“He [Netanyahu] sees it tangibly. On Oct. 7, we were in a state of humiliation, and he gradually witnessed the great kindness that God bestowed,” Deri said.

By Akiva Van Koningsveld, JNS

Shas Party leader Aryeh Deri said on Sunday that while God forsook the Jewish people “for a truly small moment” during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, it led to the collapse of the entire Iranian-led terrorist axis.

“During a very brief moment, on Oct. 7, the Holy One, blessed be He, forsook us. We took an awful blow that we still haven’t recovered from,” Deri said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14.

“So many casualties, we still have hostages—but it saved the Israeli nation that the former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the wicked and depraved, decided to go first and not to wait for the whole bloc.”

While slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah explicitly endorsed the goal of destroying the Jewish state, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly approved Hamas spearheading the Oct. 7 assault without the full participation of Tehran’s Lebanese proxy.

“I see in this what the prophet Isaiah said in his prophecy: ‘For a small moment have I forsaken thee; But with great compassion will I gather thee,’” the ultra-Orthodox lawmaker told Channel 14’s “The Patriots” current affairs program.

“All of a sudden we found out—and the nation of Israel and the whole world found out—what Iran is. The Iranians lost all their proxies and were left exposed,” according to the haredi politician.

“God performed one more big miracle: that Trump was elected,” Deri continued, saying that “without Oct. 7, without Trump and without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” the ongoing Israel Defense Forces campaign against Tehran would not have been possible.

In response to “The Patriots” host Yinon Magal’s question about whether he thinks Netanyahu has grown stronger in his faith amid the ongoing seven-front war against the Jewish state, Deri replied: “Absolutely.”

“He sees it tangibly. On Oct. 7, we were in a state of humiliation, and he gradually witnessed the great kindness that God bestowed,” Deri said.

Early on June 13, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets attacked dozens of enemy targets, including military and nuclear sites, in a “preemptive, precise, combined” opening strike against Tehran’s nuclear program.

Hours before the military launched the first strikes, Netanyahu visited Jerusalem’s Western Wall alongside Argentine President Javier Milei.

The premier during the visit placed a note in the wall with a verse from the book of Numbers (23:24): “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion,” according to the Prime Minister’s Office.

The IDF’s aerial assault on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program has been named “Operation Rising Lion,” after the biblical prophecy.

The post Deri: God ‘forsook’ Israel on Oct. 7, but massacre helped stop greater Iranian threat appeared first on World Israel News.

Judge rejects application by Palestinian man, saying his failure to condemn the attack could “have a bearing on the question of his loyalty to the state.”

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

A Jerusalem District Court judge ruled last week that an Arab resident of Jerusalem would not receive Israeli citizenship because he did not object to the actions of his sister who is in jail for having tried to kill an IDF soldier, Channel 12 reported Sunday.

In her decision, Judge Einat Avman-Muller accepted the position of state representatives who testified that there is significant symbolic consideration when it comes to granting citizenship to a person whose relative committed a terrorist act against Israel.

The petitioner lives in the eastern side of Jerusalem and is defined as a permanent resident of Israel, meeting all the other criteria for obtaining citizenship. However, the judge ruled that the man’s reaction to his sister’s attack was grounds for the rejection of the request.

In her judgment, Avman-Muller wrote that the cumulative actions of the resident “have a bearing on the question of his loyalty to the state.”

The applicant’s sister is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence following a car attack in 2016 at the Qalandiya checkpoint. The woman stopped her vehicle at the checkpoint after a soldier signaled her to do so, and when the soldier was in front of the vehicle, she accelerated and tried to hit him. She then got out of her car and pulled a knife, but was arrested before she could stab the soldier.

In an interview with the resident, he was asked about the attack and claimed that it was an accident, the report said. When asked what he thought of his sister’s actions, the man replied: “It’s her decision, she’s old enough and she knows what she’s doing.”

“Whoever commits a terror attack and blows himself up is mentally ill,” the man said, but did not deny his sister’s actions and did not express any reservations about them.

The verdict noted that the resident is in contact with his sister and occasionally visits her in prison.

According to Deri, members of the families of terrorists who do not condemn their actions should not be granted Israeli citizenship, Channel 12 reported, adding that with the “green light” from the court verdict, it is possible that the decision will be used in similar cases.

The post No Israeli citizenship for Jerusalem Arab who refused to condemn sibling’s terror attack appeared first on World Israel News.

Here is a recap of the top Israel news stories on August 15, 2019.

And in case you missed our last recap…

The post WATCH: Daily Israel News Recap – August 15, 2019 appeared first on World Israel News.