Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of standing “shoulder to shoulder with the rapists and murderers of Hamas” for declining to include the terror group in a report published Tuesday on organizations suspected by the UN of committing acts of sexual violence during conflict.

The document, titled “Conflict-related sexual violence,” and published as a “Report of the Secretary-General,” noted there is evidence that sex crimes were committed during the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel, but did not specifically attribute responsibility to Hamas.

The ministry elaborated in the statement that Guterres ignored “the plethora of testimony and evidence that was collected and then included in the report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten.” Patten’s report after her visit to Israel found that rape likely occurred during the Hamas attacks, and said there was convincing evidence hostages were facing sexual abuse in Gaza. In his report, Guterres referenced Patten’s assessment, but noted that it, “not being investigative in nature and given its limited duration, did not draw conclusions on attribution to specific armed groups or determine prevalence of incidents of conflict-related sexual violence during and after the attacks of 7 October. Such a determination would require a fully-fledged investigation.”

Guterres, fumed Katz, refused to acknowledge Hamas’s responsibility for the grave sexual crimes that appear in the Patten report and to declare it a terrorist organization.

Hamas officials in Gaza claimed on Saturday to discover a mass grave with more than 200 bodies at a hospital in Khan Younis that was recently the target of a military raid. The officials claimed the dead were buried in a mass grave by Israeli forces, but evidence suggested this claim was false, with the bodies having previously been buried at that same location by Palestinians amid the fighting between Israeli forces and terror operatives in the area.

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday rejected Hamas’s allegation as “baseless.” It said forces searching for Israeli hostages had examined bodies previously buried by Palestinians near Nasser Hospital and had returned the bodies to where they were buried after they were examined.

It has been documented that Palestinians buried their dead at the hospital grounds both before and while Israeli troops operated in the area. Hamas officials in Gaza claimed on Saturday to discover a mass grave with more than 200 bodies at a hospital in Khan Younis that was recently the target of a military raid.

--snip-

It has been documented that Palestinians buried their dead at the hospital grounds both before and while Israeli troops operated in the area. The location of that burial site was geo-located by experts to the same location where Hamas officials claimed to have discovered the new mass grave.

The Palestinian political faction Fatah charged on air that Hamas had deliberately killed aid workers, stolen aid and manufactured a food crisis in Gaza, according to a Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) investigation published on Sunday.

A Fatah TV anchor reported that Hamas had attacked aid workers, stolen food and water and caused food prices to skyrocket in the Gaza Strip – which PMW said constituted a triple crime.

“Hamas’ persecution of any party who is a source for distributing the [humanitarian] aid or securing it began from the start of the war, as Hamas persecuted well-known figures and teams of volunteers on the ground in mid-October [2023,” the anchor said. ”It attacked them and killed some of them for two reasons: Firstly, preventing any activity by any [other] party in the Gaza Strip; and secondly, ensuring Hamas control over the aid and its storage, which of course leads to these crazy and unreal prices that no one can pay in the shadow of this destruction.

“After the occupation bombed storehouses controlled by Hamas, the accumulation of tons of various food and aid products that Hamas had taken exclusivity over became clear, at a time when the Gaza Strip is suffering from hunger.”

A woman in a Keffiyeh shouted at a pro-Israel activist, "We are Hamas," outside Columbia on Wednesday. "We're all Hamas," she said at the counter-protesters that had rallied outside the university.

Anti-Israel activists threatened Jewish and Israeli students with further October 7 Massacres, claimed membership with Hamas, and expressed support for terrorism during the Columbia University protests that began on Wednesday, according to footage and accounts from local media and organizations.

"Remember the 7th of October!" shouted a man with a red keffiyeh over his face in a video published by Columbia Sundial editor-in-chief Jonas Du on social media on Friday. "That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10 more times, not 100 more times, not 1000 more times, but 10,000 times!"

Calling for "October 7 everyday"

"Never forget the 7th of October," said another masked man wearing a Palestinian flag, standing outside the campus gates on Thursday night. "Are you ready? 7th of October is about to be every day. Every day. 7th of October is going to be every day for you."

"Never forget the 7th of October. That will happen not one more time, not five more times, not 10...100…1000…10,000...The 7th of October is going to be every day for you."Protestors screamed this at two Jewish @Columbia students right outside campus gates tonight. pic.twitter.com/VYp0tFudGj
— Jonas Du (@jonasydu) April 19, 2024

The University of Haifa announces that its academic senate has elected Prof. Mouna Maroun, a neuroscientist and expert in post-trauma stress disorder, to be the university’s new rector. Maroun, a Maronite Christian from the Mount Carmel village of Isfiya, is the first Arab to be appointed rector of an Israeli university.

Maroun, 54, has been a faculty member of the university for over 20 years and completed her PhD in psychobiology there. Her research focuses on how the brain regulates emotions and on the effects of environmental and childhood stress on the brain.

She has served the University of Haifa as chairwoman of the Sagol Department of Neurobiology and as a member of the academic senate, among other positions.

“I’m grateful that the University of Haifa entrusted me with this position… I’m committed to continuing to invest all my academic resources to promote the University’s excellent research and do everything in my power to ensure the University continues to be a beacon of excellence in the heart of Israel’s North. Together, we promote a common vision of a shared society where members of all religions and denominations can co-exist in peace,” Maroun says in a statement announcing her appointment.

On Saturday night, dozens of drones launched by Iran toward Israel were intercepted by Jordanian air force jets as they crossed the kingdom’s airspace.

The military assistance provided by Amman to Israel was welcomed enthusiastically in the Jewish state, but also came as a surprise to many Israelis, since the Hashemite Kingdom has been a source of relentless criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas, and has been under intense domestic pressure to break off diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.

To some commentators, however, Amman’s intervention on Saturday night did not come as a surprise. Ghaith al-Omari, a native Jordanian and a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the kingdom’s dramatic show of support proved the strength of the security alliance between Amman and Jerusalem.

“Despite all of the political tensions between Jordan and Israel, the military and intelligence relationship never stopped,” he said. “As a matter of fact, the worse the politics gets, the closer the militaries get, because they both understand the need to maintain this relationship. This is part of both Jordan’s military doctrine and Israeli military doctrine.”

Report: Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, provided intelligence on Iran attack

Several Gulf States, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, passed on intelligence about Iran’s plans to attack Israel, providing vital information that was key to the success of the air defense measures that almost entirely thwarted the massive assault, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday citing Saudi, US, and Egyptian officials.

The cooperation was spearheaded by the US, which has for years been striving to form an informal military partnership to counter threats from Iran, the report said.

Overnight Saturday-Sunday Iran launched hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles alongside hundreds of drones at Israel. Yet by Sunday morning, the Israel Defense Forces, backed by the US and other allies, were able to confirm that some 99% of the incoming threats were downed, and the handful that made it through caused only minor damage.

While it was already known that Jordan actively participated in the downing of drones heading to Israel through its airspace, the Journal report for the first time revealed the scope of joint activities stretching across the region, and that included countries that have no diplomatic ties with Israel.

Iran had to show its regional proxies, and its own citizens, that it could extract a price from Israel, especially after Hamas had proven that Israel could be humiliated by its October 7 surprise attack.

The result was underwhelming, to say the least.The attacks overnight Saturday-Sunday only managed to harm one Israeli, a 7-year-old Muslim girl.
“It’s kind of pathetic,” said Danielle Pletka, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. “This is not the outcome they were hoping for.”

Even among Israel’s closest allies, pressure had been growing to end the war in the Gaza Strip. The focus since October 7 had shifted to suffering Gazan civilians, with the world losing sight of the need to decisively defeat Hamas on the battlefield.

With its missile and drone attack on Israel, Iran succeeded in rallying the US and top European powers to Israel’s side. Not only did the US, the UK, and France express their unequivocal support for Israel; they actively took part in its defense, using a network of satellite, planes, and radars on the ground and at sea. And instead of the UN Security Council discussing the need for a ceasefire in Gaza, it will be debating the Iranian threat and Israel’s right to self-defense on Sunday, with three permanent members sure to band together to condemn Tehran and Moscow.

An Israeli hostage who was abducted during the Hamas-led terror onslaught on October 7 said Monday that she was captured by armed Palestinian civilians who later sold her to the Gaza-ruling terror group.

Nili Margalit’s revelation in an interview with the Le Point French magazine appeared to further highlight the extent to which participation in the shock attack in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed and 253 were taken hostage extended beyond fighters in the Hamas terror group.

Margalit shared her story while on a Paris stop of a tour throughout Europe aimed at raising awareness of the 133 Israelis still in captivity.

The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and IDF intelligence Unit 504 revealed on Monday that Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman Tarik Salame Uda Abu confessed to Gazan terrorists taking over all of the hospitals in Gaza.

“Gaza terror groups use all of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip.... The organization lied and deceived regarding the story of an Israeli rocket hitting a hospital at the start of the war,” he told his interrogators.

The PIJ spokesman was arrested recently during the second takeover of Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, along with 500 other Hamas and PIJ terrorists, plus another 200 whom the IDF killed when they refused to surrender.

The terror spokesman said his role was to fool the global media and foreign countries to turn them against Israel.
Previously revealed recordings of Hamas members blaming PIJ

On October 18, IDF Spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari laid out the IDF’s full comprehensive intelligence case to prove that a failed rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza was the cause behind the damage and the death at al-Ahli Arab Hospital. This was the incident that Uda Abu was referring to.