Military, FBI and police presence is strong surrounding the Capital One Arena for the Victory Rally. Many Trump supporters in line have expressed disappointment that the inauguration tomorrow won’t be viewable as planned, but say the priority is President Trump’s security. pic.twitter.com/9Upb4Lmjhg

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) January 19, 2025

Planned Parenthood, which continues to receive the bulk of its taxpayer dollars through Medicaid reimbursements and the Title X Family Planning Program, has repeatedly failed to abide by mandatory reporting laws regarding child sexual abuse. Yet, both Medicaid and Title X require participants to comply with state and federal laws regarding the reporting of abuse.

Planned Parenthood’s primary funding sources: Medicaid and Title X

When legislation was proposed in 2015 to defund Planned Parenthood, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that Planned Parenthood received approximately $450 million annually in just federal funds.

CBO broke the funding down to two main sources: Medicaid and Title X. CBO found:

• $390 million is provided through the Medicaid program and less than $1 million is provided through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Medicare program combined.
• Approximately $60 million is provided through the National Family Planning Program, which operates under Title X of the Public Health Service Act (commonly referred to as Title X).

2013 – 2015: Live Action News previously documented a 2018 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report detailing direct federal funding from government agencies to Planned Parenthood between years 2013-2015. The pro-life Family Research Council analyzed the GAO report and concluded that federal government agency dollars (including Title X) to Planned Parenthood averaged out to approximately $500 million each year, ($288 million in federal grants, contracts, and reimbursements and $1.2 billion in Medicaid.)

2016-2018: GAO reports published in the past few years have revealed that from 2016-2018, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) received $1.6 billion in federal taxpayer dollars from Health and Human Services (HHS), averaging $533 million per year ($304 million through grants or cooperative agreements and $1.3 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP).

2019-2021: GAO reports from 2019-2021 showed that PPFA received $1.78 billion in federal taxpayer funding in just those three years, an average of $592 million federal dollars passed to Planned Parenthood — while Planned Parenthood abortions totaled $1.1 million within those same three years.

According to the report, between 2021 ($5.71 million) and 2022 ($27.06 million), the Biden Administration’s HHS obligations to Planned Parenthood increased nearly 374%.

Over $1.53 billion in reimbursements from Medicare ($3.28M), Medicaid ($1535.27M) as well as CHIP ($50K) went to Planned Parenthood, and Planned Parenthood received nearly $149 million in grants and cooperative agreements, according to the GAO report.

2024: Members of Congress recently requested for the GAO to provide them with updated numbers for the years 2022-2024.

Title X funds Planned Parenthood

Republicans initiated Title X

Title X was enacted in 1970, and as Live Action News has previously documented, one of the chief co-sponsors of the Title X statute allocating millions of federal tax dollars to Planned Parenthood was Rep. George H.W. Bush (R-Texas), who later became our nation’s 41st president. In 1970, the United States House of Representatives voted 298 to 32 to approve the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act, Title X of the Public Health Service Act, authorizing federal dollars to pay for “family planning” services for low-income women.

Live Action News has published additional information indicating that the push for federal population control dollars by Congressman Bush was actually initiated by Planned Parenthood and its “special affiliate,” the Guttmacher Institute, and enacted under the Richard Nixon Administration. (Read about that here).

Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, had been a board member of Planned Parenthood and, at that time, prior to Planned Parenthood’s decision to commit abortions, approved of the organization’s goals.

Title X is administered through the Office of Population Affairs (OPA) under HHS. The federal program consists of “grantees,” or “direct recipient[s]” of Title X funds, defined as “the entity that receives Federal financial assistance by means of a grant, and assumes legal and financial responsibility and accountability for the awarded funds, for the performance of the activities approved for funding and for reporting required information to the Office of Population Affairs.”

Funding can also go to “sub-recipients,” which, according to requirements, are “[t]hose entities that provide family planning services with Title X funds under a written agreement with a grantee. May also be referred to as delegates or contract agencies.” The facilities where grantee or sub-recipients are located are called “service sites.”

Today, Planned Parenthood, known for violating requirements to report sexual abuse, is one of the largest recipients of those tax dollars, securing about $60 million a year from taxpayers. In 2015, 474 of Planned Parenthood’s nearly 650 facilities were Title X recipients, according to a Guttmacher Institute report.

While the federal Hyde Amendment prohibits federal taxpayer dollars from funding abortion directly, money is fungible. Money given to Planned Parenthood helps to pay for salaries, facility rent, and general overhead of the same facilities and employees who also participate in abortions.

This is why, in 2019, President Donald Trump implemented the ‘Protect Life Rule,’ a rule change which blocked facilities that received federal Title X family planning funds from providing or referring for abortion, including Planned Parenthood. At that time, HHS Secretary Alex Azar noted in a FOX interview, “Cancer screenings and preventative services [at Planned Parenthood facilities] are down 60 percent over the last eight years.”

Rather than stop committing abortions, according to a press release published by the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocacy or abortion-sympathetic recipients relinquished $33.6 million in Title X grants. In 2019, Planned Parenthood made up just nine percent (9%) of the 90 HHS-approved Title X Family Planning grant recipients.

Shortly after taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order instructing HHS to review the rule enacted by the previous administration. In October of that year, the Biden-Harris administration revoked Trump’s protections, announcing their intention to fully restore the funding to abortion businesses beginning November 8, 2021.

And they did.

Between 2022 and 2024, OPA allocated nearly $60 million to Planned Parenthood. Monies allocated are different from dollars sent to a Title X recipient during a specific year, and they break down as follows:

• In 2022, OPA awarded funding to 89 Title X grant recipients, directly allocating over $16.8 million to 13 Planned Parenthood recipients. Planned Parenthood made up 15% of Title X recipients.
• In 2023, OPA awarded funding to 86 Title X grant recipients, directly allocating nearly $20.8 million to 13 Planned Parenthood recipients. Planned Parenthood made up nearly 16% of Title X recipients.
• In 2024, OPA awarded funding to 86 Title X grant recipients, directly allocating nearly $20.6 million to 13 Planned Parenthood recipients. Planned Parenthood again made up nearly 16% of Title X recipients.

The recipients include Planned Parenthood affiliates, which means the federal dollars are being funneled to multiple Planned Parenthood centers under each affiliate’s control.

Planned Parenthood violates Title X requirements to report child sexual abuse

Title X makes it mandatory for recipients to report child sexual abuse, protect patient privacy, and refrain from discriminating based on race and other characteristics — all of which Planned Parenthood has failed to do.

A May 2008 presentation by Susan B. Moskosky, Director of the Office of Family Planning/Office of Population Affairs at HHS, also made it clear that Title X recipients are expected to report child sexual abuse.

As Live Action News previously documented, on April 25, 2014, OPA released Title X Family Planning Guidelines, which clarified that “all Title X providers must comply with State laws requiring notification or the reporting of child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, or incest.” This was reiterated in the 2014 Program Requirements for Title X Funded Family Planning Projects.

According to a March 2016 report by the Congressional Research Service, reporting suspicion of child sexual abuse is expected of Title X providers. The report stated that, “Although minors are to receive confidential services, Title X providers are not exempt from state notification and reporting laws on child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, or incest.”

More currently, OPA’s July 2022 Title X handbook is clear: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no provider of services under title X of the PHS Act shall be exempt from any State law requiring notification or the reporting of child abuse, child molestation, sexual abuse, rape, or incest.”

It also reiterates that Title X funds cannot pay for abortions:

That amounts provided to said projects under such title shall not be expended for abortions, that all pregnancy counseling shall be nondirective, and that such amounts shall not be expended for any activity (including the publication or distribution of literature) that in any way tends to promote public support or opposition to any legislative proposal or candidate for public office.

Under the heading “Project Administration” in the 2022 Title X handbook, it is also clear that recipients must protect patient privacy and they cannot discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or sex, etc.:

• “Provide services in a manner that does not discriminate against any client based on religion, race, color, national origin, disability, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex characteristics, number of pregnancies, or marital status. (42 CFR § 59.5(a)(4))”
• Ensure that all information as to personal facts and circumstances obtained by the project staff about individuals receiving services must be held confidential and must not be disclosed without the individual’s documented consent, except as may be necessary to provide services to the patient or as required by law, with appropriate safeguards for confidentiality. Information may otherwise be disclosed only in summary, statistical, or other form that does not identify the individual. Reasonable efforts to collect charges without jeopardizing client confidentiality must be made. Recipients must inform the client of any potential for disclosure of their confidential health information to policyholders where the policyholder is someone other than the client. (42 CFR § 59.10(a))

In addition to Tile X, an Office of Inspector General report published in 2020 claimed that Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) regulations “require all facilities and their practitioners to comply with the mandatory reporting laws for abuse and neglect applicable to their State, including compliance with timeliness requirements.”

The report also noted that sexually transmitted diseases, as well as coding for “[e]ncounter for pregnancy test and childbirth and childcare instruction,” may be indicative of potential child abuse.

Despite these very specific requirements, Live Action News has documented that Planned Parenthood has not only repeatedly failed to report child sexual abuse, but it has also been accused of discrimination and failing to protect the private medical data of their clients, among a host of other abuses. A recent op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy indicated that defunding Planned Parenthood might be on their radar of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

And it should be.

Over the years, while Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) increased health care services and clients, Planned Parenthood’s actual health services and clients have been on the decline. What has skyrocketed at Planned Parenthood is the organization’s taxpayer dollars and abortions. Since 2000, Planned Parenthood has committed over 7.1 million abortions while receiving nearly $10.7 billion from taxpayers, while FQHCs do not commit abortions.

Live Action News previously detailed multiple abuses (including accusations of racial and pregnancy discrimination as well as a failure to protect confidential client information), by the abortion corporation. Live Action News also plans to report on multiple examples of actual cases where Planned Parenthood failed to report child sexual abuse, often leaving the young teen victims to be repeatedly sexually abused following their encounter with Planned Parenthood.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

A California man with four prior DUI convictions has been charged with murder after allegedly causing a head-on crash on New Year’s Day that killed a pregnant woman and her preborn child.

According to The Mercury News, Jesus Carlos Temores, 50, faces two counts of murder in the deaths of 29-year-old Rachel Marie Gonzalez Gallegos and her preborn baby, who was five months gestation. He also faces charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, causing injury.

It was at about 6:30 p.m. on January 1 that Temores was driving east when he crossed the double-yellow lines into oncoming traffic. His truck struck an SUV head-on and then hit a sedan before stopping.

Gonzalez Gallegos and her preborn baby were rushed to the hospital, but both died later that night. The man driving the SUV they were in suffered a head injury, and a four-year-old boy in a car seat was treated for cuts to his head and a concussion.

The four persons in the sedan suffered minor injuries.

Officers who arrived at the scene “noted objective signs of alcohol intoxication including red and watery eyes and a strong odor of alcohol” on Temores. He also “performed poorly” when three field sobriety tests were administered. Temores was given two chemical breath tests about an hour after the crash, which showed he had a blood alcohol level of 0.172% and 0.177% — more than twice the legal limit of 0.08%.

Temores was convicted of a DUI in 2015 with three DUIs prior to that. According to The Mercury News, defendants who have prior DUI convictions are required to acknowledge the danger of their actions in court and undergo court-mandated education about driving under the influence.

Because of this, they are subject to the Watson murder theory, a legal concept in California that allows a subsequent DUI that results in death to be charged as second-degree murder rather than gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. A Watson murder is an implied malice murder while driving under the influence, meaning that the person did not necessarily have the intent to kill anyone but carried out an act that he knew could kill, showing no regard for human lives.

Despite the murder charge against Temores for the death of the preborn baby, California’s Reproductive Privacy Act of 2023 states “every pregnant individual … has the fundamental right … to choose to have and to obtain an abortion…” The state law defines abortion as (emphasis added) “any medical treatment intended to induce the termination of a pregnancy except for the purpose of producing a live birth” meaning, any procedure with the intent to cause the baby’s death.

According to Abortion Finder, abortion is legal in California through the age of “viability,” which is defined only as “the point in a pregnancy when, in the good faith medical judgment of a physician, on the particular facts of the case before that physician, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus’ sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.” This broad definition means that “viability” is up to an abortionist’s discretion and therefore, an abortion can be committed at any point in pregnancy as long as the abortionist deems the baby to be non-viable.

The lives of Gonzalez Gallegos and her baby both mattered, and California law acknowledges this. Yet it allows other preborn children of the same gestational age to be intentionally killed by abortion for any reason and celebrates those deaths as a woman’s right.

Temores is currently being held without bail at a Santa Clara County jail.

[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

A home builder in Seattle has won a fight against the city’s “extortion,” demands for $350,000 payment for a water line the project didn’t need and wouldn’t use.

In fact, the water line the city demanded Oom Living fund wasn’t even in his neighborhood.

The results of the fight were announced by the Pacific Legal Foundation.

“The ruling is a great win for a small company that is trying to build new houses in a city where there is an obvious, and desperate, need for them,” explained PLF lawyer Brian Hodges.

“The city’s demands were nothing more than an exorbitant ransom to receive permission to connect to a public water line, which is necessary to live in a home. Such demands violate the owner’s civil rights.”

He said with the ruling, “Seattle cannot abuse its power to withhold water connection approvals to force individual property owners to pay for infrastructure that’s unrelated to their building project. This victory for home builders and homebuyers will stop the city from shifting unnecessary costs onto the purchase price of new homes.”

The ruling in the court fight said the Seattle Public Utilities “arbitrarily and unconstitutionally attempted to force the company to pay for an unnecessary water main in order to build the new house.”

The city utility said the building could hook up the new home to the water utility, but only after paying for the new line.

The new line was to address a historic problem with the city’s infrastructure, to which the new home had no connection.

“Under SPU’s policy, it didn’t matter that Oom Living’s home fronted an existing water main with ample supply, nor did it matter that the new water main would dead-end in a fully built-out neighborhood that has no need for new pipes. Nor did it even matter that the city’s demands would have cost the company over $350,000—a cost that would massively increase the home’s ultimate purchase price.”

The ruling came from Superior Court of Washington for King County, which told the city it was not allowed to hold the development of a new home hostage to demands for payment for unrelated infrastructure.

Free speech in America can include a lot of different methods of expression: A sign, a statement, a written document, an image painted on the side of a building, even an association, and much more.

And now “spooky” Christmas decorations.

That’s the argument from the Institute for Justice which is blasting the city of Germantown, Tennessee, for a decision by its officials to brazenly violate free speech by citing Alexis Luttrell, a resident, for violating the city’s sign code.

“Her supposed crime: Incorporating Halloween decorations like skeletons into her Christmas yard display. You would think that only a grinch would look at Luttrell’s decorations and think they deserve a court summons. But IJ cases from over a decade show that officials across the country regularly abuse ordinary Americans by acting like the ‘speech police”” the organization said in a report on the fracas.

“The whole idea behind free speech is that you get to choose what you want to put up to celebrate,” IJ lawyer Robert Frommer explained. “Officials shouldn’t get to block you from expressing yourself just because they dislike your reason for the season.”

The report said Luttrell put a skeleton and a skeleton dog in her yard to commemorate Halloween. After that holiday, she used the skeleton and dog as Christmas decorations.

“Germantown officials weren’t pleased and issued Luttrell a court summons, stating that her decorations violated city code,” the organization reported.

Germantown bans residents from installing holiday decorations more than 45 days before the date of the holiday and requires residents to remove seasonal decorations within 30 days after the holiday, the report said.

Luttrell is due in court Feb. 13.

However, the institute pointed out, “A core principle of the First Amendment is that the government generally can’t discriminate against speech based on what it says or who put it up. And here, that includes the decorations that someone puts up to celebrate.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, back in 2015, that “those kind of content-based regulations must serve the most compelling of government interests.”

A lawsuit has been filed against Idaho Gov. Brad Little and couple of the state’s National Guard leaders for removing a Christian officer from command “solely due to his personal Christian expression on biblical sexuality made outside of the military environment.”

The action is coming from Liberty Counsel, which has reported on facts of the situation.

“The ‘No Christians in Command’ policy constitutes a religious gerrymander by unconstitutionally orphaning sincerely held religious beliefs while permitting the more favored nonreligious value systems,” the case charges. “On its face and as applied, [the policy] lacks any rational basis and is irrational and unjustifiable.”

Mat Staver, founder and chief, said, “The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that military members do not shed their constitutional rights when they step forward to serve the nation. Nor are the military departments immune to the laws protecting their individual freedoms. By suspending and removing Major David Worley from command over his Christian beliefs, the Idaho Army National Guard informally adopted an unconstitutional ‘No Christians in Command’ policy.

“The Constitution simply does not allow the military to punish those with sincerely held religious beliefs or to specifically target religion for disparate and discriminatory treatment. Governor Brad Little must ensure that the Idaho Army National Guard upholds federal and state law and protects the free speech of its service members. This discrimination against Major Worley must stop and his record must be cleared and his career restored.”

The dispute is over the state’s attacks on Maj. David Worley, an infantry officer who ran for mayor in Pocatello, Idaho.

“During Worley’s political campaign, which he conducted strictly outside his military duties, he expressed his religious convictions and moral objections to certain issues relevant to political discourse in his community. He expressed his opposition to issues involving so-called ‘Drag Queen Story Hours,’ pornographic material for minors in public libraries, and the medical mutilation of gender-confused children. All of Worley’s protected speech occurred off-duty in his private capacity and before he took command of the Idaho Army National Guard’s Recruiting and Retention unit,” the legal team said.

But then one enlisted man, “who claims to be homosexual and is ideologically opposed to Worley’s religious beliefs,” complained about discrimination because he felt “threatened and unsafe” due to Worley’s beliefs.

The Idaho Army National Guard suspended Worley from command in July 2023, the pressured him to resign, a move that was rescinded within hours.

Finally, when the National Guard investigated and found the complaints were unsubstantiated, it concluded with the recommendation that “all candidates for command be scrutinized to ensure any concerning expression is discovered, reported to the Department of Defense, and investigated for extremist activity.”

Liberty Counsel said the National Guard then claimed Worley’s beliefs were “toxic” and removed him from command, “solely due to those protected religious views.”

Other defendants are Adjutant General of the Idaho National Guard Major General Timothy J. Donnellan and the Assistant Adjutant General for the Idaho Army National Guard Brigadier General James C. Packwood.

The lawsuit charges that the punishment violates the First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Idaho Free Exercise of Religious Protection Act.

JERUSALEM – With the release of the first three hostages on Sunday – named as Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbracher, all of whom are women – thoughts inevitably turn to just how much is being demanded in return with the potential release of more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners, including more than 700 convicted murdrerers, if all the phases of the deal were to be completed.

As with the deal which secured the release of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in 2011 – during which Israel’s current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also in charge – there seems to be a distinct imbalance as to the price Israel is being asked to pay. It must be remembered, the psychopathic former Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded and orchestrated the Oct. 7 attacks – and who was imprisoned for killing Palestinians – was let out during that agreement. Despite the fact he was thankfully killed in October during a routine IDF operation in Gaza, the potential parallels are too stark to be overlooked.

And people should be under no illusions that any of these people are reformed characters. Indeed, one of Hamas’ leaders Khalil al-Hayya, praised the Oct. 7 attacks, while threatening a repeat of them, which seems a strange thing to do for a people who were reportedly the victims of a genocide.

This rogues’ gallery includes the likes of the following:

Ahmad Barghouti, a close aide and cousin of Marwan Barghouti, sentenced to 13 life terms for leading a “murder machine” that carried out attacks in which 12 Israelis were killed, including the suicide bombing at the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv.

Wael Qassem (head of the cell), Wassam Abbasi, Mohammed Odeh, members of Hamas’s “Silwan Cell,” responsible for attacks which killed 35 Israelis, including the bombing at Café Moment in Jerusalem where 11 Israelis were killed, the attack at the Spaghettim Club in Rishon LeZion where 15 Israelis were killed, and the bombing at the Frank Sinatra Cafeteria at the Hebrew University where 9 Israelis were killed.

Zakaria Zubeidi is a former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Jenin, responsible for a series of attacks, including the attack at the Likud branch in Beit She’an where 6 Israelis were killed. He was also one of the terrorists who escaped from Gilboa Prison in 2021. Since he was not convicted of murder but other offenses, Zubeidi will not be deported abroad and is expected to be released back to Judea and Samaria.

Abdullah Sharabati, Majdi Zaatari, and Samer Alatrash, members of the cell responsible for a series of attacks on bus lines 2 and 14 in Jerusalem in 2003, one of which killed 23 Israelis, including 7 children, and carried out the suicide bombing on line 6 in the French Hill where seven Israelis were killed and 20 were injured. They planned a long series of additional attacks.

Mohammed Amoudi, who dispatched the suicide bomber for the attack at the “Mayor’s Shawarma” stand in Tel Aviv in 2006, killing 11 people.

Mohammed Abu Warda, who sent the suicide bombers for the attacks on line 18 in Jerusalem in 1996, attacks in which 45 Israelis were killed. He is serving 48 life sentences in an Israeli prison.

Mahmoud Abu Varda, who murdered 45 Israelis, is just one of the 1,700 terrorists that Israel will release in return for 23 hostages (women and elderly).

Nobody in history made a more disgraceful deal. pic.twitter.com/iqW0on9JeB

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) January 18, 2025

Mahmoud Atallah, a life prisoner who murdered a Palestinian woman, and during his time in a security prison, was accused of raping a female guard as part of the pimping scandal in Gilboa Prison. He will not be deported but will be released to Judea and Samaria.

Nour Jaber, a terrorist responsible for the murder of 16 Israelis: dispatched the suicide attacks on the worshipers’ route in Hebron in 2002 where 12 Israelis were killed, including Brigade Commander Dror Weinberg, and the attack in Atzmona in 2002 where four Israelis were killed.

Sami Jaradat, one of the terrorists responsible for the attack at Maxim Restaurant in Haifa in 2003, where 21 Israelis were killed.

Ali Sufuri, a senior Islamic Jihad terrorist responsible for the murder of nine Israelis and the wounding of more than 100 in a series of attacks: the car bomb explosion at the central station in Hadera where 45 Israelis were injured, the shooting attack at the market in Hadera where four Israelis were killed, the suicide bombing at the Check Post junction where 29 civilians were injured, and many more attacks.

Omar Al-Zaben, one of the leaders of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, responsible for a long series of attacks in which 27 Israelis were killed, sentenced to 27 life terms in prison.

Ramadan Mashahra, one of the terrorists involved in the suicide bombing in the Gilo neighborhood in Jerusalem in 2002, where 19 Israelis were killed.

Shadi Amouri, one of the planners of the car bomb attack at the Megiddo junction in 2002, where 17 were killed.

Thabet Mardawi, a senior Islamic Jihad operative responsible for a series of attacks during the Second Intifada in which 21 were killed and nearly 200 wounded.

Thabet Mardawi, who murdered tens of Israelis and injured hundreds in a series of terrorist attacks he planned and led, is just one of the 1,900 terrorists that Israel will release in return for 23 hostages (women and elderly).

Nobody in history made a more disgraceful deal. pic.twitter.com/fPPHilGXg7

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) January 18, 2025

Israelis caught between relief and outrage

After more than 15 long months of war, Israelis are experiencing acute levels of fatigue. While the prospect of the return of some hostages – it seems as unlikely today as it did on Oct. 8 all will be returned – is welcomed and anyone with a soul rejoices at the prospect of the emotional reunions of families torn asunder on that blackest of Sabbaths in October 2023, there is also a deep sense of foreboding. It feels like we’ve been here before. The prime minister makes certain pronouncements that assurances have been given and the IDF will be able to return to Gaza etc, but wars have their own momentum, and once they have been stopped, it’s difficult to reanimate them, whatever the justice and justification for doing so.

It is almost inevitable many if not nearly all of the most hardened murderers being released in this deal, will go right back to either plotting and/ or carrying out the murders of Israelis. While it is true some will be exiled, there are also a number who will be returned to Judea and Samaria, and it is here the closest eye will need to be cast on their activities.

They’re home! 3 female former hostages – Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher – arrive back in Israel

WATCH: Joe Biden reacts to release of hostages in Gaza

JERUSALEM – After 471 days of Hamas captivity, three now former female hostages were finally released to Israel’s military and taken to a specially assembled medical facility for an initial check before being taken on to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where doctors will perform a more through examination on them, ahead of being reunited with their families.

They’re home. pic.twitter.com/PHkJ3yZLrV

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) January 19, 2025

The International Committee of the Red Cross – which has done nothing to attempt to visit these or any other hostages, even as it supposed to transfer medical supplies in late 2023, delivered the young women to the IDF and to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet).

There was high drama and theater at the hand over, as thousands of mostly Gazan men crowded the streets. Many were now fully decked out in their Hamas military fatigues, no longer in need of hiding out in tunnels and houses in their t-shirts, Adidas sweatpants and sandals.

The sight was indeed a galling one; for months the Western media has wanted to be hoodwinked about the levels of deprivation in the Strip, and here were thousands of people looking well-fed and with fully-charged cell phones, hardly the so-called victims of a supposed genocide.

Meanwhile, in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, thousands of people thronged the space, watching in stunned disbelief as the first images of the girls – sitting in a van and surrounded by heavily armed men – emerged.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, in a news conference, says former hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher “are now in safe hands.”

“They are in our hands. They are coming home,” he said.

מצורף תיעוד של משפחות השבות צופות ברגעי החבירה לכוח צה״ל pic.twitter.com/TwLuIxBlaf

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 19, 2025

Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden couldn’t resist one more attempt at stealing the limelight, giving what will likely prove his last address from the Oval Office, at the news of the hostages’ release. When a reporter asked him if he had any concerns about Hamas regrouping, he replied with a curt, “No.” It was an appropriate bookend to a career in which he has been wrong about almost every foreign policy debate he has weighed in on.

Reporter: “Any concerns about Hamas regrouping?”

Biden: “No.”

Demented and delusional. What a travesty of a world leader.

pic.twitter.com/zDPmOVHSmc

— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) January 19, 2025

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog spoke for a nation when he said everyone rejoiced at the released hostages’ return.

“We send you and your families a huge embrace. This is a day of joy and comfort, and the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery and healing together.”

Romi, Emily, and Doron – so beloved and missed – an entire nation rejoices at your return.

We send you and your families a huge embrace. This is a day of joy and comfort, and the beginning of a challenging journey of recovery and healing together.

“The eyes weep bitterly,…

— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) January 19, 2025