“Oct 7 2023”

There’s division in the ranks after NDP Leader Marit Stiles dumped Sarah Jama from the party’s caucus for insubordination following two weeks of controversy over the rookie MPP’s statement about the Hamas-Israel war.

In a thread Wednesday on X (formerly Twitter), New Democrat MPP Jill Andrew — who, like Jama, is Black — said a statement from Stiles announcing the decision “went on to conjure what I feel were stereotypical tropes about Black people, especially Black women, who are perceived as difficult.”

Lots of love for Hamas in the NDP.

Harvard will establish a task force to support students experiencing doxxing, harassment, and online security issues following backlash against students allegedly affiliated with a statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The new task force will be in operation until Nov. 3, at which point the task force will reassess its efforts to ensure that its work meets student needs, according to an email obtained by The Crimson. The message, dated Tuesday, was sent to doxxed students by Dean of Students Thomas Dunne.

h/t Mauser

Dozens of Ontario lawyers are demanding a Toronto law school take stronger action against law students who issued an open letter saying Israel is “not a country” and is committing genocide against Palestinians.

The Toronto District School Board says it is aware that there are some student-led walkouts planned for today over the Israel-Hamas war.

“It is our understanding that the walkouts are being organized by students in support of Palestinians,” the TDSB said in a statement. “The TDSB is not involved in organizing these walkouts, nor are we in a position to permit them or stop them from occurring.

After days of silence, a trio of York University student unions released a joint statement refusing to back down from its controversial position about the Israel-Hamas war.

In a post late Tuesday night, the York Federation of Students, York’s graduate student Union and Glendon College union reaffirmed the stance they took in an Oct. 12 statement about the conflict in the Middle East, calling the attacks on Israeli civilians days earlier an “act of resistance.” They also took aim at the university, rejecting York authorities’ demands for union executives to retract their original statement and step down.

A Palestinian man sought by Belgian police for having declared he “wanted to die as a martyr by explosion” was arrested on Wednesday, October 24th at a hotel in Anderlecht, a municipality in the Brussels Capital Region, Belgian media report.

He has been detained for questioning.

Hamas has declared it will turn Palestinian tragedy into ‘joy’ should the Israeli Defence Forces launch a ground assault of Gaza in a sinister message delivered today.

Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri said that ‘despite the enemy’s crimes… the resistance is well’, adding that Hamas and other Islamist groups ‘will turn your tragedies into joy, in the event of a ground invasion’ in a statement to Palestinians, suggesting Hamas fighters would inflict huge losses on the IDF.

Al-Arouri declared Hamas was preparing for war, telling Hezbollah-controlled al-Manar TV that ‘the battles have not begun yet’ ahead of the much-anticipated IDF assault.

In preparation for the next stages of combat, the IDF operated in northern Gaza.

IDF tanks & infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts.

The soldiers have since exited the area and returned to Israeli territory. pic.twitter.com/oMdSDR84rU

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 26, 2023

Queen Rania of Jordan has been eviscerated today for an extraordinarily outspoken interview in which she attacked the US and Israel for striking Gaza and questioned whether Israeli babies had really been killed by Hamas on October 7.

In the interview with veteran CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour last night, Queen Rania – whose parents are of Palestinian descent but who grew up in Kuwait – said there was a ‘glaring double standard’ around the world when it came to sympathy for the war’s victims.

She made a brief concession that she ‘of course’ condemned Hamas’ killing of Israeli civilians, but spoke mostly of the need for increased support of Palestinians and a halt to Israel’s ground strikes.

There are any number of sobering lessons that might be drawn from the obscene celebrations of mass murder that have erupted across Canada in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacres in Israel, when “special forces” units of the Hamas terrorist organization carried out the bloodiest pogrom in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

Israel isn’t the only target.

In the 18 days since the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hamas murdered over 1,400 people, the network of terrorist proxies aligned with the Islamic Republic that populate the Middle East have taken similar aim at U.S. forces throughout the region. U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria have come under at least 13 drone and missile attacks. Last week, the Iran-aligned Houthi militia fired off a fusillade of rockets and unmanned vehicles “potentially headed for Israel” that were intercepted by an American Navy destroyer in the Red Sea.

The tunnels in Gaza initially had some basic characteristics in common with other excavation sites in Israel and elsewhere in the world, such as burial caves, mines, and hiding systems. “However,” says Prof. Roskin, “each tunnel system is different and uniquely related to the geological, geographic and geopolitical conditions in place. What is interesting about Hamas is that the rate of growth of the tunnels, not only in size, but also in purpose, complemented the development of the organization’s operational concept. It began with the smuggling of goods, progressed to the smuggling of weapons, and later evolved into attack tunnels. At these stages, the organization’s perception was tactical.

Getting around downtown Chicago is a challenge at the best of times. Weekdays feature a constant flow of carefully and swiftly moving traffic; weekends all the more so.

But it is a city of 2.5 million people, in a tri-state metro area of 9 million. Back in the days when Chicago was known as “The City that Works” – a generation ago, at least – the city fathers took great care to minimize any event that threatened to jeopardize that title.

Two weeks on, are we any closer to explaining the catastrophic failure of Israel’s extremely expensive, high-tech Gaza border defences to stop the Hamas attack? I’ve seen a surprising number of people, on both Right and Left, argue or imply that the swift collapse of these supposedly impenetrable defences, along with the very slow response by the Israeli military to the attack, justifies a conspiratorial explanation — e.g. that Netanyahu, or Washington, or whomever on the inside must have wanted the attack to get through, as otherwise Hamas would have had no chance.

Horrifying footage has come to light of kidnapped Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin being loaded into the bed of a pickup truck moments after Hamas terrorists blew off his left arm.

At gunpoint, Goldberg-Polin and several other young men were piled into the back of a vehicle. They are shown pulling themselves into the truck, including Hersh, who conducted himself calmly despite his calamitous injury.

On Wednesday, Hersh’s father, Jon Polin, said he and his wife ‘have no proof of life’ for their son. For the time being, the Israeli government still lists the young man as ‘a hostage, as taken by Hamas.’

UPDATE: Footage of American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who went missing after Hamas attacked the festival in Israel, has surfaced of him alive with his arm blown off

Hersh’s bone was protruding from his body according to the footage.

The incident happened when 11 grenades… pic.twitter.com/ZlIapaTyOL

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 24, 2023