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Israeli Teen Wins Jiu-Jitsu Gold Medal After Emirati Opponent Gets Disqualified for Threatening Gesture
Patras, Greece. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
An Israeli teen jiu-jitsu athlete was awarded the gold medal of an international competition in Crete, Greece, on Monday after his opponent from the United Arab Emirates, who initially won the match, was disqualified for making a throat-cutting hand gesture toward his Israeli rival.
Daniel Boaron, 13, was named the winner of the 2024 Ju-Jitsu World Championship in the under-14 division and under-48 kg (106 lb) weight class, even though he had initially lost to his Emirati opponent Ahmed Alketbi in the final match of the competition.
A video from the match shows that after Alketbi’s initial victory, he turned to the audience and made a throat-cutting gesture that was directed at Boaron. In the clip, a member of the audience can be heard yelling at the referee, trying to get his attention about the gesture that Boaron made. It was also brought to the attention of Amir Boaron, Daniel’s father who is also the team coach. The coach approached the judges about the incident and demanded that Alketbi be disqualified, he told i24News. After two hours of deliberation, the judges disqualified the Emirati competitor, and the gold medal was awarded to Daniel.
“From the first day of the competition, the competitors from the Muslim countries such as Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar did not behave well towards us, did not shake hands, booed from the crowd, shouted ‘Free Palestine,’” Amir said, as reported by Ynet. “The United Arab Emirates behaved more nicely, and it turned out that this country had a competitor in the final. The opponent beat Daniel by two points and signaled to the audience as if he was slaughtering. This is inappropriate behavior and the judges disqualified him from the podium.”
The coach added that Alketbi apologized for the gesture, claiming that he did it out of excitement for initially winning the match. “I told him I accept the forgiveness,” Amir said. “But there are the rules … an athlete has rules, and if you behave like that, you shouldn’t win the gold.”
Daniel explained that he was “very moved” by the gold medal and said of his opponent: “I hope I’ll meet him again at the next final, to beat him on the mat, and to embrace him afterward, because he should know, you can’t bring politics into the sport.”
Olympic medal-winning Israeli judoka Sagi Muki slammed Alketbi for the offensive gesture in a video posted on Instagram. Muki called the gesture “shocking” and said, “Sport should be a unifying factor. All sports people in the world must take advantage of this platform because, ultimately, sport is pure.”
Muki talked about similarly facing hatred from other athletes who have animus toward the state of Israel. He cited an incident at the 2019 World Judo Championship semifinals in Tokyo, Japan, when his rival from Egypt refused to shake his hand after Muki won their bout.
“It’s precisely through sport that we can connect free of all politics and we athletes must use this stage to foster understanding so that the whole world can watch, love sports, and connect with each other,” Muki said. “Take advantage of this stage, and I hope that we’ll never see things like what we just saw ever again.”
“We’ve run into hostile reactions since the start of the championship, from the audience as well as from a number of the competitors, such as those from Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia,” he added. “We feel the hate toward Israel, but it won’t help them at all, because we’re proud to keep representing our one Jewish state, and the anthem will continue to be heard.”
The post Israeli Teen Wins Jiu-Jitsu Gold Medal After Emirati Opponent Gets Disqualified for Threatening Gesture 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.
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