Free Republic

The U.S. military is once again removing the Gaza pier due to poor weather, and there is no clear timeline on when it would be reanchored, the Pentagon confirmed Friday. Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said heavy seas and high winds forced the military to temporarily dismantle the pier and send it to the Israeli port city Ashdod. She did not say when it would come back online, amid speculation that it may not at all. “When the commander decides that it’s the right time to reinstall that pier, we’ll keep you updated on that,” she said. “As we...

Trump wrote that the documentary was 'incredibly difficult to watch because, sadly, it graphically portrays the death and destruction that Hamas has unleashed.' Former US President Donald Trump urged people to watch the film Screams Before Silence by Sheryl Sandberg, which documents Hamas's sexual violence on October 7, in a post on his social network Truth Social on Tuesday morning. Trump wrote that the documentary was "...incredibly difficult to watch because, sadly, it graphically portrays the Death and Destruction that Hamas has unleashed."

For six kilometres the road is a dusty moonscape without a hint of civilian life. The Netzarim corridor, as Israel calls it, slices across Gaza’s narrow waist, from its border with Israel to its Mediterranean coast. The buildings on both sides have been pancaked into piles of rubble. As a convoy bounces along the rutted track, there are no Palestinians in sight, only Israeli soldiers and army vehicles and a constant swirl of grit. And then there is a dazzle of blue: the corridor ends at the sea, and the hulking steel pier that America spent $230m to install on...

The latest news is that the pier may be terminated ahead of schedule. Erected in mid-May by the U.S. military to deliver seaborne assistance, the pier’s operations repeatedly have been interrupted by rough waters. A storm broke the pier apart only days after going into service. After millions of dollars of repairs, it was thrown back into action. Days later, forecasts of choppy waters led the military to tow the pier to safe harbor. It’s just returned to service a third time, though it’s hard not to believe that the project’s days are numbered. Mother Nature may end up being...

“Billions of us will come and kill you.” Thirty minutes after Hamas supporters first set up their operation outside a Los Angeles synagogue, they maced their first Jew. And the Los Angeles police did nothing.Not until an hour into the terrorist rally outside a synagogue, did the LAPD finally step in, pushing back masked Jihad supporters in keffiyeh terror scarves from the entrance of Congregation Adas Torah (Congregation of the Bible) which they had occupied.And then the mob, chanting calls for “intifada” and the destruction of Israel, moved outward to target two smaller synagogues attended by Persian Jewish refugees from...

Airport whistleblowers have alleged that Hezbollah is storing large quantities of Iranian weapons, missiles, and explosives at Beirut's main civilian airport, according to the Telegraph. Among the weapons allegedly stored at Rafic Hariri International Airport are Iranian-made Falaq artillery rockets, Fateh-110 and M-600 short-range missiles, and road-mobile ballistic missiles with ranges exceeding 150 miles. The whistleblowers also claim the presence of AT-14 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, Burkan short-range ballistic missiles, and RDX explosives. An airport worker expressed fears about the potential consequences of an attack or explosion at the airport, drawing comparisons to the devastating 2020 Beirut port blast. "Beirut...

Colin Hinkle, a professional drone pilot, noticed the red dye mixing with the green water of the fountain early Saturday morning and saw spray paint on the ground that read, “Gaza is bleeding” and “Stop the genocide.” 'That’s when I realized it was a protest,’ Hinkle said. Buckingham Fountain is “closed until further notice” after the Grant Park tourist attraction’s pool water was dyed red overnight and messages protesting the war in Gaza were written on the ground surrounding the fountain.

The United Nations chief says that “total lawlessness” and “chaos” in Gaza is preventing the distribution of humanitarian aid within the enclave, which is why an immediate ceasefire is needed.

Israeli forces on Friday conducted an attack on tent camps holding displaced Palestinians in Gaza, leaving at least 25 people dead and another 50 wounded, according to emergency and health workers in Gaza. The attack occurred near Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, close by to a Red Cross field hospital, which received at least 22 deceased individuals and 45 others who were wounded, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Friday.

AVI ABELOW: Is the Biden administration sabotaging Israel from within? As Iran’s proxy forces in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are decimating Northern Israel with rockets and drone attacks, one might assume that the Biden administration would give full support to America’s only reliable Democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel. However, the reality is different. The Biden administration is holding Israel back from attacking Iran, the head of the snake. They are also holding Israel back from doing what is necessary to end Hezbollah’s aggression, which is literally destroying homes and communities in Northern Israel. This has driven close to 100,000 Israelis...

Israel warned about the prospects of an “all-out war” in Lebanon after Hezbollah militants published disturbing drone footage threatening the Jewish state – as Hamas’ representative in Lebanon claimed the terror group would carry out the Oct. 7 massacre all over again if given the chance. As tensions boil along the Israel-Lebanon border, the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group published a roughly 10-minute video on Tuesday, allegedly taken by drone, depicting several Israeli military sites and residential cities that were tagged “highly populated.” Israeli officials slammed the propaganda video as an unabashed threat against the Jewish state, warning the Hamas allies...

The head of the Shiite Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to expand his war against Israel in a speech on Wednesday, boasting that he allegedly has 100,000 terrorists at his disposal and suggesting war with Cyprus may also be imminent. Hezbollah, one of many Iranian proxy terrorist organizations, has long maintained ties with the Sunni jihadist group Hamas. The group has expanded its attacks on Israel since October 7, when Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented invasion of Israel that resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, the abduction of about 250 people, and widespread torture, rape, and other atrocities....

Interviewer: "If we could go back in time to October 7... " Ahmad Abd Al-Hadi: "We would do it again!" Interviewer: "You would do it again... That was the question I was about to ask." Al-Hadi: "I know this is the question, because this is a central question. Why am I saying that we would do it again? Because what made us do it is very important and strategic. It is not something that we could remain silent about. We have said this time and again. "The Palestinian cause was about to be eliminated. In line with the American enterprise...

The Biden administration is insisting its Gaza pier will be reopened this week, after it was recently towed for a second time to a port in Israel in order for it to survive waves of over four feet. “We expect it will go operational again this week,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday. However, Ryder did not dispute a New York Times report that said the $230 million pier “has largely failed in its mission” to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza, and “will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) responded to a question on whether the Gaza aid pier constructed by the Biden administration has failed due to numerous setbacks combined with the small amount of aid that has come in by stating that “I don’t think people understand just how complicated this is.” And “it’s just more complicated than we would have liked.” Host Wolf Blitzer asked, “I want to get, first, to this story we’ve just been reporting, this U.S. pier off the coast of Gaza has suffered setback after setback and has only delivered a...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video statement Tuesday urging the U.S. to stop withholding weapons and ammunition from Israel. In May, the Biden administration confirmed that it was withholding heavy precision bombs from Israel in protest against Israel’s decision to enter the southern Gaza town of Rafah to fight the last remaining Hamas battalions. As a result, Israel was forced to send troops into potentially booby-trapped buildings rather than bombing them. The White House said it was concerned about Palestinian civilian casualties, but a million civilians left Rafah.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on June 17 that it has dismantled about half of Hamas’ forces in Rafah. The IDF 162nd Division advanced into Rafah on May 7 and the IDF said that it now controls approximately 60 to 70 percent of the governorate, including the Egypt-Gaza Strip border. The IDF assesses that it has almost completely “dismantled” two of four battalions in Hamas’ Rafah Brigade and that IDF units have “somewhat degraded” the other two battalions. An Israeli media correspondent estimated that Israel will take “several more weeks” to completely “dismantle” Hamas’ Rafah Brigade. Israeli forces have...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised plans announced by the military on Sunday to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate aid delivery into the Palestinian enclave.The military had announced the daily pauses from 8am local time (3pm AEST) until 7pm in the area from the Kerem Shalom Crossing to the Salah al-Din Road and then northwards."When the prime minister heard the reports of an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he turned to his military secretary and made it clear that this was unacceptable to him," an Israeli official...

The Israeli military says it will hold daily tactical pauses in military activity in parts of southern Gaza to allow more aid to flow into the area, where international aid organisations have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis among Palestinian civilians.The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the pause would begin in the Rafah area at 8am local time (3pm AEST) and remain in effect until 7pm. It said similar pauses would take place every day until further notice.The pause is aimed at allowing aid trucks inside Gaza to reach the nearby Israel-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing ...

I will begin with a couple of paragraphs about Eurovision, the annual international song contest that I wrote about here the other day, but rest assured that this is not going to be another essay about that fatuous event, which, as I strove to point out in that earlier piece, is virtually worthless as a cultural offering but, as a social barometer, can provide fascinating insights. As I noted, the continent’s anti-Semites and Hamas-lovers were outraged at the refusal of Eurovision authorities to ban Israel, a longtime participant, from this year’s competition because of its current actions in Gaza, which...