JERUSALEM, Israel – With the commemoration of Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day now complete, the nation’s attention is returning to the seven-month war with Hamas and new provocations from Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with wounded soldiers, as Israel’s Independence Day celebration was more muted this year during wartime.
Netanyahu said he was impressed by the message he heard from the soldiers: “Continue until the end – until a decisive victory over Hamas.”
The prime minister also called October 7th a watershed moment in Israel’s history.
“On Simchat Torah, we endured an event on a Biblical scale,” he stated. “Our enemies attacked us, exactly on the day when the people of Israel celebrate the continuity of study from Genesis and back again.”
Last week, President Joe Biden announced the U.S. had withheld a shipment of bombs from Israel to protest Israeli plans to invade Rafah.
This week, though, he’s going ahead with an arms package for Israel of more than $1.2 billion. It includes tank ammunition and mortar rounds.
In the meantime, Israel’s operation in Rafah to eliminate the last Hamas battalions is ongoing; and seems to be making slow, but steady progress, as hundreds of thousands of Gazans flee the war zone.
Israel has
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