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Ford Motor Says X Account Was ‘Compromised’ by Anti-Israel Hackers Who Posted ‘Free Palestine’
Ford vehicles are displayed at the New York International Auto Show Press Preview, in Manhattan, New York City, US, March 27, 2024. Photo: Reuters/David Dee Delgado/
The Ford Motor Company said on Monday that its official account on X was “briefly compromised” by hackers who posted a series of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian messages, including one that called Israel a “terrorist state.”
“Our X account was briefly compromised and three posts were made that were not authorized or posted by Ford,” the company said in a statement shared on its X account. The American automobile manufacturer added that the posts “do not represent the views of [the] Ford Motor Company” and that together with X, the company is investigating the breach of its social media account.
The posts, which have since been deleted, included messages that said, “Israel is a terrorist state,” “Free Palestine” and “ALL EYES ON GAZA.” Hundreds of users on X reposted the messages and thousands “liked” them before they were removed. Many users on X noticed that Ford’s account had been hacked and took screenshots of the posts before they were deleted, including US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who said Ford’s account “must have been hacked by the Free Palestine movement.”
Ford Motor Company must have been hacked by the Free Palestine movement. pic.twitter.com/4VOk1nPy0n
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) December 30, 2024
Several users on X replied to Ford Motor’s statement by expressing frustration at the company’s lack of apology. Rabbi Samuel Stern, who co-chairs the Kansas State Holocaust Commemoration, asked, “I wonder if the unauthorized posts targeted anyone else if you would have apologized?”
“Companies founded by a notorious Antisemite and headquartered in Dearborn Michigan should really come up with a better apology to the Jewish community than this one,” said Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District in Orange County, New York.
In 2023, Dearborn, Michigan, was the largest city in the US with an Arab-American majority, according to the University of Michigan.
The company’s founder, the late Henry Ford, publicly expressed antisemitic views and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. A close friend once recalled Ford attributing “all evil to Jews or to the Jewish capitalists,” and said he told others: “The Jews caused the war, the Jews caused the outbreak of thieving and robbery all over the country, the Jews caused the inefficiency of the navy.”
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
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