Important Takeaways:
- Israel war: NYC school union head justifies Hamas attack in ‘private’ email to teachers
- The union chapter leader for a New York City school is under fire from teachers and members of Congress for sending an email to colleagues alleging “illegal Israeli colonialist occupation” is what “led to” the deadly Hamas terrorist attacks against the Jewish state.
- “It pains me to see the NYC Schools Chancellor and UFT making recent public statements denouncing Oct 7th’s actions of Palestinian militants, but not the last 75 years of genocidal, illegal Israeli colonialist occupation, which created the horrific, inhumane conditions that led to last weekend’s kidnappings and Hamas’ incursions,” Cheng wrote in the email, calling for the union’s teachers’ retirement system to “divest from weapons and other companies that are complicit in violations of Palestinians’ civil and land rights.”
- “Last weekend’s events didn’t start this conflict,” Cheng continued. “The conflict started long ago, in 1917 and in 1948, when Palestinian homes were taken by force. Every year, $3,800,000,000 U.S. taxpayer dollars goes to fund an illegal occupation and settler colonialist state. Until the U.S. stops its support for Israel, unless the U.N. develops greater enforcement powers, and unless we as peace-loving people begin to have honest conversations with each other about anti-Arab Zionist colonialism, innocent Palestinian men, women, children, and elders will continue to be displaced, evicted, and erased from the map. Literally.”
- The email, which totals roughly 700 words, underscores how teachers, as well as K-12 schools and universities, have expressed sympathy for Hamas on the heels of its unprecedented attack
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Important Takeaways:
- Massive rocket barrage on Tel Aviv leaves over a million Israelis scrambling for shelter
- Hamas launched a massive rocket barrage on Tuesday afternoon, injuring at least five Israelis, emergency services said.
- Israelis were wounded in separate incidents in Holon, Tel Aviv, Kfar Saba, Be’er Yaakov, and Yavne while the barrage sent more than one million running for cover. All of the wounded were said to be lightly injured.
- Magen David Adom – Israel’s National Blood and Medical Emergency Service – said it is investigating after an attack believed to be the largest since war was declared on Hamas.
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Important Takeaways:
- China deploys six warships to Middle East over fears Israel crisis could spark WW3
- China has deployed six warships to the Middle East as the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalates, according to reports.
- The 44th naval escort task force – from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre – has been involved in routine operations in the region and spent several days in Oman last week.
- The Chinese warships left Muscat for an unspecified location on Saturday after participating in an exercise with the Omani navy.
- The task force includes the Zibo, a guided missile destroyer, the frigate Jingzhou, and the supply ship Qiandaohu – all of which will be stationed in the Middle East as Israel prepares for a ground invasion of Gaza.
- Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Thursday that a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestine is the “fundamental way out” of the Israel-Hamas war.
- According to China’s state broadcaster CCTV, Xi said: “The top priority now is a ceasefire as soon as possible, to avoid the conflict from expanding or even spiraling out of control and causing a serious humanitarian crisis.”
- China’s deployment comes after the US sent a powerful arsenal to the Middle East earlier this week.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hamas and Israeli troops clash in Gaza as airstrikes intensify
- Hamas fighters and Israeli forces engaged in limited clashes inside Gaza on Sunday as the Israeli military ramped up airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave ahead of what its spokesperson described as the “next stage” of its war on the militant group.
- Hamas claimed its fighters had destroyed two Israeli military bulldozers and a tank in an ambush near the Gazan city of Khan Younis, forcing Israeli troops to retreat without their vehicles. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed its forces had been operating inside Gaza during the incident, and said an IDF tank struck militants who had fired on its troops.
- The episode appeared to be one of the first skirmishes between the two sides on the ground inside the strip since war broke out
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel At War: Day 17: 1,400+ Israelis Killed; IDF Increases Strikes Preparing For ‘Next Phase Of War’
- Over 1,400 Israelis (306 soldiers) have been killed, and over 5,400 have been injured.
- The IDF has notified families of 222 being held hostage in Gaza.
- Over 7,000 Rockets have been fired by Hamas toward Southern and Central Israel from Gaza (approximately 550 failed launches inside Gaza), with Lebanon and Syria also firing from the north.
- One day after the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, on Oct. 7th, thousands of Hamas gunmen Invaded southern Israel, kidnapping, raping, torturing, and killing Israelis, specifically targeting women, children, and the elderly.
- On Oct. 8th, the Israel Security Cabinet voted to officially declare war for the first time since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
- In an interview with Sky News, Israeli President Isaac Herzog revealed that information was found on Hamas terrorists via USB, which provided detailed instructions on the manufacturing of chemical weapons.
- The USB contained official material from Al Qaeda, according to the President. Adding that, it shows Israel is simultaneously “dealing with ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Hamas.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Son of Hamas founder says mainstream media ‘afraid’ to label group a genocidal religious movement
- The son of a Hamas founder said Hamas is even more dangerous than ISIS on Monday, claiming the mainstream media is afraid to call it a genocidal religious movement for fear of igniting a full-on religious war.
- “It’s their own comparison to say Hamas and ISIS because I think Hamas is a lot more dangerous,” Mosab Hassan Yousef told “FOX & Friends.”
- “Look at the division and the global confusion because of Hamas. They brought us to our knees somehow by their brutality and their barbarism. Brutality is even understating Hamas’ acts. Hamas is a religious movement, and they are a raging religious movement against Israel. The mainstream media cannot say this, because they are afraid to ignite a religious war. And what I say, it already is. They want to annihilate the Jewish people because they are Jewish people, because they are a Jewish state.”
- Yousef, who renounced the terrorist group and became an informant for Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet in the 1990s, said Hamas couldn’t be negotiated with since it wasn’t a national or political movement.
- “They are driven by dark hatred toward a race, toward a nation,” he said.
- Yousef said Hamas’ ability to withstand any ground invasion from the Israelis would predicate in part on its known practice of using “human shields.”
- “They have many tunnels. They used the funds and the aid that came to Gaza, they used it to dig tunnels,” he said. “It’s very hard to deal with this style of suicidal group of fighters who basically don’t appreciate life. They actually [are] looking forward to death.”
- He added it was possible to destroy Hamas, but it would begin with the destruction of its infrastructure, in addition to gathering intelligence and enforcing a suffocating siege.
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Important Takeaways:
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered reassurances of ongoing U.S. support to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heading into a meeting in Tel Aviv, in the wake of bloody attacks perpetrated by Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel over the weekend.
- Separately, Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Hussein al-Sheikh said on X that Blinken will convene with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority on Friday.
- The U.S. has firmly denounced the Hamas attacks and previously proposed a humanitarian corridor for civilians in the Gaza Strip.
- The death toll meanwhile continues to mount in Israel and Gaza, as sirens blare and war wages.
- Israeli Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Israel Katz said Thursday that the Gaza siege will not be lifted until the country’s hostages, taken by Hamas, are returned home.
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Important Takeaways:
- The presence of scores of captives in Gaza, a large majority of them civilians, increases the risks involved in a possible Israeli invasion
- Among them were 49 people who appeared to be civilians — nine of them children — and 11 who appeared to be members of the Israeli military, according to The Post’s review. In four cases, it was not possible to determine whether the captive was a civilian or soldier.
- Hamas has said that it holds “tens” of people. Israeli authorities have said they estimate that Palestinian fighters took between 100 and 150 people hostage.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel Strikes 450 Targets as Scale of Hamas’ Massacre Rises: Babies Beheaded, 1,200 Civilians Dead
- Day 5 of the Israel-Hamas war.
- Israel says it struck at least 450 Hamas targets in Gaza in the last 24 hours, while Israeli ground forces mass on the border for an imminent invasion.
- The death toll in Israel continues to climb – more than 1,200 civilians dead, 170 soldiers slain, and more than 3,500 Israelis wounded. Forty murdered Israeli babies were found among the massacred civilians, and some of those babies had been beheaded.
- The health ministry in Gaza says some 1,055 people have been killed and 5,000 injured during Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Hamas in the sealed coastal enclave.
- In the Israeli community of Kfar Aza, soldiers discovered what’s been described as a “massacre.”
- Gen. Itai Veruv, who led the three-day campaign to retake Kfar Aza after Hamas militants invaded, said, “You see the babies, the mothers, the fathers in their bedrooms, in their protection rooms, and how the terrorists killed them. It’s not a war, it’s not a battlefield. It’s a massacre. It’s a terror activity.”
- Doron Spielman, Israel Defense Forces spokesman, added, “Who could do this? They must have shed their humanity, and what is left is something inhuman. To see baby carriages with bullet holes and blood? Who goes up to a baby and kills a baby? Who kills a mother? I see the bodies in their homes.”
- On Tuesday, Biden also announced the U.S. is rushing military assistance to Israel including ammunition and interceptors to help the Iron Dome.
- The president also said he’s instructed his team to share intelligence with Israel as they work together to safely bring home all the hostages.
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Important Takeaways:
- Rocket slams into Israeli hospital and supermarket in new wave of strikes from Gaza – as Benjamin Netanyahu posts horrifying image of blood-soaked child’s bed and labels Hamas ‘worse than ISIS’
- Hamas launched a fresh wave of rocket attacks in Israel this afternoon, destroying a children’s hospital and a supermarket.
- Shocking images and videos out of Israel’s southern city of Ashkelon purportedly showed how the Child Development wing of the Barzilai Medical Centre suffered a direct hit which reduced parts of the building to rubble.
- A spokeswoman for the center said: ‘The child development center at the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon suffered a direct hit by a projectile from Gaza,’ while Deputy Director Dr. Gili Givati told Israeli public radio: ‘The development center was completely destroyed.’
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