Category: Religion

“Hamas Knew” It Was “Starting a Devastating War” With “Heavy Civilian Casualties” Among Gazans

(p. 1) On Oct. 7 [2023], as the Hamas-led attack on Israel was unfolding, many Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate what they likened to a prison break and saw as the sudden humiliation of an occupier.

But it was just a temporary boost for Hamas, whose support among Gazans has been low for some time. And as the Israeli onslaught has brought widespread devastation and tens of thousands of deaths, the group and its leaders have remained broadly unpopular in the enclave. More Gazans have even been willing to speak out against Hamas, risking retribution.

In interviews with nearly a dozen Gaza residents in recent months, a number of them said they held Hamas responsible for starting the war and helping to bring death and destruction upon them, even as they blame Israel first and foremost.

. . .

Some of the Gazans who spoke to The New York Times said that Hamas knew it would be starting a devastating war with Israel that would cause heavy civilian casualties, but that it did not provide any food, water or shelter to help people survive it. Hamas leaders (p. 9) have said they wanted to ignite a permanent state of war with Israel on all fronts as a way to revive the Palestinian cause and knew that the Israeli response would be big.

Throughout the war, hints of dissent have broken through, sometimes even as Gazans were mourning loved ones killed by Israeli attacks. Others waited until they left the enclave to condemn Hamas — and even then were at times reluctant in case the group survives the war and continues to govern Gaza.

In March [2024], the well-known Gaza photojournalist Motaz Azaiza caused a brief social media firestorm when he obliquely criticized Hamas after he left the territory. He was one of a handful of young local journalists who rose to international prominence early in the war for documenting the death and destruction on social media.

“If the death and hunger of their people do not make any difference to them,” he wrote in an apparent reference to Hamas, “they do not need to make any difference to us. Cursed be everyone who trafficked in our blood, burned our hearts and homes, and ruined our lives.”

. . .

Gauging public opinion in Gaza was difficult even before the war began. For one, Hamas, which long controlled territory, perpetuated a culture of fear with its oppressive system of governance and exacted retribution against those who criticized it.

. . .

One Gaza resident who in recent months fled to Egypt with her family said that she hears regularly from friends and family that they do not want the war to end before Hamas is defeated in Gaza. She said Hamas had prioritized its own aims over the well-being of the Palestinians they purport to defend and represent.

“They could have surrendered a long time ago and saved us from all this suffering,” said the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of possible retribution if her criticism were made public.

For the full story see:

Raja Abdulrahim and Iyad Abuheweila. “Gazans Voice Their Distress Under Hamas.” The New York Times, First Section (Sunday, June 16, 2024): 1 & 9.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 15, 2024, and has the title “As War Drags On, Gazans More Willing to Speak Out Against Hamas.”)

Ondrasik Sings in Support of Israel’s Fight “For Freedom, Democracy, Life, Civilization”

(p. A11) The music industry loves a good cause. Band Aid, Live Aid, Farm Aid, Stand Up to Cancer, Hope for Haiti, the Concert for Sandy Relief, the Concert for Ukraine—when the issue is potent enough, big-name musicians from every genre will come, and usually perform for free. All they typically want is to show the world how much they care.

The ability to shine a light on issues and causes that matter is a perk of fame. For John Ondrasik, right now, that’s Israel. The Grammy-nominated American singer and musician, who goes by the nom de chanson Five for Fighting, has been steadfast and outspoken about the Jewish state’s security needs since the Oct. 7 attacks. This has made him a unicorn among his music-industry peers. Most prefer simply to keep their heads down.

. . .

Mr. Ondrasik, 59, isn’t keeping his head down. He appears on Fox News and on Mark Levin’s radio show. He’s aggressive on Twitter in support of Israel. He is, as his stage name suggests, something of a brawler. On April 13 [2024], the night before Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel, he performed at an outdoor concert in Tel Aviv and condemned “the evil that is Hamas.” He sang his Oct. 7-themed song, “OK”—the refrain is “We are not OK”—for the families of hostages still in Gaza.

“Why are you doing this?” Mr. Ondrasik says people always want to know. He isn’t Jewish. He doesn’t have relatives in Israel. He’s from Southern California and his heritage is Slovak. But, he says, “I’m human.” In Tel Aviv he told the crowd, “One doesn’t have to be Jewish to support Israel in their fight—sorry, our fight—for freedom, democracy, life, civilization, against those who want to tear it down.”

. . .

The left-right dynamic infuriates Mr. Ondrasik: “It’s not political. It shouldn’t be.” He says his support for Israel derives from the same impulse that led him to champion Ukraine in its fight for survival against Russia. They are both free nations fighting to preserve the Western values of democracy and human rights against those who would replace them with tyranny.

For the full interview see:

Matthew Hennessey. “THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW; A Lone Voice Sings for Israel.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, April 27, 2024): A11.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added; some words in the original were italicized, but the format of this blog does not allow that to be distinguished.)

(Note: the online version of the interview has the date April 26, 2024, and has the title “THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW; Five for Fighting: A Lone Voice Sings for Israel.”)

Organized Gazan Cigarette-Seeking Attacks on Aid Convoys “Pose a Formidable Obstacle” to Feeding the Hungry

(p. A1) A new problem is bedeviling humanitarian aid convoys attempting to deliver relief to hungry Gazans: attacks by organized crowds seeking not the flour and medicine that trucks are carrying, but cigarettes smuggled inside the shipments.

In tightly blockaded Gaza, cigarettes have become increasingly scarce, now generally selling for $25 to $30 apiece. U.N. and Israeli officials say the coordinated attacks by groups seeking to sell smuggled cigarettes for profit pose a formidable obstacle to bringing desperately needed aid to southern Gaza.

. . .

(p. A5) Andrea De Domenico, who runs the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem, confirmed that aid officials had “seen cartons of U.N.-branded assistance with cigarettes inside.” He said the contraband cigarettes had created “a new dynamic” of organized attacks on aid convoys.

. . .

Mr. De Domenico showed The Times footage he had taken during a recent drive along the road leading into Gaza from Kerem Shalom: Full flour bags can be seen strewed along the side of the road, seemingly of little interest to the looters.

“Their main purpose here was to search for the cigarettes,” said Manhal Shaibar, who runs a Palestinian trucking company at Kerem Shalom that ferries U.N. aid.

. . .

One cigarette seller in Gaza City said prices could range up to $40 per cigarette for more sought-after brands. Desperate smokers were willing to pay the high prices, despite being impoverished after several months of war, he said.

The seller, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said Hamas forces were still present in the area but not as police to apply the law, just as “mafias.”

For the full story see:

Aaron Boxerman and Natan Odenheimer. “Cigarettes Smuggled in Gaza Aid Attract Mobs and Stall Convoys.” The New York Times (Wednesday, July 10, 2024): A1 & A5.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 9, 2024, and has the title “Cigarette Smuggling in Gaza Turns Aid Trucks Into Targets.”)

Hamas Used $1 Billion of United Nations Aid to Build Tunnels and Buy Weapons

(p. A7) For years, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency sent millions of dollars each month to Gaza to pay employees and support hospitals, schools and other infrastructure, according to a new lawsuit. The money was wired from New York, where the agency has an office, to the West Bank, where financial institutions loaded some of that cash onto trucks to be driven across Israel to Gaza.

The suit, filed Monday [June 24, 2024] in federal court in Manhattan, said some of those dollars ended up funding the military operations of Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled Gaza for nearly 20 years and has pledged to erase the Jewish state. The money trail is at the heart of the case against seven current and former top UNRWA officials who are accused of knowing that Hamas siphoned off more than $1 billion from the agency to pay for, among other things, tunneling equipment and weapons that aided its attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

. . .

UNRWA was created in 1949 and is funded primarily through donations from U.N. member nations. The United States has long been the largest contributor, giving $371 million in 2023, nearly 30 percent of the agency’s contributions, according to a congressional report.

. . .

The suit relies on a long and tortuous trail of cash that stretches from Manhattan to the Middle East.

. . .

The complaint says the group used the money “to buy via smugglers its weapons, ammunition, explosives, construction materials for the tunnels and rocket-making supplies.”

. . .

The complaint does not reveal what evidence the plaintiffs will present to prove with certainty that UNRWA money in Gaza was used to finance the Oct. 7 attack. Nor does the complaint provide specific details to support the claim that Hamas controls the currency exchanges.

But a report by Key Aid Consulting for UNRWA in 2018 said that the exchanges are open to “leakage,” which includes “misappropriation, fraud, corruption, double-counting and any irregularity considered as a diversion of cash grants or vouchers from legitimate uses.”

For the full story see:

Ken Belson and Katherine Rosman. “Hamas Siphoned Off $1 Billion in U.N. Aid, Lawsuit Claims.” The New York Times (Wednesday, June 26, 2024): A7.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed years, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date June 24, 2024, and has the title “Hamas Skimmed $1 Billion in U.N. Aid for Weapons and Tunnels, Suit Says.”)

Jerry Seinfeld Knows “the Extreme Left and P.C. Crap” Hampers Comedy

(p. C1) Since the attacks of Oct. 7 [2023] in Israel, and through their bloody and volatile aftermath in Gaza, Mr. Seinfeld, 70, has emerged as a strikingly public voice against antisemitism and in support of Jews in Israel and the United States, edging warily toward a more forward-facing advocacy role than he ever seemed to seek across his decades of fame.

He has shared reflections about life on a kibbutz in his teens, and in December traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with hostages’ families, soberly recounting afterward the missile attack that greeted him during the trip.

He has participated, to a point, in the kind of celebrity activism with which few associate him — letter-signing campaigns, earnest messages on social media — answering simply recently when asked about the motivation for his visit to Israel: “I’m Jewish.”

And as some American cities and college campuses simmer with conflict over the Middle East crisis and Israel’s military response, Mr. Seinfeld has faced a measure of public scorn that he has rarely courted as a breakfast-obsessed comedian, intensified by the more vocal advocacy of his wife, Jessica, a cookbook author.

. . .

(p. C4) Since “Seinfeld,” he has spoken most expansively about the art of comedy itself, framing it as a morally neutral pursuit whose highest aim is to make people laugh. (Mr. Seinfeld recently made headlines for suggesting in an interview with The New Yorker that “the extreme left and P.C. crap” had hampered comedy.)

For the full story see:

Matt Flegenheimer and Marc Tracy. “Jerry Seinfeld Is Clearly No Longer About Nothing.” The New York Times (Monday, May 6, 2024): C1 & C4.

(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 4, 2024, and has the title “Jerry Seinfeld Can No Longer Be About Nothing.”)

The Cholera and Bubonic Plague Vaccination Campaigns of Waldemar Haffkine Count as Evidence of “the Benevolence of British Medical Imperialism”

(p. C7) “In the end, all history is natural history,” writes Simon Schama in “Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations.” The author, a wide-ranging historian and an engaging television host, reconciles the weight of medical detail with the light-footed pleasures of narrative discovery. His book profiles some of the unsung miracle workers of modern vaccination, and offers a subtle rumination on borders political and biological.

. . .

Inoculation, Mr. Schama writes, became a “serious big business” in commercial England, despite the inoculators’ inability to understand how (p. C8) it worked, and despite Tory suspicions that the procedure meant “new-fangled,” possibly Jewish, interference in the divine plan. In 1764, the Italian medical professor Angelo Gatti published an impassioned defense of inoculation that demolished humoral theory. Mr. Schama calls Gatti an “unsung visionary of the Enlightenment.” His work was a boon to public health, though his findings met resistance in France, where the prerevolutionary medical establishment was more concerned with protecting its authority.

. . .

(p. C8) Mr. Schama alights on the story of Waldemar Haffkine, the Odessa-born Jew who created vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. In 1892, Haffkine inoculated himself against cholera with the vaccine he had developed at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He went on to inoculate thousands of Indians, and so effectively that his campaigns served as, in Mr. Schama’s words, “an advertisement for the benevolence of British medical imperialism.”

. . .

The author notes the contrast between the facts of Haffkine’s achievements and the response of the British establishment, with its modern echoes of the medieval fantasy that Jews were “demonic instigators of mass death.” Yet Mr. Schama’s skepticism of authority only extends so far. It would have been instructive to learn why, when Covid-19 appeared, the WHO concurred with Voltaire that the Chinese were “the wisest and best governed people in the world” and advised liberal democracies to emulate China’s lockdowns.

Haffkine’s colleague Ernest Hanbury Hankin once wrote an essay called “The Mental Limitations of the Expert.” Mr. Schama’s conclusion shows the limitations of our expert class, which appears not to understand the breach of public trust caused by the politicization of Covid policy and the suppression of public debate. You do not have to be “far right” to distrust mandatory mRNA vaccination. As Mr. Schama shows, the health of the body politic depends on scientific inquiry.

For the full review, see:

Dominic Green. “Protecting the Body Politic.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023): C7-C8.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date September 22, 2023, and has the title “‘Foreign Bodies’ Review: Migrant Microbes, Human Borders.”)

The book under review is:

Schama, Simon. Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines, and the Health of Nations. New York: Ecco Press, 2023.

Burning One’s Own Book Is Protected by the Right of Free Expression

(p. C6) There are few sights as alarming as a book set alight. Igniting the printed word in order to destroy the ideas contained therein runs counter to our notions of enlightenment, deliberation and reason. It can also carry a message of contempt for those who consider the burned book sacred. But while there’s no need to condone book burning and plenty of reasons to condemn it, it shouldn’t be punished by law.

That principle is now in jeopardy in Denmark, which has witnessed more than 170 anti-Muslim demonstrations in recent years, including a number of public Quran burnings. In response, lawmakers have introduced a bill to criminalize “improper treatment of objects of significant religious importance.” Offenders would face up to two years in prison. In announcing the proposed law, the Danish government cited the problem of being “seen in large parts of the world as a country that facilitates insulting and denigrating actions against other countries and religions.”

The move marks a reversal from the Danes’ approach in 2005, when the publication of cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper sparked worldwide violence. Then the Danish government stood firm in its defense of free expression, rejecting calls to censor—or even censure—the paper.

. . .

The Danish government insists that its proposal is merely a “targeted intervention,” claiming it will “not change the fact that we must maintain very broad freedom of expression in Denmark.”

. . .

Yet by treating religious sensitivities as inviolate, the measure risks legitimizing the notion that vengeance may be warranted against those perceived to have denigrated the sacred.

. . .

The impulse to outlaw expression that creates unease, offense and uproar is not unique to Denmark. Censors around the world designate speech as dangerous and subversive in order to silence it. Denmark needs to reassure Muslims that it is committed to keeping them safe, protected and respected. It should do that by upholding rather than betraying the country’s core commitment to free expression and human rights.

For the full commentary, see:

Suzanne Nossel. “Book-Burning Bans Are the Wrong Way to Fight Religious Hatred.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023): C6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date September 21, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Nossel’s essay, quoted above, is related to her book:

Nossel, Suzanne. Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. New York: Dey Street Books, 2020.

Most Israelis Are Refugees, or Descendants of Refugees; Some Who Survived the Holocaust

It is unpleasant to think about the Holocaust, so I don’t think about it very often. But the anti-Israel response of much of the world to Hamas’s murderous aggression on October 7, 2023, suggests that Holocaust deniers have gained considerable ground, even at prestigious U.S. universities. So it may be worthwhile to occasionally remind ourselves of the evidence of what happened.

(p. 10) “Cold Crematorium,” a memoir by József Debreczeni, an accomplished journalist and poet from Hungary, was originally published in Hungarian in Yugoslavia in 1950. The book remained obscure for decades, squeezed by Cold War politics — too Soviet-philic for the West, too Jew-centric for the East. It’s only now, more than 70 years later, that the book has been translated into more than a dozen languages and become accessible to the wider world.

Debreczeni recounts his deportation to Auschwitz, and from there to a series of camps. This isn’t the sort of book you can get a sense of from a plot outline. Debreczeni suffers; he survives (or, more accurately, he does not die); he observes. His powers of observation are extraordinary. Everything he encounters in what he calls the Land of Auschwitz — the work sites, the barracks, the bodies, the corpses, the hunger, the roll call, the labor, the insanity, the fear, the despair, the strangeness, the hope, the cruelty — is captured in terrifyingly sharp detail.

In Paul Olchváry’s exquisite translation, scene after scene, image after image — it is wrenching. Prisoners propping up a dead bedmate, extending his arm, so that they might receive an extra piece of bread. A prisoner expiring midsentence. The lice, “silvery-glistening colonies of larvae,” that torment, endlessly.

The details are so precise that any critical distance collapses — nothing’s expected, nothing’s dulled by cliché. It is as immediate a confrontation of the horrors of the camps as I’ve ever encountered.

. . .

The finest examples of Holocaust literature — and “Cold Crematorium” is so fine it transcends its category — aren’t merely bulwarks against obscurity; they do more than allow us to never forget. They offer a glimpse, one that is unyielding and unsoftened by sentimentality, one that is brutally, unbearably close.

For the full review, see:

Menachem Kaiser. “Death Camp Chronicles.” The New York Times Book Review (Sunday, February 25, 2024): 10.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the review has the date Jan. 23, 2024, and has the title “How to Talk About Auschwitz.”)

The book under review is:

Debreczeni, József. Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2024.

Palestinian Group Defaces Portrait of Balfour, Who Tried to Save Jewish Lives

Pro-Palestinian slashes portrait of Arthur James Balfour at University of Cambridge. Source: NYT article quoted and cited below.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 advocated the establishment of a Jewish homeland (Dershowitz 2003, p. 35). “In 1937, 1947, and 2000-2001,” Jewish leaders accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state, but Palestinian leaders “each time . . . rejected the offer and responded with increased terrorism” (Dershowitz 2003, p. 159). If Israel had existed by the 1930s, “hundreds of thousands—perhaps even a million or more” European Jews could have immigrated to it before the Holocaust, saving their lives (Dershowitz 2003, p. 52). Arthur James Balfour’s portrait should be honored, not “slashed and spray-painted” (article quoted below).

(p. A6) A pro-Palestinian group slashed and spray-painted a century-old portrait of Arthur James Balfour at the University of Cambridge on Friday [March 8, 2024], defacing a painting of the British official whose pledge of support in 1917 for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” helped pave the way to Israel’s founding three decades later.

For the full story, see:

Marc Tracy. “Balfour Portrait at University of Cambridge Is Defaced.” The New York Times (Saturday, March 9, 2024): A6.

(Note: bracketed date added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 8, 2024, and has the title “Activists Deface Portrait of Balfour, Who Supported Jewish Homeland.”)

Dershowitz’s heavily referenced book, cited above, is:

Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Israel. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003.

As Threats Increase, Jewish New Yorkers Embrace “Their Right to Self-Defense”

(p. A17) It’s Sunday morning at Manhattan’s Westside Rifle & Pistol Range, where I’ve come for a safety class as part of my application for a license to carry a concealed firearm. I’m one of at least 10 Jewish men in the class, many wearing yarmulkes. Some wouldn’t have dreamed of setting foot in this place a year ago.

“I was born and raised a Jew, and I’ve lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan my whole life,” says Yoni Ben Ami, who declines to give his age or profession but looks to be around 30. “I’ve never been uncomfortable going around town being visibly Jewish until Oct. 7 [2023] and its aftermath.” Darren Leung, owner of the Westside range, says he’s seen an “exponential” increase in Jewish permit-seekers and members.

We’re thousands of miles from Gaza, but the FBI has warned that threats to American Jews are at an all-time high. Anti-Israel protesters regularly march through the streets, and some commit acts of intimidation and vandalism.

. . .

Minorities of all sorts have availed themselves of the Constitution’s guarantee of self-defense. The Pink Pistols, a gay gun-rights organization, was founded in 2000; the National African American Gun Association in 2015.

. . .

. . . Jewish New Yorkers have come to appreciate how fortunate they are to live in a country that protects their right to self-defense.

For the full commentary, see:

Max Raskin. “New York Jews Embrace Gun Rights.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023): A17.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date November 14, 2023, and has the same title as the print version.)

Outnumbered Kibbutz Volunteers with M16 Rifles Defended Their Families Against Hamas Terror

(p. A1) At 6:56 a.m. on Oct. 7, [2023] Moshe Kaplan sent an urgent alert to his volunteer security force in Mefalsim, a kibbutz of 1,000 men, women and children in southern Israel where he served as security chief.

“There’s a shooting in the village from the gate!” he texted after militants fired at his car as he drove past the main entrance. Attackers later blew open a pedestrian gate nearby with explosives and flooded into the kibbutz.

Kaplan rushed home to grab his armored vest, helmet and M16 rifle, then drove off to check another gate on the northwest corner. There he found armed men were already inside the razor-wire security fence that encircled the community.

“Terrorists in the kibbutz! Terrorists in the kibbutz!” he yelled in a second, panicked voice text, begging his men to hurry. Gunshots sounded in the background. He had trained a dozen men for this moment, a surprise attack from nearby Gaza.

. . .

(p. A10) Mefalsim was one place that day where nothing for the Hamas attackers went according to plan.

Soon after Kaplan’s call for help, his volunteers rushed from their homes in helmets and protective vests worn over the T-shirts they had slept in, toting M16 rifles. Outnumbered and fighting alone or in pairs, the men mounted a life-or-death stand, communicating via walkie-talkie and WhatsApp texts to track the militants and send each other help.

They believed they had to hold off the insurgents long enough for the Israeli army to arrive. At first, they hoped the soldiers would be there quickly. But as minutes passed, and the fighting grew worse, they realized they would have to fight alone.

. . .

Palestinian gunmen who flooded out of Gaza killed 1,400 Israelis and took close to 200 hostages, terrorizing and shooting people at more than 20 Israeli towns and military bases and thousands at an all-night music festival not far from Mefalsim.

In town after town, attackers blasted through security fences that encircled Israeli villages near Gaza, gunning down residents, burning houses with families inside and taking hostages.

. . .

Video from a security camera at the main gate of Mefalsim captured some of the carnage that took place outside the main gate of the kibbutz as people fled the outdoor music festival and tried desperately to get inside, pursued by militants. A man in a white shirt was shot as he ran toward the entrance. He grabbed his right arm and dropped to the pavement, blood spilling from around his head.

Armed fighters emerged from a wooded area minutes later. Several ran to the fallen man and shot him again. Drivers who abandoned cars to hide in the bushes were attacked with grenades. A person pulled from the bushes was shot and bludgeoned with a rifle butt. The video was posted by South First Responders, a group of emergency personnel working in southern Israel, and verified by The Wall Street Journal.

. . .

Over the next hour, there were several gunfights. Security volunteers hunted for the militants who were moving alone and in pairs on residential streets. Two attackers were killed in the garden of a house by four Israeli soldiers who were home on a weekend leave. Two of the soldiers suffered minor wounds from grenade fragments.

Reskin, the landscape architect, came within sight of the main gate and saw a large group of attackers exchanging what looked like congratulations. He fired and they scattered. He next went into a nearby residential neighborhood and joined Idan Mayrovich, the team’s medic. As they walked, they saw Idan Kadosh, a resident, shooting with a handgun from his window, and he joined their patrol.

. . .

No Mefalsim residents were killed or taken hostage, protected by a dozen residents, many of them former Israeli soldiers, who had prepared for years to defend the kibbutz.

Mefalsim also got lucky. Although the defenders didn’t know exactly how many attackers infiltrated the kibbutz, they estimated it was probably around 25 to 30, a group smaller than those that attacked other local communities, which suffered far more casualties.

. . .

“There is a feeling of discomfort that we survived, and others did not,” security chief Kaplan said.

But Mefalsim, at least, had survived.

For the full story, see:

David S. Cloud and Anat Peled. “A Kibbutz Defeated Hamas Attack.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023): A1 & A10.

(Note: ellipses and bracketed year added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date October 17, 2023, and has the title “When Hamas Attacked, This Israeli Kibbutz Fought Back and Won.”)