A rocket fired from Gaza hit an apartment building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon this morning. pic.twitter.com/WDiRbpeb5C

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 25, 2014

Israel Defense Forces tweet-24July2014-A rocket fired from Gaza hit an apartment building in the Israeli city of Ashkelon this morning.

What Do I Do When I Hear a Siren or A -Red Alert-Tzeva Adom

The Price of Hamas’ Underground Terror Network

26July2014 https://www.idf.il/en/articles/hamas/the-price-of-hamas-underground-terror-network/

Hamas could be investing in the people of Gaza. Instead it invests in terrorism.

Construction materials meant for Palestinians routinely enter Gaza from Israel. To be exact, 4,680 trucks carrying 181 thousand tons of gravel, iron, cement, wood and other supplies have passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing since the beginning of 2014.

Imagine what Hamas could build with these resources instead of tunnels. Hundreds of homes and civilian structures for the residents of Gaza go unbuilt while the underground terror network continues to expand.

The price of Hamas underground terror network

Gedolim and Farmers Alike See Protection in Shmittah as Rockets Rain Above

06August2014 http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/253375/gedolim-and-farmers-alike-see-protection-in-shmittah-as-rockets-rain-above.html#comments

By: Shimmy Blum

During this period of mourning for the Beis Hamikdash and our era of glory in Eretz Yisroel, we cannot get the images of present day Eretz Yisroel out of our minds.

The missiles. The sirens. The smoke. The panic. The shelters. The frightened children. The destroyed homes.

Yet, through all the horror and carnage, the hand of Hashem has been visible to all. Although Israel has suffered several terrible deaths and injuries as a result, Hy”d, the casualty rate is nothing short of an open miracle considering the unprecedented quantity and scope of Hamas attacks.

In response to the situation, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, shlit”a, minced no words as to what is the true “Protective Edge” for the residents of Israel. “Chazal teach us that galus comes due to not observing Shmittah, and the horrors of this war are a result of this galus,” Rav Chaim said. “The remedy is to keep Shmittah and support those who do so. That is the protection that has the power to save us.”

On the frontier of this perilous battle stand the over 3,000 Keren Hashviis farmers, by far the largest group of uncompromising Shmittah observant farmers the Jewish people has had in memory. At a special Keren Hashviis gathering earlier this month, Rav Dovid Cohen, shlit”a, Rosh Yeshivas Chevron, offered the assembled farmers words of gratitude on behalf of the entire Nation. “It is not planes or tanks that are keeping us here in Eretz Yisroel,” he said. “You are…In the merit of keeping Shmittah, Hashem will help us.”

The farmers listening to Rav Cohen’s were very diverse in age, background and appearance – but they nodded their heads in near-perfect unison to the gadol’s words. If there is one common thread between these “giborei koach” – as Chazal call them, it is their unwavering emunah peshuta.

Deliberately forfeiting a full year’s worth of income, and instead incurring a loss, is an unbelievably great nisayon. Yet these giants have full confidence in their mesiras nefesh and the beracha it brings them – and all of klal Yisroel – now, in the shana hashishis, and in the future.

On July 8th, the eyes of the IDF, Israeli government and world media were on Kibbutz Zikim, a farming community near the Israel-Gaza border. In a virtually unprecedented brazen operation, five well trained, heavily armed Hamas terrorists infiltrated the area by sea, bent on wreaking maximum destruction. Thankfully, this incident, which brought the entire region to a virtual standstill, ended well. The terrorists were detected in time, and were all eliminated by IDF forces before they could inflict any damage.

One unassuming resident of Kibbutz Zikim is a silver haired vegetable farmer named Avrohom ben-Hamu. A member of the Keren Hashviis network, Avrohom is looking forward to keeping his first Shmittah ever in 5775. Face to face with this reality for the first time, the former Gush Katif resident is not only not dreadful, but is convinced his mitzvah is what protected him and others in the area when the suicidal terrorists were at their doorstep. “I’m moved, lo pashut,” he says.

After the Hamas incident, Avrohom walked around his vast farm, which produces 5 million Shekel in sales a year, with no dread that he’s about to abandon it all. Pointing towards the white roof of one of his hothouses, he states, “Here I have one roof, and above it another roof, but above it all is the borei olam watching over us. You and I – all of us – receive the beracha associated with mitzvas Shmittah.”

חיטים שמיטה וצוק איתן

The Matzah Miracle that Saved the Residents of Kibbutz Sufa

Posted by JewishMom on Jul 30, 2014 ihttp://jewishmom.com/2014/07/30/the-matzah-miracle-that-saved-the-residents-of-kibbutz-sufa/This article by Avi Jacob (and translated by Rivka Friedman) appears on the site of Radio Kol Chai One of the things I love most about this story is the life-saving connection between the ultra-Charedi Jews in the story and the non-religious kibbutznikim. Yet another reminder that deep down, no matter how different we look and even act, we are one family.

Three weeks ago a group of residents came from Bnei Brak to harvest wheat for Pesach. They harvest the wheat every summer when the sun beats down on the fields, thoroughly drying the wheat. The wheat is then stored until the winter when they start the production and baking of matzos.

Aharon Samet, owner of the “Samet” factory producing “tzitzis” fringes, is the Badatz community supervisor for the wheat harvest. On a radio program today with Rabbi Moshe Ben Lulu, Samet told the story of the great miracle which occurred for the people of Israel thanks to this year’s wheat harvest.

“This year we are getting ready for the Shmitta agricultural sabbatical year, so this summer we harvested wheat grain for two years. We searched the whole country, looking for wheat which was sown late in the season and needed rain which fell late. At Kibbutz Sufa right next to the Gaza border we found an entire field sown in mid-January, which was considered very unusual, so we found 2000 acres of green wheat which was just right for us, “said Samet.

“We harvested the wheat,” said Samet, “and we ran into military police, as well as undercover and regular police who came to check out who we were.” The Gaza air campaign was already underway, and Samet and his colleagues saw the smoke clouds over Gaza, and heard the sirens while they were busy harvesting and transferring the wheat to trucks and moving them towards the cleaning plant near Masmiya for cleaning the wheat, fumigating and tithing it.

Footage of Hamas Terror Attack Being Thwarted

Two days later 13 terrorists came from Gaza out from the tunnel which opened into the fields near Sufa. The terrorists had been planning a big attack, and had been counting on hiding among Sufa’s giant wheat field–which the matzah makers had just chopped down in its entirety. The terrorists couldn’t understand how their camouflage had disappeared.

The empty field enabled military observers to easily spot and identify the terrorists and open fire on them. Many Jewish lives were thus saved by the grace of Heaven.

Hamas Mega-Attack Planned through Gaza Terror Tunnels

by Lawrence A. Franklin 25July2014 https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4516/hamas-mega-attack

This map shows why we continue in our mission to expose and destroy Hamas’ network of terror attack tunnels. pic.twitter.com/snPnupv0ud

Hamas had apparently been preparing a murderous assault on Israeli civilian targets for the coming Jewish New Year Holiday, Rosh Hashanah, which begins on September 24, according anonymous sources in the Israeli security services, as reported today by the Israeli daily Maariv.

The Hamas plan consisted of what was to be a surprise attack in which 200 fighters would be dispatched through each of dozens of tunnels dug by Hamas under the border from Gaza to Israel, and seize kibbutzim and other communities while killing and kidnapping Israeli civilians.

Israeli soldiers already frustrated a surprise assault by Hamas through one tunnel from Gaza into the Eshkol district of Israel on July 19. The Hamas fighters escaped back into the tunnel, but the clash cost the lives of two Israel Defense Force [IDF] troops.

An IDF paratrooper officer emerges from a Hamas cross-border tunnel that his unit discovered, July 20, 2014. (Image source: IDF)

Israel has reportedly discovered at least 30 tunnels, and has destroyed several of them by employing bulldozers. IDF excavation of the tunnels has resulted in the seizure of tons of Hamas supplies, as well as the discovery of plans for future operations. Clearly, the network of tunnels — using hundreds of tons of concrete that might otherwise have been used by the Palestinians for building homes, shopping malls, parks, schools, hospitals and libraries — indicates that Hamas had been preparing for an ongoing conflict for at least a year. According to the reports, each tunnel has arteries, veins, offshoots, and offshoots of the offshoots in intricate and complex arrangements. As one Israeli spokesman said, “There are two Gazas, one above ground and one below ground: an underground terrorist city.”

What Hamas planned to do with the terror tunnels

23July2014 http://israelmatzav.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/what-hamas-planned-to-do-with-terror.html

From the 48 Hamas prisoners that have been captured, the intelligence have been interrogating them and the most terrifying, and horrific picture is being built.

They are being investigated about the many tunnels that have been found and dug under many kibbutzim that surround Gaza. The most terrifying detail is being uncovered that Hamas had a plan to attack all the settlements and kibbutzim in the area this year on Rosh Hashanah with an invasion of over 200 terrorists into almost all the settlements in the area. The tunnels went under the kibbutzim under the kindergartens and dining rooms and other areas within the kibbutz perimeters. They planned to occupy the whole area and kill as many Israeli as possible.

This could have been the worst terror attack in the history of terrorism. Thousands of people, including women and children would have been slaughtered in this planned attack.

I think now we start to understand how dangerous these tunnels really are. They all have to be destroyed and we cannot leave even one undetected or unattended to. These tunnels are more dangerous than any rocket or any other weapon .

Sounds to me like Mumbai….

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 2008 Mumbai attacks were twelve coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai.  by members of Lashkar-e-Taiba. Ajmal Kasab, the only attacker who was captured alive, later confessed upon interrogation that the attacks were conducted with the support of Pakistan’s ISI. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.

10 attackers, Ajmal Kasab, Abdul Rehman, Abdul Rahman Chhota, Abu Ali, Fahad Ullah, Ismail Khan, Babar Imran, Abu Umar,Abu Sohrab,Shoaib alias Soheb,

UPDATE FRIDAY JULY 25 2:45 PM

Maariv has now confirmed the date – Rosh HaShanah – about two months from now (link in Hebrew).  They are also confirming that the plan was to send 200 terrorists per tunnel into six different ‘settlements’ near the Gaza border to murder or kidnap as many Israelis as possible. The tunnels are not straight, but intersect at various points. I will have more on this in a later post.

Life in Israel: 15 seconds Reality – Rockets from Gaza

From Rabbi Lazer Brody’s Lazer Beams website:

Likutey Moharan can save your live!

Get a copy today!

Garden of Emuna

“By way of emuna, life in this world is more beautiful, and…the entire world is like a blossoming garden.” This is a practical guide to life. Discover the power of emuna and powerful tools for dealing with life’s challenges. By Rabbi Shalom Arush, translated by Rabbi Lazer Brody. Paperback, 292 information packed pages. ISBN: 56-1024

ליקוטי-מוהרן

ליקוטי מוהר”ןספרו הקדוש של רבי נחמן מברסלב ובו תורותיו הנשגבות והעליונות, חידושים והקדמות יקרות ונפלאות, דברים הנאמרים בצחות ובפלפול, מסודר ב’צורת הדף’ כולל מפתח עניינים ותיקון הכללי. הוצאה מיוחדת ובלעדית של אתר ברסלב ישראל.
מק”ט: 1-8000

Emuna Outreach, now under the auspices of Rabbi Shalom Arush shlit’a, gives top priority to strengthening our home-front. We have been distributing emuna books and CDs all over the south of Israel, to civilians and IDF soldiers alike.

The outdoor market of Ashdod has in the past been a favorite Friday-morning Hamas target, particularly because of the concentration of people there. Rebbe Nachman of Breslev promised that anywhere his book Likutei Moharan is, there won’t be fire or catastrophe. Emuna Outreach has already fitted quite a few armored vehicles in the IDF with Likutei Moharan. Earlier today, we made sure that bomb shelters and local merchants received the book as well, thanks to your generous support. Everyone who received the book was truly moved and tremendously grateful. I was asked to relay a ton of blessings to our contributors.

You can do your part in the war effort too. Your donation helps strengthen Israel’s soldiers and civilians under fire. Your assistance in spreading emuna wins wars. Please donate with an open heart to Emuna Outreach – you can do so by clicking the “Donate” button on the top left-hand toolbar of this site. This is a tremendous mitzva and a direct contribution to the war effort and to the full redemption of our people. Thanks, Shabbat Shalom G-d bless always!

– See more at: http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/#sthash.LQUYjrt8.dpuf

Emuna Outreach’s “Strong Home-Front” Project: Merchants from Ashdod’s outdoor market, hit in past by Hamas missiles, receiving Likutei Moharan from Rabbi Lazer – See more at: http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/#sthash.LQUYjrt8.dpuf

30,000 Meals a Day among Outpouring of Support for IDF

31July2014 http://matzav.com/30000-meals-a-day-among-outpouring-of-support-for-idf

Doron Elbaz, who owns a farm near the Gaza border, told his kids: “Let’s go buy some lemons and make lemonade for the soldiers driving by.” Soon, his lemonade stand became the focal point for donations that began pouring in from across the country – food, clothing, toiletries, shampoo, baked goods.

Joined by a few volunteers, he started making 1,000 meals a day for soldiers, then 2,000 meals, then 5,000 – as donations, and requests from IDF units, poured in. Now 250 volunteers are cooking 30,000 meals per day. A dozen masseurs have set up tables to offer free massages. A barber was offering free haircuts and free shaves. There are a number of similar “rest stops” for soldiers at many intersections along the Gaza border.

{Matzav.com Israel}

From Rabbi Lazer Brody’s Lazer Beams website:

The Miracle Grenade

an IDF infantryman was hit with an AK-47 (Kalatchnikov) bullet which hit one of the pouches in his flak jacket. The pouch held an Israeli-made assault grenade. The grenade fully absorbed the bullet, but didn’t explode! – See more at: http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/2014/07/the-miracle-grenade.html#sthash.sEz4lKlX.dpuf

25July2014
Here’s a miracle of miracles:

Nir Dabouri of Israel’s Channel Two News online (Mako), reports: an IDF infantryman was hit with an AK-47 (Kalatchnikov) bullet which hit one of the pouches in his flak jacket. The pouch held an Israeli-made assault grenade. The grenade fully absorbed the bullet, but didn’t explode!

This is a magnificent triple miracle as follows:

1. The soldier was hit in the torso but the bullet did him no harm;

2. The bullet penetrated the grenade (the bullet could have easily ricocheted off the grenade and hit the soldier anywhere in his torso);

2. The grenade did not explode!

The chances of a soldier emerging unscratched from such an uncounter is one in a trillion.

– See more at: http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/lazer_beams/#sthash.7yLgcCuu.dpuf

Hebrew Prayer for Members of the Israel Defense Force

Hebrew Prayer for Members of the Israel Defense Force Click for larger image

Invoking God’s protection for the members of the Israel Defense Forces.
by Aish.com staffHe Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea.May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor.

May He lead our enemies under our soldiers’ sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.

Now let us respond: Amen.

An IDF soldier’s letter from the front

Making it Possible

24July2014 http://matzav.com/making-it-possible
By Chaya Gitty Smith

There have always been things I thought I could never do. Not in a physical sense , more in an emotional and spiritual sense. That is, until about a month ago. On Pesach night, one of the more popular upbeat songs we sing is Dayenu. We remember all the wonderful and miraculous things Hashem has done for us and ask him “Dayenu”? Was it not enough that You freed us from slavery and took us out of Egypt. Was it not enough that You split the sea etc… The events of the past few weeks feel like a sad Dayenu song that Hashem is singing to us. Tragic, scary and painful things have been happening. We respond with introspection, extra mitzvos and an abundance of support for our fellow brothers. Hashem sees the effort we are putting in but asks us Dayenu. Is that really all you can give.

When the three precious neshamos were kidnapped, over night the country transformed. We stood together, prayed more, did everything we could for their safe return. For eighteen long and painful days we kept up the momentum. We composed songs, had mass gatherings of Tehillim, we pushed ourselves farther than we ever thought we could go. We did a tremendous amount. More than anyone thought possible. But Hashem said Dayenu. The news came out, on that monday night, that those three precious boys have returned to World of Truth. The tears shed that night, could have filled the oceans. The love and warmth sent to the three mourning families could have melted winter away. We did even more. Gave even more. Cared even more. But Hashem asked Dayenu.

Rockets started falling. Sirens started wailing. People started waking up their precious sleeping children to run for cover. Hundreds of rockets have been shot at cities all over Israel in the past few days. Soldiers are preparing for the dangerous mission of entering Gaza. Again, we as a nation, we act. We daven and cry. We stand together. We do what we can. We try our best. We look inward and give even more. Hoping that this time it will be enough. Hashem will not need to ask Dayenu.

There have always been things I thought I could never do. I have never been able to sit for an hour and just say Tehillim. I have never cried for a stranger. I have never had so much faith. I never thought I could care this much. I didn’t think it was possible to love this much. I love my people, I love my land more than I ever could have imagined. That is until a few weeks ago.

We are always putting limits on ourselves. We set our standards too low. We forget that we have the soul of a Jew. The limitless Jew. The depths of greatness we can reach, individually and collectively are infinite. The events of the past weeks is God speaking to us. Begging us to to understand the unlimited potential we have. Now as a nation we must listen to those messages. We need to break free from the limits we have put on ourselves. the voices that tell us that we cant must be silenced and replaced with shouts of “I CAN!” We must believe that we will succeed! We must always be looking for ways in which we can grow and uplift those around us. So that we, as a united and strong people, can greet Moshiach. We will then be able to turn to Hashem in joy and sing Dayenu.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}

The Essential Guide to Israeli Airstrikes

Don’t Cry for Us Israelis

by Naomi Ragen on July 25th, 2014 http://www.naomiragen.com/israel/dont-cry-us-israelis/

For those who don’t recognize it, the picture is Dresden February 1, 1945.

I prefer that you – writers of these lies and libels – hate me and my country, if it means that you can save your tears for other peoples’ dead. We aren’t greedy for sympathy. After all, we got so much after the Holocaust, we prefer other people to have their share now. These days, we prefer to live, rather than have people cry over us and the injustices done to us.

I’m sitting here in Jerusalem after a week of heartbreak over three murdered teens, followed by almost three weeks of sirens, bomb blasts, and finally, the funerals of young IDF soldiers, of whom one-third are students who should be taking their final exams instead of risking their lives. I’m reading on the internet about what a horrible person I am as an Israeli and as a Jew, and what a terrible, immoral country I live in.

All this criticism comes mainly from the European press: The Guardian, the BBC, papers in Italy, Norway, France, and don’t forget America: The New York Times, CNN. And I’m thinking: Gee, the British should understand. After all, they lived through the blitz, Nazis raining bombs indiscriminately down on them, the way Hamas is raining bombs down on us. And when the brave pilots of the RAF aimed their bombs at Dresden and killed 300,000 men, women and children, they didn’t throw down leaflets telling people to politely evacuate; didn’t send their soldiers to knock on doors to see if they’d followed the leaflets instructions ( as CNN complained Israel failed to do at an UNRWA school, which was probably hit by a Hamas bomb anyway.)

And I think of the rest of Europe, who rounded up our grandparents and great-grandparents, and relatives —men, women and children—and sent them off to be gassed, no questions asked. And I think: They are now the moral arbiters of the free world? They are telling the descendants of the people they murdered how to behave when other anti-Semites want to kill them?

As for Americans, represented by the New York Times, that bastion of high-minded hypocrisy and mediocre journalism parading as the “newspaper of record,” one has only to read the article by Professor Auerbach in the New York Observer (“Two Weeks of Shallow, Facile Moral Equivalency From the New York Times“) to see how Jodi Rudoren and other Times apparatchiks have learned to close their minds and love Hamas. After all, there are CHILDREN DYING. It doesn’t matter that the Palestinians have educated an entire generation to be little Nazi-wannabes, who worship death and hate Jews, murdering their souls, and are now callously putting their bodies in harm’s way to use for touching photo ops. We shouldn’t be shocked by this omission by the Times. After all, The New York Times was one of the last news outlets to bring to the attention of the reading public the Nazi atrocities in Europe. Read the Times during the nightmare years, and see if you can’t find a pattern here.

And so, as an Israeli, brought up with Jewish values, and an American, taught to love freedom, justice, democracy and fair play, I have to tell all of you – Europeans, Americans, and last of all Muslim terrorist sympathizers and barbarians, that what you are saying no longer moves anyone of good moral judgment and intelligence. The current crisis in Gaza is so morally clear-cut, so absolutely a case of self-defense, that I must say to you, as someone finally said to Senator McCarthy: “Sir, have you no shame?”

I prefer that you – writers of these lies and libels – hate me and my country, if it means that you can save your tears for other peoples’ dead. We aren’t greedy for sympathy. After all, we got so much after the Holocaust, we prefer other people to have their share now. These days, we prefer to live, rather than have people cry over us and the injustices done to us.

So by all means, cry for the Palestinian people – men women and children – whose duly elected leadership has callously left them without protection from just retribution for their terrorist crimes. The leaders who took their people’s aid money and are living in Qatar in five star hotels building shopping centers for themselves. Who built terrorist tunnels under their homes, mosques, hospitals and schools, and recruited their sons to die for Allah, while they sit in bunkers waiting for the U.N. to rescue them.

Don’t cry for us, or our families, or our children, or grandchildren. Not this time. Not ever. Not if we can help it. Because this time, thank God, we have a country. We are armed. This time, with God’s help, we know how to protect ourselves from Nazis and their high-minded media cheerleaders.

I would like to end this with an expletive and a hand gesture towards the people I’m addressing. Please choose one you think would be fitting. I can think of many.

ISRAEL StandWithUs with Leslie Rose