Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — In a video message on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Iranian people to imagine how much better life would be without the ayatollahs, warning also that the “tyrants of Iran” were putting their families in danger. “I want you to imagine—just imagine—how your life could be different if Iran was free,” said the Israeli premier. “You could speak your mind without fear. You could make a joke without wondering if you’d be carted off to Evin prison.” He underscored how the fanatical Iranian regime spends vast...
(JNS) — Israeli authorities on Tuesday warned Israeli nationals in Thailand to remain alert and avoid public Jewish gatherings and events, citing new information regarding possible attacks. The warning follows reports of plans to attack Israelis at a full-moon party on Nov. 15 in Ko Pha Ngan, an island south of Bangkok, Channel 12 reported. The island is a popular travel destination for Israelis. Thai and Israeli security officials have thwarted several attempted attacks already, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the Prime M...
(JNS) — “She’d rather sleep anywhere else than inside a bomb shelter, because that’s where she was kidnapped from. That’s where Hamas burst in and took her and Hila,” Tom Hand, the father of former captive Emily Hand, told JNS on Thursday. On Oct. 7, 2023, Emily Hand was sleeping over at her friend Hila Rotem Shoshani’s house in Kibbutz Be’eri, five miles from the Gaza Strip, when Hamas launched its assault, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251 hostages including 40 children, among...
(JNS) — An Israeli low-cost airline is planning to launch flights between Israel and New York this winter, ending the wartime monopoly on the popular route by Israel’s flagship carrier El Al, the Israeli Ministry of Transportation said on Wednesday. The move, which envisions four weekly flights on Israir from Tel Aviv to Newark Liberty International Airport, comes at a time when flights on U.S. carriers to and from Tel Aviv remain suspended due to the security situation, and as El Al is facing an investigation for price gouging on tickets due...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at about 4:30 a.m. local time that he was dispatching two rescue planes to Amsterdam following a “serious incident of violence against Israeli citizens.” “The prime minister takes the horrific event very seriously and demands that the Dutch government and the Dutch security forces act firmly and quickly against the rioters and ensure the peace of our citizens,” Netanyahu’s office stated, in Hebrew. Earlier in the day, Maccabi Tel Aviv lost 5-0 to Ajax Amsterdam in a Europa League socc...
(JNS) — El Al flew about 2,000 passengers to Ben Gurion-Airport over the weekend on eight emergency flights from Amsterdam, the Jewish state’s flag carrier said, following a coordinated assault on Israelis there on Thursday night. Most of the emergency flights left on Friday and two flew on Saturday with special permission from the chief rabbis of Israel, who determined that the circumstances justified this violation of observing the Shabbat. “All passengers have boarded the flights free of ch...
(JNS) — The dismissal of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday led to a battle of narratives as the Prime Minister’s Office said Gallant was fired over disagreements connected to the war’s conduct while the opposition tried to frame the move as petty politics. Four opposition leaders held a joint press conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem on Wednesday, accusing Netanyahu of dismissing Gallant in order to pass a “draft-dodger bill” needed to placate h...
By Josh Hasten (JNS) - Standing on the roof of her apartment building on the eastern tip of the central Israeli town of Rosh HaAyin, just meters away from the security barrier, Moriah Tzafar shares a grave concern. "We see [Palestinian Authority] cars driving around, getting closer to us. What are they doing here? The area is a closed military firing zone [Zone 203]. We see them carrying out tours of the fence line. There are cars, people, illegal housing, and they're getting closer. We report...
(JNS) — President-elect Donald Trump wants Israel to wrap up its wars against Iran and its regional terror proxies with a “decisive victory,” campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Pipko told Channel 12 News on Wednesday. “I would say he expects them to end it by winning it, one hundred percent; that’s how he always talks about ending wars,” the Jewish Republican Party spokesperson told the Israeli news broadcaster. “Donald Trump always says he wants less innocent people to die—that is his stance whether we’re talking about the war in Gaza, whether...
(JNS) — The Knesset on Thursday night approved the appointment of Israel Katz as defense minister, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Yoav Gallant from the position earlier this week. The legislature also approved Gideon Sa’ar’s appointment to replace Katz as the Jewish state’s foreign minister. The Knesset voted 58-0 in favor of the appointments, with opposition lawmakers boycotting the session. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of Gallant was legal, Israel’s attorney general informed the country’s High Court on Thursday....
(JNS) — An Israeli law that will allow Jerusalem’s Education Ministry to dismiss teachers who carry out or publicly support acts of terrorism, as well as cut off funding for educational institutions that glorify terror, passed its third and final reading in parliament, the Knesset said on Tuesday. The law, called the Bill for Prohibition on Employment of Teaching Personnel and Withholding Budget from Educational Institutions due to Identification with Act of Terrorism or with Terrorist Organization, passed with a vote of 55-45 on Tuesday, aft...
(JNS) — Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Monday passed by a large majority two laws that prohibit UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory and make it illegal for state officials to be in contact with representatives of that controversial U.N. aid agency for Palestinians. The Knesset passed the laws, which followed exposures about UNRWA staff’s complicity in the Hamas massacres of Oct. 7, 2023, despite pressure by the United States and other countries to desist for fear that it would complicate humanitarian projects in Gaza and beyond. Axi...
(JNS) — The son of the late American evangelist, Billy Graham, heads a list of Israel’s top Christian Allies around the world, recognized for their unwavering faith-based support for the Jewish state. The fifth annual list released Wednesday by the Washington, D.C.-based Israel Allies Foundation comes at a time when evangelical Christian support for Israel has served as a bulwark and counterweight against international criticism of Israel for the yearlong war against Hamas in Gaza. The American evangelist and missionary Franklin Graham, 72, of...
(JNS) — A newly developed antibody-based treatment for the most aggressive type of breast cancer could also be used to treat many other cancers, the Weizmann Institute of Science announced on Sunday. The researchers at the university in the central Israeli city of Rehovot, which offers postgraduate-only degrees in the natural and exact sciences, discovered that aggressive breast cancer prompts nearby immune cells to build “molecular bridges” between themselves, which causes these cells to refrain from attacking the cancer and leads to suppr...
(JNS) — Hezbollah’s incessant cross-border attacks on northern Israel since Oct. 8, 2023, have burned over 57,000 acres of land, the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund said on Wednesday. According to KKL-JNF’s Forestry Department, it will take some five to seven years for nature to repair the damage. According to the data, Israel’s Upper Galilee and Golan Heights regions have suffered the most damage, with almost 43,500 acres burned, followed by the Lower Galilee (some 6,175 acres), the Western Galilee (2,223 acres) and the Hula Va...
(JNS) — In his first speech since being appointed Hezbollah leader earlier this week, Naim Qassem on Wednesday vowed to continue the path of his slain predecessor Hassan Nasrallah. “What is my plan? A continuation of my predecessor’s. We will carry on with the war program as it has been outlined so far,” Qassem said in the televised speech, according to a translation by Lebanon’s L’Orient Le Jour daily. Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Sept. 27 after heading the Iranian-backed terrorist group for more than 30 years, rema...
(JNS) — Israel is pursuing a “long-term strategy” focused on neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program and proxies, despite claims to the contrary, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. Speaking at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, Netanyahu pushed back against recent claims that Israel’s war effort lacked focus. “After each of our achievements, I hear the former officials in the television studios say: ‘Well, we understand the immediate war goals, but what’s the strategy?’” he said. “So if it’s not clear by now,...
(JNS) — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday accused Israel of seeking to carry out “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, while hailing the refusal by Arab nations to accept Palestinian war refugees. “The intention might be for the Palestinians to leave Gaza, for others to occupy it,” Guterres told The Guardian, speaking on the sidelines of the COP16 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia. “But there has been—and I pay tribute to the courage and the resilience of the Palestinian people and to the determinat...
(JNS) — Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Monday over a decision to place portable bomb shelters, known in Hebrew as miguniot, in Judea and Samaria towns that have not been formally recognized by Jerusalem. According to Baharav-Miara, the government’s decision to provide Israeli citizens in unrecognized outposts throughout Judea and Samaria with shelters was illegal, as it was made by members of the Cabinet without requesting professional advice from the security estab...
(JNS) — Former Hamas captive Erez Kalderon celebrated his bar mitzvah in Kiryat Gat, southeast of Ashkelon, on Thursday, after marking his 12th birthday in the Gaza Strip. Hamas terrorists kidnapped Kalderon, along with his father, Ofer, and 16-year-old sister, Sahar, from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Erez and Sahar were among 105 hostages released last November as part of a weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Ofer, now 53, remains a captive in Gaza. “It was very dif...
(JNS) — President Isaac Herzog announced on Monday the award of the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor to eight Jewish and non-Jewish leaders from around the world, in recognition of their long-standing contributions to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Against the background of the ongoing war, the president chose these leaders for their unwavering commitment to Israel and their exceptional support of the Jewish people over decades of endeavors, particularly since the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023. The Israeli Presidential Medal of H...
(JTA) - WASHINGTON - Israel said it hit military targets in Iran in retaliation for that country's missile barrage on Oct. 1, apparently heeding Biden administration pleas to avoid oil fields or Iran's nuclear program because of fears of escalation into an all-out war. "In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the State of Israel – right now the Israel Defense Forces is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran," Daniel Hagari, the Israeli army s...
(JNS) — A survivor of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, Nova music festival massacre, Shirel Golan, took her own life on Oct. 20, her 22nd birthday. She was found lifeless in the yard of her home in Moshav Porat in central Israel. The exact cause of death was not made public. She was set to have visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron with her family. According to family members, despite suffering from post-trauma, the state failed to provide Shirel with mental health services. “She said she received no assis...
(JNS) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, wrote to her 15 million social media followers on Sunday night that the Jewish state has to act quickly to allow more aid into the Gaza Strip. “The U.N. reports that no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly two weeks,” Harris wrote. “Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and must have access to food, water and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.” The vice president...
(JNS) — The elimination of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s top military-terrorist and political chief and the architect of the Oct. 7 invasion marks a major turning point in the battle to degrade the Iranian-backed jihadist network surrounding Israel. IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari explained on Thursday that Sinwar had been attempting to flee from house to house, moving between structures in Rafah. Hagari noted that Sinwar “was in flight,” and at one point, after the entourage protecting him had been fired upon by the IDF and split up, Sinwar...
