Terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired several mortar shells at IDF engineers operating on the Israeli side of the border on Wed. 4 May 2016, as tensions in the south continue to rise. The mortar strikes bring the total number of similar breaches of the ceasefire by Gazan terrorists in two days to six. Early the previous evening, terrorists opened fire on IDF forces just hours after PM Netanyahu made an impromptu visit to troops stationed at the border with Hamas-ruled Gaza. Israeli air strikes hit four Hamas sites in Gaza Wednesday night, the military said, following air raids earlier in the day. (INN) Intercede against the upswing in violence and tension along Israel’s southern borders. Pray for the protection of IDF troops serving in the area as well as Israel’s southern communities. [Comment]

British PM David Cameron launched an unprecedented assault in parliament against the UK opposition leader, Labor chief Jeremy Corbyn, whose party is currently being wracked by an anti-Semitism scandal. On the eve of Israel's Holocaust Memorial Day Cameron challenged Corbyn to renounce his declaration of "friendship" with Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations whose charters commit them to destroying the State of Israel and annihilating the Jewish people. "Hamas and Hezbollah believe in killing Jews, not just in Israel but around the world... if you want to clear up the problem of anti-Semitism in the Labor Party now would be a good time: withdraw that they're your friends," Cameron challenged him. What followed was a desperate attempt by Corbyn to avoid answering the question - four separate times. At one point, a visibly outraged Cameron pushed the point even more forcefully: "Those organizations in their constitutions believe in persecuting and killing Jews," he said of the Islamist terrorist groups. "They are anti-Semitic organizations, they are racist organizations; he must stand up and stay they are not his friends!" But to no avail. Maybe that's why Hamas leaders and terrorists are remain such big fans of Corbyn. (Arutz-7) [Comment]

Following a wave of attacks on IDF engineers operating on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, the Hamas terror organization issued a sharp threat against the Jewish state. Hamas terrorists fired several mortars at Israel on Wed. 4 May 2016, prompting retaliatory fire by Israeli tanks and artillery. Calling the incident a "serious violation of the cease-fire”, senior Hamas officials warned Israel not to test the organization’s military capabilities. Speaking to the Bethlehem-based Maan news agency, Hamas official Moshir al-Masri blamed Israel for the uptick in violence. Despite the recent string of Hamas mortar attacks, al-Masri warned Israel against provoking a wider conflict. No injuries were reported in Israel following the Hamas attacks, nor were any reported in Gaza after Israeli forces retaliated. (Arutz-7) Hamas’ irrationality towards Israel’s self-defense measures is summed up in the response of one blogger : "Don’t test our patience! Just because we fired on you doesn’t mean you’re allowed to fire back.” [Comment]

 On Wed. 4 May 2016, Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called on UK Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn to take a loud and clear stand and end the political career of any member of his party guilty of anti-Semitism, which she said was alive and well in Europe today. "Mr. Corbyn must clarify that anti-Semitic comments are not within legitimate political debate, and that anti-Semitic views should end a politician’s career and disqualify him from any future public office," Shaked said, referencing the recent scandal in the Labor Party over anti-Israel comments made by former London mayor Ken Livingstone, MK Naz Shah and others. She also called on European leaders to "heed the British lesson and affirm that anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Anti-Semitism continues unabated in Europe, Shaked charged. "In fact the anti-Semitic voices seem to get louder and stronger still," she said. "There are Holocaust deniers, and others wish to slander Israel and blame it for all the world’s travails. We witness anti-Semitic attacks in the heart of Europe. We hear anti-Semitic slander in European media. We feel hatred in the continent that should have learned the lesson." Shaked was the highest-ranking Israeli official so far to comment publicly on the furor over comments, seen as anti-Semitic, by UK Labor officials. Israeli Labor party MK Itzik Shmuli, the previous day, called on the leader of his UK sister party Jeremy Corbyn to resign amid reports that the party secretly suspended an additional 50 members for anti-Semitic rhetoric. (J.Post) "Do not let those gloat over me who are my enemies without cause; do not let those who hate me without reason maliciously wink the eye.” Ps 35:9 [Comment]

 Israel's President Reuven Rivlin at Yad Vashem Wednesday night, 4 May 2016, expressed criticism of the state for failing to care for the needs of Holocaust Survivors. The issue requires "soul-searching” by the country. "Even to the present day, the State of Israel does not take every measure it can in order to take care of the Holocaust Survivors,” said Rivlin. "My brothers and sisters, survivors, the heroes of Israel’s revival, I came here today on my own behalf, and on behalf of the people of Israel, on behalf of the State of Israel, and I ask each one of you, before it is too late, for forgiveness. We did not understand, we did not want to understand, and we have not done enough.” Some 189,000 Holocaust Survivors live in Israel, of whom 45,000 live under the poverty line. Rivlin highlighted the importance of the remembering the Holocaust, noting that this would be the last generation to meet with Survivors. "In another generation, there will not be anyone left living among us who survived that hell, and who could say, 'I was there, I saw the horror with my own eyes.'" (J. Post) [Comment]

Israel commemorated the six million Jews who were murdered by Nazis in the Holocaust on Thurs. 5 May 2016, with a two minute siren that brought the country to a halt at 10 a.m. Events marking Holocaust Remembrance Day began the previous evening at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. At that ceremony, PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned against the resurfacing of anti-Semitic lies in Europe, which he said are reminiscent of the propaganda which "greased the wheels of the Nazi murder machine." The vilification of the Jewish state has taken the place of vilification of the Jew, Netanyahu said, adding that anti-Semitism did not die with Hitler in his Berlin bunker. "Today millions of people in the Muslim world read and hear horrible falsehoods about the Jewish people. They tell them that the Jews are the descendants of monkeys and pigs. They say that Jews drink the blood of their enemies in goblets,” he said, adding that this hatred is spread on social media in a manner which Hitler and his propaganda chief Goebbels could never have imagined. While the source of this incitement is radical Islam in the Arab world, of late it has been joined by no less pernicious incitement from the West, Netanyahu charged. "British MPs, senior officials in Sweden, public opinion makers in France; I must say that anti-Semitism in our days is creating odd combinations – the elites who allegedly represent human progress joining up with the worst barbarians on Earth, those who chop off heads, persecute women, and destroy cultural treasures,” Netanyahu said. (J.Post) [Comment]

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Sickening footage of a seven-year-old Palestinian girl 'stabbing' Jews was taken at a 'festival of hate' partly funded by a UK charity supported by Jeremy Corbyn and Labor MPs, MailOnline revealed. The film of the gruesome children's play was broadcast on Hamas TV days ago, with the British charity’s logo clearly visible on a banner behind the stage. The little girl, dressed in a hijab, is seen pretending to stab two boys dressed as Israeli soldiers, who respond by 'shooting' her. Then, amid cheers from the baying crowd, a boy dressed as a masked terrorist massacres the soldiers with a replica semi-automatic weapon. This shocking display of brainwashing took place as part of ‘Palestine Festival for Children and Education’ – and the festival was funded by Interpal, which is widely supported by the UK’s Labor MPs. MailOnline's revelations will cause intense embarrassment to the Labor leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who is facing a storm of criticism for not acting strongly enough to quell anti-Semitism in his party. His office declined to comment. The Labor leader has spoken at Interpal fundraisers, and has appeared in a promotional video for the charity. In 2013, he and his wife accepted a £2,800 tour of Gaza funded by Interpal. He has called the organization’s chairman – a notorious Islamic hardliner– a ‘very good friend’, and has shared a platform with a range of extremists at Interpal events. The charity has been designated a ‘specially designated global terrorist organization’ by the United States, which says it 'facilitates the transfer of tens of millions of dollars a year to Hamas'. (MailOnline) [Comment]

 Israel’s Opposition leader Isaac Herzog responded furiously Saturday 31 April 2016, to the ongoing row over anti-Semitism in Britain’s Labor Party. In a lengthy Facebook post Herzog, who heads the Zionist Union slammed the "repulsive” comments made Thursday 28 April 2016, by former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who said that Hitler supported Zionism "before he went mad.”

"Hitler was a Zionist?!” Herzog wrote. "This is what a senior official in the British Labor Party says. A miserable and contemptible anti-Semitic statement,”Herzog continued. "This morning I sent a sharp letter to the head of the Labor Party and the party leadership, in which I warn against the disease of anti-Semitism and its consequences. There are no words to express how repulsive are this statement and others voiced in his party in recent day. I decided to invite the heads of Labor, precisely on the week of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, to visit Yad Vashem, (Israel’s Holocaust Museum) to understand how shocking Livingstone’s statements are. "When they arrive, I myself will give them a tour, to remind them of the painful realities they have forgotten, but we remember every day. "To Livingstone, who said that Hitler supported Zionism and his anti-Semitic colleague Shah who suggested that we relocate to the United States, I offer this reminder: The last time someone drove Jews from place to place it was by train to concentration camps, but this will not happen again. It will not happen because we have learned the lesson from such anti-Semites, and we will deal with them before they try to harm us. When we utter on Holocaust memorial days the sentence: Never again! It is these anti-Semites that we are referring to!” (Times of Israel) [Comment]

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London who was suspended from the Labor Party on Thursday 28 April 2016, for claiming that Nazi ruler Adolf Hitler was a Zionist, refused to back down "for telling the truth.” Livingstone said that his suspension was the result of a "well-orchestrated campaign” cooked up by the "Israel lobby.” The former London mayor said he gleaned information that served as the basis of his claims from a book written by Lenni Brenner, an American historian and Marxist who claimed there was collusion between the Zionist movement and the Nazi authorities. British anti-racism activists and Labor Party politicians are demanding Livingstone’s expulsion. In a radio interview with the BBC on Thursday, Livingstone said, "Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism.” He made the remarks in defense of Labor lawmaker Naz Shah, who was suspended a day earlier over a Facebook post in 2014 suggesting Israelis should be moved enmasse to the United States. Asked during the interview whether he regarded her statement as anti-Semitic, Livingstone said: "No, it’s completely over the top but it’s not anti-Semitic.” Livingstone’s remarks come at a sensitive time for Labor, which has recently seen the suspension of several members, including at the senior level, for anti-Semitic hate speech that critics say party leader Jeremy Corbyn is not doing enough to curb. Corbyn, a harsh critic of Israel who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas activists "friends” after inviting representatives from both terrorist groups to visit the British Parliament as his guests, is also accused of encouraging vitriol against Israel and Jews. (J. Post) [Comment]