• After 484 days, Yarden Bibas, Ofer Calderon, and Keith Siegel were released from captivity in Gaza on Saturday.

Like all of the other released hostages, Keith Siegel was cruelly paraded around by Hamas during his hand off to the Red Cross.

Yarden Bibas writes: “I thank all the people of Israel for their support and help. I heard from my family that you fought for me and I want to thank you. I appreciate it very much, it’s not obvious. Happy birthday, Grandpa!”

The moment that Yarden Bibas and Ofer Calderon are handed over to the IDF by the Red Cross

Yarden Bibas is finally reunited with his father and sister—but his wife, Shiri, and their children, Ariel and Kfir, are not with him.

Statement from the family of Yarden Bibas:

Yarden is home. A quarter of our heart has returned to us after 15 long months. There are no words to describe the relief of holding Yarden in our hands, embracing him, and hearing his voice. Yarden has returned home, but his home remains incomplete.

Yarden is a father who left his safe room to protect his family, bravely survived captivity, and returned to an unbearable reality.

At this time, we ask: Protect Yarden. Protect his soul. Please respect his privacy and give him the space he needs so that his body and soul can begin to recover.

Thank you to our beautiful people. Thank you to our soldiers. Thank you and we’re sorry to all those who sacrificed their lives so this day could come.

We will take a few days to reunite with Yarden, but we continue with hope and the call for the return of Shiri, the children, and all the hostages.

Please continue to make their voices heard and emphasize the urgency of their return.

Help us echo this now more than ever. For Yarden and for everyone. We won’t stop until everyone is home

Ofer Calderon’s cycling group escorted the vehicle that was taking him to the hospital. Ofer asked to stop the car and get out to tell them that he loves them.

Ofer Calderon is reunited with his four children.

Keith Siegal (65) is reunited with his wife Aviva (who was captured with him and released several weeks later) and daughters. Siegal’s mother was not there. She passed away just a few weeks ago without ever knowing if her son would be returned to his family.

Keith thought his son had been murdered, then heard his voice on radio; Yarden and Ofer suffered physical and mental abuse by Yael Ciechanover and Gal Ganot with YNet

• Keith was held in Gaza City, where he stayed with other hostages and moved between safe houses and tunnels. The terrorists locked him in a room each time, so that he could not be found if anyone broke in. Keith, according to a report on the public broadcaster, Kan, recalls the days of his captivity in detail – and said that he thought his son Shai had been murdered until he heard his voice on the radio and realized that he was alive.
• Keith also described how he was forced to eat meat despite being a vegetarian, and that he ate it when it was given to him since he received very little food.
• In addition, the public broadcaster reported that Yarden Bibas learned Arabic in captivity, and that the terrorists treated Ofer Calderon as a military reservist – which is why he was released in a military uniform. Yarden and Ofer said that during their first days of captivity in Khan Younis the terrorists beat them and locked them in cages
• All three of the hostages who returned Saturday testified that they were exposed to the media, especially Al Jazeera, and that they saw the demonstrations for their release. According to them, the protests gave them strength and hope that they would eventually be reunited with their families.

Hostage Update

• There are now currently 76 hostages taken on 10/7 currently in captivity in Gaza (there are 79 hostages remaining in total)
• 18 hostages have been released so far in the first phase of the agreement
• 20 are now remaining on the list for release during the first stage of the ceasefire.
  • 12 of the 20 remaining hostages still to be freed are alive and 8 are dead
    • 7 are adults over the age of 50
    • 10 are sick or injured
    • 3 are members of the Bibas family (Shiri Silberman Bibas and her two children, Ariel (4 years old when taken captive] and Kfir [9 months when taken captive]
  • 6 hostages are Americans: Meet the Seven American Hostages Still Held By Hamas
• 24 hostages will remain in captivity after Phase I and have not been declared dead.
  • 4 are soldiers
  • 7 are residents of the Gaza border communities
  • 11 were abducted from the Nova music festival
  • 2 are foreign workers, one from Thailand and one Nepal
• Link: These are the hostages to be released (and left behind) in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal’s first phase – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

• On October 7^th, a total of 261 Israelis were taken hostage.
• During the ceasefire deal in November of 2023, 112 hostages were released.
• 176 hostages in total have been released or rescued
  • The bodies of 40 hostages have been recovered, including 3 mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
• 8 hostages have been rescued by troops alive
• Of the 79 hostages still theoretically in Gaza
  • 35 hostages have been confirmed dead and are currently being held in Gaza
  • Thus, at most, 44 living hostages could still be in Gaza.
  • Hamas is also holding 2 Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015 (civilians Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have been held in Gaza for a decade), as well as the body of 1 IDF soldiers who was killed in 2014 (Lt. Hadar Goldin’s body remains held in the Gaza Strip)

Casualties (+1)

• 1,846 Israelis have been killed including 842 IDF soldiers since October 7th (+1 since Wednesday)

  

• First Sergeant Liam Hazi, (20) was killed during operational activity in Jenin in the West Bank on Thursday
• The South: 405 IDF soldiers during the ground operation in Gaza have been killed (no change since Wednesday)
• The North: 131 Israelis (84 IDF soldiers) have been killed during the war in Northern Israel (no change since Wednesday)
• Additional Information (according to the IDF):
  • 2,572 (+2 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured during ground combat in Gaza, including at least 495 (no change since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
  • 5,686 (+19 since Wednesday) IDF soldiers have been injured since the beginning of the war, including at least 843 (+1 since Wednesday) who have been severely injured.
    • The increase in injuries is attributed to ongoing operations in the West Bank

• The Gaza Casualty Count:
  • According to unverified figures from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, 47,417 (+63 since Wednesday) people have been killed in Gaza, and 111,571 (+8 since Wednesday) have been injured during the war.
  • [MUST READ] Report: Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza by Andrew Fox with The Henry Jackson Society
  • On October 7th, Ohad Hemo with Channel 12 Israel News – the country’s largest news network, a leading expert on Palestinian and Arab affairs, mentioned an estimate from Hamas: around 80% of those killed in Gaza are members of the organization and their families.”
  • Read this well documented piece from Tablet published in March: How the Gaza Ministry of Health Fakes Casualty Numbers
  • The Associated Press, an outlet with a demonstrated anti-Israel bias, conducted an analysis of alleged Gaza death tolls released by the Hamas-controlled “Gaza Health Ministry.” The analysis found that “9,940 of the dead – 29% of its April 30 total – were not listed in the data” and that “an additional 1,699 records in the ministry’s April data were incomplete and 22 were duplicates.”
• The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes official details on every civilian and IDF casualty.

Israel/Middle East Related Articles

The Imperative Remains: Destroy Hamas by Bernard-Henri Lévy with Wall Street Journal

• From families who piously gathered at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square every Saturday evening for more than 15 months to a prime minister reputed to be indifferent and cynical, there was hardly a false note. The Jewish people respect pidyon shvuyim, the imperative to redeem captives. Unlike empires that recognize only large numbers, the Jewish people understand the only truly great and true number, is one—the one in man, the one of man, and the one of each saved life, which, as Maimonides suggests, is worth all the Sabbaths in the world.
• I know no one in Israel who could watch, without immense emotion, the images of Karina, Daniella, Naama and Liri reuniting with the families that awaited them. These four young women, unlike others whose remains we still await, survived an atrocious captivity. But if survival is the humblest form of life, the one that barely keeps us above despair and death, it is also, when it is that of a hostage resisting in the face of humiliation and torture, the highest form of life—the form that soars above us as a secret even greater than that of misfortune.
• But then there was the other image—the one that preceded the magnificent moment of reunion. It was the image of the small stage on which the four young women were forced to stand, where they were seen wearing strained smiles, waving at—whom? The Palestinian crowd perched across from them on rubble turned into makeshift bleachers? Their jailers? Their families, so near yet so far, on the other side of the mirror? Each held at arm’s length a strange paper bag containing—no joke!—provisions for the road, some trinkets, a map of the Gaza Strip and, as if they were goods being delivered, a certificate of handover to the Red Cross. The same Red Cross behaved with an utter lack of dignity and did not visit one hostage over the past 481 days.
• This second image was chilling. Chilling because of the childlike smiles of the petrified prisoners, frozen at the prospect of those last minutes—so close to the goal yet sticky with tension, knowing that everything could still go wrong. Chilling because of the black-clad, masked men surrounding them—some pressed close, their lifeless fishlike eyes fixed on the captives, others turned away, in mismatched uniforms, either filming them with cellphones or flashing victory signs. And chilling because of what the scene intended to signify—and did, in fact, signify—to the crowds who watched it live, from Jabalia to Rafah, from Jericho to Ramallah, from Cairo to Amman. These crowds have replayed the videos since, as one would rewatch a cult image: an army of criminals wounded but not sunk, weakened but not defeated.
• Now more than ever, faced with the cowardly relief that so often accompanies the profound and solemn joy of seeing the first hostages return, it is vital to remember that Israel has always pursued two objectives in this war. The first is the release of the hostages, which was made possible only by Israel’s military pressure. The second is the total defeat of the last pogromist squads, which would otherwise emerge from this disaster as so-called resisters, cloaked in a dark aura that would again inspire those tempted, in Israel and elsewhere, by jihad.
• The same must happen in Gaza. Nothing would be more dangerous than leaving behind, as Machiavelli put it, a wounded prince. As long as Hamas retains even a fraction of its capacity to strike—or to govern—Israel can tolerate neither a “durable ceasefire,” a “peace of compromise” nor a “political solution.”
• Link: The Imperative Remains: Destroy Hamas

End America’s unwise alliance with Qatar by Michael Pregent with The Hill

• Qatar, our oil-wealthy “ally” in the Persian Gulf, is funding and harboring terrorists that not only threaten American forces but are attacking long-standing American allies. Worse yet, Doha believes this terrorist/ally balance is protected because the country hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East.
• Qatar is counting on the proposition that hosting a strategically significant U.S. base insulates Doha from the repercussions of funding and supporting Hamas attacks against Israel and helping the terrorist organization survive to carry out more such attacks in the future —attacks promised by Hamas leaders from luxury hotels in Doha.
• The U.S. needs to end the facade of Qatar being a major player in the region. Designated terrorist leaders are happy to take Doha’s money and easily intimidate the tiny kingdom to make further payments and concessions. Doha is a bank that requires nothing from Tehran or its terrorist proxies to secure billions. Qatar has not delivered results. It has delivered only the one thing it excels at — money.
• The U.S. has become the best ally Qatar can buy, from bribing officials to buying the support and silence of institutions; from Sen. Bob Menendez to Sen. Lindsey Graham, from Texas A&M to Cornell University.
• Qatar is using its influence and its proceeds from American investments to steal intellectual property, fund terrorism and foment anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment through its funding to universities, to pro-Hamas groups, and its propaganda machine, Al Jazeera.
• Link: End America’s unwise alliance with Qatar

Hamas and the Red Cross by Gerald M. Steinberg with Quillete

• On 19 January 2025, following the conclusion of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Hamas, three Israeli women were released after 471 days of captivity in Gaza. The hostages were transferred to Red Cross vehicles, where they were harassed and taunted by armed “militants” and a menacing crowd that pressed itself against the windows and chanted “Allahu Akbar!” Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) did nothing to interfere with this intimidating display of indignity and public humiliation.
• The anger expressed by Israelis and others is not caused by the ICRC’s failure to somehow force Hamas to allow visits and provide medications. The problem is that the organisation was largely passive and failed to use its vast prestige to demand access to the hostages or campaign for their release. The Red Cross officials who travelled throughout the region, including Qatar, did not hold press conferences where this message would have been amplified. Nor did they publish public letters addressed to, say, the heads of the Qatari government demanding assistance in pressing Hamas to follow basic humanitarian and legal principles on the treatment of its “prisoners.”
• Similarly, on social-media platforms, the references to the hostages were few and far between. In 2024, the ICRC in Israel & OT account on X sent only seven tweets that mentioned the Israelis out of hundreds of posts. The main @ICRC account, which has a massive following of 2.2 million, is able to point to a few more examples, but most of these repeated the organisation’s excuse that its hands were tied by the ostensible limitations of its role as “a neutral intermediary.”
• That policy was not merely passive—the ICRC was also a willing participant in Nazi propaganda exercises. Specifically, the organisation presented the Theresienstadt ghetto as a “model” for the ICRC, which led it to circulate a fake report stipulating that Jews were not being transferred to the gas chambers. It took sixty years, immense pressure, and the emergence of documents revealing the organisation’s moral duplicity before the Red Cross acknowledged that Auschwitz “represents the greatest failure in the history of the ICRC, aggravated by its lack of decisiveness in taking steps to aid the victims of Nazi persecution. This failure will remain part of the ICRC’s memory.”
• The actions and inactions of the Red Cross—particularly its false “impartiality” following the 7 October attacks and throughout the subsequent conflict—are also attributable to or reinforced by the influence of the Swiss foreign ministry and other elite actors. Switzerland’s systematic criticisms of Israel and more general support for the Palestinian cause are therefore reflected in the ICRC, including its departure from European policy by maintaining a “dialogue” with Hamas. Employees who deal with these issues are likely to have views and prejudices that closely resemble those of the Swiss government.
• The ICRC’s current director general is Pierre Krähenbühl, a prominent Swiss political figure who held a high-level position in the organisation from 1991 to 2014. He was then appointed head of UNRWA, an agency notorious for its close involvement with Hamas and support of the Palestinian victimhood narrative. In 2019, following numerous reports of mismanagement and corruption and an official investigation, Krähenbühl resigned from UNRWA. According to media publications, a secret UN report into his conduct concluded that he had presided over “a work culture characterized by low morale, fear of retaliation … distrust, secrecy, bullying, intimidation, and marginalisation … and management that is highly dysfunctional.” Claims in the Swiss media that the investigation had exonerated Krähenbühl were refuted by a number of sources, including Lex Takkenberg, the former head of UNRWA’s Ethics Office, whose report led to Krähenbühl’s removal.
• Elliott Abrams, former senior director of the US National Security Council and Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, has suggested that the US withhold its funding (US$622 million), which amounts to approximately a quarter of the ICRC’s total budget of US$2.8 billion. If the US were to take the lead, some other major donor governments might follow, depending on political alignments.
• Link: Hamas and the Red Cross

Diplomacy or regime change? by Farhad Rezaei with Jewish National Syndicate

• The Islamic Republic has made considerable progress in its nuclear weapons program. It is only days away from having sufficient weapon-grade uranium to build multiple nuclear warheads, and the leaders of the Islamic Republic have begun openly hinting at a shift in Iran’s nuclear doctrine.
• Iran has accelerated the production and operation of centrifuges to enrich uranium at higher levels, thereby creating the type of fuel used for nuclear bombs. According to the latest assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as of Oct. 26, Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60% purity had reached 182.3 kilograms. If this stockpile is further enriched to 90%, it will be enough to make up to five nuclear warheads.
• Meanwhile, the regime has restricted the U.N.’s ability to monitor key facilities, limiting both technological and physical inspections. As a result, the IAEA can no longer reliably detect whether Iran is diverting nuclear material, equipment or other resources to undeclared sites, further complicating verification efforts. Intelligence reports also indicate that scientists at civilian research institutes have been conducting limited computer modeling and metallurgy experiments related to nuclear “weaponization,” potentially expediting Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons.
• The argument that the United States shouldn’t prioritize regime change in Iran because this goal is unachievable largely stems from a misunderstanding of Iran’s current situation. The regime faces multiple crises at home and is on the brink of collapse. Widespread corruption among officials has undermined public trust and government effectiveness, which has brought the regime’s legitimacy down to near zero. High unemployment, social restrictions, limited press freedom, restrictions on civil liberties, water scarcity, pollution and the mismanagement of natural resources have fueled public anger. Factories operate at less than 50% capacity, blackouts routinely disrupt schools and government services, and the currency continues to plummet. Protests over unpaid wages and increasing prices are spreading across all sectors.
• On several occasions, the Iranian people have risked their lives to rise up against the regime, but the regime responded with brutal force. Had the Biden administration provided them with the necessary support, the outcome would have been very different. The Trump administration should fix this oversight. Supporting the Iranian people in their effort to change the regime is not only a moral responsibility for the United States, it is a strategic necessity. A democratic Iran would likely renounce nuclear ambitions, cease engaging in aggression and renounce military support for its proxy groups.
• Link: Diplomacy or regime change?

You’re Lucky To Survive Being Freed By Hamas by Seth Mandel in Commentary

• …when Israeli hostages are released by Hamas, Gazans first film themselves hungrily getting in their last war crimes before the coming drought. It is dangerous business, this getting freed by Hamas.
• The price of freedom is one last, live torture session. “Holding hostages is illegal under international law, and it amounts to a form of torture,” said the UN’s own torture expert upon the announcement of the cease-fire deal. Now it can be told.
• Young Israeli women and old Israeli men are paraded not in front of baying mobs but through them. This part introduces another emotion: disgust. One expects that now that Hamas fighters are wearing their uniforms for the first time in over a year it would be easier to tell them apart from those around them. But somehow everyone in these scenes blends in with one another. When it comes to crowds of people gleefully mobbing an abused woman, what they are wearing isn’t terribly relevant or noticeable.
• Ah, the Red Cross! Willing participants in the psychotic torment of hostages.
• To be clear: The process of dragging hostages through the crowds is not just morally abominable; it is legitimately dangerous. You are lucky to survive being freed by these psychopaths. And for the Red Cross to stand there and accede to this is beyond disqualifying.
• Link: You’re Lucky To Survive Being Freed By Hamas

Antisemitism

Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism – Executive Order signed by President Trump

• Sec. 2. Policy. It shall be the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.
• Sec. 3. Additional Measures to Combat Campus Anti-Semitism
  • (d) The report submitted by the Secretary of Education under this section shall additionally include an inventory and an analysis of all Title VI complaints and administrative actions, including in K-12 education, related to anti-Semitism — pending or resolved after October 7, 2023 — within the Department’s Office for Civil Rights.
  • (e) In addition to identifying relevant authorities to curb or combat anti-Semitism generally required by this section, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Education, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with each other, shall include in their reports recommendations for familiarizing institutions of higher education with the grounds for inadmissibility under 8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(3) so that such institutions may monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.
• Link to the full Executive Order

Australian Police Foil Antisemitic Attack After Finding Explosives, List of Jewish Targets by Ailin Vilches Arguello in Algemeiner

• Australian police announced on Wednesday that they foiled a potential mass-casualty antisemitic terrorist attack after discovering a caravan in a suburb of Sydney filled with explosives and material containing details about Jewish targets.
• According to New South Wales state Deputy Police Commissioner David Hudson, there were enough explosives to create a bomb with a blast zone of around 40 meters, or 130 feet.
• “This is certainly an escalation,” Hudson said in a press conference, commenting on the recent spate of antisemitic crimes in the greater Sydney area, where businesses and vehicles have been torched and buildings vandalized with graffiti.
• Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales, referred to the incident as “terrorism,” while confirming that counterterrorism authorities are also investigating the discovery of the explosives.
• Last week, a child care center in Sydney was set alight and antisemitic graffiti was sprayed on the wall. Located near a Jewish school and synagogue in the city’s eastern section, the center suffered extensive damage, though no injuries were reported.
• Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, the number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
• Link: Australian Police Foil Antisemitic Attack After Finding Explosives, List of Jewish Targets

Regular sources include JINSA, FDD, IDF, AIPAC, The Paul Singer Foundation, The Institute for National Security Studies, the Alma Research and Education Center, Yediot, Jerusalem Post, IDF Casualty Count, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Institute for the Study of War, Tablet Magazine, Mosaic Magazine, The Free Press, and the Times of Israel