US warns that they won’t back Israel in war against Hezbollah • Incidents of IDF misconduct in the Gaza Strip prompt investigation
Victims of Oct. 7 attack sue UNRWA for allegedly laundering money for Hamas
Over 100 victims of the October 7 Hamas attacks are suing UNRWA, alleging it laundered money for Hamas and supported its infrastructure and propaganda.
(JTA) – More than 100 victims of Hamas’s massacres in Israel on October 7 are suing UNRWA, the main relief agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants, saying it effectively laundered money for the terrorist group, the latest in a spate of lawsuits launched in US courts since the Israel-Hamas war started.
The lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in the Southern District of New York alleges that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency assisted Hamas, including by building the infrastructure it required to launch the war, subsidizing Hamas by paying its activists as employees, and relaying Hamas propaganda through its schools.
“The terrorist who held me hostage for 53 days worked as a school teacher for UNRWA,” Ditza Heiman, one of the hostages, said in a statement. “The fact that Hamas controlled Gaza was not an excuse for UNRWA to hire and fund terrorists, but instead should have ensured UNRWA took extra precautions. ”
As Lebanon seeks to disprove claims of Hezbollah arsenal in airport, reporters denied full access
Lebanese ministers claimed that the Telegraph’s report on a weapons arsenal being stored in the airport was “part of Israel’s attempts to justify its attacks on Lebanon.”
Lebanese officials offered journalists and ambassadors tours of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport in an attempt to refute claims, made by the British newspaper The Telegraph, that this site was acting as a storage facility for weapons, according to international media reports from earlier this week.
Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, Public Works and Transport Minister Ali Hamieh, Tourism Minister Walid Nassar, and Information Minister Ziad Makary all participated in the tours.
Habib reportedly claimed that “the airport is safe and that these rumors are part of Israel’s attempts to justify its attacks on Lebanon,” according to LBC International.
Michal Herzog, wife of President Herzog, addresses absence of women at hostage negotiation table
Michal Herzog, the wife of President Isaac Herzog, spoke yesterday at the Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, addressing the stalled hostage negotiation and the lack of female representation at the negotiating table.
“I’ll say something that really bothers me – ultimately, whether the negotiation [succeed, or] does not [succeed,] at least its initial stages are intended to bring those young women who [are still held hostage by Hamas,]” said Michal Herzog.
“But I don’t see around the decision-making table, or even negotiation tables, not even one woman, not even one mother,” she added. “I may not be well-versed in negotiations or strategies, but it doesn’t seem logical to me. It simply doesn’t seem logical that the female voice, the perspective, the perhaps slightly different thinking of women won’t be taken into account. I would very much like to see our voice as women also around decision-making tables. I think it’s very important.”
Brazil deports Palestinian man, accuses him of being a Hamas spokesperson
Brazilian police sources said Muslim Abuumar was not coming for a visit but to stay in Brazil and become a spokesman for Hamas.
Brazil has deported a Palestinian man and his family after Brazilian federal police were alerted by the United States that a “Hamas operative” was traveling to the South American country, Brazilian authorities said on Monday.
Muslim Abuumar along with his pregnant wife, son and mother-in-law, were detained on Friday entering the country at Sao Paulo’s Guarulhos airport and put on a Qatar Airways flight back to Doha two days later, police sources told Reuters.
“The request came from the US Department of State,” a senior federal police officer said. “It was proven before a judge that (Abuumar) was deeply involved with Hamas,” he said.
Israel’s embassy in Ireland accuses Dublin Pride of promoting ‘agenda of exclusion’
The embassy charged that Dublin Pride had altered its policy to stop national flags being flown as a circumvented way to prevent the Israeli flag from being displayed at the event.
Israel’s embassy in Dublin shared a statement on Monday night accusing Dublin Pride of “promoting an agenda of exclusion and discrimination” by adopting a policy which prevented the Israeli flag from being flown at the event.
Our statement regarding Pride Week events in Dublin pic.twitter.com/KBwPZ2FUst
— Israel in Ireland (@IsraelinIreland) June 24, 2024
Dublin’s Pride parade will take place this upcoming Saturday, according to the Dublin Pride website. The website advises that people bring banners “no more than 2m – 3m in width and 0.75m – 1m in depth as the easiest to carry and manage. That size also looks better in pictures. To avoid unnecessary waste, we ask that when designing your banners, you not date them and use a design you will be happy with for at least 3 years.” However, no mention of national flags could be located.
Blinken emphasizes to Israel’s Gallant need to protect humanitarian workers
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday emphasized to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant the need to take more measures to protect humanitarian workers in Gaza, a State Department spokesperson said in a readout of their meeting.
Growing international alarm over potential third Lebanon war involving Iran
International alarm grows over potential third Lebanon war involving Iran. Netanyahu warns of Iran’s multi-front threats while diplomats urge diplomatic solutions amid escalating tensions.
International alarm grew Monday over the prospects of a third Lebanon war that could spill over to include Iran, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the Islamic Republic was the force behind the country’s multi-front existential wars.
“We are in a fight for our existence, a fight being conducted on seven fronts. The attack against us is being led by Iran, which openly seeks to destroy us,” Netanyahu told the Knesset plenum on Monday.
“Iran and its proxies have been scheming to do this through missile attacks against Israel and by invading our territory. The more we deepen the war in the Gaza Strip, the more we discover additional evidence of the scope of the multi-front campaign against us,” Netanyahu said.
Without naming names, UN chief accuses Israel of misinformation
Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the condemnations by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were “empty words when compared to his actions.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accused Israel on Monday of spreading misinformation about him during the more than eight-month-long war between Israel and Palestinian terrorists Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“I’ve heard the same source many times saying that I never attacked Hamas, that I never condemned Hamas, that I am a supporter of Hamas,” Guterres told a news conference on information integrity, without naming Israel.
“I have condemned Hamas 102 times, 51 of them in formal speeches, the others in different social platforms,” he said. “The truth, in the end, always wins.”
Friends of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin protest outside US Consulate in Jerusalem
Friends of the hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, along with Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team fans, demonstrated on Monday evening outside the US Consulate in Jerusalem, calling for his release and the release of other hostages from Hamas captivity.
The demonstration took place approximately an hour after the release of the video showing the Goldberg-Polin’s kidnapping, along with hostages Uri Levy and Elia Cohen.
The police cleared protesters from the area after some of the demonstrators blocked the road.
Jordanian police detonate hidden West Bank-bound explosives in capital
Security sources say some of the arms are bound for the neighboring West Bank, adding that they have arrested several Jordanians linked to Palestinian militants.
Jordanian security forces said they uncovered and detonated explosives hidden in a commercial warehouse in an industrial area southeast of the capital Amman on Monday that security sources say were part of an Iran-linked plot to destabilize a key US ally.
Witnesses earlier said security forces had sealed the Abu Alanda area in a wide scale security operation two days after authorities announced they had detonated explosives uncovered in another location in the capital.
The authorities said the explosives found on Monday were hidden by the same group of suspects who stored the explosives uncovered on Saturday in a crowded residential area close to a military airport used by US army planes.
- Hamas launched a massive attack on October 7, with thousands of terrorists infiltrating from the Gaza border and taking some 240 hostages into Gaza
- Over 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were murdered, including over 350 in the Re’im music festival and hundreds of Israeli civilians across Gaza border communities
- 120 hostages remain in Gaza
- 43 hostages in total have been killed in captivity, IDF says