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Recent Appearances...

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

Home Front: Politix

Josh Shapiro awards $5 MILLION grant to Al-Aqsa Islamic Society in Philadelphia to expand school, the largest ever awarded to a Muslim group

2025-04-08

[THEPOSTMILLENNIAL] Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has awarded Philadelphia's al-Aqsa Islamic Society a $5 million grant from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, marking the largest grant under the program awarded to a Moslem organization to date.

According to WHYY, Shapiro announced the grant at an iftar dinner on March 25 at the organization, telling a few dozen community members that organizations such as al-Aqsa "are more important than ever before" as "we're facing tumult overseas, and we're facing a lot of rising hate here at home."

Shapiro said, "So I'm really proud that we've been able to work together with your leaders here to invest $5 million in making this place an even greater center of activity in the community."

Chairman of the board of al-Aqsa Islamic Society Asif Hussain said that one goal for the funds is to expand the center's school. The group is looking to add classrooms and teachers to meet local demand, and increase attendance from 300 to 3,000.

Hussain said, "The idea is to have an academic center of excellence at school. We have a school that's K-12. It is very, very small and we have more candidates and more students than we have classrooms. So the idea would be to expand the facility and actually develop it into a full-fledged academic program."

Al-Aqsa Academy was established in 1996 and is a private Islamic day and weekend school that blends the standards kindergarten through 12th-grade curriculum with Koran classes, Islamic studies, and Arabic language coursework.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Muhammad Hassan Awad, intelligence chief of the Al-Mujahideen Brigades has been ELIMINATED, among others

2025-04-05

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

BREAKING 🔴🔴

Muhammad Hassan Awad, intelligence chief of the Al-Mujahideen Brigades—responsible for the abduction and murder of Shiri Bibas and her children—has been ELIMINATED ❌ pic.twitter.com/Kd4yKiPPUC
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 4, 2025

The Times of Israel adds:

Israel says it has killed the terrorist who oversaw the abduction of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, and was likely involved in their murders.

Muhammad Hassan Muhammad Awad, a senior member of the Mujahideen Brigades, a relatively small terror group in the Gaza Strip, was killed in an airstrike today, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.

In a joint statement, they say that Awad was among the terrorists who invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Hamas-led October 7 onslaught, and that he led the abduction of Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas.

The IDF says Awad was also “likely involved in their murders” during the early weeks of the war. Their bodies were returned to Israel in February.

Awad was also responsible for the abduction of Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein, who were both killed amid the onslaught in Nir Oz, along with several Thai nationals taken hostage from the kibbutz, the military says.

Earlier today, Awad was targeted and killed in a strike in the northern Gaza Strip.

The terror group also confirmed his death, saying he was a senior military commander and head of its intelligence division. The IDF says he was considered close to the leadership of the Mujahideen Brigades.

“Additionally, as part of his role in the terror group, Awad was engaged in recruiting terror operatives in [the West Bank] and Israel [proper], through which they advanced and carried out attacks against Israelis,” the military says.

During the war, the IDF says the Mujahideen Brigades, which is allied with Hamas, carried out several attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza and against Israel.

IDF says it killed operative involved in funneling money to Hamas military wing
[IsraelTimes] The IDF and Shin Bet announce that a Hamas operative involved in funneling money to the terror group’s military wing was killed in an airstrike yesterday.

Saeed Ahmad Abed Khudari was the head of the Al Wefaq Co. currency exchange company, which had been designated as a terror organization by the Defense Ministry for its involvement in transferring money to Hamas.

“Khudari has been involved in numerous financial transfers to Hamas’s military wing over the years and especially throughout a war,” the IDF says.

The military says his involvement in funneling funds to Hamas increased following the killing of his brother, Hamed Khudari, in 2019. His brother had also served as a money man for Hamas, according to the military.

Khudari’s elimination yesterday is “a significant blow to the terror organization’s ability to rearm and reestablish itself,” the IDF adds.

IDF: We killed Hamas ‘psychological terror operative’ in airstrike this week
[IsraelTimes] The IDF and Shin Bet announced that a Hamas member who “served as a propaganda and psychological terror operative” was killed in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip this week.

Mohammed Saleh al-Bardawil “played a central role in Hamas’s propaganda apparatus, systematically spreading false information and leveraging media as a tool for psychological terror and to promote the murderous narrative of the Hamas terrorist organization,” the military says.

Bardawil also worked as a broadcaster with the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa Radio.

The IDF says that “while he was referred to as a well-known journalist in Gaza, he was an integral part of Hamas’s incitement and terror infrastructure.”

“Bardawil took an active part in producing the cynical propaganda videos distributed by the terrorist organization Hamas, in which the abducted Israelis were filmed during their captivity in Gaza,” the IDF adds.

According to Palestinian media, Bardawil was killed on Monday in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, alongside his wife and three children.

Link

Africa Subsaharan

Heavy Gunfire In Abuja As Nigerian Soldiers Shoot At Protesting Shiites

2025-03-30

[SaharaReporters] There is tension presently in the Wuse area of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, over persistent gunshots as the Nigerian Army personnel attacked and shot at the members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN)

…Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky (and a number of other spellings), the former head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Nigeria, converted to Shi'ism after a visit to Iran and now is a fiery Iranian sock puppet. He founded the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), the Shiite version of the Muslim Brotherhood — only beholden to Iran. Nigeria declared IMN a terror group in 2019. ...

at the Banex Plaza.

Speaking with SaharaReporters, a source in the area said, "It's been a rain of sporadic shootings by the Nigerian Army around Austoma Petrol Station/ Banex Axis on Aminu Kano Cresent, Wuse 2, Abuja.

"Some parts of the road have been condoned to probably fish out the Islamic protesters that might be hiding around.

I had to abandon my car on the Ahmadu Bello/Aminu Kano Cresent Traffic light because of the shootings."

The clash occurred just hours after the United States Embassy in Nigeria issued a security alert, warning its citizens about planned IMN protests in Abuja and other major cities on Friday.

In the advisory, the US Embassy had cautioned that demonstrations could lead to disruptions such as roadblocks, traffic congestion, and possible confrontations.

"The Islamic Movement of Nigeria has called for demonstrations in Abuja and other major cities on Friday, March 28, 2025. Heavy traffic and other disruptions are possible. Based on past occurrences, protests may involve roadblocks, checkpoints, traffic congestion, and physical confrontations," the embassy had stated.

The security warning listed potential protest locations, including Banex Plaza, Berger Junction, Unity Fountain, the National Human Rights Commission Head Office, Eagle Square, Area 10 Shopping Plaza, the National Mosque, al-Noor Mosque, and Fouad Lababidi Mosque.

Hodhod Yemen News reports about their fellow Shiite clients of Iran:

Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters have been killed and wounded as security forces opened fire on an International Quds Day demonstration in Nigeria’s capital city.

According to reports, at least 19 demonstrators were killed and dozens more wounded in Abuja on Friday.

Video footage of the scenes shows armed forces securing the perimeter as protestors flee for cover while bullet shots are heard. The footage also shows soldiers dragging the lifeless body of a civilian on the street and dumping it into a pickup while beating two other protesters and forcing them to get into another truck.

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) had expressed concern over attacks against protesters after it was revealed that Nigerian authorities were making preparations in this regard as a pretext for an attack.

The Office of the National Security Adviser had stressed the necessity to stop the al-Quds day demonstration to “prevent a breach of the peace” by the pro-Palestinian protesters, according to a leaked internal letter seen by the IHRC.

In the leaked communique, Nigerian authorities had warned that though the pro-Palestinian demonstrations were peaceful, the protesters had the potential to seek justice by attacking US and Israeli interests in the country. Therefore, their demos must be stopped.

This method has been used by Nigeria’s pro-Israel officials in recent years to prompt the forces to stage a violent crackdown on the demonstrators.

At least one person was killed, and many more were injured after police opened fire on the Quds Day demo in Abuja in 2023.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

'Voluntary Relocation': Israel Prepares New Occupation of Gaza

2025-03-29

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Semenov

[REGNUM] For the second year in a row, the world day of Al-Quds, as Jerusalem is called in the Islamic world, is celebrated under the explosions of bombs and shells. And this means that the Muslims of Gaza also fast during the second holy month of Ramadan under the strikes of the Israeli Air Force: Al-Quds Day is celebrated on the last Friday of Ramadan, this year it fell on March 28.

Hamas has called on Arab and Islamic leaders to shoulder historic responsibility as Israel commits what the Islamic resistance organization calls heinous crimes against Palestine.

"They must take decisive action to stop this war, lift the siege of Gaza and maintain peace for our people on their land," the statement said.

It also calls on preachers and Islamic scholars around the world to dedicate Friday as a global day of support for Palestine, Gaza, Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa, strengthening the resilience of the Palestinians and protecting their lands and holy places:

"Let the mass events, marches and sit-ins continue in the coming days until this aggression ends and the massacre and genocide stops."

In turn, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) Masoud Pezeshkian called on the people of the country to take part in the march dedicated to the International Day of Al-Quds and express their condemnation of the “Zionist regime,” as Israel is called in the IRI.

“I call on the people to take to the streets tomorrow (Friday – Ed.) and express their hatred of the Zionist regime,” the president said at a meeting of governors at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"The Zionist regime has committed the most murders in front of the world and then calls others terrorists. They talk about peace but commit such brutal crimes," the Iranian leader added.

A NEW STAGE OF WAR
Of course, the issue of international support for Palestine is now especially important not only for Hamas, but for all Palestinians, since the hope that peace could return to Gaza after the ceasefire came into effect on January 19 has not come true.

On March 18, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a new operation, codenamed "Power and Sword," unilaterally violating the agreement with Hamas, which was reached with the support of American and Qatari mediators.

Its goal is to finally resolve the Palestinian issue and, at the first stage, expel the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. After which it will be possible to proceed with the annexation of the West Bank (where military activity is also increasing) and the expulsion of the Palestinians from there.

The IDF's campaign last year was ineffective because of disagreements between political and military leaders over tactics and strategy, Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the army's Gaza unit, told The Washington Post.

It was also hampered by concerns from the previous US administration about high casualties among Palestinian civilians.

But he said the advent of the Donald Trump administration and changes in Israel's defense establishment have loosened those restrictions.

"Now we have new [IDF] leadership, support from the US, and we have enough ammunition, and we have completed our main operations in the north and can focus on Gaza, " Avivi said. "The plans are decisive. There will be a full-scale attack, and the IDF will not stop until Hamas is completely destroyed."

Indeed, the first day of the new military campaign was one of the bloodiest: more than 400 Palestinians were killed, including 263 women and children, adding to the more than 50,000 Gazans killed.

Not counting those trapped under the rubble and still missing, at least 100 civilians have been killed in Gaza every day since then.

At the same time as the military efforts against Hamas are being stepped up, the Israeli leadership is taking steps to move to the practical phase of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza.

Thus, on the evening of March 22, the security cabinet approved a proposal by Defense Minister Israel Katz to create an administration to facilitate the “voluntary movement of Gazans to a third country.”

Katz said the structure is being created "in line with the vision of US President Trump."

The administration will report to Katz and will be responsible for “preparing and ensuring the safe and controlled transit of Gazans for their voluntary departure to third countries, including ensuring the safety of their movement, establishing the route of movement,” and so on.

INVASION AND OCCUPATION ARE COMING
However, in order to move on to the practical implementation of the plan, it will first be necessary to reoccupy the sector and move 2.2 million people to a “humanitarian zone” along the Mediterranean coast, the Financial Times reports.

Officials note that Gaza will be ruled by the military, which would effectively mean its reoccupation.

Israel had already captured the enclave during the 1967 war and controlled it for nearly four decades until 2005.

The new and more aggressive tactics, Israeli experts say, will likely also include direct military control of humanitarian aid, targeting more civilian Hamas members and officials, and evacuating women, children and screened non-combatants from residential areas into "humanitarian bubbles" and locking in those who remain.

It is a more intense version of the tactics used last year in northern Gaza.

Such a plan does not seem so far-fetched at the moment, given that Hamas is left alone with its enemy.

The movement still has about 20,000 experienced fighters capable of putting up serious resistance, but the main problem is access to weapons and ammunition.

So far, only the Yemeni Houthis from the Ansar Allah movement are capable of providing real assistance to the Palestinians.

Despite being subjected to American bombing, the Houthis find the opportunity to launch their ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel almost every day.

While the military impact of such attacks is minimal, the psychological factor is important, allowing Palestinians to feel at least someone's support when air raid sirens force half of Israel's population to take refuge in bomb shelters.

But in any case, the current stage of the confrontation between Hamas and the IDF seems to be the most difficult for the Palestinians.

Israel can bring its full military might to bear on the Islamic resistance in Gaza. Previously, significant resources were diverted to the Lebanese front to contain Hezbollah; now all these forces can be used in Gaza.

In fact, the plans revealed by the Financial Times envisage the IDF deploying several divisions to launch a second invasion of the enclave and take control of all territories previously held by Hamas.

A full-scale invasion and occupation would require up to five army divisions. And the IDF is now able to concentrate them against Hamas, something it could not previously do.

However, the deployment of such a group in Gaza could make other areas vulnerable.

While the Syrian and Lebanese fronts do not yet pose a threat to Israel, numerous risks still come from Iran, which has twice attacked Israeli territory with hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones in support of Hamas.

Tehran now appears weakened after Hezbollah retreated across the Litani River and the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus. But its resources and capabilities, including continued support for Hamas, should hardly be underestimated.

"THE ONLY TRUE WAY"
“The Islamic Republic supports Palestine on the basis of Fiqh and Sharia,” the Iranian embassy in Moscow told Regnum.

According to the embassy, Imam Khomeini, as the inspirer of the Islamic Revolution, played a key role in supporting Palestine. He called for the unification of all Muslims in the struggle for the liberation of Al-Quds while still in exile, considering it an important religious aspect. It was he who, after the victory of the revolution, designated the last Friday of Ramadan as Al-Quds Day, and it is now celebrated throughout the Islamic world and beyond.

Let us recall that the problem of Palestine and, above all, the question of Jerusalem's belonging from the point of view of Islam is not only a national matter for the Palestinians. The liberation of Al-Quds - Jerusalem, which is the third holiest place of Islam along with Mecca and Medina from Israeli occupation is becoming the duty of all Muslims.

It is precisely on the basis of religious principles that the Islamic Republic considers it its duty to support the Palestinian resistance in the matter of returning Jerusalem to Muslims.

The Embassy of the Islamic Republic in Russia emphasized that Iran, which itself is under difficult conditions of sanctions and pressure from the new US administration, is the only country that has supported and continues to support the oppressed people of Palestine not only in words but also in deeds.

“Unlike many other Muslim states, such as Turkey, for example, from which one can hear only slogans.

The Iranian representative office also continues to believe that Hamas' armed struggle for the liberation of Palestine is the only correct path.

“Hamas understands that there is no other way to liberate its land except through resistance, even though the movement is paying a high price for the liberation of Palestine,” the embassy noted.

As Iranian diplomats emphasized, “as long as international organizations do not work, rules do not exist, and force and cruelty dominate, there is no other way out except resistance, and this is in accordance with the principles of Islam, since Muslims will not live under oppression.”

THERE ARE ENOUGH FIGHTERS
Last month, Israel's defense minister said the war with Palestinian groups in the occupied West Bank could last another year as Tehran refocuses its efforts after the Gaza war on supporting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in that part of Palestine.

At the same time, as Shlomo Mofaz, head of the Meir Amit Center for Intelligence and Research in Israel, noted in a March 23 interview with Iran International: “It is possible that something is being smuggled into Gaza, either with food or from Egypt on UAVs, but mainly they have a problem” with weapons.

He also confirmed that Iran's "main focus is now on the West Bank, where there are several ways to support Hamas and other groups, mainly from Jordan, where there is a long border and no fences in many places."

At the same time, Hamas itself has found a way to restore its stockpiles. To do this, the movement uses unexploded Israeli ammunition.

"Unexploded ordnance is the main source of explosives for Hamas, " Michael Kardash, a former deputy chief of the Israel National Police's bomb disposal unit and a police consultant, told the NYT. "They cut up bombs from Israel, and many of them are used, of course. "

According to Hamas videos and inspections of captured weapons, the weapons used by the organization's military wing (anti-tank explosives, RPG warheads, thermobaric grenades and improvised devices) are indeed made from Israeli ammunition.

And if Hamas' arsenal continues to grow, the movement will have enough manpower to thwart Israel's plans to expel the Palestinians from Gaza.

Support for Hamas remains very high, despite recent demonstrations against the movement in the Gaza Strip.

The protests were directed specifically at the group's political wing, whose leaders live abroad and, according to some Gazans, are not doing enough to achieve peace.

At the same time, residents have no complaints about the Hamas military forces, the al-Qassam Brigades. Gazans very clearly distinguish between the military and political wings of the movement.

HOPE FOR PEACE
Amid ongoing attacks on Gaza, fragile hopes for peace remain as negotiations and consultations continue.

But their latest round has once again reached a deadlock. On Wednesday, Egyptian mediators told Hamas that Israel had rejected all proposals presented last week, even though they had been agreed upon with the United States.

Later on Wednesday, Hamas said ceasefire talks were ongoing and the movement was open to discussing any proposals.

Hamas spokesman Basem Naim said "no one will accept a situation in which the agreement will only be a temporary period of calm, with those taken prisoner released in exchange for food and drink, and then the fighting will resume along with plans for expulsion."

So once again everything will depend on the ability of the Palestinian movement to survive in the new conditions of war, unless, of course, Donald Trump intervenes with his unpredictability.

Link

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