Weekly roundup of world briefs

UNSC to convene for first talks on Gaza hostages since Oct. 7

(JNS) — The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to discuss the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, following an “urgent request” by Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon.

According to the envoy, it will mark the first time since the Oct. 7 attack that the Security Council has convened for an official deliberation on the issue.

Hamas currently holds 101 hostages, including 97 of the 251 captured on Oct. 7. 

“It is a disgrace that it has taken the Council 11 months and the brutal execution of six hostages by Hamas terrorists to finally convene this discussion,” Danon tweeted on Tuesday morning, referring to the bodies of abductees recovered from a Rafah tunnel on Saturday. 

Following my urgent request, the UN Security Council will finally convene on Wednesday for the first time since the October 7 massacre to hold an official discussion on the hostages.

“I extend my gratitude to the representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom and France for calling for this meeting. The Security Council must unequivocally condemn this Nazi-like terrorist organization and demand the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” he continued.

The three countries are among the five permanent members of the Security Council, along with China and Russia. Ten non-permanent members are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly.

Gwyneth Paltrow to hostage families: ‘I send you my heart’

By Adi Nirman

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — American actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow on Monday sent a message of support to the families of the six hostages whose bodies were recovered from southern Gaza over the weekend. 

In a story on her official Instagram account, she wrote, “To the families of each hostage whose life was stolen, I have thought of you every day for 11 months, but today I send you my heart.” 

Ever since Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 attack, Paltrow has consistently used her platform to raise awareness about the hostages’ plight. In October, she joined other celebrities in calling for their immediate release, sharing the hashtag “#NoHostageLeftBehind” and signing an open letter to President Joe Biden on the matter.

In a separate Instagram story, she highlighted the ongoing plight of female hostages, asking, “There are still 17 women being held by Hamas. Where are the feminists?” She accompanied this message with the hashtag “#rapeisnotresistance,” drawing attention to the reports of sexual violence against the hostages and raising awareness of victim Shani Louk’s story. 

The retrieval of the hostages’ bodies from a Rafah tunnel on Sunday sparked widespread outrage on social media. Many users expressed frustration at the lack of global attention to the ongoing hostage crisis and recent tragedy, particularly noting the case of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American citizen whose parents recently spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

His funeral at Jerusalem’s Har HaMenuchot cemetery on Monday was attended by thousands.

All six of the hostages were shot multiple times at close range just days before their discovery by Israeli forces, Israel’s Health Ministry said on Sunday. 

Originally published by Israel Hayom. JNS staff contributed to this report.

Netanyahu says ‘shameful’ UK arms embargo strengthens Hamas

(JNS) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called the British government’s partial suspension of arms sales to Israel a “shameful decision” that won’t stop the Jewish state’s determination to defeat Hamas.

“Days after Hamas executed six Israeli hostages, the UK government suspended thirty arms licenses to Israel,” the premier posted on X.

“This shameful decision will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization that savagely murdered 1,200 people on October 7, including 14 British citizens,” he continued.

“Hamas is still holding over 100 hostages, including 5 British citizens. Instead of standing with Israel, a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism, Britain’s misguided decision will only embolden Hamas,” wrote Netanyahu.

“Israel is pursuing a just war with just means, taking unprecedented measures to keep civilians out of harm’s way and comporting fully with international law. Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror.”

Netanyahu concluded: “With or without British arms, Israel will win this war and secure our common future.”

The U.K. suspended some arms sales to the Israel Defense Forces on Monday, claiming there is a “clear risk” the weapons could be used by the Jewish state’s military to “commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

Foreign Secretary David Lammy informed lawmakers that London would cancel 30 out of 350 licenses, banning the export of aircraft, drones, helicopters and ground-targeting equipment.

Youngkin orders Virginia flags at half-staff for Hersh Goldberg-Polin

(JNS) — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin ordered flags at half-staff “in memory and honor of Hersh Goldberg-Polin,” the Republican’s office stated on Sunday.

A spokesman for the governor told JNS that the order applies to all flags in the state on Tuesday.

“After 330 agonizing days since the brutal terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that left more than 1,200 dead and hundreds more held hostage, Johnathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg woke up to unimaginable news that no parent should ever receive,” Youngkin stated on Sunday.

“Suzanne and I are angered and heartbroken by the death of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a senseless murder at the hands of terrorists,” he added. “Today, Virginians, Americans, and the world join the Goldberg-Polin family and the Keneseth Beth Israel Synagogue in prayer.”

Beth Israel is an Orthodox synagogue in Richmond which traces its origins back to 1856, per its website. Goldberg-Polin lived in Richmond.

UK politician criticized for using anti-Nazi poem to oppose smoking ban

(JNS) — British parliament member Esther McVey met with immediate pushback late last week after sharing lines on social media from a poem by Martin Niemöller titled “First They Came,” including the line “then they came for the Jews,” in reaction to proposed legislation against public smoking.

She wrote that they were “pertinent words re Starmer’s smoking ban.”

The Board of Deputies responded that the use of a poem about Nazi horrors to describe a potential smoking ban is “an ill-considered and repugnant action.”

The group said that it strongly encouraged “the MP for Tatton to delete her tweet and apologize for this breathtakingly thoughtless comparison.”

Following up a little more than 90 minutes after the board’s statement, McVey posted on X seven paragraphs of reply.

“Nobody is suggesting that banning smoking outside pubs can be equated with what happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazis,” McVey wrote. “It is called an analogy—those who restrict freedoms start with easy targets then expand their reach.

She continued, saying she was “pretty sure everyone understands the point I was making and knows that no offense was ever intended and that no equivalence was being suggested.”

IDF downs drone approaching Israel from the east

(JNS) — Israel’s aerial defense array overnight Tuesday intercepted a drone launched toward the country “from the east,” the Israel Defense Forces said on Wednesday morning.

The drone did not cross into Israeli territory and no injuries were reported, according to the military. According to Israeli media reports, it was shot down over Jordan. 

A group of Iranian-backed militias calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it had launched drones at the Port of Haifa.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq says it launched drones at the Haifa port on Wednesday morning. 

Also overnight Tuesday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked a Hezbollah rocket launcher in the area of Zabqin in Southern Lebanon that had been used to carry out launches against Israel, the IDF said on Wednesday morning.

Sisi heading to Turkey for first presidential-level visit in 12 years

(JNS) — Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was scheduled to head to Turkey on Wednesday for the first presidential-level visit in 12 years amid warming relations between Cairo and Ankara.

His meeting with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comes months after the Turkish president traveled to Cairo in February in his first trip to Egypt since 2012.

“Turkey-Egypt relations will be reviewed in all their aspects and possible joint steps in the coming period to further develop cooperation will be discussed,” said the Turkish presidency’s communications office.

“In addition to bilateral relations, there will be an exchange of views on current regional and global issues, especially the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories,” the statement added.

Erdoğan has become increasingly hostile toward the Jewish state and closer to Hamas since the terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.

The Turkish president and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), along with Qatar, are state supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian branch.

Diplomatic ties between Cairo and Ankara collapsed in 2013 after then-army chief Sisi ousted then-president Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood organization and a Turkish ally.

Danish police arrest Greta Thunberg during pro-Hamas protest

By JNS Staff

(JNS) — Danish police on Wednesday detained the anti-Israel Swedish activist Greta Thunberg at a demonstration at the University of Copenhagen against the war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza, local media reported.

She was among six people apprehended after a group of 20 protesters blocked the entrance to a university building.

The 21-year-old left-wing environmental activist, who rose to international fame for calling attention to climate change, has previously accused Israel of genocide over the nearly 11-month-old war against Islamic terrorists in Gaza.

Last year, she called to “crush Zionism” at a pro-Palestinian rally in Sweden.

The school drop-out has pursued a full-time career against what she warns is an impending climate-related crisis.

Venice film festival director rejects petition to boycott Israeli films

By JNS Staff

(JNS) — The director of the Venice Film Festival currently underway has nixed a call to boycott Israeli films because of the nearly eleven-month-old war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

The decision comes as more than 300 film industry figures from around the world signed a letter published by Artists for Palestine Italia, urging the festival not to screen two Israeli films.

The signatories claimed that “Why War,” from director Amos Gitai, and Dani Rosenberg’s Hebrew-language film, “Al Klavim Veanashim” (“Of Dogs and Men”), were created by Israeli production companies “complicit in whitewashing Israel’s oppression against Palestinians” in Gaza.

“We must not forget the [Oct. 7] massacre that took place which sparked this conflict,” Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera told Deadline.

“What [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is a war crime, and so was October 7,” he asserted. “But we wouldn’t ever withdraw a film on ideological grounds. The films that were asked to be withdrawn by the 300 filmmakers are not anti-Palestinian films in any way, quite the opposite.”

Hezbollah fires 65-rocket barrage at northern Israel

(JNS) — Sixty-five rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israeli, according to the IDF.

Hezbollah took responsibility for the barrage, with the Iranian terror proxy claiming to have targeted Israeli military positions.

The IDF aerial defense array intercepted some projectiles, while others fell in open areas, the military said, adding that several rockets impacted near the northernmost border town of Kiryat Shmona.

The impacts sparked fires across the Hula Valley.

Local authorities confirmed that at least one home was damaged in a direct hit, causing the house to catch fire.

No injuries were reported. 

Ynet reported that most of Kiryat Shmona’s residents evacuated when the war broke out in October of last year, with at least two thirds of the town still deserted.

When the rocket attack began, residents of the Upper Galilee were instructed to remain in shelters.

Shortly thereafter, sirens sounded in Netu’a and Shtula in northern Israel.

Overnight Tuesday, Israeli Air Force fighter jets attacked a Hezbollah rocket launcher in the area of Zabqin in Southern Lebanon that had been used to carry out launches against Israel, the IDF said.

The IAF also struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the areas of Khiam and Ayta ash Shab in Southern Lebanon.

Over 200 terrorists killed in IDF operation in Tel al-Sultan

(JNS) — Israeli forces have killed more than 200 terrorists in recent weeks during operations in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah in southern Gaza, the military said on Wednesday.

Dozens of weapons stored in civilian structures have been located so far, including a large cache inside a basement where Hamas terrorists were embedded.

“In one encounter, terrorists fired at the troops from inside a building in the area. The troops conducted a targeted raid on the building, searched it, and then eliminated the terrorist inside,” the IDF said.

“In the basement of the building, the troops located large quantities of weapons that were used by the terrorists there,” added the military.

Additionally, soldiers located 10 long-range rocket launchers intended to be fired at Israeli territory.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces in Gaza killed the Hamas terrorist who led the Oct. 7 assault on the northwest Negev moshav of Netiv Ha’asara.

Israeli fighter jets struck a Hamas compound near the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing eight terrorists from Hamas’s Daraj Tuffah Battalion, according to the joint statement. Among those killed was Ahmed Fozi Nazer Muhammad Wadia, a member of the terror group’s Nukhba force who led the invasion of Netiv Ha’asara, located directly adjacent to the Gaza fence.

WHO inoculates 160,000 Gaza children with polio vaccine

(JNS) — World Health Organization doctors in the Gaza Strip have vaccinated more than 160,000 children against the polio virus, surpassing the projected numbers during the first days of the 10-day campaign, the WHO representative in Jerusalem told reporters.

“Up until now things are going well,” Dr Rik Peeperkorn said.

Israel agreed to temporarily halt some military operations to allow for the vaccination campaign. The decision reportedly came after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the issue during a meeting in Jerusalem.

The campaign is being conducted by the WHO together with UNICEF, working in coordination with the IDF’s Southern Command and its Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories unit.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which stands accused of collaborating with Hamas terrorists, is also involved in the vaccine drive.

On Sunday and Monday, the WHO inoculated 161,030 children under the age of 10, above the projection of 156,500, Dr Peeperkorn said.

“We need to cover a minimum of 90 percent of those children to stop the transmission within Gaza and to avoid polio spread, international spread of polio to surrounding countries,” he stated during a briefing.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that its troops would “work to ensure that the population can safely reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be administered.”

The Israeli government has facilitated the transfer of close to 300,000 doses of polio vaccine into Gaza since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist onslaught in the western Negev region, an IDF spokesperson said late last month.

In the upcoming weeks, another 43,250 vials of vaccine are scheduled to arrive in Israel and will be delivered to the coastal enclave, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, the military’s international spokesman, tweeted. He said the doses will be sufficient to vaccinate over a million children.