The Senate on Wednesday rejected three resolutions aimed at limiting the sale of offensive arms to Israel, underscoring growing dissent within the Democratic Party over the Biden administration’s support for Israel during its war against Hamas in Gaza. Nineteen senators – all Democrats – supported the measures, a notable increase from the eleven who backed a similar initiative in January. The resolutions, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and co-sponsored by Senators Peter Welch and Jeff Merkley, sought to block future transfers of tank rounds, mortar rounds, and Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) to Israel. Sanders argued that Israel’s actions in Gaza violate international human rights laws.

The U.S. State Department issued a strong condemnation of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir following the publication of photos showing him visiting the kever of Rabbi Meir Kahane HY’D, a figure regarded as an extremist by the US. Kahane’s ideology and actions have been associated with terrorism, and his Kach party was outlawed in Israel and designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. In a statement, a State Department spokesperson said, “As we’ve said on previous and similar occasions, celebrating the legacy of a terrorist and a terrorist organization is abhorrent. We strongly condemn any attempt to whitewash acts of terrorism.” The statement underscores ongoing tensions between the U.S.

Amnesty International revealed last week that at the same time that  French President Emmanuel Macron is calling for an arms embargo on Israel due to “harm to innocent people” in Gaza, France is supplying weapon systems to rebels in Sudan who have committed unspeakable war crimes and massacres amid a civil war in the African country. Amnesty obtained evidence of French-manufactured military systems installed on armored vehicles supplied to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Sudan’s most notorious paramilitary group.

El Al has reported record earnings in the third quarter of 2024, benefiting from a near-monopoly on flights to and from Israel amid the ongoing war in Gaza and regional security tensions. The airline posted $1 billion in revenue from July to September, a 43% increase from $696 million during the same period last year. Profits soared to $187 million, up nearly 260% from $52 million in 2023. El Al’s strong financial performance comes as many major international airlines have suspended routes to Tel Aviv due to security concerns. U.S. carriers like Delta, American Airlines, and United Airlines have halted flights indefinitely, leaving El Al as the sole operator of direct routes between Tel Aviv and North America.

The gag order on the details of the investigation into the suspects who fired flare bombs at the house of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Caesarea was lifted on Wednesday, revealing that the incident was a thoroughly planned “military” operation. The details, published by Channel 12 News, reveal that the suspects, Rear Adm. Ofer Doron (res.), Amir Sadeh, and Itai Yafeh, longtime anti-Netanyahu rioters, whose names were released for publication on Tuesday evening, planned the incident for about three weeks. They operated like members of a military cell, carrying out surveillance around Netanyahu’s residence and monitoring the locations of security cameras in the area to plan a route that wouldn’t expose them to the cameras.

In what could generously be described as a trainwreck, a debate on Piers Morgan Uncensored between progressive commentator Cenk Uygur and historian Allan Lichtman turned into a spectacle of juvenile insults and theatrical outrage on Tuesday. Lichtman, a self-proclaimed authority on election predictions, accused Uygur of committing “blasphemy” against him—because, apparently, that’s a thing now. The chaos kicked off when Uygur criticized Lichtman’s failed prediction for the 2024 election, which Lichtman naturally blamed on voters being duped by “disinformation” from Fox News and Elon Musk. Uygur wasted no time pouncing on the excuse: “Don’t blame the voters. Look, I told you before, your theories about ‘The Keys’ were absurd. I was right, you were wrong.

The IDF on Wednesday morning announced the death of an IDF reserve soldier in Gaza. He was identified as Sgt. First Class (res.) Roi Sasson, H’yd, 21, from Mevaseret Tzion, a town outside Jerusalem. He served in the Nachshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade in Gaza and was killed in battle in the northern Gaza Strip. In the same incident, the commander of the Nachshon Battalion, Lt. Col. Yoel Glickman, was seriously injured. Sasson’s death increases the death toll of IDF soldiers since October 7, 2023, to 800. Hashem Yikom Damam. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

SpaceX on Tuesday launched another Starship rocket, but passed up catching the booster with giant mechanical arms. Unlike last month’s success, the booster was directed to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off just four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later. Not all of the criteria for a booster catch was met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specify what went wrong. At the same time, the empty spacecraft launched from Texas atop Starship soared across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to October’s test flight.

As President Joe Biden approaches the end of his term, his administration is coming under fire for policies that punish Israel while easing restrictions on Hamas and Hezbollah. The president, once vocal in his support of Israel after the Oct. 7 massacre, now appears to be bending to anti-Israel pressures within his own party. The controversy intensified last week when the Biden administration reversed a 2022 Treasury Department decision that barred the U.S.-based Foundation for Global Political Exchange from hosting Hamas and Hezbollah representatives at a Beirut conference. The sudden approval has drawn outrage, with critics accusing Biden of capitulating to Iran-backed terror groups.

Israeli soldiers in Lebanon have found large troves of Russian weapons in Hezbollah areas, surprising security officials who were unaware of the large cache of modern Russian arms Hezbollah had acquired in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The report quoted an IDF major who said that 60% to 70% of the weapons that troops found in southern Lebanon in the first days of the ground war were Russian-made. More recently, reservists told the WSJ that they continue to locate large amounts of Russian weapons inside Lebanon. Although the IDF was aware that Hezbollah had some older Russian-made weapons, their withdrawal from the country in 2006 meant that they lacked information from the ground in the almost two decades since then.