Swords of Iron Day 1070: A Little Irrational, or Simply Awake?

After three years on the front lines, whether behind enemy lines in Lebanon, inside Gaza, up in Syria, or somewhere else entirely, you start to see the picture differently. On Swords of Iron Day 1070, that difference matters more than ever.

Jared Kushner said Israel is acting “a little irrational” over Gaza, and suggested that our election season is making the government less willing to implement the Gaza plan drawn up in Washington. I read that and thought something simple. He may not understand what we understand.

We are not being irrational. We are being awake.

Who Actually Disarms Hamas?

It is not irrational to say that Hamas must be fully and completely disarmed before anyone rebuilds Gaza. It is the only serious position in the room.

So ask the practical questions. Who collects the weapons? Who destroys the tunnels? Who hunts down the caches hidden under schools, hospitals, and living rooms? And who stops Hamas from rebuilding and doing October 7 all over again?

A signature on a document does not collect a rifle. A press conference does not collapse a tunnel shaft. Somebody has to physically go down there and do it, and on Swords of Iron Day 1070 that somebody is still us.

Swords of Iron Day 1070: Washington Is Only Now Seeing the Scale

Washington is only now beginning to grasp how deeply Hamas militarized Gaza. That is not really a criticism. It is what happens when you read about a tunnel network instead of crawling through one.

After three years of clearing tunnels and dismantling infrastructure, there is still more hidden underground. Our soldiers keep finding another shaft, another weapons room, another launch site built into a civilian building.

Demilitarization will not be quick. It will not be clean. And it will be dangerous for the people who actually carry it out.

What Real Demilitarization Would Actually Require

Every version of the Gaza plan skips the hardest part. So here is what serious demilitarization looks like from the ground, and why Swords of Iron Day 1070 finds us still doing it by hand.

• Surrender and destruction of every rocket, launcher, and weapons cache, verified by people who can physically inspect the sites.
• Mapping and collapsing what remains of the tunnel network, including the shafts that run under homes, schools, and hospitals.
• Closing the workshops and laboratories that manufacture weapons inside civilian buildings.
• Removing Hamas from policing, customs, taxation, and aid distribution, because whoever controls the money controls the guns.
• A monitoring body with the authority and the will to act on violations rather than simply file a report about them.

None of that fits a signing ceremony timetable. It happens slowly, house by house, with people taking real risks every single day. Anyone who calls that expectation irrational has never stood at the mouth of a tunnel.

We Already Tried Withdraw and Trust

Diplomatic agreements are fine. But who enforces them? That question sits at the heart of Swords of Iron Day 1070.

We have run this experiment before. Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, evacuated every Jewish community there, and went so far as to dig up and empty the Jewish cemeteries so that no grave would be left behind. We were told that peace might follow.

Peace did not follow. Rockets followed. Tunnels followed. October 7 followed.

We have been there and done that, and the bloodstained shirts we came home in were not what we bargained for.

So, Jared, here is what I would call irrational. Withdrawing again and trusting Hamas to disarm itself.

Imagine losing your son to a terrorist. Imagine your daughter kidnapped and raped. Then imagine being told to forget it, rebuild, and move on. We have been asked to do exactly that before. We are not naive anymore.

Framing Matters, and So Does History

President Trump is a real friend of Israel. I believe he and Jared Kushner genuinely want to do something good here, and I do not question their intentions.

But we have to be careful about how the world frames Israel. We are the victims of October 7. We are the ones defending our families. Turning us into the obstacle flips the whole story upside down.

The same distortion follows us into Judea and Samaria, where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked, where King David was crowned, and where so much of the Bible actually took place. People call us colonizers and occupiers while ignoring both the history and the law, including the principle of uti possidetis juris, which holds that a new state inherits the boundaries of the territory it emerged from.

You cannot occupy the land where your own ancestors lie buried.

The Shofar, Teshuva, and Choosing the Right Path

Swords of Iron Day 1070 arrives as the shofar sounds and the season of teshuva begins. I keep thinking about what that word actually means. Turning around. Coming back. Repenting.

Teshuva is not only personal. A nation can do it too. We can look honestly at the mistakes of the past, at the Oslo Accords and everything that grew out of them, and choose a different road instead of walking the same wrong one again.

Psalm 20:1 says, “The Lord answer thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee.”

Through all of it, God has heard us. He will defend us.

Happy blasting of the shofars.

Watch the Full Swords of Iron Day 1070 Update

You can watch the complete Day 1070 briefing on Rumble. For the previous briefing in this series, see Swords of Iron Day 1069. You can also learn more about the work we do on the ground through the Aliyah Return Center.

About These Swords of Iron Updates

Swords of Iron Day 1070 is part of a daily series that the team at the Aliyah Return Center in the Galilee writes from Israel. Each update draws on Israeli and international reporting alongside firsthand perspective from the ground. Our work centers on welcoming and supporting new immigrants, training ambassadors for Israel, and helping friends of Israel around the world understand what is actually happening here. If you would like to visit, volunteer, or support this work, you can reach us through the Aliyah Return Center website.