Note to reader: We wanted to give you a trigger warning on what you may read below. We have chosen, as with every night of these briefings, to not share horrific images, however we want to alert you as sensitively as we can to the reports coming out of Israel and Gaza.
What to Watch and Read Today
- FOLLOW: CFI Instagram and Twitter
- READ: 19 Iran-backed terror groups on Israel’s border
- WATCH: Hamas fired rockets from within Gaza humanitarian zone, next to UN building
- WATCH: Senior Hamas officials in terror tunnels
- WATCH: Palestinian residents criticise Hamas
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tells British Jews: “be in no doubt that I will always stand with you”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today addressed the Jewish Community in a letter to mark the beginning of Chanukah:
“As we welcome the beginning of Chanukah, it’s important to recognise the challenging times being faced by our Jewish friends everywhere.
For many families, the tragedy of recent events will hang heavily on celebrations, but the resilience you have shown is humbling.
As we commemorate the recovery of Jerusalem all those centuries ago, I want to celebrate the enduring strength of Jewish communities.
I will be lighting the menorah with you as you mark this important festival and want you to be in no doubt that I will always stand with you”.
Sunak’s well-wishes were echoed by the Welsh Conservative Shadow Equalities Minister, Dr Altaf Hussain MS, who said:
“I would like to wish the Jewish community across Wales and around the world a very happy Chanukah.
I have seen in recent weeks the strength of character and courage displayed by our Jewish community in the face of terror, including at a moving vigil which took place at the Senedd.
The greatest gift we can give the community this Chanukah is to tackle the scourge of antisemitism and an end to the violence. Let us all pray together for peace in the Middle East”.
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron: “We must give Israel the ability to get rid of Hamas”
Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said to CNN in an interview that “we must give Israel the ability to get rid of Hamas”. He told the news service that “there will never be a two state solution” so long as Hamas governs “even a part of Gaza” and that “you can’t expect Israel to live next to a group of people that want to do October 7 all over again”.
Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt: Hamas atrocities included “the most horrific torture and mutilation”
Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt thanked CFI Vice Chair Rt. Hon. Theresa Villiers for allowing the Government to “state on record the appalling atrocities”, against women committed by Hamas, including “rape” and “the most horrific torture and mutilation”. Mordaunt voiced her disappointment in international bodies which have failed to show “swift” and “robust” condemnation.
“We fund many schemes around the world with huge success in reducing violence against women and girls and I shall make sure that the Minister in the Foreign Office” responsible for such schemes reflects on what more the Government can “expect from the organisations that we work with in these matters around the world”.
Rt. Hon. Theresa Villiers MP quoted the Sunday Times headline last weekend: “First Hamas fighters raped her, then they shot her in the head”. In light of the “profoundly disturbing revelations” committed by the terror group on October 7th, Villiers called for a Ministerial Statement on the actions set out by the Government to “raise this issue in international fora like the UN, some of which have been far too slow to recognise and condemn this aspect of the Hamas atrocity”.
Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lucy Frazer: The BBC must “[make] sure that when it puts its news out it is accurate”
Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lucy Frazer said that “it is so important”, considering the “antisemitism” that has resulted in BBC misinformation, that the broadcaster “makes sure that when it puts its news out it is accurate”.
Frazer’s comments came in response to CFI Parliamentary Officer Bob Blackman CBE MP, who raised “the bias that’s crept in” to the BBC. He told the House of Commons that he “wrote to the [BBC’s] Director General, following the broadcasting of Hamas propaganda on the attacks on the Gaza hospital, which was left up on the BBC literally all day, which created community tensions in my constituency. Not a word of apology, not a retraction and not even a reply from the Director General”. Blackman called for “fact-checking” to be a “requirement” for media sources such as the BBC.
Following a separate statement given by Foreign Minister Leo Docherty, Blackman said that “hostile actors” are trying to “subvert” the democratic process by “collecting email addresses of our constituents” and write “a large number of template emails of particular subjects”. “This needs to be investigated and stopped”, he added.
Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt: “Jaw dropping” that top U.S. universities say calling for genocide of Jews permitted
In the Commons today, Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt called evidence given by top U.S. university Presidents at Harvard, MIT and Penn before congress this week “jaw dropping”.
Her statements followed former Attorney General Rt. Hon. Sir Michael Ellis KC MP calls for a debate on antisemitism in higher education, after the U.S. university Presidents failed to agree that “calling for the genocide of Jews breaks the university code of conduct”, instead arguing that it “depends on the context and whether the speech turned into actual genocidal conduct”.
Calls for “mass murder” made against any other minority group is “impossible to imagine”, said Ellis – and that the episode displays “top level, institutional Jew-hatred at the highest levels of academia and sadly, universities in the United Kingdom are also infested with antisemitism”.
Mordaunt said that “this should really be a wakeup call” to “abhorrent” university policies. The universities’ “code of conduct” which “permits the avocation and promotion of mass murder” means that academic institutions are no longer “guardians of the values that we hold dear”.
“We cannot in any way tolerate the promotion of genocide and the extermination of a group of people. It is absolutely abhorrent and I would also just commend the work of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) which do a huge amount on our campuses” delivering “over 100 antisemitism awareness training to about 3,000+ campus leaders in the UK”, she added.
Higher Education Minister Robert Halfon: New “antisemitism charter to give teeth to the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism”
Higher Education Minister Robert Halfon has pledged a new “antisemitism charter to give teeth to the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism” on UK campuses.
Halfon’s statement was delivered in a speech to the Times higher education conference, where he called antisemitism across British campuses “horrific”, citing “threatening door-knocking – ‘we know where you live’ – verbal and physical abuse, graffiti” and “Palestinian flags draped over Jewish students’ cars”.
The Minister said “we need to be proactive, not just reactive” and recalled the legacy of Sophie Scholl – a non-Jewish 20th Century activist and University of Munich student who through the White Rose group distributed anti-Nazi leaflets in Germany.
“Sophie Scholl once said that the real damage is done by “those with no sides and no causes… Those who don’t like to make waves – or enemies,” Halfon said, adding that “I want Sophie Scholls to exist in every university. Non-Jews prepared to stand-up for their Jewish friends, who’s done nothing to deserve the stigma and hatred they’ve endured”.
Hamas fire rockets from humanitarian zone, beside UN facility
IDF released information yesterday that rockets were fired toward Israeli cities from the al Mawsi humanitarian zone in southern Gaza, extremely close to a UN facility.
Footage of senior Hamas leaders inside the terror groups tunnel network has been released by the IDF and Shin Bet. Additionally, an image of Hamas leadership in an underground room has also been released, with the IDF noting those that have been killed.
Hamas intel on PIJ used to trick Israel
Hamas provided Israel with intelligence on Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the second most-prominent terror group in Gaza, prior to the brutal October 7th massacre.
The information was reportedly passed to Israel to lull the country into believing that Hamas was interested in Gaza’s stability, cooperation and civilian issues such as work permits.
Hamas is believed to have held large-scale demonstrations at the Israel-Gaza border to reduce Israeli suspicion during preparation for the massacre, and restrained from attacking Israel since 2021 to this end.
Iran threatens Israel, IRGC seizes fuel tankers
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian threatened that Israel will face a “terrible” threat on a call to his Qatari counterpart, warning that the region will become “tense” and that there will be “reactions” to Israel’s continuing military efforts in the Gaza Strip.
Iran funds a network of terror organisations across the Middle East, causing widespread instability and discord – including 19 on Israel’s borders. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthi terror group are all supported by Tehran and have committed to Israel’s destruction.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s clandestine external operations branch charged with training such terror groups, yesterday seized two oil tankers carrying approximately 4.5 million litres of fuel, according to IRGC-affiliated media reports. The tankers country origin is unknown.
Israel criticises UN chief for supporting Hamas
Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen criticised UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for invoking Article 99, which “constitute support of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
“The UN needs a Secretary-General who supports the war on terror and not a Secretary-General who acts according to the script written by Hamas”, stated Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan. “His call for a ceasefire is a call to keep Hamas’s reign of terror in Gaza”. Instead, Erdan called for Guterres to insist that Hamas lay down its arms and free the hostages.
The use of Article 99, a rare mechanism employed by the Secretary-General to prompt the UN to call for an immediate ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas War, has made Guterres tenure “a danger to world peace”, said Cohen.
Guterres actions constitute “an endorsement of the murder of the elderly, the abduction of babies and the rape of women”, he added.
“All aid goes underground” – Gazan resident criticises Hamas
An elderly woman criticised Hamas on Al Jazeera. The Qatar-state funded broadcaster usually silences descent of Hamas as it had in November.
Hamas clamps down on freedom of speech and punishes descent, sometimes by execution. “They can shoot me, do whatever they want to me,” the woman being interviewed said – after signalling that the reporter was wrong for suggesting that aid was immediately distributed. “All aid goes underground” she explained. “A lot of aid comes in, but it doesn’t reach the people” instead going to the “houses” of Hamas.
On Wednesday, Palestinian radio station Radio Elam also aired a Gazan resident’s insults of Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, for causing the Israel-Hamas war and for the resultant war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Tunnels discovered in the West Bank
Two tunnel shafts were uncovered in the West Bank during Tuesday nights operation in Jenin. 10 Palestinian terrorists were detained and three bomb-making facilities were discovered.
1,200 Hamas members had been arrested in the West Bank by the beginning of this week, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said.
During the IDF’s operation in Jenin in July of this year, two tunnel entrances were discovered beneath a mosque, storing explosives, weapons and other military equipment.
IDF operational update
The IDF is continuing operations within Khan Yunis after soldiers successfully penetrated the centre of the city. The IDF has also pushed into Jabaliya, north Gaza Strip.
The IDF carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in the south of Lebanon, including rocket-launching, observation and infrastructure sites. Separately, projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israel resulting in the death of a 60-year old Israeli civilian – before their launch areas were targeted and destroyed by the IDF.
In the West Bank, 21 wanted persons were arrested last night and a lathe for weapon production and weapons were also seized. A printing house used for publishing Hamas materials in Kfar al-Bira was sealed, explosives intended to harm Israeli forces were uncovered in Tulkarm and branch offices of the Islamic Charity Association in Kfar Beit Omer was also closed – having been found to finance Hamas operatives by the Shin Bet.
Palestinian Authority plans future for Gaza Strip
President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas has condemned Hamas in “every call and meeting” with world leaders since October 7th, according to his advisor and leading Sharia judge Mahmoud Habbash.
The revelation has come as the PA prepares to “take full responsibility for Gaza, but only if it is side-by-side with the West Bank and not as contractors for Israel”, said Habbash.
Israel contends that the PA is not a viable choice for leadership of the Gaza Strip due to its equivocation on Hamas, lack of democratic mandate and corruption. The PA’s welfare payments allocated to terror inmates and their families are said to incentivise terror and remains a major point of contention.
Five days after Hamas’ brutal attacks, Abbas issued a statement condemning the targeting of civilians on “both sides”. Also, that month, Abbas walked back on comments that Hamas “don’t represent Palestinians”. Abbas will not condemn Hamas publicly due to the Israel-Hamas war, said Habbash.
However, Habbash has asserted that since the Hamas-led massacres, Abbas has told world leaders that “Hamas is not representative of the Palestinian people” in over “70 phone calls and meetings”.
Washington has said that the PA will need to be “rejuvenated” before any plan is made, and Habbash has said that it will need to “rehabilitate”.
He added that PA Security Forces have proven their ability to supress terror in the West Bank and can do the same in Gaza with the assistance of international or Arab forces, on the condition of IDF withdrawal and broader steps toward Palestinian statehood.
