The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Sunday that all three of the male hostages rescued on Saturday were held by Abdallah Aljamal, a “journalist” who contributed to the Palestine Chronicle and Al Jazeera.
As Breitbart News reported Saturday, four hostages — Noa Argamani, 25; Almog Meir Jan, 21; Andrey Kozlov, 27; and Shlomi Ziv, 40 — were rescued in a joint operation by the IDF, ISA, and the Israeli police. One Israeli police officer, Arnon Zamora, was killed in the operation.
Aljamal and his wife and father were reportedly killed in the Israeli raid after soldiers entered his home.
As Breitbart News reported, he was revealed to have had another job, as the spokesperson for the Hamas-run Palestinian Department of Labor in Gaza.
But speculation also mounted that he had held one or more hostages, given that some Israeli sources said soldiers had only entered the two apartments where hostages were held.
The IDF announced:
Following the completion of IDF and ISA [Israel Security Agency] examinations of reports on the subject, it can be confirmed that Abdallah Aljamal was an operative in the Hamas terrorist organization, who held the hostages Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv captive in his family home in Nuseirat.
The hostages were held captive by Abdallah Aljamal and members of his family in their home. This is further evidence of the deliberate use of civilian homes and buildings by the Hamas terrorist organization to hold Israeli hostages captive in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli security forces will continue to make every effort to bring the hostages home.
Journalist, terrorist — to-may-to, to-mah-to. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. When “news” organizations are employing members of terrorist organizations, when the journalist’s family home is being used to stash hostages, when it seems everybody in Gaza is part of Hamas, why not just kill every single one of those Palestinian vermin?
Well, thoughts like that could start to cross the minds of a lot of otherwise peaceful and rational people, if they were as well-informed of the situation as the average Israeli citizen. There’s a reason why Netanyahu can shrug off all foreign criticism, because the Israeli people are sick and tired of all this “peace” noise, when they are facing an existential menace.
The fuck-around-and-find-out process must continue until every last one of those Palestinian sons of bitches have found out.
Four Israeli hostages were rescued alive from Hamas captivity Saturday in a daring daylight operation in the central Gaza Strip, the military announced.
Noa Argamani, 26, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40, had been abducted from the Supernova music festival near the community of Re’im on the morning of October 7, when some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in a murderous rampage in southern Israel.
Officers of police’s elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit, along with Shin Bet agents, simultaneously raided two Hamas-controlled multi-story buildings in the heart of central Gaza’s Nuseirat, a joint statement said. Argamani was rescued at one site, while Meir Jan, Kozlov, and Ziv were at the second location.
Hundreds more soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces participated in the operation, according to the military.
Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the hostages were rescued by special forces while “under fire.”
Yamam Chief Inspector Arnon Zmora, who commanded the rescue team at the building where three hostages were being held, was critically wounded by Hamas fire. He was brought to an Israeli hospital, but died shortly after. The Hamas guards were killed in the exchange.
Heroic fighter dies rescuing hostages, terrorists killed — it’s the stuff of a blockbuster action film, and you would think everybody would be happy. But oh, not our “friends” in the media:
What’s important to the media is that, no matter what the facts may be, only members of Officially Approved Victim Groups are deserving of sympathy. Arabs and Muslims are victims of racism, according to the media calculus and so, even when they murder or kidnap innocent civilians, the real victims are the Palestinians. Thus, the headlines of stories about hostages being rescued from Hamas terrorists must include whatever propaganda claim the terrorists themselves make about it.
Implied by these headlines is that Palestinians killed during this incident (whatever Hamas says the number is, the media will dutifully report as if it were a proven fact) were all innocent civilians. The fact that Hamas is at war with Israel, that Hamas started this war by deliberately targeting civilians, and that in a guerrilla-type war such as this, many “civilians” are actively involved in the fighting — never mind any of that. Also, never mind that Hamas is a brutal gang of killers who would not hesitate to tell any lie that advances their “cause” (i.e., killing every Jew on the planet).
Never mind any of that, if you work in the media, where everybody seems to assume their job is to promote whatever “social justice” narrative is in vogue at the moment. If the current thing requires them to gin up sympathy for terrorist murderers, that’s what they’ll do. And that’s how homicidal Jew-haters became the media’s new heroes.
ERO Baltimore arrests noncitizen wanted by Dominican authorities for manslaughter
Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Baltimore apprehended a Dominican national wanted in his home country for manslaughter. Deportation officers from ERO Baltimore’s Fugitive Operations Team arrested the 27-year-old noncitizen at his residence in Baltimore May 23.
“This Dominican national came to Maryland in an attempt to evade a serious charge in his home country,” said ERO Baltimore acting Field Office Director Matthew Elliston. “He posed a significant threat to our Maryland communities. ERO Baltimore will not allow Maryland to become a safe haven for the world’s criminals.”
The Dominican noncitizen unlawfully entered the United States on an unknown date and at an unknown location. He was not inspected, admitted or paroled by a U.S. immigration official.
Dominican authorities charged the Dominican national for injury causing death/manslaughter/murder Sept. 21, 2022, and subsequently issued a warrant for his arrest.
The Dade County Police Department in Miami, Florida, cited the Dominican noncitizen May 4, 2023, for driving on the wrong side of the roadway.
On May 13, 2024, ERO Philadelphia notified ERO Baltimore that the Dominican noncitizen’s vehicle was located at the scene of a drug distribution and trafficking investigation in Baltimore.
Deportation officers from ERO Baltimore’s Fugitive Operations Team arrested the Dominican noncitizen at his residence in Baltimore May 23 and served him a notice to appear before a Department of Justice immigration judge. The Dominican noncitizen will remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.
ERO conducts removals of individuals without a lawful basis to remain in the United States, including at the order of immigration judges with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). EOIR is a separate entity from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Immigration judges in these courts make decisions based on the merits of each individual case, determining if a noncitizen is subject to a final order of removal or eligible for certain forms of relief from removal. . . .
As one of ICE’s three operational directorates, ERO is the principal federal law enforcement authority in charge of domestic immigration enforcement. ERO’s mission is to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of those who undermine the safety of U.S. communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and its primary areas of focus are interior enforcement operations, management of the agency’s detained and non-detained populations, and repatriation of noncitizens who have received final orders of removal. ERO’s workforce consists of more than 7,700 law enforcement and non-law enforcement support personnel across 25 domestic field offices and 208 locations nationwide, 30 overseas postings, and multiple temporary duty travel assignments along the border.
Did you notice what’s missing from that? There is no name of this foreign killer, and ICE didn’t issue a mug shot, either. From the standpoint of a journalist, this press release fails at a very basic level. To report the arrest of a dangerous international fugitive without even including his name? Sorry, you just flunked Journalism 101. As for why the feds would do this, I suppose some bureaucrat might be apprehensive that to include the name and mug shot would inspire xeonophobic bigotry.
While we can be happy that ICE caught this one bad guy, what about the untold millions of other illegal immigrants who have poured into the country with the tacit permission of Joe Biden and his henchman, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas? Biden and Mayorkas have deliberately stopped protecting the border as a matter of policy, flooding the country with foreigners. A recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) concluded that “the total foreign-born population (legal and illegal together) grew to 46.7 million in February 2022, a new record high in American history and an increase of 1.7 million since January 2021.”
Importing foreigners at the rate of 1.7 million a year, but remember that “The Great Replacement” is a racist conspiracy theory, you bigot!
Now go back to that ICE press release. The agency admits they know nothing about how or when the unnamed Dominican killer got into the country: He “unlawfully entered the United States on an unknown date and at an unknown location.” All they know is that he got a traffic ticket in Miami in May of last year. Why wasn’t he detained by ICE and deported then? We don’t have an answer to that. Apparently illegal immigrants can drive on the wrong side of the road in Miami without fear of getting deported. So for at least a year, Señor Wrong-Way Dominican was at large in the U.S. until ICE officials in the crime-ridden hellhole of Philadelphia learned he was involved in a drug-dealing operation, and somehow they found him in the crime-ridden hellhole of Baltimore,
But then they issue a press release with no name or photo of Señor Wrong-Way Dominican, and expect that no one will notice the omission? Is this standard operational procedure at ICE? Or is it, as I suspect, part of an election-year propaganda campaign by Biden administration officials to convey the message that Our President is doing a bang-up job on border enforcement (no matter what those lying Republicans claim)?
We shall likely see many other press releases like this between now and Election Day. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.
Iranians have been asked to pray for the safety of President Ebrahim Raisi after his helicopter went missing on the way back from a meeting Sunday with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
The helicopter was also carrying Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, among other officials. It went missing in heavy fog in the mountainous region of northwestern Iran.
The official Fars news agency asked Iranians to pray, according to the Times of Israel:
Authorities have lost contact with the helicopter in which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was traveling, according to the Iranian Fars news agency.
Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi says authorities are awaiting further details on the search and rescue operation, adding that teams are still on the way to the apparent crash site due to difficult weather conditions.
Fars calls on Iranians to pray for Raisi following the reports.
Earlier Sunday, the Abu Ali Express news blog reported on the meeting between Raisi and Aliyev, saying that it had been “disturbing” from Israel’s point of view, because Azerbaijan has been friendly with Israel until now.
A helicopter crashes in “heavy fog” in the mountains? Highly unlikely anyone survived that crash. Time to get the obituary ready:
My thoughts are with the @washingtonpost obituary team in this difficult time as they fiercely debate whether to call Ebrahim Raisi an “austere religious scholar”, a “patriotic anti-Zionist leader” or a “zealous anti-corruption crusader”.
Jonah Goldberg is not the worst of the #NeverTrump crowd. Bad, yes, but not as bad as Rick Wilson or David French. Trump Derangement Syndrome wrecked the minds of a lot of Respectable Republican types, and a lot of it had to do with Trump’s de facto repudiation of the Bush “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) legacy. Whether it’s fair to describe Trump’s policy as “isolationist,” his administration definitely sought to limit the “Permanent War for Permanent Peace” interventionist posture that prevailed when the arch-neocons were riding high in the saddle.
We reported earlier how Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed earlier reports of a a ‘pause’ in almost $1 billion in weapons shipments to Israel over its plans to invade Rafah, Hamas’ last stronghold where it’s remaining leadership and battalians are located, along with the hostages. Hamas has been firing rockets from Rafah, and killed four Israeli soldiers at a border crossing used to ship humanitarian aid.
In a CNN interview today, Biden went even further. He threatened that if Israel entered Rafah, the U.S. will halt all offensive weapons supplies to Israel . . .
#BREAKING: Biden tells CNN that he will not only continue to pause shipments of bombs to Israel, but also hold up artillery shells because what the IDF has done and wants to do is “just wrong”….
CNN’s Erin Burnett: “I want to ask you about something happening as we sit here… pic.twitter.com/vqxewKM7CU
Biden is pandering to the extreme left — the college “camp-out for Hamas” crowd — and in the process alienating more moderate voters, including ex-Republican neocons like Goldberg, some of whom hated Trump because of the perception that his coalition harbored anti-Semites. Well, that shoe is now on the other (Democratic) foot, and Goldberg’s like the once-reputable sorority girl doing the “walk of shame” after pulling a train with the varsity basketball squad.
Permit me to remark that not a few neocons advocated the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam was an existential threat to Israel, a claim that did not seem very credible to me at the time. The details of the basis for my skepticism are irrelevant, for this discussion; what is relevant is that so many of the Iraq super-hawks had a bad habit of assuming that any conservative criticism was motivated by anti-Semitism. Because I am the exact opposite — a philo-Semite and an ardent Zionist — I was offended by this assumption. You could be pro-Israel and hate Saddam and still have serious doubts about the wisdom behind the neocons’ Iraq project, i.e., occupying Mesopotamia with the professed goal of turning it into a “democracy.” But some of our neocon friends just couldn’t tolerate such nuances, and while it is true that some “isolationist” conservatives were (and are) actual anti-Semites, such questions of motive ought not distract reasonable people from a discussion of the valid policy issues involved. I won’t call you a “dual citizen” if you don’t call me a crypto-Nazi sympathizer, OK?
My basic feeling is that Israel is tough enough to handle its regional enemies, if the U.S. State Department will just stop meddling around in the Mideast trying to arrange a “peace” deal based on the belief that the Palestinians want peace, a belief for which there is no evidence.
If Trump wins in November, he could fire the entire staff of the State Department, replace them all with the children of Republican campaign donors, and nothing of value would be lost in the transaction. Not saying it would make the State Department better — because GOP donors have a lot of stupid kids — but I’m just saying it couldn’t make things worse. The State Department is decadent and depraved, and no random group of amateurs could do worse than the current “experts” at Foggy Bottom.
At this time — 7:45 p.m. ET Saturday — it’s unclear what the situation is in Israel. Some reports say Iran has launched both drones and missiles, while other say only drones were launched. The usual “fog of war” makes it difficult to be confident in the accuracy of the various reports, but one thing is certain: This is entirely Joe Biden’s fault.
Israel was secure, and the world was not on the brink of Armageddon, before Biden took office. “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up,” as Barack Obama famously said about his veep.
Notice I said “before Biden took office,” rather than “before Biden was elected,” because we all know the Democrats stole that election, but if you’re one of the alleged 81 million people who “voted” for Biden, then this is all your fault, too. Predictably, everything has gone to hell.
State media reported Saturday that Russian authorities detained 11 people — including four suspected gunmen — for their involvement in a deadly attack on a crowded concert hall near Moscow on Friday that has left at least 133 people dead.
The attack left hundreds more injured, Russian officials said.
The four suspects were stopped in the Bryansk region of western Russia, “not far from the border with Ukraine,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said. They planned to cross the border into Ukraine and “had contacts” there, state news agency Tass said, citing Russia’s FSB. The head of the FSB briefed President Vladimir Putin on the arrests on Saturday, according to Tass.
Videos circulated on Russian social media show pandemonium inside the large concert hall, which is connected to a shopping mall. Videos show people screaming and ducking for cover as gunmen fire volley after volley of automatic gunfire. Other clips show the gunmen firing, sometimes at point-blank range. The attackers also set the venue on fire, causing a partial collapse of the building’s roof.
“The shots were constant,” eyewitness Dave Primov told CBS News. “People panicked and started to run. Some fell down and were trampled on.” The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack. A U.S. official told CBS News that the U.S. has intelligence confirming the Islamic State’s claims of responsibility, and that they have no reason to doubt those claims. The U.S. Embassy in Russia had previously advised Americans to stay away from concert venues, citing the threat of a terrorist attack. The U.S. official confirmed that the U.S. provided intelligence to Russia about a potential attack under the intelligence community’s Duty to Warn requirement.
Wait, I thought we’d eliminated ISIS? It’s good that our intelligence was able to figure out that such an attack was coming, but I just got off the phone with a friend who was wondering, why Russia? Why now? Is this somehow related to the Russia/Chechnya conflict?
No doubt there will be plenty of conspiracy theories — “false flag”? — but the key takeaway, as far as I’m concerned, is that ISIS is still a danger, capable of mounting major terrorist attacks in distant countries, and we shouldn’t be too complacent about this threat.
UPDATE: Yup, it was definitely ISIS:
BREAKING:
The official ISIS outlet Al-Amaq releases the video recorded by the terrorists from the Moscow attack
It shows the slowly walking out of the place after killing 140+ people
In the video, 1 of them shouts Allahu Akbar & that they have punished the “kuffars” (infidels) pic.twitter.com/QQre7KhXfF
Do you remember the uproar in 2018 when Donald Trump reportedly referred to Haiti and certain African countries as fecal depositories? Of course, he was accused of using more blunt language than that, but the point is that he allegedly made this remark in a discussion with Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin about a “bipartisan compromise” involving so-called “Dreamers,” which would have involved ending the visa lottery. Trump asked what a lot of common-sense Americans would have asked, i.e., why are we taking in people from the most wretched places on the planet, rather than from, say, Norway? (Trump had recently met with the Norwegian prime minister before the discussion with Durbin.) Because Democrats have no answer for such an obvious question, they responded by denouncing Trump as a “RAAAAACIST“! Now that Joe Biden is in the White House, common-sense people have more questions:
Probably the answer is, when you just stop enforcing immigration law completely — as the Biden administration seems to have done — and throw the doors open to millions of foreigners without limit, a certain percentage of those arrivals will be, shall we say, problematic.
An illegal migrant, who was taken into custody following a barricade shooting incident in North Carolina, was allegedly found to be on a terrorist watch list and had been living in the area for six months.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 32-year-old Awet Hagos is a citizen of Eritrea, a small country on the coast of Northeast Africa.
Immigration officers said that Hagos entered the U.S. illegally after residing in Haiti and had been living in North Carolina for the last six months.
After running Hagos’ fingerprints, authorities allegedly found that he was on the terrorist watch list. Gates County Sheriff’s Office said that they were first alerted to Hagos when a barricade incident unfolded at a Quick Stop gas station.
Police said that on Monday, March 11, at approximately 6:40 p.m., deputies responded to reports of gunfire.
Local authorities, along with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, attempted to take Hagos into custody, but he became “extremely combative” and attempted to disarm a deputy of their firearm.
After the altercation, police said that Hagos fled into his home and led police on a four-hour standoff.
Hagos was eventually safely taken into custody and charged with three counts of assault on a government official, three counts of resisting a public officer, and one count of carrying a concealed weapon.
Hagos was placed under a $100,000 secured bond and transported to Albemarle District Jail.
Following reports that Hagos was an illegal migrant and on the terrorist watchlist, three Republicans, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore, wrote a letter to President Joe Biden.
The leaders demanded that Biden provide more information about Hagos and details about his alleged terrorist activity.
“Our understanding is that this violent individual is originally from an area near Yemen, a known hot-bed of anti-American terrorist activity,” the letter said.
“Clearly, this is a grave concern, not only for the people of North Carolina but for our entire nation,” the letter said.
Some background: Gates County is a rural community with a little over 10,000 people, next to the Virginia border, about 50 miles southwest of Norfolk. The Quick Stop gas station where this incident occurred is in a place called Eure, which is just a wide spot in the road on U.S. 13.
Among the many questions raised by this incident is, how is it that the federal government, with its massive law enforcement resources, could not catch this foreign terrorist, but the sheriff’s department in tiny Gates County was able to apprehend him? But what the hell was this guy doing there in the first place? Do you remember, a few weeks ago, when a mob of Eritrean protesters shut down a highway in Charlotte, N.C.? It would seem that the Biden administration has chosen North Carolina as the designated dumping ground for Eritrean “refugees.” WAVY-TV in Norfolk reported that Hagos “had previously lived in Haiti and . . . had been brought into the area by the owner of the Carolina Quick Stop store, where the incident took place, according to the sheriff’s office.” According to the Raleigh News-Observer, Hagos was working at the store:
The Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald and WAVY-TV, which first covered the police standoff about a week ago, reported that the sheriff said Hagos recently moved to Gates County from Oakland, California, and had been in the state for six months.
An ICE spokesperson told The News & Observer that Hagos “entered the United States as a nonimmigrant in 2016 and violated terms of admission.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection issues nonimmigrant visas to foreign nationals who want to enter the U.S. on a temporary basis, according to the agency, for “tourism, medical treatment, business, temporary work, study, or other similar reasons.”
One could easily think of a long list of questions about this — e.g., who is the Quick Stop owner and why did he hire this Eritrean to work there? — but the point is that (a) Eritrea is a fecal depository of a country and (b) we need to elect Donald Trump so he can put a stop to the Biden administration’s dangerous open-borders shenanigans.
