Friday
Yom Shishee
28 Adar 5785
March 28 2025
UPDATE 9:00 AM ISRAEL TIME
(which changed overnight to daylight saving time)
The View from Ashdod
When you live near or in a combat zone, you become extremely attentive to sounds. You hear the whirring thump thump thump of helicopters approaching from miles away. You quickly discern the low roar of bomb-laden planes or the high-pitched noise coming from planes at high altitudes. You can quickly tell the difference between the whine of a drone as opposed to the sound of airplane engines.
Around Ashdod, we are all attuned to the “sha-boom” of Iron Dome interceptors being fired. And we have become very aware of the low 5-10 seconds-long, ground rumbling resonating noise of bunker busting bombs exploding in Gaza.
All of which brings me to 1:27 yesterday afternoon when a sudden, huge, jolting, metallic, “slap-explosion” took place within a few hundred meters of our house. It was obviously a missile exploding just off the coast.
But, as usual with missiles that hit “open spaces” here, the IDF often does not report them–and so not a word appeared anywhere except on social media about the explosion.
Other Missiles in the Last 24 Hours with News from Lebanon and Yemen
About an hour ago, at 7:50 am, Kiryat Shmona, Misgav Am, Margaliot, and Tel Hai were targeted by 2 missiles from Lebanon:
In Lebanon yesterday:
*The IDF carried out a “targeted counter-terrorism operation” in the town of Barashit in southern Lebanon. 2 Hezbollah terrorists were eliminated.
*Hezbollah terrorist Ahmad Adnan Bajjiga, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan force was killed in the area of Derdghaiya in southern Lebanon.
Two ballistic missiles were fired toward central Israel from Yemen yesterday afternoon at 1:09 pm. As usual, they were intercepted out of Israel airspace, but the shrapnel pattern was:
Several large missile pieces fell near Hevron. This was one of them:
Fortunately, no one was wounded.
Following the missiles yesterday, the IDF is considering two changes concerning the Yemeni ballistic missile alarms: reducing the number of communities that receive the “missile shrapnel alarms” from 183 to about 100, and increasing the warning time for citizens to get to a bomb shelter from 2 minutes to about 10 minutes (it takes 10-12 minutes for a ballistic missile to reach Israel from Yemen–and we know exactly when they are launched). As you may remember, the only people being wounded in the Houthi attacks are people falling while running to their bomb shelters.
Meanwhile U.S. attacks continue unabated in Yemen. Yesterday, the U.S. reported that 37 airstrikes took place in Sanaa, Saada, Hodeidah, Al-Jawf and Amran with dozens of senior Houthi leaders eliminated. The surreal scene of one of those attacks last night:
On the Ground in Gaza
*IDF troops completed our encirclement of Rafah yesterday eliminating “dozens” of terrorists and destroying numerous missile launcher including this 25-barrel launcher virtually buried in the sand:
*The Israeli Navy struck the “Bahriya” outpost of the Hamas naval force in western Deir al-Balah:
*On the way to a ceasefire?
Reuters reported last night that “the Egyptians had received positive messages from Israel about a ceasefire that includes an extension phase.”
The deal would include the release of five Israeli hostages per week.
Is there cause for optimism that Hamas is feeling the pressure? Who knows?
*Shockingly, the Israel High Court of Justice summarily rejected the petitions from “humanitarian organizations in favor of sending humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Judge Solberg noted that the petitions should have been dismissed from the outset and without a hearing.
Amazing.
On the Ground in Judea and Samaria
Great news courtesy of the Palestinian Center for Statistics:
”The occupation took control of 46,000 dunams of West Bank territory in 2024.”
Translated: Israel has asserted our sovereignty over 46,000 dunams (11,333 acres) of land in Area C of Judea and Samaria so far in 2024.
Thank you to Finance Minister Smotrich for this development, but what we are waiting for is a declaration of sovereignty over all of Area C.
Palestinian terror attacks in the last 24 hours:
*Palestinian terrorists attacked an Israeli driver on Highway 5 near the Hatzash Junction. Miraculously, she was not wounded. The terrorists escaped.
*An Israeli shepherd was attacked at a farm south of Susiya (the 20th shepherd attacked so far this year); he was treated for wounds at the site. The terrorists escaped.
*Palestinian terrorists attacked a bus north of the Yitzhar Junction, and cars at Al-Zavia. No Israelis were wounded; the terrorists escaped.
Developments in the United States
*Unfortunately, the wonderful New York representative Elise Stefanik will not be appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. She removed her name from consideration yesterday because the Republican majority is so narrow in the House of Representatives (President Trump endangered that majority by choosing so many of its members for his cabinet and other positions).
*Speaking of the House of Representatives, the U.S. House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committeescommittees are now investigating how the Biden Administration used federal funding to undermine the Netanyahu government. Specifically, they are investigating these leftist organizations who received American taxpayer money and have been front and center in the anti-Netanyahu movement here:
– The Jewish Community Foundation
– Middle East Dialogue Network
– The Movement for Quality Governance in Israel
– PEF Israel Foundation
– Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
– Blue and White Future
Representatives Jim Jordan and Brian Mast accuse the Biden administration of transferring funds to these organizations with the aim of “undermining the democratically elected government of Israel.” They further claim that the transfer of this money and actionss of the organizations could be violation of civil liberties and acts that could be considered criminal.
Of course, we have all known here in Israel that the Administrations of Obama and Biden were heavily involved in trying to disrupt elections and overthrow democratically elected governments here.
The new investigations are good news.
*Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by ICE officials yesterday and flown to a detention facility in Louisiana where she now awaits deportation with Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil.
Ozturk, who is in the U.S. on an F-1 visa, co-wrote an Op-ed in the student newspaper last year in which where she expressed support for Hamas by fraudulently accusing Israel of “deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide.”
Following her detention, the outpouring of support from U.S. academia and leftist organizations has been appalling. Drumming up Islamophobia, the media has sympathetically portrayed her as just “a graduate student who was arrested while on her way to an Iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast.”
To which a spokesman for ICE responded: “DHS and ICE investigations have found that Ozturk is involved in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that delights in killing Americans. A visa is a privilege, not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for denial of a visa. This is standard security.”
Absolutely correct.
In addition to the media coverage, what was absolutely idiotic and dangerous was the statement issued by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy about the incident:
“People want to come and study here, so I’m very concerned that the Trump administration’s actions to signal to students in other countries — not to come to Massachusetts — is a very bad thing. It’s bad for science, it’s bad for research. It’s a very bad thing for the economy if foreign students are afraid to come and study and live here and contribute.”
Say what?
The U.S. is supposed to let any students regardless of their ideology to come to the U.S. and study?
It’s bad for science and research if students who support terrorists are blocked from entry?
It’s bad for the economy if foreign students are afraid to come and study and live here and contribute . . . contribute their dangerous messages of hate?
Just the thought that a foreign student’s desire to come to the U.S. and undertake scientific research in America supersede everything else is dangerous.
By the way, what Healy is worried about is money. As we all know, most foreign students pay up to three times more than state students for tuition.
One final message came from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday. Apparently not only are students in the U.S. having their visas revoked but also Rubio commented “We have so far denied visas to 300 pro-Palestinian students.”
We here at OneIsrael say kolakevod to the Trump Administration, ICE, and to Secretary Rubio for their effort to clean up American campuses.
And so it goes this cloudy morning here in Israel
. . . so far . . .
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.