Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Egypt, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are in the process of setting up field hospitals on Egyptian soil near Gaza to treat Palestinians. A Turkish ship arrived at the port of El Arish in North Sinai, carrying about 500 tons of medical equipment and medicines. The equipment is enough for eight field hospitals. Twenty ambulances will be at their disposal to transport the wounded from Gaza. The UAE is establishing a 150-bed field hospital in the Gaza Strip. Authorities in Dubai are recruiting licensed medical professionals to v...
(JNS) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday called Israel a “terrorist state” and described Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters.” Erdoğan claimed that Israel was attempting to eradicate all of the Gaza Strip and threatened to take steps to ensure that Jerusalem’s political and military leaders are brought to trial in international courts. “Israel is implementing a strategy of total destruction of a city and its people,” said Erdoğan, in an apparent reference to Gaza City. “I say openly that Israel is a terrorist state.” Th...
MADRID (JTA) — In a landmark acknowledgment, the parliament of Spain’s Balearic Islands issued an official recognition of the “marginalization and discrimination” endured by the islands’ chuetas, or local Crypto-Jews from Majorca. In a statement, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain group welcomed the news in mid-September and asked for chueta history to be taught in local schools. Today, most chuetas on Majorca talk openly and proudly about their Jewish heritage, marking a significant change after a history of humiliation, fear and...
(JNS) — Israeli forces on the ground in Gaza continue to find Hamas terrorist infrastructure located within civilian sites, including at Al-Quds University and the Abu Bakr Mosque, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday. Israeli forces uncovered a section of the mosque housing a large number of explosive devices and flammable materials, according to the IDF. Soldiers also confiscated dozens of weapons, military equipment and Hamas operational plans. IDF troops also found a “large number of weapons” inside the children’s room of the home of...
(JNS) — When organized crime wants to hide profits from their criminal enterprises, they launder it through seemingly legitimate business, and after a step or two, the money is clean. Unfortunately, CNN is trying the same trick with casualty figures from Gaza. Here’s their problem: Many people are justifiably skeptical about any claims by Hamas—after all, if it is willing to engage in barbaric mass murder, lying doesn’t seem like that big a leap. So what to do about Hamas-reported deaths in the Gaza fighting triggered by Hamas’s mass slaughter...
Hamas planned ‘second phase’ for Oct. 7 massacre (JNS) — A planned second phase of Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel involved joining forces with terrorists in Judea and Samaria, The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing Western and Middle Eastern security officials briefed on evidence obtained by Israel. Some of the Hamas terrorists that participated in the attack carried enough food, ammunition and equipment for several days, the officials said, and had instructions to continue deeper into the Jewish state once the ini...
By Luke Tress (JTA) — International news outlets denied that they had advance knowledge of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, after a report suggested without hard evidence that their photographers may have coordinated with the terror group ahead of the invasion. But the Associated Press and CNN have said they will no longer work with one of the photographers named in the report, Hassan Eslaiah. The other publications named in the report are Reuters and The New York Times. The report, by pro-Israel media watchdog Honest Reporting, said fre...
(JNS) — In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the subsequent onslaught of antisemitism, Christians have an opportunity to write a new chapter in their history; one in which they show up as allies and friends of the Jews. Thousands of Christians around the world are doing just that. The long and painful history of Jewish-Christian relations has seen few heroes and many moral failures. Both Protestantism and Catholicism, at different moments in their history, adopted antisemitism as doctrine. One famous example was Pope Paul IV’s Cum...
(JNS) — Germany on Thursday announced a complete ban on Hamas activities in the country. Already designated a terror organization in the Germany, Berlin moved to ban its activities following the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,400 Israelis. “With Hamas, I have today completely banned the activities of a terrorist organization whose aim is to destroy the State of Israel,” said German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. The German wing of Samidoun, a Palestinian organization with close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces saw some 50,000 Gazan civilians move from northern to southern Gaza on Wednesday via an Israeli evacuation corridor, a military spokesman said, adding that these are people who refuse to comply with Hamas's demand that they serve as human shields in the current confrontation. IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said: "They understand that Hamas lost control of northern Gaza; in the south, there are safer areas where water food and medicine arrive. We will...
Since Oct. 7, Israel Bonds has raised $1 billion (JNS) — In the first nine days since Hamas brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Israel Bonds—which supports the Jewish state with its sales, which have totaled more than $50 billion since 1951—raised $200 million. Since then, Israel Bonds has raised four times that amount, raising its total in the past month to more than $1 billion. “This is Israel Bonds’ highest surge of investment ever, which demonstrates the strong support for Israel of the Jewish communities and Israel’s supporters in the Unit...
TAIPEI, Taiwan (JTA) — Growing up as a Bukharian Jew in China, Uriah was always told by his parents to hide his Jewishness in public and to try to assimilate into the greater Chinese population. Uriah — who asked to be identified only by his Hebrew name to ensure the safety of his family — said that when he began publicly talking about his Jewish identity, people told him that he would “never be one of us [Han Chinese].” But Uriah had never felt physically or personally threatened until the aftermath of Oct. 7, when Hamas killed over 1,400 Isr...
(JNS) — Israel does not have the right to defend itself, Russia’s representative to the United Nations said on Wednesday. The United States and its allies are hypocritical for talking “about Israel’s alleged right for self-defense, which, as an occupying state, it does not have, as was confirmed by the [U.N.’s] International Court [of Justice] consultative ruling in 2004,” Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told a U.N. General Assembly special session on the Israel-Hamas war. Israel declared war on Hamas after thousands of terrorists from Gaza storme...
(JNS) — Antisemitic incidents across the globe, including violent ones and online hatred, increased significantly between Oct. 7 and Oct. 25 compared to that span last year, according to a report from the Israeli Ministry for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization. In the three weeks since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the number of antisemitic events rose 500 percent compared to the same period in 2022. A third of the new incidents recorded took place in the U...
Bolivia severs ties with Israel over war in Gaza By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Bolivia’s foreign ministry announced Tuesday that it is severing diplomatic ties with Israel over what it called Israel’s crimes against humanity in its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Bolivia had previously cut ties with Israel in 2009 under President Evo Morales over another violent conflict in Gaza, but President Jeanine Anez restored relations in 2020. Bolivia’s current president, Luis Arce, is a member of the country’s left-wing socialist party and was formerly...
(JNS) — Israel must “immediately and significantly” increase the amount of humanitarian aid entering the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, U.S. President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call on Sunday. “The President reiterated that Israel has every right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism and underscored the need to do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritizes the protection of civilians,” according to a White House readout of the call. Biden and...
The government of Qatar is pressuring the Hamas terrorist organization to release additional captives being held in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reported Wednesday. According to the report Qatar, a key patron of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, is demanding the terror organization speed up the release of captives, even without concessions from Israel, ahead of Israel’s planned ground operation into the coastal enclave. Following the Oct. 7 invasion, Qatar has brokered talks between the Biden administration and Hamas for the release of captives held in G...
(JNS) — Hundreds of Hollywood celebrities have called on President Joe Biden to “not rest” until all the Israeli hostages held by the Hamas terrorist organization are free. The signatories include Madonna, Chris Rock, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gal Gadot, Jack Black, Isla Fisher, Jerry Seinfeld, Bradley Cooper, Tyler Perry, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Courtney Cox, Jessica Biel, Orlando Bloom, Tiffany Haddish, Will Ferrell, Brooke Shields and Chelsea Handler. In an open letter, the stars praised Biden for his “unshakable moral conviction, leaders...
(JNS) - The United States is preparing for possible mass evacuations of its citizens from Israel and Lebanon should the war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza spark a regional conflagration. Four U.S. officials familiar with the government's contingency planning told The Washington Post that Americans living in the two neighboring countries were of particular concern. According to State Department estimates, around 600,000 U.S. citizens resided in Israel and another 86,000 were believed to be in...
(JNS) — A resolution “calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire in Israel and occupied Palestine” has drawn 18 House Democrats signatories, led by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.). Bush’s fellow “Squad” members Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) were among the original co-signers of H.Res. 786. Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) and Greg Casar (D-Texas) were also signatories. Bowman and Lee signed on at the beginning, on Oct. 16, and Casar a...
(JNS) — For U.S. Republican Senators Steve Daines and Rick Scott, the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre feels personal. At this weekend’s Republican Jewish Coalition Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, Scott detailed to JNS a series of meetings he’s held with Israeli families affected by the tragedy. “We put a big poster of all the hostages’ pictures in my office … two of the families’ kids went over to fight with the IDF and they were captured,” said Scott. He showed JNS a dog tag on a chain given to him by one of those families. In Hebrew, it read “Our he...
Bank of Israel leaves benchmark rate unchanged (JNS) — The Monetary Committee of the Bank of Israel decided on Monday to leave its key interest rate unchanged at 4.75 percent. The war against terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon that began on Oct. 7 is having various economic effects, both on real activity and on the financial markets, the central bank noted. The bank has taken a number of policy measures to deal with the situation. The financial markets are functioning and a large part of economic activity is continuing as usual, it said. In view of...
(JNS) - The Hamas terrorist group may release 50 hostages with dual citizenship it holds in the Gaza Strip, "separate from any broader deal," The New York Times reported on Monday, citing an Israeli military source. Qatar and the United States are negotiating the release of abductees with dual nationality separately from those who have only Israeli citizenship, the report claimed. Israeli senior officials have previously said that Israel is not involved in any kind of negotiations related to...
(JNS) - U.S. President Joe Biden praised the Israeli people's wartime posture upon his arrival to the Jewish state on Wednesday. "To the people of Israel, your courage and commitment is stunning. I'm proud to be here," the American president said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted Biden at the Ben-Gurion Airport tarmac along with President Isaac Herzog and other senior officials, before heading to the Kempinski Hotel on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to speak to the media. "...
(JNS) — Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will speak about the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 and Israel’s response at Tuesday’s United Nations Security Council meeting in New York. The minister will bring with him relatives of Israelis the terrorist group abducted and took to the Gaza Strip, the Foreign Ministry said. On Monday, the IDF said it had contacted the families of 222 hostages held by Hamas. Cohen will also participate in events in New York with the families of those kidnapped. He is also expected to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antón...