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Israel Clinches Three Olympic Medals in One Day, Including First Gold, for Total of Six Medals in Paris

Paris 2024 Olympics – Sailing – Men’s Windsurfing Final – Marseille Marina, Marseille, France – August 03, 2024. Tom Reuveny of Israel celebrates after winning gold. Photo: Reuters/Andrew Boyers

Israel’s Olympic delegation has made their country proud by winning three medals on Saturday in the 2024 Olympic Games, including on by Israeli windsurfer Tom Reuveny who clinched his home country’s first gold medal in Paris.

Reuveny, 24, secured Israel’s first ever Olympic gold medal in men’s windsurfing and fourth gold medal overall in the country’s Olympic history. Second place went to Australia’s Grae Morris and the bronze medal was given to Luuc van Opzeeland from the Netherlands.

“It feels pretty amazing. It hasn’t sunk yet,” Reuveny said after his historic win. “I need some time to understand what just happened today but I’m pretty happy of my performance this week and I’m super proud of myself.”

Standing on the podium to receive his gold medal, it was the first time that Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” was played at the Paris Olympics. The coach of the Israeli men’s windsurfing team is Olympic gold medalist Gal Fridman, who won Israel’s first gold medal 20 years ago at the Olympic Games in Athens.

Reuveny’s brother is currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as Israel wages its war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip who orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel. He said winning an Olympic gold means far more to him now amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. “My brother has been a combat soldier since the war began … it’s much bigger than me to win this event and it feels amazing,” he told Reuters.

“It was so hard to go training while everyone else was crying over lost people, dead people,” he added. “It’s been so hard and I still had to put my head down and keep training and its all for this moment.”

Two more Israeli athletes won Olympic medals on Saturday, including Sharon Kantor, 21, who took home a silver in women’s windsurfing, shortly before Reuveny’s race. Reuveny and Kantor were originally scheduled to compete in the finals on Friday, but their races were postponed due to the weather. Kantor came in second place to Marta Maggetti from Italy and the bronze medal was awarded to Emma Wilson from Great Britain.

“We are in a tough year and a tough position … in this situation to represent Israel is a big honor for everyone and we all understand our roles: to give a bit of joy,” said Eli Zuckerman, head coach of Israel’s Olympic sailing team, according to Reuters. “I’m very happy that we succeeded,” he added. “I think the athletes are also very happy and very proud to do it while our country is in such a complicated situation.”

Kantor took to Instagram to share some of the emotions she felt after her win on Saturday.

“I’m writing it with tears in my eyes,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “This campaign was a roller coaster for me. I feel like I am 12 years old and that maybe I do not understand what history was made yesterday, especially in this horrible moment in Israel. Thank you for every message, every hug, every smile. The fans that were on the shore alongside the love and support from Home gave me the best feeling to go into the water.” She concluded the post by writing in Hebrew “Am Israel Chai” (“Long Live Israel”).

Israel has previously won a total of three medals in windsurfing — all achieved by the coaches of this year’s team in the Paris Olympics. Kantor’s coach won a bronze at the Olympics in 2008.

Also on Saturday, Ukrainian-Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat, 27, won a silver in artistic gymnastics in the men’s floor exercise. Dolgopyat, who won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, became the first Israeli to win a medal in back-to-back Olympics when he took home the silver on Saturday by scoring 14.966 in his performance. The gold medal went to Filipino gymnast Carlos Edriel Yulo, who had a score of 15.

Israel had a three-day winning streak in the Paris Olympics that began on Thursday, when Peter Paltchik won a bronze medal in men’s judo and Inbar Lanir won a silver in women’s judo. On Friday night, Israeli judoka Raz Hershko won silver after losing 1-0 to Brazil’s Beatriz Souza in the final match of the women’s over 78-kg category.

Israel has won 19 Olympic medals in its history, including six so far in this year’s Olympic Games, making it already Israel’s best performance in Olympic history.

The post Israel Clinches Three Olympic Medals in One Day, Including First Gold, for Total of Six Medals in Paris first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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IDF Finds Terror Tunnel Next to Hospital in Samaria

Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.

JNS.orgIsraeli forces discovered a tunnel during a counterterror operation in the Tulkarem camp in the West Bank, the IDF said on Friday.

According to the Israeli military, the underground complex was located adjacent to a hospital in the camp, situated north of the city of the same name, and contained an entrance but no exit, as it was still under construction.

“The forces are continuing to investigate the complex and will dismantle it,” the IDF added.

While Hamas built a vast terror tunnel network in the Gaza Strip over many years that the Israeli army has been working to dismantle since war started on Oct. 7, these types of tunnels are rare in the West Bank, where the IDF regularly operates to locate and destroy terrorist infrastructure.

The tunnel was found as the IDF restarted its major operation in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley on Sept. 10, which has been dubbed “Summer Camps” and was initially launched on Aug. 28.

Since the operation resumed, the IDF has killed more than 10 armed terrorists in ground and aerial attacks, including four in the areas of Tulkarem and Nur Shams, the army said. Three of the latter terrorists were killed in an aerial strike on Sept. 11, and the fourth in close-quarters combat.

One of the three killed in the aerial strike was named by the IDF as Muhammad Abu Ataya. He was suspected of killing Master Sgt. (res.) Maxim Rizkov, 30, from Beersheva, of the Israel Border Police’s Yamas undercover unit, on Oct. 18, 2023.

In addition, the IDF said that it hit another 15 terrorists during the operation, without specifying whether they were wounded or killed or how they were attacked.

During a 48-hour counterterrorism operation in the areas of Tubas, Tamun and Far’ar, Israeli forces killed a terrorist throwing explosive devices during exchanges of fire. The forces also located a vehicle rigged with explosives. Inside, they found explosive devices and a long-range detonation system that was dismantled.

In all the areas of activity, Israeli forces seized large amounts of weapons, including sniper rifles, two M-16s, handguns and additional weaponry.

In Tulkarem, forces located and dismantled four bomb manufacturing laboratories and four operational communications centers equipped with cameras. Additionally, a machine used to manufacture weapons, within which weapon parts were found, and many IEDs in the area were dismantled.

Furthermore, five armed terrorists were killed by an aircraft in Tubas.

The post IDF Finds Terror Tunnel Next to Hospital in Samaria first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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France: Antisemitic Tag at Memorial for Murdered Jewish Women

A postcard campaign calling for justice for Sarah Halimi addressed to French President Emmanuel Macron. Photo: courtesy of Israelite Consistoire of Haut-Rhin

JNS.orgA memorial garden in Nogent-sur-Marne, France, dedicated to two victims of gruesome antisemitic murders in Paris in 2017 and 2018, respectively, was defaced with a swastika.

The city mayor, Jacques Martin, strongly condemned the act, describing it as “vandalism” and stating that “hatred has no place in Nogent.”

The municipality quickly removed the antisemitic tag and made available to investigators CCTV recordings of the area.

The garden, inaugurated in November 2022, is of particular importance to the community.

Sarah Halimi, born in Nogent-sur-Marne in November 1951, spent some 30 years of her life there as a nursery director before her tragic murder in Paris.

The mayor stressed that, until now, Nogent-sur-Marne had been spared by the upsurge in antisemitism seen nationwide in recent months.

He said he is determined not to let such behavior take root in his city, declaring that ignorance and hatred would not be tolerated. He affirmed the town’s determination to preserve the memory of Sarah Halimi and Mireille Knoll, refusing to see them “murdered a second time.”

In April 2021, the French Supreme Court ruled that Halimi’s murderer was criminally irresponsible. Twenty-five thousand people gathered across France on April 25, 2021, at the call of citizens’ groups and representatives of the Jewish community, to protest the lack of a trial following the murder.

Halimi, 65, was beaten to death in her Paris apartment before being defenestrated by her 27-year-old neighbor, to cries of “Allah Akbar” (“God is the greatest” in Arabic).

Mireille Knoll, who had fled Paris in 1942 to escape the Vel d’Hiv roundup, was stabbed 11 times and her body burned.

Her two killers were convicted in 2021—one was acquitted of murder but sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for theft, and the other was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 22-year security period for murder, with the aggravating circumstance that the victim belonged to the Jewish community.

The post France: Antisemitic Tag at Memorial for Murdered Jewish Women first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Man Who Set Himself Afire in Boston Reportedly Was Anti-Israel Protester

Members of UMass Boston’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine surround, shove and hurl epithets at CAMERA researcher Dexter Van Zile outside the ADL office in the city. June 24, 2021. Source: X

JNS.orgA man set himself ablaze in downtown Boston, not far from the Boylston Street entrance to the Public Garden shortly after 8 p.m. on Wednesday.

It wasn’t clear what the man’s motives were, but the incident occurred at 19 Columbus Avenue, according to a report that the Boston Police Department provided to JNS. That address is in the vicinity of the Consulate General of Israel to New England.

The man was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital with “severe burn wounds,” per the police report. The report stated that the incident wasn’t a suspected hate crime.

Video that circulated on social media purported to be from the man. In the video, a man who identified himself as Matt Nelson said that he would engage in “an extreme act of protest,” and that “we are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

The man also spoke in the video of everyone being “slaves to capitalism and the military industrial complex,” and said that Washington must stop supporting the Jewish state and must back the (proposed) International Criminal Court indictment against Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Free Palestine,” the man in the video added. (JNS sought comment from the Israeli consulate.)

A Boston Globe staffer with the same name as the man in the video posted that some had mistaken him for the man in the video.

The post Man Who Set Himself Afire in Boston Reportedly Was Anti-Israel Protester first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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