern Europe and participated in the planned and systematic extermination of Jews.
Abu Saheeb emphasizes one of the brigade’s main objectives: “Ensure that there is a live broadcast of the assault and takeover of the outposts and kibbutzim. The brigade’s information (department) has permission to upload the footage (to the internet). You may take flags of Arab and Islamic countries with you to hoist them atop the outposts and kibbutzim.”
The order concludes by summarizing the main goal of the October 7 operation: “Take a large number of soldiers prisoner in the first moments (of the fighting) and send them into the Gaza Strip (emphasis in original). Signed: Your brother, the jihad fighter, Abu Saheeb al-Haddad, commander of the Gaza Brigade.”
While Abu Saheeb’s military order does not explicitly instruct his men to kidnap and murder civilians or commit atrocities such as beheadings and sexual crimes, such horrors occurred on a wide scale during that catastrophic day in all areas of the Gaza border communities. “These acts were not committed by one person or in one place alone,” says a police source, relying on forensic evidence, testimonies, interrogations of terrorists, and hundreds of hours of video footage. “You see these atrocities everywhere during that day.”
Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza and architect of the surprise attack, claimed in communications with his people during the war that “things got out of control.” He stated, “People got carried away, and it shouldn’t have happened.” An official Hamas document from January also claimed that the October 7 attack was aimed only at military sites to capture soldiers and release prisoners in exchange. “The religion of Islam forbids intentional harm to women, children, and the elderly,” it stated. “Hamas, as a disciplined movement, adheres to these rules.”
However, the evidence suggests that Hamas is indeed a disciplined movement. The Gaza Brigade’s operation order is just one component of a complex, extensive, and sophisticated system that Hamas efficiently and cunningly wove in preparation for its murderous attack. Additional documents captured during the maneuver in Gaza – some of which are revealed here for the first time – along with conversations with survivors from the Gaza area kibbutzim, sources involved in interrogating terrorists, and researchers of Palestinian society, give for the first time the full scope of this system and underscores the lengths to which it was an engineered, planned, and precise operation that is very unlikely to have “gotten out of control.”
Moreover, the October 7 massacre was not only explicitly directed at Israeli civilians but was deliberately carried out by Gazan civilians who were an inherent part of the grand plan Hamas had devised. According to academic researchers in Germany and Israel, parts of this plan are reminiscent of practices used by the Nazis to exterminate European Jews, such as the use of Einsatzgruppen, the SS “operational units” that advanced in the wake of the German army’s invasion of Eastern Europe and participated in the planned and systematic extermination of Jews.
“Hamas is not just a terror army, but also an organization that holds a modern ideology for the extermination of Jews,” says Prof. Michael Wolffsohn from the Federal Army University in Munich, one of the world’s leading researchers on the analysis of German-Israeli relations. According to him, students in Europe and the U.S. who express solidarity with Hamas “are actually expressing solidarity with the ‘values’ of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen.”
Chilling efficiency
At two-thirty in the morning, October 8, under the protection of Maglan and Duvdevan elite IDF commandos, Gila Mizrahi emerged from the safe room, having being trapped in it for 20 consecutive hours. During this long time, her beautiful home in Kfar Aza, where she had lived for more than 40 years, became a military outpost for terrorists. “Everything in the house was broken and destroyed,” she recalls this week the moments of leaving the safe room. “But before I left the house, I saw out of the corner of my eye, amid all the chaos, the cookie jars I had left on the kitchen counter. They were intact and empty. My youngest son was supposed to have a birthday that Saturday, and I had prepared the date cookies he loves. The terrorists, who were in our house for hours, apparently enjoyed them very much.”
A few hours earlier, under a barrage of missiles and rockets, dozens of Nukhba terrorists, Hamas’s elite unit, invaded Kfar Aza. They wore olive uniforms, were armed from head to toe, quickly breached the border fence and entered Kfar Aza on pickup trucks. Photojournalist Roi Idan, a resident of the kibbutz, even managed to photograph two terrorists making their way towards him, hanging on paragliders. Idan was murdered along with his wife, Smadar. Their daughter, Avigail, was kidnapped and celebrated her fourth birthday in Gaza. She was released in the first hostage deal.
The Nukhba forces in Kfar Aza were not only well-trained but also equipped with maps, accurate intelligence, and orderly commands. This was also the case with the other Nukhba forces, which simultaneously overtook the military bases in the sector, including the nearby Nahal Oz outpost, which was completely captured.
The Nukhba force that entered Kfar Aza operated with chilling efficiency. Dozens of terrorists, who knew exactly where the armory and the private home of the kibbutz’s security coordinator, Shahar Avian, were located, conducted a brief battle against the local standby squad, which was numerically inferior, and eliminated seven out of its 14 members. From that moment on, they controlled the kibbutz without challenge. They had plenty of time to eat Gila Mizrahi’s date cookies. “Around eight in the morning, we started hearing automatic weapon fire and shouts in Arabic around the house,” says Yossi, Gila’s husband. “The first thing I did was send a message to the security coordinator, Shahar Aviani. Only after that did I realize that at this stage he had already been murdered.”
After hearing the gunshots, Yossi and Gila, both 73 – he’s a landscape architect and she managed Kfar Aza’s “mini-mall” for years – locked themselves in the safe room along with one of their granddaughters and her partner. At one point, the four heard terrorists entering the house and wandering through the different rooms, just beyond the door. “They tried to open the safe room, but fortunately the handle is tricky and you need to know how to operate it,” Yossi recounts. “They didn’t succeed, and one of them asked in a heavy Arabic accent, ‘Is anyone there?’ We, for our part, huddled in the corner and tried to keep quiet.” Yossi even held a kitchen knife in his hand. “Not that it would have helped me with anything, but that’s what I had,” he says.
From inside the safe room, the Mizrahi family could hear Hamas terrorists breaking all the windows in the house and piling up the living room furniture to serve as a military position. The special treatment given to the Mizrahi family’s house, located at the southern end of Kfar Aza, was not accidental: It faces the kibbutz’s perimeter fence, not far from the access road and the entrance gate to the community. The terrorists used this house as an outpost to prevent IDF forces from approaching the kibbutz and recapturing it. Later, a Toyota pickup truck loaded with many weapons would be found on the lawn in the yard. The terrorists apparently failed to bring all the extensive equipment into the fortified house.
The Mizrahi family’s house was not the only one carefully chosen and converted into a military position. At one o’clock in the afternoon of October 7, when a small force led by the Maglan commander finally arrived at Kfar Aza, the settlement’s gate had already become a killing zone controlled by Hamas terrorists, who had positioned machine guns and RPG launchers on the roofs of nearby houses. Along the perimeter fence, numerous explosive devices had been placed in advance. “Our goal was just to kill, not to kidnap,” a captured Nukhba terrorist said in his Shin Bet interrogation. “To kill women and children too.”
According to IDF documents, in the prolonged time at their disposal, the terrorists also managed to boobytrap some of the houses inside the kibbutz, leaving weapons outside to tempt and lure soldiers inside. In some houses, even the windows were booby-trapped, assuming soldiers would try to enter through them. The terrorists even placed grenades without pins under bodies, both of dead terrorists and Israeli casualties. In several cases, terrorists pretended to be dead, to ambush IDF soldiers after they passed them. These methods were also common in other places captured by Hamas that day.
The second wave
The Shin Bet and Military Intelligence Directorate define the Nukhba terrorists, hundreds of whom first stormed the Gaza border communities and bases, as the “first wave” of the attack, the one that paved the way for the waves that followed. Shortly after the first wave attack began, an announcement started to be heard in Gaza’s mosques: From the powerful loudspeakers came the voice of Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, calling on anyone who could take a rifle, even a knife or an axe, to join the raid into Israel.
Similar instructions were given simultaneously through Hamas’ media outlets in the Gaza Strip and passed by word of mouth. These incitement calls, a move undoubtedly carefully planned in advance by Hamas, were intended to flood the Gaza border communities with as many vengeful and hate-filled Gaza residents as possible, who would enter Israel under the cover of the breaches provided by the first wave of the Nukhba force. If you will, a reserve mobilization.
Hundreds of those who quickly responded to these calls were armed Hamas members not affiliated with the Nukhba forces, or members of other terrorist organizations who were not privy to the attack plans. The people of the “second wave” may not have all trained for the attack and were not equipped with orderly commands, but somehow they knew exactly what to do.
For example, in footage published on social media, filmed by a GoPro camera carried by a Hamas terrorist, you can see the house of the Mizrahi family in Kfar Aza, and the huge Brachychiton tree planted in their yard. In the video, about ten terrorists surround the house, all dressed in civilian clothes (unlike the Nukhba men who wore olive uniforms, some of them IDF uniforms), which doesn mean they were not equipped with Kalashnikov rifles and combat vests.
In the video, you can see how these terrorists wander around the Mizrahi family’s house and shout “Allahu Akbar,” and when a red alert siren is heard, they hide behind the wide trunk of the tree. Other than that, no one interferes with their actions. One can get the impression that these terrorists are less professional and orderly than the Nukhba men, but within the comfortable envelope in which they operated, there was no one to prevent them from turning the Mizrahi family’s house into their temporary base. From this base, they went on an indiscriminate killing spree.
“Throughout the day we heard them talking for hours, leaving the house and coming back,” says Gila Mizrahi. “In hindsight, we know that during this time, in the row of houses behind us, they entered every house and murdered the residents – adults and children. If there’s any luck, it’s that the apartments in Kfar Aza share a common wall, and apparently the terrorists didn’t understand that each house actually consists of two separate apartments. In each building in the row, they only entered one apartment and didn’t bother to enter the adjacent one. That’s how some of the people were saved: One family was murdered, one family wasn’t. Every time they killed someone, it sounded like it made them feel really good. It was very hard to sit in the safe room and hear all this happening around us.”
At the end of the conversation, Yossi sends us a two-minute video clip, filmed immediately after the IDF’s recapture of Kfar Aza. You can see the house’s kitchen riddled with bullets, and the living room completely overturned. In the front yard, the body of a terrorist in military uniform, perhaps a Nukhba man, still lies. On the back porch of the house, under the shade of the huge tree, lies a pile of additional bodies. On the nearby wall, someone sprayed in red spray paint “7 dead terrorists.” All these dead terrorists are dressed in civilian clothes. Most of them are wearing sandals.
Kidnapping organized down to a tee
Those who took over the southern neighborhood in Kfar Aza, that of the Mizrahi couple, didn’t waste time on kidnapping civilians. But in the “Young Neighborhood,” which is closer to the Gaza border, the terrorists acted systematically to kidnap as many as possible. They entered each and every one of the 16 houses there. In total, they murdered three residents and kidnapped seven others. Only four of the neighborhood’s residents who were at home that day were spared after managing to lock themselves in the safe room. “Those who resisted them were murdered, and those who didn’t resist – were kidnapped,” one of them recounted.
In a nearby town, the terrorists tried to use a slightly different method to kidnap the residents. On one of the terrorists’ bodies, a note was found, on which a surrender order was written in Hebrew by hand: “All residents of the Kibbutz must surrender themselves as prisoners to the al-Qassam Brigades.”
It seems that when it comes to kidnappings, Hamas was perfectly organized. Luis Har, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak and released in a military operation in Rafah, described in testimony given in Nadav Peri’s podcast about his “kidnapping chain”: One group of terrorists pulled him out of the house, a second drove him across the border fence, a third led him through the intricate tunnel system beneath Gaza, and another led him from the tunnel entrance to a hideout, where he was held captive along with his relatives – another man, two women, and a teenage girl.
The 70-year-old Har said that each of the units in his “kidnapping chain” was composed of different people, who acted in full cooperation and knew exactly what to do. Hamas, as mentioned, is a disciplined movement.
Popular mass mobilization
The conquest of the Gaza border communities was a move long planned by the Hamas leadership. Another shocking handwritten document, also captured during the IDF ground maneuver in the Gaza Strip, details the full scope of “Al-Aqsa Flood.” According to the document, Hamas’ original goal was to take control of 221 settlements in the south, including the cities of Netivot, Ofakim, and Sderot, and expel the “settlers” from them. These were supposed to flee the using their own cars, with “priority to (expelling) women and children, and taking men aged 17-50 as hostages.” The Hamas leadership estimated that Israel would respond forcefully to the attack, “not only with strikes but also with an atomic bomb.” According to the document, they were prepared to absorb even that.
The conquest operation was planned to be accompanied by an international media and legal effort, branded as “Returning Home.” Gaza civilians also had a role in the plan. “For extra security, a popular mass mobilization should be carried out for a symbolic return to villages and their re-conquest,” it stated. “This war is a war of life and death.” This grandiose plan didn’t ultimately materialize. But even during October 7, Hamas carried out a “popular mass mobilization.”
The “first wave” and “second wave” of armed individuals were not the only forces that invaded Israeli territory. They were joined by an additional wave, a third, of what is called in the Israeli intelligence community “looters” or “mob.” These were civilians, not necessarily armed with firearms, who simply took advantage of the opportunity presented to them. “There were civilians who got the understanding — and someone took care to create this understanding – that the fence had fallen,” says a military source. “As a result, so many civilians entered Israel, some of whom say in interrogations that they just wanted to infiltrate Israel to look for work. There was a mixed crowd of all types of people there, including 12-year-old children.” According to testimonies obtained by Israel Hayom and Bild, Gazan women also participated in the attack.
In police interrogations of some of the “mob” caught in Israeli territory, they said that the calls in the mosques and the rumor about the breached border fence were the catalyst that caused them to storm the Gaza border communities. “There are quite a few people who say in interrogations, ‘We heard Mohammed Deif in the mosque, we took a knife, and our goal was to slaughter Jews,'” a police source said.
Some of the looters “settled” for slaughtering Jews, while others kidnapped people as if finding great spoil. According to a source familiar with the information, a kind of “price list” developed in real-time around the issue of Israeli hostages, with Hamas offering money to anyone who had an Israeli hostage. “In one case, someone holding a hostage was offered an apartment in exchange,” says the same source.
Singing in Arabic
The “first wave” and “second wave” of armed individuals were not the only forces that invaded Israeli territory. They were joined by an additional wave, a third, of what is called in the Israeli intelligence community “looters” or “mob.” These were civilians, not necessarily armed with firearms, who simply took advantage of the opportunity presented to them. “There were civilians who got the understanding – and someone took care to create this understanding – that the fence had fallen,” says a military source. “As a result, so many civilians entered Israel, some of whom say in interrogations that they just wanted to infiltrate Israel to look for work. There was a mixed crowd of all types of people there, including 12-year-old children.” According to testimonies obtained by Israel Hayom and Bild, Gazan women also participated in the attack.
In police interrogations of some of the “mob” caught in Israeli territory, they said that the calls in the mosques and the rumor about the breached border fence were the catalyst that caused them to storm the Gaza envelope. “There are quite a few people who say in interrogations ‘we heard Mohammed Deif in the mosque, we took a knife, and our goal was to slaughter Jews’,” says a police source.
Some of the looters “settled” for slaughtering Jews, while others kidnapped people as if finding great spoil. According to a source familiar with the information, a kind of “price list” developed in real-time around the issue of Israeli hostages, with Hamas offering money to anyone who had an Israeli hostage. “In one case, someone holding a hostage was offered an apartment in exchange,” says the same source.
The different waves that crashed with force on the Gaza envelope mixed with each other and operated in parallel. “These were ‘breathing’ waves,” as a military source defines it. From testimonies and videos, one can get the impression that everyone who entered Israel from the Gaza Strip that day, regardless of which wave they were in, acted in synchronization that seemed to be dictated in advance. One of the places where this synchronization can be closely examined is Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Prof. Danny Orbach: “The cruelty, according to Hamas, was supposed to be as graphic as possible because that’s how you show your superiority. Hamas believes that if our security is shaken, Israel will disintegrate, disappear. This is very similar to the Nazi way of thinking.”
IDF forces arrived at Nir Oz only in the afternoon hours of October 7 and found it almost completely empty of terrorists. In the many hours that passed until then, the kibbutz became completely exposed and Palestinians from Gaza did as they pleased. So much so, that a Palestinian journalist entered the kibbutz with a camera crew and broadcast live on television. In total, 77 people were kidnapped from Nir Oz, and 40 were murdered – one out of every three residents who were in the kibbutz that Saturday.
Hamas’ method worked well in Nir Oz. The first to arrive were the Nukhba men dressed in olive uniforms. They breached the gate at exactly 6:35 AM, entered on about ten Toyota pickup trucks, dispersed throughout the kibbutz according to orders received in advance, and quickly neutralized the standby squad. On the body of the only terrorist found in the kibbutz was a map dividing Nir Oz into different sectors. Attached to the map was one operational instruction: “Kidnap everyone you can. If there’s resistance – kill.”
Irit Lahav, a 57-year-old resident of Nir Oz, was born and raised in the kibbutz. In her youth, she went on a long trip abroad, including long stays in India, Japan, and Brazil, and five years ago returned to live in Nir Oz, in the new expansion neighborhood. When the invasion began, Lahav locked herself in the house’s safe room along with her daughter and their dog. “I had to clean and organize,” says Lahav, but in the pictures she shows us on her phone, one can see the total chaos left behind by the terrorists and looters on October 7.
“It was clear from the messages running in the kibbutz that the terrorists were going from house to house, and that at some point they would reach us too,” Lahav continues. “We started thinking about how we would lock ourselves in. The problem is that the whole body is shaking, and it’s very hard to think clearly.” With a little instruction she received on the phone from her brother, and a lot of resourcefulness, Lahav turned for a moment into MacGyver: she took the rod of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, tied it with a thin leather cord to an oar that happened to be in the safe room, and fitted the improvised lock on the door handle. “I knew our lives depended on this thing,” she says.
An hour and a half after completing the construction of the lock, someone entered her house. “It sounded like seven or eight men,” she recounts. “They were here for 20 minutes, banging on the safe room door and shouting. At this stage, there’s no fear anymore, there’s acceptance of death. The shaking stops, the body is limp, you know these are the last moments. My daughter and I said goodbye words to each other and ‘I love you’. Until the terrorists gave up and went to the neighbors’ house. The lock I built worked.”
Those who weren’t resourceful that day in Nir Oz didn’t survive. They were kidnapped or murdered. Out of 135 houses in the kibbutz, only five weren’t entered by terrorists. If you didn’t manage to lock the safe room door, your fate was bitter. “They came to me, and came back again and again, about every hour,” Lahav recounts. The first people who entered her house still tried to open the safe room door by force, those who came after barely bothered. They settled for looting. “Each time someone else came to see what else they could steal,” says Lahav. “Around four in the afternoon we heard two teenagers entering the house. They were inside for 45 minutes. They were the last to ‘visit’ us.”
A Gazan woman entered one of Lahav’s neighbors’ houses. “The family, who was locked in the safe room, heard her turn on the TV, exit Netflix, put on some program in Arabic, and for four hours prepare food and sing in Arabic.”
The Gazans who entered the houses in Nir Oz barely left any property behind. “They took everything,” says Lahav. “Shoes, sandals, bicycles, children’s toy cars, mobility scooters, scooters, tractors, agricultural machinery, electrical appliances – microwave, TV, mixer. All the computers, phones, wallets. They even took my kettle, spoons, and knives.”
Some of the “mob” in Nir Oz also engaged in kidnapping. According to testimonies of female hostages from the kibbutz who returned from Gaza, some were taken out of the house by unarmed people, driven to the border by an armed person in civilian clothes, and from there taken further. “In my opinion, the trend was first to kidnap, then to loot, and finally – to burn,” says Lahav. “The pyromaniacs didn’t reach my neighborhood, but 60% of the houses in Nir Oz were set on fire. They simply cut the gas pipe in the kitchen and lit it.”
According to Lahav, “This is probably a gimmick they thought of on the spot, because some of the terrorists came to Nir Oz with fuel containers, and people reported hearing them pouring something in the house before it was set on fire. In one of my rounds in the kibbutz, I even saw a pile of tires, tied with a rope. At first, I didn’t understand why they were there. Only later did it dawn on me – they dragged the tires with them from Gaza to set the houses on fire.” In other words: The Gazan mob knew, from within, that they should set the kibbutz houses on fire and burn them down. The only question was what was the most efficient way to do it.
Murderous and raping mob
Sources involved in interrogating Palestinians caught in Israeli territory say that the wave of “looters” didn’t settle for just kidnapping, stealing, and burning. Some committed the most horrific atrocities.
In one of the kibbutzim in the Gaza area we visited, for example, several beheaded bodies were found, and at least one woman was raped. Two terrorists caught by the Shin Bet, a father and son, even confessed to this rape in their interrogation.
Among the acts attributed to the wave of “looters” are additional sex crimes. The “Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel” relied on open publications on the subject, and with the help of additional testimonies they collected, compiled the report “Silent Cry,” which was published in February. While Hamas vehemently denies that sex crimes occurred intentionally and initiated during October 7, according to the report, the attack included “brutal sexual abuse, carried out systematically and intentionally against Israeli citizens.”
This determination is based, among other things, on the fact that recurring patterns of sex crimes appeared both at the Nova music festival, in the kibbutzim, and in IDF bases. Due to the sensitivity of the matters, we won’t quote the report in full, but we’ll note that a large part of the bodies of sex crime victims were found tied and bound, and in some cases, bodies were found with their genitals mutilated.
“Not in a Vacuum”
Where does the pure evil come from, which allowed Gaza residents – terrorists and civilians – to commit such horrific crimes against innocent people? Here too, the answer is part of Hamas’ grand plan, which had been ongoing for years in preparation for the attack. “October 7 didn’t occur in a vacuum,” as Dr. Ido Zelkovitz, a researcher and the Chaikin Chair for Geostrategy at the University of Haifa and head of the Middle Eastern Studies program at the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, puts it. “This was an orderly work plan, the result of Hamas’ poison machine, which built this event over a long time. This was accompanied by a long mental preparation, which allowed people to commit the atrocities they committed. The massacre is an unequivocal product of Hamas’ religious preaching system in the Gaza Strip over the years.
“Hamas took control of the Strip in 2007, and in the period that has passed since then, it has exclusively controlled the media, the education system, the preaching networks in mosques, etc.,” Zelkovitz continues. “The younger generation in Gaza has grown up all their lives under a regime that promotes ideas that present the Jew in a dehumanized way, as an inferior creature who deceived the Palestinians and stole their land, in an illegitimate and illegal manner. When you take all this incitement that people were exposed to for years, not only informally but as raw material in the education system, and add to it the fact that most of the Gazan public are refugees, who just by crossing the border feel an exaltation of returning to their lands – you get a very strong cocktail. This thing was aggressively fueled for years and exploded on October 7.”
The main component in this poison cocktail, according to Dr. Zelkovitz, is religious fundamentalism. “In Hamas, they learned religious rulings that allow them to harm any Jew, since even a child and an elderly person were or will be soldiers,” he says. “Hamas commanders gave orders on October 7, while quoting verses from the Quran and highlighting cases from Islamic history where famous commanders beheaded and dismembered during battle.”
Zelkovitz gives as an example a note whose contents were previously published by the IDF spokesperson and found in the possession of a dead terrorist. “Know that the enemy is a disease that has no cure, except for beheading and tearing out hearts and livers,” it stated. In a conversation that an official Israeli source had with Israel Hayom and Bild, it was reported that in at least one case of an Israeli casualty, the head was severed and even taken into the Gaza Strip, where it was held as a bargaining chip by Hamas. The body parts were eventually located during the ground operation and returned for burial in Israel.
“When you talk about killing and abusing Jews as a commandment that promises you reward in the afterlife, it has a significant impact,” explains Dr. Zelkovitz. “Even an ordinary Gazan citizen who enters Israel doesn’t feel that he’s acting for something material, but performing these actions – murder, rape, looting – for the sake of a religious war. It’s no coincidence that in the terrorists’ GoPro videos, you can see them singing songs of praise and glory to the Prophet Muhammad and Allah, and not talking about liberating Palestine. The idea of a religious struggle is what accompanies them, not the idea of national liberation. This allows you to commit atrocities out of a sense of mission and belief.”
The connection between religious belief and the action of Hamas forces on the ground is expressed in another document captured from a Nukhba terrorist who infiltrated Israel on October 7. It’s a combat page for “morale boosting” to be carried in the vest pocket, a long table aimed at encouraging the fighters of Hamas’ military wing and lifting their spirits, using religious and Islamic motifs. The table includes various verses from the Quran alongside quotes from Muslim commanders and preachers, which are to be recited before, during, and after battle, and even in case of injury.
Thus, for example, a wounded terrorist is supposed to pull out the table from his vest pocket and mumble “Do not let your hands slacken from pursuing the infidels, and even if you are wounded, behold their wounds hurt as much as yours.” Another quote calls: “O jihad fighters, the qualities of men are revealed in battlefields and not on speaking platforms.” The IDF Military Intelligence Directorate claims that the document shows that in Hamas’ military wing, faith is an integral part of the fighting.
The Nazis may not have been religious fundamentalists, but their fanatical ideology allowed German soldiers and civilians to commit genocide against European Jews. According to academic experts, there are indeed parallel lines between Nazi methods and those of Hamas. “October 7 was part of Hamas’ attempt to eliminate the Jewish population in Israel by killing as many people as possible and expelling others,” says historian Prof. Danny Orbach from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Both in the case of Hamas and in the case of the Nazis, there was an ‘attempt at mass extermination’, but the logic behind the extermination mechanism was different. While the Nazis wanted to eliminate the Jews as quickly and efficiently as possible, Hamas knew it couldn’t kill all the Jews of Israel, only those who would be under its control during the invasion hours.”
Gazan civilians joining the terrorist attack on Nir Oz (Photo: Eyal Barad)
Orbach refers to the huge quantities of video material that Hamas produced during the massacre and uploaded to the internet, the result of a clear strategy dictated in advance. “Hamas’ goal was not only to murder people, but to demonstrate the dominance of one group over another through torture and mutilation,” he says. “Therefore, the cruelty had to be as graphic as possible, because that’s how you show your superiority in this culture.” According to him, this is exactly the core of Hamas’ ideology. “Hamas believes that Israel is an artificial state. It believes that we will simply disappear if our security is shaken, that Israel will disintegrate.
“This is actually very similar to the Nazi way of thinking,” Orbach continues, “Hamas sees all Jewish presence in ‘Palestine’ as a kind of pollution. And if you think something is pollution, you want to clean it with fire.”
Officer Erez Eshel sits down with Mati Shoshani to share his experience combating Hamas on October 7th and his motivation to fight for the freedom and security of Israel. Hear about the importance of a strong Jewish nation and the biblical nature of the current conflict. Stay up-to-date with the latest developments here on TBN Israel. Please join us in praying for the peace of Israel and Jerusalem. TBN Israel is creating cutting-edge content that tells the continuing, multi-faceted narrative of Israel. And it all happens through partners like you. Your financial support enables TBN Israel to produce engaging, one-of-a-kind programming that educates viewers around the world about this land and people so loved by God.
Israelis who were taken hostage or lost loved ones during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack are suing the United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, claiming it has helped finance the militants by paying agency staffers in U.S. dollars and thereby funneling them to money-changers in Gaza who allegedly give a cut to Hamas.
But the agency, known as UNWRA, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the staffers were paid in dollars by their own choice. Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank don’t have their own national currency, and primarily use Israeli shekels.
An affliction is running rampant and has developed an uncanny resistance to any sort of countermeasures.
No treatment, whether medication, surgery or preventative action can cure the malady once it has infected individuals. It has reached epidemic proportions in every part of the globe.
Myopia is a common vision problem in which close objects look clear but far objects look blurry.
Most Israelis can clearly see the agenda of jihadist perpetrators and their supporters while the UN and its fellow travellers have only a blurry outline of which countries are behind terror and its fatal future.
As we know all too well from our history the temptation to throw in the towel when the going gets tough is always there. As the Israelites traversed the desert in their forty-year trek to the Land promised them, there were several occasions when complaints, revolts and despair surfaced. There were those who nostalgically looked back to the “paradise” of Egypt. There were others who wanted to surrender to their enemies as they faced the armies of Egypt and Amalek. Others complained about the lack of meat. Finally, ten of the spies sent by Moshe to survey the Land threw their hands up in despair and spread a defeatist narrative about their ability to prevail.
Looking at the situation today one can clearly discern similar patterns playing out both within Israeli society and internationally.
Robust political dissension has always been a hallmark of Israel’s democratic fabric. Media commentators, breast-beating myopic dreamers, fleeting visitors talking only with certain sectors of society and those hankering for some sort of paradise in the Diaspora all have one thing in common.
They prefer to beat the doomsday drums of depression and despair while they proclaim the impending demise of Jewish sovereignty. At the same time, they rubbish the “unenlightened” majority who insist that they are here in Israel for a purpose and who are only too cognizant that Jewish survival has always been an existential battle. If Israel holds no special place in Jewish history and is replaced by a myopic belief that life is far better and safer in a world increasingly hostile to Jews, then, of course, the 10 spies’ narrative wins. If galloping Diaspora assimilation is unimportant then it is no surprise that the vast majority of those who jump ship look with disdain on those who remain attached to their spiritual traditions.
Detractors love to bewail the rightward drift of the Israeli electorate but generally refuse to acknowledge exactly why this is happening. The hallucinatory mirages of Islamic jihadists embracing love and tolerance, incubated by left-wing groupies, were always going to shatter once reality landed. Refusing to learn from past pogroms and hate-infused indoctrination, they naively believed that in order to wipe away our original sin, all we had to do was surrender more land and pour money into bottomless corrupt pockets.
Feeding crocodiles and hoping that they will not eat you has never been a winning strategy and so it tragically proved yet again on 7 October and the subsequent venomous vitriol unleashed against Israel and Jews since that black day.
Without a doubt, Israel faces gigantic challenges, but they are no more catastrophic than those faced by our ancestors in previous generations.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that there needs to be more accountability in various sectors of society.
Elections whenever they are held will hopefully result in a cleanout of failed politicians and those who refuse to own up to their misdeeds. The stranglehold that Charedi parties and their Rabbinical patrons exercise over their followers has become an impediment to integration and a source of scandalous shame. The spectacle of thousands of able-bodied young men shirking military or community commitments can no longer be tolerated. If the Zionist enterprise is so treif, then the best alternative is to re-establish the shtetls in such “holy” places as Poland, Ukraine and Russia.
The Arab parties in the Knesset which identify as Palestinians should pack up and move to the “enlightened” PA where they can enjoy the delights of a Zionist free ethnically cleansed “democratic” autocracy.
The Chief Rabbinate needs to be released from the political corruption it is currently suffering from and transformed into an institution which attracts rather than repels the majority of Israeli Jews. In other words, it needs to be released from the clutches of vested out-of-touch interests and instead, be led by spiritual leaders who inspire and live in the real world.
Aliyah will increase as threats to Jewish life worldwide becomes a critical factor.
These changes will occur sooner rather than later and are part of an inevitable and unstoppable transformation.
At the same time that Israel faces these domestic challenges the myopic musings and blurred visions articulated by an increasingly deranged UN membership continues unabated.
One listens with wonderment and amazement as latter-day appeasers lecture and warn Israel not to react in the face of unrestrained terror.
Blinken and sundry American officials demand that Israel not escalate tensions with Hezbollah. It is an unbelievable moment of imbecility that faced with thousands of rockets aimed and fired at Israel and the evacuation of thousands of civilians from the north, the country being threatened is expected to turn the other cheek.
Compounding this idiocy are the dire warnings that any sort of reaction by Israel risks a response from Iran. This astounding assertion confirms that not one democratic nation is prepared to deal with the real culprits. The pathetic inability to destroy Houthi piracy is a perfect example of this rampant refusal to face up to the primary sponsor of terror. It explains why Iran is unimpeded in its march to nuclear blackmail status and its declared objective of destroying the Zionist “entity.”
The road map to catastrophe is a repeat of the 1930s reactions of the democracies when they refused to see, acknowledge and deal with Nazi Germany’s intimidations and ultimate aggression.
If you want a perfect example of how myopia can distort even the most sensible individual look no further than the current American Ambassador to Israel. This Biden Administration devotee who also happens to be a genetic Jewish Democrat supporter, recently made an assertion that can only be described as totally detached from reality. It exemplifies the sorry shambles international diplomacy has now descended to and explains why Israel cannot count on any sort of meaningful support.
Ambassador Lew asserted with presumably a straight face that “Palestine with Fatah/PLO in charge would be a defeat for Hamas.” It would miraculously then open the door to a messianic vision of all Arab & Islamic countries embracing Israel and the region basking in unprecedented peace and tolerance.
This miraculous transformation mind you can only occur if Israel accepts the creation of Palestine in the heartland of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem.
What could possibly go wrong?
Look at the Oslo disaster and the handing over of Gaza to PA control as roadmaps of what would inevitably follow the establishment of “Palestine.” It is a certain recipe for collective Jewish suicide promoted by the usual useful idiots.
This type of myopia is incurable and the sooner we face up to it the better for all concerned.
We desperately need a much clearer vision in order to successfully combat the machinations looming ahead.
In the ongoing dispute over weapons shipments between the United States and Israel, two possibilities emerge: either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lying, or the Americans are being dishonest. After careful examination, the latter seems more likely – the Americans are obscuring the truth.
Multiple shipments of various types of ammunition to Israel have been delayed since February – that is four months. This far exceeds the single weapons shipment President Joe Biden mentioned regarding operations in Rafah.
The delayed shipments include artillery, tank and air combat ammunition – weapons Israel has already paid for – as well as thousands of JDAM kits that convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. Netanyahu, not always known for strict adherence to facts, accurately describes the situation.
His unprecedented move – releasing a video directly criticizing Washington. – became necessary after months of quiet diplomacy failed to resolve the issue, effectively freezing weapons deliveries.
The actual delays stem from State Department officials who are not processing the required export permits for these shipments to Israel.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s trip to the US will address this issue, which highlights Israel’s significant military and diplomatic dependence on America, as revealed during the ongoing war.
The benefits of US support for Israel are clear: $4 billion in annual military aid, continuous ammunition supply during war, and international backing against hostile entities like Iran, Russia and the United Nations. However, the drawbacks are less discussed: Israel’s limited freedom to act according to its own judgment, both operationally during the war and diplomatically in its aftermath.
The logical goal is a dramatic increase in domestic production – both in volume and variety – and liberation from contractual restrictions that prevent Israel from independently developing additional weapon types.
While dependence on the US won’t disappear overnight, efforts to reduce it should have begun yesterday. Israel has already taken some steps to increase its future autonomy.
Some may ridicule this ambition as unrealistic, but it’s not far-fetched. Similar skepticism surrounded the gradual phasing out of US civilian aid to Israel, which no longer exists today.
Reducing military aid will take years, but it’s the right path. Simultaneously, Israel must break the “siege” on weapons supply by approaching countries it wouldn’t normally consider, as it did during its first War of Independence.
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