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Wednesday, October 07, 2026

10/06 Links Pt2: Three years since October 7: Why Zionism is more relevant than ever; Dancing on Jewish Graves: Protesting on October 7th Is Obscene; Christians plant millions of Israeli flags in 14 countries ahead of Oct. 7

From Ian:

Jpost Editorial: Three years later, October 7 is still not in the past for Israelis
Life after October 7 is more about learning to live with what happened
For much of the country, then, the past three years have been less about moving on from October 7 than about living with its consequences – and with the questions it left behind.

But for many Israelis, October 7 is not simply something they have been living with. They are still living it.

For former hostages, freedom itself remains a daily reminder of what was taken from them. Emily Damari, abducted and wounded from her home in Kfar Aza, has spoken about how captivity changed her relationship with the most ordinary parts of life.

“Today, I open the fridge, and I say thank you,” Damari said. “I drink cold water, and I say thank you.”

Eli Sharabi spent 491 days in captivity after being taken from Kibbutz Be’eri. His wife, Lianne, and their daughters, Noiya and Yahel, were murdered on October 7. His brother Yossi was taken hostage and died in Gaza. After his release, Sharabi said he had learned in captivity “how precious every moment and every choice can be.”

“I choose life,” he said. “I choose to keep living fully, while carrying Lianne, Noiya, Yahel and Yossi with me in everything I do.”

For Hagar Brodutch, who was abducted with her three children and a neighbor’s daughter, returning to life has been a more complicated process than the word “freedom” might suggest. She has described the immense daily struggle, particularly for children, and recently began taking pastry-baking classes as a way to build something new.

“This is about much more than learning how to bake,” she said. “It is about finding a new path, creating something with my own hands, and slowly building a future.”

Then there are those for whom there can be no return to the life they had before October 7.

Michal Negri’s son, Maj. (res.) Roee Negri, 28, was killed fighting Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri after spending the day rescuing civilians.

How can Israelis hold their government accountable after October 7?
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Negri said that three years had done little to diminish the questions raised that morning. Above all, she wants those responsible for the failures leading up to October 7 to be held accountable through a state commission of inquiry.

“Everyone that was in the government, in any position of management, has to take responsibility and be inquired into, so we will be sure that it will never happen again,” she said.

“How can you be sure that it will not happen again if you don’t inquire and ask questions?”

That question is larger than one bereaved mother.

Israel has changed dramatically since October 7, with the country’s political and defense establishments learning painful lessons about its enemies, its defenses and its own institutions. But lessons must be implemented, failures examined, decisions questioned – and responsibility determined.

Three years later, Israel still has no state commission of inquiry into the worst national disaster in its history.

That means October 7 remains unfinished business. For many Israelis, October 7 is not three years ago – it is both the past and the present.

Ahead of Israel’s national elections, Israelis must remember that our enemies aren’t within, but those seeking to destroy us. May the memory of those killed on October 7, 2023, and since, be blessed.
Three years since October 7: Why Zionism is more relevant than ever
ZIONISM DID not promise that Jews would not be attacked. It sought to ensure that when they were attacked, they would not be helpless.

This is perhaps the deepest expression of the meaning of Jewish sovereignty. When communities in Israel were attacked, there was no need to wait for the mercy of a foreign ruler, hope that another government would send forces to defend the Jews, or rely on the willingness of the international community to intervene.

The State of Israel, despite the terrible failure of that morning, was able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of soldiers and reservists, fight back, and defend its citizens. For centuries, that possibility was simply unavailable to the Jewish people.

Yet October 7 and the period that followed also raised another question concerning the status of Jews in the Western world. Many Jews, both in Israel and in the Diaspora, were shocked not only by the scale of the attack but also by the responses to it.

At some of the most prestigious universities in the West, the massacre was quickly translated into familiar ideological frameworks of “oppressors” and “oppressed,” “colonialists” and “indigenous peoples.” Instead of beginning with the facts and the moral responsibility of those who carried out the massacre, some rushed to interpret the events through theoretical frameworks in which the identities of victim and aggressor are almost predetermined.

The US congressional hearing in which the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT were required to answer questions concerning calls for the genocide of Jews on their campuses became, for many, a symbol of a deeper crisis. Institutions accustomed to speaking with great confidence about justice, equality, and the protection of minorities suddenly appeared hesitant precisely when Jews were the targets of threats.

For many Diaspora Jews, this was a deeply unsettling experience. Those who believed that their full integration into Western societies had made their Jewishness a secondary component of their identity discovered that, in the eyes of parts of the societies around them, Jewish identity still carries profound political and social significance.

Not because their American, British, or French identities are not genuine, but because Jewish history teaches that Jewish identity is not always something the individual alone can determine the significance of, in the eyes of those around them.

The international arena also exposed the limitations of relying on external institutions. Shortly after the massacres, resolutions were adopted at the United Nations calling for a ceasefire without including an explicit condemnation of Hamas. UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum.”

Proceedings in international courts placed Israel at the center of some of the most serious accusations in international law, while organizations responsible for defending women’s rights struggled for a considerable period to give adequate expression to the evidence of sexual violence committed during the Hamas-led attacks.

THE CUMULATIVE picture recalls a truth that Zionism understood more than a century ago: the international community can be a partner, a friend, and an ally, but Israel cannot entrust its existential security to it. This was one of the fundamental principles of political Zionism, and since October 7 it has taken on renewed significance.

For generations, the Jewish people witnessed the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, often without having any meaningful ability to influence the forces that determined their fate. They survived, and at times even prospered, but time and again it became clear how fragile their achievements could be when their security depended on the goodwill of others.

The State of Israel changed that equation. It does not guarantee that the Jewish people will not be attacked, that antisemitism will disappear, or that the world will always stand by their side. It gives them something more fundamental: the ability to act, defend themselves, and take responsibility for their future.

Three years after October 7, this is perhaps the most important Zionist lesson: the principle that the Jewish people are no longer mere spectators in their own history. Responsibility for our fate rests, first and foremost, in our own hands.
Three years later, I still think about the stories the 'Post' did not tell on October 7
There are families who wrote to me after October 7 and never received an answer. Others heard back too late. They sent photographs, names, and stories of people they loved, hoping we would write about them in The Jerusalem Post. Some of those stories never appeared.

To those families, I am sorry.

I understood what they were asking. After a terrorist attack, part of our job is to call the families and write about the people who were killed. An article can stay with a family for years. Somebody searches a name and finds something about the person: what they did, who loved them, what their friends remember.

After October 7, the numbers kept going up. Hundreds, then more than a thousand. We did not even know who had been killed, who was missing, and who had been kidnapped. Meanwhile, we were covering a war and trying to explain to readers abroad what had happened.

I remember looking through casualty lists and wanting an article about each person. Families were sending messages, press releases were arriving, and we used what we could get to. Sometimes a relative reached a reporter who had time to make the calls. Sometimes a message was buried under hundreds of others.

More accounts of heroism, faith, and horror than we could handle
I don’t know how many more reporters we would have needed just to write those stories. We had more than we could handle, every day. That still bothers me, especially when I think about how much harder it may be to find those families’ stories years from now.

Take Tamar and Yonatan Kedem-Siman Tov and their children Arbel, Shahar and Omer, who were murdered in Nir Oz. Yonatan’s mother, Carol, was murdered there too. The kibbutz’s memorial page recalls that Yonatan, known as Johnny, made sure the field was watered before its kite festival to keep the dust down. I wish we had published more of those details about more people.

When we looked through testimonies for our October 7 cover, there were accounts of heroism, faith, and Hamas’s antisemitism. Others described Arab and Jewish Israelis helping each other. There were so many powerful stories. Naama’s hit us in the stomach. She was 17, from Kfar Aza, and she thought she was going to die. On her grandfather’s prescription, she wrote:

“Naama of a few hours from now, if you are reading this, you are alive.” 0710JDN01

She couldn’t find a pen, so she used eyeliner. We kept coming back to that: her grandfather’s prescription, whatever she had available to write with, and the thought that she might survive to read it. At 17, she had left a message for herself on the small chance that she would get through those hours.

It was also very visual. A prescription is familiar to readers almost anywhere. They can imagine that piece of paper in their own home, belonging to a parent or grandparent. These ordinary details helped explain what we wanted the cover to convey about the everyday people caught in the attack.

Testimonies, hope for a future
There was hope in her sentence, too. She allowed for a future, even one only a few hours away, and lived to describe what she had written. The illustration on our cover is based on that account, recorded by Edut 710.

We chose one testimony for the cover knowing how many others deserved that space. I hope readers who look up Naama’s account will stay with the archive and listen to someone else as well.

Edut 710 began as a volunteer initiative after the attack. Witnesses can tell their accounts at their own pace, including life before October 7 and what followed. Their consent governs publication and use. A detail that a reporter might have left out to meet a deadline can remain available to someone studying the account decades later.


October 7 has changed Israel forever
History rarely allows proposed social experiments to be tested with empirical results. And yet, Palestinian statehood was tried in Gaza. In 2005, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon implemented his ‘Disengagement Plan’, dismantling 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza and evacuating between 8,000 and 9,000 Israeli civilians from the territory. In a Gaza Strip free of any Israeli presence, the Palestinians could have committed to building the infrastructure of statehood. Instead, in the 2006 Palestinian elections held under heavy American pressure, Hamas won the overwhelming majority of total seats in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Hamas eventually took control of Gaza in a violent coup in 2007, turning it into a terrorist statelet dedicated to ‘resistance’ against Israel.

In 2007, Hamas relied on homemade, short-range rockets and mortars, which it launched at Israeli border towns like Sderot. Soon after, the terrorist group procured Iranian-made Grad missiles, extending its reach to major cities such as Ashkelon and Be’er Sheva. In 2012, Hamas fired rockets for the first time on Tel Aviv during a brief IDF campaign in Gaza. In 2014, Hamas launched nearly 5,000 rockets at Israeli territory, including Tel Aviv, even halting traffic at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport. By 2021, Hamas fired toward Jerusalem, launching over 4,300 rockets in 11 days. On October 7, Hamas’s opening salvo was 2,200 rockets in 20 minutes.

Gaza is a narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean coast, yet Hamas has turned it into a major strategic threat to Israel. Judea and Samaria are fifteen times larger than Gaza and occupy the highlands overlooking Israel’s major population centers. A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would almost certainly become a base for missile attacks, raids and invasions of Little Israel. The Israeli security establishment currently believes that an attack on Israel by the Palestinian Authority security forces is not an unlikely scenario. In October 2025, the IDF uncovered drones and rockets ready for use near Ramallah. In March 2026, the Israeli border patrol found tunnels used to smuggle illegal Palestinian migrants from Judea and Samaria to Jerusalem. Israeli communities within the Green Line have already been shot at by Palestinian terrorists.

The idea of Palestinian statehood has been ruined by Palestinian terror and rejectionism. I recently spoke with a high-ranking European diplomat to Israel who proudly described his country’s ‘decades-long’ involvement in the peace process. His pride raised eyebrows since a decades-long process without results is generally considered a failure. When pressed on whether recent events have led his government to question its long-held beliefs, he answered defensively that his state must lead Israelis and Palestinians to a two-state solution.

Jews and Arabs will continue to live together in this small and cramped land. However, a Palestinian state is a recipe for continued war and conflict. Any diplomatic initiative must focus on de-radicalising Palestinian society, while improving local self-governance and living standards. Israelis from the left and right now overwhelmingly see Palestinian statehood as an existential threat to their safety and security. International sanctions will not persuade Israelis to gamble on their lives.

October 7 certainly ‘changed the equation’, as Hamas’s al-Hayya put it. It has driven yet another nail into the coffin of Palestinian statehood.
Emily Schrader: Dancing on Jewish Graves: Protesting on October 7th Is Obscene
So when I think about the three year anniversary coming this Wednesday, I think about the murdered, the hostages who came home broken, and the ones who never came home at all. And then, I see the flyers.

This Wednesday, a coalition of student groups plans to march through central London, leaving King’s College at noon for University College London, under a call for a “Palestine free from the river to the sea” and talk of “78 years of genocide.” London’s Met Police publicly asked them to pick another day, citing the effect on Jewish students and staff. The president of the Union of Jewish Students said there are 365 days in the year and this choice is “provocative, deliberate.” In Toronto, student groups are holding “Honoring Our Martyrs” on October 7th itself. Watchdogs count at least 75 pro-Palestinian protests planned worldwide for the anniversary. Last year in New York, on the second anniversary, activists marched under the banner “Flood NYC for Gaza,” borrowing the name Hamas gave its massacre, with Hamas flags and chants of “Globalize the Intifada.” A Jewish woman holding an Israeli flag was swarmed by masked men that night near Radio City Music Hall. A group in the Bronx announced a vigil to honor Yahya Sinwar.

I have run out of polite words for the people who do this. Anyone who looks at that calendar, sees the one day the Jewish world sits down to read the names of its murdered, and decides that this is the day for a rally, is a small, ugly person. They are the lowest of the low when it comes to human behavior. They are a shame and a disgrace to humanity, and that includes to the Palestinians whom they claim to speak for, whose suffering they treat as a prop to be wheeled out when it can hurt Jews the most. A Palestinian who wants to mourn the dead of Gaza has 364 other days to do it. These people don’t want a day to mourn. They want a day to gloat.

They are saboteurs. Wherever they show up, the result is chaos and destruction, and the Jews in the room are the ones who pay for it. You can see what drives them by looking at where they go. They organize outside synagogues, including on Jewish holidays, in cities far from Gaza, in countries that have nothing to do with the war, against Jewish communities who live there and have no say in what Israel does. Last May it was a synagogue on the Upper East Side, where an officer ended up in the hospital. When you build your activism around the places where Jews pray, your movement has a name, and it isn’t “Palestine.”

Imagine the reverse. Imagine that every Eid, the Jewish community and dozens of Jewish organizations gather outside mosques in countries that have nothing to do with the Palestinians. Imagine Jews harassing Muslims on their way in to pray, cursing and spitting at them, sometimes beating them, calling them Nazis and baby killers. Imagine Jewish students running bullying campaigns on campus, taking over buildings and quads, and then banning Muslims from walking through them. Imagine every Muslim who spoke at an event being asked by Jews for his “stance on Israel,” and being made to condemn the attempted genocide of Jews before anyone would let him finish. Imagine Jews pushing Muslims out of political spaces and spending billions on a propaganda machine to convince the West that Muslims were disloyal, sinister fifth columnists who wanted to drag the country into war for their “Muslim nations.”

There would be no debate about what that was. Every newspaper would call it bigotry, and they would be right. And yet, that has been the reality of the last three years of American and European Jewish life, as well as that of every Israeli citizen. To the groups organizing Wednesday’s rallies in support of Hamas and the massacre of over 1200 people including women and children: don’t tell me this is about Gaza. You were all silent when Hamas began slaughtering Gazans in the streets accusing everyone who criticized them as “collaborators.” Where was the emergency protest? You chose this day because it’s the day Jews are grieving, and the grieving is the point for every Islamic supremacist.

The police asked you to move. Jewish students asked you to move. You refused, because moving would mean admitting you intentionally chose the date, which we all know you did. Your movement has spent three years defaming, gaslighting, harassing, cursing at and assaulting Jews in the streets and on campuses. Then you have the audacity to call it activism, and claim that you in fact are the victims? This is gaslighting of the highest order. Nothing about your activism is genuine, and nothing about it is moral or just either. Don’t kid yourselves: even when it comes to Palestinians, you don’t speak for the people of Gaza: you speak for the men of Hamas who committed these crimes against humanity.
How British Jews have been punished for their religion since October 7
Three years ago, on October 7, Palestinian terrorists stormed Israel’s borders and carried out a massacre that changed the course of Middle Eastern history. Three thousand miles away, here in the UK, that moment also changed life for British Jews overnight, unleashing an unprecedented and relentless wave of anti-Semitism.

In the first six months of 2026 alone, there were 1,926 anti-Semitic hate incidents in the UK, according to data from the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that protects Jewish people in the UK from anti-Semitism and terrorism. This was double the levels pre-October 7.

In April, two visibly Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, north-west London, following a spate of arson attacks on synagogues in the capital earlier that month. In March, four Jewish volunteer ambulances were set alight. These attacks followed the killing of two men when a terrorist rammed into the gates of Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester before stabbing congregants, just over a year ago.

Many other assaults on Jews since October 7 have largely gone under the radar – a group of children beaten up on a London Underground platform, a member of the Orthodox community smashed on the head with a bottle in Manchester and pupils walking home from school in north London targeted in an attempted car-ramming attack, to name a few.

But the picture could have been worse. In February, two men were given life sentences for plotting to launch a heavily armed assault on the Manchester Jewish community. They had purchased two assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and nearly 200 rounds of ammunition. Little did they know that the weapons had been deactivated by counter-terrorism police as part of an undercover sting.

“Lots of other people on the streets could have been killed as well,” says Dave Rich, the CST’s director of policy and author of From Be’eri to Bondi: Global Antisemitism After October 7. “That is the threat that we, as a country, face right now.” A fortnight ago, on Yom Kippur, the anniversary of that Heaton Park attack, another two men – both Iranian nationals – were arrested by counter-terrorism police in connection with a suspected terror attack believed to be “imminent”.

Aside from physical threats, there is also the verbal and psychological harassment that’s become pervasive in many walks of life, from the NHS to education – patients intimidated by healthcare professionals, students and professors bullied out of their universities, and children in fear of revealing their Jewish identity at school.


‘I won,’ liberated Israeli hostage says at UN event for third Oct. 7 anniversary
Eliya Cohen had a blunt message for his former Hamas captors and terrorists worldwide: “I won.”

That’s what Cohen, who spent 505 days in captivity in Gaza, told about 400 people at an event hosted by the Israeli mission to the United Nations on Tuesday marking the third anniversary of Oct. 7.

Television host and psychologist “Dr. Phil” McGraw moderated a discussion with Cohen and Ziv Abud, both of whom survived the Nova festival on Oct. 7.

Abud told attendees that she and others at the festival fled by car after rockets began to fill the sky and the music stopped. They crowded into a roadside shelter, which came to hold 29 people. Terrorists threw grenades inside, fired into the shelter and eventually entered, she said.

She lost consciousness after being shot in the leg and later awoke among a pile of dead bodies. She didn’t know what happened to Cohen, Abud said.

“I fought for them for 505 days without knowing anything,” Abud said, of those she lost. “It will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

She and Cohen, who recently married, now look to the future. “We are here, and we survive,” she told attendees. “We need to live a normal life.”

Dr. Phil asked Cohen what his defining emotion was after 505 days in captivity. Cohen said that he didn’t have to let anger or bitterness define him and rejected the idea that he is fundamentally different from other Israelis due to his experiences.

“I don’t count myself as special or something,” he said.

He noted that Israelis across the country continue to live with the fear of terrorism.

Dr. Phil told attendees that the psychological effects of Oct. 7 cannot simply be separated from the present.

“This isn’t Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he said. “This is something that is ongoing.”

Dr. Phil described Abud’s experience lying beneath bodies for hours as almost impossible to grasp from the comfort of an air-conditioned room at the United Nations. Physical and psychological trauma continue long after an immediate event, he said.


Boundless polling finds deep gaps in US ability to recognize instances of antisemitism
Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe antisemitism has increased since the October 7, 2023, attacks, yet many continue to struggle with identifying and calling out common instances of anti-Jewish hatred in practice, according to a new national polling report.

Released in October 2026 by Boundless, a non-profit focused on Israel education and combating antisemitism, the report was conducted by Burson Insights & Intelligence.

The report revealed gaps in the public’s ability to recognize antisemitism, particularly when it intersects with Israel-related speech, protests, and geopolitical events.

The report is divided into two core sections: attitudes toward American Jews three years after October 7, and Israel’s upcoming election alongside attitudes toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The survey sampled 1,500 US adults between September 4 and September 11.

Boundless CEO Aviva Klompas said in a statement, “Three years after October 7, Americans can see that antisemitism is getting worse, but too many struggle to recognize it and call it out when it’s right in front of them.”

“There is no justification for surrounding a synagogue or harassing Jews in the name of political protest," Klompas added. "It’s not enough for Americans to acknowledge that antisemitism is rising. We need real policy, education, and action to combat this hatred today.”
HonestReporting: Antisemitism Isn't a Prejudice. It's a Lie: Dara Horn on Who Profits When People Fall for It
A rabbi picks Dara Horn up at the airport and tells her someone had been posting online about murdering children on the playground of the town's Jewish day school, and then their parents in the carpool line. The horrible part, he tells her, isn't the plot. It's who was behind it: the school's own security guard.

After People Love Dead Jews, stories like that came to her by the hundreds. So October 8 didn't shock her. The speed and the organization of it did.

Her new book, The Final Solution to the Jewish Question: A Love Story for the Living, argues that we've been fighting the wrong thing. We treat antisemitism as a prejudice, something you cure by building empathy. Horn says it works more like a con.

The author explains why debunking claims one at a time doesn't work, why she asks who profits instead, and what students facing campus slogans actually need.

Chapters
00:00 Cold Open & Introducing Dara Horn
03:39 October 8, 2023: a synagogue full of tears
08:34 The antisemitism Lorax
13:23 What we missed: from Durban to October 8th
19:50 Swastikas are "boring" now
23:50 Anti-Zionist Jews, and antisemitism as a lie
33:55 Confronting the hecklers
43:48 Harvard: security escorts and lost ideals
52:48 How to argue, and the Talmud's answer
58:47 The foreign actors and who benefits
1:03:01 The dread, and the allies risking their lives
1:08:18 The fact checker, the headline and the Mamdani plan
1:16:40 How the Tell Institute teaches it
1:22:44 Not just endurance
1:28:42 Closing thoughts


Newly released recordings shed light on final hours of Amit Mann, hero paramedic killed on Oct. 7
Newly released recordings reveal the final hours of Amit Mann, a Magen David Adom paramedic and paramedic course instructor, who was murdered on October 7, 2023, by terrorists in Kibbutz Be’eri, as she desperately tried to save victims of the attack and herself.

The call recordings were published by Channel 12 on Monday and piece together Mann’s attempts to get help from police and from Magen David Adom as Hamas terrorists closed in on Be’eri’s dental clinic, where Mann had arrived shortly after 7 a.m. and set up a makeshift hospital for the wounded.

During the first call to the police, her voice quivered as she tried to explain the magnitude of what was happening.

“I don’t understand what is going on,” she said to the dispatcher. “There are a lot of wounded people here, and there are a lot of dead people here. There is still active shooting here, and there are no forces that can evacuate the wounded?”

“I think there are still terrorists walking around, these are the reports we are receiving from the entire kibbutz,” she continued. “What can we do? Is the army here? Are there police officers here?”

The dispatcher answered that they were aware of the situation and urged her to keep calm, stay inside and not to go outside. “We’re on our way to control the situation,” he added.

“Just tell me you’re here,” she answered in distress. He tried to calm her, telling her to “take it easy” and that “slowly they would try to take control.” Hamas terrorists at Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, 2023 (Channel 12 screenshot)

Amit’s sister, Haviva Mann, told Channel 12 in Monday’s segment that hearing the recordings broke her heart. After that particular call, she said, Amit pulled herself together and helped people in the facility.

She cared for them while also documenting nearby gunshots during the calls as the attack on the kibbutz unfolded. Mann was trapped in the Be’eri dental clinic with the injured and dead for many hours before the terrorists succeeded in breaking in.


October 7 victims share text messages from the day of the massacre, call on public to do same
Victims of the October 7 massacre are sharing their text messages from the morning of the day and call on the public to share their own as the third anniversary approaches.

Dozens of people affected by the failures surrounding the attack launched a social media campaign with the hashtag "we are all October 7," in which those affected by the massacre share the messages they received that day.

Those affected by the failures are calling on all Israelis to take part.

“We call on each and every one of you, even if you were not directly affected by the massacre, to look back at your messages from that cursed day. Please share your own exchanges from October 7 as well. We are all October 7, we have all been affected by the failures, directly or indirectly,” the campaign asks.

Posts include screenshots of last messages of abducted, killed
Posts already online include a screenshot from Shir Mathias, whose parents, Shachar and Shlomi, were murdered at Kibbutz Holit, of the family WhatsApp group reading "Mom and Dad r dead, sorry," as well as one from Vicky Cohen, mother of captivity survivor Nimrod Cohen, who asked "Why is no one getting back to us?" while she tried to reach anyone she could in the IDF after receiving photos and videos of her son's abduction.

Some posted the last messages they received from their loved ones before they were abducted or killed. Eyal Eshel, father of Roni Eshel, an IDF lookout who was killed, shared his last message, "Mom, I'm OK, don't worry about me, I love you too." Einav Zangauker, mother of captivity survivor Matan Zangauker, shared the last message her son sent her before his abduction: "They're speaking Arabic, they're right by the door. There's shouting everywhere here. I love you. Don't cry."


travelingisrael.com: The Cameras Don’t Lie: October 7 Evidence They Can’t Ignore



Commentary Podcast: Protest Contest
Today we discuss the data points that seem to contradict predictions of a major democratic sweep in the midterms, the political unrest in France and England, the increased sociopolitical capital of protesting and rioting in an age of diminishing reasons to protest and riot, Obama campaigning with Abdul El-Sayed, Brett McGurk's new book pouring cold water on Clinton-era revisionism, and John recommends John Steinbeck's East of Eden.


The Brink: ‘Nothing Prepared Us For What Came After October 7’ | Shawn Eni
In this episode of The Brink, Shawn Eni, the man behind the viral Mossad parody account, joins us to reflect on October 7 and the information war that has followed.

Shawn explains how humour became a weapon against antisemitism and anti-Israel conspiracy theories, why he believes Israel is losing the battle for the next generation, and what the West still fails to understand about the online war surrounding Gaza.

He also reveals what happened when the real Mossad finally got in touch…

Chapters
00:00 The Man Behind The Fake Mossad
03:17 Remembering October 7th
10:35 Finding Humour After October 7th
13:39 How The Fake Mossad Account Began
17:01 When Reality Became Harder To Satirise
19:12 Israel’s Online Information War
23:00 Is Israel Losing The Next Generation?
25:07 Can Humour Change The Narrative?
32:40 Why Israel Struggled With Online Messaging
39:29 Israel, The West & The Jewish Diaspora


Abdul El-Sayed Has Campaigned Three Times with 9/11 Truther Imam Who Served in Iranian Propaganda Unit, Helped Lead Think Tank Sanctioned for Funding Hezbollah
Abdul El-Sayed has quietly campaigned three times this year with a Michigan-based cleric who served as an Iranian Navy propaganda apparatchik in the 1980s and as a high-ranking official at Iran's Martyrs Foundation, now sanctioned by the U.S. government for funneling money to Hezbollah and paying stipends to the families of suicide bombers.

Mohammad Ali Elahi, the imam of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, hosted El-Sayed at a campaign event at his mosque on June 24, organized an anti-Israel "interfaith" roundtable for El-Sayed on July 21, and attended a Dearborn fundraiser last month that raised $350,000 for the far-left Democrat's Senate bid.

While Elahi has been effusive in his support for El-Sayed—praising him as "a person of wisdom" in the same Facebook post where he pointed out that "Netanyahu's son lives comfortably in Miami," El-Sayed kept largely quiet about the relationship, which goes back several years. El-Sayed also campaigned at Elahi's mosque during his 2018 campaign.

Elahi, who claimed after 9/11 that "Mossad and Israel … perpetrated" the terrorist attacks, served as head of the Iranian Navy's "political-ideological office," a post to which he was appointed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian supreme leader who coined the epithet that America is "the Great Satan." Elahi, who was photographed with Khomeini in the 1980s, said in a 2017 interview that his job was to "reintroduce" Iranian officers to Islamic values after they had become "westernized" prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Elahi, who donated $500 to El-Sayed's campaign on July 16, has said he helped create a research unit for Khomeini's Martyrs Foundation, which was officially established to support soldiers injured or killed in the Iran-Iraq War but had other purposes.

The U.S. government sanctioned Martyrs Foundation, also called Bonyad Shaheed, in 2007 over its support for Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. The foundation, which established a U.S. affiliate in Dearborn, has bankrolled terrorist attacks and provides stipends to the families of "suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories," according to the Treasury Department.

Elahi denounced an FBI raid in 2007 on the Martyrs Foundation's Dearborn subsidiary, Goodwill Charitable Organization.

"We expressed our concern that this pattern of dealing with Muslim charitable organizations may send a wrong message to the community and create some fear in the hearts of some people and discourage them from any kind of charity," Elahi said after meeting with FBI officials at his mosque.

Elahi, who immigrated to Dearborn in 1992, has also maintained ties to high-level Iranian political and religious leaders. He met with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the recently assassinated Iranian supreme leader. Elahi also stated that the spiritual mentor for Hezbollah, Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, had "supported" the Islamic House of Wisdom. Elahi hailed Fadlallah at a vigil after his death in 2010 as a "great scholar," according to the George Washington University Project on Extremism.

Fadlallah issued the fatwa, or religious decree, that authorized Hezbollah to blow up the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut in 1983, an attack that killed 241 American servicemen. Elahi has defended Hezbollah, saying in a 2006 interview that the terrorist group was "resisting against [Israeli] occupation."

Elahi is an influential figure in Dearborn and Dearborn Heights, a heavily Arab and Muslim enclave outside Detroit.
‘Putting my community ahead of my party,’ says Jewish Dem backing Lawler
Stacy Caridi, a Jewish Democrat who is deputy mayor of Montebello, N.Y., said on Monday that she is endorsing Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), whom she praised for his support for Israel and his record of confronting Jew-hatred, Jewish Insider reported.

Caridi, who serves in Rockland County in the Hudson Valley, made the endorsement in a campaign video.

“Mike stands with Israel, and he stands up to antisemitism,” she said. “He calls it out when it comes from the Right, and he calls it out when it comes from the Left.”

“I’m putting my community ahead of my party and supporting a candidate who works for all of us,” she said, of endorsing across the aisle.

Caridi said in the video that she has known Lawler, who is not Jewish, since his time in the New York State Assembly. She cited his ties to Rockland County, where he grew up, attended Suffern High School and now lives with his family.

Rockland County is home to about 90,000 Jews and has the largest Jewish population per capita of any U.S. county, according to New York State.

Caridi credited the congressman with bringing more than $120 million in federal funding to the district, including $5 million for sidewalks and road-safety projects across Ramapo and its villages.

“No one knows this community better than Mike does, and he delivers,” she stated.


A vote for me is a vote for Israel, Polanski said
Zack Polanski said a vote for him was a vote “for Israel” when he stood for the Liberal Democrats a decade ago.

The Green Party leader, who is Jewish, was banned from Israel on Sunday after the Greens adopted a policy stating that Zionism was racism.

Mr Polanski describes himself as an “anti-Zionist”. But in 2016, he made markedly different views clear at a hustings for that year’s London Assembly elections, where he was standing for the Lib Dems in Barnet and Camden.

He asked attendees to vote for Caroline Pidgeon, the Lib Dem leader in London at the time, to increase his chance of election as one of 11 additional London-wide members given seats based on each party’s overall vote.

Mr Polanski said: “If you could vote – if you think I’ve said anything vaguely sensible tonight and you’d like to support a Jewish [London] Assembly candidate – if you could vote Caroline Pidgeon, Liberal Democrats, on the orange ballot paper, that would be a support for liberalism and a support for Israel and a support for Judaism.”

Mr Polanski came fourth in Barnet and Camden and was not elected as a London-wide member.

He quit the Lib Dems and joined the Greens in 2017, and has since become an ardent opponent of Israeli foreign policy.

Sunday’s “Zionism is racism” motion was condemned as a “threat to British Jews and to Britain” by Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Vivien Lichtenstein, the head of the Jewish Greens, said she might quit the party.

The motion, adopted at the party’s annual conference in Brighton, declared the Greens to be an “anti-Zionist party” and said Zionism, the movement to develop and protect a Jewish state in Israel, would be “treated as any other form of racism”.

Mr Polanski skipped the vote, which defined Zionism as a political ideology calling for an “ethno-nationalist Jewish state in the historic Palestine”, saying he needed to campaign for Thursday’s Holborn and St Pancras by-election.

The motion called for the abolition of the state of Israel and the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital”.
The Greens have fallen to anti-Semitism – this is not the party I joined
The adoption of the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion by the Green Party has sent shockwaves across political society nationally and internationally. It is a crisis unlike any other in the party’s history. At its root lies a refusal to listen to, or even to understand, the positions of opponents. This should terrify us, because the idea that one is infallible lies at the root of authoritarianism.

Widespread, unequivocal condemnation has flowed from every quarter in just the first 24 hours. The European Green Party has distanced itself from the Green Party of England and Wales. Over a dozen Labour MPs have written to the police, alleging anti-Semitic hate incidents at last weekend’s Green Party conference, where the motion was voted on. Resignations have included Jewish and non-Jewish party activists, as well as the chair of Amnesty International, Sandy Ruthven. Israel has barred Zack Polanski from the country.

Let us be clear and unequivocal: Zionism is not racism. This is the central lie of the motion. The establishment of a homeland for Jews as Jews, born from the unconscionable atrocities endured by the Jewish people, is not of itself a racist project but an anti-racist one.

Efforts were made during conference debate to moderate the motion. These included support for a two-state solution and ensuring that party members would not be expelled for practising their faith in synagogues.

That both compromises were comprehensively defeated proves the motion is profoundly anti-Semitic and racist in itself. In a pamphlet from Greens For Palestine, no ink is used to address the concern that Israel, as a homeland for Jews, would no longer have a right to exist. The question for the architects of this policy was not whether to use 1947, 1949 or 1967 borders established by the United Nations. It was about eradicating the state entirely. This bears an unconscionable resemblance to Hamas’s stated objectives.

In today’s Green Party, members are to do as they are told, fall into ideological line and avoid free thinking at all costs. Identitarian politics demands loyalty to slogans rather than scrutiny of them. To question the slogan is heresy. Small wonder, then, that when someone does advance a serious argument, it is more likely to be met with groupthink suspicion or tin-eared intransigence than curiosity or a willingness to learn.
US antisemitism envoy to make ‘representations’ over Green anti-Zionist motion
The US is to make “representations” to the UK Government over the Green Party’s controversial adoption of a policy branding Zionism as racism, Washington’s top adviser on antisemitism has said.

Special envoy ambassador Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun suggested the political group was “hypocritical” in singling out Israel for condemnation, while turning a blind eye to other countries.

He indicated this amounted to antisemitism under the definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), signed by the British Government in 2016, in applying double standards towards the Middle East country.

The Green Party motion, backed by conference-goers on Sunday, has sparked a fierce backlash with Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis condemning it as “poisonous antisemitism”.

Party leader Zack Polanski has been barred from entering Israel in retaliation.

The motion declared the Greens to be an “anti-Zionist party” and sets into its policy that Zionism, the movement to develop and protect a Jewish state in Israel, will be “treated as any other form of racism”.

It also backed the establishment of a “single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital”.

The vote in support came just days before the third anniversary of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.

Speaking in Washington DC, Rabbi Kaploun, whose full title is special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said: “First of all, we will be making some representations on the issue.”

He added: “I think a lot of countries are being hypocritical in the sense of they will only focus on Israel, they will not focus on other countries.

“If you look at the definition of the IHRA accords, which Britain signed, that the same condemnation that you want to use about Israel has to be used across the board on every country, and I don’t think they’re living up to that standard of what they signed in their agreement.”
‘Zionism is Racism’ motion creator described as ‘close friend’ of Al Qaeda terrorist
The main architect of the Green Party’s “Zionism is Racism” motion attempted to testify in favour of an Al Qaeda terrorist convicted of attempting to bomb passengers arriving at Heathrow from Israel or the US, it has been revealed.

As reported by The Telegraph, Lubna Speitan was described in court documents in the US as a “close friend” of Minh Quang Pham, with the defence confirming that she was willing to testify.

Pham, who was extradited to the US in 2015 on terrorism charges, initially denied that he had intended to carry out the attack at Heathrow. While he pled guilty in 2016 to having been a part of Al Qaeda, he maintained that plans to carry out a suicide bombing at Heathrow were a “ruse”.

After the trial, however, further evidence was found showing detailed correspondence between Pham and Anwar Al-Awlaki, in which the specific plan to attack passengers at Heathrow was discussed. In 2025, Pham was re-sentenced to 44 years in prison after admitting his intention to kill hundreds of people at the UK’s largest airport.

When The Telegraph approached Speitan about her relationship with Pham, she initially described the question as “insulting”, saying that it had “no relation to the work I’m doing”, before going on to accuse The Telegraph of using “mainstream media” methods aimed at “demonising” Palestinians. When asked about Pham’s 44 year sentence, she said: “People are demonised for all sorts of things and wrongfully accused of all sorts of things.”

When asked about her relationship with Pham, Ms Speitan first described the question as “insulting” and said it had “no relation to the work that I’m doing”.

She described The Telegraph’s approach as part of “mainstream media” attacks that aimed to “demonise” Palestinians, before suggesting Pham had been wrongfully accused.

On the subject of Pham’s 44-year sentence, Ms Speitan replied: “People are demonised for all sorts of things and wrongfully accused of all sorts of things”, and confirmed that she still saw Pham as a close friend.


Israel denounces ‘morally deplorable’ Australian October 7 pro-Palestinian vigils
Israel’s ambassador to Australia Hillel Newman has denounced pro-Palestinian demonstrations planned for October 7, describing them as a “celebration of a death cult” and warning they could incite violence and antisemitism.

Jewish Australians will mark the third anniversary of the Hamas October 7 attacks on Wednesday, with commemorations planned across the country.

Pro-Palestine groups are also planning vigils for the same day, marking the anniversary of the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

However, Mr Newman described the October 7 vigils against Israel as a “celebration of a death cult”.

He called the participants “morally deplorable” and “completely brainwashed”, saying they were effectively “standing with a death cult”.

“It's a celebration of a death cult. Those that stand on the 7th of October, not with Israel, but against Israel, they're celebrating the slaughter and the murder of Israelis and Jews,” Mr Newman told News24 host Chris Kenny.

“It's actually morally deplorable … it tells more about the people themselves than about what they're standing for.

“These people are completely brainwashed. And in many ways, completely reprehensible morally.

“When they stand in such a demonstration against Israel on the 7th of October, they're standing with a death cult.”

Mr Newman said Jewish Australians felt unsafe because extremist behaviour was being tolerated, and warned that such vigils could lead to further violent attacks.
Angus Taylor warns Australia is vulnerable to another extremist attack as October 7 pro-Palestinian vigils spark concern
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has warned that Australia could face another major extremist attack unless the federal government takes Islamist extremism and counter-terrorism threats seriously.

The warning comes as pro-Palestinian vigils mark the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, while Jewish Australians remember those killed or taken hostage by Hamas.

Mr Taylor said the government was weakening Australia's counter-terrorism capabilities.

He said Australia risked a repeat of extremist incidents and that the Royal Commission might not deliver meaningful recommendations.

“I am absolutely worried that this government has taken resources away from counter-terrorism,” Mr Taylor told News24 host Sharri Markson.

“It's never been serious about dealing with Islamist extremism and the risk is that we'll see a repeat and that the Royal Commission is not going to deliver what it should deliver, which is a very clear signal that more needs to be done.

“I am deeply concerned that with government ministers not going in front of it, with other senior officials and many others who wanted to bring evidence — and I'm sure would have brought very important evidence to bear —the Royal Commission didn't hear from them, and it should have.

“I'm worried that the outcome of it will be way short of where it needs to be.”

Mr Taylor said it was "beyond comprehension" that some Australians planned to hold pro-Palestinian rallies on the attacks’ anniversary, which he described as celebrating October 7.

“For these people to be out, somehow celebrating this, is just beyond comprehension.

“I have to say, and every Australian should condemn it. Every Australian should condemn what happened on October 7, 2023, what happened a couple of days later at the Opera House and the idea that there is going to be a repeat of that again.”


Met imposes strict conditions on 7 October student protests
The Metropolitan Police has imposed strict conditions on a pro-Palestinian student march planned for the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks, amid concerns from Jewish communities.

Protesters will be required to follow a fixed route through central London, finish their rally by 2pm and must not wear face coverings that conceal their identities.

Anyone who breaches the conditions can be arrested.

The inter-university demonstration had been expected to march from King’s College London towards University College London on Wednesday.

Under restrictions announced on Tuesday, protesters must gather at Lincoln’s Inn Fields by 12.30pm before following a prescribed route along Remnant Street, Kingsway and Southampton Row to Russell Square.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman said: “This will be a day of mourning and reflection for many in London, and we know the serious concerns that this event has caused Jewish communities in particular.

“We have imposed stringent conditions on those taking part in this march. These will help us manage the event and minimise serious disruption.”

He warned that officers would take action against criminal behaviour during the demonstration.

“Anyone who breaches these conditions or commits offences should be under no illusion they will face arrest. We have zero tolerance for hate crime, and those who chant or display placards calling for intifada or encourage unlawful extremism will be arrested.”

The restrictions come after Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) accused the Met of failing to use powers already available to it.


Haverford president ‘heartbroken, furious’ by alleged Jew-hatred, as professor arrested for online harassment
Wendy Raymond, president of Haverford College, said that she is “heartbroken and furious” that a member of the private, Pennsylvania liberal arts college community could be so hateful, after Guangtian Ha, a religion professor, was arrested and charged with online harassment and intimidation.

“I am deeply distressed by these allegations and want to state in the plainest of terms that any form of harassment or discrimination based on identity is unacceptable, antithetical to our values and has no place at Haverford,” Raymond stated on Tuesday.

The professor, “who was on sabbatical leave and not teaching this academic year, has been placed on administrative leave and barred from campus while the criminal process moves forward,” Raymond stated. “A representative of the college has been in contact with the individuals targeted by these heinous online attacks, which were antisemitic in nature.”

“I am heartbroken and furious at the possibility that an individual within our community would seek to inflict such pain on another,” she added. “This disturbing news is made even more harmful for many given its proximity to both the Jewish High Holidays and the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks.”

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director of the Deborah Project, told JNS that “the charging by the FBI of Haverford College associate professor Guangtian Ha for harassment and intimidation of a Jewish Israeli professor closes the dotted line between verbal acts of harassment and actionable violence which, when Jews are the recipients, is far too often ignored or falsely clothed as ‘academic freedom’ by academic and other institutions.”

Ha “threatened ‘Zionists’ on his social media for several years, as the Deborah Project explained in our civil rights complaint,” she told JNS. “Those threats and its speaker were coddled and condoned, and so it escalated. This morning’s action by the FBI was taken because moral clarity had been erased and replaced with immoral depravity.”

According to the indictment in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Ha allegedly used at least four anonymous social media accounts to send about 50 harassing messages to an unnamed victim from Oct. 9, 2025, until May 20, 2026. The professor is also accused of having “frequently utilized virtual private networks to obfuscate his internet protocol address and make tracing the source of the messages more difficult.”

Among the messages he is accused of sending are “Jew, get the f*** out of my country,” “Jew pig, get the f*** out of Lower Merion” and “If Jews are so special, then they should also be placed in special camps and receive special treatments.” The professor also allegedly wrote to the victim and included a picture of the victim’s home mailbox and wrote, of Jews, “you scum have had it too easy. Goyim are taking American back, blood-guzzling demons.” On four other occasions, he also allegedly posted the victim’s address.

After the victim took security measures, including blurring his address on Google Maps, Ha allegedly wrote, “The Goyim have woken up, Jew. Run. Flee. Leave. Blurring your home on Google Map and installing a security camera next to your mailbox won’t help.”

The professor is also accused of responding to a post of the victim’s about the assassination of Iranian terror leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and writing, “Get the f*** out of my country, Jew. Go back to your Jew land. Don’t force us to kick you out. Lower Merion will be cleansed of the Jew filth.”


'Inspirational': Columbia Senate Member Praised Hamas, Appeared on Panel With Terrorist Financiers
A Columbia University graduate student who praised Hamas for its "inspirational" tactics and appeared on a panel with members of a designated terrorist group has been elected to the university's main policymaking body.

Sean Eren, a master's student at Columbia's graduate school of architecture and a member of Students for Justice in Palestine's (SJP) national steering committee, was banned from campus in March 2024 after he spoke at an unsanctioned event with Samidoun, which raises money for a U.S.-designated terror group and is itself classified as a terrorist organization by Canada and Israel. Two years later, in May 2026, Eren was elected to represent the architecture school on Columbia's University Senate.

Hamas's "communication networks" are "inspirational," Eren said at the 2024 event, titled "Resistance 101." "We have unprecedented unity among what used to be … called a fringe group."

At a separate event with the Democratic Socialists of America, Eren said that SJP's activism "puts a knife to the throat of our boards of trustees."

Columbia describes the Senate as a "policy-making body which may consider all matters of University-wide concern," including academic freedom and the budget. Though it was stripped of disciplinary powers as a part of the Trump administration's settlement with Columbia in 2025, the Senate has continued to propose revisions to the university's code of conduct—including the rules governing student protests—in defiance of the Board of Trustees. Columbia's settlement with the Trump administration placed disciplinary matters in the Office of the Provost, but the University Senate continues to wield influence over university-wide policies.

Columbia did not respond to a request for comment.

Eren's election to the Senate, which has not been previously reported, underscores the degree to which anti-Israel activists have continued to influence Columbia despite the university's deal with the Trump administration. Supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement were among those tapped to lead a Trump-mandated review of Columbia's Middle Eastern Studies Department, and two professors who participated in the Spring 2024 encampment sit on the committee that proposed revising the protest rules. Another BDS supporter, Rosalind Morris, sits on a task force charged with reforming the University Senate.

The "Resistance 101" panel was one of myriad events that spurred calls for reform. It included Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Network, and her husband Khaled Barakat, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), to which Samidoun funnels money.

The PFLP was behind a spate of airline hijackings in the 1960s and '70s. During the event, Barakat said the hijackings were "one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in" and claimed, falsely, that they were done peacefully.


Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine reposts video of burning mannequin in IDF uniform
Students for Justice in Palestine at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania reposted a video on Instagram on Monday showing an effigy of an Israeli soldier being set on fire and promoting a protest in Philadelphia on Oct. 7.

The video, which Swarthmore College told JNS appears to have originated with a Philadelphia-based group, shows gasoline being poured on the legs of an effigy dressed in an Israel Defense Forces uniform with an Israeli flag patch as a Palestinian flag waves over the flames. The words “Long live Al-Aqsa Flood” appear on the screen, referring to Hamas’s name for the Oct. 7 massacre.

“The Zionist entity and its collaborators will never know peace,” the group Shut Down D&Z wrote in the post accompanying the video. The group also promoted a rally at Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

The official Swarthmore SJP account, which has since deleted the repost, was not promoting protests on the Swarthmore campus, according to the college.

“It’s important to emphasize that the college is committed to cultivating an environment free of intimidation, harassment and discrimination,” a spokesperson for Swarthmore told JNS. “We have not only publicly condemned antisemitism, Islamophobia and all forms of discrimination within our community, but we have also taken measures to enhance our response to reports of bias on campus and support members of our community in need.”

Swarthmore revoked SJP’s official affiliation in 2025. As a result, the group is prohibited from accessing college funds and other resources, scheduling or hosting events on campus or having other student organizations co-sponsor or act on its behalf.

The college previously condemned its SJP chapter in October 2024 after it shared a message glorifying the first anniversary of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks.


Rapper Azaelia Banks announces move to Tel Aviv days before planned show
Controversial American rapper and singer Azealia Banks announced on Tuesday that she has moved to Tel Aviv, days before she’s scheduled to perform on October 8.

“If you would have told me years ago I'd end up moving to Tel Aviv and liking it, I would have said you're crazy,” Banks shared in a post on X/Twitter along with a picture of her new apartment.

She later clarified her reasoning for the move, explaining that she has been working on new music since arriving in Israel and has found a place in the local art scene.

“I found some real camaraderie and some really cool music crew here, and it's ironically just been easier to create here because Israel's arts scene is really mature,” Banks stated. “This is the most creatively enabled I've felt in years."

When probed by a fan about her 2025 move to Stockholm, Banks said that the Swedish capital was too cold for her.

Banks shared her thoughts on Israeli politics on her X account, showing support for Naftali Bennett, although she also said that the coalition with Yair Lapid "makes zero sense."

Banks has also repeatedly praised Itamar Ben Gvir, at one point writing that he was "right about everything. Quite possibly the most important politician in the Middle East."
Christians plant millions of Israeli flags in 14 countries ahead of Oct. 7
More than 5.2 million Israeli flags are being planted worldwide to remember the victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews said on Monday. The initiative also seeks to strengthen ties between Israel and Christian communities around the world.

The Flags of Fellowship campaign runs Oct. 2-11 and involves 4,375 churches, synagogues and other organizations, up from 1,300 last year, the NGO said.

More than 1,775 churches in 12 countries outside the United States and Canada are taking part, including in Australia, England, Kenya, South Africa, India and the United Arab Emirates.

George Deek, Israel’s special envoy to the Christian world, on Monday hailed the campaign as “a powerful reminder that friendship can speak louder than hatred.”

“To our Christian friends around the world: thank you for standing with Israel,” Deek wrote on X.

More than 1,000 Christian leaders and influencers from 117 countries arrived in Israel on Monday for the annual Friends of Zion Ambassador Summit, which is scheduled to run through Oct. 11.

The summit, founded by American Christian evangelist Mike Evans, is being held for the second consecutive year in cooperation with Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Friends of Zion said in a press release.

Some 300 of the participants are aged 18 to 29, the organization noted.

Evans said he wants young Christian leaders to “see Israel for themselves, hear directly from those whose lives were changed forever on October 7,” when Hamas terrorists invaded the Jewish state and murdered some 1,200 people.

“We are bringing together a new generation of leaders alongside experienced voices to bear witness, to remember and to strengthen the bonds between Israel and Christian communities around the world,” stated Evans.





 


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