Jewish immigration to Israel has not slowed over the past year despite the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, according to the chairman of the World Zionist Organization.

Yaakov Hagoel told The Algemeiner in an interview that since Oct. 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel and launched the war, more than 29,000 people have made aliyah, the process of Jews immigrating to Israel.

Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack — in which the Palestinian terror group killed 1,200 people, took another 251 hostage, and committed rampant sexual violence — began a war “not only against the State of Israel, but also against the entire Jewish people,” Hagoel said. He added that the onslaught, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, “caused the Jewish community in Israel and around the world to feel less safe and secure.”

Since Oct. 7, antisemitism around the world has spiked to alarming levels. The Anti-Defamation League released a report in April showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the outrages occurred after Oct. 7, during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Meanwhile, such outrages have also skyrocketed to record highs in several other countries around the world, especially in Europe, since the Hamas atrocities. In France,for example, Jewish leaders have expressed concern about the safety of their community if French Jews don’t leave the country.

Consequently, Hagoel continued, “Jews around the world are looking for something more secure that they can rely on to raise their children and to link them to the Jewish traditions. And there’s no doubt that the interest in aliyah since Oct. 7 is related to it and hasn’t happened in many, many years.”

According to data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of annual immigrants to Israel since 2010 has ranged from almost 75,000 people to just 13,000 — with most years between 15,000 and 30,000. This would make the year after Oct. 7 relatively consistent with the past decade and a half.

However, Hagoel said he expects 100,000 new olim — the Hebrew term for immigrants who move to Israel — to come after the Israel-Hamas war is over.

Because of the war, Hagoel explained, “the expectation is that they would fall dramatically and they haven’t done that.”

But the reason people are coming is not just because of the war, he said. It is also because “anyone that makes aliyah is fulfilling a dream of returning home. So, the security situation around the world is a trigger to expedite that will to come home.”

In fact, Hagoel added, “there has been a dramatic increase in numbers in the opening of files to express an interest in aliyah and to begin the process — that’s increased by around 300 percent since the same period last year.” 

After a recent plane of new olim came from France, Hagoel said it “demonstrates that the Jewish people are determined to continue building their future in our homeland, the land of Israel. This unprecedented aliyah is a testament to the recognition of the global Jewish community that Israel is not just a refuge, but a beacon of hope and faith.”

Asked about a message he had for the Jewish world, Hagoel emphasized the responsibility he felt to Jews across the world, regardless if they will make aliyah, and how important it is to help them.

He said he and his organization feel a “responsibility for all the Jews who live in Israel, those who will live in Israel, and those who will never live here.”

The post World Zionist Organization Chair: Immigration to Israel Has Not Slowed Since Oct. 7, 100,000 New Olim Expected first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

JNS.org — Israel Police officers on Monday arrested 13 suspects and were checking a suspicious vehicle they stopped on the busy Route 6 highway near the Horeshim interchange.

The Horeshim interchange is in the southern Sharon Plain, close to Samaria.

“All the occupants of the vehicle were detained for questioning,” said the statement, adding that sappers were searching for explosives.

שוהה בלתי חוקי פלסטיני נעצר בכביש 6 בחשד שתכנן לבצע פיגוע, השב”כ מעורב בחקירה. כביש 6 נחסם ממחלף חורשים צפונה@Doron_Kadosh pic.twitter.com/RHKjCv1frD

— גלצ (@GLZRadio) September 9, 2024

On Sept. 2, Israeli security forces neutralized a car bomb outside the entrance to the Jewish community of Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria.

Police and military sappers used a robot to inspect the vehicle, which was carrying two large gas tanks connected to an operating mechanism.

There were no casualties in the incident, which Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, called a “great miracle.”

Days earlier, the Hamas terrorist group hailed a “double heroic operation” after car bombers wounded three Israelis in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank.

Last month, Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal called for a return to suicide terrorist attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.

During a video address to a conference in Istanbul, Mashaal said, “Resistance operations in the West Bank are escalating despite the harsh conditions,” CNN Arabic reported.

“We want to return to martyrdom operations. This is a situation that can only be addressed by open conflict. They are fighting us with open conflict, and we are confronting them with open conflict,” he continued.

On Aug. 19, the “military””wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for a failed suicide bombing in south Tel Aviv.

In a statement, Hamas vowed to continue to carry out suicide attacks “as long as Israel continues its massacre and policy of assassinations in Gaza.”

The post Israel Police Search for Bombs After Stopping Vehicle on Highway first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

JNS.org — The Palestinian Authority (PA) is circulating a draft resolution asking the United Nations General Assembly to urge Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and remove some 500,000 Israeli citizens living in the territory within six months.

According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, the resolution, which cites a July 19 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, is expected to be brought to a vote next week.

The 79th Session of the UN General Assembly is scheduled to open on Sept. 10.

In addition to demanding an end to Israel’s civilian and military presence, the draft text urges UN member states to impose sanctions on officials in Jerusalem, banning trade with Jewish businesses in the West Bank and blocking weapons sales to Israel if they might be used in the area.

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon attacked the PA’s move and called on the 193 members of the General Assembly to “outright reject this shameful resolution and instead adopt a resolution condemning Hamas, calling on it to release all the hostages immediately.”

“Let it be clear: Nothing will stop nor deter Israel in its mission to bring back all the hostages and defeat Hamas,” the Israeli diplomat stated.

“If this resolution passes in the General Assembly, exactly one year after the Oct. 7 massacre, the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, it would be a reward for terrorism and a message to the world that the barbaric massacre of children, the rape of women, and the kidnapping of innocent civilians is a profitable move,” added Danon.

While the Palestinians have a near-automatic majority in the General Assembly — including the overwhelming portion of nearly 60 Arab and Muslim governments — resolutions passed by the body are not binding.

On July 19, the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial arm of the UN, issued a non-binding, 83-page opinion declaring Israel’s 57-year “occupation” of the West Bank to be “unlawful.”

The non-binding ruling claimed that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”

Jerusalem is “obliged to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible,” the UN court added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the ruling, saying that no “absurd” ICJ opinion can “deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.”

Despite the PA’s continued efforts to undermine Israel through lawfare, the US administration insists that Ramallah be given control of the Gaza Strip following the cessation of hostilities there.

The post PA Wants UN to Order Removal of 500,000 Jews From West Bank first appeared on Algemeiner.com.