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Resources updated between Monday, October 8, 2018 and Sunday, October 14, 2018

October 14, 2018

Palestinians transport an incendiary blimp to launch over the Gaza border into Israel on October 13, 2018.

Gaza terror group unveils first-ever incendiary 'blimp' bound for Israel Document

October 13, 2018

Palestinians in Gaza along the border with Israel

Seven Palestinians were killed and at least 252 protesters were injured in intense clashes with Israeli security forces along the Gaza border on Friday afternoon and evening, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

In the most serious incident, in the south of the Strip, the IDF said several Gazans planted a bomb by the fence. After it exploded and blew a hole in the fence, some 20 Palestinians came through and ran toward Israeli soldiers stationed in a snipers' position.

Most of the Gazans pulled back and returned through the fence into the Strip. However, three continued to move towards soldiers, who fired at them, killing them.

The bodies of the three were taken back into the Strip by the rioters, Hadashot TV said.

"This is a blatant terror attempt that was thwarted by IDF troops quickly and professionally which prevented a possible terror attack against civilians and IDF troops," the IDF said noting that a knife was found at the scene.

The army said around 15,000 protesters hurled grenades, bombs, firebombs and rocks at Israeli forces at various locations along the border. Hadashot TV reported that for the first time soldiers were also being shot at with crossbows.

Troops responded with riot dispersal means and live fire as needed, the army said.

The Gaza health ministry identified six of the dead as Ahmed Ibrahim Zaki El Tawil, 27, Ahmad Abdullah Abu Naim, 17, Mohammed Abdulhafiz Yusuf Ismail, 29, Afifi Mahmoud Atta, 18, Abdullah Barham Sulaiman al-Daghmah, 25 and Tamer Iyad Mahmoud Abu Rummaneh, 22.

The seventh casualty was not immediate named. The ministry said 154 of the wounded were hit by live fire.

Heavy smoke from burning tires at the Kerem Shalom crossing in the northern Strip prompted authorities in Israel to order residents of the adjacent kibbutz to stay indoors. Ynet said firefighters were putting up large fans throughout the community to help clear the smoke.

Meanwhile, ten fires broke out in southern Israel that were sparked by incendiary balloons launched over the border.

In light of the bomb attack on the fence and the heavy rioting, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman ordered a halt to the transfer of fuel into the Strip.

The riots have increased in recent weeks, going from a weekly event to near nightly protests since Hamas halted indirect talks with Israel aimed at a ceasefire. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has also worsened and reconciliation talks with the Palestinian Authority have broken down.

Hamas, an Islamist terror group which rules the Gaza Strip and actively calls for Israel's destruction, has increased the pace of rioting and demonstrations against Israel, and created new units tasked with sustaining tensions along the border fence including during nighttime and early morning hours.

Almost every evening, thousands of Gazans now gather for violent demonstrations at the Erez crossing and elsewhere, in what is regarded by some as part of Hamas's attempts to signal to Israel that it wants an economic solution to the Gaza Strip.

At least 140 Palestinians have been killed during the protests since late March, according to AP figures. Hamas has acknowledged that dozens of the fatalities were its members.

In recent days, Qatari-bought fuel has begun entering the Strip to allow operation of its only power station, in a bid to alleviate conditions in the blockaded Palestinian enclave. Hundreds of liters of fuel have since passed into the territory.

Israel has facilitated the delivery over the objections of the Palestinian Authority, hoping it will help ease the months of protests and clashes.

A Qatari official told the Reuters news agency that the $60 million fuel donation came "at the request of donor states in the United Nations, to prevent an escalation of the existing humanitarian disaster."

For months residents of the strip have been receiving only four hours of electricity a day on average. Jamie McGoldrick, the UN's resident humanitarian coordinator, told the Reuters news agency the delivery will add a few more hours of electricity to Gaza's 2 million residents.

Hamas seized control of Gaza from PA President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority in a 2007 near civil war and multiple reconciliation attempts aimed at restoring the PA to power in Gaza have failed.

Abbas says that making deals with Hamas amounts to recognizing their control over Gaza in place of the PA and has sought to block the fuel deliveries. In a statement Tuesday Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior official close to Abbas, threatened retaliatory measures if the fuel deliveries continued.

Abbas has reportedly threatened to cut off funds to Gaza in response to the fuel transfers.

Israel worries the halt of some $96 million that the PA sends monthly to the Gaza Strip could drive a desperate and cash-strapped Hamas toward conflict with Israel as a means of propping up its rule.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Abbas was exacerbating Gaza woes and thereby fueling its residents' aggression toward Israel. "Abbas is strangling them economically and they lash out at Israel," he told a press conference in his Jerusalem office.

Both Israel and Egypt enforce a number of restrictions on the movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza. Israel says the blockade is necessary to keep Hamas and other terror groups in the Strip from arming or building military infrastructure.

On Thursday, the IDF revealed it had uncovered and demolished an attack tunnel that reached from Gaza some 200 meters into Israel.

The tunnel originated in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. It was the 15th tunnel destroyed by Israeli forces since October 2017, according to the IDF.

Israel's military liaison to the Palestinians, Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rokon, accused Hamas of diverting funds for needy Gaza citizens to its terrorist activities.

"Residents of Gaza, see the full picture: Despite your distress, the terrorist organization Hamas continues to invest massive funds in terror instead of taking care of you and developing the civilian infrastructure in the Strip. Instead of using cement, iron and gravel to build schools, playgrounds and hospitals, Hamas uses these materials to build death tunnels of terror," Abu Rokon said in an Arabic-language Facebook video.

Palestinian terrorists attack Israeli soldiers inside Israel after using bomb to blow hole in Gaza border fence Document

October 12, 2018

Former U.N. General Assembly President Peter Thomson (Fiji) at U.N. event on "International Solidarity with the Palestinian People"

U.N. funding perpetuates Palestinian narratives Article

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaking at a press conference at the U.N.

"The sudden announcement of Nikki Haley's resignation from her post as America's ambassador to the UN at the end of the year has dismayed Israel's supporters, and with good reason.

Her willingness to call out the despots and tyrants who have turned the UN into a theater of bigotry, injustice and hypocrisy against Israel has been an object lesson in principled and muscular diplomacy which displayed both high skill and charm.

In a universe of western appeasers, she displayed something which that world has all but lost: the moral courage to grasp that evil cannot be accommodated, but has to be confronted and defeated.

Now, though, the US needs to take its strategy of holding the UN to account onto a higher level. Haley gave the UN a regular kicking over its manifold failings. Yet the UN remains intact as a grotesque repudiation of its founding ideals.

Yes, the US quit the UN Human Rights Council. Yet that remains a travesty of its name, comprising some of the world's major human rights violators, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Angola, Qatar and Venezuela.

The single-minded persecution of Israel by the UNHRC should have disqualified it years ago. As Anne Bayefsky of Human Rights Voices has observed, it reserves one permanent agenda item for condemning Israel alone.
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BY EVERY possible standard, the UN has conspicuously failed to live up to its own objectives of maintaining global peace and security. It has failed to keep peace in the world, failed to stop global conflicts, failed to halt the carnage in Syria. It has done nothing to prevent Islamic jihadi aggression, nothing to halt the horrific mass murder of Christians in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world, nothing to stop the murder of opposition politicians and extinction of human rights in country after country.

Instead, the overtly anti-American and anti-Israel UN provides a rhetorical shield and effective justification and incitement for terrorism, tyranny and oppression.
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The Trump administration has broken with all that. The US has withdrawn from UNESCO and the UNHRC; Israel is set to withdraw from UNESCO at the end of this year.

This is not enough. The UN itself has to be effectively neutralized, deprived of its power to hurt America and Israel and promote evil in the world..."

As Haley's Comet Passes, U.N. Itself Must Now Be A Fallen Star Article

October 11, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump at the United Nations

"...As in other areas of foreign policy and national security, Trump has completely reversed the policies of his predecessor Barack Obama. From the beginning of his tenure in the White House, Trump has shown little respect for the Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and several other UN and international agencies. He views them as highly politicized, corrupt, ineffective, and anti-American.
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In his speech to the 2018 UN General Assembly (his second to the body), Trump clarified a doctrine he often repeated during the 2016 presidential campaign and has continued to emphasize since becoming president: The US is a sovereign state and will determine its functions in world affairs solely on the basis of its national interests. 'America is governed by Americans,' he said. 'We reject the ideology of globalism and accept the doctrine of patriotism.'

Trump has consistently applied this doctrine to multiple international organizations and processes. When the US decided to leave the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained, 'Too many commitments have gone unfulfilled. President Trump wants to move the ball forward. From day one he has called out institutions or countries who say one thing and do another, and that's precisely the problem at the Human Rights Council.'

In June 2018, the US left the UNHRC. Ambassador Haley said that for almost a year, she had demanded reforms to the Council's operations to no avail. 'Regrettably,' she said, 'it is now clear that our call for reform was not heeded. Human rights abusers continue to serve on, and be elected to, the Council.'...

In October 2017, the US withdrew from UNESCO. The US is now an 'observer state,' with no dues payable and making no contribution to the running of the organization... Palestine has not been granted full membership at the UN, but did receive full member status at UNESCO. This violates a congressional law that bans US funding of any international organization that recognizes Palestinian statehood in the absence of a peace agreement with Israel.
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The ICC, the Hague-based world court, was Trump's next target... In September 2018, he called the Court 'unaccountable' and 'outright dangerous' to the US, Israel, and other allies. 'For all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us,' he told the conservative Federalist Society in Washington. 'If the Court comes after us, Israel, or other US allies, we will not sit quietly.' Bolton threatened the ICC with sanctions..."

Trump Stands Firm Against Bias and Abuses at International Organizations Article

A fire in Israel caused by a Palestinian incendiary device

Palestinian Arson Attacks from Gaza Cause 1,053 Fires in Israel in Six Months Document

The scene following the stabbing attack

Two people were injured in a stabbing attack outside an army base in the northern West Bank on Thursday, the army said.

An Israeli soldier was moderately hurt, sustaining stab wounds to the face and upper body. A civilian woman, 26, was lightly injured by a ricochet from shots fired at the assailant, who fled the scene.

"IDF troops are searching for the terrorist," the army said.

Shortly after 1:30 p.m., the stabber attacked the Israeli soldier, a 30-year-old reservist, with a knife, outside the Shomron Regional Brigade headquarters in the northern West Bank, near the Itamar settlement, the Israel Defense Forces said. He then ran away.

Other IDF soldiers on the scene opened fire at the assailant. Shrapnel from the shots struck the woman in the leg.

The two victims were taken to Petah Tikva's Beilinson Hospital for treatment.

The reservist sustained stab wounds to the face and upper body. He was fully conscious when he was brought into the hospital, according to his doctors.

On Sunday, a Palestinian terrorist shot and killed two of his coworkers - Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hajbi - and wounded a third, Sara Vaturi, in the northern West Bank's Barkan Industrial Park where he was employed.

The suspect, Ashraf Na'alowa, fled the scene and has eluded capture, according to the Israeli military. The hunt for the suspected terrorist entered its fifth day Thursday.

On Thursday, Na'alowa's sister Fayrouz was arrested at her home in the West Bank city of Nablus in connection with the manhunt for her brother, the Shin Bet said. Fayrouz had previously been questioned by Israeli forces, but was released. Na'alowa's brother was arrested the day after the attack.

The Shin Bet refused to say on what grounds Fayrouz was arrested. Na'alowa's mother and other sisters were also detained and brought in for questioning following the attack, but were later released.

Officials reportedly believe that Na'alowa, who is said to have left a suicide note before the attack, is preparing to engage troops when they close in on him in a firefight that could turn deadly.

2 Israelis hurt in West Bank stabbing attack Document

October 10, 2018

Jews praying at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron over Passover.

UNESCO: Rachel's Tomb and Cave of Patriarchs part of 'Occupied Palestine' Article

October 9, 2018

An incendiary device attached to a balloon found in courtyard of a home in the Givat Zeev settlement in the West Bank, October 8, 2018.

Palestinian incendiary balloon found in courtyard of home in Jewish community near Jerusalem Document

28-year-old Kim Yehezkel, murdered by her Palestinian co-worker at work after dropping her baby off at daycare.

Israel envoy calls on U.N. to condemn Palestinian terror attack that killed 2 Israelis Article

Pictures commemorating terror attack victims Ziv Hajbi and Kim Yehezkel by Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon at the U.N. Headquarters

"Israel plans to fight the United Nation's failure to condemn the Barkan terror attack by placing photographs of the two victims, along with memorial candles at the organization's headquarters in New York.

'The United Nations has not spoken out against the cruel murder, but we will continue to remember and remind the world of the lives that were cut short and of the hatred and the incitement,' Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said on Tuesday.

To date, seven civilians and two soldiers were killed in terror attacks this year, Five of the attacks occurred in the West Bank and one was in Jerusalem's Old City, according to Foreign Ministry Information.
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But Sunday's attack, which took the lives of Ziv Hajbi, 35, and Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, drew a fairly quick response from the US and Europe with the United Nations failing to date to respond.
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Danon also wrote a letter to the UN Security Council asking that it condemn the attack and demanding that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas halt payments to terrorists and their families..."

Israel Fights U.N. Failure to Condemn Terror Attack with Victim's Photos Article

October 8, 2018

Palestinians outside an UNRWA building

"With the United Nations General Assembly meeting this week, they are keen to bring to the attention of the world the education that is being provided in UNRWA schools. We believe that the hate-filled education that has been provided to young Palestinians over the last three generations is a leading cause of the failure to achieve peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Our message is simple: The education of Palestinian school children must change drastically if there is ever to be a lasting negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Why? Because these schools have been inciting three generations of young Palestinians to hate and kill Jews, and the only means of conflict resolution that these students have been exposed to is one of violence
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A curriculum of hatred permeates all subject matter, from elementary arithmetic to high school social studies and science. Martyrdom is glorified, any historical connection of Jews to their biblical homeland is fictionalized, contemporary maps of the region omit the existence of the UN member state of Israel, Jews are demonized, and terrorist/jihad concepts are woven into songs, plays, and academia. 'The Right of Return' for over 5 million Palestinians is taught as a birthright - clearly an attempt to destroy the State of Israel. Summer camps for UNRWA school children in Gaza are essentially Hamas paramilitary training camps. It is nothing short of hair-raising to see an adorable schoolgirl demonstrate the best way to stab a Jew, or to hear a young schoolboy say that he dreams of one day becoming a martyr.
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It has been a monumental error in judgement to ignore UNRWA's complicity in allowing a hate-filled education system to function unfettered in its schools for all these years. If this indoctrination had been properly addressed decades ago, we would likely not be in the situation we are in today, faced with a population of Palestinians educated in UNRWA schools (for which the USA was the major donor) unwilling to even consider a peaceful resolution to a conflict that has cost way too many innocent lives, and benefits no one, certainly not Palestinians..."

UNRWA indoctrinates Palestinian kids into a culture of hate Article