Which To Consider First; West Bank or Gaza When Planning Protection?

 :Nadene Goldfoot                                       

June 14, 2025, Iranian missiles attacking Israel  

June 21, 2025 Israel attacked Shiraz-Iran 

Thankfully, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump seem to be on the same page regarding the need to disarm Hamas before rebuilding Gaza. They've jumped the gun in discussing stage 2. 

 

Trump also feels the  permissibility of striking Iran if it continues building up its ballistic missile arsenal.  Americans have no idea of what this would be like if they do as they had ballistic missiles that can reach everyone, and they could, this time around, carry nuclear bombs, or anything deadly.  

An Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) is a long-range missile, typically nuclear-armed, designed to deliver warheads across continents, with ranges over 3,400 miles (5,500 km), launched from land silos or mobile platforms, using powerful rocket stages to reach space and then guide warheads to targets globally, with major operators including the US, Russia, and China. They function in boost, midcourse, and terminal phases, often carrying multiple warheads (MIRVs) for diverse targets, serving as a key component of national strategic nuclear deterrence, like the US Minuteman III. 

                              An Iranian ballistic missile

Key Characteristics

• Range: Over 3,400 miles (5,500 km), capable of reaching any target on Earth.
• Payload: Primarily nuclear warheads, but can carry conventional, biological, or chemical weapons.
• Trump made these points clear during their meeting yesterday at Mar-a-Lago. The US-Israel relationship is as solid as ever.
• However, other reporters, such as Ynet have a different take on the meeting. Ynet Opinion: Despite warm rhetoric at Mar-a-Lago, Washington is not ready to move to the next phase in Gaza, leaving Israel’s policy unchanged while US pressure focuses on the West Bank and Trump keeps leverage over Netanyahu for later demands

The West Bank means Judea and Samaria.  That involves Lebanon and the Hezbollah terrorists who are using Lebanon as a base to attack Israel.  Judea was the original home of the Jews, known of both religiously and culturally. It's the reason why religious Jews have settled there, as the land is holy to them.  They recognize every drop of soil's past history and why it's important to us.  Samaria was the capital city with the surrounding land also being named Samaria. The town of Samaria became the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel under King Omri (887-876 BCE),the 6th king after Solomon  who purchased the hill around the 9th century BCE and built his capital there, a tradition continued by his son King Ahab  (876-853). It served as Israel's capital for roughly 200 years, until the Assyrians conquered it in 722 BCE.  

Samaria:  Jordan acquired control of Samaria (part of the West Bank) by occupying it after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and formally annexing it in 1950, holding it until Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, during which time Jordan lost control. This annexation wasn't recognized internationally, and Jordan relinquished its claim in 1988. 

I must say, the 1967 attack by all the neighboring states of Israel did upset the apple cart when little old Israel won against all these Arab nations. 

Israel was all alone, too, except for HaShem.  These same stateswere so befuddled that they went to Khartoum, Africa for a big powwow about it and declared the 3 NOs.  The "Three No's" from the 1967 Khartoum Resolution by the Arab League were a definitive stance against Israel following the Six-Day War, stating: 

No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, and No negotiations with Israel,  creating a long-lasting obstacle to peace in the Middle East by rejecting any direct engagement. 

"The West Bank remains central to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians consider it the heart of their envisioned state, along with the Gaza Strip. Right-wing and nationalistic and religious Israelis see it as their ancestral homeland, with numerous biblical sites. There is a push among some Israelis for partial or complete annexation of this land. Additionally, it is home to a rising number of Israeli settlers. Area C contains 230 Israeli settlements where Israeli law is applied. Under the Oslo Accords this area was to be mostly transferred to the PNA (The acronym PNA can refer to several organizations, most commonly the Palestinian National Authority (the interim government for parts of the West Bank) by 1997, but that did not occur." It was to be an interim government created by the Oslo Accords to manage Palestinian territories (West Bank & Gaza, though Hamas has had control of Gaza used as a place to attack Israel). That was not to be its use, and so a war has been going on there.  

Gaza has to do with Trump's 20 point program looking at #1 returning all hostages, and there is one more that hasn't been returned who is deceased, that the Israelis must have returned first.  

The last deceased hostage whose body has not yet been returned from Gaza is Israeli police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili. Gvili, a 24-year-old officer in a special operations unit, was killed in action while defending Kibbutz Alumim and rescuing civilians on October 7, 2023. His body was subsequently abducted by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants and taken into Gaza. His return has become a central point in ongoing ceasefire negotiations, with his family and Israeli officials demanding the return of his remains before proceeding to the next phases of any deal. 

Phase 2 cannot at this point even find a country other than Israel to disarm the terrorists of Hamas, while they have continued to state thatthey will not give up their arms. Though they signed on, they refused tofollow the script and do their part.  
                            An Iranian ballistic missile 
                                              

In the U.S.-brokered peace plan, stage two requires the full disarmament of Hamas terrorists as a precondition for the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the beginning of Gaza's reconstruction. Incidently;  Hamas (Harakat al-Muqāwama al-Islāmiyya, or "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist military and sociopolitical movement and a designated foreign terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, Israel, and several other nations. It has been the de facto governing authority in the Gaza Strip since 2007. Not anymore.  October 7, 2023 put an end to them as well.