What is striking, however, is what we barely hear in return.

Two years have passed since Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut on Sept. 27, 2024. The obvious way to measure what has changed since then is to count commanders killed, tunnels exposed, weapons destroyed and infrastructure damaged. But the more important change may be harder to quantify: Who now sets the rules between Israel and Hezbollah?

For years, Nasrallah built his power around a carefully managed system of deterrence. Hezbollah did not need to be stronger than the Israel Defense Forces. It needed Israeli decision-makers to believe that any action in Lebanon could trigger a response whose cost was difficult to predict.

Several incidents illustrated how deeply that logic affected Israeli decisions. In September 2019, after Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles toward Avivim, the IDF staged a fake casualty evacuation as part of an effort to end the incident without wider escalation. In March 2023, a terrorist crossed from Lebanon and planted a powerful explosive device at Megiddo Junction, yet Israel refrained from a broad, overt response against Hezbollah. Months later, Hezbollah erected its now-famous tent in the Mount Dov area, and Israel again responded cautiously.

The incidents were different, and deterrence was mutual. Hezbollah also wanted to avoid all-out war. Yet by 2023, the organization appeared increasingly willing to test Israel’s boundaries while assuming that Jerusalem was highly motivated to avoid escalation.

Then came Oct. 7 and the war that followed.

The past two years have inflicted severe military damage on Hezbollah, but they have also changed the psychology of the northern front. Israel has altered its approach. It no longer waits only for Hezbollah to act before responding; it repeatedly strikes Hezbollah infrastructure, including deeper inside Lebanon, to prevent the organization from rebuilding military capabilities.

The fighting around the Ali al-Taher ridge is a useful example. In September, Israel said it had cleared Hezbollah fighters from tunnels beneath the strategic ridge, roughly 15 kilometers from the Israeli border. Iran had warned the United States that a full-scale Israeli assault there could trigger major retaliation. Yet Israeli military pressure around the ridge continued, including strikes and ground operations, without the confrontation developing into the broader escalation Tehran had threatened.

The more important point is not one ridge or operation. It is that strikes no longer automatically produce the kind of response that once shaped Israeli planning.

The balance has shifted

For years, Israeli leaders asked what Hezbollah would do if Israel killed a senior commander, struck Beirut or attacked strategic infrastructure. Those questions have not disappeared, nor should they. Any responsible government must consider the enemy’s response. But the balance has shifted: Hezbollah now has to calculate much more carefully what an Israeli response to its own actions could cost.

This does not mean Hezbollah has lost its ability to fight. March demonstrated the opposite. After Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the U.S.-Israeli strikes that opened the wider regional war on Feb. 28, Hezbollah entered the conflict on March 2 and launched sustained attacks on Israel. The fighting continued for months before easing significantly after a June ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, reached alongside the broader U.S.-Iran diplomatic track.

The ceasefire reduced the fighting, though it didn’t end Israeli operations in Lebanon. Since then, Israel has continued to strike Hezbollah targets, while Hezbollah has largely absorbed those blows without returning to sustained war.

March also prevents us from telling ourselves a comforting but inaccurate story. Hezbollah is not quiet because it is incapable of fighting. A more credible explanation is that, outside moments of major regional escalation, the expected price of initiating action against Israel has become much higher. Even a limited attack could trigger renewed strikes on commanders, weapons depots, underground infrastructure and other assets that have become harder to replace. March therefore reinforces the broader point: Even Hezbollah’s return to sustained war was shaped not only by its confrontation with Israel, but by a regional crisis centered on Iran.

There is also a second change since Nasrallah’s death: Hezbollah may be less autonomous. Nasrallah was not simply the commander of an Iranian proxy. Over decades, he accumulated unusual authority inside Lebanon and within Tehran’s regional network. He had direct access to Iran’s leadership, understood how to translate Iranian interests into Lebanese realities and retained considerable room for his own judgment.

A strategic shift, not a permanent condition

Lebanese cleric Naim Qassem does not possess Nasrallah’s standing. At the same time, Tehran appears to have become more directly involved in Hezbollah’s rebuilding and military recovery. Reuters reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent roughly 100 officers to Lebanon after the 2024 ceasefire to help retrain fighters, oversee rearmament and restructure Hezbollah’s military command. An INSS analysis likewise described deeper Iranian involvement in Hezbollah’s reconstruction and rearmament.

That does not mean Tehran gives an order and Beirut automatically obeys. The events of March showed exactly the opposite. According to INSS, Iran needed nearly two days to persuade Hezbollah to enter the war after Khamenei’s killing. Hezbollah eventually joined the campaign in support of Iran, but such hesitation matters. It shows that the organization still has Lebanese interests and calculations of its own.

It also corrects an important misconception: Iranian influence does not always push Hezbollah toward restraint. In March, it pushed toward escalation.

Nor are Iran’s interests static. When Tehran itself faced a major regional war and the death of its supreme leader, mobilizing Hezbollah served an immediate Iranian need. Once the confrontation eased, preserving and rebuilding Hezbollah again became strategically important. For Tehran, the organization remains both an instrument that can be activated in a regional crisis and an asset whose military value must be protected for the future.

The more useful conclusion, therefore, is not that Iran explains Hezbollah’s current restraint. It is that Hezbollah’s leadership now operates inside a broader and more complicated strategic framework than it did under Nasrallah.

Every decision must now account for several competing pressures: the price Israel may impose; Hezbollah’s weakened military position; Lebanese political constraints; and the interests of the Iranian patron on which it increasingly depends for weapons, financing, expertise and reconstruction. Hezbollah retains the ability to decide, but its freedom to do so may no longer be what it was under Nasrallah. Sometimes those pressures point in the same direction; at other times, as March demonstrated, they do not.

That makes today’s relative quiet easy to misread. Hezbollah’s limited response to continuing Israeli operations does not necessarily mean that it has accepted the new reality. It may instead reflect a decision to buy time: to rebuild, study Israeli methods, move infrastructure deeper into Lebanon and wait for conditions in which the cost of acting becomes more acceptable.

Israel has already paid a devastating price for interpreting quiet as proof of lasting deterrence. One of the lessons of Oct. 7 is that the absence of action today does not necessarily mean acceptance of the status quo. Sometimes, it is simply the period in which an enemy prepares to challenge it later.

The current situation is therefore better understood as a strategic shift, not a permanent condition. Hezbollah is weaker, more cautious and perhaps more dependent on Tehran than the organization Nasrallah led. It remains armed and is working to rebuild.

Nasrallah spent years creating a reality in which every Israeli action in Lebanon forced Jerusalem to think first about Hezbollah’s response. Two years after his death, that reality has changed. Today, before Hezbollah acts, its leaders must ask the question they once forced Israeli decision-makers to ask: What will be the price of our next move?

From Kibbutz Dafna, the change is audible. The strikes across the border are still loud. The response is often not. That silence is an achievement. It is not a guarantee. For now, Hezbollah no longer sets the rules.

The board voted Thursday—the same day a board member resigned—to restart the investigation and deliver its findings by Oct. 8, when the board is also expected to consider whether to censure Hunter.

Xóchitl Gaytán and Alex Marrero, board president and district superintendent, respectively, alleged that Hunter made the remark about Amy Klein Molk in separate conversations in December and January.

“I absolutely don’t talk like that and would never say that about her,” Hunter told Chalkbeat.

The board voted last month to investigate the allegation, but at the meeting on Oct. 1, the process reportedly restarted after several board members said they misunderstood a prior vote that also dismissed other allegations against Hunter.

Hunter requested that investigators be permitted to interview any relevant witnesses, rather than limiting the inquiry to Gaytán, Marrero, Klein Molk and Hunter. The board unanimously approved the expanded scope.

Klein Molk, the board’s only Jewish member, supported moving quickly on the probe.

“It has been my desire to do this in a way that brings people together and that stops dividing us,” she said, per Chalkbeat. “I ask that we move quickly and swiftly and that we do this with as much dignity and respect as humanly possible.”

The investigation will conclude shortly after the anniversary of Oct. 7.

One board member proposed moving the report deadline from Oct. 7 to Oct. 8, calling an Oct. 7 report related to alleged antisemitic remarks “a little tone deaf.”

Three years later, the memories require no anniversary reminder. "I don't need a newspaper and headlines and the documentaries on TV to remember," said Guy, who spoke to JNS on the condition that his full name wouldn't be published due to security concerns, since he continues to serve in the Israeli military.

Guy is in his early 30s and grew up in a religious, Jewish community in northern Israel. He served in Unit 669, the military's airborne rescue unit.

"My dream was to be a military doctor. That's what I really wanted to do," he told JNS. "I was a teenager, and I looked around and saw this unit—it was commando and special forces, but they also do medicine."

"I didn't really look at the training," he said. "I had a fantasy of myself being a doctor in a helicopter. I didn't realize it includes a year and a half of grueling training beforehand, so I drafted and was chosen by the team leader."

Guy told JNS that he served as a combat paramedic in Unit 669 until 2018. On the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, he was at his fiancée's home. A soldier called him back to base.

"He calls me up and says, 'Any chance you are in the country and you could come in?'" Guy told JNS. "I said, 'Yes.'"

He headed to his base and was ordered to head south with two other soldiers in a pickup truck. "We're an airborne unit, so I thought they were joking," he said. "Why wouldn't we fly? We were told that the pilots didn't arrive yet at the base, and the helicopters aren't ready, so we need to drive down south."

"The command of the unit and officers don't understand what's going on, and they wanted boots on the ground," he told JNS.

He and two others took an "agricultural-style pickup truck" south.

"There's fields on both sides of the road, and suddenly there's vehicles on fire and multiple casualties all over the place," he told JNS. "People screaming for help, running around."

They began treating casualties and applying tourniquets. Guy said the people he was treating were "dressed up weird," and he initially did not know the Nova music festival had been taking place nearby.

"We encountered sometimes dozens of casualties at the same time," he told JNS.

His response took him to the kibbutzes of Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza and Be'eri. His brother was in a unit that lost many soldiers that morning, and his fiancée was also called to base and on her way south.

"For three days, the three of us in my family circle, we were in different areas," he said. "It's Oct. 7 and 8 and some extension of the 9th and 10th for those who have been there."

Guy had already written about military service. "During my training, I had a diary. My parents didn't have a TV in our house, so we read a lot as a child and my father encouraged me," he told JNS.

That diary, which he continued during rescue missions, became his first book. The English edition, published by Wicked Son, is titled "Full Throttle: Against All Odds with Israel's Elite Para-Rescue Commandos."

He was working on the English translation before the attacks. Afterward, a suggestion to add an Oct. 7 chapter developed into a separate book, drawing on accounts of other soldiers alongside his own.

"Some of the stuff I didn't remember myself precisely, so I asked them out of curiosity," he said. "Then people started sharing their stories."

His second book, "The Rescue: Oct. 7 through the Eyes of Israel's Para-Rescue Commandos," was published in English by Wicked Son in March 2025 and translated by Eylon Levy, a former Israeli government spokesman.

Guy described writing the book as an "obligation to say clearly out loud what I saw" in the homes he entered in southern Israel while responding to the Hamas-led attacks.

"If I don't do it as soon as possible, and fight for it to come out, I just will never go back there, and I will not want to go back there," he said, recalling his thinking as he wrote the book.

"We had this mission to put the story out there in our way. For instance, to emphasize how little we knew. Everybody's talking about the military failure. The soldiers didn't arrive on time," Guy told JNS. "Who are the soldiers? We are the soldiers. I'm the soldier. I didn't get there in time."

He wanted to show "how much we tried, regardless of our knowledge, and the bravery that so many of those who made it down there have shown."

Ahead of the third anniversary of the attacks, Guy plans to be in the United States with his wife and 9-month-old daughter.

The self-described "adrenaline junkie" told JNS that fatherhood is "not limiting me. It's grounding me. Reminding me what's important and why I'm doing things."

Asked what he plans to do to mark Oct. 7, he told JNS that "I'm in a dilemma between just pretending that it's just another day and just kind of cut it out of my life."

"It's always there," he said. "All year long."

Today, Jewry must understand how the Holocaust has distorted our sense of antisemitism and not forget that every century has brought enormous antisemitic tragedies. Oct. 7 was the spark for a new antisemitism that had been smoldering for a long time, using Israel as the focus and a distorted history of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” as the excuse.

Antisemitism is exploding because the Jews’ return to Israel as an independent majority is anathema to the religions that have adopted replacement theology as one of their major dogmas. Thus, we see a renewed attempt to pit the Abrahamic religions against each other, and especially against Judaism.

What are we to do, three years after Oct. 7, when we see that we have accomplished major and undreamed-of military victories, but not yet final victory? What are we to do with the tremendous political polarization in Israel, which presents a false dichotomy between a Jewish state and a Western-style democracy? What are we to do with Diaspora Jews turning against Israel and blaming it for the antisemitism they face? What are we to do with the virulent anti-Israel reaction of Western leaders, who are averse to war and paralyzed or cowed by the fundamentalist Islamists who have taken refuge in their nations?

Grounding ourselves in Jewish history is a beginning. It would help us keep our bearings against antisemitism’s onslaught. We may need to recognize that, historically, some Jews have betrayed themselves and their people because of propaganda against Israel and have sought to protect themselves by merging with their host nations.

But we must also remember that most Jews are calling for unity across political, cultural and religious divides. After 2,000 years, we can finally defend ourselves militarily, verbally and diplomatically. We must stand strong and proud and know who we are—warriors with a Jewish neshama.

We should feel gratitude that we live in a time when we have a sovereign state, a voice on the world stage, a refuge that requires no one's permission to enter, a home for Jews from every corner of the world, a shield and a sword. We waited for a hundred generations for this privilege.

What about our deterrence? The question of deterrence stands at the heart of the upcoming Israeli elections. Do we say, “Enough fighting,” “Let’s just stop,” “Let’s let the country rest”? The 12-day war with Iran proved to us that we are strong and can win, but should we pay the price of total victory, if there is one to be had? Should we further alienate a raging world full of hate because of our strength? Such strength is indeed an unusual sight for a humanity accustomed for 2,000 years to seeing the Jew as a despised, weak non-fighter.

Or do we take this opportunity to eliminate the threats against us, recover full deterrence and protect our future, despite current diplomatic failures? This would create a major deterrent for Israel and the United States alike. If we choose this option, then who is the best person to accomplish the task? It is not necessarily the person or party we like, but whoever can best succeed. After all, Churchill won the war and was not elected afterward.

Regarding Israel and the Diaspora, where should we go? Should we bond together?

The fates of Israel and Diaspora Jewry are bound together, whether we like it or not. Netanyahu’s special envoy Ron Dermer has argued that Israel must support Diaspora Jews and help them push back against antisemitism beyond intelligence sharing and hasbara. They should unite, defend themselves and defend each other. Diaspora Jews must protect themselves from voices urging them to split from their brothers.

The fight is tremendous. It involves a media war called the “eighth front,” fought without bullets. It needs the cleverness of all types of Jews and their friends. Always keep in mind the exorbitantly funded campaign that uses media and academia to demonize Israel, its people and its leaders. Keep in mind that the rallies fueled by media coverage are not organic but part of a global campaign deployed for decades across Israel, the United States and the West. The campaign uses bots, platforms, algorithms and advanced technology to manufacture conflict within these societies and weaken them. Most people have not woken up to this.

Overcoming the nightmare of the paralyzing hostage situation; weakening Hezbollah; removing the terrifying cloud that hovered over Israel’s head in the form of the threat of 150,000 missiles and the mayhem they could have caused; weakening Iran and pushing for possible regime change, which would bring more freedom to Israelis and Iranians; seeing many more people connect to their Judaism and Jewishness; and recognizing that Israel cannot enter into any deals that come at the cost of its safety are all silver linings that emerged from the terrible Oct. 7 massacre. Israel is much better off today. And yes, we need to improve our social media work, but it is better to have bad press than dead Jews.

Optimism about Israel’s future is rooted in military strength, security capacity, courageous youth, economic and technological power and expanding diplomacy with India, Japan, South Korea, South American nations and Azerbaijan, as well as the Abraham Accords.

Yes, there is more to do. It requires more equanimity, strength, resilience and doing things the Torah way, moved by Judaism’s values of caring for orphans and widows, helping others, pursuing justice and committing to civil liberties even amid a constant terror threat.

Let’s celebrate that we live in a time when we have a sovereign and militarily powerful state that can protect us, raise our voice among the nations, and gather all who want and need to come. Let’s celebrate that, after 2,000 years, we have the privilege of seeing the clarity of our mission in the world emerge.

There is dread and anxiety in the face of immense danger, yet there is also extraordinary excitement and vitality, with open doors to a magnificent future that can bring freedom and peace to all religions and nations.

“Sarah is a highly experienced and successful development professional in South Florida who will be a significant addition to our AFHU fundraising team,” says AFHU chief executive officer Joshua Rednik. “We believe her capabilities and connections will expand interest in and awareness about Hebrew University in the region.”

In her new role, Rogers will work closely with current donors as well as cultivate and engage new philanthropic support for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s students, faculty, research and initiatives.

Before joining AFHU, Rogers served as executive vice president of development for the Southern region of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where she reestablished the center’s regional footprint across the southern United States and spearheaded the regional launch and expansion of key initiatives.

Previously, Rogers spent 13 years at the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, most recently serving as senior vice president of development. In that role, Rogers led the development team and drove substantial philanthropic growth while strengthening donor engagement and expanding support for the federation’s priorities.

Alana Menitoff promoted to philanthropy officer, Southeast region

In addition to Rogers’s appointment, Alana Menitoff has been promoted to philanthropy officer for the AFHU Southeast region. Menitoff joined AFHU more than two years ago as a development assistant, progressed to philanthropy associate and has now moved into a fundraising role focused on cultivating donor relationships and advancing philanthropic support throughout the Southeast region.

Prior to joining AFHU, Menitoff spent 10 years at Temple Beth Am in Margate, Fla., where she held positions of increasing responsibility, culminating in several years as program director.

Menitoff has a longstanding connection to Hebrew University, having participated in three summer sessions at the Rothberg International School. She earned a B.A. in comparative literature from Barnard College of Columbia University in 2004.

[translated from Hebrew]

My distinguished guests, and foremost among you my brothers and sisters in the bereaved family—the families of those who fell in the war.

The fallen who were giants: giants in deed and giants in spirit. Together with the entire nation, my wife Sara and I bow our heads in memory of our sons and daughters, the defenders of the homeland, crowned with heroism.

We embrace each and every family in its grief.

I know there is no true solace for loss and sorrow. What was will never be again. Those who are gone will not return. As Chaim Habshoush, father of Armored Corps fighter Naveh Habshoush, of blessed memory, recently said.

Chaim said: “We mourn not only what was—but also what will no longer be.” In the same breath, he added: “Wherever we go—the fallen will always be part of our journey. We will continue to love the land, we will continue to travel throughout the land, we will continue to protect the land.”

Indeed, so it is.

We will protect our home from the beasts of prey that surround us. And we will do so together, shoulder to shoulder: Jews, Druze, Christians, Muslims, Bedouin, Circassians and members of other communities.

Yesterday, I heard one of the stories of this mutual responsibility. During a firefight in the Gaza Strip, one of the soldiers was hit in the neck and the bullet passed through his jaw. For many hours, his fellow soldier, a Druze fighter, plugged the wound and saved his friend’s life until medical help arrived.

For hours, he stood in the breach.

Our legacy of heroism is astounding. The legacy of our fallen is an eternal flame that will illuminate our path for generations to come.

My distinguished guests, citizens of Israel,

Even three years after the outbreak of the war—when the State of Israel is stronger than ever—the terrible hours of the Simchat Torah attack remain seared within us.

The October 7 massacre in the Gaza Envelope exposed for all to see the monstrous evil of our enemies. Babies and children, adults and the elderly, were targets for annihilation, abuse and abduction.

We were not like our tormentors—and we will never be like them.

The fate of every human being touches the deepest fibers of our souls, and therefore we made an unrelenting effort until we brought back all of our hostages, down to the very last one.

At the same time, we responded to our attackers with an intense war on seven fronts.

We did so out of the understanding that this satanic massacre was only the opening shot in the Iranian axis’s plan to destroy the State of Israel.

The camp of evil tried to choke us with a threefold ring of fire: terrorist proxies surrounding us, intended to bleed us; thousands of deadly missiles aimed at our territory and our cities; and above all, nuclear bombs intended to destroy our country and wipe it off the face of the earth.

That was Iran’s three-part plan.

But through our combined strength, we shattered it step by step. Through our combined strength, with our fallen heroes, we acted with initiative, momentum and on the offensive.

Our soldiers and commanders, young lions, severed the arms of terror.

We drove our enemies many kilometers away from our territory.

We created deterrent buffer zones in their territory—in the Gaza Strip, in Lebanon and in Syria.

Our soldiers are “on the heights”—and what heights: the crown of Mount Hermon, the summit of the Beaufort, and the Ali Taher Ridge, which we cleared of the infrastructure of death buried deep beneath the earth.

We struck Iran’s own ballistic missile stockpiles, and we severely damaged its nuclear program—its scientists, its facilities and its infrastructure.

When we sat together for the final approval of the plans before "Operation Rising Lion," I said: We cannot pass the responsibility for dealing with this existential threat on to future generations, because there will be no future generations.

Thanks to the heroism of our fighters, we turned the tables.

We removed from over us a clear and immediate danger of the annihilation of millions of our citizens—of the destruction of the state.

But there are still tasks ahead of us, and we intend to complete them.

There will be no Hamas rule in Gaza.

Anyone who was involved in the attack against us, anyone who held our hostages, is living on borrowed time.

We will reach them, just as we reached others.

Day after day, we settle accounts with these despicable murderers.

In Lebanon—we will continue to strike Hezbollah, and we will create an opportunity for peace with a country whose overwhelming majority wants peace with us.

And as for Iran—we will not allow the regime of terror to threaten our existence.

The tyrannical regime is weaker than it has ever been since its establishment. It is fighting for its life, and ultimately it will pass from the world.

Dear families,

In the battles of Simchat Torah, and thereafter, our sons and daughters in the IDF and the security forces held back with their own bodies those who sought our lives.

Our fighters charged forward: on land, in the air, at sea; above ground and below ground; close to our borders and far from our borders.

Their spirit inspires extraordinary awe.

Leaders around the world tell me: “You rose from the depths of the abyss of October 7. You dealt the Islamist fanatics a crushing blow. You gave humanity hope that the forces of darkness will be defeated. If only we, too, had such extraordinary young people.”

But there are other leaders as well.

To them—those who hurl false accusations at us hour after hour, who want to boycott us—I say:

Israel is engaged in a War of Redemption. There is no war more necessary, and no war more just.

That is the truth.

And you should be ashamed of your lies.

The truth is that we are defending you, too.

And the truth is that the morality of our soldiers is second to none.

The expectation of our fighters—"Be good fighters, be good people”—comes first and foremost from within us.

This was the path of a hero of Israel, the commander of the Southern Brigade in the Gaza Division, Colonel Asaf Hamami, of blessed memory.

Asaf pressed forward to engage the accursed terrorists on October 7. He did so with extraordinary courage.

Asaf Hamami fell in battle, was abducted to Gaza, and after we brought him home—he was laid to rest in a Jewish burial.

I spoke with and met Asaf’s parents—Ilan and Klara—and his wife, Sapir. I heard from them, with great emotion, about the message that perpetuates Asaf’s memory:

“Be good. Be Hamami.”

Major (res.) Harel Birnstock, of blessed memory, who fell two months ago in battle in southern Lebanon, also adhered to this combination of courage and goodness.

Harel, a devoted commander in the “Spearhead” Formation, drew inspiration from what is written in the First Book of Samuel:

“And the men were very good unto us... they were a wall unto us both by night and by day.”

My distinguished guests, dear families,

In Israel, we know whom we are fighting, and what we are fighting for.

Against those who seek to annihilate us—and for the sake of securing our future. Securing the eternity of Israel.

This understanding of our destiny will continue to accompany us as we face the challenges of the future.

There are threats—and we will act against them.

There will be tests—and with God’s help, we will withstand them.

We are creating opportunities to expand the circle of reconciliation and peace in our region—and in this, too, we will succeed.

Let us always remember:

Our resilience rests upon the finest of our sons and daughters, who gave their lives for us.

Our resilience rests upon the finest of our people, who act with courage and determination to secure the eternity of Israel.

I wish a full recovery to those wounded in the war, in body and in spirit.

When I see the wounded in the rehabilitation wards—and elsewhere as well—I am awed by their strength of spirit.

Here is one striking example:

Naveh Rosenfeld, a fighter in the Oketz Unit, was wounded in Gaza. Naveh’s leg was amputated, but he did not give up.

He insisted on rehabilitating, on returning to life, and also on proposing marriage to his girlfriend Anava, who was by his side throughout.

Naveh knelt before her—an iron knee, for a fighter with an iron will.

To Naveh and Anava, to the wounded, to the fighters, to you—the families of our fallen men and women—and to all the citizens of Israel, I pledge that we will not relent from our goal:

To be strong.

To be united.

To be victorious!

May the memory of our fallen—the heroes of the War of Redemption—be blessed forever and ever.”

“Immediately upon receiving the extortion letters and threats from the accused, Moshe Feiglin and the party leadership turned without delay to the Israel Police and filed an official complaint on the matter,” Feiglin wrote on X.

“We thank the law enforcement authorities for their swift and determined action, and trust in the security and judicial authorities to impose the full severity of the law upon the perpetrators of the offense. The Zehut Party will continue to act with public responsibility and without fear,” he added.

The statement came after prosecutors filed an indictment on Monday against a mathematics lecturer at Bar-Ilan University accused of plotting a terrorist attack aimed at killing hundreds of Arabs in Israel and forcing Arab communities from their homes.

According to the indictment, the man, in his 60s and from Petach Tikvah, spent more than three years developing a plan he called “The People Will Carry Out a Transfer.” Police said the plan envisioned 72 Jewish attackers divided into 12 cells carrying out simultaneous attacks in Arab localities and cities with large numbers of Arab and Jewish residents.

The indictment alleges that the lecturer conducted a reconnaissance tour of the Tuba-Zangariyye area in northern Israel and unsuccessfully sought to recruit accomplices.

The suspect devised a covert scheme to recruit Zehut party leader Moshe Feiglin, according Ynet.

Prosecutors said the defendant believed Feiglin would help him identify more participants.

Under the alleged plan, party activists would be invited to a Zehut election event and would not be told its real purpose.

At the event, they would learn they were being recruited for a terrorist attack set for the following day, prosecutors said. They would also receive detailed operational instructions.

The defendant allegedly attended two public events held by Feiglin and tried to set up a meeting with him to hand over a summary of the plan.

Feiglin did not respond to any of his approaches, the indictment said.

A court-imposed gag order bars publication of the defendant’s name.

The seven-second clip published by a local newspaper shows the then deputy parliament speaker holding a microphone at a family reunion, telling attendees to raise their right hands and saying "Heil Hitler."

Schmidt acknowledged that the words and gesture were inappropriate and could cause offense and hurt. He stated that the video was filmed at a private family gathering and was never meant for the public.

“Whatever the context or intention at that gathering 20 years ago, I recognize that those words and gesture were inappropriate and capable of causing offense and hurt, and I apologize for using them,” he said in a statement.

Schmidt has previously voiced staunch support for Israel and has pledged to open an embassy in Jerusalem by the end of the year.

The leader of the Pacific Island nation wore a Jewish prayer shawl when he was sworn in as prime minister in 2025, and entered the room to the sound of a ceremonial shofar horn.

Troops operating in the area spotted the car "driving suspiciously," according to the military. It then sped toward an IDF vehicle and hit it.

The troops opened fire at the vehicle and "hits were identified," the IDF said.

No Israeli security personnel were hurt in the attack.

"IDF soldiers are conducting searches and have established roadblocks throughout the area," the statement added.

Meanwhile, during an operation in the Samaria city of Nablus (Shechem), Israeli troops arrested two Palestinians terrorists who were trafficking weapons, the IDF said in a separate statement on Monday.

The arrests were carried out by soldiers of the IDF's Duvdevan undercover commando unit, operating under the command of the Samaria Brigade and with guidance from the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet).

The troops entered Nablus' Old City, aka the Casbah, and arrested the pair "within a few minutes," the IDF said.

According to the statement, the trafficked weapons were meant for terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel.

"IDF troops will continue to operate with freedom of action and proactively to thwart terrorism in the Judea and Samaria sector," it added.

The IDF arrested more than 50 Palestinian terrorists, among them a terrorist cell, in counterterrorism operations throughout Judea and Samaria during Sukkot and the intermediate days of the holiday, the military said on Friday.

Soldiers from the Nahal Infantry's 931st Battalion and the Maglan commando unit, under the command of the Samaria Brigade, arrested wanted individuals, questioned suspects and confiscated weapons and equipment used for terrorist activity, including materials used to manufacture bombs, the army said.

In Nablus, the forces carried out nighttime raids, arresting six terrorists, including a Hamas operative, the IDF said.

During another operation, the IDF struck a terrorist who attempted to throw an explosive device at soldiers, the military noted.

In addition, a large quantity of military equipment was confiscated, including several drones.

Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria at least 5,051 times in 2025, according to figures published by the Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) NGO.

The figures do not include the hundreds of violent attacks on Israeli security personnel occurring during counterterrorism operations in Arab towns under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

Twenty-four Israelis were murdered in Judea and Samaria in 2025, and more than 400 others were wounded, according to Rescuers Without Borders’s annual report.

The findings, which were cross-checked against official data from Israeli security agencies, included 3,299 instances of rock-throwing, 458 firebomb attacks, 655 attempts to blind drivers with laser pointers, 286 attacks involving explosives and 19 shootings.

Bolsonaro’s stronger-than-expected performance, with 47% of votes compared to Lula's 45%, is likely to buoy his campaign ahead of the Oct. 25 runoff.

The election comes amid a right-wing wave in Latin America that is driving a diplomatic shift toward better relations with the United States and Israel.

“Brazil wants change, that’s the reading of what happened today,” Bolsonaro said after the vote. “It’s the end of the Workers’ Party era,” he added, in a reference to Lula’s party.

“Tomorrow we start a new campaign,” Lula said. “We will see who has the best plan.”

Restoring relations with Israel

A Bolsonaro victory in an election centered on crime and the cost of living would dramatically restore relations between Brasilia and Jerusalem, which plunged to historic lows under Lula’s administration.

The 45-year-old right-wing senator and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro told JNS earlier this year that he plans to move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem within six months of victory, citing his Christian faith for his strong connection to Israel. He also said in an interview with JNS this summer in Argentina that he hopes to celebrate his victory in Jerusalem.

Lula, 80, is running for a fourth (non-consecutive) term in office. He recalled his ambassador to Israel in 2024 in the wake of the war against Hamas in Gaza and joined the International Court of Justice case against the Jewish state, becoming one of the most vociferous opponents of Israel in Latin America.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday congratulated Bolsonaro on the vote and wished him luck in the runoff.

“I look forward to restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil,” Netanyahu wrote on X. “Best wishes for your great victory, my friend.”

Latin America has experienced a sharp political shift toward conservative and right-wing leadership in recent years. Countries like Argentina, Chile, and Colombia have turned right amid mounting public frustration over violent crime, economic stagnation, and insecurity.

“Freedom advances in Brazil,” Argentine President Javier Milei, who actively campaigned for Bolsonaro, tweeted on Monday. “Congratulations, dear friend, on this historic election against the communist Lula.”

“LONG LIVE FREEDOM, DAMN IT…!!” Milei wrote.

The premier spoke at a state memorial ceremony at the Great Leaders of the Nation Memorial Park on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, where he honored Israel Defense Forces soldiers and members of the security forces slain in the Oct. 7 massacre and the ensuing War of Redemption.

“Anyone who was involved in the attack against us and held our hostages is living on borrowed time,” he warned. “Day by day, we are settling accounts with these despicable murderers.”

דברי ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו בטקס האזכרה הממלכתי לזכר חללי צה״ל וכוחות הביטחון שנפלו ב״מלחמת התקומה״ ולכל הנופלים מאז 7 באוקטובר, בהר הרצל. pic.twitter.com/zaUzzrAJfI

— ראש ממשלת ישראל (@IsraeliPM_heb) October 5, 2026

He vowed that there would be no Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

“Our soldiers and commanders cut off the arms of terror,” the prime minister said. “We pushed back our enemies and created deterrent buffer zones in their territories.”

Netanyahu said Israel had fought back on “seven fronts,” characterizing the Oct. 7 attack as the opening move in an Iranian-led plan to destroy the Jewish state. He said Israeli forces had struck Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities and dealt a severe blow to its nuclear program, and pledged that Israel would not allow Iran’s regime to threaten the country’s existence. He described Tehran as weaker than at any point since the Islamic Republic’s establishment.

“In Lebanon, we will continue to strike Hezbollah and create the possibility of peace with a country whose overwhelming majority wants peace with us," he said.

Turning to the fallen, Netanyahu said Israeli soldiers and security personnel had blocked “with their bodies" those seeking to destroy the country. He highlighted Col. Assaf Hamami, the highest-ranking IDF officer slain on Oct. 7, who was killed fighting Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, whose remains were taken to Gaza and later returned to Israel for burial.

Netanyahu was scheduled to attend a second state memorial ceremony commemorating “the massacre and heroism” of Oct. 7 later on Monday.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog reflected Monday on three years of bereavement, injury, displacement and uncertainty since Oct. 7, while praising the strength and solidarity shown by Israeli society.

“Amid all this, we also saw the strength that this remarkable people knows how to summon,” Herzog said at the state memorial ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. “We saw Israelis who rose from their pain to help others. We saw Israelis who extended a hand, and found another hand reaching back.”

Herzog said Israel had experienced “unfathomable lows” alongside “unfathomable heights” during the war, citing the return of hostages—some to rebuild their lives and others, he said, “heartbreakingly,” for burial in Israel.

He mourned the loss of “so many of the finest” Israelis from across the country’s communities and backgrounds, saying their stories must be remembered. He also highlighted citizens who returned to rebuild, plant and harvest after being forced from their homes.

Herzog also honored the surveillance soldiers at the Nahal Oz outpost, calling them “the eyes of the IDF and the state.” He stated that they identified terrorists approaching the border at 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7 and continued reporting as the attack reached them.

🇮🇱 7.10 | שלוש שנים לאסון💔

"בשלוש השנים האחרונות ידענו כאומה תהומות עמוקים ובלתי נתפסים, אך גם העפלנו לפסגות בלתי נתפסות" - דבריו של נשיא המדינה יצחק הרצוג @Isaac_Herzog

🕯️מתוך טקס האזכרה הממלכתי לזכר חללי המלחמה וכלל הנופלים מאז 7 באוקטובר https://t.co/nniDStzGi6 pic.twitter.com/HvKB3vftnB

— ערוץ כנסת 99 (@Knesset99) October 5, 2026

The India of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no longer content with traditional diplomacy. It has adopted a pragmatic, nationalist approach that views Israel as a natural partner.

Defense ties have reached new heights through major arms deals and the joint development of military technologies. At the same time, the involvement of leading Indian corporations in Israeli national projects has reinforced the perception that Jerusalem and New Delhi are increasingly intertwined along global trade corridors such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, known as IMEC.

The warmth of the relationship was evident last week when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to salute Smit Machchhar, the Indian captain of a flydubai flight who was stabbed in the cockpit yet helped save the passengers on their way to Tel Aviv.

Faced with this geopolitical reality, Palestinian diplomacy and advocacy efforts are displaying growing frustration. Recognizing that they cannot directly halt arms deals or economic corridors, they are seeking instead to undermine the moral and historical justification for the alliance. At the center of the latest battle is “Haifa Day.”

Every year on Sept. 23, the Indian military commemorates the 1918 Battle of Haifa, in which Indian cavalry from the Jodhpur, Mysore and Hyderabad units captured the city from the Ottoman Empire.

Haifa was the scene of a direct clash between Indian cavalrymen armed with swords and lances and entrenched Ottoman, German and Austro-Hungarian forces equipped with artillery and machine guns.

Against the odds, the Indian cavalry achieved a remarkable military victory in what has been remembered as one of the last successful major cavalry charges in military history.

In 2010, following a renewed discovery of the episode’s significance, the Society for the Heritage of World War I in Israel, the Haifa History Association and Haifa Municipality launched an initiative to mark “Haifa Day” in honor of the Indian soldiers. Since then, diplomatic representatives of both countries have commemorated the event annually.

In January 2018, during Netanyahu’s historic visit to India, Haifa was even added to the name of a major square in New Delhi, Teen Murti Haifa Chowk, in memory of the Indian soldiers who fell in the campaign. For years, Haifa Day commemorations attracted little controversy. But the surge in India-Israel relations, in stark contrast to efforts to isolate Israel in other parts of the world, has become a growing irritant for the Palestinian Authority.

Over the past year, PLO Ambassador to India Abdullah Mohammad Abu Shawesh has launched a carefully organized public diplomacy campaign. Drawing on extensive legal and historical research, the Palestinian mission sent the Indian government a five-page official letter in June in which the ambassador expressed “deep concern” over what he described as Israeli attempts to rewrite, distort and politicize the historical record of "Palestine." The mission has also briefed Indian journalists and members of parliament.

Abu Shawesh’s main objection concerns the use of the term “liberation” and the attempt to weave a battle fought some 30 years before the establishment of the State of Israel into a shared Israeli-Indian history. The ambassador objects to the very framing of the episode, stressing that the Indian soldiers were not acting independently but under the command of the British Empire, which had sent them to the front.

Heritage, sacrifice and courage

One might wonder why India so warmly embraces soldiers who fell while serving the British Empire, the very power against which it later waged a prolonged struggle for independence.

Behind the gesture, however, lies a more complex outlook, one perhaps unfamiliar in Middle Eastern discourse: India’s ability to distinguish between the injustices of colonial rule and the heritage, sacrifice and courage of individual soldiers on the battlefield.

Under Modi, India has undergone a profound shift in its approach to its military history, which has become part of a new national narrative. A major milestone in that process was the inauguration of the National War Memorial in New Delhi in 2019. For roughly seven decades after independence, India had no single central memorial commemorating all those who had fallen in its wars since independence.

At the same time, soldiers who served in the British Indian Army have been restored to a place of honor, in contrast to previous governments that tended to play down their legacy.

Modi has thus transformed the commemoration of soldiers into a source of national pride and a central element of India’s “soft power” as a global power that contributed the blood of its soldiers to shaping the modern world. The ambassador goes on to argue that if the Indian government’s own logic is accepted, India’s historical connection is intertwined with that of the Palestinians, rather than with the State of Israel.

According to the official figures he cites, 491 Indian war dead are recorded at the Ramla War Cemetery, 109 at the Gaza and Deir al-Balah war cemeteries and 47 at the Haifa Indian Cemetery, with many others commemorated in cemeteries and memorials throughout the Land of Israel.

In Abu Shawesh's words, elevating the Battle of Haifa and reframing it as evidence of a historic bond between India and Israel risks becoming “a desperate attempt by the Israeli side to court India through an artificial, exaggerated and historically unjustified narrative, while diminishing the broader sacrifice of Indian soldiers across the region.”

Today’s India long ago abandoned an apologetic approach and is no longer an automatic mouthpiece for the Palestinian narrative that reflexively lines up against Israel in U.N. votes.

Originally published by Israel Hayom.

At a senior command conference at the Glilot base attended by officers from the rank of brigadier general and above, the IDF presented the main lessons from the Oct. 7 inquiries, along with processes for implementing them and mechanisms to monitor their execution.

הרמטכ"ל בכנס הצגת לקחי ה-7 באוקטובר והטמעתם:
"בונים את אסטרטגיית צה"ל מתוך מוכנות למלחמה בהפתעה - זהו המצפן האופרטיבי שלנו"

לכל הפרטים >>> https://t.co/Do29Olsya2 pic.twitter.com/440LUBaD48

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 4, 2026

Zamir said the military must expand its force structure to compensate for Israel's lack of geographic depth and meet growing missions amid threats on multiple fronts.

"One of our greatest lessons is the need to expand our security margins," said Zamir. "The State of Israel is geographically small and lacks territorial depth, while facing multi-front threats. ... The size of the IDF is our strategic depth. Therefore, we must expand the IDF and adapt it to its expanding missions."

He said the IDF was building its strategy around readiness for a surprise war, including the thwarting of severe threats as they develop.

"On Oct. 7, the IDF failed catastrophically," Zamir said, adding that the military recovered and achieved what he called a "historic and unprecedented multi-front victory," crediting troops, commanders and cooperation among the armed services.

The conference opened with a moment of silence for those killed in the Oct. 7 massacre. Zamir also presented a certificate of appreciation to Chief Warrant Officer "V." of Unit 8200, who had warned before the attack that Hamas was prepared for a large-scale surprise assault.

Calling V. an example of "intellectual courage" and professionalism, Zamir said the military's organizational culture must not permit "people-pleasing discourse, intellectual tyranny or the suppression of critical thinking."

Zamir said the conference marked the beginning of a longer process of reviewing the war. He said 2027 would be designated as a year for investigating the war as a whole and drawing both theater-specific and IDF-wide lessons. The continuing review process will include inquiries into Operation Roaring Lion before a broader summation of the war's lessons.

Two waves of reporting have revived this question.

In October 2023, just days after the massacre, Smadar Perry reported in the Yediot Achranot Israeli daily newspaper that Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel had warned Netanyahu 10 days earlier of “something terrible” about to emanate from the Gaza Strip. An Egyptian intelligence official told the Associated Press that Cairo told Israel about “something big.” Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), then-chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Egypt had warned Israel three days before the attack.

This month, The Atlantic reported that Kamel flew to Israel on Sept. 26, 2023. The Wall Street Journal added that he phoned Netanyahu days before Oct. 7 and that Egypt kept warning Israel until 48 hours before the attack.

Netanyahu’s office has denied any prior warning, and so has former National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi. In 2023, based on intelligence sources, the Egyptian media also cast doubt on the claims. Given this, I will rely exclusively on logic and probability in assessing the story.

First, it is important to separate what is documented from what is claimed. Kamel’s plane landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport, per airport records and flight-tracking data. Reports of what he said are based on statements from officials briefed after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Every version of the warning traces back to the Egyptian side or people relaying it, so several outlets repeating one account are not several confirmations. Even McCaul said the question was “at what level” the warning was received, which is not a claim that the warning reached the prime minister.

Second, there is the content of the supposed warning. Every account concedes that the warnings contained no date, no scale and no specifics. “Gaza is going to blow up in your faces” is how a mediator presses for concessions, and The Atlantic says Kamel urged taking economic measures. He had visited Israel before, in May and August 2021, around the previous Gaza war. A warning of instability is not a warning of an attack.

Third, how would Egypt know the attack was imminent? The reports point to the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s changed tone and frequent Hamas-Islamic Jihad meetings. That is an inference from behavior, not information from a source. Hamas’s leader reportedly kept his plan even from Hezbollah and Iran for fear of leaks. An intelligence service with a real source in Sinwar’s circle would have had specifics and might have acted on them itself.

Fourth, the language drifts. The 2023 accounts say “terrible” and “big,” while the 2026 ones say “volatile” and “blow up.” Each new report adds another alleged Egypt-Israel contact without adding any content to the nature of the warnings.

So, here are some possible scenarios:

Egypt had concrete intelligence of the Oct. 7 plan and delivered it. This is extremely unlikely. No version of the story states that the warning contained specific information. The Journal says Egypt and the United Arab Emirates also shared their assessments with the United States, which did not act either, suggesting none of the three intelligence services saw them as actionable. A chief holding real intelligence would not settle for a one-hour stopover and a pitch for economic measures.

A general warning of escalation risk, delivered in Egypt’s mediator role, but not to Netanyahu. This is likely. It fits the details of every account, Egypt’s role and Kamel’s visits to Israel. It is also the only version consistent with both Kamel’s reported request for economic measures to counter the threat and the absence of specific information. Nor is it clear to whom the warning was delivered: The Atlantic says it is uncertain which Israeli officials Kamel met with. Nonetheless, this was not a specific warning of what was slated to occur on Oct. 7, and Israel had heard similar things from Cairo before.

A warning enlarged after the fact. This is plausible, but not certain. After the massacre, Egyptian officials presumably would have had reason to show that Cairo had not been asleep, and Israeli critics would be willing to cite them. Moreover, the renewed reports arrive weeks before an Israeli election, which guarantees attention. None of this makes the reports false, but it is a good reason to discount phrases that sound prophetic only in hindsight.

A clear, precise warning that was ignored. This is very unlikely, for the reasons cited above.

The strongest counterpoint is that an intelligence chief’s personal visit is unusual. A former Israeli official told The Atlantic that “the messenger was the message.” That shows urgency, but urgency about what? Kamel had made such trips before, and his reported message was about concessions.

What survives is more modest than the headlines suggest. Egypt likely warned Israel that Gaza was nearing an “explosion” and urged economic concessions—the standard mediator’s approach. Claiming that this was a specific warning of the Oct. 7 attacks requires hindsight, since the warning, according to every source, lacked the necessary dates, scale and certainty.

Unless officials provide specific evidence, such as documents or exact dates, claims of a precise Egyptian warning should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

No injuries to IDF personnel were reported.

Later in the day, IDF soldiers identified two suspects riding a motorcycle towards an IDF post in the security zone. The soldiers apprehended the two suspects. No IDF injuries were reported.

"The IDF will continue to operate in the security zone in southern Syria in order to remove any threat to Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers," the IDF said following the incidents.

Last month, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa addressed the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, accusing Israel of “launching attacks against Syria” and claiming that the Golan Heights “will remain Syrian territories.”

Al-Sharaa accused Israel of carrying out 500 airstrikes, more than 1,200 cross-border incursions and 300 detentions inside Syria. Reaffirming Syria’s commitment to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, he called on Israeli forces to withdraw to the lines in place on Dec. 8, 2024, before the fall of the Assad regime. He said Damascus remains open to peace that safeguards regional rights and security.

Jerusalem maintains that the Golan Heights is an integral and non-negotiable part of Israel, with its status enshrined in the 1981 Golan Heights Law. It also says the deployment of Israel Defense Forces troops across the border serves as a defensive buffer against hostile factions and will remain in place until firm security guarantees are established.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani met U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun in New York, on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly, according to Syria’s Foreign Ministry.

“During the meeting, a number of issues of common interest were discussed, as well as ways to enhance dialogue and communication in a manner that serves shared interests,” the ministry said.

In August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would not tolerate Turkish military entrenchment in Syria that moved south, following strikes on the Abu al-Duhur military base near Aleppo.

Netanyahu said Jerusalem had learned of plans for Turkey to establish itself “on the southern side of the line close to Aleppo,” and had sent a message to Ankara: “Don’t.”

The Israeli premier noted the message had been delivered but “apparently they didn’t hear it,” adding, “We made sure it was better understood.”

The Prime Minister’s Office added that Damascus had been on the verge of violating the security status quo by allowing Turkish troops to deploy at the base.

The same month, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said during a tour of the Syrian front that Israel would not allow “hostile forces” to establish themselves along its borders.

“We are operating in a multi-front reality, in which the challenges are constantly changing and developing; the Syrian arena is one of them,” said Zamir.

The IDF also identified Qaisi as a director of the Turkish humanitarian organization Deniz Feneri and accused him of using his position to employ Hamas operatives and provide financial support to the terrorist group. The military further alleged that the organization maintains ties with senior Hamas figures.

Qaisi had continued advancing terrorist activity against Israeli troops and civilians and working to restore Hamas capabilities in violation of the ceasefire, according to the military.

🔴TERRORIST POSING AS HUMANITARIAN AID WORKER ELIMINATED: Saqr Nabil Musa Qaisi, a Nukhba terrorist in Hamas.

The terrorist infiltrated Israel during the October 7 Massacre. He also served as the director of the Turkish organization Deniz Feneri, which presents itself as a… pic.twitter.com/PSzMVInXcd

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 4, 2026

IDF, Shin Bet kill Hamas Nukhba commander who infiltrated Israel on Oct. 7

The IDF and Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) said on Monday that they killed Hamas Nukhba Force platoon commander Ibrahim Mustafa Suleiman Abu Oweimer in an airstrike in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on Friday.

Abu Oweimer infiltrated Israel during the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre and recently advanced attacks on IDF troops and Israeli civilians while working to restore Hamas’s capabilities, the security services said.

🔴ELIMINATED: Ibrahim Mustafa Suleiman Abu Oweimer, a Nukhba platoon commander in Hamas’ military wing.

The terrorist infiltrated Israeli territory during the October 7 Massacre. Recently he advanced attacks against Israeli civilians & IDF troops and operated to restore Hamas’… pic.twitter.com/YBVf23tCAu

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 5, 2026

IDF kills Hamas commander, observation-unit operative in Gaza

On Sunday, the IDF said it had killed Hamas “military-wing” commander Muad Gamal Abu Nuseira in a strike in the Khan Yunis area and, a day earlier, Mahmoud Ibrahim Dib Alyan, an operative in Hamas’s observation unit.

Alyan had recently been advancing terrorist activity against Israeli troops near the Yellow Line and working to restore Hamas capabilities, the IDF said, describing it as a systematic violation of the ceasefire agreement.

🔴ELIMINATED: Muad Gamal Abu Nuseira, a commander in Hamas’ military wing & Mahmoud Ibrahim Dib Alyan, a terrorist in Hamas’ observation unit.

Recently, he was identified advancing terrorist activities against IDF troops in the area of the Yellow Line & working to restore Hamas’…

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 4, 2026

IDF confirms strike on top Hamas leader in Gaza

The IDF on Saturday night confirmed that it had targeted Ali Ahmed al-Amoudi, the deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau and the terror group’s senior leader in the Gaza Strip.

“The results of the strike are under review,” the military stated.

“The strike was carried out while the terrorist was in an apartment used by the Hamas terrorist organization for terror activities,” according to the IDF. “Prior to the aerial strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions.”

⭕️The IDF & ISA carried out a strike in an attempt to eliminate the terrorist Ali Ahmed Al-Amoudi, the deputy chairman of the political bureau in Hamas in Gaza.

Al-Amoudi served as Yahya Sinwar’s right-hand man & personal assistant and was involved in the decision-making…

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 3, 2026

Al-Amoudi is considered to be one of the terrorist organization’s most senior surviving leaders.

Al-Amoudi was involved in decision-making leading up the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the IDF said. Before the Hamas-led invasion of Israel, he headed the organization’s information and media department.

He was apprehended by Israeli forces in 2004 and sentenced to life in prison. In 2011, al-Amoudi was released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange agreement.

IDF slays two commanders of Islamic Jihad’s rocket array in Gaza

The IDF killed two operatives of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, the military said on Saturday.

They were targeted in separate strikes in Gaza City, the IDF said.

The first was Ahmed Mahmoud Harb Ramlawi, a commander in the rocket array of the Shejaiya Battalion in the “military” wing of PIJ, according to the army.

The second was Munir Ibrahim Masr, head of a PIJ anti-tank missile cell.

The two men have been involved of late in restoring the PIJ’s capabilities, in systematic violation of the ceasefire agreement, the IDF said.

Speaking on "Tov LaYehudim," JNS's Hebrew-language podcast, Sa'ar said he had twice spoken by phone with the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates since the incident.

The determination to strengthen bilateral ties "exists not only on our side," Jerusalem's top diplomat said. "It also exists on theirs."

Sa'ar called the effort to crash the plane carrying 174 passengers "first and foremost" an attempt to murder Israelis. However, because the flight took off from Dubai, it was also an act "directed against the United Arab Emirates," he stressed.

Sa'ar said he expects the UAE to again serve as a travel hub for Israelis once the details of the incident become clearer and new security arrangements are put in place.

"There were gaps here that need to be learned from," he added.

Turning to Europe, the top Israeli diplomat told JNS that he closed the Jewish state's embassy in Dublin because he saw Ireland as a "lost battle," with no prospect of change even under a different government.

Sa'ar ordered the embassy shuttered in December 2024, citing the "extreme anti-Israel policy of the Irish government."

"There are countries where, in my opinion, it's a lost battle. That's why I decided to close the embassy in Dublin," he said. "I didn't see any direction of change if there were a change of government."

He said Spain was a different case, noting that elections there "are expected very soon.

"I am convinced that a government of the right-wing parties in Spain—even if it will certainly not be like the Czech Republic or Slovenia—will be a government that one can talk to; it will certainly not be anti-Israel by definition," Sa'ar told JNS.

He said 2027 would be "a fascinating political year" in Europe, with elections in Poland, Italy, Spain and France.

"It will be very interesting to see where this goes," he said.

Regarding Britain, Sa'ar revealed to JNS that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage had told him that a government led by his party would "undo" the Labour government's actions.

Last month, Britain announced a ban on Israeli products from Judea and Samaria. It also joined 11 other countries in announcing they would sanction, or consider sanctioning, goods from Jewish communities in the area.

Sa'ar said the diplomatic onslaught against the Jewish state is fed mainly by left-wing governments whose base strongly backs the Palestinian cause, and cited Britain as an example.

"In England, I spoke with both the leader of the Conservatives, Kemi [Badenoch], and the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage," Sa'ar said.

"Nigel Farage said, 'If we are in power, we will undo what the Labour government did.' These are statements that have also been made in other places in the world, also in Australia," the Israeli foreign minister said. "And therefore, yes, who is in power and what his political base demands has an influence.

"In international public opinion in general, we also have a problem in most countries. And this is something that is deep and that we must deal with," Sa'ar said.

The full interview with Sa'ar is set to be published on Monday.

The findings offer a snapshot of how the security crisis has reshaped Israelis’ perceptions of their place in the world, as well as their views of Jewish safety and Israel’s relationships with European countries.

The 2026 Hebrew University-European Forum Barometer, led by Professor Gisela Dachs, surveyed Israelis and residents of Germany, France, Great Britain and Poland about their perceptions of one another.

Among Israeli respondents, 42% described Israel as more like a Middle Eastern country, compared with 18% who said it was more European. The shift was particularly pronounced among Israeli Arabs, among whom the share identifying Israel as more Middle Eastern has more than tripled since 2022.

The findings come as Israel’s relations with Europe have become increasingly strained over the war against Hamas in Gaza, European criticism of Israeli policies and disagreements over Israel’s security and the future of the Middle East.

The survey also found a significant gap between Israelis and Europeans over perceptions of Jewish safety. A substantial majority of Israeli respondents said Israel is safer for Jews than Europe, while European respondents were more divided. Among the European countries surveyed, Poland had the highest share of respondents who said Israel is safer for Jews, at 35%.

The finding comes amid heightened security concerns in Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks, when Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 people and abducted 251 others.

At the same time, Israelis are becoming more skeptical of the European Union. Compared with 2024, a larger share of Israeli respondents disagreed with the statement that “the E.U. is, in general, a success,” particularly among Jewish Israelis.

The survey also points to a pragmatic approach among Jewish Israelis toward Europe’s political right. As in 2024, many Jewish Israeli respondents said Israel should maintain ties with European far-right parties if those parties support Israel. In Germany, fewer respondents than in 2024 viewed the rise of the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, as a dangerous development.

Germany remained the European country most often viewed by Israelis as a friend of Israel, followed by Hungary. The Netherlands, however, saw a sharp decline in its standing and is now among the European countries Israelis view as least friendly.

France and Spain were the European countries most frequently identified by Israeli respondents as antisemitic.

The survey also found that 67% of Jewish Israelis believe present-day Germany is a “different Germany” from the country that existed before 1945, down from 75% in 2024.

“The Barometer captures a moment of profound reassessment,” Dachs said. “Three years after October 7, Israelis are not only rethinking questions of security and identity, but also their relationship to Europe and the political forces shaping it.”

The survey included 1,003 Israeli respondents and 1,000 respondents in each of the four European countries. European fieldwork was conducted in June and July 2026, while the Israeli survey was conducted in May. The survey had a sampling error of 3.1 percentage points.

He said that the flag-lowering was "a sign of remembrance and honor for the murdered and the fallen in the terror attack of Oct. 7 and the 'Swords of Iron' War," adding in an X post that Israel remembers "the women, the men, the children, the infants, the elderly, the civilians and the soldiers who were murdered and fell in the terror attack and war.

"On this day, we also salute everyone who was wounded in body and soul and bear the wounds of Oct. 7 and the war—even in these days," his statement concluded.

בשעה 6:29 ביום הזיכרון הלאומי לאירועי שבעה באוקטובר, הורדנו את דגל ישראל בבית הנשיא לחצי התורן, כאות זיכרון וכבוד לנרצחים ולחללי מתקפת הטרור ב-7 באוקטובר ומלחמת ״חרבות ברזל״.

נזכור את הנשים, הגברים, הילדים, הפעוטות, הקשישים, האזרחים והחיילים שנרצחו ונפלו במתקפת הטרור בשבעה… pic.twitter.com/L6N6rEBe2r

— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) October 5, 2026

Flags at the Knesset were also lowered to half-staff at 6:29 a.m. in a ceremony attended by senior parliamentary leadership, who laid wreaths at the plaza's monuments commemorating fallen soldiers and victims of hostile acts.

The National Remembrance Day for the October 7 Disaster and Swords of Iron War is observed annually on the Hebrew date of Tishrei 24 (shifting to the 25th if it falls on Shabbat), which corresponds this year to Monday, Oct. 5, marking three years since the 2023 attacks.

The day is dedicated to mourning those murdered in the massacres and slain during the Swords of Iron war, alongside honoring those injured in body and soul.

Later on Monday, Herzog addressed state memorial ceremonies on Mount Herzl honoring fallen soldiers and terror victims, and was set to host "Salon Otef" at the President's Residence, focusing on the story of Omri and Lishay Miran. Miran was freed and reunited with his wife, Lishay Miran-Lavi, and their two daughters in October 2025 after enduring more than two years in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.

הורדו דגלי הלאום לחצי התורן | ציון יום הזיכרון הלאומי לשבעה באוקטובר ומלחמת התקומה בכנסת@AmirOhana pic.twitter.com/eGl5ahICn8

— הכנסת - The Knesset (@KnessetIL) October 5, 2026

Netanyahu attends Mount Herzl state ceremony

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday morning attended a state memorial service on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl, in the Great Leaders of the Nation section honoring members of the Israel Defense Forces and security services who died during the War of Redemption.

Netanyahu said that three years after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Israel was “stronger than ever,” adding that “even now, the terrible hours of the Simchat Torah massacre are seared into us.

“Anyone who was involved in the attack against us and held our hostages is living on borrowed time,” he warned. “Day by day, we are settling accounts with these despicable murderers.”

דברי ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו בטקס האזכרה הממלכתי לזכר חללי צה"ל וכוחות הביטחון שנפלו ב"מלחמת התקומה" ולכל הנופלים מאז 7 באוקטובר, בהר הרצל >>https://t.co/uJuadMZzha pic.twitter.com/I3uTWiGumK

— ראש ממשלת ישראל (@IsraeliPM_heb) October 5, 2026

He vowed that there would be no Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu is also set to participate in a separate state ceremony on Mount Herzl dedicated to the victims of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and honoring acts of heroism.

Smotrich: 'We remember and will not forget'

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that Israel must remember the Oct. 7 massacre amid attempts to distort its history and reality "out of overt antisemitism.

"No more containment, no more surrender," Smotrich wrote. "Rather, a clear declaration that this is our land, and we will continue to fight and struggle for it, because we have no other land." He said Israel had acted decisively against its enemies in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Judea and Samaria, Syria and Yemen since the Hamas-led assault.

בדמייך חיי.
נזכור, ולא נשכח.

שלוש שנים חלפו מאותו הרגע בשעה 6:29 בו מדינת ישראל תשתנה לתמיד.

בימים בהם יש מי שמנסים לעוות את ההיסטוריה והמציאות מתוך אנטישמיות מובהקת, אסור לנו לשכוח שאנחנו עומדים מול אויב אכזר ומרושע. אלפי טרוריסטים בדמות מפלצות אדם חדרו לארצנו ורצחו, אנסו,… pic.twitter.com/PFhQV33gyM

— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) October 5, 2026

Smotrich offered condolences to bereaved families and called for support for the wounded, former hostages and those still struggling to rebuild their lives.

"May the memory of all those murdered and fallen in the Simchat Torah massacre and the War of Revival be blessed and preserved in our hearts forever," the minister concluded.

IDF chief: 'An entire nation bows its head and mourns'

The IDF's General Staff Forum held a memorial ceremony and a minute of silence at 6:29 a.m. on Monday at the Zikim base near the Gaza border, marking three years since the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.

"Today, three years later, an entire nation bows its head and mourns," Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a military order issued on the occasion of Israel's national memorial day for the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

יום הזיכרון הלאומי לאירועי ה-7 באוקטובר: פורום המטה הכללי קיים מעמד זיכרון ודקת דומייה ב-06:29 בבסיס זיקים pic.twitter.com/bNnoOBv6S2

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 5, 2026

According to the Law for the Remembrance of the Massacre and Commemorating the Heroism on the 22nd of Tishrei, Simchat Torah—October 7, the annual commemoration is held two days after Simchat Torah. The cross-border assault, in which Gazan terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, wounded thousands and kidnapped 251, took place on that holiday in 2023.

"The IDF failed in its most important mission to protect the civilians of the State of Israel," Zamir wrote on Monday.

"In the wheat fields, in the orchards, in the homes of the kibbutzim, and in the cities of the western Negev, in the places where roots of life and settlement had been planted, the enemy sowed fire, destruction, and ruin. Roads that connected communities became combat routes. Our fields became battlefields, and family homes became sites of massacre and abduction," the military chief said.

He stressed the IDF's duty "to investigate and ensure that the lessons are implemented, so that we may be more worthy of the trust the people have placed in us."

Zamir also praised the conscripts, reservists and civilian employees who answered the call on Oct. 7. Since that day, he said, the IDF has "fought in arenas near and far, defended communities and borders, struck our enemies and dismantled capabilities that threatened Israeli civilians."

"We rescued and returned hostages, changed, and developed new ways to confront threats," the chief of staff continued.

"This is the spirit of victory, the spirit our enemies will never be able to break," he added.

IDF troops mark anniversary across fronts

IDF soldiers held memorial ceremonies "across all sectors" at 6:29 a.m. on Monday.

מעמדי הזיכרון הקרביים לציון שלוש שנים לטבח 7 באוקטובר התקיימו היום בשעה 06:29 בכלל הגזרות, בשעה שבה החל הטבח, כחלק מאירועי יום הזיכרון הלאומי ל-7 באוקטובר.

במהלך המעמדים ציינו משרתי צה״ל את זכר הנופלים, לצד הורדת דגל המדינה לחצי התורן pic.twitter.com/y8bCMIcK8X

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) October 5, 2026

Troops honored the memory of those killed, and Israeli flags at military sites were lowered to half-staff, the IDF said.

Soldiers are currently deployed to security zones in the Gaza Strip, Southern Lebanon and southern Syria. Israel’s war, which began with the Hamas-led cross-border assault, subsequently expanded to multiple fronts, including Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran.

Israel marks 1,318 slain security personnel since Oct. 7

Israel's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that 1,318 members of Israel's security forces have been added to the nation's official roll of slain personnel since Oct. 7, 2023.

The total includes Israel Defense Forces soldiers, Israel Police officers, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) personnel, Israel Prison Service and Fire and Rescue Authority members, civilian security coordinators and members of civilian rapid-response squads.

שלוש שנים ל"מלחמת התקומה" - משרד הביטחון מפרסם את מניין הנופלים במלחמה: 1,318 חללי מערכות ישראל נפלו מאז 7.10.2023.

מעל 7,150 בני משפחה נוספו למשפחת השכול, בהם 2,143 הורים שכולים, 355 אלמנות, 880 יתומים ו-3,772 אחים ואחיות שכולים.

להמשך: https://t.co/2eBD5Ib62x pic.twitter.com/BmPYp2Vi7n

— משרד הביטחון (@MoDIsrael) October 4, 2026

More than 7,150 people have joined Israel's bereaved-family community during that period, including 2,143 parents, 355 widows, 880 orphans and 3,772 siblings, according to the ministry.

Separately, the National Insurance Institute said 1,029 civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks since Oct. 7, 2023, excluding security personnel and members of local rapid-response squads. The civilian toll includes 668 men, 361 women, 88 foreign nationals, and 63 children under age 18.

The institute said it has been treating 87,286 additional victims of hostile acts since Oct. 7, including 24 amputees. Of 43,004 civilians who filed hostile-act disability claims, 40,542 have had a disability determined: 34,955 for psychological injury, 3,208 for physical injury and 2,379 for combined physical and psychological injuries. The remaining claims are still before medical committees.

Of the civilians killed, 778 were murdered on Oct. 7 itself, including 70 foreign nationals. Another 251 were killed during the subsequent war period, including 18 foreign nationals.

Huckabee: US stands 'shoulder-to-shoulder' with Israel on Oct. 7 anniversary

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said the United States stands "shoulder-to-shoulder" with Israel as it marks the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks.

Huckabee described the assault, which he noted was carried out by "Iran-backed Hamas" on Simchat Torah and Shabbat, as the deadliest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. He said Hamas murdered more than 1,200 people, including dozens of Americans, and abducted 250 others into Gaza.

This year we mark the third anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks, when Iran-backed Hamas invaded @Israel on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah and Shabbat. These terrorist savages proudly perpetrated the deadliest and most horrific crimes against the Jewish people…

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@USAmbIsrael) October 5, 2026

Comparing the assault to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Huckabee said Israel and the United States shared “Judeo-Christian values” and faced “the same terrorist enemies that seek to destroy us," adding that "they will not prevail.

"The Jewish people have faced a significant surge in antisemitism," Huckabee said. "This irrational Jew-hatred targets not only Jews around the world but also obsessively slanders the one and only Jewish state with libelous and baseless accusations.

"We strongly stand with Israel and the Jewish people," he continued. "We pray for the victims, their families and the survivors. May their memories be a blessing."

"Our enemies want to threaten our maritime space in the Mediterranean. Our seaports. Our maritime traffic. Of course, we will not allow that to happen," Netanyahu said.

Israeli naval commanders provided Netanyahu and Katz with an overview of the situation in the region. The Navy put on a display of defensive and offensive weaponry.

"I am impressed by the power, the people, the tools. We know that the maritime space has in fact become an international battlefield. You see it in the Strait of Hormuz. You see it in Bab al-Mandeb," said Netanyahu.

Security officials told Netanyahu that they want still more vessels and other war-fighting means "which I don't intend to elaborate on here," the prime minister said. "But I'll tell you one thing: In this field as well, on the water and underwater, I intend that Israel will be one of the world's leaders in this field of warfare. We will protect the State of Israel on the sea as well."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Navy base in Ashdod today together with Defense Minister Israel Katz.

During the visit, the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister were briefed by the Navy Chief-of-Staff and the commander of the Ashdod base on the challenges in the… pic.twitter.com/1Fw8wiXTnj

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) October 4, 2026

The report found that the most pronounced impact was on mental health.

The war’s first year saw a 45.5% rise in new anxiety diagnoses and a 100% increase in new PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) diagnoses, a trend that did not subside throughout the three years of war.

“The data show that the psychological consequences of the war and the events of Oct. 7 are not an isolated, passing event, but a deep and ongoing crisis that presents a national challenge to Israel’s mental health system,” said professor Amir Krivoy, director of Clalit-Geha Mental Health Center and director of Clalit’s Center for Resilience and Mental Health Research.

“The fact that even in the third year, the rate of PTSD diagnoses among populations exposed to high levels of stress remains between two and six times higher than before the war requires a broad systemic response,” he added.

Evacuees—north and south

Referrals and visits to community mental health services rose about 20% to 28% during the three-year period covered. The numbers were higher among residents evacuated from southern Israel and communities neighboring the Gaza Strip.

Among southern evacuees, PTSD cases increased 18-fold in the first year vs. the year before the war. In the second year, cases remained 11 times higher, and in the third year six times higher than before the war.

Anxiety diagnoses among southern evacuees rose 10-fold the first year. Referrals and visits to mental health services increased between two and 4.5 times. Sleep disorders spiked by 358% during the first year among southern evacuees.

Data show the impact on evacuee populations is not limited to mental health. A significant and persistent deterioration was observed in blood pressure control, from 30% to 53.7% compared with the prewar baseline. There was also a deterioration in diabetes control.

In new diagnoses of high cholesterol and blood lipid disorders, the general population saw a 20% increase, whereas among northern evacuees the increase reached approximately 60%.

Avital Margalit, Clalit’s director of the Galilee administration in the northern district, said the changes may be explained by the fact that most evacuees spent months in hotels with access to large meals and reduced physical activity. This would impact the management of chronic diseases.

Assi Cicurel, director of family medicine of the Southern District of Clalit, and physician at the Nir Oz Clinic, said, “We are concerned that people experiencing stress are doing less to maintain their general health and promote healthy behaviors, as the data indeed show.”

Children and adolescents

Among adults in psychiatric emergency department visits no substantial change was noted. But among children and adolescents data show a significant trend upwards.

Psychiatric emergency visits among Clalit children and adolescents increased by 78.3% in the second year of war. In the third year, the increase reached 121.3%, more than twice the prewar baseline.

Referrals by pediatricians to mental health services increased by 52.1%, while anxiety diagnoses among children across Israel increased by 40% to 70%.

Jordan Lewinski, director of mental health services at Clalit, “We see that emotional distress does not remain only in the treatment room. It is also directly reflected in medication use in the community.”

“Among children, and particularly among southern evacuees, anxiety and trauma are also expressed in direct physiological ways, with a 47.8% increase in the use of Minirin for bedwetting,” he said. “These findings show that we are dealing with ongoing psychological and physical consequences that require treatment and continuity of medical care in the community in the years ahead.”

Preventive medicine & remote care

While screening rates across Israel remained relatively stable, among female evacuees from northern Israel there was a continuing decline of up to 7.5% in mammography screening.

Screening for colorectal cancer declined by 2.5% to 3.5% among evacuees from the south and north.

Among southern evacuees, the use of smoking cessation medication increased by 104%, compared with 37% across Israel and 26.7% among northern evacuees.

Despite the war, the overall number of primary care encounters across the general population remained relatively stable. But the way Israelis accessed healthcare changed, with face-to-face visits declining by about 13%.

Phone consultations rose about 36%. Among evacuees from the north and south, phone consultations rose by approximately 50%.

Data show the role remote medicine plays in maintaining continuity of care during periods when routine, place of residence and physical access to healthcare services are disrupted.

What stayed the same

Health indicators that remained stable include the incidence of stroke across the general population.

“Despite three difficult years of war that create stress and challenges for patients and the healthcare system, the data on cardiovascular disease are encouraging," said Limor Ilan Bushari, director of cardiology services at Clalit-HaEmek Medical Center.

Anda Eilam, director of the neurology department at Clalit-Kaplan Medical Center, said it is possible that the problems may not manifest themselves right away. "It is important to emphasize that psychological stress by itself has not been proven to be a direct factor that increases the risk of stroke. However, prolonged war may affect the overall set of stroke risk factors, including chronic disease management and lifestyle, and such effects do not necessarily manifest immediately as a stroke."

Mapping future challenges

Clalit’s comprehensive report, covering three years and containing data on a large part of the population, including residents evacuated from southern and northern Israel, provides for the first time a long-term view of the effects of the war.

It also maps out the challenges that will form the basis for planning the national medical and rehabilitation response in the years ahead, Clalit said.

Gil Lavie, head of planning and strategy at Clalit, said, "The report data point to a society that has managed to maintain stability across a significant number of health indicators even during three years of war, while at the same time clear areas of vulnerability have emerged that require long term attention.

“At the top of our agenda are mental health, children and adolescents, populations in the south and north affected by the war and evacuation, the return to preventive medicine and early detection screening, and monitoring and treatment of chronic diseases in which deterioration has occurred.

“Our challenge as a healthcare system in the years ahead will be to identify these trends in time, reduce the gaps that have emerged and prevent the health cost of the years of war from becoming a long-term burden on an entire generation.”

“Today, the Green Party in Britain ceased to act as a political party and became a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism,” the ministry tweeted. “The Greens have adopted not only the green of Hamas, but also its ideology: the elimination of the State of Israel through armed struggle.”

Describing it as a “shocking resolution” that calls for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” code for Israel’s destruction, and “labels as ‘racist’” the Jewish longing for self-determination, the Foreign Ministry said the motion goes “far beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate.

“As long as this resolution remains in place, it will be a stain on the history of the United Kingdom. Every political party in Britain, first and foremost the governing Labour Party, must unequivocally reject this twisted resolution,” the ministry said.

The resolution, passed by 1,022 votes to 813, says that Zionism "will be treated as any other form of racism, and this motion will be implemented by the anti-racism policy working group as appropriate and in accordance with its ordinary practice,” The Guardian reported.

The motion was proposed by "Greens 4 Palestine," a pressure group inside the Green Party "fighting to make sure our party stands firmly with Palestine.”

Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, missed the vote as he was on the campaign trail, The Guardian reported. But he endorsed the text in response to a question from the BBC on Saturday as to whether he thought Zionism was racist. He said, “In the motion, it is defined as the displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people. I think that is clearly racism.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, referring to his father, who as Israeli ambassador to the United Nations famously tore up a U.N. resolution equating Zionism with racism in 1975, said, "Even 50 years later, the words of my father, Chaim Herzog z"l, resonate powerfully against anyone who spreads the absolute lie that Zionism is racism. The decision adopted today by the British Green Party, which states that Zionism is racism, is a disgrace and a shame. Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, and it forms the basis for the Jewish people's right to a state and a national home in the Land of Israel."

Israel's chargé d'affaires in London Christian Cantor posted to X: "The Green Party debated the shameful 'Zionism is Racism' resolution behind closed doors. But, no closed doors can hide what this resolution represents and the greens can’t hide the antisemitism embedded in this resolution, or the disgrace of a British political party embracing it."

The state government of Lower Saxony and Aurelius Capital, a Tel Aviv-based investment firm focused on defense, cybersecurity and AI, have agreed on key terms to purchase Volkswagen Osnabrück GmbH, with Rafael serving as an anchor industrial partner. The deal remains subject to final agreements and regulatory approvals.

Maj. (res.) Raphael BenLevi, a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security who served for seven years in the IDF Intelligence Branch and the Israeli Air Force, told JNS the deal marks a milestone in Israel’s defense-export relationship with Europe.

“This is a very positive development and there is potential for additional deals of this kind,” BenLevi said.

He added that the deal strengthens Israel’s existing defense ties with Berlin and opens new markets elsewhere on the continent.

“The deal deepens security cooperation with Germany, which is a central partner of Israel in Europe, but it also opens the door to sales with additional European countries in the field of missile defense,” BenLevi said.

The former IDF officer also pointed to a symbolic dimension of the arrangement.

“From a historical perspective, 50 years ago many Jews sought to boycott the Volkswagen company as a German national company, and today Volkswagen is selling its plant to the Israeli Rafael company to manufacture weaponry,” BenLevi said. “This is a sign of how much Israel has grown in strength since then.”

From cars to air defense

The Osnabrück plant first became the focus of a possible Rafael partnership earlier this year, with Reuters reporting in June on discussions about converting the site to defense production.

The report said at the time that Qatar’s stake in Volkswagen was complicating negotiations. The Qatar Investment Authority is one of the German automaker’s major shareholders.

On Sept. 7, Volkswagen, the state of Lower Saxony and Aurelius Capital signed a letter of intent under which Aurelius would take a majority stake and Lower Saxony a minority stake in Volkswagen Osnabrück GmbH. The plant currently employs about 1,800 people, with the proposed deal expected to preserve approximately 1,400 jobs.

As part of the agreement, Aurelius and Lower Saxony separately signed a statement of intent with Rafael to develop the site into what Volkswagen described as a center for security and defense solutions.

The initial focus will be on manufacturing systems and components for air defense for Germany and other European countries.

Lower Saxony Minister-President Olaf Lies said the agreement gave the plant a genuine future.

“Through this Statement of Intent, we are opening up a genuine future perspective for Volkswagen’s Osnabrück site,” Lies said, adding that the agreement “forms part of a broader strategic realignment of the Osnabrück site, which is also supported by Volkswagen AG.”

Rafael President and CEO Yoav Tourgeman said the partnership was intended to establish long-term production in Germany.

“The technology at the heart of this partnership is built for the defense of today, tomorrow, and well beyond,” Tourgeman said. “Today we are building a long-term industrial relationship with our German partners with the idea that the technology will be fully produced in Germany, to protect Germany and Europe.”

Israeli defense sales expand in Europe

Rafael has been expanding its footprint across Europe amid the continent’s rearmament drive following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Aug. 31, Greece signed an approximately €3 billion ($3.5 billion) agreement with Israel for the Achilles Shield multilayered air-defense system. The package includes Rafael’s David’s Sling and SPYDER systems as well as Israel Aerospace Industries’ BARAK MX and radar systems.

Romania signed a framework agreement worth approximately €2 billion ($2.3 billion) for Rafael’s SPYDER air-defense system in June.

Germany has also significantly expanded its procurement of Israeli defense technology in recent years.

Its acquisition of Israel Aerospace Industries’ Arrow 3 air-defense system, designed to intercept ballistic missiles outside the atmosphere, has grown to more than $6.5 billion following a $3.1 billion expansion signed in January, making it the largest defense export agreement in Israel’s history.

Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems also built INS Drakon, Israel’s sixth Dolphin-class submarine, which arrived at Haifa Naval Base on Sept. 24.

The regulations regarding equal rights for people with disabilities concerning essential and life-sustaining needs during emergencies marks the completion and implementation of a comprehensive national initiative.

The initiative was led by the Defense Ministry’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), in collaboration with relevant government ministries and professional bodies. Over the course of the project, five key areas were formulated to ensure the continuity of services and responses during emergencies for people with disabilities: formalizing response measures within facilities for people with disabilities; evacuation of people with disabilities; accessibility of community health services during emergencies; a dedicated information database; and a system for locating, contacting and assisting people with disabilities as well as providing essential and often life-sustaining supplies to people who choose to remain in their homes.

Katz said, "In an emergency, no citizen should be left without a response. The regulations I have signed are designed to ensure that people with disabilities receive the assistance and essential supplies they need, even while remaining in their homes. This is our responsibility as a state and our duty toward them and their families. I commend all the partners on the completion of this important initiative. Our true test lies in implementation on the ground and ensuring the aid reaches everyone who needs it."

Shira Reifman, CEO of Keren Or: The Jerusalem Center for Children with Visual Impairments and Multiple Disabilities, said, "We welcome and applaud the recognition that people with disabilities have special concerns and needs during national emergencies. We certainly saw this to be the case during the Iran wars when Keren Or had to relocate our school—which remained open while most of the school system shut down—to a facility with sufficient bomb shelter space. This required moving standers, walkers, hoists, mattresses and trucks full of equipment to the new site. It also required us to calm and familiarize our blind students with additional complex disabilities to a new setting and physical layout.

"In addition to critical regulation, we hope that commensurate funding has been allocated for implementation. Agencies need additional staff hours to comply with new regulations, funds to build wheelchair accessible bomb shelters, and government agencies that respond quickly and efficiently to requests for help, building permits, clarifications and permissions."

Access Israel

Yuval Wagner, chairman of Access Israel, said that his organization has been leading the effort to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities since 1999. “Legislation regarding emergency preparedness and accessibility for people with disabilities has been in the planning stages since 2006.”

Wagner shared that Access Israel has been actively lobbying the Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee, the Commission for Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities (a statutory body under Israel's Justice Ministry), and the Defense Ministry. Access Israel even filed a High Court petition against the Welfare Committee and the Defense Ministry to advance this issue. “Fortunately, the regulations have finally been approved and signed by the minister of defense,” Wagner said.

The organization working on the ground—handling evacuations and addressing the needs of people with disabilities living in unfortified homes under missile attacks—was Access Israel, he said. Through its Purple Vest initiative, the organization facilitated thousands of accessible evacuations and met a wide range of unique, life-saving and survival needs for people with disabilities and the elderly during wartime.

Wagner said these regulations should have been passed long ago. “Over the past three years—since the cursed events of October 7—Israel has been at war, resulting in tens of thousands of IDF soldiers and civilians suffering physical and mental injuries. Regrettably, the legislation was passed only after the fact. Israel had not been adequately prepared beforehand,” he said.

Access Israel and its Purple Vest campaign have been working to evacuate and relocate people in Israel with disabilities as well as the elderly during war time and while under missile attacks.

Wagner added, “Congratulations and appreciation go to the Ministry of Defense, the National Emergency Management Authority and all partners for the tremendous effort that led to the finalization and approval of these regulations.

“It is now vital to implement these critically important regulations. This ensures that in the event of a future war, earthquake, fire, flood or other weather-related crisis, emergency systems for assisting people with disabilities will be ready and well-practiced in providing aid and saving lives,” he said.

There is little purpose in retracing Fallaci’s extraordinary career in detail. Anyone familiar with her work already understands her place in the history of Western journalism, and there is no shortage of material available for those who wish to learn more.

It may be enough to recall that, during the Italian Civil War, she served as a teenage courier for the Resistance in a Florence ravaged by Nazi-Fascist occupation and repeated Allied bombing. Then there is her extraordinary work as a war correspondent, a role in which she became the first Italian woman to distinguish herself on such a scale. There were her reports on the condition of women, her fearless interviews with the powerful, and, of course, the famous moment when, sitting in a 1979 interview before Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Qom, Iran, she tore off the veil she had been required to wear and denounced it as a “medieval rag.”

There was also her love affair with the Greek democracy activist Alekos Panagoulis, which lasted until he died in Athens on May 1, 1976, in a car crash that Fallaci always regarded as an assassination. Finally, after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, came her radical and deeply controversial campaign against Islamist extremism.

Today, it is perhaps this last chapter of Fallaci’s life that is best remembered, certainly in the Jewish world. It is unquestionably the one that has provoked the most controversy over the years. On one side of the argument stood an ignorant and moralizing left; on the other, a right populated by mediocre and unimaginative sycophants who, to extract a couple of usable ideas from any major figure, must first drag that figure down to their level.

Why does Fallaci’s politically incorrect voice—as only someone who speaks honestly about her own convictions can be politically incorrect—continue to reappear in essays and commentary, at least in Italy, and more recently, in debates about immigration after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack?

As a historian, I have often felt uneasy—not so much morally as methodologically—with the essentialism with which Fallaci treated centuries of Islamic history. But a journalist is not a historian. Or perhaps a journalist is a historian of a particular kind. As Fallaci told the American news anchor Mike Wallace, a journalist “is a historian who writes history in the moment that history happens”—a Thucydides or a Polybius, in other words.

Perhaps it is precisely this quality, which necessarily comes with a certain absence of detachment, that makes a journalist’s criticism of the present so clear and powerful. Curiously, we now seem to demand too much objectivity from journalism and too little from historiography; perhaps because genuine objectivity toward the past can disturb the conscience, while the false appearance of objectivity in the present can soothe it.

This is why Fallaci is still relevant today. She possessed a quality that has become exceedingly rare: the ability to look at a phenomenon without first asking what the morally approved position toward it was supposed to be. She saw something, described it and drew a conclusion from it. The conclusion could be brutal, incomplete or historically imprecise. But it was reached without the preliminary sterilization of reality that now seems to have become one of the principal functions of parts of Western journalism and intellectual life.

This is especially true when the subject is Israel, the Arab and Muslim worlds and, after Oct. 7, the peculiar inability of part of the West to look upon a massacre without immediately beginning to search for the victim’s guilt.

The point is not to determine whether Fallaci was right on everything. That would be as foolish as it would be pointless. The more important question is why, 20 years later, some of the things she said continue to echo with such irritating regularity.

They echo when religious fanaticism is renamed “resistance”; antisemitism is linguistically sanitized until it becomes political activism; the murder of civilians suddenly becomes understandable so long as those civilians are Jews; and when a certain faction of the left, no longer capable of distinguishing between the oppressed and the executioner, retreats into formulas, slogans and rituals.

Fallaci remains our contemporary. Not because she predicted the future, but because she recognized in the present something that many others preferred to ignore.

This is what most unsettles someone like me, who comes from the left but has never been able to tolerate its hypocrisies or its grand, self-referential ideologies.

It also frightens a certain part of the contemporary left, which is a world of bourgeois liberals imprisoned in increasingly dusty ideological fixations and students with a great deal of time on their hands. What frightens them is first the prospect of seeing things as they are, and then the far more uncomfortable possibility that Oriana Fallaci may have been right.

Because if she was right—or even might have been right—about some things, then a left entrenched in its own orthodoxy, halfway between a church and a barracks, would see its peculiar kind of faith begin to collapse: the faith of the most obscurantist priest and the most obedient soldier.

Hershko, a squad commander, was from Kibbutz Yiftah in the Naftali Mountains of the Upper Galilee, near Israel’s border with Lebanon.

Almost two years later, in October 2025, Hershko’s aunt Carmel Zohar, with the help of extended family members and the local community, opened a coffee cart named Galiki—the affectionate nickname his mother, Racheli, called him.

Galiki, run primarily by Zohar, Racheli’s sister, serves as an outdoor community cafe, selling fresh pastries, sandwiches, salads and hot and cold drinks.

Patrons have praised the food, welcoming atmosphere, picturesque surroundings and support for IDF soldiers.

“The idea for the cart was Racheli’s,” Zohar told JNS. “Basically, she wanted it to be a place that celebrated life rather than something like a stone monument.”

The food itself is not what would have inspired Hershko, she explained. Rather, he loved nature, and the beautiful wooded surroundings on the outskirts of the kibbutz are what would have resonated with him.

The cafe also serves as a gathering place for the community.

“A cafe itself doesn’t say anything about Gal, but he loved meeting up with friends and spending time with them. He had several circles of friends,” Zohar said.

Ducks had a special significance for Gal, tied to his distinctive sense of humor and inside jokes he shared with friends. As a tribute, his family has hidden small toy ducks around the coffee cart for visitors to discover, a playful nod to something that brought him joy.

The kibbutz members have all been very supportive, Zohar said. Last March, during the war with Iran, northern Israel was under fire, “but we decided to remain open so that the community could have some breathing room,” she said. The site has an accessible protected space.

The baked goods are prepared by a baker who lives on the kibbutz, and the vegetables for the salads are grown locally.

“It’s important for us to support local businesses on Yiftah and in the Galilee,” she said.

When Hershko was killed, his family and community were among the approximately 65,000 residents of northern Israel who had been temporarily evacuated because of attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon. They stayed in a hotel at Kibbutz Ginosar, just north of Tiberias, and returned home on March 24, 2024.

‘I knew before the family that something had happened’

Annat Zisovich-Charitt is the head of the kibbutz’s Community Emergency and Resilience Team.

In that capacity, “when Gal was killed, I was the person who got the phone call from the army. I knew before the family that something had happened to him,” she told JNS.

“That day, the rain didn’t stop, and there was a lot of flooding in northern Israel and several road closures. So, I had to wait for the army, and I couldn’t tell anyone about it.”

No one had told Zisovich-Charitt whether Gal had been killed or wounded, “but when you get a call like this, you know. I had to take them and show them the room where they would knock on the door.

“So, I was there. Sometimes, in life, you have a bond with another person that no one can break. At that moment, that knock on the door was a knock on my heart, and I felt connected to the family in ways that cannot be described.

“I was there when Gal’s mother heard about her son. I was the one to enter the room where his mother and sister were. So, now we are close friends, and we can speak freely about anything. It’s a forever connection.”

Gal’s sister, Michal, was 16 when he was killed. Now 18, she is set to be drafted into the IDF and has chosen to serve in the Combat Engineering Corps, like her brother.

Gal’s father, Noach, was at Kibbutz Yiftah when the news arrived. A team of soldiers went there to give him the terrible news, and he immediately returned to his family.

A couple of months later, Zisovich-Charitt wrote a poem about Gal and the family’s loss, which Israeli singer and musician Shiri Golan set to music.

“The whole idea of the cafe was very interesting because, in most cases, people erect a lookout or a structure in memory of a fallen soldier. But in this case, people sit down, see his picture and hear about him. It’s a very smart idea,” said Oded (Odi) Arbel, a friend of Gal’s grandparents on the kibbutz.

“I’m very connected to the family, although I didn’t know Gal that well,” he said. “It’s a different generation. But I got to know him much better after he was killed—from the eulogies and the stories told about him by family and friends.

“His aunt, who runs the cafe, is a good friend of our daughter. So, I try to help in any way I can and to be supportive.”

According to Arbel, it is a wonderful cafe and an important contribution to the region.

“It’s not a library or a stone. It’s a place with life,” he said.

“An expert on gardening and landscaping from the kibbutz took the entire area surrounding the cafe and made it beautiful. It’s right at the entrance to Yiftah and very attractive,” Arbel added.

“It’s also possible to have work meetings there. Some people who work from home bring their computers if it’s not too crowded. It’s very lively.”

Many soldiers frequent Galiki, he added, describing it as a “beautiful project.”

Customers can pay for an extra coffee and pastry and leave a note in a box indicating that the items are for a soldier. A soldier can then take the note and enjoy the treat.

Living with grief

One might wonder whether it was difficult for Racheli to return home from Ginosar three months after losing her son and, for the first time since his death, face his room and belongings—particularly since she had been away from home when she received the news.

Racheli chose not to be interviewed, preferring instead to have her sister speak.

“I can’t say whether my sister would have reacted differently had they been at home when Gal was killed,” Zohar said. “Nothing in Ginosar had any connection to Gal; he had visited only once. Perhaps it was easier that way. She knew it would be difficult to return, so she visited half an hour a day while still living in the hotel.”

“I think the coffee cart helps my sister very much to deal with the grief,” Zohar said.

“And it helps me as well—to take all this grief to a place with activity and to remind people of Gal every day. People see his picture and ask about him. Also, the parents have a place to go to that’s connected to Gal, and they leave the house every day and talk to people instead of staying at home with the pain.”

“Gal was special,” she said. “He never, ever looked for a fight. He was competitive in sports—soccer and basketball—and he would be disappointed if he lost, but he would never do anything to hurt another person.

“He always tried to do good. He was always looking for ways to help others, including in the army. He loved his soldiers like family.”

A BBC report covered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address delivered on Sept. 25, stating that “more than 73,920 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry,” omitting that roughly a third of them were militants.

It then added, “Last year, the world's leading association of genocide scholars declared that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.”

The report failed to mention that the only presumed qualification to join the organization—the International Association of Genocide Scholars—is paying a $125 membership fee and that it doesn't require any scholarly work for members.

The New York Times likewise published a news item on the speech. On top of the article, it featured a video of the performative walkout. It, too, cited the United Nations and nonprofits accusing Israel of genocide, a term that has since 2023 replaced the word “war.”

António Guterres remarked, “The scale of killing in Gaza is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my years as secretary-general.” Among the attendees was the delegation from Iran.

Over four days, between Jan. 8 and Jan. 11 of this year, Iran massacred protesters.

Human Rights Activists News Agency, an Iranian diaspora organization, has confirmed 7,015 identified fatalities killed by the regime, while leaked reports count the number up to 36,500. U.S. President Donald Trump suggested the number goes as high as 54,000. If true, it means that Iran killed as many protesters in about four days as Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza in more than two years of war.

Pezeshkian addressed the assembly two days before Netanyahu. The coverage of the two leaders’ speeches could not be more different. The press helped Pezeshkian to make his case for Iran as a sympathetic victim of U.S.-Israeli aggression who was in New York to end the war.
 
The first paragraph of BBC’s report on the speech mentioned the recent Iran-U.S./Israel war, but nowhere did the article cite the regime’s January massacre of its own people, which served as the casus belli for the conflict. BBC’s only mention of civilian deaths was the tragic attack on a school in Minab as a result of target misidentification by the U.S. military and “an attack on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz [which] killed an Indian sailor,” without identifying Iran as the instigator.

It quoted Pezeshkian stating that Iran is “ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.”

The New York Times’ reporting on the speech was even more egregious than simply omitting the regime’s deadly crackdown on the protests. Iranian-American journalist Farnaz Fassihi, known for being deferential to the regime and hostile to the opposition, grossly understated the number of victims, writing that during the protests “security forces [killed] at least 4,200 protesters, rights groups say.”

She cast Pezeshkian as reasonable, reporting that he is under pressure from the regime’s “hardline supporters” for his willingness to reach a compromise agreement, a misrepresentation of the facts about Iran.

Following the U.N. General Assembly, Pezeshkian then went on a media tour, giving interviews to Bret Baier of Fox News and Margaret Brennan of CBS. Baier did not raise the January protests during the discussion at all, and Brennan allowed her subject to get away with lies.

Pezeshkian said: Then they hire these people, and they have armed some of them. More than 500 security and military forces in a demonstration, apparently they say it was a simple demonstration, in what demonstration 500 security and military forces get murdered? They were attempting a coup.

Brennan did not point out that Pezeshkian apparently does not know the difference between a coup and a revolution. Moreover, she failed to question why, even assuming all of these claims are true, Iran is planning to execute high school girls arrested during the protests.

Instead, she moved on. Brennan’s failure to challenge Pezeshkian is even more appalling in light of her 2024 interview with Netanyahu, in which she challenged nearly every one of the Israeli prime minister’s answers.

The disparity of treatment that the Times, CBS and the BBC extended to Netanyahu and Pezeshkian exemplifies the mood in the mainstream media. They have never given much attention to the plight of the Iranian people, but routinely withhold facts and obscure nuances about warfare to indict Israel, a year after the ceasefire in Gaza. 

Journalists boast about being objective narrators of facts. In reality, they put on kid gloves with a U.S. enemy and wear brass knuckles against America’s closest partner in the Middle East.

"Janet has been a valued member of the ATS family for decades, and her determination, vision and deep personal knowledge of the Technion make her the ideal leader for the board at this moment," said Mark Gaines, former national board president and current chair of the ATS Board of Directors.

Shatz will work alongside ATS and Technion leadership to grow giving at a time when the university's scientific innovation is more critical than ever to global progress and the future of the State of Israel.

A second-generation supporter, her connection to the Technion runs deep—from her first visit to the Haifa campus in her 20s, through years of regional leadership, national board service, financial governance and investment stewardship. She has served on the national board of directors for 12 years and was president of ATS–Washington, D.C., from 2019 to 2022.

As president, she plans to focus on strengthening multigenerational connections to the Technion, drawn from her own family's history with the institution.

“The Technion is driving global innovation across AI, quantum computing, healthy aging advancements and more. We are also cultivating the next generation of engineers, scientists, physicians, architects and educators. Our American partners have an incredible opportunity to positively impact not only the Technion and Israel, but the entire world,” said Professor Uri Sivan, president of the Technion. “Scientific advances and the technologies that follow will play a key role in the State of Israel in the coming decade, and I am excited to continue our close partnership with Janet, the board, and the dedicated professional staff at ATS to support that future.”

Shatz's involvement with ATS began 25 years ago, working alongside her father, Paul Shatz, former president of ATS–Washington, D.C., to engage younger members in the chapter.

She went on to co-chair the national board's leadership development committee, where she helped create Technion 101, a training tool for lay leaders, and later chaired the National Board's Budget and Investment Committees. She also chaired the DC Metro SciTech Scholarship Committee, which introduced high school students to the Technion.

"Being asked to serve as national board president of the American Technion Society is a profound honor," she said. "My conviction in our mission is stronger than ever. By supporting the Technion, I am helping build the Israel I want my children and grandchildren to inherit—strong in its defense, prosperous in its economy, inclusive in its society and leading the way in solving humanity's greatest challenges."

Shatz also serves on the national board of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, as comptroller for the Capital Speakers Club Foundation, and on the arts and entertainment board for Bethesda, Md. She is currently a real estate developer and previously served as vice president of marketing at Fannie Mae.

Shatz holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Denison University, as well as a Master of Business Administration in finance and investments from George Washington University.

Some 6,000 items are housed at a national storage and conservation center in Netivot, while thousands more are held elsewhere. They include scorched photo albums, religious items, children’s drawings and ordinary household objects transformed by fire, bullets and destruction.

To Dr. Nirit Shalev-Khalifa, curator and head of the Visual History and Documentation Department at Jerusalem’s Yad Ben-Zvi Institute, these remnants are not debris. They are evidence, memory and historical witnesses to the lives that existed before Oct. 7, 2023, and the violence that shattered them.

“What you record enters history,” Shalev-Khalifa told JNS in an interview in her Jerusalem office. “What isn’t recorded is forgotten. Forgetting is death. It is the dark hole. In the world of history and documentation, what isn’t recorded doesn’t exist.”

When the project began shortly after the massacre, Shalev-Khalifa thought the work might take two weeks.

“Those two weeks have now become three years,” she said.

‘A Sisyphean task’

It was the beginning of what she described as “a Sisyphean task”—the painstaking process of identifying, documenting and preserving objects one by one.

In a haunting coincidence, Shalev-Khalifa had been in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 4, 2023, just three days before the massacre.

She was there as part of Yad Ben-Zvi’s ongoing work documenting local heritage collections and was shown preparations for the kibbutz’s upcoming anniversary celebrations. She photographed the hut housing Be’eri’s gallery, but her camera battery died.

“I said to myself, ‘The hut isn’t going anywhere,’” she recalled. “A day and a half later, it was gone.”

In the weeks after the massacre, Shalev-Khalifa and her colleagues visited displaced communities in hotels, but, like everyone else, she said, they were still struggling to comprehend what had happened.

The turning point came on Nov. 19, five weeks after the massacre, when representatives of organizations involved in the Heritage Ministry’s preservation program were brought to the devastated communities.

In Be’eri, archaeological teams were already using photogrammetry to create three-dimensional documentation of the destruction.

“They did the zoom-out, and we did the zoom-in,” Shalev-Khalifa said. “They showed how it looked, and we dealt with the objects.”

At the kibbutz’s dental clinic, she saw the randomness of the destruction: One part had barely been touched, while nearby offices had been overturned, shot up and burned.

She faced a fundamental question: What should they preserve?

“What do you take out? What don’t you take out? How do you document it? What do you write down? What even constitutes an object?” she recalled.

“In documentation, it is always too late and always the last moment,” she added. “That’s our motto. That’s my motto.”

‘Trauma objects’

Yad Ben-Zvi did not begin working with material history after Oct. 7. Shalev-Khalifa’s department had spent years developing ways of documenting Israel through photographs, wall art and everyday objects.

The work began in 2008 with Israel Revealed to the Eye, documenting history through private family albums. In 2018 came Eretz Hefetz, an initiative devoted to collections of everyday objects held by communities, heritage centers and private collectors.

For Shalev-Khalifa, cataloguing an object gives it an identity, allowing researchers to trace where it came from, who owned it and how it was used.

After Oct. 7, that methodology had to be applied to objects subjected to extreme violence.

Consider an ordinary air-conditioner remote control, she said. It has physical components, a recognizable shape and a function. But when it is burned into a blackened mass and can no longer perform that function, its meaning changes.

“It becomes an object that has completely changed its purpose,” Shalev-Khalifa told JNS. “Now it is an object of memory. And it is evidence.”

“Instead of the study of objects, it became the study of trauma objects,” she said.

Among the objects recovered was an orange juice presser bearing the name of the Bibas family of Kibbutz Nir Oz. Before Oct. 7, it was simply an everyday household object. After Yarden and Shiri Bibas and their young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were abducted to Gaza, it became a physical remnant of a family home whose occupants had been violently taken away.

For Shalev-Khalifa, that transformation lies at the heart of the “trauma object”: An ordinary item acquires a second identity because of what happened to it, its owners or the place where it was found.

The work resembles archaeology, she said, except that the researchers recognize the objects in this contemporary destruction layer.

“If I found this 2,000 years from now and didn’t know what it was, I might say, ‘Oh, perhaps it was a ritual object,’” she joked. “That’s what we say in archaeology when we don’t know.”

That familiarity has also made the work difficult.

During the first months, team members spent their weeks surrounded by burned and shattered homes and returned home on weekends.

“You would walk into your house and think, ‘What’s wrong here?’” Shalev-Khalifa recalled. “It isn’t burned. You had become accustomed to seeing everything destroyed.”

Learning from 9/11

Within days of her first visit to the Gaza border communities, Shalev-Khalifa reached out to experts involved in preserving objects from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York.

“Within half an hour, I got an email back: ‘We are at your service,’” she said.

She subsequently spoke with Jan Ramirez, chief curator of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

Ramirez had been working at the New-York Historical Society on Sept. 11. As Shalev-Khalifa tells the story, the husband of one of Ramirez’s colleagues arrived covered in dust from the World Trade Center and placed his dust-covered mask on her desk.

“Here is your first item to exhibit,” he told her.

The American experts gave the Israelis a term for what they were encountering: “Trauma objects.”

Shalev-Khalifa rejects attempts to equate Oct. 7 with the Holocaust, noting that Jews did not have sovereignty or an army during the Holocaust, whereas Oct. 7 occurred in a sovereign Jewish state.

But she sees a parallel with the suddenness of mass terrorist attacks such as 9/11.

“You don’t understand what happened,” she said. “It comes like a bolt from the blue. There is astonishment; there is chaos and there is this constant enigma: What happened?”

Objects, she pointed out, are quite different from human witnesses.

“The objects don’t try to give themselves an answer. They don’t go to a psychologist. They don’t go to a support group. They don’t go on a retreat.”

‘Everything has a name’

The Yad Ben-Zvi teams do not enter private homes without permission from the owners or their families. Over time, families began asking them to search for possessions that carried memories of the people who had lived there.

In one burned home, Shalev-Khalifa recalled, a photo album survived because melted plastic around it eventually cut off the oxygen needed to keep the fire burning. Its discovery led the family to ask the team to search for other possessions.

One grandmother approached Shalev-Khalifa after three of her young grandchildren were murdered.

The thought of winter arriving, the ruined house deteriorating and her grandchildren’s dolls and other belongings eventually being scooped up by a tractor and discarded was unbearable.

The team conducted what amounted to an archaeological excavation.

“We actually sifted the ashes,” Shalev-Khalifa said, searching for fragments of plates and cups and remnants connected to the children.

“And everything is preserved,” she said. “It doesn’t go into the garbage.”

There is a principle behind the painstaking work: A person’s possessions remain theirs even after death, Shalev-Khalifa said. If the owner has been killed, the property belongs to the heirs.

But the project also revealed something the museum professionals did not expect.

A resident of one of the communities watched as the team documented a dining area from a destroyed home—the table, a newspaper crushed beneath part of the ceiling, a grandchild’s coloring book and other scattered remnants.

A traumatic event, he told them, is absolute chaos.

“You put a label on everything,” he said. “Suddenly everything has a name.”

For people whose world had been violently stripped of order, identifying, cataloguing and respecting individual possessions could itself be consoling.

“As museum people, we suddenly discovered this therapeutic, comforting element,” Shalev-Khalifa said. “For us, every object is treated with respect.”

Even the walls have stories. In some homes, parents had marked their children’s heights over the years. The house might have to be demolished, but those markings need not disappear with it.

The team learned an old conservation technique that allows the surface of a wall to be carefully removed and transferred to another backing. A piece of wall destined for demolition can thus become a record of a family’s history.

It is one of countless lessons Shalev-Khalifa and her colleagues learned over the past three years.

“We learn a million things,” she said. “Every time, we learn something new.”

Oct. 7 brought chaos. Homes were destroyed, families torn apart and their possessions blasted, burned and scattered. Then the Yad Ben-Zvi teams arrived and began, object by object, to restore some kind of order.

One resident’s observation about the teams' work still captures the essence of the project, Shalev-Khalifa said.

“You put a label on everything,” he told them. “Suddenly everything has a name.”