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Israeli Basketball Team Wins EuroCup Game in Spain Despite ‘High’ Risk Anti-Israel Protest, Flag Burning
Hapoel Shlomo Tel Aviv vs Gran Canaria on Jan. 2, 2025, in a EuroCup match at the Gran Canaria Arena located in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain. Photo: YouTube screenshot
The Israeli basketball team Hapoel Tel Aviv won a round 13 EuroCup match in Spain’s Canary Islands on Thursday, despite a scheduled anti-Israel demonstration outside of the stadium that Israel warned supporters about and the burning of an Israeli flag in protest of the game.
Under head coach Dimitris Itoudis, Hapoel Tel Aviv won an 87-64 victory in a matchup against their Spanish rivals, Gran Canaria, at the Gran Canaria Arena in Las Palmas. The Israeli team secured a lead in the first half 51-25 and ended the game with an 8-5 record. Gran Canaria played its worst first half ever by scoring a mere 26 points. The Spanish team lost its second straight game for a 9-4 record and also dropped to 5-2 in home games.
Earlier this week, activists from the pro-Palestinian group Canarias Insumisa burned an Israeli flag outside of the stadium in opposition to Israel’s military actions during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and the Jewish state’s participation in the EuroCup game.
Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism published a “high” risk level alert about two Spanish far-left, pro-Palestinian groups promoting an anti-Israel demonstration on Thursday outside the Gran Canaria Arena in protest of the basketball game. The groups included Canarias Insumisa and Partido Comunista del Pueblo Canario, which is also known as the Communist Party of the Canarian People (PCPC).
The Israeli ministry said the two groups promoted the protest against Hapeol Tel Aviv on social media, and it was shared by other Spanish far-left, anti-Israel groups and individuals. Many of the same anti-Israel activists expressed support on social media for the flag burning that Canarias Insumisa organized earlier in the week, including Spanish far-left journalist Javier Espinosa.
“While the protest on January 2, which was shared with a large following, has garnered relatively low online traction thus far … the publicity surrounding the flag burning incident may increase the likelihood of violence or disorderly conduct among participants,” said Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.
The Canarias Insumisa collective and the PCPC group both organize anti-Israel demonstrations, rallies, and other activities. The latter is also involved in the campaigns in Spain that support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. PCPC posted on Telegram on Dec. 30 a message that promoted the protest against Hapoel Tel Aviv.
“On January 2nd, we’ll see you in the streets to show our rejection of the Israeli basketball team Hapoel Tel Aviv. The Canary Islands say NO to Zionism!” the message read. The post included an image of a bloody basketball with a blue Star of David on it, along with text that reads, “Zionists Out of the Canary Islands!” and “No to the whitewashing of genocide through sports.”
The post Israeli Basketball Team Wins EuroCup Game in Spain Despite ‘High’ Risk Anti-Israel Protest, Flag Burning first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.