Sunday
Yom Rishon
26 Tevet 5785
January 26 2025
UPDATE 8:00 AM ISRAEL TIME
The View from Ashdod
The sight of the 4 young women returning yesterday was wonderful as they came into Israel and were reunited with their families. What was not so wonderful was the display organized by Hamas in Palestine Square during which the four were paraded onto a podium surrounded by dozens of armed terrorists (click here to see the spectacle).
It was a display that underscored that Hamas is very much alive and in charge in Gaza. Any thought that any entity will replace them post-war is foolhardy. Hamas further underscored their control by executing more than a dozen Gazans this week they accused of collaborating with Israel, and machine-gunning the legs of 7 more accused of trying to grab humanitarian aid.
*Following the fact that civilian Arbel Yehud was not released by Hamas yesterday as scheduled, Israel has blocked northern Gazans from returning. There was no resolution to the situation last night or early this morning at a meeting of the mediators in Cairo. By the way, Hamas was supposed to have released a list of which hostages are alive and which are dead yesterday, but, unsurprisingly, it did not.
*President Trump issued a statement yesterday insisting that Egypt and Jordan allow Gazans to immigrate there and said he was talking with King Abdullah and President Sisi about it. One suspects that the idea will go nowhere fast.
*The 60-day ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah expired earlier today. Will the north start seeing missiles again as the IDF remains in southern Lebanon taking out Hezbollah assets?
*PM Netanyahu phoned the hostages and their families last night to praise them for their strength. At the same time, his own strength seemed to be lacking. It is reported today that he has been suffering from a severe post-operative infection following the removal of his prostate–but unbelievably the Court is still demanding that he continue testifying in his trials this week.
And so it goes early this morning in Israel . . .
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.