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Anti-Israel Protesters Get Violent After Police Prevent Them From Disrupting Met Gala in NYC
A police officer removes a Palestinian flag from the William Tecumseh Sherman monument as anti-Israel demonstrators attend a protest near the Met Gala on May 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Anti-Israel demonstrators turned violent on Monday night in New York City as they attempted to disrupt the 2024 MET Gala that was taking place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Violence broke out when the mob of more than 1,000 protesters were blocked by police from crashing the star-studded Met Gala as part of a “Day of Rage” protest organized by the Palestinian activist group Within Our Lifetime. Protesters held up leaflets that read “End the occupation of Palestine,” “Shut down the campuses,” “End the genocide,” and more.
Video shared on Instagram by the account Jew Hate Database showed a mob of anti-Israel demonstrators surrounding a man wearing a Star of David headscarf, stealing the scarf, and beating him near the Met Gala, an annual fundraiser which is held for the benefit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and marks the opening of the Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibition.
The clip showed one person screaming at the man “Get the f—k out of the way” as the group of demonstrators tried to make their way down the street. When the man stepped back slowly into a flowerbed, one of the protesters approached him and stole the Star of David headscarf from his head before fleeing. The mob continued to force the man backwards, but he managed to snatch back his headscarf from the angry protester. A fight then broke out, and several demonstrators were seen on camera repeatedly striking the man in the face and head before he managed to break free and flee the scene. A witness who filmed the attack from the opposite side of the street said she took the video to the local New York City Police Department (NYPD) precinct.
Jew Hate Database shared a second video on Monday night of another incident near the Met Gala in which a Jewish man was attacked for walking by a group of anti-Israel protesters while chanting “Am Israel Chai,” which means “long live Israel.”
The crowd of protesters made multiple attempts from different streets to reach the Metropolitan Museum of Art but were repeatedly blocked off by police barricades. About two dozen anti-Israel demonstrators were reportedly arrested.
After police diverted the mob of activists toward Central Park and then blocked the exits, protesters vandalized a World War I memorial statue in the park and burned an American flag, the New York Post reported. They wrote “Gaza” in large black letters on the base of the 107th Infantry Memorial and placed on the statue’s bronze soldiers stickers of the Palestinian flag that read “Stop the Genocide. End the apartheid. Free Palestine.” Some of the protesters also reportedly climbed on top the statue, waved Palestinian flags, and draped the flag over the memorial.
The bronze statue of Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in Grand Army Plaza in Central Park was also vandalized by the anti-Israel activists. They wrote “Free Gaza” in red letters on its base and placed a Palestinian flag on the statue.
The post Anti-Israel Protesters Get Violent After Police Prevent Them From Disrupting Met Gala in NYC 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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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism
Pope Francis waves after delivering his traditional Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi speech to the city and the world from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, December 25, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” said the pope. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialization” of the term genocide.
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.
Israeli officials were not immediately reachable for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The post Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile
Iranian-backed Yemeni terrorist leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – The Israeli military said on Saturday that while the investigation into the failure to intercept the missile that hit Tel Aviv early in the morning was still ongoing, some lessons were already being implemented. The ballistic missile, fired by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, landed at a playground in a residential area, leading to 16 people sustaining injuries from glass shards.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said that “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, in regards of both interception and early warning.”
The spokesperson added that “no further details regarding aerial defense activities and the alert system can be disclosed due to operational security considerations.”
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as “acts of solidarity” with Palestinians in Gaza.
The post IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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