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‘I Wouldn’t Want to Be Anywhere Else’: Israelis Celebrate Hanukkah Amidst War with Hamas
Then-Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat attending a Hanukkah event at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Dec. 3, 2018. Photo: Aharon Krohn/Flash90.
Hanukkah is in full force in Israel and citizens are once again plagued with a holiday full of bumper to bumper traffic in a country that feels smaller than ever amidst the raging war with Hamas.
The extended holidays in Israel, whether it be Passover in the Spring, Sukkot in the Fall, or Hanukkah in the winter, all have two things in common; joy and traffic. The phenomenon is well documented and loathed by Israelis right and left, religious and secular, all who are forced to sit in their cars for hours on end for what could normally be short trips.
One Israeli, Tamar, described the traffic as the worst she can remember. She recounted during the holiday sitting in traffic for more than an hour at the entrance to a major highway, not moving for most of the time. “I drive the route every day, and the road is normally a minute or two prior to entering the highway… I thought I was going crazy from sitting for so long,” she said.
She said “traffic during the holidays is always bad, but this year feels different.”
The main reason, typically, for the congestion on the roads is first and foremost due to the fact that all primary and secondary schools throughout the country are closed down for the week to allow for family activities across the country. In a typical year, families will explore the nature of the north, south, and central of the country – enjoying hotels or camping in the outdoors. Others will take the time to travel abroad.
This year, though, the Hanukkah break is different due to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And due to the war, Israelis like Tamar are saying the traffic is the worse it has even been.
This is due to three main reasons. First of all, hardly any Israelis are traveling overseas during the holiday time. Travel warnings to most countries exist as per the country’s Foreign Ministry due to high risk of attacks against Israelis abroad and antisemitism.
Second, the north and the south of the country are off limits to those not currently serving in the army. The south is an active war with rocket sirens blasting daily, and in the north Hezbollah is also firing rockets and the IDF has established a security zone where civilians cannot enter. This means that Israelis are stuck hovering in the center.
Finally, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been uprooted from their homes due to the war and are staying in hotels across Israel, including many tens of thousands in the center. This also means that hotels that families would otherwise stay out are occupied by those currently living in the hotels.
With all of this compounded, Israelis are experiencing some of the worst traffic they have ever seen, as everyone is cramming to visit the same places and travel the same roads.
“This is the price we have to pay in Israel, but I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else for the holidays,” Tamar concluded.
The post ‘I Wouldn’t Want to Be Anywhere Else’: Israelis Celebrate Hanukkah Amidst War with Hamas 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.