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Israeli Supreme Court rules that Israel’s Law of Return extends to widows of children and grandchildren of Jews
(JTA) — Israel’s Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling that the non-Jewish widows of the children and grandchildren of Jews may emigrate to Israel under its Law of Return.
The 4-3 ruling this week was an example of the court’s role in determining Israeli policy, a capacity that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had sought for months to diminish prior to the outbreak of Israel’s war with Hamas on Oct. 7. Critics of the judicial overhaul contended that sapping the judiciary of its power endangered Israeli democracy.
The ruling is also a victory for those who want Israel to extend the rights and privileges of citizenship to a broader range of Jews and their relatives.
Israel’s Population Authority, an agency of the Interior Ministry which is led by the haredi Orthodox Shas Party, had recognized the Law of Return as extending only to the non-Jewish widow of a Jew, and not the widows of their progeny.
Spouses of living children and grandchildren of Jews are eligible to immigrate, and the Israeli branch of the Reform movement argued to the court that immigration rights should also extend to the widows of children and grandchildren of Jews. The widows and widowers lose the right to citizenship if they get remarried to non-Jews
In 2021, a smaller High Court panel had ruled in favor of the Reform movement, and the Population Authority pushed for the matter to be considered by a larger panel.
The Law of Return has governed Jewish immigration to Israel for almost all of the state’s history. It extends the right of automatic citizenship to anyone who has one Jewish grandparent of either gender.
Orthodox Jewish parties have for decades sought for the law to hew closer to the definition of Jewish identity under halacha, or Jewish law, which recognizes only the children of Jewish mothers as Jewish, in addition to those who convert.
“I am pleased that the court reiterated to the Population Authority that the Law of Return is intended for anyone who has tied their fate to the Jewish people, and that it must be understood in a national sense, not just religiously according to Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law,” said Nicole Maor, the director of the Israeli Reform movement’s legal aid center for immigrants..
Orthodox parties in Netanyahu’s coalition had hoped to restrict the court’s authority over a range of issues including immigration as part of Netanyahu’s sweeping judicial overhaul, which brought hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets for months on end.
Hamas’s deadly invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip last month led Netanyahu to broaden his coalition, bringing in an opposition party that had opposed the reforms, and to the suspension of the overhaul effort.
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The post Israeli Supreme Court rules that Israel’s Law of Return extends to widows of children and grandchildren of Jews appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op
DF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
i24 News – The Israeli military eliminated 250 Hezbollah terrorists including 21 commanders in four days of ground combat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday.
IDF soldiers operating in southern Lebanon have uncovered vast caches of weapons and munitions in civilian residences, showing how central embedding within civilian population is to Hezbollah’s mode of warfare.
Meanwhile, heavy strikes targeting the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in southern Beirut were ongoing, Lebanese media reported.
The post 250 Hezbollah Terrorists Including 21 Commanders Eliminated in Ground Op first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says
Illustrative. Hodeidah, Yemen, July 20, 2024. Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
Airstrikes were launched on Friday at several parts of Yemen including its capital Sanaa and Hodeidah airport, Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthi movement controlling much of Yemen, and residents said.
Strikes also targeted the south of Dhamar city and the southeast of al-Bayda province, the channel added.
Residents said that the attack on al-Bayda province targeted several Houthi military outposts.
Al Masirah TV reported that the strikes had been carried out by the United States and British forces, but a British government source said Britain was not involved.
Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since last November in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel‘s war with Hamas.
The attacks have drawn US and British retaliatory strikes and disrupted global trade as ship owners reroute vessels away from the Red Sea and Suez Canal to sail the longer route around the southern tip of Africa.
Following the airstrikes, a Houthi spokesman called the attack “a desperate attempt,” adding that “Yemen will not be deterred by these attacks and will continue its steadfastness in confronting the enemies.”
The post Airstrikes Launched on Several Parts of Yemen, Houthi Al Masirah TV says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem
Illustrative. Israeli troops during counterterrorism activity in Tulkarem, northwestern Samaria, September 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – An Israeli Air Force fighter jet conducted a rare strike in Tulkarem in the West Bank on Thursday night, targeting top Hamas terrorist Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi.
The Palestinian Authority reported at least 18 fatalities in the strike, with a local security source telling Agence France-Presse it was the deadliest in Judea and Samaria since the Second Intifada.
Ayyth Radwan, the head of Islamic Jihad’s Tulkarem branch, was also reportedly killed.
Oufi was planning a terrorist attack “in the immediate time frame,” according to the Israel Defense Forces, and directed the thwarted car bombing last month near Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
There were no casualties in the incident, which Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, called a “great miracle.”
The IDF said Oufi was involved in smuggling weapons to terrorists who perpetrated several recent attacks against Israelis, including some that resulted in injuries to civilians.
He also “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks,” added the military.
The post IDF Kills Hamas Commander in Tulkarem first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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