Today, Thursday, is the 17th of Tammuz Fast Day, marking the beginning of the period known as the Three Weeks, which precedes the 9 Av Fast Day, more commonly known as Tisha B’Av.Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi Yona Metzger announced earlier today that northern residents are not compelled to fast if they are suffering from anxiety and other symptoms as a result of the rocket attacks.
The fast on the 17th of Tammuz commemorates the siege on Jerusalem which preceded the destruction of the Holy Temples on Tisha B’Av.
Ahmadinejad: Zionists are most detested people in humanity
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has launched a fresh verbal attack on Israel by describing "Zionists" as the "most detested people" on the planet.The comment came after Iran's top national security official, Ali Larijani, had met Palestinian groups to voice the Islamic republic's "decisive support" for their battle against Israel.
"The Zionists and their protectors are the most detested people in all of humanity, and the hatred is increasing every day," the president was quoted as saying by Iranian state television.
"The worse their crimes, the quicker they will fall," added Ahmadinejad.... Israel, the president asserted ... "has blackened the pages of history."
DEBKAfile:
Iran’s national security adviser Ali Larijani [flew] to Damascus aboard special military plane Wednesday night as war tension builds ... Larijani is also Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator. He will remain in Damascus for the duration of the crisis in line with the [recent] Iranian-Syrian mutual defense pact.His presence affirms that an Israeli attack on Syria will be deemed an assault on Iran [and] ... links the Israeli hostage crisis to Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West.
The Syrian army has been put on a state of preparedness.... the Iranian air force, missile units and navy are also on high alert.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report Hizballah acted on orders from Tehran to open a second front against Israel, partly to ease IDF military pressure on the Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This was in response to an appeal Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal made to the Iranian ambassador to Damascus Mohammad Hassan Akhtari Sunday, July 9.
[NB: Meshaal also met with top political advisor to the Turkish PM; and very tangentially, see The Forward --Yael].
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut's southern suburbs ... Nasrallah... joked:
"What do they want us to do? Hand over the soldiers and apologize? What kind of world are they living in?"
... immediately after Nasrallah’s statement to the media, Hizballah’s leaders went into hiding, their bases were evacuated and their fighting strength transferred to pre-planned places of concealment.Ahead of the abduction, Hizballah ordnance and missile stocks were transferred to the Palestinian Ahmed Jibril’s tunnel system at Naama, 30 km south of Beirut, which was built in the 1980s by East German engineers. The Israel navy has long tried to smash this coastal underground fortress from the sea without success.
On this day in Jewish history,
Moses descended Mount Sinai and, upon seeing the Golden Calf broke the first set of Tablets carrying the Ten Commandments;
the walls of Jerusalem were breached after many months of siege by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces (3184 / 586 BCE);
in the time of the Roman persecution, Apostomos, captain of the occupation forces publicly burned the Torah;
Titus and Rome breached the walls of Jerusalem (3760 / 70 CE);
Pope Gregory IX ordered the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud (4999 / 1239);
more than 4,000 Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain (1391) [the destruction of Spanish Jewry began on the 17th of Tammuz and was completed (so to speak) 101 years later on Tish'a b'Av];
the Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted (4319 / 1559);
4,000 Jews of the ghetto in Bialystok were shot (1941);
the Kovno ghetto was "liquidated" (5704 / 1944);
Libya ordered the confiscation of Jewish property (5730 / 1970)
....
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