Day Seven Of Swords Of Iron

3 pm
IDF says infantry forces and tanks entered Gaza Strip territory today in "localized raids" in order to clear out terrorists and locate missing Israelis.

The US has reportedly given the “Green Light” to Israel to conduct any operation deemed necessary to confront any threat on any front and in any location.

Former US President George W. Bush said, "I hope and [am] pretty confident the United States will stand squarely with Israel. You know, going in the neighborhoods of Gaza is gonna be tough. And you know, he's got a very seasoned military but they just called up 300,000 reservists. Most of them probably can't fire a rifle, and to the extent they'd be put in harm's way, it's gonna be awfully difficult on the prime minister, but he's got to do it. He's got to do these ... you're dealing with cold-blooded killers.'\"

2 pm
Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem says Hamas terrorists are “fully prepared” for action when the time comes and that they will not heed requests to stay out of the conflict.

10:10 am
Today, Israel’s economy ministry declared an exemption for dozens of imported products from inspection, along with facilitating their importation into Israel and help to prevent shortages during the war with Hamas. This does not exempt importers from compliance with the standard, but only from the obligation to produce a standard approval upon importation.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino offered condolences to the soccer associations of Israel and Palestine over the “horrendous violence” in the past week. Israel’s Euro 2024 qualifying matches against Switzerland and Kosovo have both been postponed, while the Palestine football team was forced to pull out of a friendly tournament in Malaysia because the team was unable to travel.

9:55 am
Jewish News 24 reports: Hezbollah says ‘prepared’ for action against Israel when time comes. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement on Friday said it would be “fully prepared” to join Hamas in the war against Israel when the time is right. “We are fully prepared, and when the time comes for action, we will take it,” Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem told a pro-Palestinian rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The news service reported that California's Stanford Law School "had moved classes today to zoom over fears of violence due to the ongoing turmoil on campus over the Israel-Palestine debacle."

Israeli aircraft dropped flyers on Gaza today warning residents to flee "immediately" to the south of the enclave. "Evacuate your homes immediately and go south of Wadi Gaza," read thousands of leaflets. A map on the leaflets showed an arrow pointing south across a line in the center of Gaza. Hamas has ordered residents to remain in their homes. Reportedly, Hamas has not built bomb shelters in Gaza.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas today.  Defense Secretary Austin said today: "The U.S. Department of Defense stands fully ready to deploy additional assets" near Israel. Two US carrier groups are currently in theatre.

9:50 am
EU Commission President Ursula van der Leyden visited one of the kibbutz where Hamas terrorist massacred residents, including infants, raping women, and taking hostages. She wrote on Twitter: "We were in Kfar Azza. One of the epicenters of the atrocities committed by Hamas last weekend. The horror of what happened here is unspeakable. We mourn with the families of the victims."

Pro-Palestine rally on the campus of the University of Michigan, Oct. 10, 2023

9:45 am
A pro-Palestine protest planned for the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson was cancelled on Oct. 12 after campus president Robert Robbins said it was "anithetical" to the university's beliefs. It had been planned by the Students for Justice in Palestine campus chapter as part of its National Day of Action.

9:20 am
Hamas has told the people of Gaza to stay in their homes rather than evacuate as was urged by Israel, which continues to bomb the enclave. 

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Israel to permit humanitarian aid to enter Gaza through Egypt's Rafah crossing into the enclave after a plane bearing Turkish aid arrived in Egypt. Egypt has closed its border with Gaza. Erdoğan's foreign ministry said that it is “unacceptable” that Israel urged Gazans to evacuate as bombs fall.

Turkey’s foreign ministry said: “Forcing the 2.5 million people of Gaza – who have been subjected to indiscriminate bombing for days and who have been deprived of electricity, water and food – to migrate in an extremely limited area is a clear violation of international law and has no place in humanity.”  “We expect Israel to immediately reverse this grave mistake and urgently halt its merciless … acts against civilians in Gaza,” the statement said, according to Reuters.

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak cricized what he called a “disgusting” rise in antisemitic incidents in his country. London's Metropolitan Police have reported a huge increase in antisemitic offenses, according to the Guardian. "Antisemitic incidents reported to police, which may include non-crimes, increased sevenfold year to year, from 14 in the 30 September-13 October period last year, to 105," the report said. 

Met deputy assistant commissioner Laurence Taylor said police had asked the attorney general and the Crown Prosecution Service about what constitutes an offense. Displays of Palestinian flags are not automatic offense, with context being key. “A lot of it depends on the circumstances,” Taylor said. However, support for Hamas and the massacre in Israel is considered an offense because Hamas is a designated terrorist organization. Therefore, displays of its flags or chants of support are criminal offenses. More rallies and protests are expected this weekend in London.

Hamas supporters assembled outside the Israeli embassy in London today.

While Taylor said there was “no specific intelligence” of threats to Jewish schools in London, some of which have decided to close. Police are investigating claims that posters appealing for information about Israelis still missing were torn town in Camden, north London. Incidents of verbal abuse and the playing of Nazi martial music intended to intimidate Jews were also reported. 

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) will lead a delegation of senators to Israel over the weekend.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, which works in Israel and Palestine, denounced as a war crime Israel's demand that 1.2 million people evacuate in Gaza. Secretary General Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council, released the below statement:

“The Israeli military demand that 1.2 million civilians in northern Gaza relocate to its south within 24 hours, absent of any guarantees of safety or return, would amount to the war crime of forcible transfer. It must be reversed.

“The collective punishment of countless civilians, among them children, women, and the elderly, in retaliation for acts of horrible terror undertaken by armed men is illegal under international law.

“My colleagues inside Gaza confirm that there are countless people in the northern parts who have no means to safely relocate under the constant barrage of fire.

“The loss of civilian lives caused by deliberate or indiscriminate use of force is a war crime for which the perpetrators will have to answer. We fear that Israel may claim that Palestinians who could not flee northern Gaza can be erroneously held as directly participating in hostilities, and targeted.

“The United States, the UK, the European Union, and other Western and Arab Nations who have influence over the Israeli political and military leadership must demand that the illegal and impossible order to relocate is immediately rescinded.”

The Israeli military claims the order to Palestinians “is for your own safety”.

9:14 am
An Israeli diplomat was stabbed and seriously wounded in Beijing, according to Israeli authorities. He survived and is now hospitalized. The attack coincided with the Day of Rage, which Hamas has dubbed today while calling for protests and resistance by Muslims worldwide.

Likewise in France, a school teacher was stabbed to death and four others wounded in an attack. The assailant cried 'Allahu akbar' while carrying out the attack. French authorities have opened up an investigation into the attack, which happened in Arras, as to whether it was an act of terrorism.

In the West Bank, protesters scuffled with Israeli security forces while throwing rocks. At least nine protesters were killed in fighting with Israeli forces. Protests in favor of Palestine have rocked the Muslim world. 

8:30 am
GMU students protested on campus yesterday in support of Hamas.

8:00 am
Dozens of supporters of the Hamas terrorists turned out at George Washington University in Washington DC. They chanted, "They've got tanks, we've got hang gliders, glory to the resistance fighters!" 

During the coordinated and unprecedented invasion of Israel, Hamas terrorists were seen flying motorized hang gliders over the Gaza/Israeli border, where they wantonly killed and beheaded infants, killed civilians and military, abused corpses and burned homes. More than 1,200 Israelis were murdered. They took dozens of hostages, including Americans, who they took back to Gaza. They also raped and murdered women and displayed their corpses to cheering Gazans. 

7:50 am
Israeli military has told 1.1 million Gazans to move to south, according to the United Nations, Reuters reports. 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are being told to relocate to the south near the enclave's border with Israel and Egypt. “The United Nations considers it impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric stated. “The United Nations strongly appeals for any such order, if confirmed, to be rescinded avoiding what could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation,” he said. He said the order applies to UN staff and those sheltering in UN facilities, schools, health centers, and clinics. Hamas is known to stockpile weapons and materiel in or beneath civilian facilities.

The IAF has dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza since Oct. 7, more than the US dropped on ISIS in an entire month. “Dozens of fighter jets and helicopters attacked a series of terrorist targets of the Hamas terrorist organization throughout the Gaza Strip. So far, the IAF has dropped about 6,000 bombs against Hamas targets,” the IAF said on X. Some  1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children, have been killed according to the Palestinian health ministry. 6,600 have been wounded.

The UN called for $294 million for ‘urgent needs’ in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. More than 400,000 Palestinians have fled their homes from the latter recently. The UN Office declared that the money will be used to help more than 1.2 million people, while claiming that recent fighting in the region had left aid groups without adequate resources.

Israel's Knesset approved PM Netanyahu’s emergency unity government on Oct. 12, which includes opposition lawmakers, to fight the war with Hamas. While the unity government was sworn in, Netanyahu promised: "We will not slacken in the effort to bring them back home.” Referring to Hamas, he called for countries that “maintain their presence” to face sanctions. “Difficult days await us” he said.

In Israel, more than 1,300 people have died, including 222 soldiers, according to the IDF. Most were killed on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists pushed through border defenses and wantonly killed civilians, including infants, and defending military and security forces. In addition, Israel says it has so far identified 97 hostages, including elderly people, women and children, and taken them to Gaza. Hamas has vowed to kill one hostage for each bombing run of the IAF. The IAF has destroyed eleven mosques, damaged 90 schools, according to the UN, as well as 752 residential and non-residential buildings, comprising 2,835 housing units.

In addition, another 1,800 housing units are damaged beyond repair and are uninhabitable, according to the Palestinians. Civilian infrastructure has also been damage. The UN said 423,000+ people have fled their homes in Gaza following the invasion by Hamas and retailiation by Israel.

Hundreds of Australians are preparing to be repatriated from Israel on planes departing from Tel Aviv for London within the next 24 hour. Australian PM  Anthony Albanese said 1,600 people diggers had registered in Israel or the West Bank, including 19 in Gaza, for repatriation in what was an “extraordinary logistical exercise”.

For his part, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned that the “continuation of war crimes against Palestine and Gaza” could open a new front of war, and that Israel will be “responsible for the consequences”. 

Funding for Iran and Hamas

The US and Qatar have come to an agreement to deny Iran access to any of the $6 billion (£4.9 billion) in funds that had been frozen in South Korean banks and transferred to a Qatari bank as part of a prisoner swap deal reached between the Biden administration and the Islamic Republic in September, according to US deputy treasury secretary Wally Adeyemo. Adeyemo claimed that the fund will not be touched any time soon, according to CNN. President Biden had been pressurized by Republicans to refreeze the funds that had been frozen during the Trump administration following accusations and evidence that Iran had bankrolled Hamas's attack on Israel.

Finance ministers of the G7 group of leading nations met in Morocco and delayed a press conference because of disputed language concerning Hamas's attack on Israel and Israel's response. Japan is at odds with the group’s other members, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada. When the ministers meeting in Marrakech sought to formulate acceptable words, Japanese finance minister Sun’ichi Suzuki said that because the Israel-Hamas conflict was not on the original agenda there were different views about what to say, thus delaying a joint response. However, the eventual response was strongly supportive of Israel, saying: "We unequivocally condemn the recent terror attacks by Hamas on the state of Israel and express our solidarity with the Israeli people."

October 13, 2023

The Arch of Titus in Rome was illuminated with the flag of Israel on the evening of October 10.
The monument was built nearly 2,000 years ago to commemorate the sacking of Jerusalem and the 
Temple by a Roman army in the service of the Emperor Titus. The arch depicts a triumphant march
of the ruler with booty seized in Jerusalem, including a menorah from the temple. Enslaved Jews are
are also depicted on the arch.