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Dueling activists clash at public Orthodox Yom Kippur service in Tel Aviv

(JTA) — Multiple dimensions of Israel’s ongoing civil strife came to a head on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, as secular activists shut down a public Orthodox Yom Kippur service in the center of Tel Aviv that had been barred by the Supreme Court.

On Yom Kippur and in the hours afterward, Israeli social media accounts filled with videos of Orthodox worshippers and secular protesters shouting epithets at each other — including several instances, from both sides, of the word “Nazi.” A far-right event is planned in the same space on Thursday, promising further fighting, and Israel’s most senior politicians have released dueling statements about the clash.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog lamented that the country appears to be torn apart again half a century after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

“I know that I speak for the absolute majority of Israeli citizens when I express deep sorrow and shock at the sight of our own people fighting one another on a day that has always been a symbol of unity,” Herzog said at a memorial ceremony for the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, by contrast, took a side in the dispute, squarely blaming “extremists on the left” for the disturbance. And his political opponents took the opposite view: Benny Gantz, a centrist leader, called Netanyahu “the biggest hatemonger,” while Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai blamed the incident on “religious and messianic extremists [who] trampled on a court decision.”

The fighting surrounded an Orthodox Kol Nidre service on Sunday evening in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square — a religious event that has taken place annually for several years in the heart of Israel’s largely secular metropolis. This year, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the organizers of the service could not erect a divider to separate between men and women — known as a mechitzah — in a public square.

But the organizing group, known as Rosh Yehudi, defied the order and proceeded with the prayer service anyway, setting up a makeshift divider made of Israeli flags. Secular protesters — including many from the mass protest movement that has mounted weekly demonstrations against the right-wing government all year — also showed up to rally against the event. The protesters chanted “Shame,” a cry that has become a mainstay of the antigovernment protests, and the prayer service came to a halt. A similar clash, with a similar result, occurred on Monday.

The incident has become a Rorschach test in Israel, which has grown deeply divided over Netanyahu’s effort to weaken the Supreme Court and has also erupted recently over increasing efforts to impose Orthodox standards of dress and conduct on women in public spaces. The Yom Kippur event was a confluence of the two: a moment when an Orthodox group ignored a Supreme Court decision and established a gender-segregated space in the central square of a largely non-Orthodox city.

For Netanyahu and others on the right, the incident is further evidence that Israel’s Supreme Court functions as a left-wing activist body that is out of touch with Israel’s population, and that the protest movement has resorted to violent tactics in its antipathy toward traditionally observant Jews.

“The Jewish people wanted to unite on Yom Kippur to ask for forgiveness, atonement and unity among us,” Netanyahu posted. “To our astonishment, in the Jewish state of all places, on the holiest day for the Jewish people, left-wing protesters disturbed Jews in their moment of prayer. It seems there are no boundaries, norms or limits to the hate of the left-wing extremists. I, like most Israeli citizens, reject that. There’s no place for such violent conduct among us.”

For Netanyahu’s opponents, by contrast, Sunday’s scuffle was a moment that demonstrated what his government is trying to achieve: a state where court orders carry no force, and where exclusionary religious practices will be imposed on formerly secular public spaces. A flier that was taped to the center of Dizengoff Square admonished visitors to respect the area’s secular culture, in an imitation of fliers in Orthodox neighborhoods warning visitors to adhere to standards of modest dress.

In the past, “no one sought to coerce their form of Judaism on the other,” Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, said in a statement. “Until messianic, racist cohorts came here, who are trying to coerce their version of Judaism upon us.”

The fight appears to be far from over. On Tuesday, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, announced that he and other activists from his Jewish Power party will come to Dizengoff Square to hold another Orthodox prayer service. In his statement, he issued an open challenge to the city’s secular protesters.

“I and other members of Jewish Power will come to the same place on this coming Thursday to pray the evening service,” he posted. “Let’s see you try to kick us out.”

Gilad Kariv, an opposition lawmaker and Reform rabbi, appeared to take up the challenge, likening Ben-Gvir to the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, a former mentor of the far-right minister.

“Just as we stood against his spiritual father Meir Kahane 35 years ago every time he tried to speak in Tel Aviv, so we will stand against him,” Kariv wrote.


The post Dueling activists clash at public Orthodox Yom Kippur service in Tel Aviv appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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