Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(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...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The White House denied reports that the United States withheld intelligence from Israel on the whereabouts of Hamas’ leaders. The reports alleged that the United States would provide the intelligence in exchange for Israel curbing its offensive in Rafah, the city in southern Gaza. “The United States is working with Israel day and night to hunt the senior leaders of Hamas, who were the authors of the brutal terrorist assault of Oct. 7,” a White House official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We are providing unprecede...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared Thursday to defy President Joe Biden's warning that the U.S. would impose a sweeping arms embargo against the Jewish state if the IDF carries out its planned ground operation in Rafah. In a statement released May 9, the Israeli premier vowed that Israel would "stand alone" if necessary in its current war against the Hamas terror organization, alluding to the Biden administration's suspension of weapons sales to Israel and threat May 8 of a full...
(JNS) — Hamas’s unilateral ceasefire proposal failed to thwart the Israel Defense Forces’ operation against the terror group’s last bastion of Rafah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening. “Hamas’s proposal was intended to torpedo our forces’ entry into Rafah. It did not happen,” the premier stated in remarks shared by his office. “Last night, with the approval of the War Cabinet, I gave the order to operate in Rafah. Within hours, our forces raised Israeli flags at the Rafah Crossing and took down the Hamas banners...
(JTA) — Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to reports on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have become steeped in controversy since their publication, including a nonfiction book by Jewish author Nathan Thrall and breaking-news reporting and photography of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks by Reuters and The New York Times. The Pulitzer board also presented a special citation to journalists covering the war from Gaza, noting that “an extraordinary number have died” while doing so. Thrall, a Bard College professor based in Jerusalem whose work is often h...
(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...
(JNS) — Members of Congress grilled education officials from New York, California and Maryland on Wednesday about “pervasive” antisemitism in K-12 schools. Members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s subcommittee on early childhood, elementary and secondary education repeatedly asked David Banks, the chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, about a student-led rampage at Hillcrest High School in the borough of Queens that targeted a Jewish teacher. “We suspended students. We removed the principal of the school. W...
At Yeshiva U, ‘accelerated transfer’ for students who feel threatened (JNS) — Yeshiva University has reopened its admissions cycle for undergraduate applicants who feel threatened on other American campuses, including for its honors program. Those applicants have until May 31 to apply. The admissions cycle “has seen students choosing YU over other elite institutions. This trend is expected to continue among transfers,” Yeshiva stated. It added that it is creating new faculty positions to accommodate that growth and is “in active discussions...
(JNS) — Half a dozen Middle East experts indicated that it was news to them when JNS drew their attention to a recent phrase that the U.S. Defense Department has published on its website referring to the Gaza Strip as “entirely inside Israel.” “The Gaza Strip, which is about 25 miles long, lies entirely inside Israel and shares a border to the south with Egypt,” C. Todd Lopez wrote on the Pentagon website on Tuesday. “There are three locations along its border where humanitarian supplies could move into Gaza from either Egypt or Israel.” Th...
(JNS) — Israel Defense Forces ground troops on May 8 continued the offensive against Hamas in the Gaza terrorist bastion of Rafah. Soldiers killed an unknown number of gunmen and located tunnel shafts and other underground infrastructure on the 215th day of the war, the army announced. “IDF forces led by the 162nd Division and under the intelligence guidance of the Shin Bet and the Military Intelligence Directorate continue targeted operations in eastern Rafah against Hamas terrorists and the group’s terrorist infrastructure,” the army said. I...
(JNS) - The head of South Africa's second-largest church visiting Israel in solidarity with the Jewish state said Sunday that the South African government is out of sync with the people in its stance on the war with Hamas by supporting a terror organization. The unequivocal remarks by the South African Christian leader against the ruling African National Congress come just weeks before general elections in South Africa, which has emerged as one of Israel's most vocal critics in the world over...
Jerusalem, Israel - "Unprecedented." "Monumental." "Timely." "Powerful." These are just some of the words describing the upcoming Global Prayer for Israel, bringing thousands of Jews and Christians together from all over the world to pray for Israel. With Israel at war, and Christians standing with Israel and the Jewish people at levels that are unprecedented in history, Christians are experiencing the hate and persecution toward Israel and the Jewish people that's more than vicarious, but...
(JNS) - The Biden administration is considering a plan to allow some Gaza residents to resettle in the United States, CBS News reported on Tuesday, citing internal federal government documents. According to the documents, senior officials from various U.S. federal agencies have discussed options for bringing Gazans to the country who have immediate family members who are either American citizens or permanent residents. One option under discussion is the United States Refugee Admissions Program,...
(JNS) — Saudi Arabia has decided to normalize relations with Israel and is debating the timing of the announcement, a foreign diplomat familiar with the details told Haaretz on Monday. According to the source cited in the article by the daily’s diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Lis, Riyadh is discussing whether to make the move in the coming weeks or after the U.S. presidential election this November, in which either Democrat Joe Biden will continue to lead the country or his challenger Republican Donald Trump will return to the White Hou...
A new Israeli relocation company, Belong, is offering free concierge support services to 500 Jewish students at Columbia University and at other campuses nationwide embattled by anti-Israel protests and growing antisemitism and violence to help them study in Israel instead. Belong, which opened its doors last month, provides a range of concierge relocation services to immigrants to Israel and to those seeking temporary Israel experiences including study abroad and post-graduate degrees. Belong’s services generally range from free online r...
(JNS) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israeli leaders as part of his Middle East tour to Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, his seventh trip to the Jewish state since the current Hamas war broke out on Oct. 7. Blinken met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, where they "discussed ongoing efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as part of a hostage deal and emphasized that it is Hamas that is standing in the way of a ceasefire...
(JNS) — In the latest example of a deep-seated anti-Israel bias within the International Committee of the Red Cross, the head of the ICRC’s office in Algeria and director of the Libya subdelegation has been outed as a pro-Hamas shill. Geneva-based, pro-Israel group U.N. Watch exposed the pro-terrorist sentiments of the ICRC official, who appears to be based in Montreal. “Meet Haythem ‘Ethan’ Abid. He runs the International Red Cross in Montreal. His job is to be neutral. But Abid marches in ‘Free Palestine’ rallies, posts Hamas videos saying...
(JNS) — Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction has reiterated its desire to reconcile with Hamas, China’s Foreign Ministry announced following talks in Beijing. Representatives of Fatah and Hamas recently held negotiations in the Chinese capital with a view to forging a Palestinian unity government. Fatah reportedly dispatched Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Samir al-Rifai, a member of Fatah’s Central Committee. The Hamas delegation was led by the deputy head o...
