world news
Palestinian NGO ban lays bare divisions in coalition
Transportation Minister and Labor leader Merav Michaeli and Health Minister and Meretz chairman Nitzan Horowitz demanded, following the NGOs announcement and plans to build 3,000 homes in settlements, that they be told in advance about controversial moves the government plans to make, in a meeting of coalition party leaders on Sunday. Defense Minister Benny Gantz, whose ministry released the information about the organizations’ proscription, was not in the meeting.
Michaeli said at Monday’s Labor faction meeting that “the way the decision was made about human rights organizations in the territories caused damage to the State of Israel in the world, mostly among our greatest allies.”
Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev agreed with Michaeli, saying “there are ways to do it, not to wake up in the morning and read it in the newspaper.”
Minister of Transportation Merav Michaeli speaks during a memorial ceremony marking 26 years since the assassination of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem on October 18, 2021. (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI/FLASH90)Blue and White responded that they “suggest that Merav Michaeli, who doesn’t know the details, not get in the way of the war on terror.”
The Defense and Justice Ministries declared Addameer, Al Haq, Bisan Center, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Union Of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) to be terrorist organizations, due to their ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist group in Israel, the US, the EU and others.
The official declaration came out on Friday, but Israeli officials did not release any information or background to the decision until more than 24 hours later. In the interim, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the US supports a strong civil society and respect for human rights, and will “be engaging our Israeli partners for more information regarding the basis for these designations.”
Senior defense sources said Israel, had, in fact, informed the US of the decision in advance, and argued that they have intelligence showing an “unambiguous and direct” connection between the NGOs in question and the PFLP.
Representatives of the Shin Bet and Foreign Ministry plan to fly to Washington in the coming days to explain the decision again.
Israel had previously shared concerns about self-proclaimed human rights NGOs laundering funds to terrorist organizations in May with Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Belgium, Sweden, Spain and the EU.
EU Special Representative for Human Rights Eamon Gilmore tweeted on Monday: “EU is taking very seriously the listing by Israel of six Palestinian organizations. EU is engaging with the Israeli authorities. The EU will continue to stand by international law and support [civil society organizations] who have an important role in promoting human rights and democratic values.”
The Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs Per Olsoon Fridh tweeted that Stockholm was not informed in advance of the decision, and argued that “previous allegations of misuse of Swedish aid funds to Palestinian civil society organizations have not been substantiated after careful scrutiny…Civil society is a key player in the work of good governance and sustainable development in Palestine as elsewhere in the world.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) tweeted: “The apartheid regime’s labeling of award-winning human rights groups as terrorist organizations—just because they speak truths about Israel’s violence & its human impact—is grossly antidemocratic and dangerous. The US must end funding for human rights abuses. Enough.”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) shared Tlaib’s tweet.
Joint List chairman MK Ayman Odeh announced that his party will complain to the UN and the EU about the move. The Joint List also plans to meet with the NGOs’ leadership.
“If they are terrorists, then Martin Luther King [Jr.] and Nelson Mandela are terrorists,” Odeh said.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said at Yesh Atid’s faction meeting that the ban on the NGOs “is a good decision that had to be made.”
Sources close to Lapid and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett pushed back against reports that Gantz did not inform them in advance of the move.
The Foreign Ministry took to twitter to defend the designation of the six NGOs as terrorist groups.
“The PFLP, designated as a terrorist group by the US and the EU, operates an organizational and military apparatus, including a network of civilian institutions whose goal is to absorb donations from abroad and fund the group’s critical needs on the ground,” the ministry explained. “PFLP institutions operate under the guise of humanitarian aid, receiving funding primarily from Europe. These institutions serve as the main source of funds for the financing of the PFLP’s activities at all levels.”
The Foreign Ministry said that the authorities’ investigation found extensive evidence of the PFLP used donations to these organizations to fund terrorist activities and promote the PFLP in Palestinian society. The NGOs forged documents and defrauded European donors.
“In addition, these institutions serve as a place of employment for PFLP agents, including militants, allowing them to receive regular salaries, and their offices to serve as quarters for PFLP activities, focusing on the missions and activities of the terrorist organization,” the ministry stated.
One piece of evidence the government has provided to show the connection between the organizations and the PFLP is a video from the Palestinian Wattan Media Network of leading figures in the NGOs, including Khaleeda Jarrar and Abdullatif Ghaith of Addameer, Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq, Gebril Muhamad of Bisan, and Ahmad Saadat of the UPWC, at an event in a hall with dozens of PFLP flags hanging.
The event in Ramallah honored PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna who, according information posted by the terrorist group, took part in the establishment of Addameer, UHWC and UAWC.
The PFLP is outlawed in Israel, the US, the EU, Canada, Australia and Japan, and is responsible for a series of hijackings in the 1960s.
More recently, PFLP terrorist attacks included the assassination of Israeli minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001, suicide bombings during the Second Intifada that killed 10 Israelis, an attempt to assassinate former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and the 2011 murder of five members of the Fogel family – parents and three children, one of whom was an infant.
In 2019, the PFLP planted a bomb, killing 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and injuring her relatives.
UAWC’s Finance and Administration director Abdul Razeq Farraj was indicted in October 2019 on four counts, including aiding an attempt to cause death in the terrorist attack on the Shnerb family. Farraj’s indictment refers to Ubai Aboudi, a PFLP member working with Farraj on recruitment, and the UAWC’s Monitoring and Evaluation Officer until April 2019. The commander of the PFLP terror cell that prepared and detonated the bomb was Samer Arbid, an accounted for UAWC at the time of his 2019 arrest.
world news
Israel will not release Nukhba terrorists in possible Gaza hostage deal – diplomatic source
Israel will not release any Hamas terrorist belonging to the Nukhba forces, which took part in the October 7 massacre of southern Israel, as part of a possible hostage deal, diplomatic sources told The Jerusalem Post on Monday evening.
The list of terrorists expected to be released from Israeli prisons as part of the deal’s first phase does include some sentenced to life, the source added. However, none are part of the Nukhba forces that carried out the October 7 attacks.
In addition, none of the 33 hostages expected to be released in the first phase of a possible deal are confirmed to be dead as of Monday, as per the diplomatic source.
Israel is expected to retain “territorial assets,” which could include the Philadelphi Corridor and an undefined security perimeter, as reported by the Post‘s Yonah Jeremy Bob.Israeli delegation to remain in Doha, potentially until deal is complete
Israel’s senior delegation in Doha, which includes Shin Bet head Ronen Bar and Mossad Director David Barnea, will remain in Qatar “for the time being,” potentially until a deal is signed, the source added.
This is a developing story.
world news
I doubted this generation, but they’ve proven they’re Israel’s heroes – a father’s prayer – opinion
Yesterday morning, I stood at the Black Arrow Monument down south. A place where history feels alive in the dust, where the weight of what happened a year ago still clings to the air. Just 400 metres from Gaza, they said. Four hundred meters—a distance my son could close with the sniper rifle he carries on his back.
A plume of smoke rose in the distance, curling into the sky like a question without an answer. “That’s Jabalya,” someone said. My chest tightened, though I tried to keep my face still. Jabalya. That’s where my son Amee is fighting. My youngest. My boy.
What does it mean for a father to stand so close to his child and yet feel farther away than ever?
What does it mean to be here, on this ground, while he is there, across that invisible line? I half-wished for something impossible—a gentle bullet fired from his sniper rifle, carrying a message that could cross the chasm between us. Aba, I’m here. I’m okay.But no message comes. There is no signal. Only silence.
They told us not to expect communication. They said it’s better this way. I try to believe them. I try to tell myself that no news means he’s safe, that silence is its own kind of reassurance. But the silence doesn’t reassure me; it fills me with everything I cannot know.
The nights are the hardest. They stretch out like an eternity, where the shadows on the wall feel like threats you can’t outrun. Dreams crack open like glass the moment you wake, leaving only fragments sharp enough to bleed. I find myself standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night, gripping the counter for balance, because, somehow, the walls of this house feel too fragile to hold the weight of the unknown.
I think of Amee’s smile, the way it lights up his whole face, the way it softens the edges of his enormous frame. My gentle giant. His presence fills a room, not with noise but with something quieter, something steady.
Does he think of the hum of home? The small, ordinary things that make it his? The clatter of dishes he places into the sink after cooking himself a delicious breakfast? The way he banters with his four brothers and his sister, their partners joining in, their laughter filling every corner of the house? The way he produces magic out of his hands for his nieces, crafting small wonders that make them squeal with delight?
Does he think of Vered, of his mother whose love has shaped every step he takes? Does he know how she waits at the window long after he’s gone, standing guard over a house that feels emptier without him?
I wonder what he carries with him, my son. He carries his rifle, his gear, the dust of Gaza clinging to his boots. But that is the lightest of his burdens.
The things he carries
He carries the weight of history, the weight of a people who have carried exile and return in their bones for generations. He carries the prayers of a thousand years, whispered into the walls of Jerusalem, carried on the winds of deserts and oceans. He carries the voices of his ancestors, voices silenced in Europe, in the camps, in the ghettos— voices that cry out now through him.
He carries this land, every inch of it—its beauty, its scars, its impossibilities. He carries the memory of borders breached, of flames rising over kibbutzim, of terror that came not from far away but from just across the fields.
He carries his people. He carries the weight of a nation that cannot rest and must always fight for its place in the world. He carries the dreams of his brothers, his sister, his family—dreams that he protects even when he cannot dream for himself.
He carries all of this, and he carries it not because he chose to but because it chose him. And still, somehow, he stands. He carries it with a strength that is not only his own but comes from those who came before him, from the generations that never stopped believing that this land, this fragile, beloved land, could one day be defended by their sons.
I think of his courage, his strength—not just his, but the strength of his generation. The generation we doubted, the generation we wrote off as distracted by screens and disconnected from purpose. How wrong we were. They are the generation that stands now, unflinching and heroic in ways we never imagined.
A general I met recently told me that he’s never known fear like this. He lost an eye in battle years ago, and two years ago, he lost his wife to cancer. But nothing—not war, not loss—compares to the fear he feels now, waiting for his son to come home from Gaza.
At Black Arrow, I stood just 400 meters from my son, and yet the distance felt infinite. It’s a distance measured not in meters but in everything I cannot protect him from.
And so, I wait. I pray. I pray that he feels us with him and that the memory of home is not a burden but a source of strength. I pray that when this is over when the smoke clears, and the silence lifts, he will return. That he will sit at the table once more, his smile lighting up the room, his seat no longer empty.
And I pray for every parent, every wife, every child waiting for their soldier to come home. I pray for this country that keeps sending its children into the fire and somehow finds the strength to keep going. I pray for the courage to wait, the strength to hold on, and the faith to believe that light can find its way back through the darkness.
US President Joe Biden on Thursday said that real progress was being made towards a Gaza deal as negotiators try to reach a ceasefire accord between Israel and Hamas.
Biden is reportedly pushing hard for a ceasefire agreement to be reached during his last days in office.
“We’re making some real progress, I met with negotiators today,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
“I’m still hopeful that we will be able to have a prisoner exchange. Hamas is the one getting in the way of that exchange right now, but I think we may be able to get that done, we need to get it done,” he added.Biden also said he spoke to Lebanon’s new president Joseph Aoun earlier. “He’s a first rate guy… They’re also working very hard.”
Collaboration with the transition team
Reports also indicate that the Biden administration is working together with President-elect Donald Trump and his team to achieve a deal before Trump is inaugurated on January 20.
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