GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 272

Hostage Deal Hope

Hamas Responds

Apparently the terrorist group dropped its demand to have a permanent ceasefire in place to accept any hostage release deal as we read in a report from The Jerusalem Post:

Hamas has dropped its demand for an upfront pledge that Israel ends the war, a move that prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to send a team led by Mossad Director David Barnea to participate in further negotiations for a deal, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The PM talked with Joe Biden about the Hamas response:

Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden and informed him that Israel would participate in talks based on the latest draft of the deal which Israel received on Wednesday. It's a proposal that deals with the release of the remaining 120 hostages and the issue of a Gaza ceasefire.

However, Hamas wants to survive and will still want a permanent ceasefire in any deal:

The terror group is still expected to demand a permanent ceasefire, possibly even before the completion of phase one, but would allow that first phase of the three-phase deal to get underway without such a pledge.

The article mentions that if Israel accepts this change it very well could get a deal done and the very fact that Netanyahu is sending a delegation signals some hope. But when talking with Biden, Netanyahu reiterated they fully intend to achieve their stated goals, one of which is eliminating Hamas. Some details about the deal are still sticking points:

Since May, Hamas has demanded to free only 18 hostages during the first phase, and there are no reports that it has budged on this demand even as Israel returns to full-fledged negotiations.

This allows Netanyahu to claim that, at least so far, he has not agreed to end the war, though there is a strong chance that eventually, this would be the outcome of the negotiations.

The US has always presumed that once the war was halted temporarily, this lull would lead to a permanent ceasefire.

If any deal is going to happen the article says there are three reasons Hamas will relent:

The first was real pressure from Qatar for possibly the first time in nine months, sources said. Doha and Cairo have served as the main mediators for a hostage deal, with help from the United States.

The second factor has been increased pressure by Biden and his main negotiator CIA Director William Burns who have threatened to walk away from negotiations and to leave Hamas versus Israel with no broker who can rein in Jerusalem.

Third, the Egyptians have also increased their pressure on Hamas.

Even with this pressure there is still the counter pressure from Iran and Hezbollah that needs to be factored in. Any hint of Hamas getting demolished will bring out the proverbial knives from both and I think even if a deal is agreed to, Hamas won’t follow through on it just as they broke the last one. Remember, they want to survive, Hezbollah wants them to survive and Iran wants them to survive. Regardless of these negotiations their goal is to annihilate Israel and anyone who doesn’t realize this hasn’t been listening.

Fireworks From Hezbollah

In an article from CBN.com we learn that Hezbollah unleashed a barrage of rockets while hope for a hostage deal is growing:

The fighting on Israel's northern border is intensifying after a large-scale rocket barrage from the Islamic jihadist group Hezbollah.

In this latest aerial attack, the Israeli Defense Forces reported the terror group fired more than 200 rockets and 20 drones today.

This attack stands out since it is the biggest in a while:

The massive barrage against the northern part of Israel is one of the largest in the monthslong conflict along the Lebanon-Israel border, coming after an Israeli strike killed a high-level Hezbollah commander, Mohammad Naameh Nasser, in Lebanon.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah reported Nasser took part in jihad in Syria and Iraq from 2011 until 2016 and fought in the group's last war with Israel in 2006. Two other senior Hezbollah commanders have also been killed.

The tit for tat attacks continue and will most likely continue until one side or the other has simply had enough:

The Israeli military said it responded to the July 4th rocket assault by striking Hezbollah's “military structures” in the southern border towns of Ramyeh and Houla.

Part of the pressure for Israel is coming from the displaced Israelis who want to return to their homes. There is no way for that to happen unless Hezbollah is forcibly driven back:

As CBN News has reported, Hezbollah's constant rocket attacks and war threats have driven roughly 80,000 Israel civilians from their homes in northern Israel, meaning there is an increasingly real possibility of a full-scale war in the north.

According to another article, this time from The Times Of Israel that the IDF did hit back:

Israeli fighter jets struck additional Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in the last few hours, the military says.

The IDF says the targets included Hezbollah infrastructure in Mays al-Jabal and a building used by the terror group in Ayta ash-Shab.

Hezbollah Not A Terrorist Group

Hezbollah is no longer a terrorist threat, at least according to an article from i24news.tv:

The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.

It is somewhat puzzling to make this change when the article notes this:

Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world's largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.

And yet the Arab League justified their call this way:

“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.

“The League's member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body "does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner."

Regardless of how they are labeled their behavior belies that they are exactly what the rest of the world sees them as and that is a terrorist group dedicated to annihilating Israel and Jews everywhere:

Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.

No, Arab League, Hezbollah is a terrorist group and everyone else knows they are. To think anything else is more than naïve. It is the height of blindness and most likely willful at that.