Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Monday, Apr. 18 '16, Nissan 10, 5776
HEADLINES:
1. IDF UNCOVERS TERROR TUNNEL FROM GAZA INTO ISRAEL
2. HEVRON SOLDIER INDICTED FOR MANSLAUGHTER
3. HAMAS: IDF TUNNEL FIND 'A DROP IN THE OCEAN'
4. BENNETT: HAMAS PLANNING 'YOM KIPPUR WAR-TYPE' SURPRISE ATTACK
5. REFUGEES BRING ANTI-SEMITISM TO EUROPE, WARNS HUNGARIAN MINISTER
6. TERMINALLY ILL MAN ALLOWED TO CONVERT AFTER YEARS OF STRUGGLE
7. ISRAELI MUSIC STAR CAVES INTO PRESSURE – WON'T RALLY FOR SOLDIER
8. 'TIME FOR ALIYAH TO HAVE ITS OWN HOLIDAY'
1. IDF UNCOVERS TERROR TUNNEL FROM GAZA INTO ISRAEL
by Kobi Finkler
It has been cleared for publication that the IDF recently discovered a terror tunnel from Gaza into southern Israel, marking the first such discovery since 2014's Operation Protective Edge.
The tunnel was a particularly large and complex one; its route stretched along the eastern sector of the Gaza Strip all the way to southern Gaza, and crossed onto the Israeli side. At some points it reached as much as 30 meters in depth.
Watch - IDF uncovers first terror tunnel since 2014:
[youtube:2014583]
After being discovered, IDF forces quickly mobilized to secure and neutralize it - though precisely how is under a gag order, as is the tunnel's exact route.
A senior defense official told Arutz Sheva that the IDF's number one priority over the past year has been to locate such terror tunnels, which Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups in Gaza have been busily rebuilding since the 2014 war. Israel has repeatedly protested Hamas's use of international aid - particularly building materials - to rebuild its tunnel capabilities, while preventing the aid from reaching civilians in Gaza.
Palestinian media had been reporting intense IDF activity, including heavy digging equipment, along the border with Gaza for the past several days.
The military source added that Israeli operations against the tunnels were being aided by revolutionary advanced technology, though he did not elaborate.
"Today the State of Israel possesses capabilities which no other country in the world possesses," he stated. "The tunnel is a great one, so we have invested vastly in (tunnel) prevention and destruction capabilities."
The official explained that both locating and securing such tunnels is an extremely complex, demanding mission.
"Locating tunnels like this requires intelligence and advanced technological ability," he said, while actually securing and sealing or destroying it requires "the use of technology, engineering (capabilities) and operational work on the ground."
Responding to the discovery, the IDF emphasized that Israel is not interested in an escalation, but will operate wherever and whenever necessary to neutralize potential threats to the citizens of Israel.
Current IDF Chief of Staff Major General Gadi Eizenkot has made the establishment and expansion of a specialized unit to locate and destroy Gazan terror tunnels his number one priority, while terrorists in the Islamist-held coastal enclave have openly boasted of their intentions to rebuild attack tunnels into Israel.
The IDF said, however, that the entrances to the tunnel did not endanger any Jewish community in the area, and that at no point was there any threat to local residents.
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2. HEVRON SOLDIER INDICTED FOR MANSLAUGHTER
by Ari Soffer
An IDF soldier who fatally shot a wounded terrorist in Hevron last month has been indicted in a military court early Monday afternoon.
The manslaughter indictment claims the soldier shot dead the terrorist - who had already been neutralized - with no legitimate operation reason.
The soldier, however, counters that he only opened fire because he feared the terrorist was attempting to detonate an explosive device concealed in his unseasonably-thick coat.
The terrorist and an accomplice had both been shot by other soldiers minutes previously, after they stabbed and wounded another soldier. While his accomplice was killed immediately, the second terrorist was seriously, but not fatally, wounded.
Edited video footage from the scene was circulated by the far-left B'Tselem NGO, which showed the terrorist wounded but still clearly moving on the ground, before the soldier in question cocks his rifle and shoots him once in the head, killing him.
Even prior to the publication of that video, the soldier's commanders had begun an investigation of their own and submitted a complaint against the soldier after concluding that the shooting was not operationally necessary.
Nevertheless, as noted, the soldier himself says that he genuinely did fear that the terrorist was trying to detonate a bomb.
Tomorrow evening (Tuesday) supporters of the soldier plan to hold a major demonstration, led among others by former MK and Israeli media personality Sharon Gal.
That rally itself has been a source of controversy as well, with two well-known Israeli singers pulling out at the last moment.
3. HAMAS: IDF TUNNEL FIND 'A DROP IN THE OCEAN'
by Tova Dvorin
Hamas has released an official response to the IDF uncovering a terror tunnel Monday, saying that Israel "was afraid to release all the details," Channel 2 reports.
"The enemy did not dare to publish all the details and information of the tunnel that it revealed," Hamas gloated. "What the enemy announced is a only drop in the ocean of what Hamas is prepared to [do to] protect the Palestinian people and liberate the holy places, the land and the [terrorist] prisoners."
At least one Palestinian media news outlet also reports that senior Hamas official Mahmoud Jasser Awad Al A-Tauna, 28, has turned himself in to IDF under "surprising circumstances" - but did not elaborate.
Earlier Monday, it was cleared for publication that the IDF recently discovered a terror tunnel from Gaza into southern Israel, marking the first such discovery since 2014's Operation Protective Edge.
The tunnel was a particularly large and complex one; its route stretched along the eastern sector of the Gaza Strip all the way to southern Gaza, and crossed onto the Israeli side. At some points it reached as much as 30 meters in depth.
4. BENNETT: HAMAS PLANNING 'YOM KIPPUR WAR-TYPE' SURPRISE ATTACK
by Ari Soffer
Israeli Education Minister and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett has applauded the IDF's success in locating and destroying a massive terrorist attack tunnel from Gaza into Israel, and warned of Hamas's continued motivation to launch a major attack.
Bennett, who is also a member of the Security Cabinet, said Hamas's top priority was to carry out a multi-pronged, mass-casualty infiltration attack from Gaza into southern Israeli communities.
The Jewish Home leader has been credited for pushing the government to initiate an IDF operation during 2014's Operation Protective Edge, defying strong opposition from other cabinet members - including Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon - who had insisted on restricting the operation to dismantling terrorist groups' rocket-firing capabilities.
Bennett has since clashed with Ya'alon and Prime Minister Netanyahu on security issues, criticizing them for not taking a hard enough stance. In his statement following the IDF's latest discovery, he appeared to repeat that criticism.
"In the two years since (Operation) Protective Edge, Hamas was not deterred from re-intensifying its efforts, as we warned," he said.
Despite the IDF destroying its entire attack tunnel capabilities - and foiling a massive planned attack against Israeli civilians - Bennett warned that Hamas had turned tunnel construction into a "national priority," and was investing massively in plans to launch an even greater attack.
"The time has come to internalize" the threat, he said.
"Hamas's objective is to surprise us with a multi-front infiltration attack, (including) killings and kidnappings," he said, describing it as a "terrorist Yom Kippur (War)-type scenario."
During the 1973 war, Israeli forces sustained serious casualties when Arab armies launched a surprise attack, capitalizing on the Israeli government's sense of complacency following its spectacular 1967 victory, before the IDF eventually recovered and pushed back to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Israel needs to prevent such a scenario recurring "at any price, and not to rely on Hamas being 'deterred'," he said.
The government is obligated to provide security to the residents of the south."
5. REFUGEES BRING ANTI-SEMITISM TO EUROPE, WARNS HUNGARIAN MINISTER
by JTA
A senior Hungarian Cabinet minister warned that refugees entering Europe are anti-Semitic to defend his government's tough stance on admitting them.
Janos Lazar, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's powerful Cabinet chief, delivered the warning April 14 during a news conference in Budapest, the news site NOL reported.
"Refugees entering Europe now are strongly anti-Semitic," he said in explaining why his government was blocking the vast majority of people from Syria and Iraq from entering the country. "Where there are large numbers of immigrants, there is greater anti-Semitism -- France and Germany, for example," Lazar said. He also claimed Hungary has low levels of anti-Semitism.
While anti-Semitic violence is rare in Hungary, rhetoric against Jews in government and mainstream media is widely seen as a problem.
Earlier this month, Israel's ambassador to Israel, Ilan Mor, wrote a letter condemning a series of anti-Semitic op-eds by Zsolt Bayer, a co-founder of the ruling Fidesz party, published in a mainstream pro-government newspaper.
Bayer's first op-ed justified anti-Semitic murders in the 1940s as acts of self-defense. He was writing after protesters prevented a bust from going up in Budapest commemorating a lawmaker who drafted anti-Jewish legislation in the buildup to the murder of some 500,000 Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust. The unveiling ceremony was attended by senior officials from Fidesz.
Mazsihisz, the umbrella group of Hungarian Jewish communities, briefly suspended its ties with the government in 2014 over what it considered a government-led campaign to whitewash the responsibility of the Hungarian state for the murder of its Jews by Nazis and their local collaborators during the Holocaust.
Relations have since been restored.
The Hungarian government pledged at least $2 million dollars in funding this year for maintenance and renovations of abandoned countryside Jewish cemeteries, Mazsihisz informed leaders of Central European Jewish communities Wednesday.
Separately, Thorbjorn Jagland, the secretary general of the Council of Europe, last week visited a Jewish cemetery in Frampol, Poland, to express his and his organization's support for the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, which works to protect Jewish burial grounds in Central and Eastern Europe.
"The last time so many marched from the centre of Frampol to the Jewish cemetery was when the death march of 1,000 Frampol Jews took place during World War II," said Philip Carmel, a chief executive of the group. "This time, it was a march of life, a march of young people, of pupils who have helped to protect this cemetery."
Jagland visited the burial grounds with Jewish community officials and Polish high school students.
6. TERMINALLY ILL MAN ALLOWED TO CONVERT AFTER YEARS OF STRUGGLE
by Shoshana Miskin
Last Thursday, after four years of hardship and bureaucracy struggle, Y. (full name withheld), a terminally ill immigrant, was finally granted permission to convert and marry his sweetheart.
The pair, who were born into gentile families, began a conversion process several years ago in the United States. Four years ago, the pair sought to live as Jews in Israel and decided to immigrate to and settled in an observant community in northern Israel.
Upon their arrival to Israel, Y. and his wife wanted to officially become citizens and obtain recognition of their Jewishness from the Ministry of Interior and the Chief Rabbinate. Their request was rejected repeatedly for four years, due to the lack of recognition of conversion they received abroad. As a result, and in order to become full citizens of Israel, they decided to convert for a second time through Israel's conversion system.
This process quickly became very difficult due to bureaucratic difficulties the pair repeatedly encountered, during their long-awaited conversion.
However, a month ago, Y.'s health had deteriorated following the diagnosis of a terminal illness. Due to the fact that he was still not a citizen, Y. was abstained from medical rights and coverage which left him helpless.
It was at that point that the pair realized they needed urgent help and they contacted the Itim organization, which helps people navigate the religious authorities' bureaucracy in Israel. With the organization's help, the pair finally succeeded in overcoming the bureaucratic challenges and were finally able to undergo the process of conversion.
The Orthodox conversion and wedding ceremonies were held one after the other in a location close to their home in the northern city of Afula, last Thursday.
Now, representative from Itim are confident that the Ministry of Interior will accept their Aliyah application. However, until they receive health coverage, the organization has been helping Y. receive the medical treatment he needs.
"The event held last weekend did not leave one dry eye. After all the politics and bureaucracy, we sometimes tend to forget how ultimately, it benefits the lives of people in the most personal way," Rabbi Dr. Seth Farber, chairman of Itim.
7. ISRAELI MUSIC STAR CAVES INTO PRESSURE – WON'T RALLY FOR SOLDIER
by Arutz Sheva Staff
The popular singer Eyal Golan has canceled his appearance at the rally in support of the soldier who shot a terrorist. The event is to be held on Tuesday at Tel Aviv's iconic Rabin Square.
Golan first announced on Sunday that he will come to the rally "to support the soldier and his family" together with leading Israeli singer David D'Or as well as rap star Kobi Shimoni, better known by his stage name Subliminal.
However, Golan decided to cancel his performance saying he never meant to go against the Israel Defense Forces' chief or the military.
"Yesterday I decided to come, to support the soldier and embrace his family. I never intended to come out against the IDF Chief of Staff, whom I highly respect. I never wanted to come out against the IDF, the people's army," Golan wrote on his Facebook page.
"I received dozens of appeals from people like me who, on one hand, care about the soldier, and on the other see the state and the army as guiding lights. As a result, I decided to cancel my participation in the rally tomorrow."
D'Or also released a statement on Monday saying that while he wanted to express empathy toward the family, he is not a "political person" and was unaware of the event's political nature. D'Or further explained that he "can't attend anyway" due to a conflicting performance.
Israel rap star Subliminal was still scheduled to perform as of Monday afternoon.
8. 'TIME FOR ALIYAH TO HAVE ITS OWN HOLIDAY'
by Yoni Kempinski
[youtube:2014577]
A special celebration took place on Sunday in honor of Yom HaAliyah (the day of Aliyah), which is celebrated on the 10th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan.
It is on this date in the year 2488 of the Jewish calendar (1273 B.C.E) that the first mass Aliyah in history took place, when the Children of Israel crossed the Jordan into the land of Israel.
Yom HaAliyah began as a grassroots young Olim movement and in March 2014 the Yom HaAliyah Bill was first submitted in the 19th Knesset as the next step in codifying the 10th of Nisan holiday in Israeli law.
Sunday's celebration was organized by the Am Yisrael Foundation, whose president Jay Shultz told Arutz Sheva, "Yom HaAliyah celebrates Aliyah as a core value of the state of Israel and the contributions olim have and continue to make to this society."
"It's on this day that we're excited that Jews in Israel and around the world, as they enter the Seder a few days from now, on the night of the Seder they should have Aliyah on their minds. We left Egypt for a reason, and the reason was to come home, unified as a people and make it happen here."
Yom HaAliyah "is the one thing on the Knesset table that everybody agrees on," said Jonathan Javor, director at TLV Internationals, the organization that initiated the idea of codifying Yom HaAliyah into Israeli law.
"It's the one thing where we've got coalition and opposition, right and left, secular and religious, everybody's supporting this bill and it's a wonderful thing to see," he added, noting that the group hopes the legislation will be completed by the end of the Knesset's summer session.
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