#Palestine || The Palestinian young man Qassim Rajabi (39) who was injured after being assaulted by the Israeli occupation forces while demolishing his family shop in Silwan village, this morning. Via @silwanic
اصابة الشاب قاسم حربي الرجبي 39عاما بجروح في رأسه جراء الاعتداء عليه بالضرب بأعقاب البنادق خلال تنفيذ هدم محل العائلة التجاري في حي البستان في سلوان.
Israeli forces hours ago assassinated well-known Palestinian Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh during an invasion of Jenin.
Shireen was in full press gear, wearing a clearly marked PRESS jacket & helmet, and was shot in the exposed area just beneath her helmet by Israeli snipers on rooftops.
Shireen arrived in a vehicle with a number of other journalists, all in full PRESS gear, who made themselves known to the Israeli forces in the area. Shortly after they began filming, the journalists came under fire, confirmed by journalists at the scene who also came under fire to have come from the Israeli snipers.
After Shireen was hit, the other journalists couldn’t bring her to safety as Israeli forces kept shooting, despite the journalists, which I’ll stress again were all in CLEAR PRESS GEAR, shouting “PRESS!”.
Then, moments ago, Israeli forces also murdered a 17 year old Palestinian student in Ramallah with a shot to the heart.
Israel’s response will likely be:
1- Say she was killed by Palestinians 2- Say “it’s unclear what happened” when more eyewitnesses give their statements 3- Still blame her or Palestinians one way or another, while still denying they’ve done anything wrong
Reporters on-site who came under fire say that “it was very clear that all gunfire was coming from Israeli forces, with there being no civilians or resistance forces in the area”.
May those Israeli terrorist see justice in both this life and the next.
The Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty is signed putting an end to all hostilities after Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin realize both their mothers are named Martha.
People frequently invoke the Holocaust when speaking of large-scale discrimination in the modern era, and at first glance, this might even make sense. After all, if people are subject to abuse for an arbitrary aspect of themselves that they cannot change, if they are threatened with death due to these characteristics, surely the comparison is apt? No.
There is only one Holocaust. There will only ever be one Holocaust. It was a specific moment in time that transpired as the result of countless years of oppression and discriminatory practices, coupled with a political climate that bred it like an opportunistic infection.
No one but Holocaust survivors are Holocaust survivors. No one but Jews are Jews. No one but the Rroma are Rroma. No one but the Nazis are Nazis. No one but Hitler is Hitler.
Comparing anything to the Holocaust, no matter how terrible, does nothing but minimize the real, actual human tragedy of the Holocaust. Real, human lives, human stories, human hopes, brutally taken, murdered, ripped apart. Families, gone. Towns, gone. History, culture, gone. Lives, gone.
Millions of real people died in the Holocaust. All you do when you use Holocaust rhetoric to support your faulty arguments is to disservice them and all those who survived them. Stop using dead Jews to support your faulty rhetoric.
Yesterday at about 7 a.m. my daughter Miri called with news from my grandson.
“Mordechai just came home from shul. He said that Arabs came in and are shooting, and that a man with an axe is hitting everyone. Some of the people threw chairs at them, but it didn’t help.”
My 12-year-old grandson had hit the floor along with everyone else when the bullets began to fly. He was fully aware of what was going on, and what it meant.
He somehow found the courage to let go of his father’s hand, crawl towards the exit and break into a run.
Mordechai is blonde, freckled, and a soft-spoken somewhat introverted and studious boy, much like his father, Shmuli. He is not Huck Finn, and the courage he found at those moments were a gift straight from God.
By the time he finished telling Miri what happened, sirens from Hatzalah ambulances, police cars, and Magen David could be heard telling her that there were casualties.
“Where’s Shmuli” was the thought that entered her mind again and again as the seconds, which felt like hours, began to tick. She called me and said, “Say Tehillim (Psalms). There is shooting in the shul.” I began to say the ancient prayers. Nothing was reported yet on the news. Of course not. It was only 7:10.
When Mordechai came home, the shooting was still happening. By 7:20 we both realized that if she didn’t hear from Shmuli, something was very wrong.
The police and other services had no information as yet to give to the public, but a family friend who had seen the terror with his own eyes, said that Shmuli had been taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
Apparently, when Mordechai let go of his hand, he instinctively ran after the child, placing himself in the sight of the terrorists. One of them attacked him with an axe, hitting him on the head, back and arm.
Somehow he made it to the door. Josh White, a yeshiva student, was riding down Agassi Street on his bike. He noticed a lot of confusion in front of the shul and asked someone what was going on. He approached the shul and saw Shmuli, who was still aware. The student took off his shirt and stopped the bleeding, a move which may have saved Shmuli’s life. The shooting was still happening inside. It was about 7:15!
The emergency crew drew back, but because Shmuli was already outside, they evacuated him, thus making him the first of the wounded to be taken to Hadassah, another factor in his survival. Before collapsing, he asked where Mordechai was, and when told that the boy ran away from the carnage, he said, “Baruch Hashem.”
Inside, the terrorists were continuing their “work.” When they entered, they turned to their left, and immediately cut down Rabbi Moshe Twersky and Reb Kalman Levine who were standing in the corner.
Reb Kalman was not a regular attendee of that synagogue. He would generally daven in the earliest possible minyan so he could get in a couple of hours of Jewish study before beginning his day.
But on Tuesday he had a question about something he had learned, and had gone to put the question to the synagogues erudite Rabbi Rubin. The question will now only be resolved in the Heavenly Academy.
In the course of unfolding events, Mordechai was urged to speak about what he saw again and again in order to diminish the damage of the trauma he had undergone.
We were allowed to see Shmuli who was put under anesthesia. We don’t know if he heard us or not, but we were talking to him, stressing that Mordechai was fine.
In the hours before the surgery, we found ourselves with Risa Rotman. Her husband, Chaim Yechiel ben Malka, was also attacked, and the extent of his wounds are very serious.
Every day in the Land of Israel is a gift and a miracle. I have no pretensions of knowing God’s will, but I do know that everything He does is purposeful, and that His compassion is often hidden from the human eye. Anyone who values human life, reality, and the eternal nature of the soul is appalled by the idea of people entering a synagogue and randomly killing innocent people.
Except for CNN, which for a time reported the entire event as an attack on a mosque.
Except for BBC, which reported that Israeli police “killed two Palestinians” (i.e. the murderers), as if victims of Israeli brutality were strolling through scenic Har Nof when attacked by racist troops….
Please continue praying for my son-in-law, Shmuel Yerucham ben Baila, and the other victims.
Pray that God gives strength to the five new widows and 24 new orphans.
Papers of Victor D. Sanua, Containing, in part, memorial books for Israeli soldiers, research on various Jewish topics, mainly the Jewish community of Egypt, the Middle East and Israel.
Aaaaand…here’s the Semite of the Day, in honor of Eurovision: Sharon Cohen, known professionally as Dana International.
Born in Tel Aviv, to a Jewish family with Yemeni and Romanian roots, came out as a trans woman at thirteen, and won the 1998 Eurovision.
To those who had opposed her representing Israel at the event, she said afterward:
“My victory proves God is on my side. I want to send my critics a message of forgiveness and say to them: try to accept me and the kind of life I lead. I am what I am and this does not mean I don’t believe in God, and I am part of the Jewish nation.”
Strong, brave, talented, gutsy, and absolutely beautiful.
just fyi: israel announcing they won’t be investigating the murder of shireen abu aqla because they “don’t believe any criminal activity occurred” means that they’ve already investigated and the results are ones they don’t want shared
if a palestinian was the one who shot her (like they falsely claimed - disproven by multiple israeliandinternational human rights orgs) and they had evidence to prove it, they’d be screaming it from the hill tops…but it’s eerily silent
and what they’ve said about not believing any criminal activity on their part is probably true - they already believe they’re in the right while committing war crimes, beating and killing civilians on the daily, bombing homes, assassinating press, upholding apartheid, imprisoning and prosecuting children in military courts, and ethnically cleansing their way across stolen land
the funeral procession of assassinated palestinian-american reporter, shireen abu aqla, where occupying armed forces beat peaceful and unarmed mourners and church goers, raided the home of the deceased and her family, arrested children, and shot grenades at those who had gathered to lay her to rest
even the dead aren’t safe from the brutality of the occupiers, subhanAllah
Our Palestinian brother Mahmud may have gone through life being a regionally known soccer player for the Palestinian National Team but in 2009 he was accused of being a terrorist by Israeli Occupation forces and placed into jail without ever seeing a trial. In this time, Mahmud al-Sarsak went from a locally known personality, to a person who gained international support to his release through the use of a hunger strike on March 19, 2012 that lasted until June 18, 2012.
If you’d like, listen to Mahmud share his story here.
Israeli researchers have created an entire 3D-printed heart made from human cells in what they say is a world first.
The heart doesn’t beat and is too small for use in people — it’s only about the size of a rabbit’s heart. But the little organ is considered a big advance in the ongoing effort to find new treatments for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
