It was a helluva thing that Israeli Defense Forces accomplished in Gaza Sunday night, while people around the world were otherwise distracted by a celebrity-studded football game in Las Vegas.
IDF and Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, launched a daring raid into the southern Gaza Strip to rescue two older hostages, men ages 60 and 70, whom Hamas terrorists took 128 days ago. Based on "precise intelligence," according to IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht — originally from Scotland — the operation breached a residential building where the hostages were known to be kept on the second floor.
Soldiers breached the building with explosives, and a firefight ensued inside the building and also outside as Hamas gunmen emerged from neighboring buildings. The IDF responded with armored vehicles and airstrikes. The IDF had prepared the rescue op for "some time," according to Lt. Col. Hecht, and were obviously prepared for most anything.
That's a lot of firepower to rescue just two hostages, but in the end, it worked. At least seven were killed in the raid, none from the IDF, Shin Bet, or the hostages. Only one IDF soldier was wounded, but not badly. That's about as successful a rescue operation as can be imagined, but Israel did it for real.
Congresscritter Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) described the rescue operation this way because of course he did: "While we watched the Super Bowl, Netanyahu launched a wave of attacks and killed innocent civilians in Rafah — a place where many refugees fled for relative safety — despite warnings from Biden. Netanyahu’s government is unfit to lead anything and cannot receive support."
About 100 hostages remain stashed in Hamas hideouts. Mainstream media news outlets still report that more than 28,000 Arabs in Gaza have been killed in four months of heavy fighting, usually using weasel words like, "according to local health officials." The local health officials in Gaza are part of the Hamas terror organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel and a new genocide against the Jews.
But back to Sunday night's rescue mission, which took about 30 minutes from start to finish and which top Israeli officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the man who ordered the operation — watched in real-time.
You know, the man Presidentish Joe Biden just called an "a**h***" because he's classy like that.
NBC News reported in the hours after yesterday's raid that "in at least three recent instances, Biden has called Netanyahu an 'a**h***,' according to three of the people directly familiar with his comments."
More:
Biden has in recent weeks spoken privately about Netanyahu, a leader he has known for decades, with a candor that has surprised some of those on the receiving end of his comments, people familiar with them said. His descriptions of his dealings with Netanyahu are peppered with contemptuous references to Netanyahu as “this guy,” these people said.
It's impossible to tell from the NBC report whether Biden's a**h*** comments are being reported to show that the old man is still on top of a difficult and fast-moving situation or as a tacit admission that grampa gets cranky when he doesn't get his way.
In any case, compare and contrast the thousands of American friends and allies Biden left trapped in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to the efforts put forth by the IDF to safely bring home just two Israeli hostages, and that tiny country's ongoing efforts to bring home those who still remain — because that leaves no doubt who the real a**h*** is is.
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