U.S. Department of State -

Just 12 hours after the travel ban to Israel on US flights to and from Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, the Federal Aviation Authority on Thursday withdrew the ban, setting the stage for US and international carriers to resume flights. Europe’s Aviation Safety Agency, which had issued a “strong recommendation” against flights to Tel Aviv, retracted its warning later in the day.

Since the FAA ban on Tuesday – following the first successful Hamas rocket landing within the vicinity of the airport – hundreds of flights were canceled, and thousands of travelers stranded.

Following the American and European flight approvals, US Airways and United Airlines decided to resume their flights and informed the Israel Airports Authority that they would be landing planes on Friday at Ben-Gurion to take off on Saturday morning. Delta Airlines also decided to renew flights, as did Air Berlin, Al Italia, Meridian, Air Mediterranee, Nios, Air Iberia, Niki, EasyJet, Veiling, Mistrel, Air Canada and FedEx, the IAA said.

Transportation Minister Israel Katz welcomed the FAA’s decision, and organized a meeting among relevant parties at Ben-Gurion Airport Thursday morning to assess the overall situation and discuss the site’s preparedness.

“Once again it was proven that Israeli skies are safe,” Katz said Thursday morning.

“He who tried to blockade Israel failed. I hope that European companies will also announce the return of activities soon.”

Israel lobbied heavily for the US to lift the restriction, which politicians called a victory for Hamas and terrorism.

The FAA said it took into account “significant new information and measures the government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation,” before making its decision, but stressed that its primary goal was to protect passengers on US airlines.

The EASA, meanwhile, said it had also coordinated with Israel and the FAA, and advised national aviation authorities to conduct their own risk assessment.

Though El Al and Arkia added capacity and new flights during the flight ban, Israeli customers were incensed by the high prices they were charging for tickets at a time of crisis, when so many people were stranded abroad. State Comptroller Joseph Shapira said on Thursday he would look into allegations of price gouging.

The Tourism Ministry convened a meeting with the Finance Ministry to discuss damage to Israel’s tourist industry, which it feared could take a long-term hit as the operation drags on.

Meanwhile, in light of the fact that most planes would no longer be making use of the alternative Ovda Airport, located some 60 km. north of Eilat, the IAA said it had ordered buses from Eilat to return passengers to Ben-Gurion Airport. IAA CEO Yaakov Ganot appointed an investigative team under the leadership of Shlomo Oren, vice president for aviation cooperation, to ensure the operational capabilities and services of the airport.

Two Air Europa planes waiting at Ovda elected to take off without passengers, the IAA announced around noon.

Stressing that the authority was doing its utmost to allow as many travelers as possible to reach their European destinations, the IAA said that a portion of the passengers were transferred to other flights at Ovda while others returned to Ben-Gurion Airport for assistance from the airline itself.

On Thursday afternoon, El Al announced the addition of two additional flights from Ben-Gurion Airport to Athens and Zurich. In addition, the airline said it was sending a special flight to Athens in the evening to return hundreds of Israelis to Israel who were stranded in Greece due to foreign airline cancellations.

In addition, the company said it was increasing the amount of seats on flights to Rome, Amsterdam and Zurich by replacing the originally planned planes with wide-body aircraft.

Israel on Wednesday accepted a UN proposal for a five-hour unilateral humanitarian pause in the fighting to allow for relief aid into Gaza, less than two days after it accepted a more comprehensive cease-fire proposal that was answered by continuous rocket attacks from Gaza.

It started at 10 a.m. and ended at 3 p.m. During the 5 hour cease fire Hamas terrorists fired 3 mortars into Israel of which the IDF did not respond.

At 2:59 p.m. Hamas terrorists fired the first rocket to end the cease fire, directed at Ashkelon. Within three hours more than fifty rockets had been fired from Gaza, 3 of them directed at Sderot.

For the past thirteen years the rest of the country and for that matter the rest of the world have watched and listened to the stories of the terrorist attacks on Isreal and in some cases have been detached until nine days ago.

No one in Israel is immune to running to a bomb shelter at the sound of the alarm as the Iron Dome takes out one incoming rocket after another.

Israel continues to endure a shower of rockets from Gaza.  Over 100 rockets have hit Israel just in the past 24 hours. Tseva Adom, Code Red, sirens go off constantly in Sderot and all the way into Jerusalem.

The Times of Israel said, “Hamas has goaded Israel into action—whether because of unpaid salaries, or hopes of fanning the flames of the unrest in Israel and the West Bank, or a need to stave off its rivals—Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the assorted Salafi organizations—or in-house disagreements between its political and military wings, or as an expression of its alienation from Egypt and Iran (and those are just a few of the current theories).”

Israel has been forced into air strikes.  Reservists are being called to duty.  People are running frequently to bomb shelters.

A forced, defensive, Operation Protective Edge has been initiated.

IDN Weekly reported:

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman called for the kind of operation that would enable reassertion of Israeli control over the Gaza Strip. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday (July 7) refused to state his position over the air waves, but likely advocates a similar move (Times, July  8). The generals say such a large move would require massive reserves call-up, a lengthy operation in the Gaza Strip, including ground troops, and a prolonged toll on the Israeli civilian population. Researchers put the economic toll of such an action at $4.4 billion. It would also leave Israel in charge of 1.5 million Palestinians.

Retired Maj. General Amos Yadlin is advocating an offensive that targets the military wing of Hamas, the organization’s leaders, its firepower, and its weapons-production capabilities. Even that, he says, “might include damage to the fabric of life in Israel, the Israeli economy, and even fatalities. But it is necessary,” he concludes.

What Israel has done so far is being referred to as Operation Protective Edge.

Hamas has been trying to do as much dirty work as possible. In fact, they say they have tried to hit the Dimona nuclear reactor, but so far have been unsuccessful. Three rockets were fired at the town of Dimona. Two of them fell in open areas, while one was intercepted. Rockets have also been fired at Tel Aviv, and Iron Dome has taken out at least one of them. Rockets have also landed in open areas south of Haifa. Hamas now has weapons considerably more sophisticated than the homemade projectiles that were fired in previous clashes—presumably smuggled in from Iran. With many tunnels destroyed or closed from the Egyptian side, it is hoped that the remaining stockpile of weapons will be destroyed before they can do more damage. It is estimated that Hamas has around 10,000 rockets of varying strike-distance capability.

If forced into a limited war, the army will begin with a coordinated strike, probably against Hamas’ long-range rockets, which are less mobile than its leaders, who have probably gone underground at this point. From there the IDF will attempt to score maximum points in minimum time.

“But as former Mossad head Efraim Halevy said during a recent interview, one knows where a war starts, but never where it ends. ‘The fortunes of war are not predestined’” (The Times of Israel).

ISIS Poised to Invade Jordan

As of this writing, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has its sights set on Jordan, preparing to invade. It is clear that Israel does not want an ISIS state on its right flank across the Jordan, but whether it will be able to protect Jordan is not clear. Tied down by her war with Hamas, Israel might be limited in what she can do to help Jordan.

Israel’s intentions, however, are clear. Israeli diplomats have told their American counterparts that Israel would be prepared to take military action to save the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan if it came under attack by jihadist militants.

The chief concern is that an attack on Jordan would inevitably drag Israel and possibly the United States into the fighting. “Jordan could not repel a full assault from ISIS on its own at this point,” one senator was quoted as saying. Jordan “will ask Israel and the United States for as much help as they can get.”

Thomas Sanderson, co-director for transnational threats at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted as saying that both Israel and the U.S. view the survival of the Jordanian monarchy as a paramount national security objective.

“I think Israel and the United States would identify a substantial threat to Jordan as a threat to themselves and would offer all appropriate assets to the Jordanians,” he said (Haaretz June 28).

We all need to pray that Israel will be able to handle the multiple threats she is facing right now—with God’s help.

“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation”  Psalm 91:14-167

The bodies of three Israeli kidnapped teenagers (Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer, and Naftali Frankel) were found in a field near the Palestinian town of Halhul north of Hebron. They appeared to have been thrown into a field by their abductors after a hasty effort to conceal them. The whole nation of Israel has gone into mourning. These were not just three boys from three families—these boys belonged to every family in Israel, and their death is everyone’s loss. The bell tolls for the whole country.

The Israeli cabinet is in emergency session over this incident.

The suspected abductors are two Hamas activists, who went missing from their homes about the same time the boys disappeared. The Shin Bet security service has named them as Marwan Qwasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha, from Hebron. Both of them have done time in Israeli and Palestinian jails for terrorist activities and then were released.

The three teenagers disappeared on June 12 near Gush Etzion. After the boys had been missing for two days, authorities concluded they had been kidnapped. At one point one of the boys made a phone call to an emergency service in Kiryat Arba. He was heard whispering “I was kidnapped.” After that gun shots were heard and the cell phone was abruptly switched off. The police officer who received the call apparently passed it off as a prank. He and other officers in the region were later fired by the police commissioner (Debkafile, June 30).

Reports seem to indicate that the boys were shot very soon after their kidnapping. IDF soldiers are now pursuing the kidnappers, while the Israeli cabinet seems to be weighing their options, and considering another major invasion of Gaza.

In a statement, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay.” He added that the teenagers “were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by wild beasts.”

MK Danny Danon called on the international community “to end all aid to the Palestinian Authority and its Hamas-backed government.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “cannot continue to claim to want peace with Israel, while at the same time partnering with Hamas as they kidnap and brutally murder teenagers.”

Tensions have been high between Israel and Hamas since the June 12 kidnappings, which came 10 days after Abbas and his Fatah Party that rules the West Bank formed a unity government with Hamas, which controls Gaza. Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist group, strongly opposes the union.

Ambulance Carrying Boys’ Bodies Attacked

In a blog posted on FrontPage magazine, Daniel Greenfield says, “Our enemy is nothing if not consistent. [They are guilty of] utter and total hatred in life and death. The trouble is that we are the inconsistent ones.”

Palestinian Arabs attacked an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ambulance humvee on Monday that was transporting the bodies of three Israeli boys, an Israeli source reported.

In a blog called “Muqata,” a picture of the ambulance was posted. In the picture, the ambulance’s windshield is shattered and splattered with paint.

ISIS Declares Caliphate

Emboldened by a weakened Iraqi government that is having a hard time stopping them, the radicals of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria declared over the weekend that they have set up a caliphate stretching across large areas of the two countries (CNN June 20). In a statement from the official spokesman of ISIS, the group called on Muslims to swear allegiance to the new caliphate. They say their flag now flies from Aleppo in Syria to Diyala province in eastern Iraq. They are reportedly changing the name of the area to simply “the Islamic State.”

Territorial control of the ISIS as of 21 June 2014 (CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikipedia)

ISIS now overshadows al Qaeda. Savage and brutal, they leave death and destruction wherever they go. In actuality they are giving the Muslim religion a worse name than it already had. As if the reputation of Islam were not already bad enough, the ISIS extremists have now made it worse.

“In a bold declaration of its ambition, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has laid claim to leadership of the global Islamist movement, calling on Muslims worldwide to swear allegiance to its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“By claiming such preeminence, ISIS is seeking to eclipse al Qaeda and its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in what analysts see as the most dramatic shift in militant jihadism since 9/11. But ISIS also makes the outlandish claims—if its words are taken literally—that it leads 1.5 billion Muslims and that the world, not just the deserts of Syria and Iraq, are its new stage”(CNN).

Map of expansion of Caliphate (an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader
known as a caliph – i.e. “successor” – to Muhammad)  (CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikipedia)

As noted in last week’s IND, some ISIS units are already in eastern Jordan, and they have their sights set on Israel. Israel, however, has already indicated that she may be ready to defend Jordan both because of the strategic importance of that country and also because Israel and Jordan have a mutual defense pact.

But Israel may be their ultimate goal. They have allegedly declared that they will break every border until they reach Jerusalem.

Excerpt from cfijerusalem.org.