Israelis now hunting the October 7 terrorists

After Hamas terrorists’ orgy of rape, torture, mutilation, and murder on October 7, 2023, the IDF began its war to destroy Hamas inside Gaza. At the same time, the Israelis wanted to make sure that a subset of Hamas members, those terrorists who took part in the October 7 attack in any capacity, would be hunted down and killed. To this end, the IDF established an elite group to locate, and then to summarily execute, those who were participants in the atrocities. 

The task force is called NILI, an acronym of “Netzach Yisrael Lo Yeshaker” (“The Eternal One of Israel does not lie”), signifying that no victim of the attack would be forgotten.

The Hebrew text from which the acronym NILI was formed comes from the Bible, 1 Samuel 15:29. A spy ring of Jewish pioneers, which the world-famous agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn led during World War I, also used the acronym NILI.

 

Aaronsohn and his associates collected information of military value about the Ottoman Turks in Palestine, and provided it to the British forces then in Egypt. It was dangerous work. The Turks caught Aaronsohn’s sister Sarah, and after four days of torture, she committed suicide. The Turks executed many more of the NILI spies. 

The information the NILI spies provided proved to be of immense value to the British, and enabled them to take Beersheba from the Turks. There is in Jerusalem a street named in honor of the group, Rehov Nili.

“The clear message to all future enemies is to think again about the price of a terrorist operation like that,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in the Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency).

Take part in such terror operations as that on October 7 against Israelis, and sooner or later, the long arm of Israel will reach and destroy you, no matter how long it takes.

Do harm to Israelis of the kind done on October 7, 2023, and you will be pursued relentlessly, whether an elite group called NILI or the regular soldiers of the IDF do the pursuing. “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there?” 

Yes, there is “balm in Gilead,” to sooth the souls of the survivors. Every dead terrorist increases the amount.

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Three Oct. 7 Terrorists Arrested in Rahat: Weapons Seized

Security sources are pushing back hard against claims that three Gaza terrorists arrested in the Bedouin city of Rahat last week sneaked into Israel during Hamas's barbaric October 7, 2023, massacre. According to reports from KAN News and others, the trio had valid work permits and were already inside the country before the attack even happened.

Israeli police initially touted the arrests as a big win, announcing they'd nabbed three Gazans who infiltrated "under the cover" of the October 7 onslaught, over two years later, during a raid in Rahat as part of a broader crackdown on crime and illegal weapons.

But wait, hold the victory lap. 

Security officials quickly shot that down, saying there's zero evidence these guys crossed during the massacre. Instead, they entered legally pre-war with permits, then just . . . stayed put after Israel revoked all Gazan labor entries once the fighting kicked off. During the raid, cops uncovered a stash of goodies: 50 rounds of 9mm ammo, loose 7.62 Kalashnikov rounds, and an iron lathe authorities suspect was being used for "weapons-related activity."

The suspects and seized items were handed over to Shin Bet for further interrogation.

Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in southern Israel just north of Beersheba, has popped up before in these stories. Back in early November 2023, about a month after the massacre, two actual Hamas terrorists who did infiltrate on October 7 were nabbed hiding there.

This latest bust highlights the ongoing mess from those pre-war policies letting thousands of Gazans work inside Israel; policies that, critics argue, helped set the stage for intelligence blind spots and security headaches leading up to the deadliest day in Israeli history. 

It's time to stop allowing potential terrorists legally invade the Jewish state.

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Six terrorists killed in Nassar Hospital, according to IDF

The grim calculus of war has once again cast its shadow over Gaza, where the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have confirmed that six of the roughly twenty Palestinians killed in a tank shelling of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis were Hamassholes. 

The revelation, announced on Tuesday, does little to quell the storm of questions surrounding the IDF's decision to unleash such blunt force on a medical facility, a decision that numerous IDF officials have already condemned as a grave misstep, favoring the sledgehammer of tank fire over the scalpel of precision operations.The IDF's Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, did not offer this disclosure as a vindication of the military’s actions. Far from it. This was merely the second drip of information in an ongoing probe into why tank shells were greenlit for an operation in a hospital and who, in the chain of command, gave the fateful order. 

Curiously, the IDF's statement drew a line between potential errors by field commanders and those at the Southern Command Headquarters in Beersheba, as if to suggest the fault might be shared across the echelons of power.

Zamir's admission that the target was a video surveillance camera, not the six terrorists, only deepens the unease. Reports indicate that Golani soldiers observed "suspicious movements," yet the order to fire was issued without certainty about the presence, number, or identity of Hamas operatives. "The site of an Israeli airstrike at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, August 25, 2025," as captured by Abed Rahim Khatib, stands as a haunting testament to the chaos that ensued. 

The IDF has yet to fully disclose which of the six were terrorists, though leaks suggest one was involved in the October 7 invasion, carrying a flag, not a weapon, and certainly not responsible for the 1,200 murders that day. Of the remaining casualties, it's a fair bet that all of the adults among them are fierce anti-Zionists/anti-Semites.

The IDF admitted early Monday afternoon that the attack, or at least its execution, was a mistake. The incident, which claimed the lives of journalists, including a Reuters contractor, cameraman Hussam al-Masri, and wounded others like photographer Hatem Khaled, swiftly ballooned into a global media firestorm. The Gaza health officials named three other journalists killed: Mariam Abu Dagga, who freelanced for the Associated Press and other outlets; Mohammed Salama, with Al Jazeera; and Moaz Abu Taha. A rescue worker also perished. 

"The hospital was reportedly operating at full capacity, treating more than 1,000 patients at the time of the strikes," Nasser Hospital Director Atef al-Hout told Al-Arabiya TV, noting that over fifty were wounded, most of whom cheered loudly on October 7, 2023.

The IDF's Tuesday message was clear: "The military said it did not intend to harm journalists or innocent Palestinian civilians." Yet the fact of a second round of shelling, which struck medical and media personnel rushing to aid victims of the first strike, complicates this narrative. This second barrage, condemned even more fiercely in global coverage, remains unexplained. IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin insisted on Monday night that the military strives to avoid civilian casualties, even when pursuing Hamas terrorists hiding in hospitals. Yet Defrin offered no specifics about the Hamas assets allegedly targeted, fueling speculation of internal IDF discord over the operation’s justification and execution.

Under Maj.-Gen. Yaniv Asor, who assumed command of IDF operations in Gaza in March, the military's record on civilian casualties has drawn scrutiny. Sources in the Israel Air Force have periodically criticized Asor for being less meticulous than his predecessor, Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkelman, in minimizing civilian harm. The IDF's civilian-to-terrorist casualty ratio, once a point of grim pride at 60% civilians to 40% terrorists, has deteriorated sharply. Over the past six months, the IDF claims to have killed over 2,000 Hamas terrorists, while the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reports 11,000 Gazan deaths. The IDF has long accused Hamas of inflating or fabricating civilian casualty figures, yet it has conspicuously declined to provide its own estimates, a departure from past conflicts.

This episode at Nasser Hospital is not merely a tactical blunder; it is a microcosm of the moral and strategic tightrope Israel walks in its war against Hamas. The use of hospitals as shields by terrorists is a tactic as old as it is reprehensible, yet the response cannot be indiscriminate. The IDF’s own officers, in their private condemnations, know this. The world, watching through the lens of dead journalists and shattered hospital wards, will not soon forget it.

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Five killed in Beersheba in Iranian missile strike: is this a one-sided ceasefire?

Cpl. Eitan Zacks

The grim toll of war has once again cast its shadow over Israel, as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the death of Corporal Eitan Zacks, an 18-year-old from Beersheba, among five Israelis killed by an Iranian missile strike on Tuesday morning. 

Zacks, a young man in the prime of his life, was undergoing combat training with the Multidimensional Unit (888), his medic course, cruelly ironic, conducted online due to the escalating security crisis. Such is the absurdity of our times: a soldier training to save lives, reduced to a virtual classroom, only to be obliterated by the very threat he was preparing to confront.

The attack on Beersheba was part of a broader Iranian onslaught, with three waves of about 20 ballistic missiles raining down on Israel between 4:45 a.m. and 7:10 a.m. Two missiles targeted Beersheba specifically. One was intercepted, a small mercy; the other slammed into a residential building, leaving devastation in its wake. The IDF is now scrambling to understand why its defenses failed to stop the second missile, a question that carries the weight of lives lost and a nation’s trust in its shield.

The five killed in Beersheba were not caught in the open, vulnerable to the whims of fate. No, they were in their safe rooms, those sanctuaries of last resort that Israelis have come to rely upon in times of existential peril. A direct hit on a wall obliterated these rooms, turning havens into tombs. 

Of the 28 Israelis killed by Iranian missiles in this conflict, only seven, including these five and two from Petah Tikva, perished in such spaces. The IDF estimates that without these rooms, the death toll could have swelled to dozens, perhaps hundreds. Pause for a moment to consider the arithmetic of survival: a nation forced to calculate its losses not in lives taken, but in lives spared by concrete and steel.

In Beersheba, 20 others were wounded, with injuries ranging from cuts and limb damage to the quieter, no less real wounds of anxiety, as reported by Magen David Adom (MDA). Two of the wounded were rushed to Soroka Hospital in moderate condition; six others were lightly injured. 

Three people, sheltering on the fourth floor of a seven-story apartment building, were pulled from the rubble; a small miracle amid the wreckage. Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority noted that only one person remains missing, with search efforts ongoing. Their warning was stark: “We emphasize again—do not enter the scene! The arrival of civilians endangers public safety and makes it difficult for rescue forces to operate.” A plea for order in the chaos of war.

The assault was not confined to Beersheba. In the North, shrapnel from Iranian missiles wounded at least one person, a 15-year-old in the Hadera region, while debris fell ominously at Ben-Gurion Airport. 

MDA paramedics, those tireless sentinels of life, described the scene with chilling clarity: “We saw thick smoke rising from the crash site, and as we approached, we saw extensive destruction in several buildings,” said Shimrit Sela, a senior paramedic. “Outside one of the buildings, we saw a man lying unconscious at the entrance to one of the buildings. When we went inside to search the building, we saw a man and a woman unconscious. We have set up a point to treat the injured, and we are conducting medical examinations on residents who are leaving the buildings.”

Iran’s barrage continued past 7 a.m., flouting a one-sided ceasefire announced by President Trump. Only at 7:20 a.m., according to Iran’s state media SNN, did Tehran claim to observe the truce, after four waves of missiles had already scarred the morning. 

This is the reality Israel faces: a regime that speaks of peace while its rockets still fly, a regime that targets civilians and calls it strategy. The moral clarity here is inescapable. Iran’s actions are not those of a state seeking coexistence but of one intoxicated by destruction, indifferent to the human cost.

What does it say of our world that a young man like Eitan Zacks, training to heal, is cut down in his own city? That safe rooms, built to protect, become coffins? This is not merely a tragedy; it is a clarion call.

The civilized world must confront the barbarism of a regime that rains missiles on a sleeping nation. To ignore this is to invite more mornings like this one: mornings of smoke, rubble, and inconsolable loss.

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