Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Al-Quds Brigades announce bombing of Sderot city with rockets UPDATE: IDF announce they airstruck rocketeers dead

2025-07-04

[HODHODYEMENNEWS.NET] The al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
movement, announced Wednesday morning that it had targeted the city of Sderot in the southern occupied territories with a barrage of rockets in response to the Israeli occupation's ongoing crimes in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
The brigades confirmed that the bombing, using ''precision missiles,'' was part of the ''Al-Aqsa Flood'' operation, which began on October 7, 2023.

Of course they did. Then the IDF declared the area where the rocket launchers were as off limits, and warned the residents to leave for the safe enclaves, lest they get caught in the IDF’s latest clearance operation. In the meantime, the IDF shot down the rockets or watched them fall harmlessly in Israeli fields, in the Mediterranean, or somewhere in Gaza, upon which Hamas blamed the resulting deaths on the eeeeeeevil IDF.

This attack is part of a series of rocket attacks by the Paleostinian resistance against occupation sites in response to the escalating aggression and the targeting of civilians and infrastructure in Gaza, particularly following the massacres in the Zeitoun and Shuja'iyya neighborhoods.

No doubt Hamas feels better for having shot their wad, as the cannoneers used to say, however ineffectually.

The situation in Gaza is witnessing a major escalation with the continued resistance attacks on the advancing Israeli occupation forces through ground ambushes and intensive shelling.

Update from the Times of Israel at 2:10 p.m. EDT:

IDF says Gaza terrorists behind Wednesday rocket fire killed in drone strike

The IDF says the Gaza terror cell responsible for yesterday’s rocket fire at Sderot and Ibim was “eliminated” in a drone strike just minutes after the launch from northern Gaza.

Separately, it says troops across multiple divisions have continued to operate in the Strip.

Troops of the 162nd Division have targeted terrorists and underground infrastructure in the north, it says, while the 188th Armored Brigade in the south recently uncovered rifles, pistols, magazines, and mortars in the Khan Younis area.

Over the past 24 hours, the Israeli Air Force struck around 150 targets, including underground routes, military structures, sniper positions, and other terror infrastructure, the military says.

The IDF says its operations, carried out with intelligence from the Shin Bet and Military Intelligence Directorate, aim to eliminate threats against Israeli civilians.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF confirms probe into killings near Gaza aid site, denies troops ordered to shoot civilians; GHF gave out 25,000 boxes of food Friday

2025-06-28

[IsraelTimes] Haaretz report says military looking into possible war crimes, cites soldiers’ testimonies describing a ‘killing field,’ with troops routinely using heavy live fire for crowd control

The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged on Friday that it was probing allegations that troops are using deadly fire on hungry aid-seeking Gazooks, but vociferously denied that troops are being ordered by commanders to deliberately open fire on the Paleostinian civilians.

The statement was issued after the Haaretz daily reported that the military launched a probe this week into potential war crimes committed by its troops and quoted unidentified soldiers as saying that the area was a "killing field" and that they were ordered to treat the aid seekers like combatants and using heavy live fire for crowd control.

Haaretz prides itself on being the New York Times of Israel, and so they are. Not something I would be proud of, but I have standards…

The Haaretz report drew a first detailed response from the military regarding the near-daily deadly shootings around aid distribution sites. It also prompted a rare joint statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, accusing the left-wing newspaper of a "blood libel" against the IDF.

According to Haaretz, the mass-casualty incidents were discussed at a meeting earlier this week during which the Military Advocate General’s (MAG) Office directed the top-tier General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism to investigate suspected war crimes that have largely taken place near Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Humanitarian Foundation distribution sites.

The mechanism is an independent military body responsible for investigating unusual incidents amid the war.

During the meeting, officials in the MAG’s office expressed alarm over mounting global uproar over the killing of civilians en route to aid sites, Haaretz reported. Senior officers from the IDF’s Southern Command pushed back, claiming that the incidents have been isolated and that troops only fired at Paleostinians who posed a threat.

Representatives from the MAG’s office disagreed, insisting that the Southern Command’s account doesn’t line up with the facts on the ground, according to a source who attended the meeting.

"The claim that these are isolated cases doesn’t align with incidents in which grenades were dropped from the air and mortars and artillery were fired at civilians," a MAG representative is quoted as saying.

"This isn’t about a few people being killed — we’re talking about dozens of casualties every day," the MAG official added.

The Hamas
Hamas

..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
-run health ministry says 549 people have been killed and 4,000 have been maimed trying to pick up aid from GHF sites or while waiting for UN food trucks since May 27, when GHF launched.

The numbers have not been verified, but between May 27 and June 24, there were at least 19 IDF shooting incidents related to humanitarian aid

distribution, according to a review of reports out of Gaza conducted by The Times of Israel.

In most of these cases, the IDF has admitted to opening fire and striking Paleostinians, but characterized it as "warning shots" at those who got too close to soldiers or used site access routes when distribution sites were closed.

There has been widespread confusion about access to the aid, with the army imposing, for a time, a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew on approach routes to GHF sites. But locals often have to set out well before dawn to have any chance of retrieving food.

According to the report, soldiers are receiving orders to fire at people who approach the distribution sites before they open or remain there after they have closed. The report added that many of the instances of fire occurred at nighttime, meaning the Paleostinians who were fired at possibly did not know they were in a forbidden area.

A KILLING FIELD
Israeli soldiers serving near the aid distribution sites described grim scenarios in interviews with Haaretz on condition of anonymity.

"It’s a killing field," one soldier said. "Where I was stationed there, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force — no crowd-control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire."

"We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces," the soldier continued. "I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons."

He described the incidents as a deadly form of the children’s game "Red light, green light."

"Firing mortars to keep hungry people away is neither professional nor humane. I know there are Hamas operatives among them, but there are also people who simply want to receive aid," another soldier told Haaretz.

"It’s become a place with its own set of rules. The loss of human life means nothing. It’s not even an ’unfortunate incident,’ like [the IDF] used to say."

Another soldier told Haaretz: "This has become routine. You know it isn’t okay. You feel not okay with it, that the commanders are taking the law into their hands. But Gaza is a parallel universe, [we] move on very quickly. The truth is that most don’t even stop to think about it."

A BLOOD LIBEL
Following the Haaretz report, the military put out a statement confirming that the high-level General Staff Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism was probing the matter.

However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits...
it said that it strongly rejected the Haaretz report, adding that it is "operating to allow and facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid by the American Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), and to secure the routes leading to the distribution centers, to allow the aid to reach the civilians rather than Hamas.

"The IDF did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centers. To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians."

Nevertheless, the statement said that the IDF is trying to improve at minimizing "the potential friction" with civilians. "As part of this effort, IDF forces have recently taken steps to reorganize the area, including the installation of new fencing, signage, the opening of additional routes, and more."

"Any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary," the statement continued.

"The allegations of deliberate fire toward civilians presented in the article are not recognized in the field," the IDF asserted.

"These are vicious lies designed to discredit the IDF — the most moral army in the world," the statement said. "IDF soldiers receive clear orders to avoid harming innocent civilians, and they act accordingly."

Following the report, the GHF agency said it was "not aware of any of these incidents."

The GHF statement makes a point of asserting that the shootings have not taken place at or in the immediate vicinity of its distribution sites.

GHF notes in its statement that the "IDF is tasked with providing safe passage for aid-seekers to all humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza, including GHF," its statement adds.

Israeli strike kills 18 picking up aid as IDF said to target Hamas-linked unit distributing it
[IsraelTimes] An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza on Thursday, where witnesses say a crowd of people was getting bags of flour from a Hamas-linked police unit that had confiscated the goods from gangs looting aid convoys. Hospital officials said 18 people were killed.

The strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah on Thursday appeared to target members of the Hamas-linked Sahm unit, a security group tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices. The unit is part of Gaza’s Hamas-run interior ministry, but includes members of other factions.

Witnesses say the Sahm unit was distributing bags of flour and other goods confiscated from looters and corrupt merchants, drawing a crowd when the strike hit.

Video of the aftermath showed bodies, several torn, of multiple young men in the street with blood splattering on the pavement and walls of buildings. The dead included a child and at least seven Sahm members, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where casualties were taken.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has accused the Hamas terror group of stealing aid and using it to prop up its rule in the enclave. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck Gaza’s police, considering them a branch of Hamas.

GHF says it distributed 25K boxes of food at three Gaza sites on Friday
[IsraelTimes] The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says it distributed over 25,000 boxes of food at three sites on Friday, two in southern Gaza and one in the central Strip.

GHF says its boxes contain enough food for 5.5 people for 3.5 days.

The aid distributed by GHF amounts to 30 trucks, well below the hundreds that aid groups say are needed daily to properly address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The US- and Israeli-backed initiative says it also brought in a truckload of potatoes for the first time as a pilot.

GHF says that it will not be affected by Israeli restrictions on aid as Jerusalem investigates whether looting is taking place. Yesterday, UN staff were barred from picking up aid from a north Gaza crossing after footage emerged of armed gunmen on top of an aid convoy.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

At least 15 Palestinians shot dead after new flashpoint near Gaza aid distribution centre

2025-06-16

There is a proper line. Get in it and stay in it.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] At least 15 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire near an aid centre in central Gaza, doctors said last night.

Medics at Al-Awda and Al-Aqsa hospitals said the victims were approaching the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) yesterday when they were shot.

The Israeli army said soldiers opened fire to ‘neutralise the threat’ posed when a man continued to move towards troops and ignored their warning shots.

Last week, the army warned Palestinians not to approach roads to GHF sites between 6pm and 6am, describing the routes as closed military zones.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel partially lifted a near three-month blockade.

But aid remains in short supply, and has made the humanitarian situation in Gaza desperate.

Scores of Palestinians have been killed in near daily shootings as they try to get food. The UN says the Israel-backed GHF violates humanitarian impartiality and is inadequate and dangerous.

Gaza’s health ministry said at least 274 people have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded near aid distribution sites since the GHF began operations.

Hamas, which denies claims that it steals aid, said Israel was using ‘hunger as a weapon of war and turning aid distribution sites into traps of mass deaths’.

In another incident yesterday, health officials at Shifa Hospital in Gaza said Israeli fire killed at least 12 Palestinians gathering to wait for aid trucks along the coastal road north of the strip.

The Israeli military ordered residents of Khan Younis and the nearby towns of Abassan and Bani Suhaila in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and go to a so-called humanitarian zone, saying it was tackling ‘terror organisations’ in the area.

Neither Israel nor Hamas seems willing to back down on core demands to restore a ceasefire in Gaza, blaming each other for the failure to reach a deal.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Day 3: Boulder jihadi disguised himself as a gardener to approach victims, ICE picks up the fam, videos posted on pro-Hamas Telegram channel of jihadi pre-attack

2025-06-04

Day 2 reports were here and here, and Day 1 is here..

[IsraelTimes] Mohamed Soliman says he carried out firebombing to avenge ‘his people’ and hoped to die during the attack; Jewish community announces vigil and fundraising for the victims

The suspect in the firekaboom on a rally for Israeli hostages in Colorado on Sunday disguised himself as a gardener to approach the group and has no regrets about the attack that aimed to kill all of the participants at the demonstration, according to an affidavit for an arrest warrant filed by a Boulder detective.

The affidavit, filed by a detective who interviewed Mohammed Sabry Soliman after the attack, came alongside a statement filed by an FBI agent who also spoke with the suspect. Soliman is being charged by both state and federal authorities for the attack that maimed 12 in the city of Boulder.

Police first heard about the attack when they received a call at 1:27 p.m. about a man with a "blow torch" who was lighting people on fire. Officers arrived at the scene three minutes later. Witnesses directed them to Soliman, who was shirtless, standing on a patch of grass, facing the bystanders and shouting. He was arrested two minutes after officers arrived.

Witnesses said Soliman, 45, threw the homemade Molotov cocktails into the crowd, "which burst upon impact, creating large flames," the detective said. Eight people were burned or caught on fire, and four victims with minor injuries later came forward. The victims’ names were redacted.

Soliman also used a commercial weed sprayer, mounted on his back and filled with gasoline, as a makeshift flamethrower. The device malfunctioned and caught on fire, prompting Soliman to drop the sprayer and remove his shirt, witnesses later said.

Police located a silver Toyota Prius registered to Soliman a few blocks away. Inside were cans of gasoline, rags and a Koran.

Soliman, who was lightly injured, told medical personnel that he attacked the group to avenge "his people."

Soliman has a valid Colorado driver’s license, lives in Colorado Springs, and has no criminal history in the state.

The report said Soliman was born in Egypt, lived in Kuwait for 17 years at some point, and moved to Colorado Springs three years ago. The US Department of Homeland Security said Soliman’s tourist visa expired and he was in the US illegally.

Soliman planned the attack for a year and learned to make Molotov cocktails on YouTube. He took a class to acquire a concealed firearms permit and learned to fire a gun, but was unable to buy a firearm because he is not a legal US citizen.

He bought glass containers for the Molotov cocktails at a Target, filled them with gas from a gas station he stopped at on his way to the attack, and put them in a black storage bin. Investigators later recovered 16 unused Molotov cocktails from the scene. Soliman told police he only threw two Molotov cocktails at the group "because he got scared."

In order to approach the protest group without raising suspicion, Soliman disguised himself as a gardener, wearing an orange vest, carrying flowers he bought at Home Depot, and wearing the weed sprayer filled with gasoline.

He waited to carry out the attack until his oldest daughter graduated from high school on Thursday. He searched online for "Zionist groups," found the weekly gathering in Boulder, and attended its first gathering after his daughter’s graduation. He arrived at the scene 10 minutes before the group was scheduled to gather.

Soliman said "he wanted them all to die" and that he would "go back and do it again and had no regret." He told the detective that anyone who supports the existence of Israel on "our land," meaning Paleostine, is a Zionist. It was not clear if Soliman has Paleostinian ancestry.

Soliman said no one knew about his attack plan, including his family, who had cooperated with Sherlocks.

He repeatedly told police that he sought his own death.

"He said he had to do it, he should do it, and he would not forgive himself if he did not do it," the detective wrote. "Mohammed described his hopes for everyone in the Zionist group to die."

Soliman made similar statements to the FBI, telling an agent he wanted to "kill all Zionist people" and that he had vowed to "do it again." The FBI said Soliman had shouted "Free Paleostine" during the attack. Some legal filings spell his first name as Mohammed.

The victims ranged in age from 52 to 88. The 88-year-old woman was the most severely injured and was at death's door after the attack. Her current status is unclear.

Soliman has been charged with hate crimes by the federal government and with 16 counts of attempted murder by the State of Colorado, plus additional charges related to the use of incendiary devices. He faces life in prison if convicted.

The Boulder Jewish community said in a Tuesday statement that a vigil will be held for the victims on Wednesday.

The Boulder Jewish Festival is scheduled for Sunday and will be restructured to focus on the hostages. Details about the event are still being finalized. The Jewish Family Service of Boulder is offering free mental health services to anyone impacted by the attack.

JEWISHcolorado, a community group, launched an emergency fundraising effort for the victims.

The Boulder Jewish community is working on security with the Secure Community Network, a national Jewish security group, the police and the FBI to protect the local Jewish community center, synagogues and community events. There are no known additional threats to the community.

Organizers of the hostages rally, called Run for Their Lives, plan to continue marching for the hostages.

More from the Times of Israel about the hostage march:

The march attracted about 50 participants a week for the first nine months, and now gets about 30 each time, Amaru said. At certain points, like when the bodies of six hostages were discovered murdered in Gaza at the end of last August, several hundred joined the march, she noted.

Marches have always been done in cooperation with police, Amaru said, and the group had requested additional security forces after the murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21.

Neither Amaru nor Shaffer was in Boulder at the time of the attack on Sunday, one of the few times they both missed it, and the event was supervised by an experienced volunteer, they said.

Amaru said the weekly march had become an important safe space for pro-Israel residents of Boulder to gather. The city’s estimated 10,000 Jews now comprise about 10 percent of its population, although the majority are not affiliated with a synagogue or are particularly vocal about Israel, she noted.

“The people who participate in our Run For Their Lives community have been so aligned in its mission, and really care about Israel,” Amaru said. “We have gotten so much support from the Jewish communities around us since the attack.”

However, Shaffer added, the climate of the city is a “cesspool” of violent hatred toward Jews and Israel, encouraged in part by local government officials.

“I am deeply angry and profoundly disappointed over the failure of non-Jewish faith groups and other civic organizations to step up to support us,” he said. “Even after the October 7 attack, some individuals paid quiet, polite condolences, but public condemnation has been completely missing in action.”

The Boulder municipality issued a statement Monday condemning the attack and pledging solidarity with the victims and members of the city’s Jewish community. City Council Member Taishya Adams, a figure frequently accused of antisemitism by local Jewish representatives, declined to endorse that statement.

“I cannot sign into a letter that equates the calls for a ‘Free Palestine’ with antisemitism,” she posted in a comment on the city’s Facebook page. “Without the anti-Zionist part, the reader will fail to understand a key driver of this terrible attack.”

Boulder has one of the fastest-growing Jewish communities in the United States, with people from diverse backgrounds coming from all over the US, Amaru noted. “It’s different from a place like Denver, where you have families that have been deeply rooted there for a long time,” she added.

[X]

Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids. Final Boarding Call Coming Soon. ✈️ pic.twitter.com/R32j1Ic8Ml
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 3, 2025

Family of Colorado firebombing suspect taken into federal immigration custody
[IsraelTimes] The family of the Colorado firebombing suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, has been taken into custody by the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), says US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Soliman, an Egyptian national, came to the US on a tourist visa in 2022. He stayed after the visa expired and was in the US illegally, the department has said.

“Today the Department of Homeland Security and ICE are taking the family of suspected Boulder, Colorado, terrorist and illegal alien Mohamed Soliman into ICE custody,” Noem says on X.

“Mohamed’s despicable actions will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but we’re also investigating to what extent his family knew about his horrific attack, if they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support,” she says.

Soliman lived in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children.

Authorities have said the family is cooperating with the investigation.

Pro-terror activists circulate videos backing Colorado attack, urging further violence — ADL
[IsraelTimes] Antisemitic, pro-terror US activists are sharing videos purportedly showing the suspect in the Colorado firebombing attack to urge followers toward further violence, the Anti-Defamation League says.

The videos are posted on an Arabic-language Telegram channel called Taufan al-Ummah that has 30,000 followers. The name of the channel translates to “Flood of the Muslims” and refers to Hamas’s October 2023 onslaught in Israel, which is referred to as the “Al-Aqsa Flood” by the Palestinian terror group.

Yesterday, the channel shared two videos that claim to show the Colorado suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, immediately before the attack. The channel claims to have received the video from a private source who is “close to the hero.”

The ADL says the videos have not been verified and should be treated with suspicion, although the underlying purpose — stoking terrorism and antisemitism — is clear.

In one of the clips, Soliman says in Arabic: “God is greater than anything. Greater than the Zionists, greater than America and her weapons, greater than F-35 fighters, greater than everything.”

In another video, Soliman says: “For my mother, my wife, my children, my sister, my family. I bear witness for Allah and for you, in Allah and his prophet, and for love of Jihad that is greater than the love of you, the world, and everything in it, and with faith in Allah.”

Another post in the channel says, in reference to the Colorado attack: “With the simplest tools, you can inflict a heavy toll on the accursed Zionists and seek forgiveness before God. And you can contribute to the nation’s flood that has begun.”

From Skidmark’s Daily Mail link in comments, we have the daughter’s name. Note that the girl is a hijabi:

Habiba Soliman had applied for a scholarship from The Denver Gazette, and shared how much she has learned and grown as a person since immigrating from Kuwait two years ago.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Jordan condemns Ben Gvir’s visit to Temple Mount

2025-05-27

[IsraelTimes] Jordan condemns a visit by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to the Temple Mount.

“The practices of this extremist minister and his continued incursions into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque… do not negate the fact that East Jerusalem is an occupied city over which Israel has no sovereignty,” says a statement from the foreign ministry of Jordan.

The Temple Mount is the holiest place in Judaism, where two biblical Temples once stood, and Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest shrine in Islam, making the site a central flashpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel captured the Temple Mount and Jerusalem’s Old City from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. However, it allowed the Jordanian Waqf to continue to maintain religious authority atop the mount. Under their 1994 peace treaty, Israel recognized Amman’s “special role… in Muslim holy shrines in Jerusalem.”

Ben Gvir says Jewish prayer, including full prostration, permitted at flashpoint Temple Mount

[IsraelTimes] National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declares that Jewish prayer, including full prostration, is allowed on the Temple Mount as he pays a Jerusalem Day visit to the contested holy site.

Flanked by Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf and MK Yitzhak Kroizer, both members of his ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, Ben Gvir says that “many Jews are flooding the Temple Mount.”

“Today, thank God, it is possible to pray on the Temple Mount, to bow down on the Temple Mount – we thank God for that,” the far-right minister declares — adding that he and his colleagues had come to “pray for the safety of the hostages” and “for victory in the war.”

A photo apparently shows Kroizer prostrated on the Mount alongside other Jews as a police officers look on.

Meanwhile, MK Zvi Sukkot, of the far-right Religious Zionism party, was filmed walking across the holy site with an Israeli flag, repeatedly declaring “the Temple Mount is in our hands.”

Ben Gvir has long rebuffed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated insistence that the decades-old status quo, which bans Jewish prayer on the site, remains in force.

The Prime Minister’s Office says it is looking into the matter.

Ben Gvir says he also prayed for the success of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious pick to head the Shin Bet security agency, Maj. Gen. David Zini.

“And I pray for the success of the new head of the Shin Bet: that he will pursue our enemies, that he will mow down our enemies, as he has done throughout his years – to be professional, and to distinguish between an enemy and a friend: those who love are embraced, and enemies are mowed down,” he says.

Ben Gvir last visited the Temple Mount in early April, eliciting criticism from the coalition’s ultra-Orthodox members as Haredim believe it is forbidden to tread in the holy site due to its sanctity.

Jews are not officially allowed to pray at the Temple Mount, but the Israel Police, which comes under the purview of Ben Gvir’s ministry, has increasingly tolerated limited prayer there.

Ben Gvir has said repeatedly that his policy is to allow Jewish prayer there, drawing rebukes from US and international officials, as well as warnings from the security establishment that conflict over the site poses a risk to national security.

Link

Fifth Column

Freed from ICE custody, Palestinian activist graduates from Columbia to cheers

2025-05-20

[IsraelTimes] Mahdawi Mahdawi joins post-commencement ceremony vigil outside university’s gates, raising photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody

Less than three weeks after his release from an immigration jail, the Paleostinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi strode across the graduation stage at Columbia University on Monday morning, savoring a moment the Trump administration had fought to make impossible.

Draped in a keffiyeh, Mahdawi, 34, paused to listen to the swell of cheers from his fellow graduates. Then he joined a vigil just outside Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody.

"It’s very mixed emotions," Mahdawi told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. "The Trump administration wanted to rob me of this opportunity. They wanted me to be in a prison, in prison clothes, to not have education and to not have joy or celebration."

You already got the education, idiot, though clearly it didn’t take if you are that confused about the situation. “They” just didn’t see reason to keep you in the country long enough to be formally handed that sheepskin while wearing a pseudo-Medieval costume.

Mahdawi, a 34-year-old legal resident of the US, was detained during an April 14 citizenship interview in Vermont, part of the widening federal crackdown on pro-Paleostinian activists.

He was released two weeks later by a judge, who likened the government’s actions to McCarthyist repression. Federal officials have not accused Mahdawi of committing a crime, but argued that he and other anti-Israel student activists should be deported for beliefs that may undermine US foreign policy.

For Mahdawi, who earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Columbia’s School of General Studies,

…perfectly suited for standing behind a counter in colourful polyester for minimum wage, politely asking, “Would you like fries with that?”

the graduation marked a bittersweet return to a university that he says has betrayed him and other students.

"The senior administration is selling the soul of this university to the Trump administration, participating in the destruction and the degradation of our democracy," Mahdawi said.

He pointed to Columbia’s decision to acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands — including placing its Middle Eastern studies department under new leadership — as well as its failure to speak out against his and Khalil’s arrest.

He said Columbia’s leadership had denied his pleas for protection prior to his arrest, then ignored his attorney’s request for a letter supporting his release from jail.

A spokesperson for Columbia University did not return an emailed inquiry.

Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the West Bank and moved to the United States in 2014. At Columbia, he organized campus protests, led a Buddhist association

…clearly a matter of protective colouration and taqqiya, because while he reportedly meditates beautifully, there is no peace to be found in his heart…

and co-founded the Paleostinian Student Union with Khalil.

The Jordanian-Palestinian graduate philosophy student at Columbia boasted to a Vermont Gun shop owner that he had plenty of experience with guns, having built 9mm submachine guns and used them to kill Jews back home in Palestine — he started his career throwing rocks at IDF soldiers as a child, then led anti-Israel Palestinian student groups since arriving in America a decade ago, true to the traditions in his family where a cousin is an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade field commander. He is president of the anti-Israel Palestinian Students Union at Columbia, since 10/7 organizing violent anti-Israel protests and taking the opportunity to beat up Jews, for which he was arrested thrice; he was also caught at the Canadian border with drugs, but one imagines the judge did not think that a notable event; Mr. Mahdawi did not think any of this an issue before he was arrested for a revoked green card on his way to his scheduled citizenship exam.

Khalil would have received his diploma from a Columbia master’s program in international studies later this week. He remains incarcerated
Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out!
in Louisiana as he awaits a decision from a federal judge about his possible release.

Mr. Khalil, 30, was a frontman for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student coalition that spearheaded violent and vicious anti-Israel protests at the school, hosted at least one specially designated foreign terrorist, and broke into, occupied, and vandalized a university building. All of which led the Trump administration to treat Columbia like a post-Civil War southern state in need of Reconstruction.

As he prepares for a lengthy legal battle, Mahdawi faces his own uncertain future. He was previously admitted to a master’s degree program at Columbia, where he planned to study "peacekeeping and conflict resolution"

…no doubt he planned to apply his steller Jew-beating skills to the problem, or perhaps he still prefers his youthful favourites: rocks and homemade submachine guns..

in the fall. But he is reconsidering his options after learning this month that he would not receive financial aid.

Somebody finally noticed the not-so-minor problems with that...

For now, he said, he would continue to advocate for the Paleostinian cause, buoyed by the support he says he has received from the larger Columbia community.

"When I went on the stage, the message was very clear and loud: They are cheering up for the idea of justice, for the idea of peace, for the idea of equality, for the idea of humanity, and nothing will stop us from continuing to do that. Not the Trump administration nor Columbia University," he said.

How much time and federal money do you suppose that particular bit of stupidity cost the university, dear Reader?

The School of General Studies graduation comes two days before Columbia’s university-wide commencement, as colleges across the country are bracing for possible disruptions.

Last week, New York University announced it would withhold the diploma of a student speaker who criticized Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
in his graduation speech.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas' Muhammad Sinwar reported zapped in Gaza, eliminated

2025-05-14

[NYPOST] The leader of Hamas has been targeted in fresh Israeli missile strikes on Gaza on Tuesday, the IDF has announced.

It is not clear whether he is dead or alive.
Schrödinger: "Why not both?"
Muhammad Sinwar, the brother of Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, was reportedly the target of an Israeli airstrike on the European Hospital in the city of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli media.

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

🚨 Breaking: Head of H×mas Muhammad Sinwar, who replaced his brother Yahya Sinwar after his elimination, was eliminated pic.twitter.com/R8333JcRND
— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) May 13, 2025

🚨 Breaking: 10 bunker-buster bombs were dropped on Muhammad Sinwar, head of H×mas 👇

He joins his brother, Yahya Sinwar, in hell. pic.twitter.com/noDWt3TfQN
— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) May 13, 2025

Before it was confirmed that dear Muhammad was sliding down the water slide to Hell, Hot Air pointed out that if so: Israel Just [Got] the Last Hamas Leader from October 7 — The IDF…made a clean sweep of "Al-Aqsa Flood" senior commanders in Gaza.

Katz on IDF strike targeting Sinwar: ‘We’ll keep pursuing Hamas’s leaders, won’t let them use hospitals as terror HQs’
[IsraelTimes] Defense Minister Israel Katz comments on yesterday’s strike in Gaza that targeted Mohammad Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in the enclave, vowing to “keep pursuing Hamas and its leaders.”

“We will not allow the Hamas terrorist organization to use hospitals and humanitarian facilities in Gaza as shelters and terrorist headquarters,” Katz says, referencing the fact that the IDF massive airstrike which targeted Sinwar was on an underground command center below the European Hospital in Khan Younis.

The Hamas-run health ministry reported 16 dead and over 70 wounded in the strike, though there was no confirmation that Sinwar was among the casualties. Those numbers cannot be independently verified and do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

“We will pursue Hamas and its leaders and strike it with force everywhere,” adds Katz.

“We will continue to act with force until all the goals of the war are achieved: the release of all the hostages and the surrender of Hamas,” he says.

More from the Times of Israel on yesterday’s events in Gaza:

Hamas

..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
’s leader in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, Muhammad Sinwar, was targeted in a massive Israeli ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday afternoon, security sources said.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had targeted Hamas operatives at an underground command center belonging to the terror group, below the European Hospital in Khan Younis. The military also released footage from the aftermath of the strike. The video purported to show that the IDF strike had uncovered the tunnel under the hospital, though the footage showed an adjacent school and not the medical center.

Footage posted online showed several large plumes of smoke rising from the ground around the hospital, as Israeli Air Force fighter jets dropped dozens of heavy bombs. Other clips showed that the ground had collapsed in the area of the strike.

Hours after the strike, three rockets were launched from northern Gaza to the area of Ashkelon and Sderot in southern Israel, the military said, adding that it had intercepted two rockets and the third fell in an open area. There were no injuries in the attack, which was claimed by the Paleostinian Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
terror group.

Following the attack, the IDF issued an evacuation warning for Paleostinians in northern Gaza’s Jabalia. Writing on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language front man, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of the area to be evacuated, saying it was a "final warning" before the IDF carries out strikes there.

Security sources said that there was a small window of opportunity for the strike.

The IDF said it took steps to mitigate civilian harm in the strike, including by using precision munitions, aerial surveillance, and other intelligence.

"The Hamas terror organization continues to use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for terror purposes, cynically and cruelly exploiting the civilian population in and around the hospital," the military said.

Several hours after the initial attack, Paleostinian media reported additional strikes in the area of the hospital, in what appeared to be an attempt by the IDF to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel where Sinwar was targeted.

Sinwar, a senior Hamas military commander, is the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in southern Gaza last October.

Following the killing of Hamas’s top military commander, Muhammad Deif, last July, Muhammad Sinwar took charge of the terror group’s military wing. Later, after Sinwar’s older brother was killed by IDF troops, he became the de facto leader of the terror group in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli officials have described Muhammad Sinwar as obstinate with regard to negotiations with Hamas for the release of hostages, and an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire deal.

The younger Sinwar is also wanted for terrorist actions against Israel and has been active in Hamas for decades.

He was tossed in the slammer
You have the right to remain silent...
by Israel in the 1990s for nine months and spent an additional three years in a Paleostinian Authority prison in Ramallah, from which he escaped in 2000. In 2006, Sinwar was part of a Hamas cell that kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. He also previously commanded Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade.

Most of Hamas’s leadership has been eliminated by Israel during the ongoing war, which was sparked when the terror group stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.

On Tuesday, the IDF and Shin Bet confirmed that an overnight strike killed Hassan Eslaiah, who had joined and recorded the shock assault. The security forces said he was a Hamas operative "operating under the guise of a journalist." The statement followed Paleostinian reports that Eslaiah had been killed in the strike on Khan Younis’s Nasser Hospital, a month after he had survived a previous Israeli targeting.

Eslaiah, whose freelance photography was distributed around the world for the News Agency that Dare Not be Named, had photographed Gazooks, some of them armed, as they stormed Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a quarter of the population was slaughtered or kidnapped, including the elderly and children as young as nine months old. He also took a picture of Gazooks atop a burning tank next to the destroyed Gaza border fence. A video from the scene posted to social media and since deleted showed him next to the tank; no press credentials could be seen on him.

The IDF said last month that he was a member of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade.

Last month, the IDF announced that it had targeted Eslaiah in an airstrike, but he managed to survive. Paleostinian media reported that he was receiving medical care at Nasser Hospital from injuries sustained in the previous strike when he was killed.

Both the AP and CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
said in November 2023 that they had severed their relationship with Eslaiah after a pro-Israel watchdog raised questions about their work with the photographer and other journalists who entered Israel during the massacre.

Israel has repeatedly alleged that journalists killed in strikes were actually terror operatives who posed as news hounds; it maintains that Hamas uses hospitals, schools, shelters, and aid infrastructure as cover for terror activities.

Islamic Jihad claims rocket attack from Gaza, says it’s a response to ‘Zionist massacres’
[IsraelTimes] The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group claims responsibility for the rockets fired from Gaza toward Ashkelon and Sderot. A statement from the organization says it launched rockets in response to “Zionist massacres.” The attack came shortly after a series of IDF airstrikes that sources say targeted Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Judge rules Tufts student detained by US immigration authorities must be released

2025-05-10

The process continues.

[IsraelTimes] A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to release a Tufts University student from Turkey who has been held for over six weeks in a Louisiana immigration detention facility after she co-wrote an opinion piece criticizing her school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

US District Judge William Sessions, during a hearing in Burlington, Vermont, granted bail to Rumeysa Ozturk,

,…age 30, Turkish PhD student and Fulbright Scholar, whose student visa was revoked for having co-authored an opinion piece for the Tufts University student newspaper a year earlier supporting the listed terror organization Hamas and castigating the university for not divesting from Israel-related companies. I’ve not yet seen anything about the other three students involved — perhaps that association is what got her in trouble. No doubt her naturalized, activist Iranian-American immigration lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, is also somehow objectionable …

who is at the center of one of the highest-profile cases to emerge from Republican President Donald Trump’s campaign to deport pro-Palestinian activists on American campuses.

The judge ruled shortly after a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s bid to re-detain Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian campus activist who a different judge in Vermont ordered released last week after immigration authorities arrested him as well.

The Jordan-born, Palestinian graduate philosophy student at Columbia boasted to a Vermont Gun shop owner that he had plenty of experience with guns, having used them to kill Jews back home in Palestine — he started his career throwing rocks at IDF soldiers as a child and led anti-Israel Palestinian student groups since arriving in America a decade ago, true to the traditions in his family where a cousin is an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade field commander. He is president of the anti-Israel Palestinian Students Union at Columbia, since 10/7 organizing violent anti-Israel protests and taking the opportunity to beat up Jews, for which he was arrested thrice; he did not think any of this an issue before he was arrested for a revoked green card on his way to his scheduled citizenship exam.

Ozturk’s arrest on March 25 by masked, plainclothes law enforcement officers on a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, near her home, was captured in a viral video and occurred after the US Department of State revoked her student visa.

The sole basis authorities have provided for revoking her visa was an opinion piece she co-authored in Tufts’ student newspaper criticizing the school’s response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”

…which does not mean it’s actually the only reason they have, just the only one shared.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Security forces say Palestinian gunman killed by troops in Nablus

2025-05-09

[IsraelTimes] A wanted Palestinian gunman was killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus a short while ago, the IDF, police, and Shin Bet say.

Undercover Border Police officers entered Nablus to detain a member of the former Lion’s Den terror group,

…established by local members of various terror groups, including Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, led by one Ibrahim Nabulsi, a wanted Palestinian gunman who was killed almost immediately in an Israeli raid in Nablus. In our archives as Lions Den and Lion’s Den, because at Rantburg apostrophes matter.…

who was allegedly planning attacks.

According to police, the officers covertly reached the area where the suspect was and identified him as armed. The officers opened fire, killing the wanted man.

A handgun and cash were found on his body, and a tactical vest was found in his car, police say.

Another wanted Palestinian was detained by the forces in the area and handed over to the Shin Bet for questioning, the statement says.

During the operation, troops opened fire on Palestinians hurling explosives and shooting at the forces. No Israeli forces were hurt, the statement adds.

Security forces arrest suspect in yesterday’s West Bank shooting attack

[IsraelTimes] Overnight, Israeli security forces say they detained a Palestinian suspected of carrying out yesterday’s shooting attack near the Reihan checkpoint in the northern West Bank that seriously wounded two reservists.

Officers of the police’s elite Gideonim unit (Unit 33), alongside IDF troops, surrounded a home in the nearby village of Barta’a, following intelligence on the suspect’s whereabouts provided by the Shin Bet.

The suspect turned himself in to the officers, the police, IDF, and Shin Bet say in a joint statement.

Link

Fifth Column

University/Israel hate/Black Bloc nexus: week of 4/13-4/19

2025-04-20

‘Death to Israel’ graffitied on Northwestern University building during Passover
[IsraelTimes] School’s Jewish president says vandalism took place hours after his own Passover seder and that those responsible will face discipline from the university as well as criminal charges. Also spray-painted on a university building was an inverted triangle, a symbol that has been used by Hamas to signify Israeli targets and has also been adopted by some pro-Palestinian protestors.

Earlier this month, Northwestern became one of seven universities that saw steep funding cuts from the Trump administration over its response to campus antisemitism. It was the first non-Ivy League school to face the funding cuts and has $790 million on the line. Schill received widespread criticism last year when he became one of the first university presidents to come to a deal with pro-Palestinian protestors, with some Jewish organizations at the time calling for his resignation.

Harvard canceled ‘anti-Zionist’ Passover seder. Pro-Palestinian students met anyway.
[CollegeFix] Organizers say Passover event is part of 'call for the total liberation of all people, from every river to every sea.'

Trump admin freezes $2.2 billion to Harvard after school resists demands

Seen in comments, added here to get them in the searchable record.

[CollegeFix] Harvard 'will not accept' the administration’s 'proposed agreement,' university president says.

Penn anti-Israel students, faculty hold ‘interfaith vigil’ for ‘martyrs of Palestinian genocide’
[CollegeFix] 'Over five hundred days of unimaginable genocide in Gaza.'

Georgetown student government to hold vote on Israel divestment during Passover
[CollegeFix] Student association broke ‘every single rule’ related to its procedure, senator

Harvard Law Publishes Fond Reminiscence From Student Facing Criminal Charges for Assaulting Jewish Classmate
[WashingtonFreeBeacon] Harvard Law School published a blog post from one of the students facing criminal charges for assaulting an Israeli classmate. The post is from former Harvard Law Review editor Ibrahim Bharmal.

Bharmal's criminal case could also impact that future. Along with Harvard divinity school graduate student Elom-Tettey Tamaklo, Bharmal was charged last May with misdemeanor assault in connection with his behavior at a "die-in" protest that took place shortly after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack. Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo were captured on camera accosting an Israeli business school student, surrounding him and making it difficult for him to walk freely as keffiyeh-clad onlookers shouted, "SHAME!"

Footage of the ordeal, first reported in the Washington Free Beacon, prompted outrage from prominent Harvard Business School alumni, including former Sen. Mitt Romney (R.), who cited the school in an October 2023 letter as proof that university leaders were "paralyzed" in the face of "expressions of hate and vitriol against Jews." Reps. Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) and Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) similarly savaged Harvard after the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office accused the university of stonewalling an investigation into the protest.
Harvard nonetheless published Bharmal's blog as the Trump administration reviewed its $9 billion in federal grants and contracts. On Friday—one day after Harvard published Bharmal's blog—the administration demanded from the school a series of policy changes and reforms, including the expulsion of Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo, both of whom remained in good standing at Harvard in the months following the "die-in." Harvard rejected those demands on Monday, and the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in Harvard grants hours later.

Bharmal was supposed to be arraigned last June, a month after he was charged. But local prosecutors twice postponed the arraignment because Harvard police declined to perform a "follow up investigation" into the "die-in," the Suffolk County District Attorney's office told the Free Beacon in September. The investigation would have helped "identify any additional perpetrators" and generate "inculpatory/exculpatory evidence." Attorneys told the Free Beacon at the time that they had never heard of police refusing an investigation request from prosecutors.

Berklee College of Music Professor Attacked Jews as 'Vile Predators' and Blamed Them for Slavery
[WFB] 'All these so-called Jews mad, because how dare I make them face the facts of their sordid past and present,' Nicholas Payton said in 2020.

A top official at the Berklee College of Music has a years-long history of posting anti-Semitic and historically inaccurate claims about Jews, accusing them of oppressing black people and blaming them for slavery, a Washington Free Beacon review found. In September 2024, the Massachusetts music school made a splashy announcement that Nicholas Payton would become chair of their brass department.

Though Payton expressed his animosity toward Jews more aggressively during the summer of 2020, his anti-Semitism predates the emergence of Black Lives Matter. In 2010, he spewed invectives at the Jewish owner of Preservation Hall in New Orleans. Owner Ben Jaffe's family created the institution to preserve and celebrate traditional New Orleans jazz music, but in a 2010 blog post, Payton griped that Jaffe had made too much money off the hall's success and that his behavior was "endemic of those who have controlled things in the music industry since its inception," the New York Times reported in 2022.

ICE Arrests Columbia Student Activist Who Endorsed Oct. 7 Attack
[WFB] ICE officials detained a Columbia University graduate student who led a coalition of anti-Israel groups and endorsed the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack. Jordan-born Mohsen Mahdawi had his green card revoked by the Trump administration and was taken into custody on Monday in Burlington, Vt., where he was scheduled to take a citizenship test. Mahdawi is facing a deportation order that would send him to the West Bank.

But Mahdawi, a graduate philosophy student in Columbia’s School of General Studies, has also said he "can empathize" with Hamas over the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 slaughter and has publicly called for the destruction of Israel. Last year, he honored his cousin Maysara Masharqa, who served as a prominent field commander in the military wing of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a U.S.-designated terror group that participated in the attack alongside Hamas.

Most recently, Mahdawi served as co-president of Columbia’s Palestinian Students Union, a coalition of anti-Israel student groups, including Columbia’s suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace chapters. The union has organized protests calling for Columbia’s divestment from Israel alongside Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student organization behind the illegal encampments that plagued the school last spring and led to the violent storming of a campus building, Hamilton Hall.

Mahdawi’s detention is the Trump administration’s latest move in its effort to deport pro-Hamas green card and visa holders, fulfilling one of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises. Mahdawi joins two other Columbia students who have faced removal proceedings. On Friday, a federal immigration judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a fellow protest leader and encampment negotiator who has been detained since March 9, can be deported.

Mahdawi has served as a leader in anti-Israel campus groups since first moving to the United States more than a decade ago. In another interview, he recalled throwing rocks at an Israeli military tank when he was a child. In addition to serving as the co-president of Columbia’s Palestinian Student Union, Mahdawi is also a Visionary Advisor for the Columbia Buddhist Association and a member of Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

At Harvard-Hosted 'Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon,' Law Students Target the Pages of Firms That Criticized School's Response to Anti-Semitism
[WFB] Anti-Israel Harvard Law School students organized a workshop on the Ivy League campus earlier this month to edit the Wikipedia pages of more than a dozen prominent law firms, singling out some that threatened to stop recruiting at the school over its failure to rein in anti-Semitic activity. Harvard’s National Lawyers Guild chapter, a left-wing legal advocacy group, hosted the "Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon" on April 2 at Harvard Law’s WCC student center, according to an announcement on Harvard Law’s website.

Third-year Harvard Law student Corinne Shanahan, an organizer with Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, organized the clinic for students to "gather data to edit the Wikipedia pages of Big Law firms to reflect cases they have recently argued." Two days later, Harvard Law student Aashna Avachat edited the Wikipedia pages of 14 law firms, mostly to add details of their representation of clients that the activist students deemed to be unsavory, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of Wikipedia edit logs.

Avachat edited the pages for the firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett to soften the language about anti-Semitic activity on college campuses. Amid a wave of anti-Semitic protests following the Hamas attack on Israel, the two firms warned Harvard Law and others that they would cut back on recruiting on their campuses for failing to rein in anti-Semitic incidents. The edit logs show Avachat changed the term "antisemitic incidents" to "pro-Palestine protests," and reworded references to "incidents targeting Jewish students" to incidents that the law firms "described … as antisemitic." Avachat herself was involved in one incident at Harvard in which her law school classmate, Ibrahim Bharmal, accosted and shoved a Jewish student during an anti-Israel "die-in." Avachat said she witnessed the incident and claimed Bharmal was protecting "peaceful protesters" against an "aggressive" Jewish student.

Georgetown Eyes Vote on Israeli Divestment Resolution Sponsored by School of Foreign Service Student
[WashingtonFreeBeacon] School's student government postponed the vote, originally set to be held during Passover, after pushback from Jewish groups

[YouTube] Let’s talk about Georgetown University’s Hamas Problem

Half hour Michelle Tafoya podcast — she interviews an analyst from the Middle East Forum. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the video.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Pa. arson suspect was out on bail when he allegedly firebombed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s mansion

2025-04-15

[NYPOST] The Pennsylvania man accused of firebombing Gov. Josh Shapiro's mansion was out on bail when he allegedly carried out the arson, The Post can reveal.

Cody Balmer's mother, meanwhile, said she desperately tried to get police to lock up her son prior to the attack.

Off his meds, Mom said yesterday. Will he turn out to be bipolar or schizophrenic?

Balmer, 38, pulled sick faces as he was hauled back into a Harrisburg courtroom for his arraignment Monday, where he was hit with eight charges including terrorism, aggravated arson, criminal homicide and prowling at night.

The former mechanic, who said he is now jobless, penniless and lives with his parents, was free after making bail for a 2023 simple assault charge, courts spokesperson Stacey Witalec told The Post.

In that case, he was accused of stomping on his 10-year-old son's broken leg and battering his wife, according to a police report.

The Times of Israel adds:

A man who US authorities say scaled an iron security fence early Sunday morning, eluded police, and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion where he set a fire told police he had planned to beat Governor Josh Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents.

Cody Balmer had walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during a police interview, “Balmer admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit, but it did not explain why. Balmer faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson, and aggravated assault, authorities said.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Supreme Court rules on status of tens of thousands of fired probationary employees

2025-04-09

[FoxNews] Plaintiffs alleged in a court filing that some 16K probationary employees have been fired since President Donald Trump took office

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with the Trump administration and upheld the mass firing of tens of thousands of probationary federal employees, granting a request for an emergency administrative stay on a lower court order blocking the firings.

The majority of the high court ruled that the plaintiffs, nine non-profit organizations who had sued to reinstate the employees, lacked standing to sue.

"The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case. But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing," the court said in an order.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the application for a stay.

In their final brief to the Supreme Court, government attorneys argued that lower courts overstepped their authority by ordering the reinstatement of probationary employees last month.

The legal battle stems from the termination of an estimated 16,000 probationary federal employees since President Donald Trump took office, prompting a wave of lawsuits from Democrat-led states and former workers.

Probationary employees are particularly vulnerable to termination because they lack the civil service protections granted to full-time federal workers, which typically take effect after a designated period of service.

Justice Department lawyers have warned that forcing the government to rehire those employees would create "chaos" across federal agencies. They have also maintained that the firings were tied to poor performance – an allegation the dismissed employees strongly dispute.

Last month, a federal judge in Baltimore ordered the Trump administration to reinstate probationary employees who had been fired from multiple government agencies.

Chief Judge James Bredar also directed the administration to return within seven days with a list of the affected employees and an explanation of how the agencies were complying with the reinstatement order.

In their Supreme Court filing, the plaintiffs argued that the Trump administration’s "decimation" of probationary staff had caused deep and lasting harm to key federal agencies.

At the Department of Veterans Affairs – already plagued by chronic understaffing – the layoffs have "already had and will imminently continue to have" serious negative consequences for those who rely on its services, the plaintiffs wrote.

"Similarly, cuts to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have already harmed and will continue to harm the ability of Respondent environmental and outdoor organizations to enjoy and protect a wide range of federal lands and resources," they said.

Link

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