RSS
Parents of German-Israeli Woman Whose Body Found in Gaza Thankful to Have a Grave
German-Israeli Shani Louk’s father says that finally laying his daughter to rest will be a gift after her body was recovered from Gaza, months after she was killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Louk, a 23-year-old tattoo artist, was celebrating with friends at the Nova music festival just inside Israel before it was attacked by terrorists from the Palestinian terror group. Her body was soon seen in a video, slung across the back of a pickup truck, surrounded by terrorists and paraded through Gaza.
On Friday, the Israeli military informed her parents, Nissim and Ricarda Louk, that their daughter’s body had been found by Israeli commandos in Gaza. Nissim Louk said that to be sure, he had viewed photos.
“We also saw the tattoos on her hands,” he said on Saturday. “Now she will have her own place next to us and we can go there whenever we want. And she can rest.”
He said the funeral will be held on Sunday, which is Ricarda Louk’s birthday.
“I think Shani said ‘let’s give my mother a birthday present and let’s go back and be close to her,’” he added.
Having Shani’s grave nearby would be a comfort, said Ricarda Louk.
“Maybe we’ll find more peace,” she said.
Nissim Louk said there was also solace knowing Shani was doing what she loved best before she died and probably did not suffer. She was pronounced dead by Israeli authorities at the end of October, based on findings in the area of the Nova rave, where more than 360 people were shot, bludgeoned or burned to death.
Videos of a smiling Shani at the party, before the attack, surfaced in the following weeks.
“She was dancing the whole night. She was so happy,” Nissim Louk said. “She never thought that there is evil in the world because she was a free spirit. She saw it only for a couple of seconds.”
Around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 abducted in the Hamas-led attack. Israel responded by launching a military offensive to try to eradicate Hamas that is now in its eight month.
Ricarda Louk said she was pained by what she sees as ignorance and misinformation displayed at some U.S. campus protests against Israel‘s war in Gaza.
“It’s horrible for us to see,” she said. “We can tell you from our own experience. We lost our daughter in this massacre.”
“There is no resistance that can justify what happened here,” she said.
The post Parents of German-Israeli Woman Whose Body Found in Gaza Thankful to Have a Grave first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Foreign Minister Denies Plot to Kill Trump, Urges Confidence-Building with US
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi denied US charges that Tehran was linked to an alleged plot to kill Donald Trump and called on Saturday for confidence-building between the two hostile countries.
“Now … a new scenario is fabricated … as a killer does not exist in reality, scriptwriters are brought in to manufacture a third-rate comedy,” Araqchi said in a post on X.
He was referring to the alleged plot which Washington said was ordered by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards to assassinate Trump, who won Tuesday’s presidential election and takes office in January.
“The American people have made their decision. And Iran respects their right to elect the President of their choice. The path forward is also a choice. It begins with respect,” Araqchi said.
“Iran is NOT after nuclear weapons, period. This is a policy based on Islamic teachings and our security calculations. Confidence-building is needed from both sides. It is not a one-way street,” he added.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said earlier that the claim was a “repulsive” plot by Israel and the Iranian opposition outside the country to “complicate matters between America and Iran.”
Iranian analysts and insiders have not dismissed the possibility of a detente between Tehran and Washington under Trump, although without restoring diplomatic ties.
“Iran will act based on its own interests. It is possible that secret talks between Tehran and Washington take place. If security threats against the Islamic Republic are removed, anything is possible,” Tehran-based analyst Saeed Laylaz said this week.
While facing off against arch-foe Israel, Iran’s clerical leadership is also concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in the region, where Israel is engaged in conflicts with Tehran’s allies in Gaza and Lebanon.
The post Iran Foreign Minister Denies Plot to Kill Trump, Urges Confidence-Building with US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Evidence from WhatsApp, Telegram Groups Shows Amsterdam Pogrom Was Organized
i24 News – Screenshots of electronic messages on WhatsApp and Telegram obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that the attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam represent a planned and organized pogrom.
One message sent to a Dutch-language WhatsApp group the day before Thursday night’s violent outbursts reads “tomorrow after the game, at night, part 2 of the Jew Hunt. Tomorrow we work them.”
Another message reads “who can sort fireworks? We need a lot of fireworks.” The pro-Palestinian activists refer to “cancer dogs,” an insult considered particularly vile in Holland.
The lackluster response of Dutch authorities was noted by many.
Dutch king Willem-Alexander reportedly said to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog in a phone call on Friday morning that “we failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.”
The post Evidence from WhatsApp, Telegram Groups Shows Amsterdam Pogrom Was Organized first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Qatar to End Gaza-Ceasefire Mediation: Report
JNS.org – Qatar will end its role as a mediator between Hamas and Israel in pursuit of a Gaza-ceasefire and hostage-release deal, an official “briefed on the matter” told Reuters on Saturday.
“The Qataris have said since the start of the conflict that they can only mediate when both parties demonstrate a genuine interest in finding a resolution,” the official added, according to Reuters.
Since diplomatic negotiations have not yielded fruitful results for months, the Gulf state concluded that Hamas’s political office in Doha “no longer serves its purpose,” the official was cited as saying.
These statements come in the wake of a Reuters report on Friday, according to which a senior US official told the outlet: “After rejecting repeated proposals to release hostages, [Hamas’s] leaders should no longer be welcome in the capitals of any American partner. We made that clear to Qatar following Hamas’s rejection weeks ago of another hostage release proposal.”
Doha passed on the message to Hamas around 10 days ago, the official said, adding that the United States was monitoring the situation and pressuring Qatar to close Hamas’s political office.
The last talks intermediated by Qatar broke down in mid-October, after a series of attempts to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and a deal that would swap Palestinian prisoners with the remaining 101 Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Qatar’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request by Reuters for a comment, though three Hamas officials denied they were being expelled from the Gulf state.
Qatar, a major American ally, which senior US officials frequently thank for its role in negotiating on behalf of Hamas in ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, has long harbored Khaled Mashaal, Hamas’s acting political leader.
At a press conference late last month, JNS asked State Department spokesman Matthew Miller why Washington wasn’t pressuring Qatar to push Mashaal into a deal, given that the terror leader is a guest in the Gulf state.
Miller cited the prior “tireless efforts” and “intense focus” of Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani to try to seal an agreement.
“They have a channel with Hamas that is productive for trying to reach this agreement,” Miller said. “The fact is it’s Hamas that holds the hostages, and so it’s Hamas with whom they have to negotiate.”
In September, the US Justice Department unsealed charges against Mashaal for his role in orchestrating the Oct. 7 attacks.
In a press release, the Justice Department declared, “On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists, led by these defendants, murdered nearly 1,200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civilians… The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’s operations. These actions will not be our last.”
Doha has welcomed Hamas officials since 2012 as part of an agreement with Washington.
On Friday, 14 Republican senators called on the State Department to immediately freeze assets of Hamas leaders living in Qatar. The senators also urged the Biden administration to ask Doha to “end its hospitality to Hamas’s senior leadership.”
Al Thani has reiterated his position since Oct. 7 that Hamas’s presence in his country is contingent on the usefulness of the ongoing negotiations.
According to Israel’s Channel 12 News, a senior official in Jerusalem lauded Doha’s decision, saying that “Israel and the United States have pressured Qatar’s leaders not to host Hamas seniors [in their country] for a long time. It is good that Hamas, which is nothing but a murderous terrorist group, will be persecuted everywhere in the world and not welcomed by any country.”
The post Qatar to End Gaza-Ceasefire Mediation: Report first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login