This week, perhaps more than any other except for October 7 itself, was probably the most heartrending, vicious, horrendous and humiliating of the entire war.

This is the week in which, against the hopes and prayers of millions of Israelis and good people worldwide, the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two little-redheaded babies were returned in Hamas coffins. Not only that, but they were returned after a barbaric public ceremony which included cheering Gazan families, with women and children celebrating the murder by strangulation and vicious mutilation of Jewish children, and the cold blooded murder of their mother and an elderly man.

On top of that, there was the forced release of hundreds of vicious terrorist murderers and operatives back into the Gazan “civilian” population.

As an Israeli woman who has lived in my homeland since 1971, I cannot remember a more humiliating, disgusting, and infuriating affront to the people of Israel. Right then and there, had I the opportunity and the means, I would have dropped an atom bomb on the entire population of Gaza. Well, perhaps not an atom bomb, because the fallout that might affect our own country, but certainly those 180 bunker-busters released to us courtesy of the Trump administration.

I watch, as I am sure Hamas and all our enemies are watching, the continued demonstrations of deluded Israelis blaming our government and demanding the immediate release of the hostages even though they know that is a code word for surrender to Hamas demands to turn the Gaza Strip over to the perpetrators of October 7. Even the cease fire has been used to rehabilitate Hamas and allow them to reorganize militarily to the extent that I read in this weekend’s paper that the IDF is concerned that there might be another, sudden October-7 style attack at any moment!

What the hell?!!!

I think to myself, where is the Israel of Entebbe which responded to hostage blackmail attempts with a lightning strike and rescue? Where is the army of Yonatan Netanyahu who gave his life to prevent the wholesale release of terrorists from Israeli jails?

I am not saying that there is an easy solution. But this craven, cringe-worthy capitulation to barbarous terrorist demands has got to stop, or we won’t have a country left to be proud of and believe in; a country that honors the sacrifices of its soldiers and their families and our many fallen civilians. Enough is enough! We must go back to war. We must take out our hostages by force and massacre the cheering savages. The idea that we can “negotiate” with these barbarians is to return to the wretched mind-set in which Israel thought it could “manage” Hamas instead of defeating it, a concept that let directly to October 7. There is only one response to those who rise up to murder you; kill them first. This we learn from our Torah.

The two-state solution died with the Bibas family. Now is the time to expand our borders and eject our enemies. We cannot exist in a situation where terrorists are so close to our borders in Judea and Samaria that they can with ease plant bombs on public buses. Only two days ago, a car ramming by an illegal Palestinian (married to an Israeli Arab, allowed in because of “unification of families”) happened right near me in Karkur while I was driving my IDF officer granddaughter to the train station in Binyamina. A seventeen year -old girl was critically injured, along with many others. How long can we rely on miracles to save us from our enemies?

The 42-day ceasefire is over. Hamas is insisting on Israel’s total withdrawal and victory in order to release 22 living hostages and 39 dead bodies. It is my understanding that the Netanyahu government has accepted the Witkoff compromise of extending the ceasefire in exchange for the release of half of the living and dead hostages. At this writing, this has been rejected by Hamas, led by Sinwar’s evil brother who has led the terror organization in its of hostage-taking in exchange for prisoner release strategy, as in the Shalit deal. Here they’ve taken it one step further, expecting to win an actual war of defense, aided by deluded Israeli quislings. This strategy must be demolished once and for all if we in Israel can ever hope to live in peace!

As of this morning, Netanyahu has closed Gaza to all entry of goods and supplies. Four hundred thousand reservists have been called up. I’m sure the crisp uniforms worn proudly by Hamas during the Bibas handover will quickly disappear now that they have to actually fight, replaced by their ever-ready “innocent civilian” attire, used for hiding behind civilians who are as guilty as they are.

To add to our headaches, we are now giving air cover to Druze in Jaramana in Syria being attacked by jihadi Syrian leaders, who are backed by that Hitler wannabee, that low-life, Erdogan. “We will not allow the jihadi regime in Syria to harm our Druze brothers,” says our Defense Minister Katz. Will this lead to a war between Israel and Turkey? Right, that’s all we need.

And as background noise, there is the release by the IDF of the initial reports on what was responsible for the October 7 tragedy that started this whole devils’ dance. So far, this is what has come out, according to Israel Today:

1. Completely wrongheaded understanding of the enemy. Our leaders (political and military) thought Gazan terrorists were happy with stabilization of the status quo. Wrong! The result: thousands of dead Israelis, a traumatized population, and billions in damages.
2. As a result of the first mistake, we didn’t prepare for a full-scale war with Hamas, which we thought unlikely.
3. We thought we could rely on high-tech barriers, which crumbled at the first low-tech assault by barbarians on the other side.
4. We were taken by surprise by the nature of the attack, its large numbers, speed, and unimaginable brutality. The latter is the only thing that can be forgiven. No one in the civilized world could imagine such savagery.
5. The illusion of superior intelligence. We started to believe in our own invincible Mossad myths. But there were no early intelligence warnings.
6. The low readiness of the Israeli Air Force on the morning of the attack.
7. Breakdown of IDF control in the crucial hours between 6:30 and 12:30, which allowed most of the massacres and kidnappings to take place.
8. The lack of coordination between the IDF General Staff and heads of the Domestic Intelligence. Information was not passed on to the political leadership, including Netanyahu, whose military advisor got the memo and let his boss sleep right through it.

Only the bravery of individuals, military and civilian, in sacrificing themselves to fill this vacuum of leadership, prevented even greater losses, and even complete annihilation.

I’m sure we are just at the beginning of analyzing our failures. But when we are done, I feel confident that despite the horrendous price we have paid, the resulting shake-up of the defense, intelligence and political establishments to correct these weaknesses will likely protect our country in the long run from even greater dangers.

May God watch over us and protect us as we resume the battle to destroy Hamas and all our enemies. As it is written: “Those who enter the month of Adar [the current month] will experience an excess of joy.”

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