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BBC journalist accuses IDF of intentionally murdering children, referring to 17-year-old terrorists engaging in gun battles with Israeli troops.

By World Israel News Staff

A BBC journalist accused the IDF of intentionally killing children during Operation Home and Garden in Jenin, triggering a strong response from former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

“The Israeli military are calling this a ‘military operation,’ but we know that young people are being killed, four of them under 18,” Anjana Gadgil told Bennett. “Is that really what the military set out to do, to kill people between the ages of 16 and 18?”

Gadgil did not acknowledge that the teenagers were affiliated with terror groups and engaged in armed clashes with Israeli soldiers when they were killed.

Bennett corrected Gadgil and clarified that the slain young men were terrorists and that they “held responsibility” for choosing to arm themselves and fire at IDF troops.

But Gadgil doubled down on the narrative that the Israeli army specifically aims to murder kids, and failing to differentiate between adolescents firing at troops and small, elementary-school age children.

“Terrorists, but children. The Israeli forces are happy to kill children,” Gadgil repeated, then looked at Bennett expectantly, without asking a question.

Bennett appeared to be taken aback by her comment, saying it was “quite remarkable that you’d say that, because they’re killing us.

“If there’s a 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist that’s firing at your family, Anjana, what is he?”

Gadgil countered that adolescent armed terrorists were defined as “children” by the United Nations, but failed to acknowledge that such a definition would make the Palestinians guilty of war crimes for utilizing child soldiers.

Bennett challenged Gadgil, asking her if she would think of a 17-year-old “trying to murder your family’ as a child.

An exasperated Gadgil snapped, “We’re not talking about that.”

When asked what success would look like for the Jenin operation, Bennett said there were a “number of parameters” which would indicate whether objectives had been achieved.

The post WATCH: ‘IDF soldiers are happy to kill kids,’ BBC interviewer tells ex-PM appeared first on World Israel News.

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Law enforcement has reported that Bryce Caleb Timothy Brown, 20, from Waldorf, Maryland, broke into a Lowe’s Home Improvement store and stole a forklift. He then drove the forklift to a Home Depot parking lot nearby and, for an unknown reason, crashed it into a car where 73-year-old Gloristine Pinkney had been sleeping. In an attempt to escape, Pinkney ran away, but Brown caught up to her and ran her over with the forklift. Brown then stole her vehicle and fled the scene.

Deputies arrived at the Lowe’s at 12:40 am on Sunday to investigate a burglary and theft in progress. Pinkney was found underneath the vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene. Brown and Pinkney did not know each other, and the motive is yet to be determined.

After following up on leads, detectives identified Brown as the suspect, and he was taken into custody Sunday evening. Pinkney’s car was found near Brown’s home, and he is being charged with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, assault, and theft. Brown is currently detained without bond at the Charles County Detention Center.

Turkey (Türkiye) controls the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus straits, allowing the nation to regulate passage to and from the Black Sea. Despite six states bordering the Black Sea, it has only two powers in practice—Russia and Turkey. As the strongest NATO ally on the strategically significant sea, Turkey stands in the way of the Black Sea becoming a “Russian lake.” Over a year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has managed to strike a fragile balance between the two warring nations and serves as one of the best-equipped mediators for this conflict. 

Despite serving US interests as such a mediator, Turkey’s apparent dismissal of Western ideals confuses US policymakers. Deriving from Islam’s union of religion and state, Turkey’s constitution grants the government the legal and moral authority to enforce proper Islamic orthopraxy. Because Western ideals for religious freedom conflict with Islam’s orthopraxy, diplomacy between the US and Turkey stands as the greatest challenge for US interests. Instead, US policymakers should focus on increasing military cooperation through armament deals and deepening economic ties with Turkey.

2022 Russo-Ukrainian Conflict

Thus far in the current conflict, Turkey has uniformly applied the Montreux Convention, which regulates passage through the Turkish Straits and the conduct of military vessels in the Black Sea. On February 28, 2022, Turkey invoked Article 19 of the Convention, meaning Moscow cannot transfer warships to the Black Sea to replace damaged or destroyed vessels. Even before the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine and Turkey have increased their cooperation in the Black Sea, as neither has the capability to single-handedly take on Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Additionally, Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones have significantly aided Ukrainian forces against Russia’s invasion. 

In rhetoric, Ankara has denounced the September 2022 referendums for Russian-occupied territories, and Turkey voted in conjunction with the West in the UN General Assembly in condemning the invasion.  At the same time, Ankara has not imposed sanctions on Russia like other NATO countries, as Turkey’s unstable economy depends heavily on Russian business. 

Ankara has demonstrated its prowess and unique position between the warring nations in its role in negotiating for a grain export corridor. In July 2022, after accusations arose that the Russian ship Zhibek Zoly had carried stolen Ukrainian grain through the Turkish Straits, Ankara managed to negotiate a safe export corridor for Ukrainian grain in parallel agreements with Russia and Ukraine while not antagonizing either party. 

Islam’s Impact on Turkey

Beginning with Erdogan’s rise to power in 2003, Turkey’s government has increasingly attempted to reassert the influence of Islam on the populace, since around 99 percent of the Turkish population follows Islam, according to a recent Department of State report. Turkish expert Soner Cagaptay believes Erdogan’s upbringing in a pious and socially conservative family led him to resent Turkey’s secular government and its restrictions on any public role for religion following the rise to power of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the early 20th Century.

While the government of Turkey is constitutionally secular, within the Turkish constitution is the Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs), whose role is to enforce Islamic matters and provide administration for mosques. This legal framework provides the authority for the enforcement of Islamic practices considered by the West as contrary to human rights. For instance, blasphemy is outlawed, which includes public disrespect for religion, and insulting a religion could result in six months to a year in prison.  

Turkey’s constitutionally secular government acts in accordance with Islamic tenets of orthopraxy. According to the Islamic doctrine of fitra, people are born morally neutral; thus, the government’s role is to foster a culture where citizens will pursue holy living, obey shari’ah law, and thereby save their souls. For religiously conservative men like Erdogan who grew up in a secularizing Turkey, secularization presented a threat to the human soul. 

Whereas the traditional Western, Christian view of the separation of church and state is a safeguard to protect the church from the state, Islam understands such a division as injurious to religion. Many of the violations of human rights such as LGBTQI+ discrimination and media restrictions have elements of enforcing the orthopraxy of Islam. From a Western, Christian perspective, such laws directly regulating religion seem like a breach of the government’s jurisdiction, but for Islam, this regulation is exactly under the government’s role of enforcing orthopraxy. 

Evaluation of US-Turkey Relations

Diplomacy with Turkey as a NATO ally is the greatest challenge for the US, as Washington cannot treat Turkey—the only majority Islamic state—as just another member. Having recently secured his re-election, Erdogan will continue to lead the nation under a non-Western worldview, with shari’ah law taking precedence over individual human rights. US policymakers should provide incentives, especially economic ones, for Turkey’s acquiescence and should recognize that US policymakers will likely not achieve all their desires for human rights in Turkey within a single package.

While Turkey’s military is the second-largest in NATO, Ankara lost its naval superiority in the Black Sea after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Russia’s subsequent development of their Black Sea Fleet. Because Turkey remains opposed to the Black Sea becoming a “Russian lake,” Turkey will continue to follow similar military interests as the US, regardless of its religious interest. In Fall of 2021, Turkey requested to purchase F-16s to upgrade its aging fleet, and Ankara’s recent stance against Russia in the Black Sea should encourage the Biden administration to promote this sale to Congress. Overall, Turkey’s willingness to work with the US militarily over Russia is promising for the US.

Economic support to Turkey stands as one of the most promising avenues to encourage US interests in Turkey. After years of economic prosperity, Turkey now faces a crisis. Turkey’s currency, the lira, has rapidly devalued, with inflation peaking at 86% in October 2022 and has lowered only to 55% by February 2023. Instead of raising interest rates to stem inflation, Erdogan has lowered them because he believes high-interest rates contradict Islamic teachings. Deepening direct economic ties with Turkey would both aid Turkey’s troubled economy and create opportunities for business-to-business relationships to broaden the understanding of where the two societies have common norms, traditions, and values. As a Department of State report notes, “U.S.-Turkey trade remains modest compared to its potential.” 

Conclusions

For US policymakers, addressing religious freedom and human rights in Turkey is complicated by the country’s Islamic foundation, which presents a barrier to direct negotiations. Instead, establishing trust through economic cooperation offers a more viable approach. The return of Mehmet Simsek as finance minister, with his commitment to implementing “rational” economic measures, provides a positive signal for US policymakers seeking to deepen business-to-business economic ties with Turkey, as well as expectations for stability in military cooperation.

A paradox is that the role of Islam in Turkey offers an additional opportunity for building trust, as conservative values related to family and society can be found in both traditional Christianity and Islam. Enhancing religious freedom in Turkey and strengthening US-Turkish relations would be better served by moving away from a purely secular, diplomatic approach. Embracing these common norms, traditions, and values would open the dialog to a much broader set of actors on both sides, as well as provide more opportunities for cooperation.

Such an adjustment in approach by the Biden Administration would align with the recent request by a broad coalition of African leaders, seeking recognition and respect for African shared values and traditions, for very similar reasons. Such a sea change in policy by the US would recognize not only Turkey’s key role in the Black Sea, but also as a gateway toward improved US relations with the greater Islamic world.

The post Turkey: Gateway to the Black Sea and More appeared first on Providence.

“There is [physical] damage to our home, but the mental damage is much worse,” says Sderot mother of two young children.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

A resident of the southern Israel town of Sderot tearfully spoke to Hebrew-language news about her home being damaged by rockets launched from Gaza in the early hours of Wednesday morning, along with the mental burden of living in the line of fire.

As IDF troops withdrew from Jenin late Tuesday evening, Gaza-based terror groups fired rockets at nearby Israeli civilian communities in the Negev desert.

“At about 1:40 a.m. last night, we heard loud booms,” a shaken Neta Ohayon told Channel 12 News. Although hearing the sound of rocket interceptions is a regular occurrence for her family, “the last boom was louder than usual.”

On Wednesday morning, Ohayon noticed that her back patio was covered in debris, to which her husband responded that there must have been a rocket interception.

“We opened the shutters, looked out the window, and discovered a Qassam rocket in the pool,” she recounted.

Ohayon noted that although an air raid siren had sounded, with just fifteen seconds to scramble to their bomb shelter, her family had not made it to the safe room in time. Had the rocket struck her home, she and her family could have been killed or seriously wounded.

She showed Channel 12 News cameras holes in her roof and ceiling that had been caused by shrapnel from the falling rocket, presumably after it had been intercepted by the Iron Dome.

While the Iron Dome does neutralize the rockets, pieces of shrapnel can still measure several feet and cause serious damages or harm to human life.

“There is [physical] damage to our home, but the mental damage is much worse,” said a clearly emotional Ohayon. “Everything can be fixed and repaired, it’s not a big deal, but the mind suffers every time and that’s the hardest part.”

Ohayon said she was concerned about the impact on her children.

“My kids saw the police in the morning, because they came to document the scene and [remove the rocket and shrapnel.] I told my kids not to worry about it, but they asked, ‘Mom, why are you crying?’ I said I don’t feel well.

“You can’t cry continuously from six in the morning until eight, without telling your child what’s really going on. It’s hard.”

The post ‘We woke up to a rocket in our pool’ – Sderot resident recounts late night attack appeared first on World Israel News.

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Sgt. David Yehuda Yitzchak was a non-commissioned officer from the Egoz commando unit.

By JNS

An Israeli soldier was killed in Jenin on Tuesday evening as IDF forces began withdrawing from the Samaria city following an intensive two-day counterterrorism operation.

According to the military, Chief Sgt. David Yehuda Yitzchak, 23, a non-commissioned officer from the Egoz commando unit, was treated for a gunshot wound at the scene before being evacuated to hospital, where he was declared dead.

He was a resident of Beit El, an Israeli town north of Jerusalem in the Binyamin region of Judea and Samaria.

His funeral is scheduled for Wednesday at 4 p.m. at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.

“The IDF sends its heartfelt condolences to the family and will continue to support them,” said the military.

“We mourn the loss of David Yehudah Yitzchak … the brave IDF soldier killed in battle. David was raised in Beit-El and was a respected non-commissioned officer in the elite Egoz commando unit. We share in the tremendous grief and send a warm embrace to his family, community, and residents of Beit-El,” said Gush Etzion Regional Council Mayor and Yesha Council Chairman Shlomo Ne’eman in a statement.

Sporadic clashes erupted between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli troops into the early hours of Wednesday, with an IDF spokesman saying that the forces would remain “prepared for whatever is required.”

During the initial withdrawal, the military conducted an airstrike targeting gunmen located in a cemetery on the outskirts of Jenin.

The terrorists “posed a threat to security forces as they left the [Jenin] refugee camp,” said the IDF.

The military launched the major counterterror operation in Jenin in the early hours of Monday, including the entry into the Samaria city of significant ground forces.

Over 1,000 IDF troops participated in the campaign, which is believed to be the largest deployment in Judea and Samaria in two decades.

The military said on Tuesday its forces had killed 18 Palestinians, all of them terrorists.

Israeli troops arrested well over 100 terror suspects.

During nearly 48 hours of fighting, IDF troops located and demolished at least eight weapon storage sites, six bomb-making labs, three “war rooms,” and other terror assets.

The IDF also carried out some 20 drone strikes against various targets.

“I congratulate our courageous fighters who destroyed many terrorist infrastructures in Jenin and thus prevented many terror attacks,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit on Tuesday to the Salem checkpoint, located some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from Jenin.

“At this moment, we are completing the mission, and I can say our wide-scale operation in Jenin is not a one-time action,” he added.

The premier also addressed Tuesday afternoon’s terror attack in Tel Aviv, where a Palestinian drove his car into pedestrians at a bus stop on Pinchas Rosen Street in the northeastern Ramat Hahayal neighborhood.

The terrorist, identified as 20-year-old Abed Halilah, then got out of the vehicle and attacked bystanders with a sharp object, police said. There were eight victims in total, one of whom, a pregnant woman, lost her baby as a result of the attack.

Hamas claimed Halilah as a member and praised the attack as a “heroic” response to the military operation in Jenin.

“Whoever thinks that such an attack will deter us from continuing our fight against terrorism is wrong,” said Netanyahu.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that the Jenin operation had restored Israel’s freedom to act against terrorist groups throughout Judea and Samaria.

“It will take a little more time until we reach a situation where, as a result of having engaged militarily in Jenin in recent days, we will be able to move anywhere, in the refugee camp or anywhere else, with a team of soldiers, and not with an entire brigade,” said Gallant.

The comments echoed those of IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who earlier on Tuesday said that Israeli forces now “know how to enter where we want, when we need and when we choose.”

He added: “There will be no safe place for terrorists—and whoever escaped today, we will make sure to find him tomorrow.”

The post Israeli soldier killed as IDF withdraws from Jenin appeared first on World Israel News.

IDF bombs Hamas positions in Gaza after five rockets launched towards Israel, leaving one home damaged.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

Israel struck two Hamas sites in the Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning in retaliation for overnight rocket fire.

Five rockets launched at Israel on Tuesday night were shot down by Iron Dome interceptors, an IDF spokesperson said. One house in Sderot was damaged by falling shrapnel.

In retaliation for the rocket attacks, Israel Air Force aircraft struck “an underground weapons workshop used by the chemical unit of the Hamas terror group and a site for processing rocket components,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

No terror group have claimed responsibility for the rocket fire. Israel has said it holds Hamas responsible for all attacks coming from the Strip. The launches were the first since May 14 as a five-day conflict with Palestinian Islamic Jihad came to an end.

The rockets came as Israeli soldiers began withdrawing from the Jenin refugee camp after a two-day operation to dismantle terror infrastructure.

One soldier, Sgt. David Yehuda Yitzchak, was killed late in the operation.

During the Operation, dubbed ‘Home and Garden,’ Israeli security forces discovered several bomb-making laboratories, a homemade rocket launcher, explosives in the UN-administered camp.

During that incursion, the IDF raised its level of alert along the Gaza border. Palestinian sources told the Tazpit Press Service on Monday that Hamas deployed its forces along the Gaza border to prevent disturbances and also thwarted at least two attempts to fire rockets.

The post Israel strikes Gaza in response to overnight rocket attacks appeared first on World Israel News.