A 19-year-old Israel Defense Forces soldier from Upper Nazareth died shortly after being stabbed repeatedly in the neck and chest on Wednesday morning on a bus traveling from the northern Israeli city of Afula to Tel Aviv.

The recent discovery of a 1.7-kilometer terror tunnel extending from Gaza to the western Negev kibbutz of Ein Hashlosha in the Eshkol region, near the Gaza border, demonstrates the serious security threat faced by Israel and its need to remain on high alert.

Notwithstanding the profound existential challenges facing the Jewish state and the free world and a seeming lack of will on the part of most Western nations to combat these threats, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu concluded his address at the “Israel Towards 2020 Conference” at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University with hope and determination.