Violent clashes as IDF demolishes terrorist’s home in Nablus, West Bank

JERUSALEM POST STAFF

Clashes developed after the IDF entered Nablus and a gunfight ensued, during which explosive devices were thrown at the IDF soldiers.
.

IDF soldiers demolish the home of terrorist Osama Tawil in Nablus. / (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON’S UNIT)

The IDF demolished the home of Osama Tawil in the West Bank town of Nablus on Wednesday night, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.

Tawil is one of the terrorists who murdered IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Ido Baruch last October.

Clashes developed after the IDF entered Nablus to begin the demolishment process and a gunfight ensued, during which explosive devices were thrown at the IDF soldiers. The IDF responded with crowd dispersal measures and by opening fire.

Multiple Palestinians were injured and at least one man was killed in the exchange of fire, according to Kan citing Palestinian media reports.

Baruch was killed in October 2022
St.-Sgt. Ido Baruch, a soldier in the Givati Brigade, was shot and killed by Tawil and another terrorist on October 11, 2022, near Shavei Shomron in the northern West Bank.

Israel Daily News– June 13, 2023

ILTV Israel News

Former IDF Chief of Staff reveals: Israel attacked ISIS in 2015, killing hundreds of terrorists

MAARIV ONLINE, JERUSALEM POST STAFF

During his speech, he revealed that Israel attacked the terrorist organization ISIS in 2015 and killed hundreds of members of the group.
.

GADI EISENKOT waves at the launch of the National Unity Party election campaign, in Tel Aviv, earlier this month. / (photo credit: TOMER NEUBERG/FLASH90)

Former IDF Chief of Staff, Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, spoke on Sunday at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), where he revealed that Israel had attacked the terrorist organization ISIS in 2015 and killed hundreds of members of the terror group.

“ISIS knows best how much the IDF operated in the Middle East – they paid the price of hundreds of casualties and injured. In 2015, there was an event in a specific location where we were asked to carry out an attack. We conducted a very extensive attack and hit many ISIS operatives.

“The campaign against ISIS was intensive and far beyond that of any other country,” he added. “With results that in some places surpassed all imagination regarding the type of operations and attacks carried out. Some of the actions went under the radar.”

“ISIS knows best how much the IDF operated in the Middle East – they paid the price of hundreds of casualties and injured.”

Former IDF Chief of Staff, Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot

An ISIS member carries and Islamic State flag in Syria. (credit: NDLA)

“There aren’t many countries in the world that know how to identify targets the size of a postage stamp and insert a missile into a target within a radius of one thousand kilometers around Israel,” explained Eisenkot.

“Our enemies saw it, the Russians saw it, the Americans saw it. Those who know best how much the IDF operated throughout the Middle East are the ISIS operatives because they paid the price of the hundreds of casualties, injuries and damages and they knew who knew how to carry out these operations.”

Israel is ISIS’s biggest threat – and they know it

Towards the end of 2015, a German journalist spent 10 days with Islamic State and said that the radical jihadist group that has captured vast territories of Syria and Iraq was deterred by only one Middle Eastern country – Israel.

In an interview with the British Jewish News, Jurgen Todenhofer reflected on his brief time with the group, during which he engaged in conversations with ISIS fighters.

Israel Daily News – June 11, 2023

ILTV Israel News

Israeli Short Film Premiering at Palm Springs Festival Explores Adolescent Rebellion in Jerusalem

Shiryn Ghermezian

A photo still from the new film “Arava.” Photo: Provided

The Hebrew-language short film Arava will make its world premiere at the Palm Springs International ShortFest on June 22 and is also in the running for the festival’s award for best international short.

The 27-minute coming-of-age story by director and screenwriter Sarah Meital Benjamin takes place in the 2000s and is set in Jerusalem as a teenage girl named Arava returns home after spending six months in a secluded rehab facility. She reunites with her troublemaker best friend Tzipi, who convinces her to go on a trip up north in Israel. As the two runaways hitchhike through the country, they face experiences and situations that force them to confront their own conflicts, identities, hopes and losses as well as their friendship.

“Arava is a story of friendship and unquenched passion between two young girls in an unsafe world, but beyond that, it is a portrait of the complexity, magic, pain and hope in the realities of at-risk youth in Israel,” according to a synopsis for the film.

The film was produced by Michael Utznik and co-written by Batel Zaharaa Mann with cinematography done by Keren Bergman. It stars Swell Ariel Or, from the Netflix Israeli series The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, along with Batel Zaharaa Mann, Itamar Rothchild, Itamar Abuhatzira, Shlomi Shtern, Elisha Shwartz.

Arava is a true story based on Benjamin’s life experiences. The filmmaker was born in Jerusalem to a Mizrahi-Ashkenazi family from a Hasidic community that she then left at a young age.

“Arava is a personal story picked out of my archive of adolescent adventures as a post-religious, bisexual runaway teen who spent
her youth hanging out in the punk scene of Jerusalem,” said Benjamin in a director’s note for the film. “The world of characters, the saturated city, and the unapologetic teen spirit of young adults facing distinct challenging realities, is the beating heart behind the project.”

She added: “Jerusalem at its core is a melting pot that brings together many forms of lives on a daily basis. The main characters of Arava are a depiction of this very reality; religion versus faith, untamed individuality versus a collective identity, and the constant, fruitful battle between fantasy and reality … Although Arava is based on a personal story and set in a very specific world, it is firstly a human story about a young girl in search of belonging, a primal yearning that exists within every human heart.”

ShortFest will take place from June 20-26. All of the festival’s awards, which come with a cash prize between $500-$5,000 and five Academy Award-qualifying awards, will be announced on June 25.

Watch the trailer for Arava below.