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Filmmakers Behind Israel’s 2024 Oscar Submission Focus New Film on All-Female IDF Tank Unit That Battled Hamas
A female Israeli soldier. Photo: Reuters / IDF.
The filmmaking team behind Israel’s submission to the best international film category of the 2024 Academy Awards is working on a movie inspired by the true story of an all-female Israel Defense Force (IDF) tank unit that engaged in combat against Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 in southern Israel.
Jewish-Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi, whose comedic drama Seven Blessings will compete in this year’s Oscars, is directing the film, and writer-actress Eleanor Sela, who wrote and starred in Seven Blessings, is writing the script, according to Deadline. The film will be produced by Ehud Bleiberg’s Los Angeles-based Bleiberg Entertainment (In the Land of Saints, The Band’s Visit) and Ronen Ben Tal, who also worked on Seven Blessings. Filming is expected to begin in fall 2024.
The female tank unit that defended Israel against the Hamas massacre that took place on Oct. 7 marked the first time in history that an all-female armored unit took part in combat, Deadline reported. The filmmakers told the publication they will also highlight in their new film the unit’s founding and how the women soldiers had to fight to be respected by male soldiers in the IDF, who sometimes discriminated against the female unit.
“Amidst the inconceivable stories of bravery since October 7, this is one of the exceptional and heroic ones,” Menahemi and Sela said in a joint statement. “It shows what happens when women take matters into their own hands after men cast doubt on their right and ability to fight. These young women made history, twice.”
The IDF said in November that a group of female tank operators, young women in their early 20s from the Paran Brigade who fought in active battle against Hamas on Oct. 7, killed roughly 50 terrorists during 17 hours of continuous combat and helped to clear out terrorists from the kibbutz of Holit. Meanwhile, Israeli Caracal commander Lt.-Col. Or Ben-Yehuda told The Jerusalem Post that her battalion, made up of mostly female soldiers, killed around 100 Hamas terrorists during the terror group’s deadly rampage on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were murdered and 240 taken as hostages to Gaza.
The post Filmmakers Behind Israel’s 2024 Oscar Submission Focus New Film on All-Female IDF Tank Unit That Battled Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions
ILLUSTRATIVE: The Iranian flag waves in front of the IAEA headquarters before the beginning of a board of governors meeting, in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Iran’s currency fell on Saturday to a new all-time low against the US dollar after the country’s supreme leader rejected talks with the United States and President Donald Trump moved to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran.
The rial plunged to 892,500 to the dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared with 869,500 rials on Friday, according to the foreign exchange website alanchand.com. The bazar360.com website said the dollar was sold for 883,100 rials. Asr-e-no website reported the dollar trading at 891,000 rials.
Facing an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has been gaining against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials at the time of Trump’s re-election in November amid concerns that Trump would re-impose his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
The post Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media
Lebanon’s army chief Joseph Aoun walks after being elected as the country’s president at the parliament building in Beirut, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
i24 News – A photo showing US President Donald Trump’s deputy Middle East envoy donning a ring embellished with the Star of David to a meeting with Lebanon’s leader triggered outrage in Arabic social and broadcast media.
As Morgan Ortagus, who is Jewish, shook hands with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, her Star of David ring was visible in the frame, sparking accusations such as her being “more Zionist than her predecessors.”
Her direct superior, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, is likewise Jewish-American, as is his predecessor Amos Hochstein, who was born in Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ortagus is the first senior Trump admin official to visit Lebanon amid the fragile ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite jihadists of Hezbollah.
The post US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing
Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope
i24 News – Anti-Israeli activists in Britain applied for a permit to stage a demonstration through London on the morning of October 7, 2023, as Gazan jihadists were rampaging through southern Israel and slaughtering civilians, the Daily Telegraph reported.
At 12:50 PM, as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was still ongoing, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) notified the Metropolitan Police that they intended to hold a rally the following week.
Reports and videos of the Hamas-led onslaught began appearing on social media, and Israeli and then international broadcast media, several hours earlier.
“The Met was contacted on Saturday Oct 7 at approximately 12.50pm via telephone call and informed of the intention to protest,” a police spokesman was quoted by the Telegraph as saying. “The Met committed this to our systems on the same day and are satisfied being contacted by telephone was a sufficient means in which to notify the MPS as the event was taking place seven days after notification.”
The group’s spokesperson defended the move, telling the Telegraph it was “clear” as early as Saturday noon that “the Israeli attacks on Gaza would be of an indiscriminate violence we had not witnessed before, and that 2.3 million people in Gaza – more than 50 percent of them children – were at severe risk.”
The post UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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