Free Republic

Hamas gathered sensitive information on IDF movements, bases and weaponry from IDF soldiers’ social media accounts—and used that information to train for and execute the October 7 massacre. That’s according to a disturbing scoop by @Doron_Kadosh . I’ll break down his main findings. During the October 7 massacre, Hamas terrorists “managed to disable [IDF] tanks in the Gaza border area and render them unusable.” How? “The terrorists knew about a secret button in the tank which, when pressed, disables the tank for a certain period.” This left Israeli officials wondering: how on earth did Hamas have such sensitive information on...

In a significant shift in the Middle Eastern power dynamics, Iranian officials have admitted that their once-loyal proxy force, the Houthis in Yemen, is increasingly defying Tehran's orders. Reports indicate that the Houthis, who have long served as Iran's strategic arm in the ongoing conflicts against the United States and its allies, are now acting independently, much to the dismay of their former benefactors. A senior Iranian official disclosed that the Houthis have distanced themselves from Iran. “They have gone rogue for a while and are now really rebels,” the official stated, reflecting concerns within the Iranian regime as they...

Although WWII is fast (and dangerously) becoming a misty memory, it’s probable that most people still know about the infamous “Tokyo Rose” (actually a collective of English-speaking Japanese women) who would broadcast reports intended to demoralize troops fighting the Japanese. In England, Lord Haw-Haw (another collective) broadcast false news intended to demoralize troops fighting the Nazis. Indeed, Wikipedia has a long list of famous fake-news spouting propagandists during wartime.Image created using AI.Today, propagandists don’t use radios; they use social media, but the tactic is the same: disseminate false material to demoralize the enemy. Yesterday, X, whether intentionally or not (I’ve...

About 20 miles from Gaza, the United States has taken over a large and long-vacated industrial complex, where it has set up a civil-military coordination center. At any given time, approximately 200 American soldiers and officials are milling about in the facility in Kiryat Gat, a town in southern Israel. They are the United States’ eyes and ears, monitoring the fragile cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. It’s clear that they are not meant to be deployed as a combat team to enforce the next stages of the Trump administration’s peace plan. But neither is anyone else. None of the United...

TEL AVIV — The first-ever Miss Palestine contestant in the Miss Universe pageant married the son of Hamas’ most-wanted prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, and even named a child after him, The Post has learned. Nadeen Ayoub — who claims to be a 27-year-old US and Canadian citizen living in Dubai — is competing this week to represent Palestine, a territory the US and Israel don’t even recognize as a sovereign state. Strutting through preliminary rounds ahead of the pending pageant, Ayoub has kept most of her personal life under wraps — until now. Years-old screenshots and social media posts obtained by...

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet on Wednesday in Istanbul with a delegation of senior Hamas officials led by Khalil al-Hayya to discuss efforts to maintain the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza, an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel. It will be Witkoff’s second meeting with Hayya after the special envoy along with fellow top adviser to US President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, met with senior members of Hamas’s ceasefire negotiating team hours before an agreement was inked in Egypt on October 9. That meeting was said to have been critical in bringing the deal across the finish line,...

While Farghali noted that it is typical of the Muslim Brotherhood to “exploit Gaza and Palestine for money.” The Muslim Brotherhood allegedly stole half a billion dollars from donations for the Gaza Strip in a single campaign, Egyptian researcher Maher Farghali reported on Sunday. While Farghali noted that it is typical of the Muslim Brotherhood to “exploit Gaza and Palestine for money,” the difference with this incident is that Hamas condemned the theft. The association Waqf al-Ummah/Ummet Vakfı, founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, is said to have been responsible for taking half a billion, which it raised in a single...

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday in support of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan in Gaza, and Trump has been named chairman of the Board of Peace. The resolution passed the council 13-0-2, endorsing the president’s plan, which Hamas agreed to on October 8 and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially endorsed in a signing with Trump on October 13. “Congratulations to the World on the incredible Vote of the United Nations Security Council, just moments ago, acknowledging and endorsing the...

Nov 18 (Reuters) - Hamas rejected the United Nations Security Council passing a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, saying it fails to meet Palestinians' rights and demands and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose. "Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," the group added.

In the hope of shifting the debate on divestment from Israel to the real issue—the nature of the divestment campaign—and not the specious accusations regarding University President Lawrence H. Summers’ speech on the issue, I would like to suggest why I believe the campaign is properly characterized as “anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.” I would like to look carefully—if necessarily briefly—at the strategy of the campaign and the rhetoric of the petition, in order to show how it implicitly demonizes Jews. Supporters of the divestment campaign insist they seek to protest the policies of the Sharon government, and...

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has assured that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have safe passage and will not face arrest if he attends the 80th-anniversary commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz later this month, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. The assurance follows a call by Polish President Andrzej Duda for the government to guarantee Netanyahu's security. In a letter obtained by Bloomberg News, Duda cited the "absolutely exceptional circumstances" surrounding the event. Netanyahu is currently under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Gaza. “Anyone who wishes to attend the Auschwitz...

After two years of barraging social media with lies about a famine in Gaza, Hamas propaganda channels are now trying to cover up their obesity by claiming that Israel is making them fat. One recent Hamas media story clamored that “they’re forcing us to gain weight”, and objected that supermarkets have “shelves overflowing with chocolate, soft drinks, and cigarettes”, along with unhealthy “flour and various types of cheese used in sweets and pizza, in addition to sugar and flour derivatives used in confectionery production.” An Arab Muslim settler in Gaza who had previously justified the Hamas massacres complained, “I am...

Indonesia has trained up to 20,000 troops to take on health and construction-related tasks during a planned peacekeeping operation in the war-torn enclave of Gaza, the defense minister said on Friday. The world’s most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia is among the countries with which the United States has discussed plans for an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, which include Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar. Last week, Reuters reported a draft readied by Washington for such a force that would authorize it to “use all necessary measures” to demilitarize Gaza, secure its borders, protect civilians and aid delivery, and support a...

A skewed Trump speech edit, a Gaza film built around a Hamas operative’s son, and repeated factual distortions have plunged the BBC into a credibility crisis. Conservatives are celebrating, Trump is threatening a major lawsuit, and the network faces a steep political cost There is no need to attribute superpowers to Donald Trump. No American president, not even a narcissist in White House mode, can shake a public broadcaster in another country and continent and trigger the resignation of its director general and head of news. The BBC misled the public about Trump. It deceived viewers who had always regarded...

“Can I ask a question? How many of you are visiting Israel for the first time? How many have been here before? Wow, two.Well, welcome to all of you. It’s very good to see you here with Foreign Minister Saar and Deputy Minister Sharren Haskel and our Ambassador to Washington, Yechiel. Stand up. Look at this man. Look at this man. Look at him. He, Yechiel, represents the greatest military comeback in recent history.On October 7th, we were attacked with no provocation by the Hamas monsters. They murdered 1,200 of our citizens. They burnt babies alive. They raped and then...

If the terrorists currently trapped in a tunnel in the Al-Genina neighborhood of Rafah agree to disarm and commit to ceasing all terrorist activity, Israel will allow them to exit, a senior Israeli official told Channel 12 News. According to the report, the proposed solution is being explored in coordination with the United States and is the focus of discussions held by US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Jared Kushner, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. American officials confirmed that Washington is involved in efforts to resolve the crisis, and sources in Jerusalem have conveyed that Israel is interested in ending...

The State Prosecutor's Office has submitted a request to the Haifa District Court to permanently confiscate 50 foreign vessels that attempted to breach the maritime blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, as part of the "Sumud Flotilla." According to the petition, a significant number of the vessels were owned by the Hamas terror organization. The request is based on international law, which grants states the right to seize vessels attempting to violate a maritime blockade, and gives courts the authority to order their confiscation. The State argued that the "Sumud Flotilla," which arrived in the area last month,...

Indonesia, Azerbaijan and Pakistan are the top contenders to supply troops for a future stabilization force in the Gaza Strip, according to a U.S. defense official and a former U.S. defense official granted anonymity to discuss sensitive ongoing discussions. Negotiations on the makeup of the force are ongoing, and no country has made a firm commitment… Trump’s 20-point plan for peace in Gaza says the U.S. will work with Arab and other partners to deploy a temporary stabilization force that will train and support vetted Palestinian police forces and will consult with Egypt and Jordan on the effort. The U.S....

Terrorism, as diplomatic strategy, just suffered another humiliating defeat. On Thursday, Kazakhstan became the first country in Donald Trump’s second term to join the Abraham Accords, formalizing a relationship with Israel that’s existed since 1992. The announcement came thirty-three years after diplomatic ties began, which makes it roughly as groundbreaking as celebrating your silver wedding. But timing is everything, and this particular non-event delivers a verdict on the most consequential gamble in recent Middle Eastern history. Documents captured by the IDF in Gaza show Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar telling his inner circle on October 2, 2023, that an “extraordinary act”...

Princeton University is launching a new anthropology course on "Gender, Reproduction, and Genocide" in Gaza, a class whose description puts the Israel-Hamas war on par with the Holocaust. The for-credit, graded course is being taught by a "noted Palestinian feminist" who has made provably false claims that Hamas did not kill babies or rape women on Oct. 7, and also called for an end to the Jewish state. "Drawing on decolonial, Indigenous, and feminist thought, we examine how genocidal projects target reproductive life, sexual and familial structures, and community survival," the course description reads. "Students will engage reproductive justice frameworks,...