A temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is set to begin on Friday morning, with 13 Israeli hostages to be freed from captivity in Gaza.
At a press conference in Doha, a Qatari foreign ministry spokesman said the first group of an overall anticipated 50 Israeli women and children would be returned to Israel at 4pm local time. After a 24-hour delay, the ceasefire will go ahead at 7am, allowing humanitarian aid to start moving through the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
Yesterday, the Israeli cabinet approved an agreement to secure the release by Hamas of roughly 50 Israeli hostages (women and children) in exchange for releasing 150 Palestinian male terrorists 18 and under, as well as female terrorists.
We also released a list of 300 palestinian Arab terrorists from whom the initial 150 will be selected, and the remainder of whom could be freed if further Israeli hostages are let go.
h/t MP
The German Interior Ministry on Thursday said police had conducted raids on properties in four federal states connected to suspected Hamas and Samidoun members.
Germany, along with the US, the EU and others, has designated Hamas a terrorist organization. Samidoun is an international pro-Palestinian network. Berlin had banned the activities of both organizations in early November.
“We continue our consistent action against radical Islamists,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.
Police have said they are assessing footage after a woman was filmed ripping down posters of kidnapped Israelis in north London.
The incident, which occurred in the Primrose Hill area, was recorded and posted on social media by Jewish journalist, Ami Kaufman.
A Palestinian terrorist expected to be released in the hostage exchange controversially demanded Israel pay for her plastic surgery after injuring herself in an attack.
Asraa Jabas, 38, was seriously disfigured after a gas cylinder exploded during an attack in 2015 in the West Bank which also left a policeman badly hurt.
She was sentenced to eleven years but since being convicted has successfully applied twice for funding to have plastic surgery – sparking outrage.
Chants of jihad at pro-Palestine marches can be prosecuted as encouraging terrorism, the Government’s adviser on counter terror legislation has said.
In a report published on Wednesday, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said he did not believe there was any need to toughen anti-terror laws in the wake of the national pro-Palestine protests.
He said current legislation gave police sufficient powers to take action against “encouraging terrorism” such as calls to jihad and any changes would have unintended consequences that could damage freedom of speech.
The Oct. 7 genocidal Hamas/Islamic Jihad attack on Israel had the silver lining of producing moral clarity. Which might seem poor compensation but when things are bad and getting worse fast, it’s vital to see them as they are. Including the perplexing fact that so many western feminists went off the deep end, or revealed themselves as having long since done so, to the point of denying that the jihadis committed savage acts of rape and butchery not merely from general depravity but as a preplanned weapon of terrorist genocide.
A rising star has lost a coveted film role, Susan Sarandon has been dropped by her talent agency and Tom Cruise is said to have stepped in to protect his agent as Hollywood faces being torn apart by war in the Middle East.
The American entertainment industry is famous for its political uniformity and on the vast majority of issues A-listers, executives and below-the-line workers speak with one voice.
A four-day pause and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners. Seen from London or New York, this seems like a reasonable measure to secure the return of 50 Israeli hostages. Pause the fighting; allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza; satisfy the Americans, who were reportedly pushing hard for the deal; get a good number of your citizens back. What’s not to like?
Now Bethnal Green schoolkids are chanting anti-Semitic slogans – and no one seems to care.
The London I love, cherish and grew up in feels like it is about to disappear.
On Thursday last week, 400 children skipped school to march through Bethnal Green to protest against Israel. The marchers demanded a ‘ceasefire’, but made no reference whatsoever to the act that started Israel’s assault on Gaza – Hamas’s murder of Israeli civilians and taking of hostages on 7 October.
Ever since Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, along with ordinary Arab Muslims from Gaza, invaded Israel, murdered, raped and kidnapped women and children, the debate has been about how innocent they are. And how easy Israel should be willing to go on them.
Biden’s pro-Israel stance is more rhetoric than reality
Last Wednesday, several dozen pro-Palestinian activists, their faces obscured by keffiyehs and Covid masks, attempted to block the entrance to the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington, DC. Reports of a riot may have been hyperbole, but footage showed a chaotic demonstration reminiscent of the racial justice protests of 2020. The organisers later accused the police of attacking the “non-violent” protestors; Capitol Police claimed that six of its officers were assaulted.
In the aftermath of Oct. 7, the terrible prospect of an “ocean of red” opens up before us.
The great Xingtai earthquake, registering 6.0 on the moment magnitude scale, struck Hebei province at 5:29:14 on the morning of March 8, 1966. Seismic shockwaves tore through the foothills of the Taihang Mountains, opening up yawning fissures in the landscape, while landslides, sand eruptions, and torrents of floodwater erased entire villages in a matter of moments. Five further earthquakes would follow, the strongest taking place on March 22, and the last on March 29. Three weeks of unrelenting tremors and aftershocks left the region, which had no prior instrumentally located seismicity, in a state of total devastation. Some 5 million homes were destroyed or damaged, and an estimated 8,000 lives were lost, mostly in the rural communities outside the prefecture-level city of Xingtai. Another 38,000 men, women, and children lay grievously injured, and hundreds of thousands more were rendered homeless and destitute amid the wreckage of their annihilated farmhouses and villages.
In some parts of the country, standing up for Israel is controversial, even dangerous.
On the campuses of places like Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, anyone who dares to wave an Israeli flag — or, increasingly, wear a kippah in public — is at risk of being assaulted by angry mobs of people with their faces covered.
In Los Angeles, a pro-Israel protester was allegedly killed by a pro-Palestinian computer-science professor.
A Quebec Superior Court judge has ordered McGill University’s student union to not adopt a contentious pro-Palestinian policy voted on this week until a legal challenge on the matter can be heard in the new year.
The court order was issued Tuesday after B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish advocacy organization, filed an injunction seeking to halt the vote on the policy amid rising tensions on campus.
