ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER: “Fire, fire, fire!” shouts a member of Kibbutz Bror Hayil’s local security squad, pointing his weapon at a fellow participant acting as a terrorist. The kibbutz is located adjacent to the Gaza border, from where thousands of Hamas-led Palestinians invaded Israel and massacred some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.

The exercise, attended by Fox News Digital, was the eighth training session conducted by Magen48 in partnership with the Israel Defense Forces — a full-scale drill involving the local civilian defense squad designed to prepare southern Israeli communities for scenarios similar to Oct. 7.

One of the scenarios simulated terrorists infiltrating the kibbutz kindergarten. With IDF forces en route, the civil defense squad had to respond while accounting for the presence of children, limited visibility and the need to neutralize the attackers while ensuring a safe evacuation. During the exercise, a simulated grenade detonated, injuring one member of the civil defense squad in the leg, while the others succeeded in neutralizing the terrorists.

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In earlier sessions, participants learned to operate weapons from behind cover while sitting, lying down, standing and moving. They are also trained to work in pairs and larger groups while developing communication skills. The exercises grew increasingly complex, with teams conducting drills inside buildings and responding to continuous emergency alerts.

Because the exercise took place inside a civilian community, no live ammunition was used. All weapons and equipment were secured to prevent accidental discharge. Residents were notified in advance of the drill.

Among the 47 participants were IDF soldiers and medical personnel from the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade.

Magen48 instructor T., who could not reveal his full name for security reasons, said the Bror Hayil program initially presented significant challenges.

“The civil defense squad was made up of soldiers who had served in special forces alongside others who had never held combat roles in the military. Some were issued weapons they had never used during their service. Training begins with weapons familiarization, covering the basics of firearm operation and how to manipulate the weapon’s safety mechanisms,” he said.

One lesson drawn from Oct. 7 was that many members of civilian security squads responded alone. “Whoever ran alone was not able to fend off terrorists,” T. said, explaining that the training emphasizes locating another squad member before engaging whenever possible.

“The idea behind this project is to establish a unified operational language, so that if an incident occurs, nearby communities can join the response and coordinate effectively,” he said.

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“The idea is that they are able to manage the event until forces arrive, then hand over control in an orderly manner while continuing to work together. They know the kibbutz, they work well as teams and they have undergone high-quality training that sharpened their skills.”

Magen48, established in July 2024 and named for the 48 first responders killed on Oct. 7, has trained 1,500 civilians to respond to life-threatening emergencies, equipping them with the knowledge, skills and resources to contend with scenarios such as terrorist attacks, medical emergencies and fires.

Counterterrorism expert Ehud Dribben, who has 30 years of experience in the field, co-founded the organization with Ari Briggs and Mike Aron. As the three began planning to create a training facility, the IDF approached them to develop a program providing each of the 67 Gaza Envelope communities with 12 full training days annually. To date, Magen48 has conducted more than 550 training sessions.

The training exercise began with the community command center issuing an alert about eight terrorists infiltrating the kibbutz, prompting members of the civil defense squad to mobilize to their assigned defensive positions.

Briggs and Dribben designed the exercise around five key locations where the defense squad would ultimately need to concentrate its forces. Response times are measured, and every step — from alerting residents to engaging the terrorists and evacuating casualties — is closely monitored.

“The reports that emerged after Oct. 7 showed that civilian first responders were incredibly brave. They were prepared to do anything to protect their families, friends and communities, but they were not trained adequately and lacked the equipment they needed,” Briggs said.

“Strong, well-trained civilian response teams don’t just improve security — they help bring communities back together, strengthen resilience and ensure these towns grow and have an amazing future,” he added.

Retired British Col. Richard Kemp, who observed the training exercises, said the primary objective is to prevent another Oct. 7.

“I was in the British army for 30 years, so I understand the importance of defense and security for a country like Israel,” he told Fox News Digital. “If you know that your enemy has a capability of any sort to endanger you, you have to be ready to deal with that capability through the kind of work that Magen48 is doing.”

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Kemp called the drill one of the most complex exercises he had witnessed.

“It’s really important that these drills take place to give the local community confidence that its security is a top priority and that forces are doing everything they can to prepare for another terrorist attack like the one we saw on Oct. 7,” he said.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jordan Walker wore his Cardinals hat backward, chewed a big wad of bubble gum and wore the top of his jersey splayed open as he dug in for his final Home Run Derby swing.

The picture of Cardinals cool, Walker chased down Kyle Schwarber, shut up a rambunctious Philly crowd and introduced himself to a much wider baseball world.

Walker used six swings to swat six homers, besting Schwarber in a dramatic final round that silenced all those boo birds and made him the first St. Louis Cardinal to win the Home Run Derby on Monday night.

Schwarber hit 11 homers during his 15-swing turn in the final round. Philly fans, who jeered everyone but Schwarber and Bryce Harper throughout the night, quietly headed toward the exits when Walker’s winning shot soared over the left field wall.

“I was once told you don’t boo nobodies,” Walker said. “So it feels pretty good.”

The 24-year-old Walker sported the Derby champions’ chain, slipped on a leather jacket and still wore his batting gloves as he broke down what it took to take down Schwarber on his home turf.

“My thought was Philly is brutal,” Walker said. “I mean, honestly. But I think it’s pretty special because they love their players and that’s what you want from your home, like, where you play. I mean, I’d never hear people cheer so loud for, like, Schwarber and Harper. And those guys did their thing, for sure.

“But, you know, I can’t hate them, because that’s their guy, so I just got to play the game.”

Walker played a pretty great game in the first half for the Cardinals.

Walker is a first-time All-Star and having a breakout season in St. Louis. He already has a career-high 22 homers this season after struggling with a combined 11 over the previous two years.

Those final six in Philly all flying high with Iron Man on his bat are now stamped on the Derby highlight reel.

His cap backward just like Hall of Famer and Derby great Ken Griffey Jr., Walker celebrated with his family immediately on the field. His father rejoiced in recalling how Walker started hitting long home runs when he was 6 years old.

“When things got tough, they were always there in my corner to talk to them about it,” Walker said of his family. “They kept the energy levels high. They kept the feelings high.”

He fulfilled this childhood dream in striking fashion. Walker hit his seventh homer with two swings remaining and his eighth on the next swing to earn bonus swings. Needing to hit four straight homers to win, the right-handed Jordan knocked one off the top of the center field fence 401 feet away. He reached 10 homers and Philly fans booed with all their might, only for Jordan to finish the sensational surge and celebrate as fireworks shot off around him.

“You can’t say enough about how he was able to kind of slow the moment down, too, and lock it in,” said Schwarber, a Derby runner-up for the second time. “All of our fans were we’re raring and trying to will me to it.”

A revamped Derby format delivered great drama

MLB ditched its timed clock this season and returned to a swing format, with each hitter continuing to swing if he went deep on his final one.

The extra time between swings gave hitters time to track their home runs — and Philly a smidge more time to unleash those throaty boos at Contreras and Walker.

Each player had 20 swings in the first round and the top four advanced. Hitters were seeded for the second round, where No. 1 faces 4 and 2 meets 3.

Each player got 15 swings in the second round, with batters homering on their final swings continuing until not homering.

Boston’s Willson Contreras, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, New York’s Ben Rice and Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone, and Chicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami also participated.

Philly came ready to celebrate its slugging stars

Phillies fans were wildly optimistic that Schwarber and Harper could somehow reach the final and crown the franchise’s third Derby champion.

Harper hit only eight in the first round and was the final slugger to try and advance. Schwarber could only watch as Harper failed to join him. Schwarber, then with the Chicago Cubs, made the finals in 2018 at Nationals Park before losing to Harper when he played with the Nationals.

Schwarber and Harper — the first pair of teammates to participate in the Derby since 2018 — received roaring ovations when famed ring announcer Michael Buffer introduced them ahead of the competition.

As for the other six sluggers in the field, all wearing their home jerseys with red, white and blue uniform numbers?

Yeah, they were about booed out of the ballpark, with the loudest jeers saved for Rice. He gamely laughed as he walked out of his Liberty Bell entrance.

Harper — who said earlier Monday this would be his last Derby — waved his arms and exhorted the crowd to get louder as he walked to the home plate platform placed at second base. Harper about broke the ring ropes as he shook them like a pro wrestler, and the Philly crowd went bonkers for the star known as The Showman.

The ball-shagging kids in the outfield were even booed.

The Derby’s public address announcer implored the fans to cheer during some quiet stretches when homers — non-Phillies edition — were hit.

The fans did get a rise when Caglianone smoked one into Ryan Howard territory into the third deck in right field. Contreras socked ’em into the rarified air of the left field upper deck. One homer cleared the last row of stands in that section and bounced off the concourse in front of a bar. His 490-footer was the longest of the first round.

This was the first Home Run Derby and All-Star Game held at Citizens Bank Park since it opened in 2004 and the first derby in Philadelphia since Barry Bonds outslugged Mark McGwire in 1996 to win an afternoon event in front of thousands of empty seats at Veterans Stadium.

This derby was sold out and aired on Netflix for the first time, with the streamer getting into the game this season with a three-event package. Netflix already aired the opening night game, and the third attraction is the Field of Dreams game between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 13.

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The U.S.-designated terrorist Houthi movement that controls northern Yemen condemned Saudi Arabia for allegedly targeting the Sanna airport with airstrikes, sparking a possible new front with Iran’s terror-proxy.

While the Houthis agreed to a 2022 truce with the Saudi-led coalition that opposes its rule, the Houthis have frequently disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea since they joined Hamas following its invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The latest flare up of military strikes could lead to a resumption of war between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Houthis.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree called the attacks “blatant aggression” and said they had ended a period of de-escalation. He said Saudi Arabia would bear the consequences and that the attack would not go unanswered. The Houthis threatened to strike King Khalid Airport in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Iran’s Press TV reported on its X account that, “Iran condemns Saudi attack on Sana’a airport as breach of law, Yemen sovereignty.”

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The official slogan of the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah) is: “God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

Earlier on Monday, the government’s defense ministry said the runway ⁠at Sanaa International Airport had been targeted to prevent an Iranian plane from landing. An armed forces spokesman later said the aircraft had landed at Houthi-controlled ​Hodeidah airport.

Salman Al-Ansari, a prominent Saudi geopolitical analyst, told Fox News Digital, “The Iranian-backed Houthi militia is now in a desperate position, attempting to demonstrate its usefulness to its Iranian masters amid the ongoing U.S.-Iran war.”

He said, “This is an action taken by Yemen’s legitimate government in response to the violation of its airspace and sovereignty. It was not carried out by Saudi Arabia or the coalition. Yemeni forces struck the runway at Sana’a International Airport after the terrorist Houthi militia defied international law by allowing unauthorized Iranian flights into Yemen, despite measures intended to prevent the smuggling of weapons and explosives.”

According to Al-Ansari, “The Houthis know that these flights can land normally if they follow the agreed-upon route through a Jordanian airport, for inspection purposes. The Houthis are currently at one of their weakest points, particularly after Yemen’s legitimate government consolidated effective authority over 80% of the country’s territory. This is a marked departure from the past, when the legitimate government was fragmented between two rival camps.”

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Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Israel, Lebanon and other Sunni Gulf countries have expressed concerns about the Iranian regime’s plan to establish a so-called “Shiite crescent” that stretches from Iran to Lebanon and includes such terrorist proxies as the Houthis and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Al-Ansari noted that “By confronting the Houthis, Yemen’s legitimate government is not only defending its own sovereignty; it is helping safeguard the region and the wider world from Iran’s network of terrorist proxies.”

Nadwa Al-Dawsari, an expert on Yemen and an associate fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Fox News Digital that, “The Houthis’ warning that the strike on Sana’a airport ‘will not go unanswered’ should be taken seriously. But the significance of the incident extends well beyond the prospect of retaliation.”

She said, “The dispute was never really about civilian aviation or simply returning a Houthi delegation from Tehran. The Yemeni government had agreed to facilitate the delegation’s return aboard a Yemenia aircraft. The issue was the Iranian aircraft itself.”

She added that “By proceeding with the Mahan Air flight despite Yemeni objections and ensuring that it reached Houthi-controlled Yemen anyway, Iran and the Houthis were sending a political message: Tehran intends to normalize direct and public ties with Houthi-controlled Yemen and is willing to challenge the restrictions that have governed access to the country since 2015.”

The U.S. government sanctioned Mahan Air for its role in supplying weapons and technology to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah. 

Al-Dawsari said, “What we are increasingly seeing is a pattern in which Iran and its proxies create facts on the ground, betting that regional and international actors have little appetite for escalation and will eventually adjust to them. We have seen the same approach in the Strait of Hormuz.”

She said, “The episode also highlights the Houthis’ growing importance within Iran’s regional network. While other members of the Axis of Resistance have been weakened in recent years, the Houthis have emerged as Tehran’s most capable and strategically important partners, particularly in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.”

According to Reuters, the Saudi ​government’s communication office did not immediately respond to the accusations.

Muhammad Al-Farah, a member of the Houthi Political Bureau, wrote on Telegram, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), that the alleged Saudi attack will lead to the Bab al-Mandab Strait joining the Strait of Hormuz with respect to disruption and possible closure. As a result, the price of a barrel of oil will rise to $200 and the attacks give the Houthis a reason to “strike back and liberate Yemen from occupation.”

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that, “We are aware of these reports and monitoring closely. The United States and Saudi Arabia share a strategic partnership that has only grown stronger under President Trump. The United States stands firmly with Saudi Arabia against Iranian aggression, including Iranian-supported Houthi attacks, and remains committed to the Kingdom’s security and regional stability.”

The spokesperson added, “We continue to actively enforce the Trump Administration’s designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and condemn Iran’s flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty in support of their Houthi proxies.

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“The Administration’s National Security Strategy states that our core interests in the region include ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and preventing the export of terrorism.  It is critical to continue efforts to counter the Iran-backed Houthis and other terrorist groups in Yemen who threaten these U.S. interests.”

Reuters contributed to this report.