Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — A UN Watch report released this week further bolsters the assertions of UNRWA’s critics that the Palestinian aid agency, rife with terrorism supporters, is beyond repair. UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, has come under fire after The New York Times broke the story on Sunday that 12 staff members took part in the Oct. 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists rampaged through Israel’s south, murdering some 1,200 persons, mostly civilians. At least 15 countries, including the U.S., have suspended funding to the organ...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A growing number of countries has suspended funding to the main United Nations agency aiding Palestinians in the wake of allegations that a number of its staffers were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, protested the cuts, saying that they were accelerating an oncoming famine in the Gaza Strip. The agency was founded to administer relief to Palestinian refugees and their descendants and is the main provider of aid in Gaza, where it emp...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday that more than 100 Hamas terrorists had been caught in the previous 36 hours, as the IDF pushes forward in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. “Hamas is collapsing into its own tunnels that it painstakingly dug. Every place it thought would be a trap for IDF soldiers becomes an area where we hit it,” Gallant told soldiers serving in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit. “In the past day and a half, we have over 100 captives, some of them who came up from underground, in the Khan Yu...
As Gazans passed through the humanitarian corridor from Khan Younis, many were heard yelling “down with Hamas,” potentially signaling growing discontent with the Iran-backed terror group’s command over Gaza. IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee announced that a humanitarian corridor has been established in a Bedouin area Al-Mawasi to protect Gazan civilians from the IDF military operations in Khan Younis. While tens of thousands were evacuating the area, many were heard yelling slogans against Hamas. “The people want to topple Hamas,” and oth...
(JNS) - Dozens of Palestinian children in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah held a rare protest against Hamas on Wednesday, calling on the terrorist organization to release Israeli hostages and end the war so they can return to their homes. Outside Deir al-Balah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the children held white pieces of paper reading, "Yes to giving back the prisoners" and expressing wishes to return to homes in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. "Will these cries and d...
(JNS) — Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich fired back at Qatar for supporting Hamas terrorism after the Arab Gulf state attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday for alleged remarks about Doha’s role as a mediator in hostage talks. “Qatar is a country that supports terrorism and finances terrorism. It is the patron of Hamas and is largely responsible for the massacre committed by Hamas of Israeli citizens,” the Religious Zionism Party leader tweeted in response to an earlier tweet from Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs o...
Accused killer of Samantha Woll charged with first-degree murder (JNS) — Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 28, faces multiple charges for allegedly stabbing to death Detroit Jewish leader Samantha Woll on Oct. 21. In a hearing on Tuesday, Judge Kenneth King set an arraignment date for Jan. 30 and added an additional charge of first-degree premeditated murder. Prosecutors had already charged Jackson-Bolanos with murder, home invasion and lying to police. Woll had served as president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue and worked on multiple p...
(JNS) — Hamas on Sunday released a statement denying its members committed atrocities on Oct. 7. The denial is a complete reversal for the terrorist group and a total disavowal of its own footage, after it supplied GoPro cameras to its operatives so that they could capture for posterity their horrific deeds on that day. “Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people, is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters,” Hamas stated in the 16-page document, claiming it only targeted Israeli...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Fifteen Jewish Democrats, including some pro-Israel stalwarts, slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he rejected the idea of creating an independent Palestinian state after the Israel-Hamas war. “We strongly disagree with the prime minister,” said the brief statement released Friday morning by the office of Rep. Jerry Nadler, the New York representative who is the unofficial dean of Jewish House Democrats. “A two-state solution is the path forward.” The statement — which comes amid rising calls from some Jew...
(JNS) — Israeli intelligence material handed to the United States reveals the extent of United Nations Relief and Works Agency staff participation in the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. The New York Times on Sunday published details regarding the involvement of 12 UNRWA employees in the Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel—10 Hamas operatives and one affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Wall Street Journal also reviewed the dossier, publishing additional findings from the Israeli intelligence reports on Monday, including that aro...
(JNS) — The European Council, which represents the national governments of all 27 European Union member states, agreed on Tuesday to impose sanctions on Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar in response to the Islamist group’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel that claimed at least 1,200 lives and wounded thousands. The terrorist leader was already placed under sanctions by the United States and the United Kingdom in 2015 and 2023, respectively. Effective immediately, Sinwar will be “subject to the freezing of his funds and other financial asset...
By Andrew Bernard (JNS) — The United States plans to re-designate the Yemen-based Houthi militant group as a terrorist organization following its repeated attacks on Red Sea shipping that have wreaked havoc on international trade, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, said. That designation of the Iran-backed group will take effect 30 days from the announcement in order to allow for “humanitarian carve-outs” intended to ensure that the sanctions do not harm the Yemeni population, according to Sullivan. The Houthis control 70 perce...
(JNS) — Medicines destined for Israeli hostages, but most of which will end up serving the Hamas terrorist organization, arrived in Egypt on Wednesday and are on the way to the Gaza border. “A senior Hamas official said that for every box provided for the hostages, 1,000 boxes would be sent in for Palestinians,” AP reported. Israel also agreed to allow more aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. A controversy has arisen within Israel over the terms of the deal, which allow the shipment to pass through without IDF inspection. According to Chann...
Ebon Moss-Bachrach in ‘The Bear’ wins Emmy for Best Supporting Actor (JNS) — The performance of Ebon Moss-Bachrach as divorced father Richie in the TV series “The Bear” has so far collected the two top entertainment awards of the year. On Monday, Moss-Bachrach, who is 46 and Jewish, received an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy-drama series, repeating his victory at the Golden Globes on Jan. 7. On the program streamed by Disney+, Moss-Bachrach portrays a chef who takes over his brother’s Chicago sandwich restaurant. The show tied w...
An interview with Harold Rhode (Elder of Ziyon via JNS) — The key to discussing the Middle East is understanding the cultures and languages. In Hebrew, you have the root “P-T-Ch,” corresponding to “F-T-Ch” in Arabic. The root has the general meaning of “open.” But in Arabic, there is an additional meaning: opening up a land to Islam. So the leader in battle is called “fatih” and the man who conquered Istanbul was called Mehmed Fatih. Similarly, there is Fatah, the organization. The name is a reverse acronym of the Organization for...
(JNS) — Hamas’s network of terror tunnels in the Gaza Strip is even more extensive than previously thought, The New York Times cited senior Israeli defense officials as saying on Tuesday, with new assessments indicating it has upwards of 5,700 entry shafts. In the wake of intensive counterterror combat operations in the southern Hamas stronghold of Khan Yunis during recent weeks, Israel now believes the Islamist group built between 350 and 450 miles of subterranean terror infrastructure, up from a previous estimate of 250 miles. While the fig...
By David Isaac (JNS) - An alarming increase in illegal Arab construction along the Judea and Samaria security barrier has come to light thanks to research by Israeli NGO Regavim. Analyzing photography obtained through aerial reconnaissance, Regavim discovered tens of thousands of illegal structures built along the barrier, which runs roughly along the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line that followed Israel's War of Independence. Much of the Arab construction is new, created within the last 10...
(JNS) — Five Hamas leaders secretly planned the bloody invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, with 70 commandos from the terrorist group’s elite Nukhba Force leading the charge across the Gaza border, the London-based, pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Wednesday. Citing Palestinian sources close to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s “military” wing, the newspaper disclosed that these 70 terrorists received training that focused on infiltrating Israeli communities close to the Gaza Strip. They pledged secrecy following...
(JNS) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed support for “tangible steps” towards the creation of a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip during a meeting with Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Wednesday. Sources cited by Sky News Arabia described the tête-à-tête, during which Blinken also touched on “administrative reforms” in the P.A. that Washington would like to see, as “tense” and marked by “arguments.” Abbas reportedly demanded that Blinken push Israel to unconditionally release all tax...
(JNS) — A proposal to encourage the voluntary emigration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of a post-war plan is no longer being considered due to opposition from the Biden administration, a leading Israeli lawmaker said Wednesday. The idea, which former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. MK Danny Danon of the ruling Likud Party and MK Ram Ben Barak of the opposition Yesh Atid Party raised anew in a meeting with dozens of foreign diplomats at the Knesset on Wednesday, is not on the government agenda due to American pressure, Danon told J...
(JTA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that if Israel were faced with a “second Holocaust,” he could understand why it would remove Palestinian civilians from the Gaza Strip. The statement came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel has no intention of doing so. DeSantis’ remarks at a Republican presidential debate came on the eve of opening arguments at The Hague, where Israel faces charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice. The debate was the final one ahead of the Iowa Republican caucuse...
(JTA) — France’s newest prime minister is getting attention for the two firsts he brings to the job: Gabriel Attal, at 34, is the country’s youngest ever prime minister, and its first to be openly gay. He says another facet of his identity also shapes him: His late father’s Jewishness. Attal’s mother raised him and his siblings in her Russian Orthodox Christian faith. But his father, the film producer Yves Attal, was Jewish, born in Paris to Tunisian Jewish and European Jewish parents. “My father said to me, ‘Perhaps you’re Orthodox but yo...
(JNS) — Two U.N. human rights experts on Monday called for full accountability for the multitude of alleged crimes, including sexual torture, committed against civilians by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, saying they amount to war crimes. Alice Jill Edwards, special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and Morris Tidball-Binz, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said violations include killing, hostage-taking, torture and sexual torture. “As armed Palestinian groups ra...
(JNS) — Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan ripped the U.N. General Assembly during a Tuesday morning meeting, while holding up a cake with the face of Kfir Bibas, who will turn one year old in the coming days. Bibas, along with his family, was taken hostage by Hamas during their massacre on Oct. 7. “A quarter of Kfir’s life has been spent as a hostage. He was kidnapped before he could even learn to say ‘mama’” said Erdan. “Is he getting the food and vitamins he needs to grow and develop? Is he crawling? How can a baby be a...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Americans for Peace Now, a left-wing pro-Israel organization, is calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, the first American Zionist group to do so after more than three months of fighting. “Continuing this devastating war poses unacceptable risks for Israel, Gazan civilians and the entire region,” James Klutznick, the group’s chairman, said Monday in a statement. “For the sake of the security and wellbeing of civilians in Israel and in Gaza, the Biden administration must push Israel to bring about an immediate cessation...
