FPI / August 23, 2023
The Biden Administration appears to have successfully circumvented Congressional oversight in approving the release of billions in funds for Iran in a mid-August prisoner-exchange deal.
“That the White House announced this deal during the August congressional recess was no coincidence. Emergency hearings cannot be held. Resolutions of disapproval cannot be fast-tracked. President Biden has successfully evaded the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which requires him to notify Congress of any agreement with Iran related to its nuclear program before lifting sanctions,” Richard Goldberg wrote for The Dispatch on Aug. 15.
With Iran insisting that the prisoner exchange negotiations placed no restrictions on how Iran uses the funds, its terror proxies Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad will undoubtedly benefit as the Biden Administration gives Iran access to at least $16 billion, including $6 billion held in South Korea.
In the analysis, titled “The Disastrous Implications of the $6 Billion Hostage Deal,” Goldberg noted that the Biden Team’s deal with Iran “will encourage hostage diplomacy among our foes” and “is the least of the problems.”
In the past three months, a group affiliated with Hamas fired at least six rockets towards Israeli communities from the Jenin area in the northern West Bank, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The Hamas-affiliated terror group Ayyash Battalion was reportedly behind the most recent rocket attack on Israel, carried out on Aug. 15. The group is named after Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas arch-terrorist who was behind a series of suicide bombings in Israel during the 1990s. The bombings he orchestrated killed about 90 Israelis, a great deal of whom were civilians. Ayyash is celebrated by many Palestinians, who have named streets and other locales in his honor.
In a video posted on social media on August 15, the Ayyash Battalion said:
“Our mujahideen [warriors] were able to shell the settlement of Shaked, west of Jenin, with a Qassam 1 rocket in response to the occupation crimes against our people and to avenge the blood of our martyrs.”
Last month, the same terror group said that “despite the complex and sensitive security conditions [in the West Bank], and the lack of capabilities and tools, the Ayyash Battalion continues to develop and prepare [for carrying out rocket attacks].”
“When the terrorists talk about the ‘complex and sensitive’ situation, they are boasting that they were able to fire the rockets despite the presence of Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces in the West Bank,” Bassam Tawil noted in an Aug. 17 analysis for the Gatestone Institute.
Also last month, Saleh Arouri, Deputy Chairman of the Hamas political bureau, boasted that his group was responsible for recent rocket attacks from the West Bank:
“The state of resistance in the West Bank is developing, and [Israel] is panicking as it watches its development, as was the case in the Gaza Strip… The resistance fighters in the West Bank are using knives, pistols, and rifles, as well as explosive devices and rockets.”
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