JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER.
1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
HAMAS AND AMERICA MAKE UP A FAKE CEASEFIRE DEAL.ISRAEL HAD NO PART OF THIS FAKE DEAL.
GENESIS 6:11-13
11
The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with
violence.(WORLD TERRORISM,MURDERS)(HAMAS IN HEBREW IS VIOLENCE)
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the
earth is filled with violence (TERRORISM)(HAMAS) through them; and,
behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS WILL BE USED.
JESUS
SHED HIS BLOOD FOR US THAT WE CAN BE SAVED FOREVER.AND DURING WW3
PEOPLES BLOOD WILL BE SHED AS A JUDGEMENT FOR HATING HIM AND ISRAEL.GOD
IS NOT MOCKED.
ZEPHANIAH 1:2-3
2 I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the LORD.
3
I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven,
and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I
will cut off man from off the land, saith the LORD.
PSALMS 97:3
3 A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about.
EZEKIEL 5:15-17
15
So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an
astonishment unto the (ARAB/MUSLIM) nations that are round about
thee,(ISRAEL) when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in
fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.
16 When I
shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their
destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase
the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:
17 So will I
send upon you famine and evil beasts,(WHEN RUSSIA/MUSLIMS GET DEFEATED
THIER BODIES GET EATEN BY BIRDS,ANIMALS IN ISRAEL MIGRATION SEASON) and
they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through
thee;(NUKES) and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have
spoken it.
REVELATION 14:18-20
18 And another angel came out
from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to
him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and
gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully
ripe.
19 And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and
gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of
the wrath of God.
20 And the winepress was trodden without the
city,(JERUSALEM) and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the
horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.(200
MILES) (THE SIZE OF ISRAEL)
ISAIAH 66:15-18
15 For, behold,
the LORD will come with fire,(NUKES) and with his chariots like a
whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of
fire.
16 For by fire and by his sword will the LORD plead with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.
17
They that sanctify themselves, and purify themselves in the gardens
behind one tree in the midst, eating swine's flesh, and the abomination,
and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the LORD.
18 For I
know their works and their thoughts: it shall come, that I will gather
all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory.
ISAIAH 26:21
21
For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants
of the earth for their iniquity:(GOD/ISRAEL HATE AND BRAKING OF HIS
COMMANDMENTS) the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more
cover her slain.(WW3,1/2 earths population die - 3 BILLION).
ISAIAH 13:6-13 KJV
6 Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:(FROM FRIGHT)
8
And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them;
they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed
one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
9 Behold, the day of
the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land
desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
10 For
the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their
light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall
not cause her light to shine.
11 And I will punish the world for
their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the
arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the
terrible.
12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
13
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of
her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his
fierce anger.
ISAIAH 24:17-23 KJV
17 Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.
18
And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the
fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of
the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are
open, and the foundations of the earth do shake.
19 The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.
20
The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed
like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it;
and it shall fall, and not rise again.
21 And it shall come to pass
in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that
are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.
22 And they
shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and
shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be
visited.
23 Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed,
when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and
before his ancients gloriously.
2 TIMOTHY 3:1
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous (DANGEROUS) times shall come.
JOEL 2:3,30
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the
people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume
away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and
their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)
and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM
ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD
PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that
day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they
shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand
shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN
WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 20:47
47 And say
to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the LORD; Thus saith the
Lord GOD; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour
every green tree in thee, and every dry tree: the flaming flame shall
not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be
burned therein.
ZEPHANIAH 1:18
18 Neither their silver nor
their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath;
but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for
he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
MALACHI 4:1
1
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven;(FROM ATOMIC
BOMBS) and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be
stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of
hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
REVELATION 8:7
7
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with
blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees
was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
REVELATION 9:18
18
By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the
fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their
mouths.(ATOMIC BOMBS)(RUSSIA CHINA DESTROYED BY ISRAELS ATOMIC BOMBS)
REVELATION 16:12-16
12
And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river
Euphrates;(WERE WW3 STARTS IN IRAQ OR SYRIA OR TURKEY) and the water
thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be
prepared.
13 And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of
the mouth of the dragon,(SATAN) and out of the mouth of the beast,(WORLD
DICTATOR) and out of the mouth of the false prophet.(FALSE POPE)
14
For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth
unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to
the battle of that great day of God Almighty.(WERE 2 BILLION DIE FROM
NUKE WAR)
15 Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16 And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
17
And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a
great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is
done.
PROOF HALF ON EARTH DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD (8 BILLION ON EARTH)
REVELATION 6:7-8 (8 BILLION- 2 BILLION = 6 BILLION)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8
And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that
sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given
unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 BILLION) to kill with
sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE
DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
REVELATION 9:15,18 (6 BILLION - 2 BILLION = 4 BILLION)
15 And the four(DEMONIC WAR) angels were loosed,
18
By these three was the third part of men killed,(2 BILLION) by the
fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their
mouths.(NUCLEAR ATOMIC BOMBS)
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE
17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS
KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE
BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND
DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in
that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN
WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4
billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37
And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto
them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered
together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against
Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten
by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE
SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE
CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH
IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and
drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe
entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12
And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the
people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume
away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and
their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)
and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM
ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD
PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that
day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they
shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand
shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN
WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
I
GOT A GREAT IDEA HOW TO STOP GENOCIDAL DEATH CULT COCKROCH SUPPORTERS
IN THESE SCHOOL CAMPS OF HATE OF ISRAEL.OK EVERYBODY. HERES WHAT YOU DO.
YOU GET A GIGANTIC AIRPLANE FULL OF PIGS BLOOD. AND DROWN ALL THE
GENOCIDAL COCKROACH SEX FOR MURDER DEATH CULTSUPPORTERS. AND DRENCH THEM
IN PIGS BLOOD. THEN ASK THE MUSLIMS IN THE CROWD. HOW DO USE LIKE
GETTING FLOODED AND DEFILED BY PIGS BLOOD. BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE N0SE
PICKER AND EATER OF SNOT INVISBLE MOON GOD ALLAH.
What
is the Islamic position on pigs and pig blood? I've seen a lot of
things over the years about pigs being unclean and i know that muslims
are not supposed to eat pig in many sects of Islam. I'm curious, what
does pig/swine mean to you? If a muslim comes in casual contact with pig
or pig's blood, what would that mean for a muslim? Eating pigs is not
allowed in Islam , when being in contact with excessive amounts of blood
, pigs or otherwise you have to redo your wudu.
Wudu: Islamic
Washing Before Prayer-Nov. 25, 2016 — Originally published: Feb. 11,
2016-One of the pillars of Islam is that Muslims pray five times a day.
Before those prayers, they are expected to perform a purification ritual
called Wudu, requiring that they wash their faces, hands, arms, and
feet. We visited Masjid Muhammad Mosque in Washington, DC, where Imam
Talib Shareef described the ablution practice as preparing for “an
appointment before God.”
Hamas claimed to accept offer, but
that’s not what they did' US signals backing for ‘limited op’ after IDF
takes over Gazan side of Rafah crossing-State Department says legitimate
for Israel to prevent Hamas from collecting revenue at border gate with
Egypt, while urging quick reopening of crossing so aid deliveries
continue-By Jacob Magid-Today, 3:35 am-MAY 7,24
The Biden
administration appeared to signal its initial approval of the operation
launched by Israel early Tuesday morning to take over the Palestinian
side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.Spokespeople for the
administration said the goals of the operation were legitimate, but
warned that this assessment could change if the offensive expands in
scope and leads to an extended hampering of aid shipments into
Gaza.“What we’ve been told by our Israeli counterparts is that this
operation last night was limited, and designed to cut off from Hamas’s
ability to smuggle weapons and funds into Gaza,” White House National
Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters in a
briefing.“This does appear to be a limited operation so far, but it does
to a great extent depend on what comes next,” State Department
spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a separate briefing.US officials
sought to distinguish between the actions Israel has so far taken from a
more significant military operation, which they continue to oppose due
to fears that the over one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah
would be put at risk.“We have made clear that we don’t want to see a
major military operation. This does look like a prelude to a major
military operation. In terms of the policy response, we’ll see what
happens next before we make those determinations,” he added.“One of the
things that Israel said — which is very much accurate — is that Hamas
[still] controlled the Gaza side of Rafah crossing, and Hamas was
continuing to collect revenue from that crossing being open,” the State
Department spokesperson explained. “So it is a legitimate goal to try
and deprive Hamas of money that they could use to continue to finance
their terrorist activities.”For months, Netanyahu has declared that
Israeli troops would carry out an operation to root out the final Hamas
strongholds in Rafah, regardless of whether an agreement is reached in
the ongoing hostage talks. According to Israeli defense officials, four
of Hamas’s six remaining battalions are in the city, along with members
of the terror group’s leadership and a significant number of the
hostages it abducted from Israel during the October 7 onslaught that
sparked the war in Gaza.The IDF operation early Tuesday led to the
closure of the Rafah crossing — one of the main gates used to funnel aid
into Gaza. The closure came as Israel’s nearby Kerem Shalom crossing
also remained shuttered after a Hamas rocket attack over the weekend
killed four IDF soldiers and wounded others stationed nearby.The White
House said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised President Joe
Biden during a call Monday that he would reopen Kerem Shalom, but that
did not take place on Tuesday. Administration spokespeople said Israel
committed to reopening Kerem Shalom on Wednesday and to re-opening Rafah
for fuel convoys that day as well.“The closing of Kerem Shalom and
Rafah set back the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The full extent
depends on what happens next and whether they’re quickly reopened,”
Miller said.According to Miller, reopening Rafah to fuel deliveries was
essential for the operation of desalinization plants, aid trucks and
bakeries. He called for the crossing, which is also used by aid workers
in Gaza and Palestinian civilians, to be opened for all aid deliveries,
not just fuel.Miller acknowledged the temporary pier for Gaza being
built by the US military would soon be operational, but said Israel
should not view the maritime route as a replacement for Kerem Shalom and
Rafah. “Even when that pier is open, the amount of aid it can deliver a
day — somewhere around 100 trucks — in no way can replace what needs to
come into Gaza through these other gates.”The State Department
spokesperson was asked about footage apparently filmed by IDF soldiers
showing tanks ramming into signs in Gaza, including one reading “I love
Gaza” at the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing. Miller condemned
the action, saying the US “clearly opposes the destruction of any
civilian infrastructure if it does not constitute a legitimate military
target.”Miller differentiated between the operation at the Rafah
crossing, which he appeared to approve, and the IDF’s announcement on
Monday urging some 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate from eastern
neighborhoods of Gaza’s southernmost city.“We don’t think the kind of
military operation that would follow such an evacuation is one that we
can support because of the dramatic impact it would have on the civilian
population there and the ability to get humanitarian assistance in and
delivered to those people,” he said.Miller clarified that evacuating
civilians ahead of a military operation is welcome in theory, but
charged that Israel was taking the step without the proper mechanisms to
care for the evacuees once they’ve moved.“Those people need to have
somewhere to go and the places that they go to need to have sufficient
food, sufficient water, sufficient housing, sufficient sanitation, and
we have not yet seen a plan that would deliver that,” he said, arguing
that Israel was failing to take into account that once some Palestinians
flee to designated safe-zones in Gaza, far more will follow after
them.‘Hamas claimed to accept offer, but that’s not what they did’As for
the ongoing hostage talks, Miller pushed back on the claim made by
Hamas on Monday that it had accepted the truce proposal that was on the
table.Israel had agreed to what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
described as a “generous” hostage deal proposal late last month,” Miller
began. “That’s the offer that was on the table.”“Hamas seemed to make
clear in their public statements that they accepted that offer
yesterday. That is not what they did. They responded with… a
counter-proposal, and we’re working through the details of that now,” he
said, noting that CIA chief Bill Burns is in Cairo along with
delegations from Israel, Hamas and Qatar.This appeared to be the first
time that one of the mediators publicly issued a clarification regarding
Hamas’s Tuesday statement after roughly 24 hours of failing to address
the apparent discrepancy. Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson even
went as far as to call Hamas’s response “positive.”Earlier Tuesday,
Kirby added to the confusion by saying that Hamas’s response “suggests
that [the sides] should be able to close the remaining gaps.”Miller
noted that most media outlets reported Hamas’s statement that it had
accepted the Qatari and Egyptian mediators’ hostage deal proposal at
face value.“I don’t blame the reporting. It’s what the [Hamas] statement
said. But it’s not an accurate reflection of what happened… Hamas did
not accept a ceasefire proposal. Hamas responded and in their response
made several suggestions,” he added.For his part, Kirby pushed back on
the reported Israeli claims that Burns did not keep Israel in the loop
over the weekend, as Qatari and Egyptian mediators appeared to discuss
an alternative proposal with Hamas.“We absolutely had sustained ongoing
normal interactions, as we have throughout the beginning of this
conflict, with our Israeli counterparts as the proposal was working
through the process. Nobody was hiding any footballs from anybody, we
were being open and transparent.”Arab diplomat: PM allowing political
considerations to mar talks-Also Tuesday, an Arab diplomat told The
Times of Israel that Israel’s repeated refusal to send a negotiating
team to parley with mediators was hampering efforts to secure a hostage
deal.The mediators had wanted Israel to dispatch a delegation to Cairo
over the weekend when Burns was in town, as they geared up for Hamas’s
official response to the latest proposal, the diplomat said. “They
refused to send a delegation, and now they’re complaining about being
out of the loop.”Following Hamas’s Monday response, Israel did send a
lower-level negotiating team to Cairo that arrived Tuesday, though
officials in Jerusalem surmised that the terror group’s latest proposal
brought the parties back to square one.The Arab diplomat said this past
weekend was not the first time that Israel refused to send a negotiating
team to meet with mediators in Cairo or Doha, which he said slowed the
talks.While Israel has maintained that it only sends negotiators when
Hamas is showing genuine interest in reaching a compromise, the Arab
diplomat said Jerusalem’s policy has been “politically motivated.”He
declined to elaborate, but did not deny when asked if Netanyahu’s
refusal to dispatch negotiating teams could be due to pressure from
far-right coalition partners who want him to take a tougher stance in
the talks.Other war cabinet ministers, including National Unity chairman
Benny Gantz and his deputy Gadi Eisenkot, have argued that Israel
should always be open hold talks while sticking to its core principles
once the negotiating team is in the room.Reuters cited a source familiar
with the matter who claimed that Burns would travel to Israel on
Wednesday to discuss the hostage talks with Netanyahu and other top
officials.
Northern Israel targeted with multiple rockets, drones
from Lebanon; none hurt-Sirens activated repeatedly in the Galilee amid
ongoing attacks; minor damage reported; air force shoots down drone
apparently launched from Iraq-By Emanuel Fabian-and ToI Staff 7 May
2024, 4:34 pm
Northern Israel was targeted multiple times from
Lebanon on Tuesday with rockets and “suspicious aerial targets” —
believed to be explosive-laden drones launched by Hezbollah — setting
off numerous sirens in the Galilee Panhandle.One of the apparent drones
was downed by air defenses, another struck an area near Yiftah, causing a
fire, and others caused minor damage at unspecified locations, the
Israel Defense Forces said. Another two drones struck open areas,
according to the military.The IDF said there were no injuries in the
attacks.They came after Israel began an incursion into southern Gaza’s
Rafah overnight, taking control of the city’s border crossing with
Egypt. Hezbollah has been conducting near-daily attacks on Israel since
October 8, saying it is doing so to support Gaza as Israel wages war
against Hamas there following the terror group’s October 7 devastating
assault on southern Israel.On Monday two reserves soldiers were killed
in a Hezbollah-claimed explosive-laden drone attack against an army
position near Metula in northern Israel.The pair were named as Master
Sgt. (res.) Dan Kamkagi, 31, from Kfar Oranim, and Master Sgt. (res)
Nahman Natan Hertz, 31, from Elazar. Both served in the 551st Brigade’s
6551st Battalion.The army said it attempted, but failed, to intercept
the explosive drone that struck and killed the soldiers. Prior to the
deadly drone attack, a barrage of some 30 rockets was launched from
Lebanon at the Golan Heights, the IDF said.Following the attack, the IDF
said fighter jets struck a building used by Hezbollah in southern
Lebanon’s Srebbine, as well as a rocket-launching post in Ayta
ash-Shab.The army also said it carried out strikes in southern Lebanon
overnight, hitting a number of Hezbollah positions.Since October, the
clashes on the border have resulted in nine civilian deaths on the
Israeli side, as well as the deaths of 13 IDF soldiers and reservists.
There have also been several attacks from Syria, without any
injuries.Hezbollah has named 290 members who have been killed by Israel
during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon but some also in Syria.
In Lebanon, another 56 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese
soldier, and at least 60 civilians have been killed.Israel has
threatened to go to war to force Hezbollah away from the border if it
does not retreat and continues to threaten northern communities, from
where some 70,000 people have been evacuated to avoid the fighting.Also
Tuesday, evacuated residents expressed anger at Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu after he reportedly told the cabinet that it would not matter
if they only returned home a few months after the September 1 start of
the new school year.During the meeting, war cabinet minister Benny Gantz
reportedly urged a decision that would allow residents to return to
their homes by September 1.“Who said September 1 is the goal date?”
Netanyahu was quoted by Channel 12 as answering. “Why do we keep taking
about this date, what will happen if they go back a few months
later?”After Gantz replied that it meant that residents would miss the
opening of the school year, Netanyahu replied: “I’m aware of the school
year argument. It can take longer than that.”“Only someone who has never
lived in a 27-square-meter room with four children for the past 7
months could be so disconnected,” Matan Davidian from Shlomi told
Channel 12.Upper Galilee Regional Council head Giora Zaltz told the
channel that he was pushing for residents to return home even without a
government okay.Separately, the military said Tuesday morning that
Israeli fighter jets had intercepted a drone flying toward Israel from
the “eastern direction.”The IDF said the drone was tracked throughout
the incident until it was shot down, and it did not enter Israeli
airspace.The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed to have
launched a drone at Israel overnight, targeting a military base.It
marked the second night in a row that a drone apparently launched from
Iraq was shot down by the IDF.Amid the war, several drones have been
launched at Israel by Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria. Iran itself
also carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel last month with
hundreds of drones and missiles.
Police disband anti-Israel
protesters at Berlin, Amsterdam and Zurich universities-Demonstrations
over the war in Gaza and academic ties with Israel have begun to spread
across Europe, but remain much smaller in scale than those seen in the
US-By Agencies and ToI Staff 7 May 2024, 8:24 pm
Police on
Tuesday broke up anti-Israel demonstrations at universities in Berlin,
Amsterdam and Zurich, which were inspired by similar demonstrations on
campuses around the world.German police cleared an anti-Israel protest
camp on Tuesday at a courtyard of the Freie Universität Berlin, which
had called for a stop to Israel’s military operation in Gaza.Some 100
people set up two dozen tents on the campus on Tuesday, joining a call
by the so-called “Student Coalition Berlin” to occupy German
universities.Students from various Berlin universities joined the
anti-Israel protest, carrying Palestinian flags and shouting slogans
supporting Palestinians and denouncing Israel and Germany.The student
group demanded that criminal charges be dropped against students and
others who had shown solidarity with Palestinians on campuses, and for
the universities to publicly oppose planned reforms to Berlin’s senate
that would enable the expulsion of students on political grounds.They
also urged banning police from the campus and reinstating academics and
staff members of German universities and research institutes who were
expelled or defunded because of their anti-Israel stance.Freie
Universität Berlin said the protesters tried to enter university rooms
and lecture halls aiming to occupy them, and that the university filed
criminal complaints and suspended lectures in several buildings.“This
kind of protest is not dialogue oriented. An occupation of university
property is not acceptable. We welcome academic debate and dialogue –
but not in this form,” said Guenter Ziegler, president of Freie
Universität Berlin.Anti-Israel student protests over the Israel-Hamas
war in Gaza and academic ties with Israel have begun to spread across
Europe, but have remained much smaller in scale than those seen in the
United States.The war was sparked by the Hamas terror organization’s
October 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed in Israel and
252 were taken hostage, mostly civilians. It is believed that 128
hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them
alive. Two hundred and sixty-seven Israeli soldiers have been killed
during the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the
Gaza border.The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 34,000
people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure
that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas
gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed
some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.In Germany, more than
25 police vehicles surrounded the camp at Freie Universität Berlin and
police said they cleared the area due to a university management request
as the protest was not registered.“There were isolated cases of
deprivation of liberty for incitement to hatred and trespassing Freie
Universität Berlin,” Berlin police wrote in a post on social media
platform X, adding that those who would not comply with the orders would
be taken by police and later reported.At the University of Amsterdam,
images on public broadcaster NOS showed police baton-charging protesters
and smashing up tents at around 4 a.m. Tuesday after they refused to
leave the campus.“The demonstration took on a violent nature because
later in the evening massive stones were removed from the ground,”
police said in a statement.Violence briefly erupted on Monday evening
when a small group of counter-protesters wielding flares stormed the
main protest.Demonstrators blocked off some roads to the university,
after which police broke up the protest to enable access by emergency
services.Some students hurled stones and fireworks at the officers when
they broke up the demonstration, said police, and more than 120 were
arrested.On Tuesday morning, police began releasing some of those
arrested, but dozens remained in custody.Police also began dispersing
anti-Israel protesters at the Swiss university of ETH Zurich on Tuesday,
management said, after student demonstrations spread to campuses in
several cities.Students set up camp at Lausanne University (UNIL) last
week and protests have since spread to at least three more sites in
Zurich, Geneva and Lausanne.“ETH Zurich sees itself as a place where
different opinions and perspectives can and should be expressed openly.
However, unauthorized actions are not accepted at ETH Zurich,” ETH
university said, adding that protesters had been repeatedly asked to
leave the building before police arrived.Video footage of the protest on
social media earlier showed seated protesters with keffiyehs and
Palestinian flags chanting “free, free Palestine” and “viva, viva
Palestina.”Protests also began at the University of Geneva and the Ecole
Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne on Tuesday, according to students’
social media posts.At UNIL, hundreds of students chanted “We are all the
children of Gaza” on Monday as a single security agent looked on.
Management asked them to move, a UNIL statement showed, but they
remained in the building on Tuesday.Some academics have sided with
students.“We consider the steps they’ve taken to be peaceful and good
natured, aimed at bringing to the public’s attention a dramatic
situation,” UNIL political science professor Bernard Voutat said on
Monday. “We teachers cannot remain silent.”Police have dispersed
protesters at other universities across the world including Columbia
University in New York and the Sorbonne in Paris.
Anti-Israel
encampment cleared at University of Chicago, but protests continue-Rhode
Island School of Design hold talks with protesters occupying a
building, while MIT deals with new encampment on site previously cleared
of demonstrators-By AP and ToI Staff 7 May 2024, 7:36 pm
Police
cleared an anti-Israel tent encampment at the University of Chicago on
Tuesday as tensions ratcheted up in standoffs with demonstrators at
other college campuses around the United States — and increasingly, in
Europe.Nearly three weeks into a movement launched by a protest at
Columbia University in New York, the Rhode Island School of Design held
talks with anti-Israel protesters occupying a building, and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology dealt with a new encampment on a
site that was cleared but immediately retaken by demonstrators.The
confrontations come as campuses try a range of strategies, from
appeasement to threats of disciplinary action, to resolve the
anti-Israel protests and clear the way for commencements.At the
University of Chicago, protesters numbering in the several hundreds had
gathered in an area known as the Quad for at least eight days. Campus
administrators warned them Friday to leave the area or face
removal.Police in riot gear blocked access to the Quad early Tuesday as
law enforcement dismantled the encampment. Officers picked up a
barricade and moved it toward protesters, some of whom chanted, “Up up
with liberation, down down with occupation!” Police and protesters
pushed back and forth along the barricade as the officers moved to
reestablish control.At MIT, protesters were given a Monday afternoon
deadline to voluntarily leave or face suspension. Many left, according
to an MIT spokesperson, who said protesters breached fencing after the
arrival of demonstrators from outside the university. On Monday night,
dozens of protesters remained at the encampment in a calmer atmosphere,
listening to speakers and chanting before taking a pizza break.Sam Ihns,
a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member
of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire — who state that they are “Jewish MIT
students/staff/faculty/alumni in solidarity with Palestine,” and are
calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza — said that the group has been
at the encampment for two weeks.“Specifically, our encampment is
protesting MIT’s direct research ties to the Israeli Ministry of
Defense,” Ihns said.No arrests had been made as of Monday night,
according to the MIT spokesperson.At the Rhode Island School of Design
(RISD), where students started occupying a building Monday, a
spokesperson said that the school affirms students’ rights to freedom of
speech and peaceful assembly and that it supports all members of its
community. The RISD president and provost were on site meeting with the
demonstrators, the spokesperson said.Protests proliferate in Europe-The
anti-Israel student protests have spread to Europe, where they are
gaining momentum. Police arrested about 125 activists Tuesday as they
broke up a camp at the University of Amsterdam, and German police
dismantled an occupation at Berlin’s Free University. Students have also
held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain,
France and Britain.Many protesters want their schools to divest from
companies that do business with Israel. Others simply want to call
attention to the deaths in Gaza and to end the war that was sparked by
Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, in which some 1,200 people were killed in
Israel and 252 were taken hostage, mostly civilians.Anti-Israel
demonstrations at Columbia University, where the protest movement began
about three weeks ago, have roiled its campus. Officials on Monday
canceled its large main ceremony but said students will be able to
celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies this week and
next.Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200
demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia’s green or occupied an
academic building were arrested in recent weeks.Similar encampments
sprouted up elsewhere, leading universities to struggle with where to
draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe
and inclusive campuses.The University of Southern California earlier
canceled its main graduation ceremony. Students abandoned their camp at
USC on Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with
arrest. Other universities have held graduation ceremonies with
beefed-up security. The University of Michigan’s ceremony was
interrupted by anti-Israel chanting a few times Saturday.A group of
faculty and staff members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill asked the administration for amnesty for student protesters who
were recently arrested and suspended. Harvard University’s interim
president, Alan Garber, warned students that those in an encampment in
Harvard Yard could face “involuntary leave,” meaning they would not be
allowed on campus, could lose their student housing and might not be
able to take exams.At the University of California, San Diego, police
cleared an encampment and arrested more than 64 people, including 40
students. The University of California, Los Angeles moved classes online
for the week due to disruptions following the dismantling of an
encampment last week that resulted in 44 reported arrests.The Hamas-run
Gaza health ministry says more than 34,000 people in the Strip have been
killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently
verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed
in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside
Israel on October 7, and 267 Israeli soldiers have been killed during
the ground offensive against Hamas and amid operations along the Gaza
border.Hamas on Monday announced its acceptance of an Egyptian-Qatari
temporary ceasefire proposal, and Israel said that it was pushing ahead
with an IDF operation on the southern Gaza town of Rafah. Israel said
the truce deal was “far from [its] essential demands,” but nonetheless
would continue to send working-level teams to hold talks with the
mediators in order “to exhaust the possibility of achieving an agreement
on terms that are acceptable to Israel,”The decision to move ahead with
the Rafah operation was “in order to apply military pressure on Hamas,
with the goal of making progress on freeing the hostages and the other
war aims.”“Ceasefires are temporary,” said Selina Al-Shihabi, a
Georgetown University sophomore who was taking part in a protest at
George Washington. “There can be a ceasefire, but the US government will
continue to arm the Israeli military. We plan to be here until the
university divests or until they drag us out of here.”
UN set to
vote on symbolic measure backing Palestine recognition-General Assembly
motion would recommend the Security Council reconsider its position,
after the US vetoed recognition there last month-By Reuters and ToI
Staff 7 May 2024, 11:28 am
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations
General Assembly could vote on Friday on a draft resolution that would
recognize the Palestinians as qualified to become a full UN member and
recommend that the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.
”While unlikely to change the Palestinians’ status at the world body,
the vote will effectively act as a global survey of how much support
Ramallah has for its bid, which was vetoed in the UN Security Council
last month by the United States. An application to become a full UN
member needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then
the General Assembly.Diplomats say the 193-member General Assembly is
likely to back the Palestinian bid. But changes could still be made to
the draft after some diplomats raised concerns with the current text,
seen by Reuters, that also grants additional rights and privileges —
short of full membership — to the Palestinians.Some diplomats say this
could set a precedent for other situations, citing Kosovo and Taiwan as
examples.Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan denounced the draft
General Assembly resolution Monday, saying it would give the
Palestinians the de facto status and rights of a state and goes against
the founding UN Charter.“If it is approved, I expect the United States
to completely stop funding the UN and its institutions, in accordance
with American law,” said Erdan, adding that adoption by the General
Assembly would not change anything on the ground.Under US law,
Washington cannot fund any UN organization that grants full membership
to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized
attributes” of statehood. The US halted funding in 2011 for the UN
cultural agency (UNESCO) after the Palestinians became a full
member.Nate Evans, spokesperson for the US mission to the UN, said, “It
remains the US view that the path toward statehood for the Palestinian
people is through direct negotiations.“We are aware of the resolution
and reiterate our concerns with any effort to extend certain benefits to
entities when there are unresolved questions as to whether the
Palestinians currently meet the criteria under the Charter,” he said.The
Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto
recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in
2012.The Palestinian mission to the UN in New York did not immediately
respond to a request for comment on its push for action in the General
Assembly.The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months
into a war between Israel and terror group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.The
United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by
side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians say they want a
state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.In April the US
prevented the Security Council from recognizing the Palestinians as a
full UN member state. Twelve Security Council members voted in favor of
granting the Palestinians full UN member status, while just the UK and
Switzerland abstained.France, Japan, South Korea and Slovenia all voted
in favor of the resolution submitted by Algeria, even though none of
them had individually recognized a Palestinian state.A US official
speaking to The Times of Israel at the time speculated that those
countries voted the way they did even though they don’t practically
support the measure because they knew there wouldn’t be any consequences
for doing so, given Washington’s pledged veto.In explaining the US
opposition to the resolution, US State Department deputy spokesperson
Vedant Patel said there was not unanimity among Security Council members
that the Palestinians had met the criteria necessary to be defined as a
state.Moreover, he said that the PA needs to undergo significant
reforms before it’s recognized as a state. Ramallah has long been marred
by allegations of corruption and mismanagement.Patel also pointed to
the Congressional legislation that would force the Biden administration
to cut funding to the UN if it unilaterally approved the Palestinian
request.
In Bnei Brak, Haredim host EU diplomats at an unusual
Holocaust memorial-At the ultra-Orthodox Ganzach archive, ultra-Orthodox
Jews learn about the Holocaust from a Haredi perspective, both
historical and theological-By Sam Sokol-7 May 2024, 11:02 pm
Following
the wave of antisemitism that “swept Europe and other parts of the
world” in the wake of October 7, Brussels has accelerated efforts to
protect Jewish communities across the continent, Dimiter Tzantchev
boasted on Tuesday.As more than 20 European diplomats looked on, the
European Union envoy to Israel detailed a series of actions taken to
combat threats to local Jews, insisting that Europeans were “working
more intensely than ever to prevent antisemitism and to educate the
young generations about Jewish traditions and the Jewish contributions
to Europe.”“The Holocaust is an indelible stain on the history of our
continent and we as representatives of the European Union and its member
states view it as our sacred duty to make sure the systematic mass
murder of the Jewish people is never forgotten,” he asserted.Though it
sounded like a standard speech for a Holocaust Remembrance Day event,
the location was not: Tzantchev’s remarks were made in the
ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak a full day after the official
observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, known in Hebrew as Yom
Hashoah.Mingling with the European diplomats listening to Tzantchev were
a crowd of Haredi Jews, the women in long skirts and wigs, the men
wearing black suits and side-curls. These included Bnei Brak Mayor
Chanoch Zeibert and United Torah Judaism MK Uri Maklev — the chairman of
Israel’s Holocaust Survivors Commission.While many of those present had
previously gone to Israel’s national memorial at Yad Vashem for the
official state ceremonies, they had gathered again to attend the unique
Holocaust commemoration at Ganzach.Also known as the Kiddush Hashem
Archive, Ganzach is an ultra-Orthodox museum focused on both preserving
the memory of pre-Holocaust Jewry and highlighting the spiritual bravery
of those facing extinction.The Hebrew term Kiddush Hashem refers to
actions that “sanctify” the name of God.Following Tzantchev’s remarks,
the diplomats were ushered into a smoke-filled circular chamber for a
presentation on the “righteous among the nations” who saved their Jewish
neighbors.There has not been enough of a focus on Orthodox victims or
the spiritual aspect of the Holocaust, the diplomats were
told.Addressing the gathered diplomats, Colette Avital, a former Israeli
lawmaker and diplomat who currently heads the Center of Organizations
of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, explained that for generations, the
European genocide was not a topic of discussion among the
ultra-Orthodox.Cantor Yisrael Adler sings El Malei Rachamim at the
Ganzach Holocaust museum in Bnei Brak pic.twitter.com/VLB9Ab82Ai— Sam
Sokol (@SamuelSokol) May 7, 2024-“Elie Weisel asked how God, who
controls everything, could allow this to happen. This is the reason why,
I think for many reasons, Haredi Jews evaded the issue,” she said.“The
rabbis did not know how to present this, a crisis of faith, to their
believers. This is why I think this institution is so
important.”Israel’s Haredi community approaches Holocaust remembrance in
a very different manner from most Israeli Jews. Rather than observing
Yom Hashoah, most Haredim opt to mark the genocide of the Jews on the
10th of Tevet, a minor fast day.Many Haredi youth are barred by their
strictly religious schools and communities from visiting Poland as part
of March of the Living, a program that brings Jewish high schoolers to
Auschwitz-Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day.Tuesday’s commemoration
was not held on Holocaust Remembrance Day in order to allow the
diplomats to attend, a spokesman told The Times of Israel.Founded 60
years ago by Rabbi Moshe Prager, the Kiddush Hashem Archive was
established to fill a void left by Yad Vashem and other mainstream
Holocaust memorials, explained Chief Operating Officer Rachel
Yud.According to Yud, the archive — which produces educational material,
runs activities for students and preserves documentation — is focused
on telling the pre-war story of the “beautiful congregations” destroyed
in the Holocaust as well as the “Jewish spirit” exhibited by the victims
and the lengths to which they went to preserve their religion and
culture even when persecuted.“We are less interested in what the
Christians did and more in how the Jew behaved,” she said. “That’s
what’s important to us. Their hopes and dreams and wishes. Their faith.
We are talking about faith and God.”For years, Haredi parents did not
mention the Holocaust to their children because “the survivors didn’t
want to talk and the second generation didn’t know anything. They didn’t
want to face the questions of faith but not only that, they wanted to
focus on rebuilding,” she explained.“The past was horrible. But there is
a change because of us.”Asked how the Kiddush Hashem Archive handles
questions about where God was during the Holocaust, Yud replies that “it
is clear to us that God was there, just as He was on October 7.”“It is
not clear to us why. We don’t know the considerations of Heaven. But it
is clear he was there,” she said. “When we speak about the Holocaust, we
discuss the job of man, not God. Where was man during the Holocaust?”In
other words, what lessons can be learned from the Holocaust “to help us
be better people?”Charlie Summers contributed to this report.
French
PM attacks the left for giving Israel ‘moral lessons’ during Gaza
war-Gabriel Attal accuses La France Insoumise party and its leader of
‘never having a word for the victims of October 7’By ToI Staff 7 May
2024, 9:03 pm
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal attacked
France’s left-wing politicians on Monday night for their criticism of
Israel amid the war in Gaza.As a guest of honor at at an annual dinner
held by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France
(CRIF) — an organization that lobbies the government on Jewish issues —
Attal said the far-left should be ashamed for encouraging the stark rise
in antisemitism in the last seven months because “it takes us back to
the dark times when we saw that such actions can lead to a great
disaster.”The dinner took place only two days after an Anti-Defamation
League report showed that France had experienced the highest rise in
antisemitic attacks of any country in 2023, with incidents near
quadrupling compared to the previous year.Attal, who is Jewish, began
his speech by telling attendees about a document he had framed in his
office that was given to his grandmother Jeanine Weil in 1941 when she
removed her yellow Jude star at a police station.“This document reminds
me of the infamy that our country committed by surrendering and being
complicit and guilty of antisemitism because, in that hour, our country
turned its back on its history and attacked its own,” he said, adding
that it was also a reminder that hate is “an infernal machine” that
erases “every trace of humanity.”The document, Attal said, was also a
piece of evidence of the horrors of the Holocaust for generations who
did not live through it, as survivors die out.“[The Holocaust] was
decades ago, but let’s be honest, it could happen again tomorrow,” he
said. “We are facing a wave of antisemitism. A wave of rare magnitude
that is stronger, more violent and more established than it has been in
recent years.”Attal said the new wave of antisemitism began on October 7
with Hamas’s attack on Israel, in which terrorists killed some 1,200
people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 252.Three of the 129 hostages
who remain in Gaza — Ohad Yahalomi, Ofer Kalderon and Orion Hernandez
Radoux — are French citizens, Attal noted, adding, “We do not forget
them and we do not abandon them.”He did not need to invoke the
antisemitism of the past to warn about the antisemitism of the present,
he said, because “the present is still sufficient on its own.”“How can
we say that Israeli society is overreacting” to the horrors committed by
Hamas terrorists who “shouted drunkenly with happiness ‘Death to the
Jews'” and called their families to boast of their crimes? Attal
asked.He then criticized those trying to teach Israel “moral lessons” on
the way the country wages its war in Gaza after October 7.“I have found
myself ashamed lately,” he said. “I’m ashamed when I hear certain
elected representatives from [left-wing party] La France Insoumise speak
of a resistance movement” about Hamas.Attal attacked the party and its
leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, for “never having a word for the victims of
October 7.”He said that France was trying to prevent an escalation of
the war in the Middle East, but warned La France Insoumise that “never
has peace come through hatred.”France has been particularly active in
trying to restore calm between Israel and Hezbollah since October 8,
when forces led by the terror group began attacking Israeli communities
and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis.It was not
only attacks on Israel that were the problem, Attal said, pointing to
the massive wave of antisemitism that began in France on October 7.
Between then and the end of 2023, Attal said there were more than 1,200
reports of antisemitic attacks, which was three times more than were
reported in the whole of 2022. A further 366 attacks were reported
between January and March, a 300 percent rise from the same period last
year.French Jews make up 1% of the country’s population, Attal
continued, but 60% of religious-based attacks are antisemitic and are
perpetuated through hate speech, violence and threats.“Each antisemitic
attack is a stain on the French flag, so we will not tolerate them and
we will never tolerate them,” Attal said, vowing to continue fighting
it.Attal said that antisemitism needed to be fought through education
and that together with French Education Minister Nicole Belloubet, he
had built a curriculum for primary schools to teach tolerance and
respect, and that beginning in the next academic year, it will be taught
in all primary schools in the country.The French prime minister also
mentioned the massive pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests sweeping
across universities in the United States, which have also spread to
institutions in Europe, including France.“Together with the interior
minister, I have systematically requested the intervention of the police
to liberate the surroundings of our universities,” he said. “I did so
without hesitation everywhere as soon as the protest movements took
place, and I am proud that in France, unlike abroad, none of these
manifestations of hatred have become points of fixation for days, weeks,
and even months.“No one should be able to prevent people from working,
studying, and revising, and we will be extremely attentive in making
sure all sanctions are taken in the long term.”Attal said that
antisemites were trying to disguise their hate as anti-Zionism but that
it was “no longer a call for a ceasefire when protesters denied Israel
the right to exist.“It is no longer a call for peace when we hold our
Jewish fellow citizens responsible for the situation in Gaza,” he
added.With the help of the International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, Attal said France was working
hard to fight all forms of antisemitic attacks, both direct and
online.He ended by saying that “the soul of the French Republic is
incomplete without French Jews.”
Crossing is on Philadelphi
Corridor, between Egypt and Gaza-IDF tanks take control of Gazan side of
Rafah Crossing to Egypt, key road captured-Official says army launched
‘limited operation’ aimed at pressuring Hamas to accept a deal; army
says 20 gunmen killed, 3 tunnels found, explosive-laden car hit as it
drove at tank-By Emanuel FabianToday, 12:58 pmUpdated at 1:44 pm-MAY
7,24
Israeli tanks rolled into the southern Gaza Strip early
Tuesday, capturing the Palestinian side of the Rafah Crossing on the
Egypt border, in what the military called a “pinpoint operation” against
the Hamas terror group.The ground incursion in the eastern part of the
city of Rafah came after Jerusalem said a truce offer from Hamas the
previous day did not meet its demands, and announced that it had okayed
moving ahead with the long-threatened offensive.An Israeli official told
The Times of Israel that it was a “limited operation” aimed at
pressuring Hamas to accept a deal.It was not the broad Rafah offensive
that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly promised Israel would
carry out, CNN reported, citing a source familiar with Israel’s plan.The
Israel Defense Forces said its 401st Armored Brigade captured the Gazan
side of Rafah Crossing on Tuesday morning, apparently with little
resistance. Israeli flags were raised by troops at the border crossing,
footage showed.The crossing, located some 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from
the Israeli border, was captured amid a “pinpoint operation” against
Hamas in “limited areas of eastern Rafah,” the IDF said. It is located
along the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, separating Egypt and Gaza.As
of Tuesday morning, Israel controlled all of the known overground
crossings with Gaza.An Egyptian official and Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV said
early Tuesday that Israeli officials informed the Egyptians that the
troops would withdraw after completing the operation. No timeline was
given.The IDF said it had “intelligence information that terrorists were
using the crossing area for terror purposes.” On Sunday, rockets were
fired by Hamas from near the crossing toward the Kerem Shalom area in
southern Israel, killing four soldiers and wounding others.The Rafah
crossing with Egypt was now disconnected from Gaza’s main north-south
road, Salah a-Din. Part of the road in eastern Rafah was separately
captured by the Givati Infantry Brigade in the overnight operation, the
IDF said.The IDF said some 20 gunmen were killed and troops located
three “significant” tunnel shafts.It remains unclear if Hamas still has
tunnels running from the Rafah area into Egypt’s Sinai desert, which it
had previously used to smuggle in weapons and supplies.The Egyptian
military over the past decade cracked down on the smuggling tunnels and
destroyed hundreds of them, saying they were used to funnel weapons to
jihadist groups in Sinai.Also amid the overnight offensive, an
explosive-laden car driving toward an IDF tank was struck and destroyed,
the military said.No soldiers were wounded in the operation as of
Tuesday morning.Meanwhile, the IDF said more than 50 Hamas sites in
Rafah were struck by the air force overnight. Another 50 sites had been
hit in the area late Monday, according to the military.Palestinians
reported heavy airstrikes in the east of the city overnight, killing at
least 27 people.Israel has carried out airstrikes in Rafah with some
regularity in recent months, even as it has held off on sending in
troops amid vociferous international opposition to military operations
in the city, where over a million Palestinians are thought to be
sheltering, most of them displaced from other parts of the Strip.After
capturing the crossing, troops on Tuesday were searching the area for
Hamas infrastructure and preparing for additional missions.Leaked
footage showed Israeli military vehicles driving along the Egypt-Gaza
border, also known as the Philadelphi Corridor, in the eastern part of
Rafah, near the captured crossing.The clip showed an APC with two
massive flags — one Israeli and the other of the 401st Armored Brigade,
the unit that captured the Gazan side of the Rafah Crossing.The IDF had
not captured the entire Philadelphi Corridor, which runs for 14
kilometers (8.7 miles) all along the Gaza-Egypt border, as Netanyahu had
vowed Israel would.Israel has contended it must have control over the
corridor to prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas.Egypt on Tuesday warned
that the Israeli operation in Rafah threatened ceasefire efforts,
according to the country’s foreign ministry.Also on Tuesday morning,
Hamas fired several rockets and mortars from the city at the Kerem
Shalom area, the site of Sunday’s deadly attack and just across the
border from eastern Rafah. There was no damage or injuries, the IDF
said.Before launching the overnight operation, the IDF said it carried
out “coordination with the international organizations operating in the
area, with a request to move towards the humanitarian area, as part of
the effort to evacuate the population that has been taking place.”On
Monday morning, Israel issued evacuation orders for some 100,000 Gazans
in parts of eastern Rafah, who were told to evacuate to a designated
“humanitarian zone” near Khan Younis, north of Rafah.Hours later, Hamas
said it had accepted an Egyptian and Qatari ceasefire and hostage
release proposal, but Israeli officials said the Hamas terms did not
match what Jerusalem had agreed to, though working-level teams would
travel to Cairo Tuesday to resume indirect talks.Declaring that Hamas’s
latest offer was “far from [meeting] Israel’s essential requirements,” a
statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the war
cabinet had decided unanimously to push ahead with an IDF operation in
Rafah “in order to apply military pressure on Hamas, with the goal of
making progress on freeing the hostages and the other war
aims.”Netanyahu has for months vowed that Israeli troops would carry out
an operation to root out the final Hamas strongholds in the southern
Gaza city of Rafah regardless of a hostage release deal. Israeli defense
officials say four of Hamas’s six remaining battalions are in the city,
along with members of the group’s leadership and a significant number
of the hostages abducted from Israel on October 7 during the terror
group’s mass onslaught.In a call with Netanyahu earlier Monday, US
President Joe Biden reiterated his opposition to a major Israeli
military offensive in Rafah, a White House readout said, without
elaborating.The US has repeatedly expressed opposition to a Rafah
invasion without credible assurances from Israel that the million-plus
Palestinians sheltering there would be protected. Israel claims it can
safely evacuate and care for those civilians, but Washington has not
been convinced.The Biden administration is pushing alternatives to a
full Rafah invasion, including the bolstering of the Gaza border with
Egypt and more targeted operations against Hamas’s leadership. But
Netanyahu has turned a Rafah invasion into an essential, non-negotiable
component of a “total victory” over the terror group.The war erupted
after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, when thousands of terrorists murdered
some 1,200 people and seized 252 hostages amid acts of brutality and
sexual assault.In response to the onslaught, Israel launched a
wide-scale offensive aiming to eliminate the terror group’s military and
governance capabilities in Gaza and free the hostages, 128 of whom
remain in captivity.More than 34,700 Palestinians have been killed in
the conflict, according to unverifiable figures from Hamas health
officials that do not distinguish between gunmen and civilians. Israel
says it has killed 13,000 Hamas gunmen in Gaza as well as 1,000
terrorists inside Israel on October 7. Two hundred and sixty-seven IDF
soldiers have been killed in the fighting in Gaza and amid operations on
the border.Lazar Berman, agencies, and Times of Israel staff
contributed to this report.
US completes construction of Gaza aid
pier, but weather preventing installation-Pentagon says ready ‘in the
near future’ to move dock, which IDF troops will anchor to shore so no
American boots are on the ground-By AFP, ToI Staff and Jacob
Magid-Today, 1:43 am-MAY 8,24
The US military has completed
construction of the Gaza aid pier, but weather conditions mean it is
currently unsafe to move the two-part facility into place, the Pentagon
said on Tuesday.The pier — which the US military started constructing
last month and which will cost at least $320 million — is aimed at
boosting deliveries of desperately needed humanitarian assistance to
Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Israel-Hamas war that was triggered
by the terror group’s October 7 attack.“As of today, the construction of
the two portions of the JLOTS — the floating pier and the Trident pier —
are complete and awaiting final movement offshore,” Deputy Pentagon
Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told journalists, using an acronym for
Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore — the official name for the pier
capability.“Today there are still forecasted high winds and high sea
swells, which are causing unsafe conditions for the JLOTS components to
be moved. So the pier sections and military vessels involved in its
construction are still positioned at the port of Ashdod,” Singh said.US
Central Command “stands by to move the pier into position in the near
future,” she added.The vessels and the under-construction pier were
moved to the Israeli port due to bad weather last week. Once the weather
clears, it will be anchored to the Gaza shore by Israeli soldiers to
keep US troops off the ground.Aid will then be transported via
commercial vessels to a floating platform off the Gaza coast, where it
will be transferred to smaller vessels, brought to the pier that will be
anchored to shore, and taken to land by truck for distribution.Plans
for the pier were first announced by US President Joe Biden in early
March as he pressed Israel to ramp up the amount of aid entering Gaza.
As part of Israel’s efforts to increase the flow of aid, last week it
reopened the Erez Crossing, which was largely destroyed in the October 7
terror onslaught.Meanwhile, the White House said that the closing of
Rafah and the other main crossing, Kerem Shalom, was “unacceptable” and
needed to be reversed.On Tuesday morning, the IDF took control of the
Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, saying it did
so as part of a “pinpoint operation” aimed at pressuring Hamas and
preventing it from using the crossing for terror purposes, which the
military said intelligence indicated it had been doing.Israel closed the
Kerem Shalom crossing after Hamas fired rockets at it on Sunday,
killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding others. The US said on
Tuesday that it was assured by Israel that Kerem Shalom would be
reopened on Wednesday.US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller
said at a press briefing Tuesday that “no one should think that the
completion of this pier and the opening of that route is in any way a
replacement for Kerem Shalom and Rafah being open.”“Getting that pier
finished is not a sufficient means to close other gates. It’s not a
sufficient reason to operate in the south and disrupt the delivery of
humanitarian systems, because even when that pier is open, the amount of
aid it can deliver a day — somewhere around 100 trucks — in no way can
replace what needs to come into Gaza through these other gates.”Emanuel
Fabian contributed to this report.
UN nuclear watchdog chief
urges Iran to take ‘concrete’ steps for cooperation-In visit to Iran,
IAEA’s Grossi notes ‘slowdown’ in implementation of 2023 deal meant to
improve safeguards, monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear program-By Agencies
and ToI Staff Today, 4:14 pm-MAY 7,24
International Atomic Energy
Agency chief Rafael Grossi on Tuesday called on Iran to adopt
“concrete” measures to help bolster cooperation on the country’s nuclear
program.At a news conference in the Iranian city of Isfahan, Grossi
said he had proposed in talks with Iranian officials that they “focus on
the very concrete, very practical and tangible measures that can be
implemented in order to accelerate” cooperation.Grossi held discussions
with senior Iranian officials including Mohammad Eslami, the head of the
Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. While both men said there would be
no immediate new deal struck during the visit, they pointed to a March
2023 joint statement as a path forward for cooperation between the IAEA
and Iran.The IAEA director general said the agreement was “still valid”
but required that more “substance” be added.That 2023 agreement was
reached during Grossi’s last visit to Iran, and outlined basic
cooperation measures including on safeguards and monitoring.It also
included a pledge by Iran to resolve issues around sites where
inspectors have questions about possible undeclared nuclear activity,
and to allow the IAEA to “implement further appropriate verification and
monitoring activities.”The IAEA chief said, however, that there had
been a “slowdown” in its implementation.Iran has suspended its
compliance with caps on nuclear activities set by a landmark 2015 deal
with major powers after the United States in 2018 unilaterally withdrew
from the agreement and reimposed sweeping sanctions.Tensions between
Iran and the IAEA have repeatedly flared since the deal fell apart, and
EU-mediated efforts have so far failed both to bring Washington back on
board and to get Tehran to again comply with the terms of the accord.The
agency has in recent months criticized Iran for lack of cooperation on
issues including the expansion of its nuclear work, the barring of
inspectors and deactivating the agency’s monitoring devices at its
nuclear facilities.In February, it said in a confidential report seen by
AFP that Iran’s estimated stockpile of enriched uranium had reached 27
times the limit set out in the 2015 accord.Last year, Iran slowed the
pace of its uranium enrichment, which was seen as a goodwill gesture
while informal talks began with the United States.But Iran then
accelerated the production of 60 percent enriched uranium in late 2023,
according to the IAEA.Enrichment levels of around 90 percent are
required for military use, a short, technical step.Tehran has
consistently denied any ambition to develop nuclear weapons, insisting
that its atomic activities are entirely peaceful, although experts say
that there is no civilian application for uranium enriched to that
level.Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last
say on Tehran’s nuclear program, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, in
the early 2000s banning the development of nuclear weapons because they
are contrary to “the spirit of Islam.”While Iran denies ever seeking
such a weapon, Israel and the West believe the country had an active
nuclear weapons program until at least 2003, and the IAEA found that
some aspects of it continued until 2009.Israel and others have accused
Iran of seeking nuclear weapons despite the ban, and Grossi warned last
year that Tehran has enough enriched uranium for “several” nuclear bombs
if it chose to build them.During the conference, Eslami said that talks
with Grossi were “constructive,” and agreed that the 2023 agreement was
a “good basis for interactions” between Iran and the agency.
Hamas
says 33 hostages to be freed in 1st phase of a deal may not all be
alive-Terror group said to tell mediators it doesn’t have 33 living
people who meet ‘humanitarian’ criteria of initial phase — after Israel
agreed to lower previous demand of 40 people-By ToI Staff Today, 1:24
pm-MAY 07,24
Hamas has said some of the 33 hostages it would
release under the first phase of a prospective hostage deal with Israel
would not necessarily be alive.In an announcement detailing the clauses
to which it had agreed Monday in the latest proposal for a deal, the
terror group said, “During the first phase, Hamas releases 33 Israeli
detainees (alive or corpses).”The New York Times reported Tuesday that
the terror group had explicitly told mediators that some of the 33
hostages it would release under the first phase of the prospective deal
would not be alive. The Times said it was not clear whether the terror
group had informed interlocutors how many of the 33 would be alive.A
failure to release 33 living hostages would appear to conflict with
Israeli demands.Israel had initially demanded that 40 living hostages of
the 132 still in Gaza be released in the first phase of the three-phase
plan — all of them in the so-called “humanitarian” category: women,
children, elderly and sick people.According to multiple reports, it then
agreed to lower that number to 33 after Hamas said it did not hold
enough living individuals in the category.However, the claim that even
the 33 under discussion are not all alive appears to be a new walk-back
by the terror group.On Monday, Hamas said it had accepted Arab
mediators’ latest offer for a three-phase deal for a ceasefire and
hostages-for-prisoners swap. However, Israel said the terms of the deal
had been altered and “softened” from those it approved several days ago,
and was unacceptable in its latest form.Hamas officials claimed Monday
evening that the deal would yield an end to the war, whereas Israel has
said repeatedly that it will not accept an agreement that involves
ending the war and that it fully intends to resume its campaign to
destroy Hamas once any deal has been carried out.The United States,
which alongside Qatar and Egypt has played a mediation role in the
talks, said it was studying the Hamas response and would discuss it with
Middle East allies.The specifics set out by Hamas on Monday differ to
some extent from the reported terms of what the US hailed a week ago as
an “extremely generous” Israeli offer.Based on details announced so far
by Hamas officials and an official briefed on the talks, the deal that
the terrorist group said it had agreed to includes:A first 42-day phase,
in which Hamas releases 33 hostages in exchange for Israel’s release of
Palestinian security prisoners and a partial Israeli withdrawal from
GazaA second 42-day phase, in which Hamas releases all remaining living
hostages in exchange for further prisoner releases and an agreement to
put in place a “sustainable calm” in Gaza- A third phase in which all
remaining hostage bodies are handed over to Israel, and Gaza’s
reconstruction begins, alongside an end to the complete blockade of the
Strip-Israel has consistently said it will not accept a deal that
entails a permanent ceasefire, and that it will resume its military
campaign after any truce-for-hostages deal, in order to complete its two
declared war goals: freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas’s
military and governance capabilities.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
has also said that Israel will ensure there can be no future terrorist
threat to Israel from Gaza.Netanyahu’s office said late Monday that the
Hamas offer was far from meeting Israel’s essential demands, but that
Jerusalem would send negotiators to continue talks with the US,
Egyptian, and Qatari mediators.Reuters contributed to this report.
STORMS HURRICANES-TORNADOES
LUKE 21:25-26
25
And there shall be signs in the sun,(HEATING UP-SOLAR ECLIPSES) and in
the moon,(MAN ON MOON-LUNAR ECLIPSES) and in the stars;(ASTEROIDS ETC)
and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity;(MASS CONFUSION)
the sea and the waves roaring;(FIERCE WINDS)
26 Men’s hearts failing
them for fear,(TORNADOES,HURRICANES,STORMS) and for looking after those
things which are coming on the earth:(DESTRUCTION) for the powers of
heaven shall be shaken.(FROM QUAKES,NUKES ETC)
THE FIRST
JUDGEMENT OF THE EARTH STARTED WITH WATER-IT ONLY MAKES SENSE THE LAST
GENERATION WILL BE HAVING FLOODING (BUT WILL NOT KILL EVERY BODY WITH
WATER)(BUT 50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE (4 BILLION PEOPLE) FROM NUCLEAR
WAR)(THE BIBLE SAYS BY FIRE OR ATOMIC BOMBS THIS TIME)
GENESIS 7:6-12
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the
seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the
great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
GOD PROMISED BY A RAINBOW-THE EARTH WOULD NEVER BE DESTROYED TOTALLY WITH A FLOOD AGAIN.BUT FLOODIING IS A SIGN OF JUDGEMENT.
Severe
weather leaves millions at risk as storms sweep across the South-The
storms killed three people in Texas, including a police officer and a
child, Gov. Greg Abbott said.Volume Muted Icon-Hundreds rescued in Texas
after weekend of deadly flooding-May 6, 2024, 11:47 AM EDT / Updated
May 6, 2024, 11:15 PM EDT-By Noah Osborne, Kathryn Prociv and The
Associated Press
Millions of people in Texas, Ohio, Tennessee,
Nebraska and Oklahoma are bracing for dangerous conditions as
forecasters warn of possible tornadoes, 80-mph wind gusts, flooding and
hail as the extreme weather outbreak rolls into its sixth week.About 18
million people are at risk for severe storms Monday night across the
Central Plains in areas like North Texas and South Dakota and eastbound
into Illinois.The cities most at risk include Oklahoma City and Tulsa,
Oklahoma; Wichita, Kansas; Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska; Kansas City,
Missouri; Wichita Falls, Texas; and Des Moines, Iowa.The severe storm
risk extends to 25 million people across the Midwest, the Ohio Valley
and the Tennessee Valley on Tuesday.By Monday night, multiple tornadoes
were confirmed by the National Weather Service, which located at least
some of them in Oklahoma's Garfield and Blaine counties, and in
Smithville, Tennessee.Jim Shelton, director of the Blaine County Office
of Emergency Management, said no injuries or deaths were reported after a
tornado touched down in Okeene. Some outbuildings — garages, sheds and
the like — were damaged, and one home was struck by lightning, he said
by email.The NWS on Monday night issued a rare tornado emergency
statement for the area of Osage, Oklahoma, about 38 miles west of Tulsa.
"A large, extremely dangerous and potentially deadly tornado is on the
ground," it said.After a week of heavy flooding that included rescue
crews pulling hundreds of people to safety, the Southeastern part of
Texas is underwater.In recent days, the weather has been problematic in
parts of Texas, including the Houston area, where there were more than
500 rescues and evacuations in a matter of days.On Monday, Gov. Greg
Abbott said severe weather was to blame for at least three deaths in
Texas: those of a 5-year-old boy swept away by floodwaters in Johnson
County early Sunday; Lt. James "Jimmy" Waller, a Conroe police officer
whose home was hit in the April 28 tornado in Trinity County; and a man,
not identified, who was also swept away by stormwater in Bosque County
in recent days. Details about the latter death were unavailable.Texas
toddler found dead after being swept away in flood waters-"It is
heart-wrenching to see our fellow Texans being literally inundated with
record water fall," Abbott said at a news conference Monday.The child
was with his mother and her husband when the vehicle they were in became
immobile in swift water, the Johnson County Office of Emergency
Management said in a statement. The three searched for dry ground, but
the child became separated and was found dead more than two hours after
the man and the woman were rescued, the office said.Abbott put the
impact of the weather in numbers: Fewer than 7,000 utility customers
remained without power after a weekend peak of about 160,000 in the
dark, roughly 800 homes have been damaged, 43 locations on state roads
remained closed because of high water, and 14 state road locations are
shuttered as a result of storm damage."Damage to structures is
catastrophic," he said.In Houston, conditions remained hazardous, as
police had to use jet skis to pull another man and three dogs out of
nearly 8 feet of water. An official told NBC News that recovery will
prove taxing with homes and cars flooded by the rain."For these people,
it's very difficult. These people might not be back in their homes for a
year or two," the official said.Throughout last week, areas northeast
of Houston got more than 23 inches of rain, according to the National
Weather Service. Meanwhile, areas in northeastern Harris County got 6 to
17 inches in the same period.
