After international pressure, the Israeli government backtracked on its no-fuel into-Gaza promise and is letting in 2 tankers a day amid fear of disease spreading.

By JNS

The Israeli government in an about-face has acquiesced to a U.S. demand that fuel be supplied to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

“The War Cabinet agreed to a special request by the United States to provide two tankers a day for the sewage system in the Gaza Strip, which is on the verge of collapse without electricity and without the capability to run the sewage and water systems,” Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said at a Friday night press conference.

“The decision was that we want to prevent the spread of diseases. We don’t currently need epidemics that will harm civilians there or our soldiers. If there is an epidemic, the fighting will be stopped. If there is a humanitarian crisis and an international outcry, we will not be able to continue the fighting under those conditions,” he added.

Hanegbi said that Israel’s security establishment “unequivocally” agreed that the move would not harm the war effort.

On Wednesday, a fuel truck entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt, in the first such delivery since Hamas launched the war on Oct. 7 with its cross-border massacre of 1,200 Israelis.

The Israel Defense Ministry’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, which deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, confirmed in a tweet:

“U.N. trucks transporting humanitarian equipment from the Rafah crossing into the southern Gaza Strip will be refueled today [Wednesday] at the crossing. This follows a request from the United States administration and is being done in coordination with the relevant security authorities.”

A COGAT spokesperson clarified to JNS that “we would like to emphasize that this refers to U.N. trucks only, not to the refueling of tankers or fuel depots.”

The Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem confirmed to JNS that U.N. trucks were scheduled to be refueled on Wednesday. “We’re talking about humanitarian aid trucks that were refueled at the Rafah border crossing,” said PMO spokesman Eylon Levy.

The United Nations claimed on Monday, as it has several times before, that without fuel for its trucks, its aid operations would “grind to a halt in the next 48 hours.”

On Oct. 18, Israel’s government said, “Israel will not thwart humanitarian supplies from Egypt as long as it is only food, water and medicine for the civilian population” [emphasis added].

But aid agencies and the United States have been pushing Israel to let fuel in.

On Oct. 30, the State Department said, “Fuel is essential to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the desalinization of water and the provision of medical care, and we want to see it provided for those purposes as soon as possible.”

Israel has expressed concerns that fuel would be confiscated by Hamas for its war effort, noting a report by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on Oct. 16 that “a group of people with trucks purporting to be from the Ministry of Health of the de facto authorities [i.e., Hamas] in Gaza removed fuel and medical equipment from the agency’s compound in Gaza City.”

The Israeli military also released an intercepted call between Hamas commanders in the Gaza Strip in which the terrorist group talked about transferring fuel from hospitals to its terrorist operatives.

The PMO’s Levy said: “We will of course continue to take all necessary action to ensure that Hamas not exploit the international community’s goodwill in order to rearm and refuel its war machine against us.”

The post In flip-flop, Israel allows fuel into Gaza appeared first on World Israel News.

Senior Hamas official thanks Ra’am coalition agreement architect, additional Ra’am party member by name.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

The Islamist Ra’am party, headed by coalition kingmaker Mansour Abbas, made history in June as the first Arab party to join an Israeli government.

But according to Channel 13 News, the party may be making history again for all the wrong reasons – as the first Israeli political party in a ruling coalition to be linked to the terror group Hamas.

Too close for comfort?

Razi Issa, a native of Kfar Qassem and senior member of the party, stands just behind Abbas in a photo which shows the Ra’am leader signing the coalition agreement which catapulted now-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his partner, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, to power.

Issa is widely believed to be one of the most influential players in the party, with reports indicating that he was the driving force behind the negotiations and drafted much of the coalition agreement.

In a video from 2019 obtained by Channel 13, Issa is seen standing in the Gaza Strip before opening a local branch of the Islamic 48 Aid charity.

He said that he traveled to the enclave in order to “stand with our brothers, like we always do.” Dr. Ali Al-Kitnani, another senior Ra’am official, joined Issa for the trip.

Issa, who is ranked 15th on the party list and is also a member of the Islamic Shura Council of Israel, said he was excited to participate in a project which would help “orphans and people in need.”

Photographs and videos from the same trip show that Razi Hamed, a senior Hamas member, was present at the celebration marking the opening of the 48 Aid branch in Gaza, with Issa visible nearby.

At a later event, Hamed is seen praising the organization for its “huge work” and specifically thanking “internal Palestinians” — a term which refers to Arab Israelis – for their support.

He then thanks the Ra’am party members Issa and Al-Kitnani by name for their work in Aid 48.

Charity or pay-for-slay front?

When confronted by Channel 13’s Ayala Hasson regarding who exactly receives funding from the charity, Issa said that money was distributed strictly to “the needy.”

But Hasson noted that Aid 48’s homepage lists more nebulous aid recipients, such as “children of martyrs,” “widows” and “prisoners.”

This wording suggests that family members of terrorists, as well as terrorists in prison, are eligible for funding from the organization.

Hasson asked Issa why Hamas terrorist Hamed specifically thanked him for his involvement in Aid 48.

Issa demurred, but eventually said that “all Gaza gives thanks to those who donate for the needy and orphans.”

Aid 48 has multiple offices throughout Israel, including in Judea and Samaria. The organization’s Tulkarem branch in northern Israel is managed by Azhar Shahrur, the sister of the terrorist who committed the deadliest massacre during the second intifada – the 2002 Park Hotel bombing on Passover, which left 30 Israelis dead and more than 140 injured.

“We see the connection – both ideological and financial – between Ra’am and the Islamic movement in Israel, and Hamas, in Gaza and Judea and Samaria,” Boaz Kukia, the father of an IDF soldier slain in a 2017 terror attack, told Channel 13.

“It’s not a secret.”

Gilad Ach of the Ad Kan NGO told Channel 13 that “there’s a major, major financial link between the 48 Aid organization and Razi Issa, the architect of the coalition agreement, and Ra’am…and the State of Israel is giving this a hand.”

A complete denial

Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas strenuously denied the report’s veracity during an interview on Radio103 FM on Sunday morning.

“There is no connection between us and the Hamas movement,” he said.

When pressed as to why a member of the Ra’am party was photographed in the same room as a member of Hamas, Abbas responded that “you too can be [seen] with someone you do not know or have not invited.”

He said the Aid 48 organization is a legitimate NGO, which has “operated for 20 years, takes from the rich who donate and gives to the poor directly,” with funds exclusively given “to poor, orphaned and widowed citizens”

Abbas suggested that there is no way his party could maintain contacts with the terror group without the knowledge of the Jewish State’s security agencies.

“Does anyone want to tell us that the State of Israel is a banana republic, that there are no security organizations and law enforcement agencies?” he asked rhetorically.

Benjamin Netanyahu also courted Ra’am and its four Knesset seats before Abbas opted to join Bennett and Lapid.

The post ‘It’s no secret’: Islamist party in Israeli gov’t linked to Hamas – report appeared first on World Israel News.

Leah Goldin, the mother of slain IDF soldier Hadar Goldin, whose body is being held by Hamas in Gaza, says aid to Gaza should be conditioned on Hamas returning her the remains of her son and fallen IDF soldier Oron Shaul.

The post Mother of slain soldier: No aid to Gaza until soldiers’ remains returned appeared first on World Israel News.

The father of slain Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin, whose remains are being ransomed by the Hamas terror organization in Gaza, condemned a new Israeli plan to send a billion dollars in aid to the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controls.

The post WATCH: Slain IDF soldier’s father slams Israel’s billion dollar Gaza plan appeared first on World Israel News.