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Exhibit About Nova Music Festival Massacre Coming to New York in Spring
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
An exhibition about the deadly terrorist attack at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel that took place on Oct. 7 will open in New York City later this month, organizers announced last week.
The installation — titled “Nova: Oct. 7 6:29 AM, The Moment Music Stood Still” — will come to New York following a 10-week run in Tel Aviv. It will be open to the public, although the exact date and location have yet to be announced. The “6:29 am” references the time when Hamas terrorists began invading the music festival, killing 370 people from the concert and taking dozens of others as hostages back to the Gaza Strip.
The large-scale remembrance installation features items salvaged from the site of the music festival attack, including scorched cars, bullet-riddled bathroom stalls, festival decorations, and personal belongings left behind. The exhibit will also have a “healing tent,” which organizers explained as a lighthouse promoting the theme “we will dance again.” Survivors of the brutal attack will be attending the exhibition, according to Billboard magazine.
“Through video screens combining unique documentation from the Nova party, artistic projections, and other means, we will be able, if only for a moment, to return to the difficult moments that occurred on site,” Nova co-founder Omri Sassi said while describing the exhibit when it was first announced in December.
The exhibit was organized by producers of the Nova Music Festival, and Jewish record executive Scooter Braun helped bring it to New York. He said last week he was inspired to do so after visiting Israel in December, when he met with survivors of the Nova attack and saw the exhibit during its run in Tel Aviv.
“People need to understand it could have been any of us, at any festival,” Braun explained in an Instagram post where he announced the exhibit’s opening in New York. “Music must remain a safe place. Because of that friends and I have teamed up with the founders of Nova to bring this exhibition to NYC. It is an in-depth remembrance of the brutal October 7th attack.”
Donations from the exhibition will go to the Nova Healing Journey, an initiative that supports mental health treatment for survivors of the Oct. 7 attack and their families.
“I hope with this exhibition we can hold in our hearts that you can have compassion for all people,” Braun added. “One human’s suffering does not negate another’s … whether it be Israeli or Palestinian. You can call out for those in need of aid and still hold in your heart space for those suffering because of lost loved ones and loved ones still held hostage. If for any reason acknowledging those affected by the Nova massacre bothers you … please ask yourself why. In the meantime we will not forget them and we will dance again.”
The post Exhibit About Nova Music Festival Massacre Coming to New York in Spring first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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