Today in Israel: A Dawn of Deliverance and Determination
By Jonathan Halevy, Conservative Correspondent for Hotspotnews
*October 13, 2025* – In the shadow of two harrowing years since the barbaric Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, Israel today stands at a pivotal crossroads. The air is thick with the mingled scents of jubilation and vigilance – joyous reunions in hospital corridors juxtaposed against the unyielding resolve of a nation that refuses to forget the blood-soaked fields of the south. As the final living hostages return home, and world leaders converge on Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh for a peace summit, one truth rings clear: Israel’s unbowed spirit, forged in the fires of adversity, has forced even its most implacable enemies to the negotiating table. This is no capitulation; it is the hard-won fruit of steadfast defense and unapologetic strength.
The day’s most heart-stirring scenes unfolded at hospitals across the country, where families – shattered by 738 days of agony – were at last made whole. Twenty brave souls, the last remaining living hostages from Hamas’s depraved kidnapping spree, crossed back into the embrace of their homeland in a meticulously orchestrated two-stage exchange. Evyatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal, childhood friends who endured the unimaginable together in Gaza’s tunnels of terror, shared a tearful reunion at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. Avinatan Or, abducted from the Nova music festival alongside his girlfriend Noa Argamani (herself rescued by Israeli commandos last year), held her close once more, a living testament to love’s defiance against jihadist cruelty. Parents wrapped in the blue-and-white of the Israeli flag uttered ancient blessings, while Omri Miran – whose infant daughter was barely days old on that black Sabbath – finally heard her call him “Daddy” for the first time, her older sibling now a vibrant four-year-old.
These moments were not gifts from the terrorists who held them; they were extracted through Israel’s ironclad commitment to “achieve all war goals,” as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a stirring address. In return, Israel released some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences for heinous acts of murder and mayhem. Among them were figures whose hands are stained with Jewish blood – a bitter pill swallowed not out of weakness, but to prioritize the sacred duty of redeeming every captive Israeli. Netanyahu’s cabinet ratified this first phase of President Donald Trump’s visionary 21-point Gaza plan, a blueprint that demands the total demilitarization of the Strip, the decommissioning of Hamas’s arsenal, and a deradicalized governance structure under international oversight. No sovereign Palestinian state – a suicidal fantasy that would only birth another launchpad for Iranian proxies – but a pathway to stability that safeguards Israel’s eternal security.
Yet amid the cheers, vigilance remains our watchword. Hamas’s coy statement on the handover of just four bodies – mum on the whereabouts of 24 others – reeks of the duplicity that has defined this terrorist scourge since its founding. Even as Red Cross vehicles rolled through Khan Younis to facilitate the swap, reports emerged of the group executing suspected “collaborators” in Gaza’s streets, a grim reminder that the Islamists’ “resistance” is little more than a veil for intra-Palestinian tyranny. And as displaced Gazans tentatively trek northward over the rubble of their self-inflicted wasteland, let us not forget: It was Hamas, not Israel, that fired rockets from playgrounds, human shields from hospitals, and turned a humanitarian crisis into a propaganda bonanza. Israel’s partial IDF withdrawal from the Strip is a tactical pause, not a retreat – a breathing space to refortify borders and redirect focus to the true existential threats: Iran’s nuclear machinations and Yemen’s Houthi horde.
Enter President Trump, the statesman whose bold diplomacy has reshaped the Middle East’s fault lines. Landing in Israel fresh from the Egypt summit he co-chairs with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump addressed the Knesset with the gravitas of a modern Moses, pledging America’s “everything possible” to enforce the deal and expand normalization pacts with Arab and Muslim nations. Flanked by Jordan’s King Abdullah II and a chorus of regional heavyweights, the summit – attended by more than 20 leaders from across the globe, including Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, and European Council President Antonio Costa – charts a future where Israel’s peace treaties bloom from strength, not supplication. Notably absent were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who cited the impending Jewish holiday as reason to stay home, and representatives from Hamas and Iran, whose boycotts only underscore their irrelevance to genuine progress. Trump’s plan wisely sidelines the corrupt Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, insisting instead on a reformed entity that rejects jihad and embraces coexistence. It’s a far cry from the Obama-Biden era’s feckless equivocation, which emboldened Iran’s mullahs and sowed the seeds of October 7. Under Trump’s America First realism, Israel is no longer the expendable pawn in a globalist game; we are the indispensable ally in a crusade against radical Islam.
From a conservative vantage, today’s triumphs underscore timeless verities: Peace through strength, sovereignty above all, and the moral clarity to call evil by its name. The hostages’ return is a victory for the Jewish people’s unbreakable covenant with life – “Am Yisrael Chai” – but it demands we redouble efforts to eradicate Hamas’s remnants, neutralize Hezbollah’s arsenal, and stare down Tehran’s ayatollahs. As Simchat Torah approaches, let us dance with Torah scrolls in hand, not as naive revelers, but as guardians of a light that no darkness can extinguish.
In Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, where memorials to October 7’s fallen still echo with grief, one mother’s words captured the day’s dual essence: “We rise, we rebuild, we remember.” Today in Israel, we do all three – with heads held high, hearts full, and resolve as firm as the hills of Judea. The road ahead is long, but with allies like Trump and the unyielding fortitude of our people, victory is not just possible; it is inevitable.
Critics on the left may scoff, dismissing it as mere pageantry. But facts don’t lie: Under Trump, the U.S. has reclaimed its role as the indispensable broker, defusing tensions that festered for years under previous administrations. This isn’t about ego—it’s about results. Hamas’s terror reign has ended, hostages are home, and a new era of regional security dawns. As Trump himself might say, it’s a huge win for peace, for Israel, and for the free world.
The Collar of the Nile isn’t just a medal; it’s a collar of leadership, fitting for a president who wears it with the gravitas of a modern pharaoh. Congratulations, Mr. President—America is proud, and history will remember.
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photos: Reuters
