Sunday
Yom Rishon
2 Adar 5785
March 2 2025
UPDATE 9:00 AM ISRAEL TIME
The Horrible Photo of the Day
Another hideous Hamas “psychological warfare” video was released yesterday which shows a sobbing Eitan Horn who remains in the tunnels embracing his brother Yair just before Yair’s release.
All this video does is reinforce the fact that the Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza are savage monsters.
The View From Ashdod
Where do we stand this morning in Gaza?
The 42 days of Phase One of the Ceasefire/Hostage Agreement finished at midnight last night. According to a side letter to the Agreement from the Biden Administration which has since been supported by the Trump Administration, Israel can now resume the war if negotiations for Phase 2 falter.
And so they have.
In fact, after determining that the negotiations in Cairo these past few weeks concerning Phase 2 were going nowhere, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff proposed a new Outline last night which Israel immediately accepted.
According to the Witkoff Outline:
1. The Outline begins immediately upon its acceptance by Hamas and Israel. A temporary ceasefire will go into effect for the period of Ramadan (February 28-March 29) and Passover (April 12-April 19). Negotiations for an end to the war will continue during this period.
2. On the first day after acceptance of the Outline, half of the remaining 59 hostages, living and dead, will be released. On the last day of the Outline (presumably the last day of Passover), if an Agreement is reached on a permanent ceasefire, the remaining hostages will be released.
3. There are other details of the Witkoff Outline which have not been revealed.
Again, Israel has accepted the Outline.
But Hamas flatly rejected the Witkoff Outline this morning saying that it voids the previous Agreement which called for Phase 2 to go into effect today.
The two main issues: the Witkoff Outline, unlike Phase 2, does not call for further IDF withdrawals from Gaza, and the Witkoff Outline calls for the immediate release of half of the hostages which is intolerable to Hamas.
So what is going to happen now?
We should find out the answer to that question quickly.
So far this morning:
*The government has confirmed that it may call up 400,000 reserve soldiers.
*The IDF has attacked near Beit Hanoun with terrorist casualties reported.
*In the last hour, Israel has cut off all “humanitarian aid” to Gaza until further notice. This is a useless action given the fact that enough humanitarian aid has entered Gaza during the last 42 days to last for six months.
The War in the North
In Syria:
In an astonishing move yesterday, PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz warned the new Syrian government to stop its planned offensive against the city of Jaramana, a mixed Druze-Christian city 5 miles southeast of Damascus.
Take a look at the following maps:
First is a map of the Druze villages near the Golan Heights which want to come under Israeli protection (the so-called Druze Secession area):
Remembering where these villages and Damascus are, look at this map which shows the location of Jaramana:
In short, an IDF effort to defend Jaramana would send IDF ground forces much deeper into Syria or call on the IAF to strike the Syrian Army in the suburbs of Damascus.
Yesterday, the Syrian government gave the residents of Jaramana 5 days to take down their checkpoints into the city and to turn in their weapons–and PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz issued this additional statement:
“We will not allow the terrorist regime of radical Islam in Syria to harm the Druze. We instructed the IDF to prepare and deliver a strong and clear warning message: If the regime harms the Druze – it will be harmed by us. We are committed to our Druze brothers in Israel to do everything to prevent harm to their Druze brothers in Syria and we will take all necessary steps to maintain their security.”
In summary, it looks like a clash between the new Syrian government and Israel is in the offing.
One last point. Look back again at the first map above. Yesterday, Israel sent a long convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid to those Druze villages:
As you can see, the trucks passing through Yarka on their way to the border were flying the Druze flag.
On the Ground in Judea and Samaria
*A leftist anarchist shot and wounded and then ran over a Jewish farmer yesterday in an agricultural area in the southern Hebron Hills.
Military, police and medical forces arrived at the scene. The wounded farmer, a discharged fighter who is still dealing with combat wounds from the war in Gaza was taken to Soroka for medical treatment.
The police arrested the leftist criminal perpetrator.
And so it goes in Israel this morning . . . 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.