GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 425

Divine Intervention Needed

Pressure On Hamas

We’re told in a report from The Times Of Israel that the Israel Defense Minister thinks that a hostage deal is possible now:

Defense Minister Israel Katz voiced optimism Wednesday on the likelihood of securing a deal for the release of Gaza hostages, amid reports that an Israeli delegation will visit Cairo on Thursday for talks.

Katz’s remarks, made during a visit to Tel Nof Airbase, came as Israel was waiting to hear Hamas’s response to an Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire.

Katz stated that getting the hostages home is at the top of the list of the goals for the war:

“The most important thing today in the war is to bring the hostages home,” Katz said in remarks released by his office. “This is the supreme goal that stands before us, and we are working in every way to make this happen.

Katz also said that recent events are putting Hamas under a lot of stress to get a deal done:

“The intensity of the pressure on this monstrous organization called Hamas is increasing and there is a chance that this time we can really advance a hostage deal,” the defense minister said.

Apparently an Israeli delegation is thought to be coming to Cairo for negotiations:

Also on Wednesday, the Al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper reported that an Israeli delegation headed by Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar was expected to visit Cairo on Thursday for talks on a potential hostage release-ceasefire deal.

The Qatari-owned, London-based outlet said that the Israeli delegation would include “a special envoy” from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. No further details were given.

The source also said that a new deal will be put on the table:

According to the report, Egypt will present a new draft of its proposal after holding talks with officials from Hamas. The proposal includes “broad lines that can be moved around,” the report stated.

But an Israeli source tells us that no one from Israel is going anywhere now:

Following the report, however, the Axios news site cited unnamed Israeli security officials who said that they were unaware of any delegation slated to travel to Egypt on Thursday.

As if I need to tell you again, no deal will be agreed to that gives both sides what they want. Hamas wants to survive and Israel wants to annihilate them. Unless there is compromise on both sides, this is just a lot of people getting more frequent flyer miles and photo ops. It’s smoke and mirrors that are hiding the huge divide between Israel and Hamas, a divide that isn’t getting any closer to be bridged.

Evidence Of Hamas Murders

And while we’re talking about the hostages, the IDF has concluded that 6 hostages were killed by Hamas and not military strikes. An article from the Jewish News Syndicate tells us more:

Hamas terrorists likely executed the six Israeli hostages whose bodies were recovered from southern Gaza on Aug. 20, the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday following a comprehensive probe.

They did leave some room for alternate interpretations, but what they did find points to Hamas murdering them:

While the military said it was not possible to determine with absolute certainty how Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Yoram Metzger, Avraham Munder, Haim Peri and Nadav Popplewell were killed, their bodies were found with gunshot wounds, unlike their six guards, who are believed to have died in an Israeli Air Force strike in the area.

The army probe noted that investigators were unable to conclude when the hostages were shot—before the strike, during it, or after it. However, the IDF believes the six men would not have survived the airstrike regardless.

If putting the blame on the IDF is one of the arguments, the report also notes that they weren’t aware of there being any hostages in the area at the time:

At the time of the Feb. 14 IAF strike, Jerusalem “had no information, not even a suspicion, that the hostages were in the underground compound or its vicinity,” according to the statement, which stressed that the strike would have been called off “had such information been available.”

The findings of the report was given to the families of the deceased:

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi presented the final findings of the investigation to the families of the slain hostages on Wednesday.

“In this prolonged war, which began on a very difficult day, the mission of returning the hostages alive accompanies us at every moment,” said Halevi. “The IDF is confident that the combat advances their return, but in the context of combat we have also made mistakes.”

After the bodies were found, the IDF changed the criteria for future air strikes:

Following the death of the six captives, it was decided that any airstrike meeting “specific criteria” must be preapproved by the IDF Intelligence Directorate’s Headquarters of the Hostages and Missing Persons.

Hamas Still Blames Israel

We aren’t surprised to hear that Hamas still points the finger at Israel for any hostage deaths despite evidence to the contrary:

Hamas propaganda has repeatedly accused the IAF of killing hostages during the 14-month-long aerial assault on the Gaza terrorist group.

Immediately after the six corpses were recovered from the Hamas tunnel over the summer, their families were informed that bullet fragments were discovered in at least some of their remains.

The IDF had determined the deaths of five of the captives several weeks earlier, with only Munder presumed alive until the retrieval operation.

At the time the IDF consider finding the bodies a courageous operation:

At the time, then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant hailed the recovery of the hostages’ bodies as a “daring and dangerous operation in the Hamas tunnels in Khan Yunis.”

They also found other slain hostages:

And on Aug. 31, Israeli forces in Rafah discovered the bodies of slain hostages Carmel Gat, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, Eden Yerushalmi and IDF Master Sgt. Ori Danino.

They also determined that these hostages were killed before they were found:

According to examinations conducted by the L. Greenberg National Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv, the six were shot by their captors multiple times at close range days before their bodies’ discovery, indicating that hostages was executed as Israeli forces closed in on their underground location.

Hamas also changed how they did things after four hostages were rescued alive earlier in the year:

Reuters cited an internal Hamas document on Wednesday evening as saying that the terrorist group had indications that the IDF was planning the rescue of multiple hostages, similar to the raid that freed Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov, Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv in June.

The confidential document, dated Nov. 22, tells terrorist operatives to execute hostages if such an operation takes place and “not to consider any repercussions of following the instructions.”

Israel still believes that almost 100 hostages either alive or deceased remain in Gaza:

Jerusalem believes that 97 of the 251 hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023 assault remain in Gaza after 425 days. Hamas is also holding two civilians who entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during “Operation Protective Edge” in 2014.

The IDF continues to look for and then rescue the remaining hostages even though Hamas tells them in a report from The Times Of Israel that they will kill them first:

Hamas said it had information that Israel intended to carry out a hostage rescue operation similar to one conducted in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp in June and threatened to “neutralize” the captives if such an operation took place, according to an internal statement seen by Reuters.

Again, Hamas told it’s operatives they wouldn’t be held responsible for the killings:

In the internal statement dated November 22, Hamas told its operatives not to consider any repercussions of following the instructions and said Israel was responsible for the fate of the hostages. It did not say when any Israeli operation was expected to take place.

As we turn to talking about the hostages we need to also raise their lives in prayer to God. It looks more and more that the only way they will make it home alive will be divine intervention.