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Investigation underway after Queens high school students reportedly riot over a teacher’s support for Israel
(New York Jewish Week) — City officials are investigating after students at a Queens high school reportedly rioted over a teacher’s participation in a pro-Israel rally.
“The vile show of antisemitism at Hillcrest High School was motivated by ignorance-fueled hatred, plain and simple, and it will not be tolerated in any of our schools, let alone anywhere else in our city. We are better than this,” Mayor Eric Adams tweeted on Saturday.
The incident at the school took place Nov. 20 and broke into public view over the weekend after TikTok videos showing violence at the school went viral.
“POV: Hillcrest high school had a riot because a Health teacher was supporting Israel,” read the caption on one video.
“POV: your school had 1 lockdown multiple fights and riots js bc of a teacher that choose to wake up one day and choose support against Zionism and occupation,” read the caption on another video that showed students waving Palestinian flags in the halls, damage to the school and a picture of a teacher at a pro-Israel rally. Both videos are no longer available on TikTok.
The scene at Hillcrest High School in Queens as a Jewish teacher hid in her locked office for hours while students demanded she be fired for attending a pro-Israel rally. pic.twitter.com/jzVCEofvJS
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 25, 2023
During the two-hour incident, the students reportedly protested outside the teacher’s classroom, preventing her from leaving until she could be escorted by the police, according to a report in the New York Post.
“I have worked hard to be supportive of our entire student body and an advocate for our community, and was shaken to my core by the calls to violence against me that occurred online and outside my classroom last week,” the teacher told the newspaper, which shielded her identity for her safety. She added in her statement, “It’s my hope in the days ahead we can find a way to have meaningful discussions about challenging topics with respect for each other’s diverse perspectives and shared humanity.”
Hillcrest, which is located in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, enrolls about 2,400 students. Adams said a city education department initiative that pairs schools with community groups, Project Pivot, would begin working with students there this week “to ensure they understand why this behavior was unacceptable.”
Schools Chancellor David Banks, himself a Hillcrest graduate, tweeted on Sunday that the education department was “aware of the completely unacceptable incident that occurred at Hillcrest High School last week” and had already taken steps to shore up safety practices at the school. He also said the outside groups that the department is recruiting to intervene at Hillcrest “will play a crucial role in contributing to the broader mission of de-escalation and creating teachable moments from this challenging situation.”
A city council member representing the school’s area of Queens called for Hillcrest to be shut down while there’s an investigation into the riot, as well as and a different incident that took place the previous week in which four students were reportedly arrested after allegedly attacking a safety officer at the school.
“It’s clear that the administration of Hillcrest is totally compromised and either unwilling or unable to do what’s necessary to provide a safe environment to their students or their faculty,” the council member, Vickie Palladino, tweeted on Sunday.
The incident at Hillcrest comes amid foment by some New York City public school students over Israel’s war in Gaza, which began Oct. 7 after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking hundreds of hostages. Earlier this month, hundreds of students joined a citywide rally, supported by a number of progressive educator groups, following a student walkout to support the Palestinians.
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The post Investigation underway after Queens high school students reportedly riot over a teacher’s support for Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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