Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Recent moves by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court at the Hague are having no tangible effect on the Israel Defense Force’s ongoing Gaza operation, aimed at dismantling Hamas’s remaining battalions in Rafah city. While the courts have signaled a disturbing willingness to cooperate to varying degrees with “lawfare” initiatives against Israel, aimed at delegitimizing Israeli military actions to defend the country against a genocidal terrorist group, this has had no obvious influence on how the Israe...
(JTA) – For months, Zoe Buckman, a Brooklyn artist with more than 72,000 followers on Instagram, has posted about the hypocrisy she sees in critics of Israel who downplayed atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. On Monday, she again decried hypocrisy. But this time, she aimed her criticism in large part toward fellow supporters of Israel. "Folks who do not condemn loss of civilian life in Palestine are akin to the many who refuse to condemn 10/7, h@mas and what is being done to the h...
(JNS) — The United States and Europe stayed away from a United Nations General Assembly tribute to the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The so-called “Butcher of Tehran,” said to be responsible for the killings of thousands of Iranian dissidents, died on May 20 in a helicopter crash that also killed the country’s foreign minister and six others. “The United States will not attend today’s United Nations tribute event for President Raisi in any capacity,” Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in a sta...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is scheduled to pay a solidarity visit to Israel next week. Haley, who served as ambassador during Trump’s presidency, plans to tour communities near the Gaza border as well as in the north of the country during her visit, which is set to begin on Monday, according to former Israeli U.N. envoy Danny Danon, who is to accompany her. She is also scheduled to meet with Israeli leaders and senior security off...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden told a Jewish gathering that he will ensure that Israel will have “everything it needs” to fight Hamas, a pledge that comes after weeks of tension between the governments over his pause on the delivery of large bombs. “I’ll always ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself against Hamas, and all its enemies,” Biden told a White House reception on May 20, marking Jewish American Heritage Month. The crowd of several hundred in the Rose Garden cheered and applauded. Biden also denounced t...
(JNS) — Close to three-fourths of the humanitarian aid transported from a new $320 million floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast was stolen on Saturday en route to a U.N. warehouse, Reuters reported on May 21. Eleven trucks “were cleaned out by Palestinians” on the journey to the World Food Programme warehouse in Deir El Balah in the central Strip, with only five truckloads making it to the destination. “They’ve not seen trucks for a while,” a U.N. official told Reuters. “They just basically mounted on the trucks and he...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei oversaw a memorial service at Tehran University on Wednesday to honor President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and others killed in a recent helicopter crash. “Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him [Raisi],” Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service. People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, chanting, “Death to America!” fol...
(JNS) — The Hamas terrorist organization has profited at least $500 million off humanitarian aid coming into the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on Oct. 7, according to a report that aired on Israel’s Channel 12 last week. Veteran analyst Ehud Yaari, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the broadcaster on Thursday that, according to a calculation he made with “a friend—I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention his name,” Hamas earned “no less” than half a billion dollars from the aid. “We provide [this] for...
(JNS) - The Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Wednesday evening released a video of Hamas terrorists abducting female Israel Defense Forces spotters on Oct. 7. Footage taken by body cameras of the terrorists reveals the violence and trauma experienced by five of the seven spotters captured alive from the Nahal Oz base. Another 15 field observers serving there were murdered during the attack. The video running time is 3 minutes and 10 seconds. It was edited and censored to exclude the most...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Hamas kidnapped field observers who were from the Nahal Oz base on Oct. 7. Five are seen in the abduction video released at the request of their families. Agam Berger Agam Berger, aged 19, is the twin sister of Li-Yam, born two minutes before her. She's a gifted violinist, playing since she was 8. She had only been in the position for one day when she was kidnapped from IDF's Nahal Oz Base. Her mother, Mirav, said in March, "Agam was supposed to be stationed at the...
(JNS) — Jewish Voice for Peace is being criticized and ridiculed widely on social media after the anti-Israel, far-left group claimed that Israel scheduled the holidays Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut to eclipse Nakba Day. “Yesterday, the Israeli government ended its yearly cycle of state holidays that sequentially commemorates the Holocaust, Israeli militarism and the creation of the State of Israel,” JVP wrote on Tuesday. “The sequencing of these holidays was intentionally designed to conclude and obscure May 15, the day Pales...
(JNS) — An estimated 50 cross-border tunnels link Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai, enabling Hamas to smuggle weapons, funds and personnel, and black-market traders to import a range of goods to the Strip. Yoni Ben Menachem, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said that since the Israel Defense Forces has not yet captured all of Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor, aka the Philadelphi Route or the Saladin Axis (the narrow strip of land along the 8.7-mile border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt), the estimate for the number of...
(JNS) — Only a fortnight after the start of the Israel Defense Forces’ targeted operation in Rafah, almost a million Palestinians have been evacuated from the city to humanitarian zones, according to a military estimate made public on Monday. According to the IDF, 950,000 Palestinians have already left the Hamas stronghold on the Egyptian border. Approximately 300,000 to 400,000 noncombatants remain in Rafah, primarily in the coastal area and parts of the city center, Ynet cited army officials as saying. Almost all of them—some 300,0...
Foxx warns ‘spineless college leaders’ of ‘healthy dose of reality’ at hearings (JNS) — Three more university leaders will face questions from congressional representatives regarding antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation on their U.S. campuses promulgated by anti-Israel protesters. Members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce will conduct a hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos” on Thursday, when they will demand explanations from Northwestern University president Michael Schill; Rutge...
(JTA) — Spain, Norway and Ireland said Wednesday they would formally recognize a Palestinian state, a sign of Israel’s challenges on the global stage. The countries portrayed the step as an attempt to salvage long-dormant prospects for progress toward a two-state solution, creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israel castigated the move as a reward for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which launched the current war. “Last month I stood on these same steps with Prime Minister Sanchez of Spain, and we said that the point of recognizing the state of...
(JNS) — Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech said on Tuesday that “foreign countries,” and in particular Pakistan, were developing a Palestinian army. “This army is being trained in foreign countries, is practiced, and armed, and plans to continue the atrocities that were carried out by Hamas on October 7th. They are just waiting for the correct moment to strike at the rest of the Israeli populace,” she told the Knesset plenum. Son Har Hamelech quoted a joint investigation by HaKol HaYehudi and the Struggle for Every Dunam organizat...
(JNS) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, known as the "Butcher of Tehran," was killed in a helicopter crash in the country's northwestern East Azerbaijan province on Sunday, Iranian state media confirmed on Monday morning. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the regime's representative in East Azerbaijan and Malek Rahmati, the province's governor, were also killed, along with the pilot and co-pilot. They were returning from an inauguration ceremony for a...
(JNS) — Washington has no “real disagreements” with Israel over its targeted raid in eastern Rafah and war aim of destroying the remaining Hamas battalions in Gaza’s southernmost city, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew claimed in an interview with Channel 12 on Sunday. The interview came just days after U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that the Biden administration decided to withhold approval of a sale to Israel of two types of precision-guided bombs. Biden also told CNN last week that he would stop providing weapons to the...
(JNS) — The Hamas terrorist organization has profited at least $500 million off humanitarian aid coming into the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on Oct. 7, according to a report that aired on Israel’s Channel 12 last week. Veteran analyst Ehud Yaari, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the broadcaster on Thursday that, according to a calculation he made with “a friend—I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention his name,” Hamas earned “no less” than half a billion dollars from the aid. “We provide [this] for...
(JNS) — The ratio of terrorists to Palestinian noncombatants killed during Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip is approximately one to one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed this week. “What Israel has done is take the effort to minimize civilian casualties as no other army has done,” the Israeli leader said in an interview with U.S. author and political adviser Dan Senor on Monday. “We use leaflets, we use millions of text messages, phone calls. We actually call the people, give up the benefit of surprise,...
(JNS) — Egypt has rejected an Israeli proposal to work together with Israel to reopen the Rafah Crossing into the Gaza Strip and manage its operation jointly, two security sources in Cairo told Reuters on Thursday. The Egyptian government demands the crossing be managed only by Palestinians, the sources said, adding that Jerusalem had offered a mechanism for how to manage the crossing after its forces withdraw. Officials from the Israel Security Agency presented the plan during a visit to Cairo on Wednesday, amid rising tension between the t...
(JTA) — An Iranian Jew who has been sentenced to death has reportedly received a one-month stay of execution after a global pressure campaign that included calls for prayer in Persian Jewish communities around the world. The stay came as Iran was plunged into political turmoil when a helicopter carrying its president and foreign minister crashed under unclear circumstances. President Ebrahim Raisi is known by the nickname “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in overseeing executions in the country, whose top official is the supreme leader Ayato...
(JTA) — The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as the leadership of Hamas for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges Karim Khan announced Monday against Netanyahu and Gallant — the first ever to charge Israeli leaders by name — echo accusations Israel’s critics have made for months surrounding the war in Gaza: They include starvation as a means of war, willful killing and intentionally targeting civilia...
Jewish population of Greater New York reaches 1.4 million (JNS) — Almost 1.4 million people in the Greater New York Area identified as Jewish in 2023, according to a study by UJA-Federation of New York. The Jewish Community Study of New York 2023 covers the five boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island), as well as Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties. UJA said the eight-county New York area continues to be home to the greatest concentration of Jews in the United States, adding that the area has e...
(JNS) — Israel remains committed to destroying Hamas in Gaza, including its remaining battalions in Rafah, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call overnight Sunday. Gallant, according to the Defense Ministry’s readout of the call, emphasized that the IDF is conducting a “precision operation” in the city along the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, including securing the Gaza side of the Rafah Crossing, which Israel’s military took operational control of last week. For its part, the Biden a...
