Since her days as a law student, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner has made a career of using civil litigation as a weapon against terrorists. The organization she heads, Shurat ha-Din/Israel Law Center, has brought suits in Israel, the U.S., and Canada against terrorist groups, the states that back them, and the banks that give them access to funds. Her center has won judgments amounting to over $120 million in actual payments to its clients. Now she has set her sights on Islamic State:

“The question is, How does IS get the money?” Darshan-Leitner, who is in her forties, says from her Tel Aviv office. “We can’t technically go after IS. But we can go after the Arab banks that finance them. The money source. We are not talking peanuts—we are talking about several millions of dollars a day that IS gets from oil fields. There must be banks that help IS receive that money. . . . Remember that when IS took over the oil fields, they kept the same local workers and are selling to the same people. They changed the management—they put in their own guys—but they sell to the same people, the same gas stations. They sell in Turkey and Iraq—and here’s the real irony—to Assad’s government in Syria.”

Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.