Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump told Jewish leaders that the Palestinians would not receive any more aid from the U.S., unless they made a deal with Israel. Trump made the remarks during a conference call placed in anticipation of the Jewish New Year in which the president communicated with a number of American Jewish leaders. Trump’s remarks arrive on the heels of his administration’s decision to cut funds both to the Palestinians’ dedicated UN agency, UNRWA, and direct aid to the Palestinians. To that end, Trump noted during the c...
Israel’s Channel 10 News published a report on Tuesday based on comments from a senior Fatah official demonstrating Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ intense hostility toward any potential deal between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip. According to the report, the Fatah official told Channel 10 that Abbas was furious with the Egyptians for mediating the agreement, which the PA chief referred to as “treachery and defiance against the leadership.” The official also claimed that Abbas acknowledged that the suppose...
As of early Thursday morning, Hamas has fired about 150 rockets at Israel from the Gaza Strip, the IDF stated. The IDF retaliated by targeting a number of sites used by the Hamas and other terror organizations operating in Gaza. Since Wednesday evening, the Iron Dome has intercepted 25 rockets. The Eshkol Regional Council said early Thursday morning that a 30-year-old woman was seriously injured when a rocket hit a greenhouse where she was working. Prof. Yochanan Pfizer, deputy director of Sorok...
On Thursday, Syrian state media reported that government forces had entered the town of Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, reaching Israel's doorstep. According to the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's troops raised the nation's flag on Thursday afternoon. SCMM posted photographs from inside the town, where homes had been left badly damaged since Syria waged war. Several Syrians interviewed Thursday say they don't trust the Syri...
Hundreds of family members, friends and acquaintances attended the funeral of Yotam Ovadia, 31, murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in a stabbing attack on Thursday night. Yotam was buried at Har Hamenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem, leaving two young children, Harel and Itai, and his wife Tal. “I don’t know what will happen to me and the children now,” Tal said Saturday, as quoted by Ynet. “I don’t know how to continue to be strong for the children. We were everything to him. The house was his kingdom.” “Yotam was a decent, modest and humble ma...
Hamas terrorists launched a barrage of rockets and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip at Israeli communities in the south in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. On Tuesday, Hamas orchestrated the launching of another wave of firebomb-laden kites and balloons that sparked fires. “Moments ago,” the IDF spokesman announced on twitter, “an IDF aircraft targeted a vehicle used by a group of Palestinians who launched arson balloons from the northern Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, as well as an...
Palestinians from the Gaza Strip once again launched burning kites at civilian communities on the Israeli side of the border Tuesday, setting hundreds of dunams of farmland alight adjacent to Kibbutz Nir Am, Sapir College and Netiv Ha'Asara. In response, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) announced Tuesday that it will sue Hamas in international legal court for the massive environmental damages inflicted on JNF land surrounding the Gaza border. The area has been hit hard in the last two months with...
US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said Monday that the media should either figure out a better way to deal with the border protests or stop its negative coverage of the Jewish state. Addressing a media conference in Jerusalem, Friedman said that news outlets have been unfair in their coverage of the deadly protests on the Gaza border over the past few months. He advised reporters to “keep your mouths shut” unless they know better than Israel how to deal with the demonstrations. Some criticism of Israel may be legitimate, Friedman all...
The US condemned the Palestinians following the worst day of bombing by Gaza-based terror organizations that Israel has experienced since Operation Protective Edge, and called for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the UNSC "should be outraged and respond" to the largest attacks emanating from Gaza since 2014, which are "directed at innocent Israeli civilians." Throughout Tuesday and the following night, the Gaza-based Hamas and...
The Kremlin has given Israel a green light to launch attacks in Syria on condition that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s assets are not targeted, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Friday, according to Israel Hayom. According to the report, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman during their meeting in Moscow on Thursday of Russia’s approval for Israeli strikes, the report said. After the the meeting with Shoigu, Liberman said on his Twitter account that “Is...
Paraguay made history on Monday when it moved its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, just days after the US and Guatemala made the same move. Paraguay's President Horacio Cartes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and several heads of state from both countries were present at the momentous ceremony. At the ceremony, Netanyahu lauded Cartes as "a great friend of Israel and a great personal friend of mine. You're an unbelievable friend, and I have to say that this...
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday spoke by telephone with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding the sensational revelations obtained by Israel's intelligence agency about Iran's dangerous nuclear development program. Speaking at the Ministry of Defense complex in Tel Aviv Monday evening, the Israeli leader unveiled a trove of more than 100,000 documents obtained by the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency, in recent weeks from a secret...
In a US State Department annual report on human rights, the controversial term "occupied" was largely eliminated in references to various territories in and adjacent to Israel. While the term "occupied" had been used in such reports since the Carter administration, the 2017 version drops this term, which is generally used pejoratively to criticize Israeli policy following military victories through which the Jewish state acquired control of various territories. Whereas previous publications of...
In an interview by Jeffrey Goldberg published Monday in The Atlantic, Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Israelis have a right to their own land. Apparently pushing for a two-state solution, he said, “I believe the Palestinians and the Israelis have the right to have their own land. But we have to have a peace agreement to assure the stability for everyone and to have normal relations.” Ties between Israel and the Gulf states have improved over the past year, triggered by the common Iranian threat. “We have religious conce...
The Samaria area has recently seen a massive increase in tourism from around the globe, Israel’s NRG news reported Thursday. The biblical heartland has seen an increase of some 200 percent in incoming tourism, mostly from Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. Increased tourism from Sweden, Australia and the US is also noteworthy. The local municipality explained that the sharp increase in tourism is the outcome of intensive efforts on its part to publicize the region’s unique attractions and sites. The Samaria Reg...
The National Basketball Association set up a new website for the 2018 All-Star Game in Los Angeles, allowing fans to vote for their favorite players. After voting, the fans are asked to identify which country they are from, picking from among a variety of choices that included both Israel and “Palestine—occupied territory.” Several fans discovered the listing when voting this week for Israeli NBA player Omri Casspi. Regev: ‘A gross and blatant interference’ “I view the inclusion of ‘Occupied Palestine’ in the list of countries appearing on yo...
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system blocked two missiles fired into Israel shortly before noon on Friday. A third landed in a community bordering Gaza. No injuries were reported, but a building was damaged. The Code Red alarms were sounded during a ceremony marking the would-be 24th birthday of IDF soldier Oron Shaul, whose body has been held by Hamas in Gaza since Operation Protective Edge. Before the incident, Oron’s mother told the crowd, “We’re here to mark his birthday. We’ve decided to come here so we can be as close to Oron as p...
The Hamas terror organization said President Donald Trump's historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "opens the gates of hell" and has called for another violent uprising against the Jewish state. "Trump's decision on Jerusalem will not succeed in changing the fact that Jerusalem is Arab Muslim land," a Hamas spokesman said Wednesday following Trump's announcement at the White House. Hamas called for Palestinians to take to the streets in a "Day of Rage" on Friday and "respond with...
With files from the Israel Mission to the UN Israel's Mission to the United Nations, in partnership with the World Jewish Congress, celebrated 70 years since the historic November 29, 1947 United Nations vote on Resolution 181 that called for the establishment of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel. The event, initiated by Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, took place in the Queens Museum, which served as UN headquarters in 1947 when the vote took place. US Vice President Mike Pence...
The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York on Wednesday announced the discovery of a trove of lost Jewish materials in the Lithuanian city of Vilna, thought to have been destroyed during the Holocaust. Considered by some as the most important body of material in Jewish history and culture to be unearthed in more than half a century, possibly since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the documents include never-before-published literary manuscripts from some of the most famous Yiddish...
Egypt's president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Tuesday made an impassioned pitch for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, calling for both sides to take advantage of a "rare" opportunity to achieve the elusive goal. El-Sissi broke from his prepared remarks to the United Nations General Assembly in classical Arabic to address Israelis and Palestinians informally in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, saying they should take advantage of an opportunity that "may not be repeated." The Egyptian leader...
Neda Amin, an Iranian journalist who was granted political asylum in Israel Sunday, landed in the country on Thursday after disappearing for a few days. Amin, 32, who had been seeking refuge in Turkey over the past three years, was to be extradited to Iran, where she could face the death penalty due to her columns in the Times of Israel Farsi edition. She was shortly detained and then released by Turkish authorities. Israel’s embassy purchased a ticket for her, and she finally landed at Ben-Gurion Airport. Amin was met at the airport by T...
More than 1,000 Jews braved a searing heat wave Tuesday morning to visit the Temple Mount on Tisha b'Av, the saddest date on the Hebrew calendar, while thousands more sat on the floor-a traditional Jewish sign of mourning-at the Western Wall Plaza to commemorate the destruction of ancient Jerusalem by the Roman Empire in the year 70 CE. More visitors were expected throughout the day. One person, a 15-year-old boy, was lightly wounded when a Muslim worshiper threw a chair at him. He was given...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in discussions with the U.S. administration, has agreed to land swaps with the Palestinian Authority, Channel 2 reported Thursday. The conversations were reportedly held before the current Temple Mount crisis, which began nearly two weeks ago and has led to massive confrontation, violence and deadly terror attacks. Netanyahu's suggestions, made during meetings with Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, senior advisers to President Donald Trump, include...
A meeting between Trump’s negotiating team and Palestinian officials took place in Jerusalem instead of Ramallah because of the PA’s refusal to host the U.S. ambassador to Israel. In an unusual occurrence, United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman attended a meeting with Palestinian Authority officials alongside President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Tuesday, July 11. Explaining the unexpected inclusion of Friedman, a senior White House officia...
