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Paris Holocaust Memorial Vandalized With Blood-Red Handprints on Anniversary of Nazi Roundup
The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah Memorial in Paris was vandalized with painted blood-red hands on May 14, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
A Holocaust memorial in Paris was defaced on Tuesday with painted blood-red hands in what French authorities and Jewish leaders described as a “hateful rallying cry against Jews.”
“The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah [Holocaust] Memorial was vandalized overnight,” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement, calling it an “unspeakable act.”
Located in central Paris, the wall honors people who helped to rescue Jews in France during the country’s Nazi occupation in World War II. May 14, the day of the latest vandalism, marks the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.
Vandalizing a Holocaust memorial won’t free Palestine, especially with symbols that either imply support for terror or blood libel.
The main Holocaust memorial in Paris was desecrated with red hand prints.
You are just terrorizing Jews. It has to stop. pic.twitter.com/NWSxNr1oMX
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 14, 2024
The defacement came amid a record surge in antisemitic incidents in France since the Hamas terror group’s pogrom in Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza.
“No cause can justify such degradations that dirty the memory of the victims of the Shoah and of the Righteous who saved Jews at risk to their lives,” Hidalgo said, adding that she filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor.
Yonathan Arfi, president of the French Jewish representative body Crif, called the vandalism “despicable” and a clear act of antisemitism.
“No matter who the perpetrators are, this degradation of the Shoah Memorial, the symbol of the bloody hands of the terrorists who lynched two Israeli soldiers in October 2000, resonates like a hateful rallying cry against Jews,” he wrote on X/Twitter.
Arfi was referring to the notorious lynching of two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in October 2000. Nurzhitz and Avrahami were brutally murdered and their bodies mutilated by a Palestinian mob while both were in the custody of Palestinian Authority (PA) police officers.
One of their assailants, Aziz Salha, appeared at the window of the police station following the murder of the two Israelis, delightedly displaying his blood-stained palms to the appreciative crowd gathered outside. A photograph of Salha’s gesture quickly went viral and has remained an enduring image captured during the conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
The Wall of the Righteous contains the names of more than 3,900 people recognized for risking their lives to help save Jews in France.
“No excuse or justification possible,” the Union of Jewish Students of France tweeted in response to the vandalism. “These red hands on the walls of the memorial provoke unease among Jews, rekindle a deadly controversy, and above all advocate massacres of Jews.”
Other French and Jewish leaders condemned the defacement of the memorial.
“We are saddened and disgusted by the antisemitic vandalism that defaced the Shoah memorial in Paris with blood-red hands on the Wall of the Righteous,” the European Jewish Congress said in a statement. “This is an outrageous disrespect to the memory of Holocaust victims and to the individuals who risked their lives to save Jews.”
Dani Dayan — chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust — “strongly condemned” the incident.
“We call on the French authorities to find the perpetrators of this heinous act and bring them to justice,” he wrote on X/Twitter.
Tuesday’s vandalism came amid an explosion of antisemitism in France in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Antisemitic outrages rose by over 1,000 percent in the final three months of 2023 compared with the previous year, with over 1,200 incidents reported — greater than the total number of incidents in France for the previous three years combined.
The post Paris Holocaust Memorial Vandalized With Blood-Red Handprints on Anniversary of Nazi Roundup 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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