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A torched bicycle shop, an arrested singer: Arab-Israelis face precarious landscape during Gaza war
TAYIBE, Israel (JTA) – In the days following Hamas’ bloody invasion of Israel, singer and influencer Dalal Abu Amneh posted a Palestinian flag to social media along with the words “There is no victor but God.”
By Tuesday, the post was gone, and Abu Amneh, who is also a brain researcher, was in Israeli prison — arrested for voicing support for Hamas. The musical artist and influencer, who lives in the Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth, is one of a growing number of Arab-Israelis, also known as Palestinian-Israelis, to be arrested in recent days for appearing to support the massacre.
“They tried to strip me of my humanity, silence my voice, and humiliate me in every way,” Abu Amneh posted on Instagram on Wednesday, writing that she was placed in solitary confinement and went on a hunger strike. “They insulted me and handcuffed my hands and feet, but they made me more proud and dignified. My voice will remain a messenger of love, defending the truth in this world.”
Meanwhile, stories have also emerged of Arab-Israelis rushing to save Jewish victims and volunteering to help the stricken communities of southern Israel in the wake of the attacks. A bicycle-shop owner in this central Arab-Israeli city of Tayibe donated 50 children’s bicycles to evacuees from the south and, days later, his shop was burned down. A crowdfunding campaign on his behalf, conducted in Hebrew and English, has since raised more than $150,000.
Indeed, the vast majority of Israel’s approximately 2 million Arab citizens don’t support the attacks. A poll conducted by the Agam Institute in Israel found that 80% of Arab-Israelis opposed Hamas’ attack, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis, while just 5% supported it, reported the publication Ynet.
Arab-Israelis say the attack, and Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, has placed their community in a precarious position. Many are mourning Hamas’ attack — which killed at least 15 Arab-Israelis, according to the Arab-Israeli nonprofit Mossawa — while also opposing Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, where many have family and friends. Those strikes have killed more than 3,200 people, per the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
“The majority are against all the casualties, it doesn’t matter which side, because we are all against the killing of innocent women, children and elderly,” said Murad, an engineer from Tayibe. “If someone says something pro-Hamas all of the Arabs are attacked as ‘They are against us!’ But if 100 or even 1,000 people are against Hamas, nobody notices.”
Murad was sitting with friends on Tuesday in the city’s Two Brothers Cafe, discussing the ongoing war over coffee. Like his friends, Murad declined to give his last name, fearful of repercussions for openly sharing his opinion. Israeli-Arab politicians have also denounced the Hamas massacre, along with the killing of civilians in Gaza.
“We should say here and now that the murder of women and children and the elderly, and atrocities against civilians in the south, are worthy of unstinting denunciation,” Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ahmad Tibi said in a speech last week in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. “Human morality is not selective. There is no half-morality. Murder of children is murder of children.”
Previous Israeli wars in Gaza have seen friction, conflict and arrests in Arab-Israeli communities and so-called “mixed cities.” In 2021, Arab-Jewish cities in Israel saw fierce interethnic clashes before and during Israel’s conflict that year with Hamas. In 2014, the last time Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza, 1,500 Israeli-Arabs were arrested for protesting the military operation.
Figures provided by the Israel Police say 63 people have been arrested for supporting Hamas or the massacre, and 40 Arab-Israeli students have been suspended or expelled from universities, according to the Arab-Israeli legal nonprofit Adalah.
Shlomo Karhi, the Communication Minister, recently pushed for emergency legislation that would grant the police power to shut off the broadcasts and close the offices of media outlets that “significantly harm national security.” Karhi has taken aim specifically at the Qatar-based Al Jazeera network, which has a bureau in Israel and which he called a “terror-supporting station.”
“We are at war!” Karhi posted to social media on Monday along with a copy of the draft regulations. “Whoever wants can petition the Supreme Court afterward, but this station must close now!”
In light of that atmosphere, Murad said he had advised his adult son not to post anything about the conflict to social media.
“There is no space to protest,” he said. “I told my son, who is 27 and an engineer, ‘do not say anything, not even a humanitarian message.’”
Harel Chorev-Halewa, a historian of the Middle East at Tel Aviv University, said that protests have not broken out in Arab-Israeli or mixed cities during the current conflict due to a mix of fear from what will ensue and shock from Hamas’ massacre.
Groups that would foment unrest, Chorev-Halewa said, “know that nobody, including the security forces and the civilians, will wait around for any manifestation of force or things that we saw in May, 2021. People are openly saying, ‘If you will come to my house, if you will come to my street, I will shoot you.’”
Chorev-Halewa said Arab-Israeli repudiation of Hamas’ attack is also “a failure of Hamas’ strategy” to incite Arab-Israelis to rebel.
That calm atmosphere is present in Tayibe, said Abed, the barista at Two Brothers. He said locals are less personally affected by the war because “more than half of Gazans are from the coastal region of Jaffa, Ashkelon, Ramle and Lod,” rather than the center of Israel. Accordingly, life is unfolding relatively normally in the city, save for nationwide school closures, which have kept Tayibe’s children at home as well.
Arab-Israeli grievance toward the government is far from limited to the military operation in Gaza. This year, Arab-Israelis have protested a spike in murders in their communities, with more than 180 Arab citizens killed in violent incidents this year. Arab leaders and activists have long castigated the state for discriminating against Arab-Israelis in a variety of ways — from disparities in funding to policing.
“The Israeli press always asks the Israeli-Arab, ‘What side are you on?’” Murad said. “I ask, what side are you on when they kill 200 of our sons here and no criminal is arrested?” He added that he is also worried about an eruption of violence in the West Bank, where clashes have been escalating this year and where more than 50 Palestinians have been killed since the Oct. 7 invasion.
“It cannot work like that, when you see 700 to 800 babies killed in Gaza,” Murad said. “There are children on both the Israeli and Palestinian side that are both victims.”
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The post A torched bicycle shop, an arrested singer: Arab-Israelis face precarious landscape during Gaza war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.