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Iraq Drone Attack Kills Two IDF Soldiers on Golan Heights

Sgt. Daniel Aviv Haim Sofer (left) and Cpl. Tal Dror were killed in a drone attack launched from Iraq, Oct. 4, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.

JNS.orgTwo Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and two dozen others were wounded by a drone attack launched from Iraq, the IDF said on Friday.

The slain soldiers were named as:

Sgt. Daniel Aviv Haim Sofer, 19, of the Golani Brigade’s 13th “Gideon” Infantry Battalion, from Ashkelon; and

Cpl. Tal Dror, 19, also of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, from Jerusalem.

Two explosive-laden drones were launched in the attack on Thursday morning; one was intercepted and the other hit a military base in the Golan Heights.

Last week, Israeli fighter jets intercepted a drone over the southern Golan Heights that had crossed the border from the east, in what was the fifth such incident in a few days.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iran-backed militia, took credit for the attack, claiming the target had been a base belonging to the Golani Brigade.

On Sunday, the IDF intercepted a drone fired towards Israel from the direction of the Red Sea. An Israeli Navy Sa’ar 4.5 missile boat downed the unmanned aerial vehicle “outside the country’s borders,” according to the military.

Air-raid sirens sounded in Eilat and surrounding areas. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed to have launched a drone at a “vital target” in the Red Sea resort city.

On Sept. 25, two Israelis were lightly wounded in a suicide drone attack on Eilat. The IDF stated that at least two explosive-laden drones had been launched at the Jewish state “from the east.”

On Sept. 16, Israeli Air Force fighter jets shot down a drone from Iraq that was approaching the Sea of Galilee. The lake is situated in the northeastern part of the country between the Golan Heights and the Galilee.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military named eight soldiers who were killed fighting the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Southern Lebanon.

The fallen soldiers were named as Capts. Eitan Itzhak Oster, Harel Etinger and Itai Ariel Giat; Sgts. 1st Class Noam Barzilay, Or Mantzur and Nazaar Itkin; and Staff Sgts. Almken Terefe and Ido Broyer.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his “deepest condolences to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon.”

“May God avenge them. May their memory be a blessing,” the prime minister said. “We’re in the heat of a grueling war against Iran’s axis of evil, aimed at destroying us. That will not happen because we shall stand together, and with God’s help, we shall emerge victorious together.”

The death toll among Israeli troops on all fronts since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre stands at 726, according to official military data.

Additionally, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in the Strip in May.

The post Iraq Drone Attack Kills Two IDF Soldiers on Golan Heights first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Vandals Strike Jewish Fraternity AEPi House at Temple University in Philadelphia

One of two possible suspects who twice vandalized the off-campus house of Alpha Epsilon Pi. Photo: Screenshot/Temple University Police

Anti-Jewish hate reared its head at Temple University in Philadelphia over the weekend, with a spree of vandalisms at the off-campus dwelling of the predominantly Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity.

“Vandalism and harassment are not viable forms of protest,” university president John Fry said in a statement on Monday. “Criminal behavior will not be tolerated, and we cannot allow it to be normalized on our campuses or within our community.”

He continued, “As law enforcement pursues its criminal investigation, the university will also launch its own thorough investigation. Any student found to be involved will face strict disciplinary action under the Student Conduct Code, up to and including expulsion …While incidents like this are deeply unsettling, they will not impact the collective resolve of our community to support Jewish life at Temple University and to respond decisively to antisemitism.”

On Monday, Temple University police released a series of images of the suspected culprits, who appear to be college-age men. One of them concealed his identity, while the other did not.

The first case occurred on Friday and involved graffiti painted on the AEPi residence, although Temple’s Department of Public Safety (DPS) did not elaborate on what was spray painted. Then on Sunday, an individual wrote “antisemitic graffiti” on the residence, according to DPS.

The phrase “Israel [equals] genocide” was reportedly written on the building one of the days.

Commenting on the two incidents of vandalism, the Philadelphia office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that anti-Zionist hate crimes do not advance the Palestinian cause.

“This is simply harassment of Jews,” the group said. “Thank you to President John Fry for condemning this criminal activity. We hope the investigation is quick and whoever responsible is held accountable.”

The AEPi fraternity has been targeted in four different acts of vandalism or trespassing since early May, The Temple News reported.

The latest vandalizing of the AEPi house was not the first of its kind on US college campuses this semester. Last month, a sukkah was vandalized at Simmons University, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The culprits graffitied “Gaza liberation sukkah” on the structure, which was built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

“Simmons condemns this antisemitic vandalism of a Jewish religious symbol on our campus. This unacceptable act is being actively investigated as a potential hate crime,” university president Lynn Perry Wooten said in a statement following the incident. “The safety and well-being of our community is our top priority. Speech and behavior that is threatening, harassing, or intimidating are not protected forms of expression and will not be tolerated.”

As The Algemeiner has previously reported, anti-Israel activity on college campuses has reached crisis levels in the year since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to a recent report by the ADL, higher education saw a “staggering” 477 percent increase in anti-Zionist activity involving assault, vandalism, and other phenomena during the 2023-2024 academic school year.

The report added that 10 campuses accounted for 16 percent of all incidents tracked by ADL researchers, with Columbia University and the University of Michigan combining for 90 anti-Israel incidents — 52 and 38 respectively. Harvard University, the University of California—Los Angeles, Rutgers University New Brunswick, Stanford University, Cornell University, and others filled out the rest of the top 10. Violence, the report said, was most common at universities in the state of California, where anti-Zionist activists punched a Jewish student for filming him at a protest.

“The antisemitic, anti-Zionist vitriol we’ve witnessed on campus is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in September, after the report’s release. “The anti-Israel movement’s relentless harassment, vandalism, intimidation, and violent physical assaults go way beyond the peaceful voicing of a political opinion. Administrators and faculty need to do much better this year to ensure a safe and truly inclusive environment for all students, regardless of religion, nationality, or political views, and they need to start now.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Vandals Strike Jewish Fraternity AEPi House at Temple University in Philadelphia first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli PM Netanyahu Fires Defense Minister Gallant: ‘Trust Has Been Broken’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv , Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: Abir Sultan/Pool via REUTERS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, citing a lack of trust as Israel continued its military operations against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Unfortunately, over the past months, the trust between me and the minister of defense has been broken,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “There were significant gaps regarding the management of the [military] campaign, and these gaps were accompanied by statements and actions that contradicted the decisions of the government.”

In a letter reported by Israel’s Channel 12, Netanyahu told Gallant that his dismissal would be effective 48 hours after delivery of the note. “I would like to thank you for your work as defense minister,” the premier wrote.

Netanyahu appointed Foreign Minister Israel Katz to succeed Gallant as defense minister, and Gideon Saar will become the new foreign minister.

The government shakeup came amid not only Israel’s ongoing military campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah but also the looming threat of another direct attack from the Islamist terror groups’ chief backer, Iran.

Last Sunday, Gallant said in remarks to a memorial ceremony in Jerusalem that Iran was no longer able to effectively use its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel.

The post Israeli PM Netanyahu Fires Defense Minister Gallant: ‘Trust Has Been Broken’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Three New Yorkers Charged With Hate Crimes for Antisemitic Vandalism of Homes of Brooklyn Museum Officials

A security guard stands in front as protest is held outside Brooklyn Museum on Sept. 20, 2024 over the police shooting of four people at a New York City subway station over an alleged $2.90 fare evasion. Photo: Laura Brett/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

A woman and two men in New York have been indicted on hate crimes charges for allegedly vandalizing the homes of officials from the Brooklyn Museum, including its Jewish executive director, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced on Monday. 

Taylor Pelton, 28, of Astoria, Queens; Samuel Seligson, 32, of Brooklyn; and Gabriel Schubiner, 36, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, were charged in a 25-count indictment in connection with the antisemitic incidents that took place in June in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The indictment includes charges such as making a terroristic threat as a hate crime, making a terroristic threat, third- and fourth-degree criminal mischief as a hate crime, third- and fourth-degree criminal mischief, making graffiti, possession of graffiti instruments, and fifth-degree conspiracy. Schubiner was arraigned on Monday and released without bail, and Seligson and Pelton are expected to be arraigned next week.

The defendants allegedly targeted executives of the Brooklyn art museum who had Jewish-sounding names, but only one of their victims was in fact Jewish — Executive Director Anne Pasternak. Gonzalez did not reveal the names of the victims, but it was previously reported that they included the museum’s President and Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Panicek-Trueblood, Board Treasurer Neil Simpkins, and Chairman of the Board of Directors Barbara Vogelstein. Panicek-Trueblood’s husband is Jewish.

“Acts of vandalism that target individuals in their own homes are a deeply disturbing violation meant to intimidate, terrorize, and instill fear,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “These defendants allegedly targeted museum board members with threats and antisemitic graffiti based on their perceived heritage. These actions are not protests; they are hate crimes, and we are deeply committed to holding accountable anyone who uses such unlawful tactics in Brooklyn.”

The three defendants allegedly committed their acts of vandalism during the early morning hours of June 12.

According to prosecutors, Pelton drove the defendants, and three unapprehended others, to the neighborhood of Boerum Hill in Brooklyn and from there, they were caught on surveillance video walking with black bags to Douglass Street, where a member of Brooklyn Museum’s board of directors lives. Schubiner allegedly painted over a video camera at the location, in an attempt to conceal the group’s identity, and the defendants then proceeded to deface the home with red paint and the words, “Brooklyn Museum, blood on your hands.”

The alleged assailants also left a banner that featured the victim’s name and claimed she had “blood on your hands, war crimes, funds genocide,” prosecutors claimed. The banner included several inverted red triangles, which is a symbol used by the terrorist organization Hamas in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets they plan to attack. A stencil found on the ground at the site had a fingerprint covered in red paint that belonged to Schubiner.

Pelton then allegedly drove the group in her car to Pasternak’s residence in another area of Brooklyn. A video camera was painted over again to hide their identity as the defendants defaced the entrance of Pasternak’s apartment building with red paint, including an anarchy symbol and red inverted triangles, prosecutors said. The assailants allegedly hung a banner that described Pasternak as a “White Supremacist Zionist” with red handprints and accused her of funding genocide. Gonzalez said the banners also had the words “Blood on your hands.”

The defendants then headed in Pelton’s car to Manhattan, where Schubiner and the unapprehended others were captured on surveillance footage spraying red paint on a building in Lenox Hill where Vogelstein lives, according to prosecutors. They allegedly painted her name, the red inverted triangles, and an anarchy symbol.

Shortly after the alleged hate crimes took place, an anonymous group claiming responsibility for the vandalism released a statement to Hyperallergic in which they cited the Brooklyn Museum’s “complicity in the Palestinian genocide” and ties that its board members have to weapon manufacturing and Israeli military interests, claims that museum officials have denied. The anonymous group said the vandalism was done in response to a heavily policed pro-Palestinian protest on May 31 at the museum, where dozens were arrested by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

“Our action is a retaliation against the museum’s direct connections to the networks that materially support the genocidal entity as well as its collaboration with the fascist NYPD,” the statement said.

Mass anti-Israel protests took place in late May outside the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country. Activists demanded that the institution divest from Israel and demonstrators from groups like the pro-Palestinian organization Within Our Lifetime hung a banner over the museum’s main entrance that called on the institution to “divest from genocide.” More than 30  protesters were reportedly arrested at the museum after occupying much of the lobby area, clashing with police inside and outside of the building, and defacing an outdoor sculpture with graffiti.

“There was damage to existing and newly installed artwork on our plaza,” a museum spokesperson said at the time, as reported by Reuters. “Protesters entered the building, and our public safety staff were physically and verbally harassed.”

The post Three New Yorkers Charged With Hate Crimes for Antisemitic Vandalism of Homes of Brooklyn Museum Officials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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