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Gal Gadot Was Not Allowed to Wear Hostage Pin to Golden Globes, Rep Says
Gal Gadot at the 82nd Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. Photo: Dan MacMedan-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
Israeli actress Gal Gadot was forbidden from wearing to the 82nd Golden Globes on Sunday night a pin that would draw awareness to the 100 hostages who are still held captive by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip after more than 450 days, a representative for the “Wonder Woman” star told Israeli media this week.
Gadot, 39, presented at the award ceremony in Beverly Hills wearing a custom black silk Giorgio Armani Privé long sleeve gown that featured an asymmetrical cut out and an oversized pearl detail. She styled the gown with earrings from the 2024 Tiffany & Co. Blue Book Céleste Collection, a Tiffany & Co. Archives bracelet, a Jean Schlumberger by Tiffany Two Bees ring, and another yellow sapphire ring.
Many pro-Israel supporters on social media were quick to criticize her for not wearing to the Golden Globes a yellow ribbon pin, which symbolizes solidarity with the hostages abducted on Oct. 7, 2023, and calls for their return home. However, a representative for the actress explained that the mother of four was not allowed to wear such a pin.
“Gal could not wear the hostage pin because she is presenting an award and there are rules,” the representative said, as quoted by Ynet. “She was tormented and therefore published the [Instagram] post calling for the release of the hostages before the ceremony. She thought of a creative solution together with her managers — and wore a yellow ring. It was important to her to abide by the rules and also to remember the hostages.”
The representative referred to an Instagram post that Gadot published before the start of the Golden Globes about 20-year-old Israeli hostage Liri Albag, who was featured in a video that Hamas released on Saturday. Gadot wrote a message to her 108 million Instagram followers about Albag and the other 99 hostages still held captive by the terrorist organization. She shared pictures of the hostages, including a screenshot of Albag from the new Hamas video, and additionally posted an image that featured a yellow ribbon and the message “#BringThemHomeNow.”
“While I prepare for a festival and joyous evening, my heart is heavy, and my soul aches knowing the hostages are still there [in Gaza],” Gadot wrote. “Every day that passes without an agreement puts their lives in greater danger. I can’t stop thinking about the families, waiting for them, counting the hours, the minutes, clinging to hope. They must come home. We all deserve to see them return, alive. Bring them home now.”
Gadot has four daughters with her husband, Jaron Varsano. She recently shared on social media that when she was pregnant with her forth daughter Ori, who was born in 2024, she was diagnosed with a blood clot in the brain and had to to undergo emergency surgery to treat it.
The post Gal Gadot Was Not Allowed to Wear Hostage Pin to Golden Globes, Rep Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.