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A Harry Potter fan’s murder reverberates from Israel to Boston
BOSTON (JTA) — Jason Greenberg remembers the lavish breakfast spreads Carmela Dan would serve when he and his family visited his great aunt at Kibbutz Nir Oz. He relished the shakshuka, salads and bread she prepared to welcome her American family.
“She was a great cook,” Greenberg, a lawyer in Boston, recalled of those regular visits he has made for more than 30 years.
Dan was beloved at Nir Oz, a tight-knit community on the southern border with Gaza that she helped found in 1955.
What especially stood out was the strong bond she had with her granddaughter Noya Dan, who lived with her family on Kibbutz Kissufim, just a short distance away.
Noya, whose broad smile charmed her family and friends, often spent Shabbat with her grandmother. The engaging 12-year-old was on the autism spectrum and over the years her grandmother played a leading role in her education.
Most of all, Noya, who would have turned 13 next month, loved all things Harry Potter.
“She was an interminable Harry Potter fan. It kind of defined her,” Greenberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a phone conversation. “If you knew Noya, you knew that she just loved Harry Potter.”
Noya Dan, seen here in a Harry Potter costume, was murdered by Hamas alongside her grandmother Carmela on Oct. 7, 2023, in Kibbutz Nir Oz. (via X)
These are among the memories Greenberg is holding dear about his great aunt and second cousin as he and his family mourn their deaths.
Carmela and Noya were abducted on Shabbat morning, Oct. 7, when Hamas gunmen invaded Israel from Gaza. Some 180 residents of Nir Oz were either brutally murdered or taken hostage that day, about a quarter of the residents of the small community, according to Israeli authorities. There are at least 220 people known to have been kidnapped by Hamas. Only four have been released.
The deaths and abductions in Israel have reverberated in far-off communities like Boston, where relatives like Greenberg have a deeply personal connection to the victims.
Greenberg is also worrying about the well-being of his cousin Ofer Kalderon, and two of his children, Erez and Shahar, who were also taken hostage from Nir Oz.
What’s more, Greenberg, 46, experienced the tragic events as they were unfolding. He was in Israel at the time of the Hamas attack visiting his father, Joseph Greenberg, who has lived in Israel, north of Tel Aviv, since 2019.
His sister, Abbe Onn, and her family also live in Israel.
When the sirens went off on that Shabbat morning, Greenberg and his father headed for the building’s safe shelter. When they returned to his apartment, Greenberg’s phone immediately began lighting up with WhatsApp messages from his family with details of the abductions of their relatives, who are all on his late mother’s side of the family. (Roberta Greenberg died in 2015.)
A series of messages Noya sent to her mother, Galit Dan, from her grandmother’s safety room, tear at the heart.
“Mom, there was a big boom that scared me,” Noya said in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel. “All the windows in Grandma’s house were broken. Mommy, I’m scared.”
In those initial days, before their bodies were found, the Israeli government shared a photo of Noya wearing a Hogwart’s costume on X, the social media platform that was formerly Twitter.
The posting caught the eye of Potter author J.K. Rowling, who reposted the picture.
On October 19, almost two weeks after the attack and two days after Carmela’s 80th birthday, the Israel Defense Forces notified the family that Carmela’s and Noya’s bodies were found just over the Gaza border. Their remains were later identified using DNA.
“It was the worst news you’d ever want to receive,” Greenberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Greenberg was horrified at the inhumanity of their murderers, who showed no mercy despite Carmela’s age and frailty and Noya’s special needs. “They were killed at the border because they were slowing down their captors,” Greenberg said they learned from the IDF.
Greenberg decided to return to Boston to be with his wife and their two young children, and to bring his father back with him to his native city. His father is eager to return to Israel.
Greenberg’s experience has received wide local coverage.
“I thought I could use my voice to help educate people. I had this dual lens that others here, thousands of miles away, don’t necessarily have,” he said. He hopes his story puts a human face on the terror attacks.
He also wanted to counter misinformation and antisemitism that he sees being spread by others, such as groups of students at Harvard and some other college campuses who blame Israel for the attacks by Hamas.
Greenberg hopes to help the efforts his sister and others have undertaken for the safe return of all of the hostages, he said. He has started a GoFundMe campaign to support Israeli families who may wish to temporarily relocate family members to the U.S.
Another victim with ties to the Boston area is Igal Wachs, a 53-year-old Israeli-American who was killed, along with his younger brother Amit, 48, while they were defending Netiv HaAsara, the village where they had lived. He and Liat Oren-Wachs, who lives in a Boston suburb, have an 11-year-old son.
“We are experiencing grief, sadness and fear from what we hear around us. Antisemitism is real and we don’t feel safe,” Oren-Wachs wrote in a text message.
Igal “had the most incredible smile … and was always helpful, kind and happy. He is missed and forever we will keep him in our hearts,” she wrote.
There are many others in Boston and across New England with family who have lost relatives in the war, according to Meron Reuben, Israel’s consul general to New England.
The story about Noya’s devotion to Harry Potter and her murder broke his heart, he told JTA in a phone conversation.
“I felt so emotional when I heard an interview with Noya’s mother when they thought she was still alive,” Reuben said. The murder of a young girl who did no harm to anyone shows Hamas’s inhumanity, he said.
“I only hope that the smiling faces of Carmela and Noya will be remembered forever and that their wishes for a better life for all will be realized.”
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The post A Harry Potter fan’s murder reverberates from Israel to Boston appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.