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Netherlands Airport Apologizes After Security Worker Harassed, Humiliated Former Hamas Hostage
Supporters of Hamas demonstrate in Amsterdam on March 23. Photo: Reuters/Romy Arroyo Fernandez
The main international airport in the Netherlands issued an apology on Monday after two Israeli women, including a former Hamas hostage, were allegedly harassed and publicly humiliated by a security worker.
“It is clear that the two passengers did not feel that they were treated appropriately. We regret and apologize for this,” Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said in a statement. “We will make sure that such situations do not happen again in the future.”
The incident in question took place on Friday when the Israeli women, one of whom was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and later freed from captivity in Gaza, were attempting to go through airport security for their El Al flight back to Israel. When handing over their Israeli passports for inspection, the airport security officer, reportedly of Pakistani origin and Muslim faith, approached them in an aggressive way.
The officer singled them out for being in the wrong security line, told them to move, and then threatened to fine them, Israeli news website Ynet reported. The worker then proceeded to remove them from the line and began to scream at them, reportedly making derogatory remarks about the fact that they are Israeli.
An escort for the women then called Israel’s embassy in the Netherlands, which in turn called El Al’s security team at the airport. The airline’s security team cleared the situation and assisted the Israeli women in getting to their flight gate.
The escort, who was not named, said in a statement to Israeli media it was “as if we had committed some terrible crime … I have never had such a humiliating experience. Everything was intentional — it was very clear that he saw the Israeli passport and it ignited him. We felt attacked and humiliated. He had evil in his eyes.”
The Israeli Embassy in the Netherlands said it will be filing a formal complaint over the incident.
“This is especially painful considering all the trauma the abductee has already suffered,” Modi Ephraim, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, told Dutch media.
It was not clear from the airport’s apology whether disciplinary action was taken against the security worker.
According to reports, the two women were part of a delegation sent by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to speak to groups about the experience of hostages who were held in captivity by Hamas terrorists.
In common with other European countries, antisemitism has skyrocketed in the Netherlands since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, with an 800 percent increase in the number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the weeks immediately following the terrorist group’s atrocities.
Friday’s incident came just two weeks after a local Jewish civil rights group in Britain charged that two Israeli nationals who survived Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel were detained and subjected to discrimination while being processed at Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom.
The post Netherlands Airport Apologizes After Security Worker Harassed, Humiliated Former Hamas Hostage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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