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Anti-Israel Group Leading Pro-Hamas Protests Under Fire for False Claim About Israel’s Independence Day
Pro-Hamas activists gather in Washington Square Park for a rally following a protest march held in response to an NYPD sweep of an anti-Israel encampment at New York University in Manhattan, May 3, 2024. Photo: Matthew Rodier/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A prominent anti-Israel group that has helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza falsely claimed that Israel’s Independence Day was intentionally placed to “obscure” a Palestinian day of remembrance, sparking outrage and criticism.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which wrote the statement, is a fringe anti-Israel organization that did not condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel and has long celebrated terrorism against Israelis.
“Yesterday [Monday], the Israeli government ended its yearly cycle of state holidays that sequentially commemorates the Holocaust, Israeli militarism, and the creation of the state of Israel,” the statement read.
“The sequencing of these holidays,” it argued, “was intentionally designed to conclude and obscure May 15, the day Palestinians mark the ongoing Nakba.” The tweet has garnered more than 7,700 likes.
Yesterday, the Israeli government ended its yearly cycle of state holidays that sequentially commemorates the Holocaust, Israeli militarism, and the creation of the state of Israel.
The sequencing of these holidays was intentionally designed to conclude and obscure May 15, the…
— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) May 14, 2024
However, critics quickly noted that Nakba Day — meant to commemorate the Palestinian “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” of the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 — was inaugurated about 35 years after Independence Day and the other major Israeli national holidays near it, making it impossible for the latter to be intentionally established to desecrate the former.
Yom Haatzmaut and Yom Hazikaron — Israel’s Independence Day and Memorial Day, respectively — were each established by law in 1963. Meanwhile, Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, was established in 1959.
In contrast, Nakba Day was officially established by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1998. However, local commemorations and protests were held for years before that.
The term “Nakba” was initially coined by Arab intellectual Constantin Zureiq in his 1948 book, The Meaning of the Nakba. He used the term to refer to the humiliation caused by many Arab armies losing to a small Jewish one in the 1948 war for Israel’s independence. Over time, however, it has come to refer to the fact that about 750,000 Palestinians became refugees as a result of the war, fleeing amid the Arab invasion.
At the same time, a similar number of Jews became refugees as they were expelled from countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
David May, research manager at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, rebuked JVP’s tweet, arguing, “Nakba Day was placed there specifically as a rejection of Jewish independence in their ancestral land. Its timing marks a continued rejection of the Jewish right to independence and self-rule that the Palestinians desire for themselves. So, the Palestinians placed their holiday around the Israeli ones, not the other way around.”
“A basic knowledge of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the thought process of Israelis,” he continued, “would have prevented a tweet assuming that everything Israel does is a callous attempt to erase Palestinians rather than an internal decision based on collective memory.”
“But JVP and their ilk see Israel as an irredeemable evil in a binary world composed of victims and oppressors,” he explained. “Everything they do stems from this basic perception.”
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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.
The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.
They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.
Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.
Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.
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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.
The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.
He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.
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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.
Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.
Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.
Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.
Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.
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