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French Interior Minister Refuses to Cancel Israel-France Soccer Match After Israeli Fans Attacked in Amsterdam
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau attends a press conference at the Bouches-du-Rhone prefecture in Marseille, France, Nov. 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Manon Cruz
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on Friday that he will not call off an Israel-France soccer match set to take place next week in Paris, explaining that it would be giving in to antisemitism following the violent attacks Israeli soccer fans experienced in Amsterdam late Thursday night and early Friday morning.
“Some are calling for the France-Israel match to be relocated. I do not accept this,” Retailleau wrote in a post on X. “France is not backing down because that would amount to giving up in the face of threats of violence and antisemitism.” He added that at his request, Paris Prefect of Police Laurent Nuñez “is taking the necessary security measures” to make sure the upcoming Nations’ League match on Nov. 14 at Stade de France will take place as scheduled.
The French Football Federation has been facing pressure from pro-Palestinian activists to cancel the Israel vs. France soccer match next week, but FFF leaders said the game will take place as planned, with heightened security. Paris police reportedly said it would deploy over 2,000 officers around the Stade de France to maintain order at the match.
Retailleau also met with the heads of the FFF and Qatari-owned French soccer team PSG on Friday morning, according to Reuters. The meeting is likely to focus on the massive “Free Palestine” banner that was raised in the stands at a UEFA Champions League match on Wednesday between PSG and their Spanish rivals Atletico Madrid.
Israel said it would send two planes to Amsterdam to help fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv get back home after they faced violent overnight attacks in the streets of Amsterdam from anti-Israel and antisemitic gangs of men. The Israeli airlines El Al and Arkia said it will coordinate five flights to Amsterdam and Brussels to help victims of the attack leave The Netherlands.
Some 3,000 Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were reportedly in Amsterdam to watch the team’s UEFA Europa League match on Thursday night against the Dutch team Ajax, which won the game 5-0. The Israeli fans were attacked before and after the match, and videos circulating on social media showed them being beaten, kicked, chased down the street with knives and sticks, and run over by cars. In multiple incidents, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were forced by their attackers to say “Free Palestine,” and attackers yelled antisemitic and anti-Israel slurs at their victims.
Amsterdam officials banned demonstrations through the weekend and gave police emergency stop-and-search powers in response to the violent attacks, according to Reuters. Mayor Femke Halsema called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he was “horrified by the antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens.” He added that he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and assured him that “the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted.”
Police said 62 suspects had been detained after the game and 10 remained in custody on Friday.
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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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