i24 News – Egypt on Friday informed the US of the impossibility of implementing President Donald Trump’s plan to evacuate the people of Gaza and confirms that it has a vision of its own for rebuilding Gaza without displacing the Palestinians, the Saudi outlet Al-Hadath reported on Friday.

The US leader, meanwhile, said there was “no rush” to implement his controversial plan.

The post Report: Egypt Says Trump’s Gaza Plan Cannot Be Implemented, Puts Forward Alternative first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Saturday handed over three Israeli hostages whose gaunt appearance shocked Israelis, and Israel began freeing dozens of Palestinians in the latest stage of a ceasefire aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

Ohad Ben Ami and Eli Sharabi, who were taken hostage from Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and Or Levy, who was abducted that day from the Nova music festival, were led onto a Hamas podium by gunmen.

The three men appeared thin, weak and pale, in worse condition than the 18 other hostages already freed under the truce agreed in January after 15 months of war.

“He looked like a skeleton, it was awful to see,” Ohad Ben Ami’s mother-in-law, Michal Cohen, told Channel 13 News as she watched the Hamas-directed handover ceremony, which included the hostages answering questions posed by a masked man as militants armed with automatic rifles stood on each side.

In another show of force by Hamas, which has paraded fighters during previous releases, dozens of its terrorists deployed in central Gaza as it handed hostages over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The hostages were then driven in ICRC cars to Israeli forces and into Israel, where they had tearful reunions with family members, and flown to hospitals. “We missed you so much,” the mother of Or Levy, Geula, said as she hugged her son.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the sight of the frail hostages was shocking and would be addressed.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog described the release ceremony as cynical and vicious. “This is what a crime against humanity looks like,” he said.

The Hostage Families Forum said the images of the hostages evoked images of survivors of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. “We have to get ALL THE HOSTAGES out of hell,” it said.

In exchange for the hostages’ release, Israel was freeing 183 Palestinian prisoners, some convicted of involvement in attacks that killed dozens of people, as well as 111 detained in Gaza during the war.

Cheering crowds greeted the buses as they arrived in Gaza, embracing the freed detainees, some of them weeping with joy and tearing prison-issued bracelets off their wrists.

Among those freed in Ramallah, in the West Bank, was Eyad Abu Shkaidem, sentenced to 18 life terms in Israel for masterminding suicide attacks in revenge for Israel’s 2004 assassinations of Hamas leaders.

“Today, I am reborn,” Shkaidem told reporters as the crowd cheered.

The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said six of the 42 released in the West Bank were in poor health and were taken to hospital. Some prisoners complained of ill-treatment. “The occupation humiliated us for over a year,” said Shkaidem.

PAINFUL RETURN

Some hostages face a painful return. Sharabi’s two teenage daughters and his British-born wife were slain in the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where one in 10 residents was killed.

Israel’s Channel 12 said Sharabi had not been told about their deaths and asked where they were when he arrived.

Levy will be reunited with his three-year-old son. His wife was killed in the attack.

Dr Hagar Mizrachi from Israel’s Ichilov Hospital said the hostages exhibited severe weight loss and malnutrition.

Sixteen Israeli and five Thai hostages have been released so far and 583 Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been freed.

The first 42-day phase of the ceasefire, mediated by Washington, Cairo and Doha, has largely held since it took effect on January 19.

Netanyahu sent a delegation for talks in Doha on Saturday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported, citing a political source.

Concern the deal might collapse before all remaining 76 hostages are free has grown since President Donald Trump’s surprise call for Palestinians to be moved from Gaza and for the enclave to be handed to the United States and developed into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Arab states and Palestinian groups have rejected Trump’s proposal, which critics said would amount to ethnic cleansing. Hamas said on Saturday its armed display at the hostage handover showed it could not be excluded from post-war Gaza arrangements.

Netanyahu welcomed Trump’s intervention and his defense minister has ordered the military to make plans to allow Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza to do so.

Under the ceasefire deal, 33 Israeli children, women and sick, wounded and older men are to be released during the first stage in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Negotiations on a second phase began this week aimed at returning the remaining hostages and agreeing on a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in preparation for a final end to the war.

Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 as hostages in the October 7, 2023 attack.

The post Hamas Frees Three Hostages, Israel Begins Releasing Palestinians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A former senior employee of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was caught on camera launching a profane and antisemitic tirade at Jewish men in New York City in a viral video posted to social media on Thursday.

Noora Shalash, who previously worked as the director of government affairs for CAIR’s Kentucky branch, was confronted by an individual in an office building after allegedly harassing a “visibly Jewish man.” After being grilled for her alleged conduct, Shalash then went on an antisemitic diatribe.

“F—k the Jew. F—k the Zionist,” Shalash said.

Shalash then said that she “loves Jesus” and claimed Jews “dishonor the Virgin Mary and call her a ‘whore.’” She also called the man recording the video a “b—ch” and swiped her hand at his cellphone. A security guard intervened and physically pulled Shalash away while she appeared to continue attempting to assault the man.

“This is what Jews have to deal with in New York City,” the man said.

Midtown Manhattan – crazed antisemite assaults a visible Jew and gets arrested.

“F*ck the Jew … f*ck the Zionists” she says confidently. pic.twitter.com/EdmTR2UzWg

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 7, 2025

The video, which was obtained and posted on X/Twitter by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism, quickly went viral on social media, gaining nearly 600,000 views within 16 hours.

CAIR National responded to the viral incident, claiming that Shalash had not been employed by the organization for five years and currently has “no other role at our civil rights group.”

“We condemn and reject the antisemitic comments in the video, just as we condemn and reject the anti-Palestinian racism and anti-Muslim hate,” the organization added.

A picture circulated on social media showing CAIR identifying Shalash as a senior official as of October 2020.

PHOTO: CAIR-KY met with #Kentucky Senate Pres Robert Stivers. Representing CAIR-KY were CAIR-KY Board members: Dr. Salah Shakir, Dr. Nadia Rasheed, Dr. Dina Rasheed, Noora Shalash (CAIR-KY Dir Gov Affairs) Sen. Reginald Thomas attended @kysenatepres @BGPolitics @tweet2waheedah pic.twitter.com/YtYGH7z8V3

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 1, 2020

CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, the organization was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”

CAIR leaders have also found themselves embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago last November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”

The post ‘F—k the Jew, F—k the Zionist’: Former CAIR Director Launches Antisemitic Tirade in Manhattan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.