Now this was a message worth sending -- and not just to Hamas. In an overnight raid in Rafah, the IDF rescued two male hostages from the grips of the terrorists that kidnapped them while murdering at least 1200 others in one of the most grotesque terror attacks ever. 

The implications of this raid are significant, but first let's just savor the moment:

In a complex overnight operation, Israeli special forces rescued two hostages from Hamas captivity in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip early Monday, marking the first successful extraction of captives held by the terror group in months.

The Israel Defense Forces said that Fernando Marman, 61, and Louis Har, 70, were in good condition after being rescued, following an operation that involved battles with Hamas terrorists and massive Israeli airstrikes in Rafah.

The ABC News report interestingly included Joe Biden's warning to Israel not to go into Rafah, at least not without a "detailed plan" on how to protect civilians. Biden and his team tried employing that inversion in Gaza City and Khan Younis as well, arguing that fighting a war that Hamas started was somehow de-legitimized by Hamas' strategy of using civilians as human shields. This week, Biden all but demanded a halt in the IDF's march on Hamas' last significant Gaza stronghold.

Now the IDF has made it clear that Hamas has hidden the hostages among the 'civilians' in Rafah. Now what was Biden lecturing Israel about? Ben Shapiro would like to know, too:

Biden warns Israel not to go into Rafah.
The IDF promptly goes into Rafah and saves two hostages.
The problem isn't just that Biden is senile. It's that he's always been a fool.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 12, 2024

'Fool' is putting it mildly. Biden has always been a moral idiot and a demagogue. 

Not that the media is doing much better today, although ABC deserves a kudo or two for its straight report above. The Associated Press had a slightly different perspective on things, and goes back to the mainstream media's favorite sourcing in the war:

Israeli forces rescued two hostages early Monday, storming a heavily guarded apartment in the Gaza Strip and extracting the captives under fire in a dramatic raid that was a small but symbolically significant success for Israel. Heavy airstrikes that provided cover for the operation killed at least 67 Palestinians, according to health officials in the beleaguered territory.

Ahem. "Health officials in the beleaguered territory" means Hamas. Hamas controls the health ministry in Gaza and routinely lies about casualty figures, especially those it identifies as "civilians." The whole absurd claim about the IDF targeting the Al-Ahli Hospital in the beginning of the war exposed this nonsense; American media outlets rushed to publish Hamas' propaganda about the supposed attack and the "five hundred" civilian casualties before the sun rose and revealed that a Palestinian rocket had malfunctioned and hit the hospital parking lot. It took a full week before some of those outlets acknowledged being entirely wrong about the claim, and some to this day still have not acknowledged their PR stunt for Hamas. 

The AP apparently still doesn't mind shilling for Hamas. Maybe that's because they employed a few Hamas terrorists as 'journalists.' 

The IDF does acknowledge that at least several people got killed in the raid. Why did the operation kill so many others? Because Hamas operatives opened fire on the IDF from several adjacent 'residential' buildings. Back to the Times of Israel:

He said the forces breached the apartment with explosives at 1:49 a.m., killing the three terrorists guarding the hostages and “hugged and protected Louis and Fernando with their bodies.”

Fighting also broke out in several adjacent buildings, with massive airstrikes carried out against Hamas terrorists in the area of the rescue operation at 1:50 a.m., Hagari said.

“There was intense firepower from the air. Fire was opened from nearby buildings. The Air Force struck intensively there,” he said.

In other words, Rafah is no different than Khan Younis or Gaza City, or practically any other urban center in Gaza. Hamas has turned them into military redoubts and has no compunction about operating in close proximity to civilians. Why anyone needs that explanation after 17 years of rocket fire launched from residential neighborhoods is anyone's guess, but this offers yet another demonstration. Just the fact that Hamas built its underground military fortresses under these cities is evidence enough to put the onus on Hamas for civilian casualties. The fact that they're hiding the people they kidnapped in residential areas of Rafah makes the entire city a legit military target for the IDF, and anyone who doesn't want to suffer those consequences had better surrender or get out.

If the Gazans want to blame someone for that, they should blame Hamas, especially for provoking an all-out war that they can only lose.

But maybe they already have. Has anyone wondered how the IDF figured out the precise location of these two hostages, especially within a Hamas redoubt with layers of defenses and security? The Jerusalem Post offers a strong hint:

The operation had been considered several times recently, but called off, until the operation was finally approved on Monday morning.

The hostages had been held on the second floor of a building heavily guarded as well as by additional guards in the next door building.

Israeli forces entered the compound clandestinely and used explosives, heavy fire and highly intimate intelligence about the exact placement of the hostages versus their guards to rescue Marman and Har without Hamas being able to kill them first. 

"Highly intimate knowledge"? Someone talked. The IDF has rounded up thousands of Hamas terrorists, from brigade commanders to their rank and file. The accuracy of this information and its immediacy speak to the IDF's intelligence on Hamas. That in itself will inform the Rafah operation and make precision even more achievable. More importantly, this mission's spectacular success will force what remains of Hamas command to start shifting its assets around rapidly. That will expose them to destruction at the hands of the IDF and may inspire larger-scale surrenders.

Congratulations to the Israelis on a gutsy call. And let this be a lesson to listen very closely to the advice that Biden and his team offer -- and do the exact opposite of whatever that disgraceful and dishonorable old 'fool' demands. 

Update: Defense minister Yoav Gallant says that there may be more such rescue operations, but warns Israelis not to get their hopes too high in that regard:

“Hamas is vulnerable, Hamas is penetrable, and it is possible to go anywhere and do anything,” Gallant says to troops of police’s elite Yamam unit, who carried out the rescue of Fernando Simon Marman and Norberto Louis Har.

“We [still] have hostages and we need to reach them. Most of them we will not bring this way, [but rather] I hope, through processes of agreement. But how many more times will [a rescue operation] be required, and under what circumstances — who knows?” he adds.

If they could get them all out in this manner, they would have been doing so all along. Although I suspect they're going to get more and more intel on hostage locations as morale breaks down in Rafah.